Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Later this year the centenary of the final acquittal and exoneration of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the central figure in the notorious Dreyfus affair in France, will take place. In 1894 Alfred Dreyfus, the first Jew who was admitted to the general staff of the French army, was accused of selling military secrets to Germany. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1896 new evidence surfaced and exonerated Dreyfus, but the French military resorted to lies and forgery to uphold his conviction and what they saw as the honour of the French army. But a movement grew up to demand a new trial for Dreyfus, embracing liberals, republicans, socialists and intellectuals, including the great author Emile Zola, whose book J’accuse! led him to being sentenced to jail for criticising the French government. Finally, in 1901, Dreyfus was proven innocent after spending five years in the terrible prison on Devils Island. In December 1906 he was formally pardoned.

The Dreyfus affair has had profound consequences not just for France but for the world. Among those who were deeply shocked to see an outbreak of such prejudice in civilised, cosmopolitan Paris of the 1890s was the Austrian journalist and the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, who was inspired to write Der JudenstaatThe Jewish State. As Mr Justice Kirby, who made a magisterial address to the opening of the exhibition of the Dreyfus affair at the Jewish Museum in Melbourne on the weekend, said:

In a way the establishment of the state of Israel was an indirect outcome of the affront to justice of the Dreyfus affair.

At the opening of the exhibition last week, a number of original documents were on loan from the Beitler Foundation. The museum used these documents to retell the story of the Dreyfus affair in a contemporary and challenging way for a modern audience. It is open to people now and I urge people to attend. I want to note the generosity of Dr Lorraine Beitler and the Beitler Foundation and the roles played by Helen Light, the Director of the Jewish Museum; the curator, Dr Deborah Rechter; Sandy Benjamin; Margot Joseph; and all the staff of the museum in mounting this very important exhibition in remembering this very important historical event.

The keynote speaker at the opening of the exhibition last Sunday was Justice Kirby of the High Court of Australia. As we have come to expect, he delivered an address of great eloquence, erudition, historical insight, moral force and contemporary relevance. I am happy to acknowledge the force of his arguments even though I do not agree with everything he had to say. Justice Kirby is one of the most distinguished jurists and profound thinkers this country has produced in recent decades, which makes the attack on him in this parliament a few years ago all the more despicable. Through his generosity of character in forgiving the person who made this attack, he made his moral standing all the more clear.

As I said, in his profound address 100 years after the exoneration of Dreyfus, Justice Kirby spoke with great feeling about the lessons for our time of the Dreyfus affair. As a lawyer, Michael Kirby mentioned vigilance against miscarriages of justice, hostility towards military tribunals and secret trials, and protection for whistleblowers and other people of conscience. In the sphere of politics, Justice Kirby identified the importance of the separation of religion and state and the need for institutional reforms. In fact, he said that in an important effect on France, in the aftermath of the vindication of Alfred Dreyfus’s appeal by the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, a law was enacted in the French legislature clearly establishing the separation of church and state.

Justice Kirby also pointed out that the prejudice of people who defended the so-called patriotism of the French army in the Dreyfus affair was later to flourish and spawn the extremist politicians and officials who participated in the infamous Vichy period of French history. But his most important point was both political and personal: the lessons of the Dreyfus affair for our attitudes to and treatment of stigmatised minorities. Dreyfus was a victim of anti-Semitism; Justice Kirby was a victim of homophobia—here in this parliament and under parliamentary privilege. Justice Kirby mentioned the case of Max Stewart, the Indigenous Australian man falsely accused of rape in the 1950s and acquitted after a long campaign to have his case reviewed.

In other countries, minorities and political dissidents are persecuted. I represent an electorate which has a variety of people of different backgrounds. It has one of Australia’s largest Jewish communities and a large gay and lesbian community. The two communities do not necessarily cross paths, except when people happen to belong to both. Yet they have a lot in common in that they need to be vigilant against prejudice, hatred, vilification and even personal attack. The Dreyfus affair was a sordid story but it ultimately had a happy ending. It was only a prelude to the climax of European anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, which ended in the death of millions. The lessons are clear. Vigilance against hatred and prejudice and action within the law against those who propagate hatred are still necessary if worse evils are to be avoided. Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to table a copy of Mr Justice Kirby’s address to the Jewish Museum in Melbourne on 26 March entitled ‘The Dreyfus case a century on—10 lessons for Australia’.

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