We missed this article by Julianne Schultz when it appeared in the Guardian on 23 February ('Australians mostly have little to worry about. So why do we succumb to fear?'). We recommend it and here are some highlights.
Australia in 2025 is gripped by 'a miasma of fear', shown by events at home and abroad. Cancelling Truth-telling initiatives is just one example.
'The foundations of Australia’s much vaunted, if lazily maintained, pluralist and inclusive values are being eroded by the poison in the air' (DC emphasis added).
Fear has been an Australian political tool since Federation (see the cartoon, referring to fear of South Sea Islanders, Chinese and Aboriginal people) even though Australians have little reason to fear.
Schultz quotes from a forthcoming book by Julie Macken, Australia's Schism in the Soul: 'Australia is a fragile, divided, anxious nation. We vote for policies that destroy the sacred core of people, of children, simply to assuage and manage our own fear. We are unable to accept the reality of Australia’s colonial violence and we all continue to pay a dangerously high price for this delusion.'
The fate of the Voice Referendum can be linked to fear. The slogan '"If you don’t know vote no” was as political scientist Allan Patience wrote: “one of the most ignorant, ethically despicable, and anti-democratic moments in the history of federal politics in Australia … How can anyone respect people who have chosen indifference over concern, hostility over love, exclusion over inclusion, cruelty over compassion?'
Julianne Schultz AM is one of Defending Country's distinguished Supporters. The title of this post is a reference to a World War II memoir by Peter Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet.
Picture credit: 'Piebald possibilities - a little Australian Christmas party of the future’, Bulletin, 13 December 1902; cartoon by 'Hop' (LYY Hopkins), National Museum of Australia
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