We must stop the cancellers or they will hang us all

A noose is seen on makeshift gallows as supporters of Donald Trump gathered on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6. Picture: AFP

In the Old Testament Book of ­Esther, a chap by the name of Haman comes to a gruesome end. To condense the story, Haman had plotted to wipe out the Jewish people but instead ends up swinging from gallows that he had custom-made for his arch-enemy, a Jewish elder by the name of Mordechai.

Fact, fable or otherwise, the highlight of this tale is usually the heroism of the teenage Queen ­Esther, a Hebrew girl forcibly taken into the harem of the then King of Persia and, awkwardly for Haman, the niece of his sworn foe.

When faced with the choice of keeping quiet, or risking her life to expose Haman’s plot by going to the king under threat of death, ­Esther famously declares: “If I die, I die.” She goes to the king, saves her people, and Haman meets his custom-made gallows, neck first.

While Esther is deservedly a heroine of the story, in January 2021 it’s actually the scheming Haman’s karmic end which is more instructive. In a day and age where hurt feelings are seen as ­violent, where being cancelled has morphed from a fringe curiosity to a legitimate threat, we need a wake-up call. And one came this past week.

Big Tech, in the form of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, flexed its muscle in a new and sinister way, and in so doing unmasked a bunch of uber-rich Silicon Valley geeks as de facto ­adjudicators of public discourse. As modern day thought police.

They de-platformed outgoing President Donald Trump and, for a moment, put everything to one side to consider the unchecked and unmitigated power and influence this act represents.

Being turfed out for inciting ­violence is fine. But if they were serious about it, social media would be a ghost town. This was a selective eviction based on a deliberate political narrative. Some will take my views as tacit support for Trump. Absolutely not. He has dug his own grave. My fears are best articulated by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, still recovering from an assassination attempt, who publicly stated that the Twitter ban was an “unacceptable act of censorship”. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel described it as worrying.

Telling, is it not, that those whose nations have known tyranny in a way Australia never has see what’s going on.

The censorship of Trump offers important insight into the creeping danger for mere mortals like you and I. The screws have been tightening on freedom of speech and expression in Australia over the past several years, somewhat in step with unsettling trends in the US and UK.

The art of respectful dissent in our national discourse has been lined up against a wall at dawn and gunned down by people screaming tolerance as they pull the trigger. Censorship of ideas, information and conversation is increasingly being framed as an act of public service. Cancelling people has become normalised. Blowing up lives, livelihoods and careers is OK, as long as the mob says so. But the mob doesn’t ­always dress in black and carry a knife. The mob also wear suits and sits on the executive floor.

Where does it stop? Is there a line? If so, where will it be drawn? And by whom?

Going deeper, have Australian workplaces been unintentionally complicit? It could be reasonably argued that in corporate Australia, private and public entities, and sporting and community groups, have leaned towards virtue over substance. When an organisation takes a position on an issue, typically it’s a social issue. And anyone in that organisation holding a valid yet contrary view ends up being ­silenced.

Have woke corporate values become a punitive measuring stick? It takes courage to air a dissenting view in a workplace. I’d argue it takes more courage to ­invite and discuss such views.

Here’s a parting thought for those cheering ringside as people are de-platformed, cancelled and censored. Mob rule in the arena of ideas means nobody is immune. The gallows don’t care who hangs. History has shown us that.

We need to draw the line. You and I. Our colleagues and neighbours, business leaders, and those who serve us in our state and federal parliaments. We need to return to the skill of entertaining two ideas in tension. We risk becoming a nation of revisionists existing in a gigantic echo chamber. It is utter folly to build a gallows and think the only person who will hang from it is your enemy.

Without this return to common sense in our workplaces, our public debate and our parliaments, we may as well step up to the gallows ourselves. Inevitably, that’s where we’ll all end up.

Gemma Tognini is executive director of GT Communications.