---
title: '''The enemy listens. Your words are his weapons.'' (Australian careless-talk poster)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-enemy-listens-your-words-are-his-weapons-australia-1942/
description: A red-faced, scowling caricature of a Japanese officer in a star-badged cap cups a hand to his ear above a map of Australia, with jagged radio flashes…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Racial caricature of a red-faced Japanese officer. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!['The enemy listens. Your words are his weapons.' (Australian careless-talk poster)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/the-enemy-listens-your-words-are-his-weapons-australia-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/the-enemy-listens-your-words-are-his-weapons-australia-1942.jpg)

# 'The enemy listens. Your words are his weapons.' (Australian careless-talk poster)

A red-faced, scowling caricature of a Japanese officer in a star-badged cap cups a hand to his ear above a map of Australia, with jagged radio flashes running from the map to his ear. 'YOUR WORDS ARE HIS WEAPONS' converts gossip into ammunition for a drawn enemy listener.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
THE
ENEMY
LISTENS
YOUR WORDS
ARE
HIS WEAPONS
DONATED BY J & W ROSS IN THE INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
INT. 20
[roundel] IF YOU WISH TO HOLD AUSTRALIA HOLD YOUR TONGUE
[signature: BIZ]
```

The roundel text and the artist's signature at upper right are small and read approximately. The caption bar 'AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL' and the accession number are the museum's.

[← 'The Spearhead reaches SOUTH - ALWAYS SOUTH!' (Curtin leaflet)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/spearhead-reaches-south-curtin-leaflet-1942/) ['Daitōa kizuku chikara da, kono ippyō' (This one vote is the power that builds Greater East Asia) election poster →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/this-ballot-greater-east-asia-election-poster-1942/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (Qing China · 1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (United Kingdom · Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)