Morrison's outrage over Chinese tweet a tried and true tactic - Sydney Morning Herald

Sean Kelly

December 7, 2020 — 12.05am

A little less than five years ago, on a Wednesday, a 23-year-old man, Omid Masoumali, poured petrol on his clothes, and set himself alight. Two days later, he died. The next Monday, a 21-year-old woman, Hodan Yasin, set herself alight. She was taken to hospital, and survived, with burns to 70 per cent of her body.

Both were refugees on Nauru. The relevant minister, Peter Dutton, responded by blaming activists, who, he said, had encouraged refugees to self-harm.

Omid Masoumali died after setting himself on fire at the Nauru detention centre in 2016.Credit:AAP/Supplied

Dutton was following the example of his predecessor. Two years earlier, allegations were made that children and women on Nauru were being sexually abused. Scott Morrison, the minister, raised the prospect that the reports had been fabricated; he also suggested activists might have encouraged self-harm.

In each case, there was a moment when the attention of the public might have fallen on the cruel abuse occurring in its name. But before that could happen, the government put forward a counter-narrative. In the story told by Morrison and Dutton, it was not the despairing, abused refugees who were the victims – rather, the Australian people were being preyed upon. The public “don’t want to be played for mugs”, said Morrison.

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There is footage of Masoumali suffering the burns that would lead to his death. The flames rise quickly. He is shouting, and begins running. In responding the way that it did, the government in effect said to us: you are not watching what you think you are watching. This might look like evidence of abject misery caused by intolerable conditions; but it is only a piece of propaganda.

On Monday last week, Scott Morrison held a press conference. His purpose was to sharply attack a tweet from a Chinese diplomat. It was “repugnant”. It used a “falsified image”, a “false image”, it was “absolute falsehood”. The tweet – including an illustration of an Australian soldier slitting, or threatening to slit, the throat of an Afghan child – was an “outrageous and disgusting slur”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison sharply attacked a Chinese diplomat's tweet in a virtual press conference on Monday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The image was fake, and that was worth saying once, for clarity. And it’s true the image was repugnant, because violence against a child, fictional or not, is repugnant; and it was ugly diplomacy. It should not have happened. But Morrison’s outrage at the image might have had less to do with the fact that it was fake, and more to do with the fact that it came a little too close to the truth.

For what, precisely, was the outrageous slur that Morrison was furious about? The suggestion that an Australian soldier had committed an atrocity? The tweet was referring to an Australian report – and that report had found “credible information” of 39 Afghans being murdered by Australian troops. This is not the same as saying these events definitely occurred; but doubt should be weighed against the fact we are talking about 23 separate alleged incidents.

Perhaps the outrageous slur was that a soldier might kill a young boy? This is a horrific suggestion, but the diplomat did not simply conjure it up. In a report that helped prompt the final report, the investigator was told of soldiers stopping two 14-year-old boys; having decided they might be Taliban sympathisers, the soldiers cut their throats. She was told this was not an isolated incident; but she also did not have specifics. It seems unlikely we will ever know whether the account is true – but nor do we seem in a position, at this stage, to self-righteously deny it.

It is definitely a slur to suggest our entire armed forces are guilty. It is sad that the Chinese government is willing to taint those other soldiers. But then it is sad that the soldiers responsible have made that possible – and sadder still that innocent Afghans seem to have been killed by Australian soldiers. But somehow, in his outrage over the “absolute falsehood”, our Prime Minister has turned Australians into the victims of this situation.

Illustration: Jim PavlidisCredit:SMH

The pattern is concerning. Whenever we seem on the cusp of being forced to look at ourselves, at the cruelties inflicted by our citizens or government, we find a reason to look elsewhere. It is possible to see this as a tactic of conservative governments, attached to unquestioning patriotism; but it is possible, too, that it is a national trait.

The historian Ann Curthoys has written about the central place of the victim in Australian mythology – for better and worse. We love “the battler”; we romanticise the disaster of Gallipoli. Sometimes this can get in the way of our ability to see events clearly: to take full stock, say, of the violent horrors of our colonial past. So focused are we, she writes, on the adversity we have faced, we fail to see the adversity we have imposed on others.

A final example. In 2001, in the shadow of an election, John Howard’s government distributed photos to the press, allegedly proving that asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea. This was false; and there is a lot of evidence that the government knew, or discovered this, but chose not to say so – it was committed to the image of asylum seekers as ruthless manipulators of Australians, then as now. Morrison, of course, reveres Howard – he played a senior role in the 2001 election campaign and is proud of his role. When the propagandistic falsehood slurring an entire group of people comes from a Liberal government – and when our national mythology of victimhood is pandered to rather than challenged – our Prime Minister is not so easily outraged.

Sean Kelly is a former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

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