As Sydney becomes locked down for the APEC manifesto we are also gaining insight into the police state which is looming over every man, woman and child. There appears to be something very wrong with the democratic picture when fences are erected in a bid to silence dissent. When police have the power to detain citizens without charge so that the voice of protest is muffled and essentially muted and protesters are comparatively cast as enemy combatants. Can we be so certain of our freedom when our fellow citizens are threatened with imprisonment for voicing their concerns? Are our civil liberties gradually being eroded by the powers that be? Is the Howard government manipulating us into becoming a mindless conforming nation, comforted and seduced with economic growth, our wallets becoming fat with ignorance?

I have no problem with the APEC summit or conference or whatever it is, being here, nor am I against economic growth per se but I am perturbed and appalled that the city in which I live has been turned into a prison. Where is the democracy when citizens are excluded from the discussions and where peaceful protest is being transformed as a threat? I am afraid that all this high level security is becoming too much like an Orwellian police state under the guise of a phantom of terror. Could fencing off cities mark a precedent in utilising the dubious threat of terrorism to block out dissent amongst the citizenship? Is this fence geared to depict Australian society as a mute society, entirely in the pockets of American leadership to the world at large? Will it become the norm now, do we just accept that this is how the world is, terror attacks are inevitable without fences and walls being erected? Do we accept this without question?

I’ve never been prone to activism but this whole APEC summit is provoking even greater disillusionment within, I’m feeling compelled to take part in the rally on Saturday to demonstrate that not all of Australia is pleased about the Howard governments readiness to ingratiate itself in the Bush administrations pocket. To what world does Australia subscribe to? The whole legitimacy of Australia’s involvement in Iraq is dubious strictly because from the outset it was based on a lie and it is George Bush and his administration that fabricated the case against Iraq with false evidence of WMD’s. Even then, how was it a threat to Australia in the first instance? Then the absurdity, seeing as there was no weapons of mass destruction we now have a fence dividing Sydney in half because of NO weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe I will see you there marching for true freedom without fences!