Melbourne singer-songwriter Dan Sultan has issued an emotive open letter calling for fellow Victorians to rally against the State Government’s new powers over public protest.
Writing to his more than 25,000 fans on Facebook, Sultan wrote about his participation over the weekend in the Melbourne March In March protests against the State Government’s recent passing of an amendment to the Summary Offences Act through the upper house last week, essentially increasing the powers of police to ‘move on’ protestors.
The 30-year-old musician was one of the 30,000 or so protestors that took part in the Victorian leg of the nationwide protest against the Abbott Administration, and among nearly 100,000 Australians who took to the streets to voice their “vote of no confidence” in the current Government and its policies. “We need to fire up. Apathy is one of fascism’s best friends.”
With references to Paul Kelly, Bob Marley, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Sultan’s impassioned open letter slams Denis Napthine’s ‘move on’ reforms as “attempting to destroy one of the most important features of any democracy: the right to protest.”
Citing the Indigenous Protest during the 1988 Australian Bicenetnary and the more recent SLAM Rally to save The Tote, Sultan says that Victorians “need to fire up” to preserve their civil rights to protest; “apathy is one of fascism’s best friends,” he writes. “Let’s agitate and yell and let our so-called leaders know that we won’t take their crap anymore. Spread the word!” Real the full open letter below.
Sultan has recently completed his supporting duties with Bruce Springsteen’s $26.7 million Australian Tour and just completed his own headline Under Your Skin Tour in support of his new single of the same name, taken from his forthcoming album Blackbird (out 4th April via Liberation). He is also playing Triple J’s One Night Stand in Mildura this May.
Read Dan Sultan’s full open letter below.
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From little things, big things grow. I went to the March in March here in Melbourne on Sunday and I felt compelled to write a letter about it. Let’s agitate and yell and let our so-called leaders know that we won’t take their crap anymore. Spread the word!
“Are they serious? Who do they think they’re kidding? Did they not get the memo that we here in Australia live in a democracy?
Obviously not.The Victorian government is attempting to destroy one of the most important features of any democracy: the right to protest.
We as a society are only strengthened by our rights to peacefully assemble and tell the government that not everyone agrees with what they’re doing. A democracy is, after all, a political system where the elected representatives are supposed to be the voice of the people, not the tools that help to silence the people.
Throughout history the power to protest has helped shaped culture, legislation and provided hope for a brighter future. Imagine if Martin Luther King and the million people that marched with him in ’63 had not had the opportunity to share with the world that he and other people of colour had a dream. Imagine if in 1988, the thousands of Aboriginals who descended on Australia’s capital were told to move along and denied the right to tell the nation about our version of what happened 200 years ago, when Europeans first invaded. And more recently, imagine if musicians and music fans alike had not been allowed to take to the streets to point out to our local leaders that the proposed changes to the laws regarding live music and security were not only bad for culture in this state, but they were bad for business. I perish the thought of what Melbourne would have become if the music community had not been allowed to come together and tell our government that they didn’t ‘get it’.
And now it seems that once again, they don’t ‘get it’.The thing that I don’t understand is that our elected leaders are supposed to be men and women of learning. They are supposed to be the people in our community who steer us towards a more enlightened future. And yet if these men and women had taken the time to read a little more, they would realise that their attempts to take away our right to peacefully assemble and protest is actually in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is not only embarrassing, but also appalling.
It feels like we are taking a step back into the repressive 1950s. The key difference of course is that back then people were allowed to protest. So what does that say about where our elected government is taking us?
The time to act is now. People from all walks of life need to stand up and tell the Victorian Government that their attempts to deny us some of the most basic rights of living in a democracy are not only cruel, but also morally bankrupt.
We need to fire up. Apathy is one of fascism’s best friends. And while we do not currently live under a dictatorship, letting our elected leaders run rough shot over us like this is the first step in the wrong direction.
Don’t be complacent Victorians.In the words of the great Bob Marley: Get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights.”
