I am deeply saddened by the tragedy of Helen Haines losing both her limbs, and by the tragedy of the accused, who was marginalised and lived in social isolation with severe mental health issues.

It is a tale of two tragedies. Yet both pale in comparison with the genocide in Gaza, which has claimed so many innocent lives (over 600,00 people?) and devastated the Palestinian people living in ruins and cooking with wood not knowing what ill is about to befall them at the hands of a sick, sick societies that defend the indefensible.

There is a bitter irony here. We rightly feel compassion for individual tragedies, yet the immense suffering of the Palestinian people has repeatedly failed to receive the parliamentary debate and political response it demands despite attempts by some to have the matter properly addresses in the parliament, in the churches and mosques, in the media, and in society at large.

I am angered that the Prime Minister and the institutions he commands called out the anti terrorism forces implying that there was an organised political motive. We live in strange and deeply worrying times.

Two films, war and the failure of democracy

I’ve seen two good mainstream films recently. The first was The Odyssey, and the second The Social Reckoning (2026) was about Facebook and misinformation generated by algorithms on social media.

What struck me about The Odyssey was that I interpreted it as an anti-war film. I thought it was historically very accurate, at least according to my understanding of Homer’s Iliad. The main characters and events were sharply portrayed. The film featured a fantastic boat and a great Trojan horse. It was a very interesting interpretation of the story.

It’s rather ironic that I was interrupted while watching television and reflecting on the second film. The film explored the terrible failure of Mark Zuckerberg’s libertarian vision: his attempt to make billions, or even trillions, of dollars by manipulating public opinion through a platform that has failed to adequately fact-check political advertising in the United States or elsewhere in the West.

This raises the question of how much social media contributed to the rise of another libertarian, Donald Trump. You might have thought that Trump’s political career would have been cut short very early, given his repeated falsehoods and the consequences of his political decisions. He has pursued military action and policies that have contributed to the deaths of many innocent people, including Palestinians in Gaza, schoolchildren in Iran and civilians in Lebanon. The United States has provided munitions and other support for military operations, while Trump has also supported a strategy in Ukraine that risks prolonging the war rather than securing an early negotiated settlement.

Why is it that people of a libertarian bent seem unable to recognise the failures of representative democracy, particularly in the economic sphere?

Some libertarians, including those who present themselves as progressives, have run for public office. Yet they seem unable to recognise how representative democracy can fail when political institutions serve the interests of oligarchs and wealthy corporations rather than the workers they are supposed to represent. We see this problem in the United States, India and Australia. The economic hardship produced by such arrangements is not an accidental consequence that can simply be ignored.

France provides another example. The Macron government’s failures have encouraged attempts to blame the left and Arab communities for problems that have deeper political and economic causes. But those communities are not responsible for the government’s failure to listen to the people or make the necessary adjustments. Governments must take responsibility for their own decisions rather than scapegoating minorities or political opponents.

Some of these problems arise directly from the workings of capitalism. Consider the refusal of powerful economic interests to rein in the burning of fossil fuels, despite the accelerating climate crisis. Rising sea levels, drought, famine and starvation are already affecting vulnerable populations, including people across Africa. These are not isolated environmental problems. They are bound up with an economic system that too often places private profit ahead of human need and the survival of the planet.

Taken together, these two films prompted me to think about the relationship between power, public opinion and democracy. One looks back to the human cost of war; the other examines the power of a modern communications platform to shape what people see, believe and think.

The question is whether representative democracy can survive when wealth concentrates in fewer hands, social media platforms can influence political debate, governments fail to respond to ordinary people’s needs, and the economic interests driving the climate crisis remain largely unchallenged.

I can’t let this day pass without remembering that 49 years ago today, Brisbane experienced the largest mass arrests in its history.

On 22 October 1977, 418 people were arrested from a crowd of around 5,000 people who had gathered to oppose uranium mining and export.

History has shown that those protesters were on the right side of history. Their opposition to the nuclear industry was not simply a protest against mining and exports; it was a warning about the dangers of a world increasingly dependent on nuclear technology and threatened by nuclear weapons.

Today, with the threat of nuclear weapons being used by countries involved in wars that should never have happened, their message is more urgent than ever.

Ian Curr
22 October 2026