Occupy?

Kate Miller-Heidke as Spokesperson for a Generation?

On Monday nights, there is an occasionally great program on the ABC. It’s called Q&A, and is, at its heart, a live panel discussion where the questions come from the audience, with topics covering basically anything that is in the public consciousness at the time of airing. Guests are chosen to represent a fairly even spectrum across political and age lines.

Sometimes the show is great. Sometimes it’s not.

Last Monday, the “Occupy Melbourne” and “Occupy Sydney” protesters had just been forcibly removed, so naturally, this was one of the topics for discussion. Regardless of my own personal feelings regarding these protests, I was pretty disgusted with the way the topic was handled. The protesters were ridiculed by most of the panelists (ie. all of them bar John Waters and Kate Miller-Heidke), regardless of their political views. However, this wasn’t the worst aspect of this discussion.

Here is a maxim to live by:

“Pop stars should not be the de-facto spokespeople for their generation”

It’s not so much that Kate was unprepared for the kind of questions that would be asked of her, or that her answers tended to the simplistic. It’s that she said basically exactly what the shows producers, and the other panelists wanted her to. Not terribly eloquently. And of course, the “Occupy” movement hasn’t exactly been blessed with literate, intelligent spokespeople. I take exception with the breadth of my generation’s experience being limited to a single panelist, who doesn’t have political ideals beyond vague new-hippy-free-speech dogma, and who, quite honestly, most of us don’t listen to. Maybe it’s indicative of the fact that as a generation, those of us born in the 1980’s are too cynical, depressed, and apathetic to become the spokespeople that we need, and a manufactured pop “princess” was the best option that the network execs could come up with.

The problem with the almost across-the-board ridicule of the protests was this:
Our society does not need secret police or gulags, as we have media coverage and the fear of alienation to perform their function. If we see a protest, and the protesters are obviously from a “non mainstream” background, or spout lame left-wing ideological catch-phrases that were already old when their parents were growing up, and haven’t charismatic, intelligent, or obvious leaders, then it’s easy for tired, wealthy, uncharismatic politicians and commentators to treat them with scorn. Scorn is a far more viable defence against change in a media rich world than simply making people “disappear”. It takes any questions of legitimacy, legality, or any moral responsibility completely off the table.

My belief is this.

Anyone should be able to say anything they like. Without exception.
If this means leaving the occasional right-wing crazy (*ahem Andrew Bolt), or fundamentalist cleric have their moment in the spotlight, so be it.

However.

This is what really frightens me: The alarming trend in “democracies” of protests being “allowed” provided they happen a long way away from everything, and don’t interfere with day-to-day money-making.

The issue, quite simply, should not have been:
Whether a capitalist society has gone wrong (because everyone with a thinking brain and a feeling heart knows it has).
Whether the protesters had a point (who are we to judge what other people think? If protests were stopped on a basis of what the ruling class felt was a “valid” reason, why would there ever be anything to protest about?).
Police brutality (because honestly, the police response was the best publicity the occupy movement has had in Australia since it started).

I hate to say it, but I haven’t much hope for my generation.

Too many of us grew up listening to Kurt Cobain, and not Rage Against the Machine.