Numerous issues swirl around my mind as I consider the Brogden suicide attempt. For those not in the know, he's the NSW opposition leader who resigned following journalistic accounts of racist statements and sexual harrassment and subsequently attempted suicide. As with most events of any importance, it is not easy to consider and to balance these issues.
Firstly, let me say this is a personal tragedy, and I don't minimise that. I've recently come to better recognise the nature of personal tragedies, and I don't trivialise them. But we still need to consider this in a socio-policitical context.
Was he up to the job? He seems to have buckled pretty quickly in the end. But I don't hold any weakness against him - it's just an element in this personal tragedy. More pertinently, should that be a reason to limit his role in politics? It's probably reason enough to question his suitability for the role of NSW premier.
Factionalism in the Liberal Party. At his resignation, Brogden named a party hack (as I understand, of the right) who needed to think hard about his actions in this case. The suggestion is that it's another hatchet job by the right of the Liberal Party. It seems that both NSW Labor and Liberal rights play by the same rules, and they play hard both within and outside the party.
Role of the media 1. Crickey.com.au raised this issue. Why did it take 4 weeks or so for news on this to leak out. Apparently it was an open secret around town, and there were numerous journalists in attendance. I think the function was private, but not under Chatham House rules. Were the media giving politicians leeway on personal issues? Media has been good in Australia is not outing politicians' personal lives unless they could affect his/her political role or display some hypocrisy. But you could argue that Brogden's performance has bearing on a possible future role as NSW premier.
Role of the media 2. Brogden attempted suicide when he learnt that the Daily Telegraph was to publish accusations about other sexual peccadilloes in his past. Apparently these are just unsubstantiated accusations. In my paranoid moments, I could see a connection between the Murdoch media putting the boot into a moderate Liberal leader and likely premier, and thus assisting the Right to get its representative in place. Most likely, this is just my paranoia ... I hope.
Political Correctness and the Right. What strage and successful bedfellows they are! The Right just wins and wins with PC. They attack the elites for promoting PC. Then they use PC to destroy a moderate collaborator. No doubt, Brogden allowed this to happen. But it appears a Right-wing (and presumably anti-PC) Party apparatchik used issues of sexual and race morality to undermine an opponent.
Depression and suicide 1. Suicide now kills more Australians than road accidents. Compare the silence on suicide and depression with the clamour on the road toll or terrorism or paedophilia. There's lots of emotion and lots of fear created by these latter topics. And emotion and fear are tools for political power. They promote simplistic moral judgements in society - us-or-them - and this is dangerous. Yes, road deaths and terrorism and paedophilia are unwanted things. But, looking at it statistically, suicide kills more Australians but it's a minor political issue. Where's our balance?
Depression and suicide 2. It amuses me how politicians are hugely sympathetic when one of their own attempts suicide. I remember a case in the Commonwealth Senate a few years ago which created a huge outpouring of grief. To some degree this is just a normal human reaction to a tragic event, and I'm relieved they remain able to experience that feeling. I doubt Stalin or Hitler or Mao would have. But politicians make economic and other decisions every day which affect society. Many decisions lead to grief and despair and depression and perhaps suicide. If politicans are representing all of us, how come there's such a diverse reaction? This displays humanity, yes, but also distance from the electorate.
Depression and suicide 3. What does the level of suicide in Australia, and the developed world, say about our societies? This is the biggie, and I have my opinions. But it's the issue underlying our whole politics but it's too big for now.
31 August 2005
So who’s the real elite?
Here's my response to a column in The Australian newspaper in February this year. It wasn't published, but I'll present it here anyway.
Let’s cease sham and name calling. Neal Brown ([The Australian] Aunty won’t be pleased, 25/2, p.15) ridicules others as café latte-drinking intelligentsia: other words for the conservatives’ bete-noir “the elites”. I reckon that an ex-Federal minister and QC, with a column in the Australian, is likely to be the real elite.
Winners seldom question themselves. But honesty, truth and rationality underlie democracy. Labor was not pure, but conservatives threaten democracy itself. “Relaxed and comfortable” is not a manifesto for an engaged citizenship; it’s a recipe for autocracy or worse.
Let’s cease sham and name calling. Neal Brown ([The Australian] Aunty won’t be pleased, 25/2, p.15) ridicules others as café latte-drinking intelligentsia: other words for the conservatives’ bete-noir “the elites”. I reckon that an ex-Federal minister and QC, with a column in the Australian, is likely to be the real elite.
Winners seldom question themselves. But honesty, truth and rationality underlie democracy. Labor was not pure, but conservatives threaten democracy itself. “Relaxed and comfortable” is not a manifesto for an engaged citizenship; it’s a recipe for autocracy or worse.
17 August 2005
Canberra Veteran has his say
Robin Gollan is an Emeritus Professor of History at the ANU. His recent letter to the Canberra Times (Sat 13 Aug 2005) has caused considerable interest. As a veteran, he apologies to a mate who died in his place during WWII, for the current state of Australia. Alan Ramsay picked it up for the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.
A few days ago, like thousands of other old men and women, I received a shiny medallion and a letter signed by John Howard and De-Anne Kelly. They thanked me for my part in protecting 'the Australian way of life in times of conflict' and for helping to build 'our community in times of peace'. It made me think of Ivan Barber, a West Australian wheat farmer who substituted for me on an operation, so I could take a few days' leave, and who died in my place.
I wondered what he and the more than 40,000 men and boys who died defending our country in World War II would feel about John Howard's Australia. Certainly most people are materially better off. We have shared in the bounty of the one-fifth of the world which has become rich. But we have become a country governed by lies and fear.
John Howard has surrendered the self-reliance, for which we fought, to curry favour with the most dangerous military power in history. He has stoked the fear of terrorists who may target us because of his fawning subservience to US President George Bush. He boasts he stands for mateship and egalitarianism at the same time he attempts, by his industrial relations 'reforms', to destroy the institutions on which those qualities have been nurtured.
The chief law officer [Philip Ruddock] seems not to understand the principles of the rule of law and calls those who do 'armchair critics'. He and Howard undermine the very principles of democracy in the name of defending them. The Foreign Minister rails against those who don't accept his opinion as fools. He supports his stand by some weird interpretations of history.
Yes. We would not have survived without the American alliance. But the Americans I served with believed, correctly, we were defending a great democracy. Today the alliance, for which Howard and his coterie are prepared to sell our soul, is a militaristic plutocracy.
I'm sorry, Ivan.
Robin Gollan, Scullin, ACT
Beautifully and powerfully said. I hope Prof Gollan will accept my publication of his letter on aginspin. He says this for many of us who despair of the state of government and politics in Australia these days.
See Alan Ramsay's article on the SMH site while it lasts - http://digbig.com/4egfs
A few days ago, like thousands of other old men and women, I received a shiny medallion and a letter signed by John Howard and De-Anne Kelly. They thanked me for my part in protecting 'the Australian way of life in times of conflict' and for helping to build 'our community in times of peace'. It made me think of Ivan Barber, a West Australian wheat farmer who substituted for me on an operation, so I could take a few days' leave, and who died in my place.
I wondered what he and the more than 40,000 men and boys who died defending our country in World War II would feel about John Howard's Australia. Certainly most people are materially better off. We have shared in the bounty of the one-fifth of the world which has become rich. But we have become a country governed by lies and fear.
John Howard has surrendered the self-reliance, for which we fought, to curry favour with the most dangerous military power in history. He has stoked the fear of terrorists who may target us because of his fawning subservience to US President George Bush. He boasts he stands for mateship and egalitarianism at the same time he attempts, by his industrial relations 'reforms', to destroy the institutions on which those qualities have been nurtured.
The chief law officer [Philip Ruddock] seems not to understand the principles of the rule of law and calls those who do 'armchair critics'. He and Howard undermine the very principles of democracy in the name of defending them. The Foreign Minister rails against those who don't accept his opinion as fools. He supports his stand by some weird interpretations of history.
Yes. We would not have survived without the American alliance. But the Americans I served with believed, correctly, we were defending a great democracy. Today the alliance, for which Howard and his coterie are prepared to sell our soul, is a militaristic plutocracy.
I'm sorry, Ivan.
Robin Gollan, Scullin, ACT
Beautifully and powerfully said. I hope Prof Gollan will accept my publication of his letter on aginspin. He says this for many of us who despair of the state of government and politics in Australia these days.
See Alan Ramsay's article on the SMH site while it lasts - http://digbig.com/4egfs
03 August 2005
Un-Australian behaviour
Someone who damns one or more others as “Un-Australian” is as trustworthy as the person who says “Trust me”. A person who unconsciously recognises his/her own deceits is drawn to deny them. It should be a truism of psychology. So we hear “It’s not that I’m racist, but …” or similar. It’s such an obvious give-away. "Un-Australian" seems to serve the same purpose. And I doubt "Un-Australian" is even Australian! I suppose it’s cloned from the US phrase “Un-American” as in "House Committee on Un-American Activities”, ie, the Macarthyist campaign during the Cold War. Perhaps there was an earlier history than that, but I doubt it’s an Australian history.
Overland did an issue on the theme of "Un-Australian" behaviour. Here are some telling quotes from the editorial:
“The great political achievement of the Howard Government has been to redefine Australia as a monoculture”
“The degree of idealisation [of the Anzac tradition] has only become possible since the original Anzacs, in all their human fallibility, have disappeared from view”.
“Implicitly and explicitly, the concerns and desires of people who do not fit the cultural norm have been presented as selfish, sectarian, divisive or threatening, as though the government-led refusal to acknowledge cultural difference is not political”.
“Even when a deeply paranoid and mean-spirited white Australia is detaining refugees in concentration camps, it is actually us who are under threat; from their ‘moral intimidation’.”
“Ironies abound. These groups most loudly proclaiming who is and isn’t Australian are generally direct offshoots of American organisations and closely follow a political-, economic-, and cultural-campaign model established by the far Right in the US.”
“…if Australians have traditionally understood their culture as being most strongly characterised by antipathy rather than acquiesence to authority, as historians and sociologists generally suggest…”
And on the other hand, “the Australian Left denies and diminishes anti-Jewish violence”.
Un-Australian behaviour [editorial] by Nathan Hollier. In Overland 175, Winter 2004, p. 2-3.
Overland did an issue on the theme of "Un-Australian" behaviour. Here are some telling quotes from the editorial:
“The great political achievement of the Howard Government has been to redefine Australia as a monoculture”
“The degree of idealisation [of the Anzac tradition] has only become possible since the original Anzacs, in all their human fallibility, have disappeared from view”.
“Implicitly and explicitly, the concerns and desires of people who do not fit the cultural norm have been presented as selfish, sectarian, divisive or threatening, as though the government-led refusal to acknowledge cultural difference is not political”.
“Even when a deeply paranoid and mean-spirited white Australia is detaining refugees in concentration camps, it is actually us who are under threat; from their ‘moral intimidation’.”
“Ironies abound. These groups most loudly proclaiming who is and isn’t Australian are generally direct offshoots of American organisations and closely follow a political-, economic-, and cultural-campaign model established by the far Right in the US.”
“…if Australians have traditionally understood their culture as being most strongly characterised by antipathy rather than acquiesence to authority, as historians and sociologists generally suggest…”
And on the other hand, “the Australian Left denies and diminishes anti-Jewish violence”.
Un-Australian behaviour [editorial] by Nathan Hollier. In Overland 175, Winter 2004, p. 2-3.
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