The Red Shadow of the Past

The Communist Party of China is big on anniversaries. When I visited Bejing in 1999, half the city was locked down after 7pm to allow dress rehearsals for the PRC's golden jubilee. China's tumultous history for the first half of the 20th century provides lots of nation-building material - the May Fourth Movement, the Nanchang Uprising, the Liberation itself - all suitably commemorated with flag-waving children, goosestepping soldiers and overdecorated floats.

After 1949, the anniversaries stop. So this Thursday is likely to pass quietly, notwithstanding that it marks forty years to the day when a Peking University lecturer kicked off the Cultural Revolution. Nie Yuanzi was a radical forty-five year old when she stuck up her 'big character poster' denouncing the university authorities. She's now a pensionless eighty-five year old who shares a borrowed apartment with her pet cats and her memories, sharpened by seventeen years in prison; a victim of the monster she helped unleash.

China must have a dialogue about the Cultural Revolution, says Nie, who was one of the Five Leading Red Guards but fell from grace when the political winds shifted in 1968. The reason is less therapeutic than prescriptive, to avoid a repeat catastrophe springing from a flawed understanding of history. One gets the impression that those scarred personally are past the need for reconciliation; the scattered but growing number of voices calling for a national debate talk about the future, as much as the past.

Certainly the responses one gets from people who lived through the "Ten Years of Chaos" remain laconic, even casual. Like a tutor of mine recounting how as a child she watched her father (a university lecturer) paraded through the streets in a dunce cap past baying mobs. Or a friend's father making off-hand references to his years as a teenage 'barefoot doctor' in one of the hundreds of rural counties that the Red Guard generation was exiled to from 1969, in an attempt to expiate the madness.

On top of the human cost, there's a need to confront the most comprehensive effort yet seen to destroy a nation's cultural heritage. I remember admiring the coffin of an Empress at the Ming tombs outside Beijing, complete with an apologetic sign explaining that it's a replica, the original having received the attention of axe-wielding Red Guards during the swinging sixties. Left-leaning western college students may still find the mass mobilisation and ideological fervour inspiring; Chinese intellectuals view it the same way that cultured Germans view the Nazi rallies at Munich.

But within China itself, the subject remains taboo. As far as the Party's concerned the matter was closed on June 27, 1981, with the Central Committee resolution pinning the blame on Chairman Mao and the counterrevolutionary clique behind him. Nie's is one of the few voices to penerate the blanket of censorship that still lies across the country, smothering even the one private museum dedicated to the Cultural Revolution.

The root problem is that reevaluating the Cultural Revolution means reevaluating the role of Mao Zedong - and by extension that of the Communist Party - in the nation's history. China has yet to go through an equivalent of Russia's de-Stalinisation process. Instead the verdict on the Great Helmsman remains frozen in Deng Xiaoping's 70-30 formula: 70 per cent right, 30 per cent wrong. An honest discussion about the historical black hole from 1966-76 would open a pandora's box, one that the Party has tried to keep shut with the weight of economic growth.

So this is just another instance of the CCP's propensity to sweep its problems under the carpet of history, if necessary by waiting for the main protagonists to die. Last year saw the exit of both Zhao Ziyang and Zhang Chunqiao, the last survivor of the Gang of Four. Neither the baggage of the Cultural Revolution nor that from the June 4th Incident seems to have impeded China's headlong rush to modernity; one of Zhao's proteges even happens to be Premier, while the memorabilia of Mao's personality cult now furnishes trendy cafes. But faced with the mounting contradictions of marketisation within the framework of a Party-State, China's leaders may eventually find that the cherished goal of national stability requires them to use history as a mirror, a lesson they readily dispense to China's neighbours.

As was observed about another national cataclysm, one that festered for a hundred years after the violence ceased:
"The past isn't dead. It's not even past".


(cross-posted)

Meet the 2006-7 PIS Committee

Thanks to all those who turned for the club AGM this arvo. And congratulations to the new committee on their election:

President - David Fettling
Secretary - Michael Crozier
Treasurer - Stephen Bain
Speakers Officer - Charlie Goodman
Social Secretary - Sophie Wilson
Publications Editor - Aditi Gorur
Publicity Officer - Lutz Golbs


Don't miss the biscuit-tin swearing-in ceremony next Wednesday.

Standard minimum sentences, anyone?

MUDS are having a public debate on Thursday, and it promises to be interesting:

Public Debate 2006

In the lead up to the Victorian State election, the Melbourne University Debating Society proudly invites you to a debate on a central election issue...

Come and hear expert speakers talk about Law & Order and sentencing issues of the Victorian criminal system.

If you do the crime, you should do the time....
That we should have standard minimum sentences for criminal offences.

Speaking for the Affirmative

Mr Peter Ryan, MP
Leader of the Victorian National Party
Shadow Attorney-General

Dr Kevin Donnelly
Former Chief of Staff to Kevin Andrews, MP


Speaking for the Negative

Mr Ian Gray
Chief Magistrate of Victoria

Ms Jenny Mikakos, MP
Victorian Parliamentary Secretary for Justice


Time: 7:30pm
Date: Thursday 11th May, 2006
Place: G08, Law School, University of Melbourne

The debate will be followed by a light supper.

Click here for more info.

Solomon Islands and the WTO

Even though it sounded quite incredible to some participants of last weeks meeting, the Solomon Islands are indeed one of 149 member states of the WTO, and this since 26 July 1996.

Why do I mention this, and what does it imply? The libertarians in PIS certainly like the efforts of the WTO to enable free trade. Personally, I see the triumvirate of World Bank, IMF and WTO way more critical. For one thing, the structural changes imposed by those organisations ruined the economy of quite some countries, especially in South America, Asia and Africa. That this happened, is not even denied by the WTO, it is just seen as unfortunate.

The major critique against this institutional axis of evil is its entire lack of democratic control. By signing agreements with the WTO governments lose their sovereignty about areas like environmental and energy politics, their autonomy about social systems and education.

The issue of the dependency from the WTO will become into the international focus soon, when Bolivia has its new constitution, which will reorganise land ownership and reverse privatisation - just, of course, if Bolivia's new president Evo Morales stays in power for long enough.

Michel Chossudovsky was written some books elucidating the mechanics of WTO, IMF and WB, and is well worth reading if you're interested in finding out how democracy is undermined by this triumvirate.

The Battle that Saved Australia - or not

Further to today's discussion about Steve Barton and the Kokoda controversy, see these threads at Larvatus Prodeo and John Quiggin. See Barton's original Australian piece here, last night's Lateline interview here, and an older piece with some additional details here (looks like debunking the Kokoda 'myth' is an ongoing project of his).

No new Epoch in US-China relations

Cross-posted. For a different angle to the US MSM and blogosphere, see this running CHF thread.
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When not handing out propaganda at Melbourne's train stations, the Epoch Times folks keep busy heckling the Chinese president. It was shaping up as a bad day for Hu Jintao, what with being snubbed dinner at the White House and the MC announcing "the national anthem of the Republic of China." But official visits don't get much worse than being told "your days are numbered" before the world media, by an advocate of a sect your country persecutes, while standing next to the President of the United States.

Nor was it a great moment for the hosts. The Bush administration got things off on the wrong foot by not according this the status of a 'state visit', as Clinton did for Hu's predecessor. Then there was the small matter of confusing one's guests with their archenemies across the Taiwan Strait. But the ultimate gaffe was to let a Falungong practitioner not only slip security but abuse Hu for three minutes before the secret service hustled her off, leaving bureaucrats and thinktanks around the country to stress about how those inscrutable orientals will react (inside word says they're not happy).

Whoever was giving out press passes obviously didn't do their homework on the Epoch Times, a Falungong-linked paper with a prophecy fetish and a big chip on their shoulder called the Chinese Communist Party. The ET has disowned Dr Wang's actions, but the fact that she heckled Jiang Zemin in Malta five years ago should have tipped someone off. The State Department's woes didn't end there, however, with Bush and Hu later trying to hold dialogue over the chants of the Free-Tibet crowd across South Lawn. Clearly the event planners didn't watch how the Brits handled Hu's London trip last year, either.

Hu stayed all smiles, but used the occasion to teach Bush a lesson about negotiating with the Chinese that American businessmen learned long ago: expect much gilded language, but no progress unless you hand over something first. Faced with the high expectations held of this 'official' (not 'state') visit by a swathe of US lobbies, George also resorted to the fine art of using many words to say nothing, in which he is of course well practiced.

Bush said, "We would hope there would be more appreciation'' in allowing the currency to rise with market forces.

[Regarding Iran] the United States and China are in a position to ''work on tactics'' to achieve that goal, Bush said.

"We don't agree on everything but we are able to discuss our disagreements in friendship and cooperation,'' Bush told reporters.

So the bottom line is that noone's happy, least of all Hu Jintao. Having finally clawed his way to the top of the Fourth Generation leadership last year, when he eased Jiang out of the old man's last bastion in the state CMC, Hu doubtless felt entitled to 'state visit' recognition and a black-tie dinner at the White House. Instead he got a luncheon of halibut and dumplings to the strains of the Nashville Bluegrass band, after half an hour watching soldiers prance past in Continental Army uniforms.

No visiting head-of-state can have been this disappointed since the secret service ruled out Kruschev's trip to Disneyland.


Non Sequitur

I never thought I'd see an American columnist arguing the US would be better off under a parliamentary system. But then I, like Thomas Friedman, never thought I'd see a US administration determined to jump from an Iraqi frying pan into an Iranian fire.

Blogging in the End Times

The internet is a crowded place these days. Type in this blog's name wrong and you still end up somewhere: mupis.blogsopt.com. Or better, mupis.blogpsot.com, some of whose material I've extracted below. Sounds a lot like the stuff I was fed at church camps as a kid -

THE SOON COMING CLIMAX
(BIBLE PROPHECY—PROOF THE BIBLE IS TRUE AND
WE ARE NOW IN THE LATTER DAYS) and HOW TO BE SAVED
(A brief summary)

This message may be called a road sign of warning. Some may look at a sign that reads—THE BRIDGE IS OUT, and say, "Oh, someone is just trying to scare us into taking another road; let’s go on the same way." They go on and plunge to their death. The sign was not meant to scare people, but to warn them of impending danger. The sign was put there, because someone cared and didn’t want others to perish.
God wants you to know, WHEN YOU SEE THESE THINGS COME TO PASS (the prophecies from the Bible in this message), KNOW YE THAT THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NIGH AT HAND-Lk 21:31.

• Will Russia and some Arab nations invade Israel and the U.S.A. become involved? Yes.

• Will 1/4^th of the world’s population die? Yes.

• Will there be a one-world system or global economy? Yes.

• Will diseases increase such as AIDS? Yes.

• Did you know the Bible tells us about what is happening?

Would you like to know more? Read on...

Containing Iran

Just further to the discussion in the meeting yesterday, here's one analysis of the Iran situation which pretty much sums up my position:

All the war games and simulations that I have seen have concluded that it isn't possible to disarm Iran by airstrikes. Learning perhaps from what happened to Saddam's nuclear plant at Osirak, the authorities have dispersed the program widely and put a lot of it underground. Nor can the Israelis be expected to do much by proxy: They would have to fly over Iraq this time, and it would be even more obvious than usual that they were acting as an American surrogate. Professor Edward Luttwak claims, in the Wall Street Journal, that selective strikes could still retard or degrade the program, but this, if true, would only restate the problem in a different form.
...
This means that our options are down to three: reliance on the United Nations/European Union bargaining table, a "decapitating" military strike, or Nixon goes to China. The first being demonstrably useless and somewhat humiliating, and the second being possibly futile as well as hazardous, it might be worth giving some thought to the third of these.
...
But they have a crucial vulnerability on the inside. The overwhelmingly young population—an ironic result of the mullahs' attempt to increase the birth rate after the calamitous war with Iraq—is fed up with medieval rule.
...
So, picture if you will the landing of Air Force One at Imam Khomeini International Airport. The president emerges, reclaims the U.S. Embassy in return for an equivalent in Washington and the un-freezing of Iran's financial assets, and announces that sanctions have been a waste of time and have mainly hurt Iranian civilians. (He need not add that they have also given some clerics monopoly positions in various black markets; the populace already knows this.) A new era is possible, he goes on to say. America and the Shiite world have a common enemy in al-Qaida, just as they had in Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, and the Iraqi Baathists. America is home to a large and talented Iranian community. Let the exchange of trade and people and ideas begin! There might perhaps even be a ticklish-to-write paragraph, saying that America is not proud of everything it is has done in the past—most notably Jimmy Carter's criminal decision to permit Saddam to invade Iran.

Hitchens is something of a hawk, being strongly in favour of the Iraq invasion and frequently critical of the "anti-war" left (I put that in scare quotes because it's his contention that many peace activists are actually in favour of war, when it's done against US/Israeli). But he's not at all in favour of a military attack on Iran. I think his analysis comes from a position of some authority and it accords with other analyses I've read.

To Get Rich Is Glorious

Chris Berg, one of our guest speakers at Pub Politics a few weeks back, was on last night's Insight program defending materialism as a road to happiness. Good libertarian that he is, his cumulative minute and a half of airtime can be picked out by the keywords 'choice', 'preference' and 'capacity'. Indulge yourself - read the transcript...

The Political Objectives Test

There are all sorts of interesting online tests of your political beliefs and ideology. A friend of mine, Daniel (or "Originaluddite") has composed a new test and it's worth a try. Check it out here.

This is how it described me, and I think it's a fair assessment:

Liberal-Conservative
You scored 21 Equality, 78 Liberty, and 64 Stability!

Your commitment to both liberty and stability puts you in the hazy area that exists between the Liberal and the Conservative. You value liberty particularly in economic life and embrace private enterprise. You also recognise the value of traditional culture and institutions. Occasionally your economic and cultural positions may clash but in general you will find practical ways to reconcile them.

Anyone else care to bare their soul in the comments section?

The Prime Minister on Whom the Sun has Set

Here's a take on Smiling Tony by Scott Cresswell, who's currently doing a polsci Ph.D thesis on the EU policy of the Conservative Party.

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Few British Prime Ministers since the Great Reform Act of 1832 have dominated British politics as has Tony Blair. Blair's parliamentary majorities have been unsurpassed (in normal circumstances at least) and his personal popularity has never quite gone through the troughs that dogged that other twentieth century Titan, Margaret Thatcher. There is a quite viable argument that Blair is the most successful British prime minister of the century, predicated on the size of his majorities and the lack of rancour he has inspired. And yet, Blair's premiership is over.

Blair is, to use words that haunted the Major premiership, 'in office, but not in power'. Reports in British newspapers have him definitely gone by Christmas; autumn (spring in Australia) looks more likely. Every piece of speculation brings the date closer. The Guardian, the staunchest of Labour newspapers, has bid him gone now. He will not go of his own accord, pushed out by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, a dour Scotsman. Indeed, since the last election (2005) Blair and Brown have been in a sort of transitional phase, the two old rivals (dating from the 1994 leadership election) in an uneasy embrace termed the 'dual premiership'. Admitting the mistake of announcing his retirement prematurely (and yet annoying a twice jilted Brown by not naming a date), even his vaunted political judgment looks to have left him. The final years of his premiership, mirroring Thatcher's in many respects, have been a failure at best, at worst a farce. The mistakes of Iraq, the suicide of weapons scientist David Kelly, and the infamous weapons dossier do not bear re-telling. They have diminished him, his standing in the country, in the party, and, I think, the most important of all, history. His errors have emboldened the Labour left, once cowed into submission, into the rediscovery of its voice and its power. Editor of the Spectator Matthew d'Ancona writes in the Telegraph, "It is not simply factional warfare - bitter as that undoubtedly is - but full-scale fragmentation. Labour's National Executive Committee and parliamentary party are flexing their muscles recklessly. Last week's industrial action by council workers showed how emboldened the unions have been by the Government's travails."

This is crucial, as the whole 'New Labour' project was the transformation of Labour from an unelectable socialist rabble (its 1983 election manifesto, a grab-bag of socialist measure, was called by a Labour MP "the longest suicide note in history" and so it proved) into a modern, professional, ruthless, and centrist party. Power was shifted from the party and its institutions to the leadership.

This point bears expanding for those unfamiliar with British politics. On election day 1992, with the polls putting Labour by up to 10 points in front, the Murdoch owned Sun newspaper printed a front page, headlined "If Kinnock wins, will the last person to leave Britain turn out the lights?" Labour lost. Not because of the Sun ("It was the Sun wot won it" arrogantly appeared on the front page the following day), but because Labour was still struggling to throw off the vestiges of Tony Benn, the Militant Tendency, and every other loony left-wing organisation that had infiltrated it since Thatcher's win in 1979. Blair exorcised all of those ghosts and made Labour electable once more. It is worth noting that in 1997, 2001, and 2005, the Sun backed Labour, not the Conservatives. (Well, allegedly, anyway. I don't know if any Sun readers bother reading past page 3.)

(There's an old joke, with variants for each country. "People who read The Times think they run the country, people who read The Financial Times own the country, people who read the Mirror don't care who runs the country, people who read the Daily Telegraph [me!] think that the country should be run by another country [America], and people who read The Guardian think that it is." It is at this point in a 'Yes, Minister' episode where Hacker enquires about the Sun readers, to which Bernard replies, "they don't care, just so long as she has big tits!" Touché.)

This newly found confidence on the left has dismayed Blair and loyal Blairites. They are, in all honesty, less comfortable with the old Labour tradition, seemingly personified by the tax-and-spend Brown, than even with Thatcherism. With his departure announced and the left poised for control, Blair has spent much time trying to shore up his legacy. The civil (public) service, the health system, and the education system have all come in for Blair's newly found zeal for addressing the stuff-ups he's spent the last ten years ignoring. Why? Because Tony Blair, the great social democrat, has discovered 'the market'. 'Market-orientated reform' has become the Blairite buzzword of the moment.

It is personified in the attempt to reform the education system. A White Paper was compiled, under the auspices of the Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, a Blair loyalist. But Blair, too weak to withstand a Labour left openly flouting his leadership and for whom the measure was too radical, was forced to neuter the bill. (It was reported in last week's Spectator that rebels are confident enough even to plot in front of party whips!) Yet not even that was enough for the rebels, who voted against the bill in droves. It passed, but only with Conservative votes. Blair being forced to rely on the Conservative leader, David Cameron, a Blair in the making (and seen as Blair's true heir by some Blairites and even the man himself reportedly), to shore up his legacy is indeed rich in symbolism. With Parliament due for summer recess and the scandal of the loans for peerages affair taking whatever lustre was left, Blair will go unfulfilled. And unloved. It is one of the ironies of British politics that when Thatcher left, she organized for the succession of John Major, thinking he would be a proper heir. He was not. She had to wait for Tony Blair, who was/is closer to Thatcher than either Major was or Cameron is. (Thatcher reportedly is very fond of Blair and he has reciprocated publicly.) Blair may get his serve of irony as he waits to see whether Cameron will be his heir.

Summing up Blair's legacy is not for me, I lack the in-depth familiarity with the period to nail my trousers to any masts. But one point is, I think, illustrative, sticking with the Thatcher – Blair theme. When leaving London I was given a going away present by the hippie playwright mother of a friend of mine, a kilt of MacDonald tartan, in recognition for my numerous (and good natured, of course) jokes about Scotland and her Scottish-ness. In return, I left her a copy of Thatcher's Downing Street Years (she positively despises Tories, I am merely tolerated). Apparently, it's going to get thrown at me next time I'm in the general vicinity. Whether for better or worse, I can't see anyone throwing Blair's memoirs about (except Gordon Brown…)

The Universality of Human Rights

Following up the 'Asian values' debate at the last meeting, here's a not-so-old essay of mine - minus footnotes, introduction and conclusion - on drawing the line between human rights and culture. This issue happens to be getting the media glare right now, with the impending execution of an Afghan citizen for converting from Islam to Christianity.

I'll try to follow this up with something more specific on 'Asian values', assuming I have any energy left to think after homework, job applications and LSS tutes.

Cross-posted, as usual.

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Human rights must have legitimacy if they are to be realised within a given community. The widespread perception in Muslim countries that human rights are ‘un-Islamic’ or a tool of western imperialism, for example, makes it difficult for governments to implement human right or for rights advocates to gain social and political traction. In developed states like the US, opposition to judicial enforcement of economic and social rights stems more from perceptions that they are not bona fide ‘rights’ than from persuasive separation-of-powers arguments. Attempts to give human rights an objective basis, for instance by linking them to economic development, have met little success; implementation of human rights depends on a cultural choice by the community in question, a choice that can only spring from cultural legitimacy.

The basic problem faced by the global human rights movement is that the very concept of human rights, defined as inalienable claims by an abstract individual upon society, lacks legitimacy outside the western world. If one attempts to ground human rights in religion or moral philosophy, they appear as a western cultural construct. Even accepting that numerous belief systems recognise the inherent human dignity on which human rights are founded, many manifest practices that are inconsistent with ‘international’ human rights norms; certain principles in Islamic jurisprudence, for example, conflict directly with the rights to freedom of belief, freedom of speech and equality before the law. A strong argument can be made that other key concepts underpinning human rights – the individual’s autonomy from society and the cosmos, for instance – are specifically western cultural developments. As such, their introduction into non-western societies presupposes that these societies are either culturally deficient or on an evolutionary path that will turn them into facsimiles of the contemporary west.

Nor have positivist approaches to human rights given non-western peoples the sense of cultural ownership that grounds legitimacy. The core of international human rights, expressed in the Universal Declaration, was articulated by western states in the context of the ideological struggle with communism. On an ongoing basis, Western states are perceived to serve vested commercial interests by promoting civil and political rights over economic and social ones, abandoning even the former when inconvenient (take Australia’s reservations to the ICCPR regarding federal implementation and juvenile detention). Non-western governments stand accused of using communitarian conceptions of human rights to justify internal repression. In this context, the non-western world at large has unsurprisingly developed a cynical understanding of human rights.

Yet despite the rhetoric of cultural distinctiveness from their elites, non-western societies are taking an evolutionary path similar in many respects to that of the west: industrialising, evolving powerful bureaucracies, developing market economies. In this changing social context, human rights are necessary to shield ‘authentic human life’ – whatever cultural expression that life may take – from the corrosive effects of modernity. Freedom of speech and association, for example, may be needed to protect traditional social structures or cultural practices from exploitative employers, corrupt bureaucrats and callous state policies.

Critiques of human rights as exclusively ‘western’ also employ an excessively static notion of culture. Muslim rights advocates have argued that the Shari’a provisions referenced above are a historically contingent interpretation of Islamic texts, which should be reinterpreted consistently with contemporary conditions. Torture and poverty were once considered legitimate by virtually all societies (including western ones) but are now widely rejected, at least in theory. These are instances of a global cultural evolution towards recognition that certain practices and conditions diminish human personality in any cultural context. Critics of the universal rights discourse correctly assert that ‘personality’ is culturally defined, but miss the point that it attaches to a universal ‘individual’ who is the subject of human rights. If the individual’s integrity is compromised, for instance through torture or poverty, personality cannot be fully realised. Pace Douzinas, the ‘human’ in human rights signifies a physical and mental core on which all cultures operate.

Human rights thus have a universal moral basis, notwithstanding their initial conception in the west, and as such are universally applicable. The global human rights machinery serves a legitimate role in monitoring adherence to human rights within all states, including their western progenitors; consider the Human Rights Committee’s (HRC’s) declaration of a US reservation to ICCPR subordinating that treaty to the US constitution as invalid, or the UN High Commissioner’s finding in 2002 that Australia had breached the ICCPR and the ICESCR. However, the precise content and means of enforcement of human rights must correspond to social organisation and conditions, which differ between nations and cultures. The right to freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy or family, for instance, may need to countenance traditional forms of community supervision and authority (for example the role of village elders in regulating social relationships).

Implementation of human rights should therefore take place as locally as practicable, for instance through national or regional human rights commissions, rather than via international treaty mechanisms such as the HRC’s individual complaints mechanism. Localised implementation avoids the charge of western cultural imposition, and allows rights to become ‘foundations for actions and policy’ rather than meaningless abstractions. It is only through such ‘concretisation in the [local] context’ that human rights will acquire the legitimacy needed to take root in a particular community.

Another take on Labor's woes

Here is my take on Labor's woes, as ignored by Op-ed editors from The Age, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald:

A glance at the Labor caucus reveals a depressing site. Amongst its ranks are a chorus of those in the 'political class', whose professional lives have been spent mostly or entirely within the Labor party or the labour movement. Whilst their political opponents might boast of lawyers, entrepreneurs and a variety of other white collar professionals, the same cannot be said of the Labor Party. According to a Parliamentary Library research note (no. 24 2005-2006), 34% of Labor parliamentarians had as their previous occupation ‘party and union administrators and officials', whilst just 7% worked in the law and 11% as business managers. Amongst the coalition, only 2% were in this first category.

We have long passed the point in Labor history when representing the party in parliament was a reward for achievements in the outside world. Instead it is merely a logical continuation of work within the labour bureaucracy.

The starting point for this "career", from want of a better word, are our university campuses. On campuses across the country, young, talented left-leaning students are sucked into the world of political machinations. For some this means playing the game of student politics, whilst for others it involves a plumb appointment as a staff member of a state or federal member of parliament. The idea of seeking to achieve things outside of the Labor machine is frowned upon.

Plenty has been said about the total lack of perspective held by many inside student politics. To its participants, student politics is a life or death struggle for power where every possible advantage is sought over one's opponent. To those watching from the outside, though, it's a remarkably silly battle of little consequence. Regardless of which perception is closer to the truth, the bearpit of student politics is considered a training ground for the real thing.

It's doubtful, though, that it's teaching the skills that are worth learning. Rarely does student politics involve serious policy discussion or a nuanced understanding of different points of view. Rarely does it involve the art of persuasion. Rarely does it involve the tricky business of reasoning and rational argument. Instead, it's a bombastic power struggle. Participants are encouraged to count numbers and stack their way to success whilst intimidation and deception are commonplace. Student politics involves the worst elements of the real thing, and that's just why it's such an unfortunate training ground, but one that lives on nonetheless.

It's also worth remembering that in student politics, the battle is rarely between Liberal and Labor. More often, it is between different factions of the Labor Party, who operate completely independently and consider each other to be their arch political enemies. The animousity between the left faction (Australian Labor Students and National Organisation of Labor Students) and the right faction (Student Unity) is the stuff of legends. In must be quite jarring for these junior pollies to leave university and find themselves shoulder to shoulder with fellow Labor members that they previously despised. There's little wonder, then, that the factional divide lives on.

All this is not to say, of course, that Liberal-minded students aren't engaged in the same shenanigans. To some extent they are, although the lack of a political gravy train of student political and union jobs prevents Liberal students from venturing further down this path. (Perhaps, ironically, the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism will help the Labor Party by reducing the number of cosy political positions within the student union movement.) There's also a clear realisation amongst aspiring young liberals that their path to Parliament House must invariably go via another profession. This realisation is part of the reason why the Liberals have managed to avoid the same malaise the Labor Party currently finds itself in.

There's no suggestion that factional warfare in the Labor Party is the result of factionalism in junior politics. The problem, though, is that the shallow gene pool of participants in junior politics seem to be the major source of future parliamentarians in the Labor Party. This depressing situation will continue so long as the caucus is filled with career politicians who spend their younger days wallowing in the pettiness of student politics and then make no attempt to learn skills or establish their credentials elsewhere. This trend is not unstoppable. The preselection of entrepreneur (and, incidentally, former student politician) Evan Thornley to a state Labor seat in Victoria and the preselection of lawyer Mark Dreyfus in the federal seat of Isaacs are steps in the right direction. What is necessary is that these preselections be the rule rather than the exception, in order to send a message out to aspiring young hacks and hackettes that they must broaden their skill base if they are to be successful in politics.

If Labor is to make a serious attempt at entering government, it will need to work hard to change the composition of its party room. Rewarding talent ahead of loyal service would be a good start. These hackneyed Labor groupies are surely not the basis of the next Labor Government.

Ari Sharp is a Commerce/Arts student at the University of Melbourne.

Iran's nuclear threat

It seems so incredibly obvious that Iran's current struggles with the IAEA mean that Iran dearly wants to develop nuclear weapons to destroy some of its archenemies like Israel or possibly even the US. What else would you expect from a head of a state that openly airs his desire to attack his neighbor Israel?

For me it seems suicidal to even plan attacks on Israel, one of the nations not caring about the NPT, because they officially not own nuclear weapons, even though they most likely do. Nevertheless, taking a strong stance against Israel is incredibly popular amongst the islamic oriented nations surrounding this country, and thus might be nothing more than a rhetoric figure to get acceptance for the Iranian government, no matter how determined and evil it might sound to foreign ears.

The current media coverage of Irans nuclear facilities, and the correlated spin of the threat imposed to World Peace (as if it ever existed in modern times) reminded me of the situation just before the invasion of Iraq. I got inspired to compare these two events by an essay of Georg Meggle, professor for philosophy at the university of Dresden, Germany.

Furthermore, I read an article about potential economic reasons for the US to start the 'Iran belongs to the axes of evil and needs to be incapacitated' spin, and to coerce international organisations into activity. The article I'm referring to is written by Krassimir Petrov and was published on 18. January 2006 on Energy Bulletin. Krassimir Petrov has received his Ph. D. in economics from the Ohio State University and currently teaches Macroeconomics, International Finance, and Econometrics at the American University in Bulgaria.

To cut a long story short, what we think to 'know' about the 'evil intentions' and the 'belligerence' of Iran is certainly more related to assertive propaganda than to hard facts. Irans society is so unwestern that we cannot easily rely on polls and media reports like we could with for example European countries. So I hesitate to simply assume than Irans plans focus on and intend nothing else than 'having the bomb'.

As yet, there is as much evidence of the development of nuclear weapons in Iran as there was evidence for the development and existance of WMDs in Iraq three years ago. Surely, I would appreciate some facts indicating that I'm (and more important, and Meggle and Petrov are) entirely wrong, and that the most belligerent nation since the 2nd world war, the USA, is right in assuming that the Iran (like the Iraq some short time ago) poses an unacceptable threat to the rest of the world.

More O-Week photos

Following on from John's post last week, here are some more fun-filled photos from the PIS O-Week table on 23 February:

Bringing competition to politics

It's preselection time again, and the intensity of the battle seems a little stronger than usual. Here in Victoria half a dozen sitting Labor MPs (Corcoran, Crean, Jenkins, O'Connor, Sercombe, Vamvakinou) are facing carefully orchestrated challenges. There are plenty of commentators tut-tutting it, dismissing it as a source of disunity and observing that many of the challenges are merely the result of the shifting sands of faction politics.

I, for one, would like to stand up for the challengers.

Free markets are wonderful things. Healthy competition keeps all players on their toes and requires them to strive for quality and innovation to survive in a Darwinian marketplace. The same is true of members of parliament. Without the threat of competition, MPs can become self-absorbed, slothful and lazy and do little more than, quite literally, occupy a seat. It's bad for them, it's bad for their constituents, and it's bad for their party.

Given that many Labor MPs find themselves in seats with such healthy margins that they face no realistic challenge at the ballot box, it is necessary for them to have some internal challengers before they get there. One of the reasons for the ALP's malaise over the past 10 years has been the substandard performance of many of its MPs. Check out this list here, and keep a straight face while you tell me it's a galaxy of stars. The Liberals have done much better in recent years and have attracted a more talented selection of backbenchers, which has put upward pressure on the performance of members further up the hierarchy.

There's nothing inherently meritorious about the challengers. Some of them will no doubt end up being just as lame as those seatwarmers they seek to replace. But the mere fact that the incumbents have had their chances and done little with them is reason enough to think positively about the challenger.

Rather than trying to limit the number of preselection battles, the interests of democracy says we should be encouraging more. At the moment it is mostly factionally-fuelled battles in one party, in one state. Let's open up debate nation wide, across parties. Solid, hardworking MPs should be left alone, but there are plenty of others who would benefit from some healthy competition. Though the US Primaries perhaps a tad too divisive, they do offer a glimpse of what could happen here if we encourage democracy and competition in party preselection.

This time around, some of the challengers will get up and some of the sitting MPs will survive, but you can be sure that the mere threat of a challenge will force whoever gets the nod to improve their performance over the next three years. And for that, we should be thankful.

Club BBQ, Thursday 23 Feburary

One more reason to be in this club...



Would you like AAP with that?


More pics coming shortly...

Of Wheat and Weasel Words

Continuing our venerable tradition of cross-posting from members' blogs (original post here).
____________________________


One month in and it's already been a great year for political scandal. Overseas the GOP is on the back foot over Abramoff and unwarranted spying on US citizens, while in Australia we've been treated to internal backbiting over party preselections and defecting senators. Now it's emerged that the country's monopoly wheat exporter was defrauding a UN trust fund to underwrite Saddam Hussein's regime. But the red meat is the growing evidence of the federal government's role in this sorry affair, which each day looks less like a wink-nod arrangement and more like application of strategic pressure to keep the grain flowing.

It's settled ground that AWB inflated sales to Iraq under the Oil-for-Food program to cover $300 million of kickbacks to Saddam's government, disguised as transport fees and laundered through a Jordanian trucking company. Apart from the fact that this scheme was cooked up before AWB was privatised, we now know (inter alia) that in 2002 DFAT officials accompanied an AWB mission to Iraq ending in a $2 million bribe; that this mission followed correspondence between AWB execs and the Prime Minister; that DFAT was aware in 2003 0f a pervasive kickback culture surrounding oil-for-food contracts; and that Australia's Washington ambassador helped scuttle a US congressional probe into AWB's Iraq deals in 2004.

The right's counterattack has run a national interest line, examples of which can be found in the comment threads here and here. The argument boils down to claims that a) everyone else was rorting oil-for-food and b) this was no different from greasing business in any third-world country. Even if one accepts that bribing government officials is legitimate under normal circumstances, this was no ordinary squeeze. Iraq bought this wheat via a UN fund set up to allow purchases of humanitarian necessities. Every cent that went to Hussein's regime as a kickback was a cent denied to Iraq's citizens, who were otherwise blocked from buying such goods by international embargo.

Our government's probable complicity in the swindling of a UN program designed to relieve child-killing sanctions is a matter for public concern, pace the Herald Sun and the RWDB crowd. Commissioner Cole should get an expansion of his terms of reference, because if this goes where it's heading then the implications are far direr than an ALP or Fairfax beatup. Our elected leaders, going right to the top, made decisions to undercut a sanctions regime justified by the charcter of Hussein's government and its failure to come clean on WMDs - the same justifications for invading Iraq in 2003. And it's a fair bet that some of that $300 million was squirelled away in private bank accounts that now fund the Iraqi insurgency.

Leftie conspiracy-theorists will see this as more evidence of a grand Western design to squeeze blood out of the third world. We centrist joes see opportunism and moral bankruptcy on the part of our government.

But a large number of Australians, judging from newspaper op-ed pages and blog posts, see nothing wrong at all.

Hamish Malcolm

I was devastated to learn this morning that a friend of mine has passed away. Hamish Malcolm died of cardiac arrest a week short of his 26th birthday. I came to know Hamish this year as a friend, and occasionally rival, within the Political Interest Society. Hamish was a passionate lefty who believed strongly in justice and tolerance, but always managed to keep a sense of humour, often richly sarcastic. Having spent most of his life in Britain, that was where his heart lied, although he was rapidly becoming an honourary Australian after settling in Melbourne to continue studying.

Hamish had a significant on-line presence. You can read his blog Omission of Mercy as well as his lively blogger profile.

Here is the email recieved from the Melbourne University Debating Society explaining of Hamish's death and the events to celebrate his life:

Dear VCs Cuppers,

MUDS has recently received some very sad news regarding one of our members, Hamish Malcolm, who you may have met, chatted to and debated with or against during the VCs cup. He passed away on Wednesday, following a cardiac arrest, aged 25. Hamish was extremely friendly and always keen to be involved with MUDS and he will be sorely missed.

Hamish's funeral will be held this Monday, Oct. 31st 1:00 pm (please arrive early) at Lilydale Cemetery & Memorial Park 126-128 Victoria Rd.

His family has requested that the dress for the funeral be very casual (ie: jeans, cargos, etc.) and that no flowers be brought as the family is providing one floral tribute.

The following night Hamish's good friend Ali Lemer has organised to celebrate Hamish's 26th Birthday which would have been that day. So on Tuesday, Nov. 1st 7:30 pm at 6/48 Leicester Street (between Victoria and Queensberry, opposite Queen Vic Market) Carlton please join us to remember the good times. If any of you have photos of Hamish, Ali was making a slideshow for Tueday and would greatly appreciate any help in this regard. If you can help or need to contact Ali her phone number is 04xx xxx xxx and email a.lemer@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au.

If any of you would like more information regarding either of these events please contact us.

We hope you are all well,
and best of luck with assessment period,

MUDS

Rest in Peace, Hamish.



Hamish Malcolm, 1979-2005

Election week thoughts

Crossposted from Ari on the Web. What did other people make of election week?:

As election week 2005 at Melbourne University comes to an end today, it's worth reflecting on one of the more peaceful campaigns in recent years. Having seen the skullduggery of the 2003 election in the State of the Union (the official website even refers to it with the adjective 'skullduggerous' - nice work, lads), one expects all sorts of silliness to be going on. To the casual observer, though, there was little smoke nor heat.

The most visable presence on campus was the Left Union ticket, who were out in force last week and again during the election. Combining the considerable resources (oh, the irony) of Socialist Alternative and the left wing of the Labor Party, Left Union were the well organised voice of the left. In what was a real trademark of the entire election, there were few issues of substance raised by the Left Union folks. Apparently, they're really truely absolutely positively opposing VSU. And the war in Iraq. Still, these guys in their suave red t-shirts are an electoral force to be reckoned with.

The rival on the left were Activate, replete in Green. These guys are the non-aligned left, without a formal politial affiliation but their hearts in the right place (shit that sounded patronising). These guys were running on many of the same issues as Left Union, although with slightly less Stalinist zeal, which is most definitely a good thing. Given the connection with Students for Change, a worthwhile group trying to inject some integrity and transperancy into a union which desperately needs it, these guys were focused on life on campus as well as off it. For a fence-stradling centrist student like AOTW, Activate was the lefty ticket I could vote for with confidence.

Surprisingly disorganised this time around was the right wing (yeah yeah 'a broad cross-section of students' and whatever other spin they might want to try) coalition of Labor Right, Liberals and AUJS, under the banner of Fusion. Completely unsighted on campus until election week, they were later hard to miss in their camp bright pink t-shirts. Fusion were pushing a rather populist message during the campaign, promoting its completely unviable 'free gym membership' policy. Yawn. Still, the last thing that the union needs are a bunch of mad lefties wasting money and breaking stuff, so there's some merit in getting some Fusion folks elected.

Rounding out the Melbourne (Uni) Cup field were the Liberals, who made a sad sight prostituting the party brand name to act as a preference funnel for the Fusion ticket, where the Liberals had scored themselves some juicy positions. Old hack candidates, no real message beyond the oh-so-hilarious "You know we're Right" slogan... the only thing going their way was the superslick full colour leaflet thrust into my hand. Obviously the campaign was not quite as anorexic as it could have been.

Honourable mentions of course must go to the chilly-loving Kung Fu Banditos, Ken Courtis, the committee-loving, afro-wearing Josh Cusack, and of course the wonderfully dedicated Farragon of Virtue Farrago ticket. But the question must be asked, where was everybody's favourite nutter, Menachem Gunzberg? His absense was disappointing.

Predictions. For those whose memories extend back far enough, a left wing dominance of Union House is business as usual. Without a strong incentive to vote, turn-out is slack, usually dangling in single-figure percentages. Those who do vote are the highly motivated, politically aware students, and overwhelmingly these are on the left. Headstrong socialists are much more likely to cast a vote than lazy conservative engineering students, if only because they have no shame being caught within range of the ballot box. Incentive voting distorted the balance for a couple of years, bringing otherwise apathetic students out to vote if only for the promise of an $8 food voucher. Without this, we're likely to see a big swing back to the left.

Most likely, the Left Union guys will sweep the pool when it comes to Office Bearer positions. With resources, their roughest edges smoothed, and a hard core of lefty arts students, it's hard to see LU falling short of union dominance. Committees will be a little more finely balanced, with the 7 positions on each likely to be around about a 4-2-1 split (Left Union-Fusion-Activate), although there are enough minor parties and indies to upset the balance. In the battle for Farrago, Farragon are in with a chance although will be hampered by the momentum other candidates will recieve through running a full slate of candidates. As for turnout, the look of complete and utter boredom on the face of the four polling booth staff sighted on Wednesday, as well as the absense of a queue, suggests that the campaign has failed to ignite the imagination of most students. Look for a turnout between 5 and 10 per cent. Sad but true.

Disclosure, disclosure: I got links to just about everyone, so I suspect I'm biased in all directions. I'm a member of AUJS, scrutineering for Lib member Ken Courtis, wrote an article for the left-wing Farragon guys, am mates with one of the ALP guys. So get over it.