Media rewrites History on Protests Yet Again : Melbourne Indymedia

Everytime there is a big rally in Melbourne the media play the "its the biggest rally since the moratorium rally" game thus writing 30 years of protests out of history. It happened again this week.
With a police estimate of 150,000 people and probably more like 200,000 people in attendance it was a truly huge rally. However it has only been two years since the February 14th 2003 anti-war rally which varied from the police estimate of 150,000 people to organisers who said anywhere up to 200-300,000 people attended.
Lets not forget thehuge "Sorry" march for reconcilation in 2000, 100,000 who attended the 1998 MUA rally and the 100-150,000 who attended the anti-Kennett rallies in 1992 and 80,000 who marched against the First Gulf war in 1991.

Below are some quotes from todays papers.

In Melbourne, the numbers exceeded the Vietnam Moratorium marches of 35 years ago, with police estimating 150,000 demonstrators flooded the city.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17263381%255E601,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/record-crowds-at-ir-rally/2005/11/15/1132016797361.html
MELBOURNE turned out its biggest political protest on record yesterday as between 150,000 and 210,000 opponents of the Federal Government's new workplace laws marched defiantly through city streets.

About 150,000 jammed Melbourne's CBD in the biggest protest the city has seen.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17260854%255E661,00.html

Even the Indymedia feature on the rally referred to the rally as possibly Melbournes biggest rally. As someone who was at the February 2003 rally and yesterday's rally I the anti-war rally was far larger. The streets were far more densely packed during the march - you could barely move and it took me 20 minutes just to get out of Melbourne Central station. Yesterday was a great turnout - make no mistake but lets be careful to not forget the other huge expressions of public dissent we have seen in recent years.

Hey Davey,
I attended the 1992 rally, the 2003 Peace rally and the 2005 IR rally in Melbourne. They were all really really huge, with the later two, I think, eclipsing the 1992 rally. I have seen photos of the Vietnam Moratorium in 1970, and I think that equated with the 1992 anti- Kennett rally.

When they get that size (really really huge) it becomes difficult to accurately estimate numbers. The police have trouble, the journalists have trouble, even Indy reports have trouble. About the only way for a good estimate is a high resolution aerial photo and do a crowd count.

But really, when tens or hundreds of thousands of people turn out in a city the size of Melbourne, the exact numbers become meaningless, and it is an indication there is widespread concern on the issue by a broad spectrum of the population.

History does matter
by marcusneofitou@hotmail.com Wednesday November 16, 2005 at 06:26 PM

I don't think Davy's point was to nitpick about numbers of people at different mass rallies but was to point out the way the State/Corporate media is distorting history.

By only using the Vietnam moratorium as a bench mark for monster rallies when there has been much bigger rallies in recent history (ie. anti-war rallies, reconciliation rallies), the mainstream media is nullifying the last thirty-five years of mass dissent.

The ignoring of the anti-war rallies and reconciliation rallies is also convenient as the demands/aims of those protest have been roundly ignored as well by our 'democratic' Government.

Incidentally, I was at the IR rally and it was amazing and inspiring to be part of such a huge purposeful wave of humanity.

I would like to know what is next on the programme. A General Strike would be nice but I don't think that the ACTU are going to come to the party.

Greg Combet in his speech at the rally warned the massed workers against engaging in "reckless behavoiur". By this, I assumed he meant unauthorised (by the ACTU) industrial action. As, mild-mannered Greg has stated previously that the ACTU is too, and I quote, "cute and cuddly" to go on strike, than this is pretty much a kibosh on strikes as a way of fighting the Liberal Government's squashing of collective bargaining.

It looks like alot of workers are going to suffer until they wake-up to the both the Government and the union beauracracy.

Thanks Takver - good point about the photos. I am always wandered why those photos dont exist. For the 2003 rally - there were no arial photos in the press. Even though the helicopters were flying over on Wednesday - they again seemed to have travel getting overall perspective of the crowd from above. I agree the 2003 and 2005 rallies were the biggest of the ones I mentioned by far. The mainstream press tends to write these events out of history so I guess I was just trying write a bit of my own. Its like the fact that the 2000 World Economic Forum Protests are rarely if ever mentioned in the press in the context of Australian protests. The Age today at least had a go at putting the rally in a context giving a list of rallies starting with the Eureka Stockade.

In Howard Zinn's book called 'The Peoples History of the United States' he spoke to many activists, particularly civil rights, and told their history in their words. I'd hope historians are looking at sites like indymedia, and takver's site by the way, you should check it out (google it), are just as important, if not more important when talking about social struggles, than the corporate media is in Australia.

A lot of the coverage I saw, even on the ABC was taken up by John Howard's head an the screen talking about how he doesn't think it matters about protests. Almost half of the 2 minutes or so was all about him, not the people who actually spoke at the rally!

One good comment from a protester, and I'm glad I heard it, was that he was marching for his kids. As I also believe that it is they who are going to suffer with the new laws more, you know when the price of oil effects the price of just about every house hold items. Locked into minimum wage will be harder, but they wont know any different. The same goes for civil liberties and stuff I think.

If you call the size of a particular rally it's success I think a lot of that depends on how widely it is promoted. I noticed a full page add for this rally in the Herald Sun. You could tell it was an add by the "ADVERTISEMENT" that was stamped on the top top of the page, as if you were reading the Herald Sun you'd be needing to know exactly what was an add and what was not! But I think the coverage and photographs are always better on indymedia, even of the small rallies. We are writing history too, even if it is a history of trolls at times.

We had a similar problem in Perth. As usual the conservative mainstream press/media in Perth did their best to play down the huge crowd that attended in Perth and blatantly under-estimated the crowd in attendance. The media quoted "up to 10,000", whereas anyone who was there knows that is was possibly up to three times that number. Report the truth...i think not!