Open complaint letter (generalcomplaints@sbs.com.au) to:
Michael Ebeid (SBS Managing Director)
Ken Shipp (Director, Sport)

Michael Ebeid and Ken Shipp,

We write to make a statement of protest to the termination of Scott McIntyre by SBS management after he expressed anti-war opinion on Anzac Day. The actions taken by SBS management are reprehensible. We commend his criticism of hyper-nationalism associated with Anzac Day, and we condemn your persecution of him as an unacceptable attack on free speech and all the values that we expect the network to uphold.

In silencing of a dissenting voice in a climate of growing nationalism and far-right politics, SBS management has shown itself to be ideologically complicit in the reactionary politics that are turning this country into a very dark place indeed. Australia is fast becoming a nation that venerates its own nationalist mythology at the expense of truth, where war is glorified but history is forgotten, critical opinion is branded as treason, asylum seekers are brutalised in the name of 'national security' and Aboriginal people are dispossessed from their lands because their continued survival is a 'lifestyle choice'. We reject those values.

Scott speaks for many of us in articulating a view that if Anzac Day is to be commemorated at all, it should be as a day of solemn reflection for those who died in war, victims of wars of aggression and imperalist conflict in past and present. It should be a day to reflect on history and to share our personal stories. But it should not be a day of chest-thumping, jubilation and celebration of warfare and a belief that 'our' war-dead are somehow racially or ethnically superior to the war-dead of other nations. Warmongering nationalism is the very thing that leads to wars.

In these dark times, Scott McIntryre is a courageous journalist and citizen for daring to speak truth to power, providing a critical voice in opposition to war, amid a barrage of chest-beating nationalist propaganda. We urge you to immediately reverse the decision and to provide a public apology.

Sincerely,