“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”
—George Orwell, 1984
This quote has featured widely on posts about the public execution of nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis. Despite footage from several angles being quickly published online, United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem insisted that we should disbelieve our own eyes.
The video evidence is clear: Pretti was holding nothing but a phone as he tried to assist a fellow protester who had been struck to the ground. But Noem demanded that we instead believe her lie: that Pretti had “committed an act of domestic terrorism” by “brandishing” a weapon at the pack of agents. This is par for the course for the Trump administration. The truth is irrelevant if a lie better serves its interests; “alternative facts” are the antidote to inconvenient realities.
It’s a misconception that totalitarian states endure because the “sheeple” are too dumb, ignorant or naive to see through the lies. Such regimes rarely convince anyone—they survive by threatening and enacting violence against those who dare to dissent.
The wonderful thing about the United States these past few weeks is that thousands of people have refused to accept the lies. Instead, they are fighting back. Protests, strikes and school walkouts have snowballed across the country—and amid the frigid northern winter, snowballs have been thrown at the ICE agents. It’s a reminder that despite the increasingly authoritarian nature of the US government, people have not been cowed.
The administration’s lies against and attacks on migrants and those who defend them are shocking, but these crimes are not unique. Of course, there is Gaza. For more than two years, politicians and the media across the world have told us to ignore the footage we watch on our phones, to ignore the pleas of Palestinians who have been bombed, starved, shot at and tortured, and to ignore the genocide.
But, as with Noem’s lies about Alex Pretti, the people at the top have utterly failed to convince us. Millions of people globally have seen through the lies and have protested in massive numbers. Hundreds of thousands marched across the Sydney Harbour bridge in defiance of the police and the Labor state government. Students camped at universities. Writers pulled out of festivals. Principled journalists resigned from the major media outlets. In some places, workers went on strike. All to fight for the Palestinians and to resist our own governments’ complicity in genocide.
Having lost the argument, they are resorting to force.
In the UK, more than 2,700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for peacefully protesting against the banning of Palestine Action, an anti-war activist group. Kids are being kicked off social media, presumably partially because they can access the truth broadcast from Palestine in real time. A recent article in the Australian newspaper documented that the University of Sydney basically begged government officials for a legal justification to shut down 2024’s Gaza solidarity encampment.
And now the Labor Party, at a state and federal level, is imposing serious restrictions on the rights to free speech and protest, using the Bondi massacre as cover for a long-desired crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement.
It is unclear exactly how the new hate speech laws will be enforced. But left-wing and social justice organisations could be targeted if ASIO unilaterally declares that they meet the criteria of inciting hatred or causing a reasonable person to be intimidated. Considering that politicians, the media, university vice-chancellors and workplace managers insist that peaceful protests, Palestinian flags, keffiyehs and even watermelon badges count as acts of violence and intimidation, this is extremely concerning. NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has floated severely restricting protests in the CBD.
This is an offensive against not only the Palestine solidarity movement, but future movements against war and injustice. It’s in line with the increasingly illiberal, authoritarian direction that capitalism is taking in the US, the UK and Europe. It must be resisted by those who want to end the genocide and protect basic civil liberties.
We won’t be silenced. We won’t accept their lies. And we won’t stop fighting for a world free from racism, bigotry and war.
