This is democracy manifest, as Karlson immortalized it in what has been called Australia’s most iconic meme.
Jack Karlson, the man credited with immortalizing the phrase “this is democracy manifest” and starring in what has been called Australia’s most iconic meme, passed away at the age of 82.
Karlson was a serial prison escaper and small-time criminal who gained notoriety in 2009 after a news clip of his 1991 arrest at a Chinese restaurant in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley was posted online, though there are disagreements regarding whether this was his true name or just one of many aliases.
What’s the fee? Consuming food? A delicious Chinese dinner? Karlson’s bear-like frame bucked and he fought off several police officers with a theatrical boom.
On the social media platform X, Chris Reason, a journalist for Channel Seven who first reported on Karlson’s arrest 33 years prior, honored Karlson with a tweet stating, “Mr Democracy Manifest has died.”
At 6:31 p.m. on Wednesday, Karlson passed away surrounded by his family.
His family released a statement saying, “He walked a full and colorful path and, despite the troubles thrown at him, he lived by his motto – to keep on laughing.”
Karlson “had a few attempts to escape and pulled his cords out a couple of times and asked us many times to sneak in his pipe,” according to his niece Kim Edwards, who said that Karlson spent the final few weeks of his life in the hospital.
According to Edwards, her uncle was “battling many ailments, but systemic inflammatory response syndrome ultimately proved to be the fatal factor.”
“We gave uncle a last sip of red wine through his drip right before it was removed as a final send off,” she remarked.
The day following his 82nd birthday, Karlson passed away. Or, in any case, it was the most recent birthdate he gave documentary filmmaker Heath Davis, who is documenting Karlson’s life, a film.
“This is the authentic one,” declared Davis. “Or so I’ve been told.”
In the final years of his life, Davis claimed to have discovered the most recent alias Karlson, which he believes to be Cecil George Edwards. And Davis stated it was not Jack Karlson, even though he is not allowed to say so at this time.
“Let’s just say ‘John,'” commented Davis.
The director anticipates “huge amounts” of additional information to come to light regarding Karlson’s life, information that goes beyond names and dates. Karlson’s jail escapes are rumored to have included jumping from a moving train, swimming off a prison island, and picking the lock that cuffed him to a sleeping officer before being rescued by a kind fisherman. These stories had already been unearthed by him and other authors, including Mark Dapin.
Karlson’s life, however, was anything but a joke. His early years were spent in facilities that were rife with sexual predators and bullies. He also served a variety of terms in some of Australia’s most infamous prisons, including time spent as a teenager in the medieval-style “Black Peter” solitary confinement of Boggo Road jail.
According to Davis, “a normal person who experienced his life would have died years ago.”
However, Jack’s boundless enthusiasm for life left you thinking, “This guy is made of mercury; he might just live forever.”
Stoll Watt, a senior sergeant in the Special Weapons and Operations Squad at the time, who was driving through the Valley on the now-famous day in 1991 when the call for assistance in an arrest came through, was one of the former enemies and friends that Karlson reunited with during the production of Davis’ documentary.
Watt claimed there are numerous accounts of what happened that day; his version is covered in a book that has not yet been released. Watt does not, however, dispute Karlson’s charisma.
Watt claimed that despite being a natural showman, the man was also a trained actor who had picked up that skill while incarcerated. “He had to be a very confident showman and a little bit of a conman to bluff his way out of a Sydney court, saying he was a detective.”
One of Karlson’s shortcomings, according to Watt, was the now-famous remark he made when being arrested: “Get your hands off my penis!”
“What happened was that I was helping him leave the restaurant when he tripped a little bit. I grabbed his thigh with my hand to help him get up,” Watt explained. He claimed that I seized him by ‘the thing’ – but I was nowhere near it.”
Despite this, Watt has no ill will toward Karlson and relished the opportunity to see him again at Karlson’s hideout close to Esk in the southeast Queensland mountains last year.
Watt recalled, “He told me that I was the only copper he never hated.” “Come up and spend the night with me and we’ll have a few,” he said, referring to it as “the juice of the red grapes.” He also called me “comrade.”
According to Watt, Karlson was “a very good wordsmith,” and if he had been able to trademark the terms he coined that are now part of the Australian lexicon, the man he once arrested would have become a millionaire.
Nonetheless, Jack Karlson, Cecil George Edwards, or John X, will live on in history thanks to these words. Although Davis acknowledged that his film’s subject was, for all his faults, hardly a tech-savvy man, he was, perhaps, unaware of his online celebrity for a considerable amount of time.
Davis remarked, “He is folklore and doesn’t even know it.”
