There Can Be Poetry In Power

By: AUSBUY

Article by Tim Soutphommasane, September 11, 2009 – (The Australian)

THERE have been few romantics in Australian politics. Our democratic political culture has always been unflinchingly cynical and impeccably pragmatic. Not for us the earnest idealism of Americans or the magnificent abstractions of the French.

Indeed, our measure of political success has tended to be material progress rather than adherence to ideology.

When Albert Metin came upon these shores to chronicle Australia at the turn of the 20th century, he observed that he saw in our early institutions of social democracy le socialisme sans doctrine (socialism without ideology). Others have described Australian political culture as deeply instrumentalist.

Yet, as former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty reminded us a fortnight ago, our politics needn't be devoid of soul or spirit, or slavish to Benthamite utilitarianism. Delivering the inaugural John Button Oration in Melbourne, Romance in Politics: The Public Good, Kelty made the case for the romantic in Australian politics.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of John Keats, Lord Byron and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kelty highlighted that the impulse of the reformer lies in believing that the world needn't be so dead or so dull; in believing that the impossible can be possible.

"After the eating, talking, drinking and the heart stops beating," Kelty argued, "what is left is the soul of creativity - the paintings, the buildings, the poems, the plays, the movies; the accretion of values both good and bad - the ideas, the laws the philosophy and the ideals." For Kelty, resuscitating romanticism is no apolitical project. His task is rather one of calling on today's Labor leaders and intellectuals "to build a higher platform for social democracy for the next generation".

The call, from one of the heroes of the modern Labor pantheon, should not fall on deaf ears. For where are the dreamers prepared to put idealism into practical action? Where are the social democrats, in all their ascendancy, entertaining ambitious visions of reform?

The time seems only right for more expansive thinking from the Rudd government and its supporters. The rabble of the Liberal-National Coalition poses little threat as a credible alternative government. The global financial crisis, even if it hasn't paralysed the Australian economy, seems to herald a social democratic moment. Many would suggest that, for all that has been said about the passing of neo-liberalism, the programmatic substance of a new social democracy remains a work in progress.

Ideologies, of course, cannot be invented - or reinvented - overnight. But ideologies presume a certain model of politics, one in which the contest for political power is fundamentally about ideas and projects, and in which the central task of leadership must involve making citizens characters in a story about reform.

It takes romantics, perhaps, to grasp the nettle. As Schiller noted, "Before truth causes her triumphant light to penetrate into the depths of the heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and the summits of humanity shine in a bright light, while a dark and humid night still hangs over the valleys."

Romantics believe, that is, in reality as a creation of the imaginative will. Standing in the realm of politics, the romantic is one who believes there can be poetry in power, that ideas, ideology and inspiration matter.

No side of politics can claim a monopoly on romanticism, but there was no more eloquent romantic on the Australian Left than Paul Keating. He was, after all, a man for whom social democratic reform was to be conducted against the symphonic rhythms of Mahler. While not everyone agreed with Keating, there was no doubting his vision behind structural economic reform, Asian engagement, Aboriginal reconciliation and the republic.

Since Keating's demise, the Left has preferred risk-aversion to boldness. There are signs, though, that the Rudd government may yet be different. It is striking that the Prime Minister and his cabinet have enthusiastically embraced the language of nation-building, most notably in the fiscal stimulus package. In a speech earlier this week, Rudd claimed his government was the heir to a Labor nation-building inheritance that formed "the reforming centre" of Australian politics.

But more often than not nation-building has meant little more than physical infrastructure projects. Labor politicians are fond of using nation-building in its literal sense of concrete, cement and hard hats. They have rarely invoked nation-building to mean the ideological tradition of governing that informed progressive reformers from Deakin and Fisher, to Chifley and Whitlam, to Hawke and Keating.

It is here that Australian social democrats need to do some hard thinking about a new political consensus, about a new Australian social contract. Arguably, much of Australia's civic language is residual of an institutional regime formed about the time of Federation. For all that successive governments during the past three decades have done to dismantle what Paul Kelly famously called "the Australian settlement", they never succeeded in providing a new language of citizenship.

There remains a vacuum in our civic culture.

And so, on matters ranging from climate change and indigenous disadvantage to education and tax reform, there is a need for a renewed narrative from the Left.

Just as universal male suffrage, wage arbitration, industry protection and restricted immigration once represented expressions of Australianness, so must the progressive response to contemporary challenges offer some unifying vision of citizenship.

"Evidence-based policy" must be accompanied by a philosophically rigorous expression of social justice. Ideally, a new progressive civic language should embrace a muscular, though liberal, expression of Australian values.

There is more at stake than many on the Left may realise. Under the impression that our culture wars are over - and not merely entering a new phase - many are content to believe that ideology no longer matters. It does. But ideological expression must involve more than just criticising neo-liberalism. It requires a positive; some would say romantic, vision of social democracy.

 

Patriotism Has Not Been Lost Among Australians
(Our reply to Tim Soutphommasane's article)

As much as I enjoy reading Tim Soutphommasane’s words and respect his opinions, he needs to reconsider how power is used for the good of all, and if he thinks Australians are not romantic or idealists he needs to go back to our history books, or talk to a few older Australians. He might also like to sing our National Anthem – wealth for toil and Advance Australia Fair are worth considering, that is wealth through being productive and creating wealth not through consumerism, and advance not diminish our Nation and ensure we have a fair go.  Patriotism is never far from our hearts. It is natural to man to want to belong. If people come here and choose not to belong then that diminishes everything they do and we have here.

Upon reflection he will find out how our democracy was forged, and how our Constitution was prepared at the end of the Age of Enlightenment by men of wisdom and knowledge like Deakin and Barton. They observed how Europe imploded with civil wars and wars of independence in the 17th and 18th centuries where people sought the rights of equality, equity and justice. People still fight wars for those democratic rights. Our founders had those rare gifts of vision for the future. It is a shame we cannot replicate them today. At the end of 5,000 years of evolution, the idealised state of the Greeks is now before us. It may have it faults, but the alternative is a return to paternalistic autocrats and dictators. Where does that leave the citizens? Cronyism is the basis for corruption and does not nurture or care for people.

Despite what Tim thinks we are not all about money. The foundations of Australia’s wealth were built on hard work, productivity and inventiveness, as self reliant early settlers survived isolation and in turn prospered and belonged.  Australians have made more contributions to innovations which have changed the world than any of nation of our size from combined harvesters, refrigerated containers, black boxes in aircraft to pace makers and at least ten Nobel prizes in Science and Medicine. These did not emerge from a country only interested in short term money making. These innovations were created by people who were not only problem solvers, they were productive, improved efficiencies and our wellbeing. Yet we seem to have stopped talking about productivity and innovation in this country.

Indigenous Australians were custodians of this land for eons and taught early settlers how to work with the land and respect it. This respect seems to be lost in the grab to sell off large tracks of our land, businesses and resources for short term fixes. If you expect your grandchildren to inherit your land or your factory you have a different respect for what you create and how you use it.

These elements were in the mix of nationhood which was forged further with the four pillars of the ANZACs which sum up what Australians are about – Courage, Endurance, Sacrifice and Mateship. Ask any migrant who has come here in the last 200 years, who recognises what they have come to and the personal responsibility that infers to contribute to a fair society. We have been builders and makers not users and takers.

No politician has the mandate to determine who we are as people, but we all need to be reminded that we are not just a place to make money and live in comfort. If we are here we are responsible for a fair and just society – generations of Australians have prepared the way and they have a healthy scepticism about how power is used or misused. That is why the business and farms who are creating wealth here, making the decisions here and keeping the profits here are so vital to our democracy and our future.

Copyright © - This document cannot be used without our express permission

---