BY PIP HINMAN
The last time I was prevented from attending a political meeting was in Indonesia last June. The paramilitary police, together with their right-wing militia friends, shut down the Jakarta Asia Pacific People's Solidarity Conference and arrested all the foreign guests, among whom were myself and my 4-year-old daughter.
So when on February 16 I was abruptly told to leave a meeting in Sydney (widely advertised on the internet) to discuss plans for the Palm Sunday peace rally I was disappointed, especially when the order came from Peter Murphy, a former leader of the Communist Party of Australia who heads the Search Foundation.
I had come to the meeting representing Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP), which has a long record of supporting the independence struggle in East Timor and the fight for democracy in Indonesia, and more recently has been active in the campaign for refugees' rights.
When I asked Murphy for a reason, he replied that the meeting was by invitation only and that the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) "and similar groups" were not invited. Asked what were the "similar groups", Murphy mentioned the Free the Refugees Campaign, a group which had been initiated by refugees' rights activists in Sydney's western suburbs last year.
Asked why the DSP had been singled out for such special attention, Murphy replied, "Because you are disruptive", adding that "these are meetings for people who agree with each other".
Then John Hallam (Sydney Friends of the Earth) weighed in. A long-time environmental and anti-war activist (and someone whom I have worked and associated with for some time, especially during my few years of editing 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly), Hallam accused me of "being disruptive" by simply trying to find out why I was being excluded. "This is why you're being excluded", he shouted, "because you do this".
"This" referred to my request that the meeting be allowed to vote on whether I could stay rather than the decision resting with Murphy alone. Asking to be allowed to help build the Palm Sunday rally and calmly standing up for my rights is "disruption"? That's rich.
Murphy was refusing to put my request to the meeting, saying that it had decided on two occasions already not to allow another DSP member, Nick Everett, who is also an activist in the Free the Refugees Campaign, to attend.
Meanwhile Bruce Cornwall, a long-time leader of the pro-Beijing Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) also shouted at us to leave. Murphy, aware that Hallam's and Cornwall's shouting undermined his charge that I was the one being disruptive, had to ask them to calm down.
Meanwhile, a few more people arrived and some recognised me and greeted me with smiles. Murphy eventually convened the meeting and put invitations as the first item on the agenda. Cornwall jumped in to put the motion arguing that Everett and I be excluded from the meeting.
One person in the room asked what this policy of exclusion was based on. He was silenced with the reply that the meeting was allowed to be invitation only.
I asked if I could have a right of reply and Murphy refused. A woman (one of the few younger people present) piped up saying that there should be a motion put on whether I should or not, and then promptly voted against me having any right of reply.
The group (of about 15) then voted to exclude Everett and myself from the meeting, with about seven voting in favour, including Peter Murphy, John Hallam, Bruce Cornwall, Amanda Tattersall and Paul Howes (Labor for Refugees), Pat and Bruce Toms (from the Progressive Labour Party), with about the same number abstaining, and one opposed.
Given that the group had already decided on a theme for Palm Sunday — "Compassion for refugees" — and the nature of the march — a "silent" one — it was even more unbelievable that we were being excluded at this stage.
I told Murphy that I had come to help build Palm Sunday, which was all there was left to do, but his reply was: "That's not true".
Why exclude activists who have a good record of building broad and inclusive events? Nick Everett had a revealing conversation with Tattersall (a convenor of Labor for Refugees) a couple of weeks ago after he was first excluded. She confirmed that the Palm Sunday organising group did have an "unofficial policy" of excluding the DSP, the International Socialist Organisation and Socialist Alternative.
Asked why, she said that it was the group's belief that this would be the "best way to organise" the rally. Interestingly, she also conceded that it didn't square with reality as "we were the ones leading the movement up until now".
Together with many other groups and individuals, members of the banned organisations helped organise and build the recent round rallies in solidarity with the thousands of refugees detained in concentration camps like than in Woomera, Port Hedland, Villawood etc.
The fast spreading Rural Australians for Refugees, have insisted on the need for political inclusiveness. The present leaders of the Sydney Palm Sunday rally committee who are desperately using undemocratic and exclusionary organisational methods rejected by most activists, are politically out of step with the movement.
[Pip Hinman is the national secretary of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific and a member of the national executive of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, February 27, 2002.
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