From Magna Carta to Anti-semitism: The Call to Justice for All: Henry Ergas AO скачать в хорошем качестве

From Magna Carta to Anti-semitism: The Call to Justice for All: Henry Ergas AO

Henry Ergas AO is a long-time columnist for The Australian and in recent times his analysis of the rise of anti-semitism has been forensic. It has helped explain this phenomenon and show how deadly it can be to societies like our own that are based on the idea that everyone is entitled to the equal protection by the law. That idea – equal treatment – can be traced all the way back to Magna Carta. And that is what the 2025 Robin Speed Memorial Lecture is all about: From Magna Carta to Anti-semitism – the call for justice for all. The choice between the law, enforced equally to the benefit of all; or the hell of the rule of law for some, insult and intimidation, victimisation and violence for others. As Mr Ergas AO concluded the lecture: “Far from being stable, Kafka suggests, the modern world’s orderliness can collapse at any moment, returning us to the world “Before the Law”, as one of his most famous and austere stories is aptly called. Not only do we always stand “in front” of the law; we always risk being thrown into a life “prior to” the law. And when that happens, all our moorings vanish, leaving us disoriented, helpless, alone. Kafka is not George Orwell: it is not totalitarianism that is in his sights. He is instead the prophet of the injustice that can be wreaked, to devastatingly cruel effect, by and in the modern state, with its claims to be tolerant and law-abiding. It is an injustice that selects its victims because they are easy targets; and that allows the lives of those it spares to proceed with every semblance of normality while crushing the hopes and dreams of those on whom it has turned. That is the risk Kafka saw looming: the façade of legality remaining intact while its substance was first selectively ignored, then eviscerated. And that, on this 800th anniversary both of the reissue of the great charter and of the origins of modern antisemitism, is the risk we face. With it comes a stark choice: a choice between the law, enforced equally to the benefit of all and, as the Bava Metzia tells us, worthy of heaven; or the hell of the rule of law for some, insult and intimidation, victimisation and violence for others. In once again thanking the Rule of Law Institute for inviting me, and you for the kindness of your attention, I can only hope that we have the wisdom, and especially the courage, facing up to that choice demands.” www.ruleoflaw.org.au/commentary/rule-of-law-series/2025-henry-ergas-magna-carta-antisemitism