Lucy Carne: Spare us this cringe-worthy sham protesting

Marching on the streets of Brisbane has a long and powerful history, but the middle-class Marxists of Extinction Rebellion are an affront to the people who won them the right to protest in the first place, writes Lucy Carne.

If you’re born and bred in Brisbane but you’ve never been on a street march, can you really call yourself a true local of our great city?

A protest is to Brisbane like rude customer service is to Sydney — deeply ingrained in our DNA.

Whether it was the basic wage marches of the 1950s, the Vietnam moratoriums in the early 1970s, the anti-apartheid Springbok protest or the 100,000 people who flooded King George Square against the invasion of Iraq — the bitumen of our city streets has been pounded by the thumping beat of justice.

I grew up listening to stories from my parents of the terrifying reality of protesting under Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s rule.

This was a time when Sir Joh declared that police officers would “not be penalised for any action they take to suppress” demonstrators.

Protesters wait outside the Magistrate's Court at South Brisbane, October 1977.

It was a time when it was normal to be thrown with such force into a paddy wagon that your arm or leg would break.

It was a time when one Bundaberg dentist and his dog held a protest march in a cul-de-sac at midnight — watched by a carload of undercover police.

It was a time when protesters put their bodies on the line.

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Like the terrified 18 year old on the night of July 22, 1971, during the Springbok protest outside Brisbane’s Tower Mill Motel, who was chased and bashed by three police so severely he was hospitalised with suspected spinal injuries.

This teen was Peter Beattie, who went on to be Premier of Queensland four times.

In one afternoon in October, 1977, more than 400 people were arrested for protesting for the right to protest in Brisbane.

A bystander at King George Square challenges two civil rights protesters who were urging people to vote on the right to march issue. The challenger told them he had fought for the country and would not take part in their protest.

My father and his university friends (including Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O’Gorman, former Queensland premier Wayne Goss and his wife Roisin and former Attorney-General of Queensland Matt Foley) were ‘white coat’ legal observers, collecting evidence for court cases.

“We didn’t get the last of the 400 people out of the watch house until sun up the next day,” Terry O’Gorman told me.

“Most of those people who were arrested were ordinary mums and dads from the suburbs who had had enough of Joh’s authoritarianism.”

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My father tells of the roller doors closing on the South Brisbane watch house and at the last moment a young man darting under the gap and sprinting, wide-eyed in fear towards him.

“Do they have your name?” my dad asked. “Then run. Disappear right now.”

I’ve done my fair share of rallies. I’ve freed East Timor, blocked the stock exchange (look, I don’t even know why either) and marched against uranium mining.

While I miss those days of sun-soaked, naive socialism, three kids, a mortgage and growing up have a way of forcing common sense upon you.

But then there’s Extinction Rebellion.

Like an annoying mosquito hovering in a dark room, they have pestered the streets of Brisbane, gluing themselves to a zebra crossing and blocking a freeway in a canoe.

But don’t be fooled by their planet-loving pretence.

Protesters including Connor Brooks (centre) in the Brisbane CBD marching down George Street to parliament, Tuesday August 6. Picture: AAP/David Clark

This is a group of middle-class Marxists piggybacking on climate change to push their anti-globalisation movement.

“The only way to prevent our extinction is through mass participation civil disobedience — thousands of people breaking the laws of our governments until they are forced to take action … if they don’t we will bring them down. And yes, some may die in the process,” XR’s co-founder, Roger Hallam, kindly explains.

There is nothing wrong in protecting our environment, reducing emissions, plastic use and pollution.

I do, however, have a problem with a bunch of privileged white kids and some retirees skipping out on their University of the Third Age class behaving as though they own the issue of climate change.

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As though no one before them has considered cutting carbon emissions until they came along with their koala suits and falafel wraps?

How does shouting in the faces of some tired QUT students on a Tuesday morning convince China and India to stop emitting the majority of the world’s greenhouse gases?

How does deinvesting in capitalism and the export of electric cars and other green energy ideas effect positive change?

How does proposing a Citizen’s Assembly replace democracy, collapse society and incite mass poverty inspire hope?

Extinction Rebellion protesters “put their bodies on the line” their supporters shouted across social media.

No, they didn’t.

Extinction Rebellion protesters are seen blocking the corner of Margaret and William Streets in Brisbane on Tuesday, August 6. Picture: AAP Image/Darren England

They subjected us to cringe-worthy street theatre, a pantomime protest that is an offence to the people whose blood spilt on the streets of Brisbane to allow them the right to protest in the first place.

The protesters under Sir Joh believed by risking their safety they would bring about a better quality of life.

If they want true change, Extinction Rebellion would push for nuclear energy or risk their safety to protest against China’s mass pollution.

But that doesn’t fit their narcissistic, social-media-fuelled agenda.

Extinction Rebellion just wants to be seen and not heard.

Welcome to the era of the Insta-protester.

Lucy Carne is editor of Rendezview