SHUT UP AND OBEY
The Long War On Protest
You’ve got a right to protest. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spelled that out back in 1948. In Australia, there’s an “implied freedom” that meant to mean the establishment can’t fuck you up for speaking your mind. In truth, governments make it very difficult to exercise that right. In Victoria, we have a charter of human rights that legislates a limited ‘right of freedom of expression’. The government and police can breach that right if they can demonstrate that breaching it is justified. In other words, you’ve got rights until they decide you don’t.
Every step of the way, the right to protest is boxed in. Public order, public safety, anti-terror laws, noise and nuisance. An old woman with a sign becomes a “threat to national security.”
‘This is not a terrorist organisation, it’s a direct-action organisation’
And that’s not hypothetical: in recent weeks, half of the 532 protesters arrested in the UK were over 60. Their crime was holding placards that read, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Palestine Action goes after arms companies like Elbit Systems, whose weapons are used against Palestinians. Their protests, occupations, blockades, direct disruption of the arms trade expose Britain’s complicity. Instead of admitting it, the government brands them “extremists” and bans them. One protester, Deborah Hinton, an 81-year-old, former magistrate said, “In my view, Palestine Action is not a terrorist organisation. I lived through the IRA and the bombing in London when you had to leave shops and leave museums because bombs might go off any minute. Frankly, that is what a terrorist organisation is. This is not a terrorist organisation, it’s a direct-action organisation, like the suffragists, like the Greenham Common women, like many other organisations."
Suddenly, the right to protest isn't worth the paper it's written on.
I say suddenly, but this isn't new. History tells you what’s happening in the UK and Australia right now is just the latest act in a long play called Shut Up and Obey.
History is littered with examples. Peterloo, 1819, four years after Britain won the Napoleonic Wars, the country was deep in debt and working-class people, including many soldiers who had fought at Waterloo, lived in poverty. About 60,000 working-class people gathered peacefully in St Peter's Field, Manchester to demand reform, the right to vote, fair representation, freedom from oppression, and economic justice. They were protesting the lack of representation for growing industrial cities and the severe poverty many faced, especially in the textile industry.
‘Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder’.
The local magistrates sent the cavalry in, sabres drawn. Eighteen dead. Hundreds were injured. All in the name of “order.” “John Lees survived Waterloo but died after being cut down at Manchester.” His last words were, ‘Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder’.
The Editor of the Manchester Review at the time, coined the term “Peterloo” to strip the shine off Waterloo’s glory and set it against the blood spilled in Manchester.
Cavalry charge at peaceful protesters at Peterloo
A century later, Tonypandy. In 1910, miners in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, went on strike against starvation wages and brutal conditions. On 8 November, they were told soldiers wouldn’t be sent, only police, and that talks would follow. It sounded like peace, until mounted police charged. For two hours the miners fought back with their fists, the valley turned into a battlefield, and hundreds were left bloodied. Driven into Tonypandy, their fury spilled into the streets, windows smashed, and shops looted. The chaos was so fierce Winston Churchill authorised cavalry to move in. Tonypandy wasn’t a riot — it was proof that when workers rise, the state answers with violence.
November 8 Tonypandy Riots crowd Dunraven St after riots
1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland: Thousands march peacefully against internment without trial in Northern Ireland. British soldiers open fire on unarmed civilians. Thirteen people are killed. Most were shot in the back while fleeing or while trying to help the wounded. For decades, the state lied about it — smeared the dead as armed aggressors. The truth, finally admitted, was simple: they were murdered for daring to march against injustice.
Thirteen people were killed and 15 wounded on Bloody Sunday
Australia’s has similar tactics to suppress dissent. The state smashes protest the second it cuts too close. In 2011, riot police stormed Melbourne’s Occupy camp with batons and pepper spray, dragging people out bloodied. In Tasmania and Victoria, environmental blockades were met with chokeholds, zip ties, and dogs for daring to stand between chainsaws and ancient forests. Aboriginal land rights protests saw Elders and women ripped from sacred Djab Wurrung trees. Different struggles, different decades, same answer: boots, batons, and repression dressed up as “order.”
Djab Wurrung protest arrests
Victoria Police arrested more than 50 people protesting the state-sanctioned removal of a Djab Wurrung 'Directions Tree'. Source: Twitter
Nothing’s changed but the uniforms. From sabres at Peterloo to batons at Tonypandy, from bullets on Bloody Sunday to today’s anti-terror laws — the state’s response to dissent is always the same: crush it. They call it order, safety, security — anything but what it is. The truth is simple: protest threatens power, and power hates being threatened. So, they wrap repression in law, send in the troops, and trample the rights they claim to uphold. Murder at Manchester. Violence at Eureka. Repression now. Different eras, same command: shut up and obey.
Protest isn’t a privilege; it’s the pressure valve of democracy. Strip it away and all that’s left is fear and obedience. From Peterloo to Eureka to Palestine, the state’s answer never changes - crush it, rebrand it as “order”. You don’t defend protest by picking causes you like. You defend it, full stop. Because if you don’t, your silence just might be the death of you.