THE IMAGINED "INCITEMENT" OF MONICA SMIT
PANDEMIC WRITINGS, Melbourne, Australia (2020-2022): piece originally published September 2, 2021
NOTE: Monica Smit was imprisoned for 22 days. The 33-year-old founder of Reignite Democracy Australia was charged with two counts of incitement in relation to protests held in Melbourne on August 11 and 21, during the state's sixth lockdown.
Imagine being assigned the task of infiltrating a specific social media group (in this case: 'Reignite Democracy Now' on both Facebook and Telegram) with the expressed purpose of accumulating "intelligence" and cobbling-together a farcical case for an eventual warrant, arrest and prosecution based on a trumped-up charge of "incitement."
Imagine focusing your efforts, day-in-day-out, as you target an otherwise moral, motivated and hope-inspiring Australian who is actively campaigning for a legitimate movement, and legally protesting a rogue authoritarian regime.
Imagine receiving remuneration and praise for such despicable skullduggery, cowardly compiling and spying as you believe you are doing all you can to protect the regime — perhaps even placing a kiss on the forehead of your desktop portrait of the crazed-faced Premier between leaving "entrapment comments" on various posts.
Imagine being these sorts of people: the shadow-lurkers, the betrayers, the treasonous, the fabricators — the modern day bastard progeny of Himmler's SS and the East German Stasi secret police.
Imagine someday waking up and looking across at your family, knowing that your efforts were once commended, and set a crucial precedent for eliminating all political dissent — a complete bonfire of staked and tethered "enemies of the regime."
Imagine someday recognising that the regime that you were so enamoured with; the regime that you sort to unquestioningly preserve beyond better judgment and conscience; the regime your actions empowered and emboldened and allowed to flourished unimpeded to realise the full-bloom of its once budded-evil: was assisted by you.
Yes, YOU helped polish the very jackboots and to tighten the very laces that might soon kick all indiscriminately in the face — your wife, your children, your family, your friends and your fellow Victorians.
Monica's grievances are shared by countless Victorians (perhaps even the silent majority) — they are valid and justified, and demand to be heard. Ironically, she was also speaking and fighting on behalf of your current zombie-eyed stupor — as her fight, is the fight for everyone's freedom.
Congratulations to you, and your fellow team of feckless infiltrators — you might have "put food on the table," but you have also acted to place Fascism foremost on the table of every Victorian household.
It would have been infinitely more noble to clean toilets for a living and hold your head up proudly.
You are the men and women of the Police State — and "just following orders" will bring no future forgiveness.
May we reignite the failing flame of Democracy now!