“Our dear friend and one of the most powerful advocates of justice #JohnPilger passed away. John was one of the reasons why I chose to be an independent journalist and fight from outside the confines of institutions and their agendas. I am honoured to have called him a friend. RIP, John. #Palestine loved you.” – Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian journalist and author.
With over 100 journalists targeted and murdered by Israel in Gaza, I think that both John Pilger and Ramzy Baroud made the right choice in becoming independent journalists.
John Pilger had good politics. So, too, does Ramzy Baroud. As a reliable source, I put John Pilger up there with Robert Fisk, who reported on the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). See ‘Pity the Nation‘ by Bob Fisk.
After the election of the Whitlam Government, when some of his Ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of North Vietnam as “corrupt and barbaric”, John Pilger in “A Secret Country”, revealed that Frank Nepp, CIA officer in Saigon at the time said: “We were told that the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnam collaborators”.
It is a shame that Australian governments have become so cowardly that they won’t call out a genocide in Palestine as Pilger revealed they did about Vietnam so long ago.
“Since the release of Utopia (by John Pilger), we have seen Grandmothers from Gunnedah protest outside NSW State Parliament calling for the return of stolen children. This week activists from the Brisbane Tent Embassy and Perth Tent Embassy united in a court action which saw a young Noongar girl who had been abducted from a school in Perth and taken to Queensland returned to her family”. – Padraic Gibson.
It is a shame that the Canberra Press gallery can’t take a leaf out of John Pilgers’ book.
John Pilger stood up for David Hicks, for Julian Assange and many others who challenged the state and suffered torture as a result.
His only failing as a journalist, author and filmmaker, if there was one, was that ideas alone can change the world.
Ian Curr
1 Jan 2024