Remember Scott McIntyre? He was the sports reporter at SBS who was sacked last year after making a series of tweets about the Anzac Day commemoration. Last week he settled an unfair dismissal case with his former employer out of court.
All Australians should remember this disgraceful attack on free speech by those who sought to bring Scott McIntyre down. Leading the herd of ANZAC acolytes was Malcolm Turnbull who donned two hats in the whole sorry saga. The first was that of the tell tale schoolyard snitch. In this capacity Turnbull lagged McIntyre into his SBS bosses. In doing so Turnbull blatantly donned his Minister for Communications hat knowing full well that his dobbing would have the effect of delivering a ‘ministerial’ to SBS management. SBS shamefully acted as Turnbull’s attack dogs and sacked McIntyre.
The point behind McIntyre’s tweets, even if somewhat clumsily made, was that the celebration of ANZAC is highly selective in what it chooses to remember. Where in the centenary commemorations was the mention of the two battles of the Wazzir where ANZAC troops rioted in Cairo in April and July 1915? You can bet your last dollar that the massacre of Bedouins at Surafend in December 1918 won’t be saluted?
Scott McIntyre was publicly crucified because he challenged a national narrative of an anachronism that is held to be sacrosanct by a minority of Anglo Australians many of whom hold sway in the hegemonic institutions of the parliament and the press.
It will be the greatest hypocrisy, if on Monday 25 April Malcolm Turnbull, as Prime Minister, utters, as he inevitably will, the usual sententious babble of honouring the ANZACs for protecting the freedoms we enjoy today.