I’m yet further bemused—that is, stupefied, not amused—at the pronouncements of David Roberts of UNE.
His casual “whatever that means’ dismissal of my statement of clear substance—“insidious form of neo-serfdom’—indicates subscription to the pseudo-faith of language obscurity known as Postmodernism. PM was a 1980s boutique theory by underemployed French intellectuals—now discredited outside academe—that enabled anyone to claim that a statement can mean anything you want to make out it means, even—and especially—nothing.
It kills debate, the intellect and civilisation, yet it found immediate and passionate take-up in universities. My phrase on neo-serfdom refers to officialdom’s habit of hiding embarrassing truths from citizens, as medieval lords did. Our reputable historians certainly don’t deny its existence in our society.
My decision to publish (and be damned) the claim that our 1870 government committed judicial murder came after I received an informal (verbal) assurance from the Police Minister that they knew what I was saying is true but, because of the Constitutional ramifications, it was doomed to be parked in limbo.
The only move I had left was to flush the truth out, by making the government take me to task for publishing lies. The farce went into Act 2 when Parliament’s vote got smothered by the intervention of our clearly politicised Governor’s office. I risked going to jail, as a measure of my commitment to the truth.
Greg Hamilton,
Hyland Park
