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N’s voice was tense; he was scared. He kept apologising for imposing, his heavily accented English and my deafness an unfortunate combination. I had asked him to call me an hour later as I was on a deadline. He told me he couldn’t as he feared for his safety.
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While many commentators have expressed relief that the financial dust has settled after the decision of UK voters to withdraw from the EU, there is reason to think they relax too soon. Certainly in terms of immediate effects the political shockwaves in the UK are catastrophic and any ‘solution’ for either of the main parties is likely to have a medium (and probably longer) term unraveling effect. On the one hand there is a basic loss of trust within each party, and on the other the implicit perspective that held together general political strategy — a shared sense of positive development, of what is a desirable future — has been punctured. The two orientations reinforce each other.
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Was it a mistake? The voice of the people was heard, certainly. What they were saying isn’t quite so clear, and many comments since from Brexit voters suggest that it was the political caste per se, as much at the EU itself, that was the focus of protest. Whether the vote, which has sent shock waves around the world, and particularly in Europe, will have as its outcome some radical political change—which might be the best possible result—only time will tell. Because, surely, this is in part what the vote meant. This is the 60 per cent of the 40/60 society saying they have had enough.
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Where EU leaders have got it wrong is that Brexit is less a crisis for Britain (though it is that), than the latest manifestation of a deep-seated European malady. A sense of the risk of the EU unravelling is alive in the air in Germany and France because the fear is that Brexit has launched a dangerous dynamic of EU disintegration that, if uncontrolled, may, like Brexit itself, prove unstoppable. Perhaps this is something of which David Cameron, but also Boris “Opt-Out” Johnson, are painfully aware.
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What Australia currently lacks is a political party or movement that could bring about a renewal of our nation that is based upon the people whose everyday realities are grounded here. At this stage, such a development needs writers, thinkers, activists and publications to tell the story.
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A major challenge all political parties face is that Indigenous poverty is deeply embedded and structural and will take a long time, innovative policy and major investments to address. The diversity of Indigenous circumstances means that a diversity of approaches will be required, but the major parties are committed to mainstreaming or normalisation options. It is only the Greens that are serious about the recognition of difference and the need for approaches that emphasise social justice.
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What we are witnessing is the (re-)adoption of empty and often unwelcome symbolism as a cover for the failure of practical policies in Indigenous affairs. And this is a direct outcome of what was one of John Howard’s most significant interventions into Indigenous affairs: his bifurcation of the “symbolic” and “practical” aspects of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, and the flow-on of this cleavage into Indigenous affairs policy-making more broadly.
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On Saturday 28th May a peaceful rally, ‘Moreland Says No to Racism’, was successfully held outside the Coburg library. The rally was organised many weeks beforehand; sixty local organisations (including the Moreland Council) endorsed the rally, and publicity was widely distributed. Racist groups from outside Moreland made their intention to disrupt the rally known. In response groups of anti-racists determined to directly confront the racist groups. The resulting brawl captured media coverage of the day almost completely. There was minimal communication between the two groups, and no agreement as to plans for managing the events of the day. We have written the post below to highlight the importance of solidarity between activist groups who identify as being on the left, and as fighting right-wing agendas and, in particular, racism.
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Wednesday was a bleak day for Australian universities, for freedom of speech and for democracy. On that day, the management of La Trobe University suspended from work Roz Ward, NTEU member and Safe Schools advocate, on serious misconduct charges. Her alleged offence? That she wrote, in a private Facebook post, that it would be good if the “racist” Australian flag flying over Parliament were one day to be replaced by the red flag. It is time for decent people, who believe in reasoned argument, freedom of speech, intellectual freedom and democracy to stand up against the deeply anti-democratic bullying of the Australian right, especially its media mouthpieces.
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After being funded by the CIA, having received over a million dollars in Government subsidies, Quadrant magazine has sustained collateral damage from George Brandis’ cuts to Australia Council funding. It didn’t take long for editor Keith Windschuttle to blame someone, predictably ‘the left [which] remains in control of the arts’. Instead of identifying enemies, Windschuttle might examine the market and its effect on the culture he seeks to defend. Now the Australia Council has thrown his publication fully into this very mechanism, there’s no time like the present.