Welcome, Army. Please don't shoot me.

Dear Reader,

As you may know by now, but the government has deployed the military into the working class suburbs of Sydney, and they’re going door to door, enforcing the law amongst some of Sydney’s most marginalised residents.

Now, you might think this is a bit heavy handed. That getting the military to enforce laws on the workers is something that brutal military dictatorships like Myanmar and North Korea do.

But that’s untrue.

There are plenty of examples of the military being used against civilians in far less brutal dictatorships. Thailand, Pakistan and Russia all have long and proud histories of military intervention in civilian matters.

For example, did you know that the Chinese government had a completely successful military involvement during a national emergency back in June 1989?

And if you go to China, you’ll never hear anyone complain about it. In fact, lots of people don’t even know it even happened! That’s how successful it was!

South Western Sydney is a multicultural mixing pot. Many people living there have immigrated from brutal regimes where having soldiers go door to door is a normal part of life. Point is, they’re used to armed soldiers asking them for their papers!

In some ways, it may even be comforting for them and remind them of the country they fled. It could be a real nostalgia trip for some.

It’s pretty shrill to say that the military being deployed against civilians is yet another step towards Australia’s slow descent into quasi-military administration.

Military dictatorships only ever arise when a civilian government becomes too corrupt and incompetent to be able to manage basic affairs of state themselves. That hardly sounds like Australia, right?

And it’s not like Australia’s head of state is a military general or anything like that. David Hurley retired from his 42 years in the army before he took over as head of state. He’s a total civilian.

In conclusion, don’t be at all alarmed about the encroaching use of the military in civilian matters. If China’s anything to go by, you won’t even remember this even happened in 30 years time.

Charles Firth
Loyal citizen of Sydneystan

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