'I am writing a story...'
Email correspondence + text
That was yesterday’s email from The Australian’s Rosemary Neill. Her article, co-authored with career Zionist Yoni Bashan, was published today on the front page of the newspaper’s weekend edition; an utterly predictable piece of propaganda.Â
I’ve received similar baiting — via email, voice and text message — in advance of similar hit pieces from Neill’s colleagues Alexi Dimitriadi, John Ferguson, The Age’s Chip le Grand, The Sun Herald and others.
Nobody with an ounce of media literacy reads these publications for any other reason than the analysis and critique of imperialist stenography, so let’s engage with them on those terms.Â
Their questions, of course, are not intended to be answered. The purpose of these smarmy pre-hit-piece messages is to bully us into silence and inaction. Let’s remember that correspondences of far greater brutish absurdity have been received by Palestinian comrades — women in particular — over the past eleven months (and for decades prior).
The recent slew of media attacks is designed to deplete our public image, our mental health, our capacity for income generation, our creativity, and our ability to emotionally and practically support our loved ones. This is entirely the point: to prevent revolutionary art and cultural content from being produced. To exhaust us.Â
If you are a threat to imperialism, you will be targeted. This fact is an affirmation: if you are being targeted, you are being effective. Western imperialist media is making a full public confession of our power, and of their desperation.Â
Let’s continue to create, collectivise and escalate against colonialism and imperialism — from the Australian colony to occupied Palestine. Let’s continue to support each other as we each confront the brutality of a system that knows and fears its own moral impotence.