Gospel According to Respect

We live in a democratic society. We believe in freedom of speech. But how far would it take for us to understand whether there are actually no go zones in this world that provides us this freedom of speech?

Australian broadcasters are not afraid of controversies. Some even embraced them to make a living out of them. To be honest, I sometimes don’t know how certain people can get on air and stayed there for such a long time. Alan Jones is one of them.

For those who don’t really know who Alan Jones is, he is a vintage Australia broadcaster who is famous for his bullish speeches on air. He is opinionated and abusive. He called the Prime Minister a liar and also shut people who have opposite opinion down by yelling at them. This is just part of him and what his program is about. There are certain sectors of people in Australia including his boss who like him and always stand by his side. However, in a recent speech he gave to the Young Liberal Party members, Alan Jones commented that the Prime Minister’s father who recently passed away had “died in shame” because he had a daughter who is a liar. For me that was shocking – the complete lack of respect for both the living and the dead.

Alan Jones for me has always been just an old demented broadcaster whom had gone way over his used by date. He was kept on air as a joke for ratings. However, his repeated assaults on the Prime Minister had gone from distance to distance, and now to a point that even her late father could not escape his acid tongue. What shocked me further is that no one from the Liberal Party, young or old, came out to apologise for the inappropriate comment. They even casually brushed it off as “could not remember” such remarks made at the speech. Now I am never a fan of politics but I do believe that democracy is built upon the basic principle of mutual respect. If there is no more mutual respect in Australian politics, why bother having a democracy? It is because of this mutual respect that everyone has a say and then let everyone to decide.

He had since came out with an “apology”. Something that he used to stab further and to tell the world that he is right and the world is against him because he is right. He even went further to say that the world is double standard when a charge for Tony Abott so long ago could be brought up but he could not say that Julia Gillard’s father died in shame because of her “lies”. For me this proved that Alan Jones really needs to consult a specialist to see whether part of his brain has stopped working. What we are talking about here is someone comparing an assault charge of a prominent politician to a personal grudge that he has with another politician. Maybe he really could not handle the fact that Australia dumped John Howard for Kevin Rudd and that Tony Abott failed to get elected. But get over it because this is democracy and this is what happened when you throw yourself out for elections. People get elected and people got dumped. But no matter what the result is you should still respect it because the society had spoken.

When I grew up I was taught that by respecting other people you earn your own respect from others. I always try to uphold this principle, not necessarily hoping to earn other people’s respect but to make sure I am doing the right thing. I always feel that I am very lucky because I grew up and live in a free society. We have freedom of speech and action, which I think is vital for the society to grow and evolve. However, in recent years, it seems that this freedom has been exploited so much that any sense of decency had become something that fell through the cracks of humanity for some people. The recent Alan Jones debacle is a true reflection of that.

I am sure Alan Jones will still be around. The so call advertiser exodus will only be short lived and then the society forgets about that. Even at the time of writing, his boss already said he stands by Alan Jones no matter what. Well it is sad to see that human conscience does not worth a cent in the eyes of the 2GB boss. But that is his call. Nonetheless to close off this blog, I would like to quote a dialogue from Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire to demonstrate what I feel about this whole Alan Jones fiasco.

Izzy: I didn’t realise there was a cut-off date?

Becca: Well there should be. For acting like a jackass there should be a cut-off date.