🎧▶️ WATCH or LISTEN to this episode of the 5AM StoryTalk Podcast - VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE AT YOUTUBE or scroll down!
📖 READ this ep by going to the TRANSCRIPT tab that’s located closer to the start of this article. I’ve assigned correct speakers, which will make it an easier - albeit, still imperfect - read if you prefer text.
Be sure to also listen to Sen. Payman’s BONUS EPISODE in which she breaks down a seminal piece of art from her life — Rage Against the Machine’s song “Killing in the Name”. Click here or scroll down.
EPISODE OVERVIEW
Fatima Payman is a former refugee who became one of the youngest senators in the history of the Australian Federal Parliament when she was elected in 2022. Incidentally, this also made her the first hijab-wearing person elected to Parliament.
In the years since, Sen. Payman has gained quite a name for herself, whether through her occasional use of youth slang to make dramatic points about the political disenfranchisement of young voters to her heavily reported conflicts with and ultimate divorce from the Labor Party over its handling of issues related to the war in Palestine.
Whether you agree with her or not, the Senator has an abundance of integrity and, I think, courage. She’s one of those politicians my deeply conservative father, someone who wouldn’t have agreed with her about much, would’ve nevertheless respected because at least he could trust she meant what she said.
Before we get into my conversation with Sen. Payman, it’s important to offer up some context about what’s been happening in Australia beyond the terror attacks you may have read about. Most of what I’m talking about is related to freedom of expression and whose speech is actually protected and how the Labor Party has been going out of its way to silence anyone who says what happened – and is arguably still happening – in Gaza is genocide.
For example, what one might describe as an attempt by the South Australian premier to censor a Palestinian author got the Adelaide Writers Week cancelled.
Meanwhile, the New South Wales premier has been using extraordinary policing powers in the wake of the antisemitic Bondi massacre to silence dissent wherever possible – culminating in a violent, truly horrific crackdown on Sydneysiders this past week who were peacefully assembled to protest the visit of Israel’s president. These cops literally attacked Muslims who were praying in an out-of-the-way corner of the protest.
Listen, I understand Gaza is a controversial subject for some. I understand you might not agree with Sen. Payman and the UN’s own findings that genocide is an acceptable way to describe what happened to tens of thousands Palestinians. But I hope we all can agree that people should have the right to feel and express differently.
The Labor Party – theoretically a Left wing party but, from my perspective, a Centrist Party and increasingly a Center Right Party – seems to have flexible principles when it comes to rights. This is especially true when it comes to the rights of Muslim-Australians. That’s not sitting well with Aussies of all backgrounds right now who are struggling with the idea of prioritizing the rights of one group over another.
Sen. Payman and I spoke before these violent police attacks on protesters, but we did speak shortly after she voted against new hate speech laws that were rushed through Parliament and many worry have further eroded freedom of speech in Australia.
Our conversation weaves through all of this cultural unrest and, by the bonus episode, really takes off as we break down a seminal piece of art from her life, Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” – a song she reveals for the first time helped her decide to walk away from the Labor Party for refusing to recognize Palestine as a state.
By the way, 14 months after Sen. Payman walked away from the Labor Party over Gaza, Labor went ahead and recognized Palestine as a state – a move that in no way felt, you know, hypocritical after playing safe politics for the previous year-plus.
Again, while I don’t expect you to agree with everything the Senator says – in fact, I’d be disappointed if you did and, moreover, I hope you don’t agree with everything I say here either – I do hope you’ll be inspired by her journey from Afghanistan to Australia’s federal government and her commitment to her convictions.
I hope she challenges you and I hope our conversations around art and identity, art’s roll in cultural truth-telling, and, in the bonus episode, the role of art in transformative political change and why so many seek to censor that kind of charged, provocative creativity.
So, let’s do this. Let me introduce you to the Independent Senator from Western Australia…Fatima Payman. Afterward, be sure to check out her bonus episode in which she breaks down a seminal piece of art from his life — Rage Against the Machine’s song “Killing in the Name”!
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