end the lies rally

attended a political rally by the socialist alliance held outside the perth cultural centre on sunday. it was part of the run up to the australian general elections due to be held on this coming saturday. the rally was entitled : end the lies


it reads: political big brother (an australian pseudo-survivor reality tv show where a participant is 'evicted' everyweek): vote them out


'jonny' howard

the socialist alliance is a political alliance emcompassing elements of the left-wing spectrum of the australian society. embellished with rhetoric projecting themselves as the champions of the poor, and voice piece of the subjugated, the socialist alliance appear to be the australian equivalent of ralph nader's green party. the 'real' alternative in a similarly bi-polar domestic political scene dominated by the liberal party and the labour party, although they seem to single out howard for harsher judgement than labour's latnam. if anything, the socialist alliance seemed more like an activist outfit than a truly functional politcal party with concrete ambitions to be elected. to be fair, i've never read their manifesto, but if anything, their focus on the rally had hardly anything on concrete policies for the average australian (ie economic, welfare, education etc) but it seemed to revolve primarily around the need to end australia's participation in iraq's occupation, and the championing of the rights and status of refugees and asylum seekers in australia. i was sure about what the whole hoo-hah about refugees are, and upon chatting up one of the speakers in the rally who was not surprisingly not a politician but a refugee rights activist, i was told that under the refugees act, all asylum seekers in australia are detained indefinitely in squalid jail-like conditions despite howard's exaggerated claim that it was 'of a higher standard than the average australian' he also stressed on the fact australia was the only first world western democracy not to have a of policy for harbouring asylum seekers. well that's not unfamiliar to us singaporeans since 'refugees' dun even exist in our government's lexicon...only 'illegal immigrants'.



a supporter of the socialist alliance. the same guy who started chanting 'howard is a wanker' over and over again during the march




a sizable, not not as large a crowd as i would have expected having seen opposition rallies back in singapore


the casualties of war


australia's role in iraq is a big part of the socialist ticket. it appeals to the public to boot the howard government for their participation in the world just like what spain did to their government (although it was probably more than the war that resulted in spain's election outcome)

the march

after the speeches and stuff, there comes the customary march. we marched around northbridge and back to perth cultural centre. it was kinda short though, it might have been a better idea to march through the city so as to get people to hope on the bandwagon along the way.




the marching crowd carried a very long banner on it, sort of a petition for the removal of troops from iraq and the granting of asylum status to refugees


there's fred fuentes, the guy with the ponytail. he's the leader of the left-alternative party in uwa as well as the leader of resistance organisation - a left wing student organisation. contrary to most misconceptions regarding left-wing supporters, fred's a pretty friendly and approachable guy. it's not hard to spot many other familiar faces from uwa among the crowd.



i'm not too sure where're they from except that they were ostensibly religious in nature judging from the banners they carry. |they also appear to be some peace-loving, hippy anti-war organisation. in contrast to the rest of the teeming masses who were chanting slogans, this group opted to use their voices to sing out their anti-war sentiments and they really can sing very well. they were singing some song about 'turning swords to ploughshares' and 'nations shall know war no more', upon googling it i realised that those are passages from the bible. if you know the name of the song, pls leave it in the comments box, i really need to know it.



back to the cultural centre


poor lil' jonny lost both his boots during the march



to increase the appeal, the organisers arranged for a performance by some indie rock band to perform at the intermission after the march. i wasn't sure if they were playing original words all was it a spontaneous cover, but they were singing something about kicking howard and 'you can do it if u try'. now who says politics is a boring affair.

politics certainly isn't a boring affair, not with what's mentioned above, and many other hippy-dressed youths around. there were also people smoking weed in the crowd, young parents carrying their kids along, gay and lesbian couples who spoke against the liberal's stand on gay marriages. it's almost a laid-back sunday outing for many of them. maybe dr chee, mr chiam or mr low should take a page off australian politics and get local bands to play in their rallies...i'm dying to see the boredphucks perform back in singapore again.