This episode is also available as a blog post: http://sportz.blog/2021/09/14/this/
Recently, there has been a spate of posts on social media that those involved in the calling for an EGM will destabilize the club. The vitriol directed at those pushing for this borders on a lack of understanding and hypocrisy, really.
The definition of the word destabilize is to upset the stability of a region or system, to cause unrest. For this word to be legitimately applied to the EGM at Carlton is to assume that the club was a stable environment in the first place. We know, given what has transpired this season, that the club was anything but stable.
Yet those on social media who are against the EGM have stated that the call for this special meeting has caused a destabilization of the club, especially since the new President, Luke Sayers, has called on its members and supporters to get behind what is now taking place in the restructuring of the club when the governing Board have been instrumental in destabilizing the club. A club that was already destabilized.
According to Luke Sayers in one of his press conferences, he said that those involved in the EGM have the right to do that, as we live in a democracy. If we live in a democracy, isn’t this the right of the members of that democracy to question and protest? If those spouting destabilization argue the right to question and protest, does that not apply to those who simply disagree?
In a democratic country, people, the members of that society, have a right to have a point of view that may not align with that of the governing body.
It happens when a union movement protests in the streets about their members work rights. It happens when a group of people protest about the treatment of others. This is what happens in a democracy. Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that ‘the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.’ It is the members of a democracy that has the right, every right, to say they disagree, and it is the right of members to say they don’t. But it is the concept of democracy to allow those voices to be heard and listened to. It does not mean that democracy is a destabilizing force. It means that it is the people, the members exercising their right to, well, disagree.
Carlton has been in 2021 a club that is not in any way, shape or form, stable. To lay the blame on a group of people exercising their rights in a democracy (as Sayers has stated) is well petty and ignorant. You may disagree, but to go down the path of name-calling and use swear words, is saying that, sure, we live in a democracy, but this right does not belong to you. It doesn’t belong to you because, well, you are not aligned with our way of thinking.
The EGM did not cause any destabilization at the club; it was there all the time and has been for a long time. To say that those involved in the EGM should blindly go along with what is happening at the club without questioning it or allowing the club members to question it means that, again, nothing has changed at all. Abraham Lincoln stated that ‘democracy is government of, by and for the people.’ Then isn’t the EGM a democratic right of those members who disagree with what is happening at the club? It doesn’t destabilize the club since the destabilization was there already.
Those on social media who profess to see the glories in what Luke Sayers has done for the club and do so without question should look deeper than how their egos are being stroked.
Look and research more about how Carlton has got to where it is now. Look and research the ‘six degrees of separation of those on the Board. Shannon L. Adler, an author on relationships, stated that ‘most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask – what else could this mean?
Instead of posting ridicule, name-calling, and misinformed social media posts, try looking at what else the EGM could mean for its members. Ask what is it that you are afraid of if this EGM proceeds and becomes successful? What is it that you are worried about if the members exercising their democratic right as stakeholders in the Carlton FC vote in a way that sees the current Board taken down? Will that cause destabilization, or will it be just a matter of the democratic rights of the members exercising their right to disagree with what is happening at the club? Is this not our club that belongs to the members? Can we not state that we disagree without it being called destabilization? Must all members, irrespective of where they stand, have to conform and fall into line with those who are afraid that what they are pursuing could possibly be wrong? Are they then worried that they could be removed from where they are because of the democratic right of Carlton’s members are saying, enough and the Board is wrong?
A Belgium painter and author wrote that ‘now is the moment, and the now is the stepping stone that allows us to forge ahead, with abundance of awareness and understanding, without obtrusive egos.’ There are many ‘obtrusive egos’ who believe that those members who favor the EGM are destabilizing the club when it could be themselves and their need to push an agenda that follows the same pattern that has been followed for the past twenty years.
It is every member’s right to disagree with what is happening now as being the same process and in-house self-interest that has plagued the club for too long. It is every member’s right to have a say in how the club is governed and run. You can disagree with the EGM, or you can agree. Either way, there is no destabilization that wasn’t already there in the first place and seems to be still there now.
Members have the right to question, to disagree without petty, disrespectful name-calling social media posts. It is not destabilizing, but completely democratic. Time for the club to recognize and accept that the club belongs to the members, not the Board, and the members want to be heard. All of them!
#GO BLUES!
SPORTZ 