Uh… John…? Where are we heading?
After seeing a contemporary dance piece last week, based around the stories from people who lived through the war in Bosnia, I was part of a conversation with the director and someone who had come from the same area the story-tellers were from. One of the things that the piece was wanting to explore was asking how it had happened... how had normal human beings been drawn into such a mash of factions warring against each other - with different alliances between the factions depending on which villiage you were in.
There wasn't a single definitive answer to the question but some of the factors that were brought up drew some parallels in Australian society with the conservative government. It's something incremental that people don't notice through any individual piece of change that happens but if you step back and look at the bigger picture, you can see the trend and add things together. Such as all this going on about Australian "Values" and the suggestion to require anyone who enters the country to undertake an oath to live by and defend these self same 'values'.
Here's a piece of commentary from a former County Court judge from last Saturday's Age:
Nothing concrete in PM's 'values'
By Peter Gebhardt
September 23, 2006Australian rules football has been an evolving game and sometimes the evolution offends those who look for certainty. The pursuit of certainty is an understandable, but hopeless, chase.
It is in the context of the pursuit of certainty that the current debate - or debacle - about Australian "values" has arisen. I had a good friend, a valued theologian, who used to shudder when people resorted to "values". He would, were he alive today, be shuddering in a convulsive way. Of course, the current Prime Minister and, latterly, the Opposition Leader, have sought to capture the populist imagination, limited as it is, by trying to codify the values in a way that will satisfy the fears, prejudices and intolerances that the electorate has been fed unashamedly for the past decade. First, you create insecurities. Then you feed them to such a point that reason is displaced by unwarranted irrationality. And only this week Andrew Robb said that the Australian value-based regime is designed to give the community a sense of security. "In a sense we have become more tribal as we have become more global."
Last week, I saw The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the film about the Irish civil war over which the English right-wing press was apoplectic and director Ken Loach was deemed unworthy to be a citizen of England. What the film does demonstrate is the need to keep alive the historical memory and imagination so we are not driven into a kind of present-centred amnesia where we have forgotten what our pasts were about and how, like Australian rules, there is a continuum of change.
Respect for dissent used to be appreciated, now it is usurped by sedition, mostly practised by "the chattering classes" and "the cultural elites", whoever or whatever they may be.
It is the absence of conversation that is most destructive of the present. The philosopher Michael Oakeshott (and he's no soft leftie) in a marvellous essay, The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, says: "As civilised human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves."
What he says is that there is a multiplicity of voices and they all need to be heard, to be a part of the public discourse.
"Multiculturalism" was an unfortunate linguistic appellation to use to reflect what was a growing concept to demonstrate that, after the end of the White Australia policy and the demise of the language test, we were able to accommodate a stream of migrants to help us build our society and to enrich the diversity of it. Consider eating.
I live in an area where many Greeks came. Many of them still do not speak English, but who would ever begrudge their contribution to the expanding nature of our society? Do we forget our name-calling of and our attitudes to wogs? Reliance upon "mateship" and "a fair go" is a brutal contradiction of the spiritual and democratic underpinning of those now beleaguered and battered war cries, mantras.
Respect for the law, respect for diversity and variety, respect for divergent views, respect for the environment and the future we bequeath, and respect for the rights and responsibilities citizen-to-citizen - the mutuality of relationships: none of these is the breeding ground of dull conformity as now would be imposed upon us in a none-too-subtle form of slavery.
If governments pre-eminently espouse policies and practices that appeal to the baser motives - greed, fear and prejudice - then there can be no doubt that the engendered outcomes will lead to civil disengagement and the growth of self-centred and aggressive individualism which cuts neighbour off from neighbour. Trust is usurped by distrust, love by hate.
I can understand that individuals may have moral or immoral dispositions, they may hold to certain beliefs. How a "country" can have "values" is beyond my comprehension and I suspect it is a jingoistic and/or xenophobic nonsense. We are told about "the American way of life" but, having lived there for three years of my adult life, neither I nor any American I met understood anything of the abstraction.
In an address to the National Press Club in January this year, the Prime Minister talked of social cohesion, which in my view cannot exist if there is no reciprocity. He also said: "A sense of shared values is our social cement." Pretty fluid sort of cement, where lying is now part of its make-up and, worse, that it is lying that doesn't worry anyone. So much for witnesses of truth!
Peter Gebhardt is a writer and former County Court judge.
I get the feeling that our politicians see a certain political expediency, at this moment, in being just a little racist to pick up what I guess is a big enough slab of the electorate to make a difference. The sad thing is they may be right and the sadder thing is what that says about our society.
Are you listening to any of this John?
Here's another thing from The Age. Some of these things are important and it's a pity that the searchable archive on the paper's site only runs to 8 days.
Learning the difficult lessons of global warming
By Tracee Hutchison
September 23, 2006The inconvenient truth just isn't cricket . . .
Hello, class. Today we have a special guest coming to show us a very important film. But before we meet him, let's go over last night's homework. Howard! Macfarlane! Put down your Biggles books, and eyes to the front. Johnny, can you come up to the blackboard and spell carbon-neutral please?
Sorry, Miss, I had cricket practice. I can't spell it.
Seems like an early start to the season. Do you have a note from your parents?
Well, they said they'd never heard of carbo-nuisance. And they think what you teach isn't factual, and I've got a better future as a spinner, anyway.
That's disappointing, Johnny. There was a whole section about the school's carbon-neutral ambitions in last month's parent-teacher newsletter, after we all got inspired by the Melbourne City Council's new ecologically sustainable green building. Carbon-neutral is the new black. Everyone's talking about it. That's why we're having the tree-planting day. Aren't they coming?
I'm not sure, Miss. I think Mum has carbo-ambitions, but I thought it was about Tim Tams. But she likes black. She says it makes her look thinner.
That's a different concept, Johnny. What about you, Ian? Can you spell carbon-neutral?
No, Miss. I was at cricket too.
What about geothermal?
Is that like geo-sequestration? I think our dog had that when he was a puppy.
No, Ian, that's a different concept again. How about global warming? Will either of you tackle that?
I'll have a go at the first part, Miss. G.L.O.W.B.A.L.L
No, Ian, that's actually a concept related to the factual question.
I don't understand, Miss.
Well, it's about the shape of the Earth, Ian, and it's round, just like a cricket ball. And the early start to the hot weather might be great for a snarling pitch at the Boxing Day Test, but the groundsmen will be watering with recycled sewage because it doesn't rain enough anymore.
What! You're lying to us again, Miss! No one in their right mind would think of putting recycled wee and poo on the 'G. It's sacrilege. I'm going home to tell Mum on you.
Johnny, please, sit down. Our guest will be here soon. This is what we call a big-picture discussion. It's very exciting and it's all about your future. Its about changing the way we think about power and energy sources and water, and taking control of how much we use and when. And it's a scary thought because some governments like to keep all the power themselves, but this is about everyone being responsible for our future by starting with the little things, even if they seem inconvenient.
My Dad says we don't do things by halves in our family.
Well, little things make a difference over time, John. Little things, such as changing the flow-control on our taps and choosing renewable energy sources from the electricity company. It's about having rainwater tanks on all our buildings and grey-water reticulation and solar panels like the ones the school is saving for from our annual snowball drive.
I hate snowballs.
Ian, please, snowballs are important! And many of them are disappearing faster than we can make them. And if the ones at the bottom and the top of the world keep disappearing at the current rate, then the famous pitch in Galle will be completely underwater before Murali's kids are old enough to play.
That could be good for the game, Miss.
That's not very sporting, Johnny. Of course it's not good for the game. The pitch at Galle is part of cricket heritage and it's only just recovering from the tsunami. But let's talk more about it after we've watched the movie.
Class, can you bring your permission slips to see the film up the front? Ian? Johnny? Do you have your permission slips?
No, Miss. Our parents don't want us to see that film. They said it's just misleading entertainment and it says bad things about our Uncle George in America.
But really important Americans like the Murdochs, and even the Terminator, are on board with carbon-neutral. Have your parents seen the film?
No, Miss. They said that the guy who made it is a loser. And that he is just inventing stuff to make us scared.
What kind of stuff?
That one day the world will get so hot it will turn into an ice block and there wont be any central heating. Besides, Mum says people who talk about the weather are boring.
Well, it might be boring now, John, but wait until it's too hot for cricket and the players want to call off the Ashes.
No! Stop! Youre lying again! I'm really telling on you now. Nothing will stop the cricket on Boxing Day. Nothing! N !
Tracee Hutchison is a Melbourne writer and broadcaster.
In the words of another thinker
I've shown my respect for Richard Neville previously in another post.
Here's something from today's Age. If you're in Melbourne and you read the Herald-Sun, you really should give it a try.
Poor, poor pitiful Oz
By Richard Neville
September 23, 2006When the Prime Minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsany, was caught telling the truth to his party about the lies he had told the electorate, and how he had "screwed up", citizens with flowers and the odd Molotov cocktail rushed to Parliament and state TV. When John Howard was caught lying about refugees who "threw their children overboard", he was voted back into office.
Gyurcsany admitted that "f---ing Hungary" had only managed to keep its economy afloat thanks to good luck, an "abundance of cash in the economy and hundreds of tricks", which pretty much coincides with what the former governor of the Reserve Bank stated about our Government's fiscal management. But the Prime Minister is still top of the pops.
It is said that a leader who thinks of the next election is a politician, but a leader who thinks of the next generation is a statesman. By that criterion, it is no mystery where history will place John Howard. The key threats facing Australia today, including environmental degradation, the rise of militarism and the decline of free speech, are rooted in a decade of toxic federal governance. Instead of storming TV, the views of voters are shaped by it and the shock-jocks.
Once we were larrikins with a taste of defiance; now we are lapdogs with a thirst for conformity. On the matter of values, John Howard and Kim Beazley are joined at the hip. In Oz 2006, to be a "civil libertarian" is to invite abuse, while to dismiss human rights as "no longer sacrosanct", or to deny inconvenient facts about global warming or indigenous history, is to attract government patronage. Once we had bush poets, mocking the pompous; now we have scribblers, licking the hands of their feeders.
Puffed-up politicians on both sides of the House seek from new arrivals a pledge of citizenship that endorses "Australian values" at a time when our values are tangled in a global tumble-dryer. That a government should demand such endorsement is itself a violation of a core Australian value - the freedom to think what we please. To think, for example, that numerous values exemplified by our Prime Minister are crap. Like truth avoidance, flag fetishism, excessive secrecy, anti-intellectualism, witch-hunting the whistleblowers, appeasement of George Bush, boasting about this country's generosity, whitewashing black history, bribing Saddam Hussein to buy our wheat then bombing his people, toleration of US torture and its treatment of David Hicks, to name a few.
The stature of Australia has not only been diminished in the eyes of the world, but this country now faces a future laced with nasty shocks. By branding the intelligentsia as a loudmouth latte-slurping "elite", and turning a deaf ear to the findings of scientists, Howard finds himself surprised by the arrival of climate change. Despite over a decade of warnings, this country is woefully unprepared. Leaders of developing nations are becoming enraged by our indifference to the impact of emissions on their citizens. A statesman would recognise that the fate of the earth is a shared responsibility, but we have turned our backs on potential climate refugees from waterlogged Tuvalu. Isn't it about time John Howard was asked to sign a pledge of global citizenship?
Callous obstinacy was also on display in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, where propaganda was put above truth. The jolly hordes of peaceful protesters in Sydney and Melbourne were branded a "mob", and those who tried to alert the nation to the manipulations of intelligence and the subsequent outbreaks of torture were gagged or slandered. The result is continuing carnage, with the fingerprints of our leaders on the corpses. In the "war on terror", Australia's fair-go reputation was traded for "future security" and a White House banquet.
Unaccompanied child refugees from war zones are denied basic rights by the Department of Immigration, itself a hotbed of black values, including the silencing of the right to be heard. The horrors are documented in the study Seeking Asylum Alone, by Mary Crock, who has concluded that in comparison with other advanced nations, Australia's capacity to mistreat children stands out "like a sore thumb". Seven escapees from the Burmese dictatorship have been dumped on the isle of Nauru. Is cruelty an Australian value?
Freedom of information has been re-constituted into a new value, the freedom from information. Any document with the potential of "embarrassing" the Government is quarantined from public scrutiny. Academic Johan Lidberg compared the effectiveness of our Freedom of Information Act with the ones operating in Sweden, America, South Africa and Thailand, and found that ours was the worst, having "deteriorated into dysfunctionality". When Flinders University sociologist Riaz Hassan was awarded a grant to study the incubation of suicide bombers, he planned to enrich his research by interviewing leaders of terror groups. Hassan dropped the idea when Attorney-General Philip Ruddock threatened legal consequences. Not content with extinguishing habeas corpus and shrinking civil liberties, Ruddock plans to curb the excesses of Big Brother; that is, the TV show, not the excesses of his own office.
There was a time when Aussies scorned officialdom. The boys from the farms and the factories who swarmed to the front line in the First World War, including those who landed at Gallipoli, were renowned for their disregard of red tape and for pricking the pomp of superiors. Rebellion was in their genes. In the camps on the outskirts of Australian cities, and during their journey to the other side of the world, the diggers were irreverent as well as brave.
The huge anti-war moratoriums of the Vietnam era also displayed a sharp defiance for delusions of big-wigs, the like of which has failed to be re-ignited, despite the provocations of today's smug autocrats. Perhaps the penny will eventually drop. Sport and shopping cannot keep this country under sedation forever.
The first cause of today's global terror mess is a matter of opinion. Some are using the "Muslim riots" to ramp up support for yet another war against what George Bush this week told the UN are "the enemies of humanity". (The war against germs?)
It is true that Muslims have carried out numerous acts of terror in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and, most prominently, the United States. It is also true that Christian states have bombed untold thousands of Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan (even some in Pakistan), as well as condoning the ravaging of Lebanon and supplying Israel with illegal weapons.
How would you feel if "over a million cluster bombs" had been fired into your city? Since the end of June, more than 37 children in Gaza have been killed in operations mounted by Israel. In short, the wild reaction to the Pope's theological musings was not just about the Pope.
Meanwhile, the neo-cons backtrack though history to prove that "Islamic terror" long pre-dated September 11, 2001, so you're not allowed to blame the pre-emptive strike on Iraq for destabilising the world. Muslim mayhem actually "began in Iran 1979 with the revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini", according to an editorial in The Australian, slyly stoking the fire for a future invasion, and implying that the populist cleric had leapt out of Aladdin's lamp.
In fact, the "revolution" was pre-ordained in 1953, after the CIA ousted the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, for his un-American aspiration to nationalise oil. Washington installed a puppet dictator, the Shah of Iran, who founded the feared secret police, SAVAK, while his wife hosted lavish international film festivals, flying in Hollywood celebrities to speak well of tyranny. By imposing the shah on the Persians for all those years, the West must surely accept some responsibility for the rebirth of radical Islam and all that's followed.
"Both the right and the left cultivate a politics of fear," writes, Kevin Clements, a Brisbane-based professor of peace and conflict studies, "where citizens are infantilised and we have become both politically and socially paralysed."
Today's TV politics is unable to provide perspective, history, meaning or foresight. For that, you need a statesman.
The world is heating up, both climactically and militarily, and yet those leaders who are most responsible for underplaying global warming and overplaying the response to 9/11 are the least likely to look in the mirror and tell the truth - either to the voters or themselves.
While some pro-war enthusiasts have admitted their blunder, those politicians who led the charge seem incapable of facing the truth. To do so, would be to accept that their actions have multiplied the instances of worldwide terror and so contributed to many thousands of civilian deaths and maimings.
Perhaps this country's mad, authoritarian lurch to the right is an unconscious attempt by those at the top to suppress their inner shame. To distract themselves with propaganda, brass bands, tall stories of war-zone reconstruction, terror laws, show trials, fear-mongering and boasting. Having lit the match, they are surrounded by fire, and are desperately seeking scapegoats. Is it beyond their capacity to accept that they might be the arsonists?
Richard Neville is a social commentator and futurist.
Respect.