📩 Part Two: When Silence Is the Strategy
Another edition of The Reckoning Room - Daniel Walton’s Inaction.
In January 2022, I sent this private message to Daniel Walton, then National Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union:
“Hey comrade,
So what the heck is going on with your union up here in Qld.
I’m supporting one of your current employees.
The shit that I am reading is beyond comprehension.
It would be good to connect sooner, not later.
I understand you may be on holidays.
It can wait until you get back.
Enjoy the time away.
In solidarity,
J”
He never replied.
Not then. Not ever.
It’s easy to mistake silence for inaction. But in institutions built on hierarchy, silence is rarely passive. It’s a strategy. A signal. A shield.
When those in power stay quiet, they’re often protecting someone, and it’s rarely you.
They say nothing, and in doing so, they say everything:
We don’t want to know.
We know enough to look away.
You’re not one of us.
That’s the cost of speaking up when you’re outside the inner circle.
When your loyalty is to truth, not to legacy.
When your solidarity extends to the people harmed, not the ones doing the harming.
But here’s what they never counted on:
I am relentless.
Silence might delay justice. It won’t bury it.
And I didn’t come this far to stop now.