Speech by Keysar Trad at the Canberra Rally to protest the terror laws, Parliament House, Canberra,   on 28 November 2005:

 

This fine short speech by one of Australia’s leading Muslim commentators, who over the years has come in for more than his fair share of abuse from the ignorant Right,   is well worth a read.  In allowing me to run this speech text, Keysar commented to me:

 

“When I think about it, it was the sort of speech that one needs to read rather than hear because despite its simplicity, it requires people to think and draw the examples out of history and also draw some conclusions”.

 

Read on …TK, 29 November 2005

 

Thank you.

 

I would like to pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land.

 

As a Muslim, wherever I turn, wherever I look, however I am distracted, I am made to feel a sense of great responsibility, as if I am the very reason we are here today.

 

If I had left like the European settler man wanted me to 100 years ago after finishing some chores, Howard and Company would have been out of government in 2001. They would not have been able to use defenceless refugees as scapegoats for their failure.

 

If I was not here, this government would need another distraction from its despicable assaults on industrial relations and welfare.

 

It would need another diversion for the sale of our national assets and the inaffordability of tertiary education.

 

The government can use me as a scapegoat only as long as you refuse to talk to me and refuse to find out about me.  It is counting on you not getting to know me, it is using me as a reason to transform this wonderful nation from a democracy into a totalitarian police state, where adolescents can be locked up because the government fears their transformation from boys to men.

 

Supported by tabloid journalism, this government barely permits us a whisper to the masses who have bought their shenanigans. They do not have the chance to know us: that like them, we choose to call Australia Home;  like them, we are facing the challenges of a government that has sent our children to an ungodly war that none of us believes in or supports; and this week, in this building, this very symbol of democracy, they will try to legislate to take away our basic right to question government policy and usurp our duty to try to bring bad government to account.  We must make sure that they will never be able to transform this great nation into a fascist state.

 

Our voices have limited reach, we fear, we speak, we sound the alarm: our government has lost its conscience, it has lost its moral and ethical dimensions, it has lost its sense of decency.  It no longer protects the interests of its constituency, it is serving the interests of its political donors and powerful masters, the big corporations that want to take away our industrial and environmental protections just to boost their profits and the belligerent governments that attack other nations at will.  I have to reassure you, even though I am the scapegoat, I will continue to fight, to alert you that I mean you no harm. I stand before you, risking my personal freedom, even my own safety, dissenting to save the freedoms to which we have become so accustomed and which we have learnt to cherish.  If they take them away, it will not be because of my silence, it will be because they have lost touch with both you and me.

 

The government has thrown the gauntlet against its own constituents. We must brave the challenge, we have too much at stake: our future, the future of our children, the conscience of this great nation.  If we do not rise to this challenge, if we do not speak out against this government’s assault on our freedoms, our children will never forgive us, nor will the brave men and women who gave their lives to keep this country free.

 

Keysar Trad,  Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, Canberra, at Defend Our Freedoms Rally, 28 November 2005, Parliament House, Canberra.