Reflections from this week

The most outstanding items in this week's news - neither for good reasons - is the growing tension between Iran and the world, and POTUS45's latest racist drivel.

Let's look at POTUS45: the US-Iran risk of war will have to wait for another post.

This is not the first appalling statement or action (or inaction, in the case of his when his followers chanting) that the horrible human being who is POTUS45 has done, and will not be the last. No matter what his motivation for running may be (I recall reading, for example, that it was motivated by being roasted by former US President Obama), he is using his entertainment world triteness to cause devastating damage to the USA, and to the world.

I once wrote, about the utterly evil John Howard,

"The debate and ranting in reaction to this legislation have, however, hardened the once shallow fault lines that Howard identified and then incised deeply into the bedrock of Australian society."

That doesn't apply to the USA, a nation whose cold-hearted and compassionless version of what they, with unconscious irony, call "exceptionalism" has never impressed me, as it is a nation founded in religious bigotry, and has had racism deeply incised into its bedrock since the end of their civil war. Despite the efforts and achievements of the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others who have helped to drag the USA into a less backward state of being, that problem has still been there.

I should know, for the same happens here in Australia.

The issue is not one of social media bubbles, by the way: the problem of a generic social bubble has been around for centuries - millennia, probably. I was fortunate to be raised by an adoptive father who was against racism (as my birth family are, but my adoptive mother wasn't, sadly), but the society around us was. The introduction of a multicultural policy to Australia was seen as a big threat in the 70s, whereas now - thank the Goddess! - most people accept it as a normal way of living.

The social bubble problem is also exacerbated for progressives and activists, as it can be depressing, disheartening, and demoralising to see that there are still relics of what one knows is wrong still in existence. It is almost physically painful to know that there are people with such hate and/or fear in their heart that they think racism, or abusing asylum seekers, is OK, defensible, or even good. It is human to focus on signs of progress, and possibly ignore the signs of problems - especially when one is so utterly exhausted by the struggle to make the world a better place.

The bursting of the social bubble by election results in the last few years in the UK (Brexit), Australia (Federal election a few months ago, which saw the "abuse asylum seekers" haters returned), and the US Presidential election in 2016 (and I will never forget nor forgive that <expletive deleted> Assange actively helped put Trump in power: no matter what Clinton's problems were, she was clearly a better choice that Trump) show that these scars of hate on the heart of humanity in those nations have not fully healed - they are still vulnerable, and can be picked at and inflamed by an excoriator.

So, what to do about this?

Continue to engage, don't be naive, and refine the work we have been doing - we, the progressive movement, need to focus more on bringing "the people" along with us. Acknowledge that there are a wide range of views, and do what one can - patiently, persistently, aiming to be like an irresistible glacier.

(One of my affirmations is: 

Consistently, consistently, steadily, steadily,
like a relentless river of ice
I progress daily
towards my goals, needs and aspirations)

It is ironic, in my view, that one of the things POTUS45 said was that the four women that the misogynist was attacking should, as far as he was concerned, go back to where they came from and fix crime and misgovernance. Given the staggeringly high percentage of people the USA's hardline hate on crime has put in jail, the general perception of the "ineptness" (polite euphemism!) of POTUS45's administration, and the fact that three of these women were born in the USA and have now become Congresswomen, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY'RE DOING.

Moving on to a new matter, and setting aside for the moment that "the people" choose their leader, the people the three nations I've mentioned (UK, USA, and Australia) are being led by now are thoroughly unexceptional, and do not compare at all well with past greats - such as the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., or former US President John F Kennedy - who put humanity on the Moon, an achievement we're now celebrating the 50th anniversary of.

My reading at the moment currently includes a two volume biography of John Curtin ("John Curtin's War: The coming of war in the Pacific, and reinventing Australia", John Edwards, Penguin, 2017 [Vol. I] and 2018 [Vol. II], and ISBNs 978-1-742-53773-3 and 978-1-760-1444-1), Australia's outstanding Prime Minister during the latter part of World War (part) Two. As I do that, I am struck by several points.

Firstly, the staggering racism of Curtin, who was otherwise progressive. Australia was founded on race hate (the notorious White Australia policy), and I recall the level of race hate and white supremacism in society in the 1970s, and I knew that our acts and governance measures of hate had contributed to - or perhaps even caused - the appalling philosophy referred to as apartheid, and I even knew of the problems the USA had had in trying to get soldiers who were coloured allowed in to Australia, but the ubiquitous blinkers around this topic is a staggering thing to have laid so barely on the page (electronic tho' that page be) - even if Curtin was the first to point out that the Japanese were being underestimated.

Every time someone feels or considers they are threatened by a difference such as sex, gender, race, class (another form of hate that I consider is driving the neoliberals who are currently destroying societies around the world) or similar matters (I'm too upset to find a better descriptor - apologies), they diminish themself, their social circle, their nation, and all of humanity.

We need to continue our efforts to change that, and to acknowledge that we are fighting, in many ways, the "mini me" approach to parenting - the view that one's children should, rather than being the best they can be, be echoes of the parent, with the parent's same biases, bigotries, flaws and weaknesses. Acknowledge it, and then better minds than mine can work on how to overcome it. (they have to better than mine, because I want to take their children away from such hateful bigots as our Home Affairs Minister, but - apart from there being no legal basis for doing so - that would diminish me [it would be an echo of the social prejudice that saw me adopted in the 1950s], and not solve the actual problem - despite the clearly flawed raising that those children would be getting, in a household of hate.)

Going back to Curtin, another sour matter is Australia's subservience.

The cultural cringe is something I remember growing up with, and an article this week has pointed out that Australia's inventor of the "Black Box" (who lost his father in an air crash) had to go overseas to get anywhere. Influenced by our subservience, he went to the UK, but at least they recognised the brilliance of the concept.

I now, contrary to my previous assertions about Australia's independence as of 1901, have to admit that, much as burma is only 49% a democracy, while Australia is probably around 90% democratic (we won't be 100% until our Head of State has nothing to do with the UK), Australia was only 49% free until John Curtin's leadership - and we probably only really tipped over into proper freedom when Australian citizenship was finally "invented", in around 1948.

I consider we still have a blind and unthinking form of subservience with our too unquestioning consumption of US culture - a questioning that can perhaps be most effectively fought by having a multi-cultural society that properly acknowledges both our indigenous forebears in this land, and their accomplishments. 

It is really striking that most of Australia's military knew how weak we were, knew the British were likely to abandon us, and knew what the likely actions of the Japanese were - and they were downplayed, or ignored under Menzies "leadership".

It's a bit hard, I suppose, when you're a competent member of the Australian military to take your prescience overseas, as David Warren did. (The US also had their share of prescient military - who knew that Singapore and the Philippines could not be defended, and of the risk of naval attack when the Pacific fleet was moved from San Diego to Hawaii.)

Finally, the other point I've been struck by this week is how flawed some of these leaders were - not just the racism of Curtin, the imperial racism of Churchill, and so on, but on a human level.

Curtin had serious health problems. I've also just started reading a book about the Versailles treaty ("1919 Versailles: The End of the War to End All Wars", Charles L. Mee Jr., pub. New Word City, 2014, ISBN 978-1-612307-56-5, Amazon), and the descriptions of the key players amongst the Allies makes it clear I doubt I would want to know any of them, but they accomplished significant (not necessarily great) things. I suspect the world is a lesser place because of the USA's export of its Puritanical judgementalism about personality, and the mistaken notion that it is an indicator of suitability to govern - which is why so many voters in the USA thought a bigot like Trump was fit to lead a modern nation.

And on that mistake and the mistakes around racism and progressive activism, we're repeating all the unwillingness to see, reluctance to admit life-changing matters that are out of our control, and other errors in the arena of the climate crisis. A century from now, the Extinction Rebellion people will be viewed the same way as heroic activists from the past - slavery abolitionists, suffragettes, civil rights activists, etc - are viewed now. 

And the rest of us will get to hang our heads in shame and rue and regret why we did not pay attention.