Bangladeshi students’ excitement that this Mandela like figure is their new leader may also encourage optimism from young people, in particular women, in other countries.

Australians who have been inspired by Yunus during his visits down under would understand why Bangladeshi students suddenly feel hope and confidence.

In late 1997 together with friends in the Forest Lodge pub in Sydney’s Glebe, we mulled over criteria to choose Australia’s first recipient for an international award for peace, which became the Sydney Peace Prize.

We decided that on a world stage, not just locally, potential recipients should show commitment to universal human rights, to the philosophy and practice of non-violence, and to ideals of a common humanity. We believed that peace was about ending poverty, racism and the violence inherent in discrimination, and from those deliberations emerged the crucial distinction between peace and peace with justice.

In mid 1998 the Sydney Peace Prize jury used those criteria to choose the Bangladeshi economist Professor Muhammad Yunus as the inaugural recipient of that Prize. The citation for Professor Yunus read, ‘for enabling the world’s poor to become independent through access to microcredit, for advocating the view that poverty is the denial of all human rights and that peace is freedom from poverty.’

On arrival in Sydney, Yunus’ humour, humanity and vision confirmed the wisdom of the Sydney jury.

In his 1998 Peace Prize Lecture, Muhammad recalled that despite all his years of study for a doctorate in economics at a prestigious US University, there had been nothing in his text books that addressed the living conditions of millions of poor people in his home country Bangladesh. He explained, ‘I was looking for an opportunity to see if there is any tiny way I could relate myself as a human being to one of those persons who were suffering from extreme poverty next door to my Chittagong campus.’

In his creation of the Grameen Bank for the poor, which has concentrated mostly on making small loans to women in rural areas, he has given hope, self respect and a degree of autonomy to millions. The ideals expressed in a Sydney theatre in November 1998 have led to microcredit banking operations in thousands of Bangladesh villages and in 27 countries, from south east Asia to South America, from sub Saharan Africa to the Middle East.

Yunus’ vision is marinated by humility, by his commitment to improving the lives of poor women to whom traditional banks would never give a loan. In 2006, – it took nine years for the Sydney choice to influence Oslo – his skills and humility were recognised with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for which the citation said, ‘ for creating economic and social development from below.’

Since those awards, Professor Yunus has persisted in efforts to ‘create a poverty free world and to give peace a better chance than we have ever offered before.’ He has experienced disappointments, survived political persecution but still marshals sufficient courage to pursue justice.

This tribute to the new leader in Bangladesh must not be layered with hyperbole, not least because meetings with him always displayed his essential tenet, to relate to everyone, including the poorest of the poor as a human being.

In a world torn with conflict, there are few Mandela/Yunus like leaders able to retain the dignity of being human, as in addressing the needs of vulnerable citizens, as in leading by example but without fanfare. Impressed by such qualities, millions of students in Bangladesh have chosen an inspiring new leader.

In Australia twenty six years ago, Muhammad Yunus gave promise of a justice to come. That was exciting then and is creating optimism in Bangladesh now.

First published in Pearls and Irritations

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We, the undersigned, as laureates of the Sydney Peace Prize urge the Government of India to cease the unjustified and anti-democratic prosecution of globally renowned author and human rights activist, and fellow Laureate, Arundhati Roy.

Ms Roy has spent a lifetime advocating for peace, justice and non-violence. She is among India’s most celebrated authors, shining a light on untold stories and inspiring the imaginations of followers around the world. In 2004 Ms Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, Australia’s international prize for peace, “for her courage in campaigns for human rights and for her advocacy of non-violence”.

For 26 years the Sydney Peace Foundation has celebrated the achievements of peacemakers like Ms Roy for their courage, their compassion and their deep commitment to social justice.

Using draconian anti-terror laws to prosecute such a commendable and globally respected peace advocate, together with academic Sheikh Showkat Hussain, for remarks they made at a public event 14 years ago undermines India’s democratic institutions and fundamental freedoms. Indeed, punishing writers and scholars simply for their words runs contrary to the values and reputation of this great nation and its people.

We appeal to the Government of India to withdraw the charges and ensure that the right to free speech and freedom of opinion is upheld.

Signed Sydney Peace Prize Laureates

Professor Megan Davis and Pat Anderson AO, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2021 – 2022, Uluru Statement from the Heart

Tracey Spicer AM, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2019, Me Too Movement

Patrisse Cullors, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2017, Black Lives Matter

Naomi Klein, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2016

Dr George Gittoes AM, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2015

Julian Burnside AO KC, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2014

Sekai Holland, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2012

Dr Vandana Shiva, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2010

Olara Otunnu, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2005

Dr Hanan Ashrawi, Sydney Peace Prize Laureate 2003

I

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There are a few days left to appeal the British High Court’s five to two ruling that Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden to be interviewed about alleged sexual assault. Regarding that appeal, almost all the commentary since the Court announced its decision has revolved around legal nit picking on issues such as whether the Swedish prosecutor is a recognised judicial authority. Assange’s lawyers can’t be faulted for their focus on such technicalities but other issues will stand the test of time long after this extradition paraphernalia has been resolved.

These ‘other issues’ concern the WikiLeaks-Assange challenge to governments’ secrecy, the barely concealed violence, which characterises American policy in regard to whistleblowers, the cowardice of leading Australian politicians over the Assange controversy and, finally, the implications of the Assange-Bradley Manning cases for any future conception of justice.

As the project for democracy evolved over many centuries, secrecy became a key means of governance. Rulers assumed, ironically, that not only was this a key means of sustaining open government, but that citizens who challenged such notions threatened the very viability of a State. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange follow a tradition of highly significant dissenters to whom we owe gratitude for key freedoms, of speech, of the press and of association. Those WikiLeaks forerunners include the 18th century English satirist Daniel Defoe who, in 1702, was imprisoned for challenging the power of Church and State but who wrote in the famous Hymn to the Pillory, ‘Tell them I stand exalted there for speaking what they would not hear.’ Ninety years later, in 1792, Tom Paine, author of The Rights of Man was charged with sedition for questioning the secret manner in which State authority was maintained and false claims made about citizens, who dared to say that human rights represented a much higher authority than governments.

At a time when the Nixon Administration in the U.S. attempted to cover up details of the conduct of the Vietnam War and the extent of the casualties resulting from it, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg revealed truths about government policies and in his own recent words, did no more then than Bradley Manning is alleged to have done now. In his revelations in the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg provided a key service to democracy little different in principle from that which Assange and Manning have given. If those two citizens – one in a U.S. jail awaiting trial, another about to be extradited to Sweden – could be judged, as Ellsberg was, according to the historical value of their actions, the world’s media would be concerned with human rights issues. In 1971 Ellsberg was charged with conspiracy and espionage but all charges were subsequently dropped and a U.S. Supreme Court, in covert praise for Ellsberg’s courage insisted, ‘Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.’

There is justifiable fear that so great is the U.S. government’s desire for revenge against anyone who dares to challenge their authority, that the utterances of US leaders should be listened to very carefully. We might begin by comparing U.S. Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich’s comments last week that his government was not interested in Assange with the anger of other U.S. leaders and commentators. The latter includes a Presidential hopeful Mike Huckerbee who said, ‘Whoever leaked that (Wikileaks based) information is guilty of treason and I think that anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.’ Republican Sara Palin wanted Assange ‘Hunted down like Bin Laden’ and a Fox News anchorman commented, ‘It may be illegal but I encourage any concerned U.S. citizen to get their gun and shoot the son of a bitch.’

The idea that violence of almost any kind is the best response to dissenters like citizen Assange should make Australian leaders repudiate the U.S. ‘revenge is sweet’ culture. There has been ample opportunity for the Australian government to ask whether a grand jury in Virginia was attempting to concoct charges against Assange and to insist that it would use every means to prevent such a citizen being extradited to the U.S.

The Australian Prime Minister at first inferred that Assange had committed an offence, a claim subsequently disproved by the Australian Federal Police. Subsequently the Attorney General said that he’d need to consider confiscating Assange’s passport, even though no charges had been laid, let alone any conviction recorded. It’s as though the mantra about the value of secrecy in a war against terrorism ensured that leaders of an important democracy too easily forgot their responsibilities to sustain openness, to demystify the games played by secret agents of a State, and did not consider whether the best service they could provide to their ally the U.S. was to say that violence or threats of violence have no place in government.

A lesson from the Assange controversy is what we may learn about the nature of justice.

Regarding the value of various Wikileaks revelations about the conduct of governments, such as the diplomatic cables about the conduct of the Afghan war and the collateral damage video showing U.S. marines 2007 murder of eleven civilians including children in a Baghdad street, the Australian Prime Minister confessed in an ABC Q & A program, ‘I don’t get it.’

The people protesting on behalf of Julian Assange on Sydney and Melbourne streets last week do ‘get’ the value of Wikileaks releases, they do understand that a superpower has no more entitlement to seek revenge than ordinary citizens. Those protesters’ conception of justice includes an insistence on the right to protest and a demand that powerful institutions and individuals should be held accountable irrespective of governments’ claims about a need to protect national sovereignty

Professor Noam Chomsky knows the significance of Julian Assange’s actions. On my way to London last year, to award Assange the Sydney Peace Foundation’s ‘occasional gold medal for human rights’, Noam Chomsky penned the following message to Julian. ‘I would like to thank you for fulfilling your responsibilities as a member of free societies whose citizens have every right to know what their government is doing.’

When the dust has settled on the legal technicalities and the political inanities, the real issues of openness and accountability as the cornerstone of democracy will remain. Assange needs to be supported because of the service he does to the presentation of human rights and democratic governance.

This article was first published by Online Opinion, 7  June 2012

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