Disobedience, civil and social

I loved going back to uni as a single mother in my thirties. I had always been a bit of a researcher and explorer and to place all lived experience into a context of learning and academic discipline was an exciting process.

I majored in physiology and biomedical science with psychology as a minor. And it was in those psych classes that the neural pruning and programming I was learning about was put into the context of human behaviour. The fight-flight-freeze or fawn response in reaction to threats, mirroring behaviour – which strengthened relationships, and group dynamics.

Human beings are an intensely social species. In fact, a person might reasonably say that because of our social nature and our cooperation we have managed to tame our environment and powerfully shape it becoming over eight billion strong.

But recently for me, I see two conflicting themes arise. Differing cultures have risen to power by exploiting others to the point of genocide. And we see it playing out in our world today in Russia’s continued war with the Ukraine and China’s power plays over the South China sea. It seems that within a culture, those that rise to power are the power hungry.

It’s not always the case, Australia was lucky enough to have Julia Gillard as Prime Minister from 2010-2013 and our current Prime minister seems to be working hard to claw back credibility on an international front whilst trying to revamp social services. But when we look at recent history in the US, and other big players on the world stage, there are many that seemed more invested in self interest and aggrandisement than equal relationships with their neighbours and world peace.

Grab, grab, grab and hold, hold, hold seems to have been the clarion cry. This is so with our own forefathers and even in modern day Australia. So much so that when aboriginal journalist Stan Grant tried to report on our new King’s Coronation from an Indigenous perspective, he was shouted out of the business. He literally had to take a sanity break to recover from the death threats, horrific abuse and loss of faith in the media that he suffered from, merely for trying to open a dialogue.

My uni studies showed me that the social nature of humankind can lead to mob mentality and the opposite; a thing called the bystander effect. People will stand by at lynchings, over wars and during public excoriations of those who dare to speak out. We just tend to let these things happen, going along with the 'wishes' of the crowd. Our cooperative nature has a dark side; sometimes we’re so eager to fit in with the prevailing views that we don’t dare speak out when something obviously, patently wrong is going on. Sometimes we don’t come to our fellow human beings rescue for fear of being singled out ourselves.

Of course there have been a number of shining examples of the opposite. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for over 25 years due to civil disobedience in apartheid ridden South Africa, Martin Luther King inspired countless black people to march for the civil rights movement in the USA and Mahatma Ghandi led a peaceful but devastatingly effective campaign to rid India of British rule. Even our own Julia Gillard added to the gender dialogue with her now famous misogyny speech.

Standing up to those in power, and the prevailing view can be incredibly uncomfortable and often dangerous. Lord Acton, in 1887 wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and we see that in Stan Grant’s treatment and the “vote no,” campaign regarding the aboriginal voice to parliament referendum to be held later this year in Australia.

We have thousands of people who live in comfort, on the backs of what their ancestors did to the indigenous people, on unceded lands. And yet in addition to refusing to acknowledge this self-evident truth, they are worried that such an aboriginal voice might “take away” some of their freedoms and their immense priviledge.

Now as a white woman who experiences some of that immense priviledge and has also witnessed first had what some of my less priviledged brown friends have had to endure, I am strongly ambivalent. I hate discrimination. I want the best person for the job to get the job. I want everyone to have equal access to healthcare, education and basic self-esteem. I want everyone to feel pride in who they are and where they came from.

And yet, I must admit that I’m scared of losing my priviledge. The unspoken prejudicial rules that meant historically, I may get jobs ahead of a black, Polynesian or Asian counterparts are crumbling. And by golly, I have to admit that many of my counterparts are stunningly talented. Am I that talented? So, there's a larger field. It’s genuinely harder for everyone, including me, to get ahead in this increasingly over populated world.

But once I admit that fear, I’ve also got to admit, that where it’s been easier for me in the past, it’s been next to impossible for them, which is a testament to the tenacity, courage and hard work of the Stan Grants of the world.

And as someone who has experienced everything from sexual harassment and rape to attempts by others to claim my work as their own and talk down to me for daring to suggest that was the case, I am acutely aware that the obstacles thrown at me as a woman that may have prevented me from reaching my full potential.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer in taking the knocks, getting over yourself, not blaming everyone else for your failures and working hard to get where you want to go. But by golly, I could have done without the belittling comments, domestic expectations, the "go to the back of the line" mentality and outright abuse from several of the men in my life.

There has been so much pressure for those who have been genuinely put upon to smile and suck it up. The black man who complains about being called a coon or a nigger, becomes the uppity, angry black man, vilified for his natural and just anger. The women marching in disgust over the 3% conviction rate for sexual assaults are labelled hysterical feminists.

It’s enough people, it’s enough! Stan, I’m sorry for the idiots, for the end stage colonial attitudes and the xenophobia.

I find myself in a position where going smilingly along with social mores that are absolutely and patently not in my best interests, or the best interests of other disadvantaged people, is no longer acceptable. I’ve decided to become disobedient, both socially and if required politically. Hence this blog.

Our planet’s about to go sliding off into environmental oblivion like its glaciers yet our state government has decided to tax electrical vehicles 22 cents per kilometre travelled and remove subsidies for the purchase of sustainable vehicles. Women still aren’t at pay parity and aren’t expected to get there for another hundred years! Police can harass indigenous and black community members and send them to jail for crimes that would incur nothing more than a stern warning in their white counterparts. Then wealthy companies paying slave labour rates can put them to work packing Qantas headphones, making licence plates and building god-knows what else for the rest of us.

I know this is a bit of a rant, but I don't care. I call bullshit! I hope you join me in standing up for those without a voice and without the funds to defend themselves. Let’s make calling bad behaviour out and disobedience to outdated, patriarchal social mores even more of a thing. Let’s make social justice our default mode.