Category: Blog posts

Monday saw an interesting uproar after Independent MP Tony Windsor suggested a popular vote on marriage equality at the next election. Windsor suggested that a plebiscite could be held in conjunction with the vote to recognise Local Government in the constitution.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not really a big fan of marriage or the marriage equality movement (from a left-wing perspective), and given that I don’t think a vote on the issue is worth the resources. But the harsh reaction by many marriage advocates has been interesting, and for me really instructive as to where the movement sits.

There seems to be two main arguments against a popular vote. The first is that a vote will lead to a hate-filled campaign from those opposing equality. As George Williams said:

“National polls of this kind involve more than reasoned debate. They attract extreme views and give licence to the media to report them. This would likely include absurd and offensive claims that vilify gay and lesbian people. There are real dangers in holding a vote on contentious moral topics like gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia.

Rather than uniting Australians, a plebiscite on gay marriage is likely to deepen divisions and further polarise the community. This is not the way to bring about social reform. The change should be positive and celebratory, as was the case in New Zealand, rather than edged with rancour and bitterness.”

This is a rather curious argument as it seems to ignore that conservative organisations already have a decent platform from which to campaign. Has anyone forgotten Jim Wallace comparing homosexuality to smoking, Helen Polley saying that same-sex marriage would lead to the next stolen generation or Cory Bernadi saying it will lead to bestiality? Conservatives are already campaigning and campaigning hard. Take a quick glance to France, where massive demonstrations have followed the passage of marriage equality, and you can see that this doesn’t just stop because a bill is passed by a Parliament.

Given this, I find it slightly odd that marriage advocates wouldn’t take up the challenge of finally shooting these people down with a popular vote? What could be a better way to celebrate a victory than through a smashing vote at a national election – one that, if polls are to be believe, would come firmly down the on the side of marriage advocates. If you’re concerned about the mental health of young people, I’m pretty sure a massive election win is the best way to deal with that.

This leads on to the second argument – that people shouldn’t be provided a ‘vote’ on fundamental rights. As Carl Katter (and Rachel Maddow) said:

“We should be very cautious about putting minority rights to a referendum because of the precedent it sets. As US commentator Rachel Maddow has said about marriage equality referenda in her country:

“Here’s the thing about rights. They’re not supposed to be voted on. That’s why we call them rights.”

In many ways I can see where they’re coming from on this. The problem is however that our current system already allows for voting on issues related to minority discrimination. Whilst we don’t directly vote on issues like marriage equality, we vote for people who make those decisions. And this is where a fundamental issue about ‘minority rights’ comes about. Except for a small minority of the population (as expected) minority rights rarely come into play when people chose their representatives. Marriage equality is not a vote changer. However if recent results in the US, where votes in Maine, Minnesota and Maryland all voted to support marriage equality, it has the capacity to be changed when directly put at an election.

This is where I see a major missed opportunity from the marriage equality movement. There is an inherent contradiction in saying we don’t want people to vote on our rights, and then asking politicians to do so. This debate had the opportunity to address this contradiction. A better approach could have been to shift the focus. Instead of a plebiscite on marriage equality we could be arguing for a debate on a Human Rights Act (commonly known as a bill of rights) of some form – either one in legislation or in the constitution. A real referendum maybe. This has the capacity to shift the attention away from marriage equality as a sole issue, and instead to focus more broadly on the issue of legal discrimination. Once implemented it could also mean an end to people ‘voting’ on our rights – as these rights would be enshrined in a bill that couldn’t be changed.

But, in the end, I guess that is why the marriage equality movement was so quick to shut this idea down. Because the movement isn’t about a broad discrimination agenda, but rather about getting access to a social system for a lucky few. When you look at it through that perspective shutting down the debate makes sense – it may open a can of worms that delays marriage equality so we can tackle the tougher issues. And who the hell would want that?

Last week Barack Obama’s campaign arm, Organizing for America, sent this video around to their campaign list.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biUc0D6_UPA&w=560&h=315]

I was quite happy to see this e-mail land in my inbox. It said to me that after a presidential campaign where climate change was hardly mentioned, the Obama Administration may actually be committed to doing something about it. I’m not convinced yet that this isn’t just talk, but I would certainly prefer talk to what we’ve had over the past couple of years. What’s depressing though is that to put climate on the agenda Obama still has to focus on climate denial. It feels like the movement is still stuck at the base level.

When reflecting on this though, I couldn’t help but think that whilst this approach makes sense in the US, I’m not sure it does elsewhere. In the US denialism is a significant problem. Whilst numbers seem to have increased in recent months (possibly due to last year’s intense summer followed by Hurricane Sandy) belief in climate change in the US has been dropping significantly since 2007. The latest poll (which had an uptick) found that only 50 per cent of people believed the climate was certainly getting warmer (the poll however did show people were in favour of regulation of greenhouse gasses). More importantly though, politics in the US is dominated by denialists – in particular in the Republican Party. It has gotten to a point where it is believed that it is almost impossible to both believe in climate change and have the chance to win a GOP Presidential nomination.

However, I don’t think the same trend holds up in Australia. For example research conducted by Ross Gaurnaut in 2010 (it’s a bit harder to get decent stats from Australia) showed that across a range of different surveys belief in climate change averaged in the mid 70 per cent range (it may have dropped since). Research conducted by the Australian Beaureu of Statistics between 2011 – 2012 found that 57% of people considered climate change to be a concerning issue. Whilst climate change numbers have dropped, most Australians still believe it is an issue, and one of concern.

This opens up a question to me about our focus when campaigning on climate change. Whilst I think combating denialism plays an important role, I think we may be wasting a bit too much energy on it.

Combating climate denialism is something that has taken a lot of effort within the climate movement. For example, last year, in one of the most publicised events of the climate movement, former Directory of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), Anna Rose, published her book Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of  Climate Sceptic. The book and film that went with it got lots of coverage. One of the most popular (and my favourite) climate websites in the country Sceptical Science  tackles climate denial head on. Whenever Lord Monkton visits Australia he gets huge coverage, particularly from climate movement and take a look at Twitter and Facebook on any given day and fights about climate science are more than common – denial is the question of the moment, and we seem obsessed with it.

Now, I’m not saying that these efforts are a bad thing – and I congratulate Rose and John Cook (who manages Sceptical Science) for the work they do (although as I’ve noted in my blog in the past, we need to be careful about our approaches to denial). I think we should be trying to get everyone on board. But, I think there is a question of resource allocation here that needs to be addressed.

Because in Australia, whilst we may not find ourselves in a major problem of denial, we certainly find ourselves in a problem of action.  For example, the 2012 Lowy Poll found that a staggering 63% of Australians continue to be opposed to the Government’s carbon legislation. The same poll (different links) found that after peaking at 68% in 2006, only 36% of people now agreed with the statement “Global Warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves serious cost.”

What does this show? People still believe in climate change, but are now significantly less likely to want to take action on it. That says to me that we may have our focus wrong.

We can think about this using a crude matrix like this. I think we can identify three broad groups of people around climate change – ‘active supporters’ who really want action (that 36%), ‘believers’ who believe in climate change, but it is isn’t a vote/action changer, and complete deniers. Of course the categories are bigger than this, but this makes for a simple illustration.

If we were to run a really effective action strategy, I believe we would focus on the first two groups. We would get the active supporters effectively mobilised so they are taking action, and we would we then work on the ‘believers’ to get them into the active supporter camp. In Australia however, the deniers we would largely ignore. This is for a few reasons. Firstly with our limited resources we are better placed to get those who are already closer to being mobilised to get there. Even if that is only 60% of the population, an active 60% is going to be much more powerful than a non-active 40%. Secondly, talking to deniers can have an opposite reaction – it can get them active in an opposite direction, leaving us worse off.

Of course this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about the science. But we need to be clear about who we are talking to. Our chat about science should be targeted at that middle (and by far the largest group). This is not to bring them into belief about climate change, but to ensure they don’t fall into the denial box. It is not about denial, but about affirmation of what they already believe, and to push them to action.

Of course I’m not saying this should be our complete strategy, and I see the strong desire to get everyone on board with the climate science. But, we have limited resources and limited capacity in the movement, and a need for fast action. Given this, we need to think about where to put our resources and energy. We have spent a lot of energy focused on that last group – trying to convince everyone to believe in climate change, and getting outraged when they don’t. In doing this however I think we could be ignoring the real task at hand – to get those who already believe to want to take action on the issue. I think that is where our energy could be best spent.

As regular readers may know, I have recently been doing a series of posts reviewing the chapters of the Occupy Handbook, which I have been making my way through. Whilst I haven’t quite finished the Handbook yet (almost there) today I embark on a new project. I have decided to finally start a book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages and has been begging me to read it; That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. Published in 2004, as the title describes, this book is a series of radical queer essays (therefore right up my alley!).

Today I though I would start by covering a piece by Priyank Jindal called Sites of resistance or sites of racism? As the title suggests Jindal’s piece looks at racism within the queer movement. The piece couldn’t start more strikingly:

“Racism is articulated over and over again by the LGBT movement, especially in this time of increased Amerikan* militarisation. After September 11, there was a very clear response from the gay “community”: Gay bars suddenly discovered what fabulous fashion patriotism makes, drag shows suddenly had an infusion of patriotic themes, and Amerikan pride and gay pride flags were found flying proudly side by side.”

*(Jinal uses the spelling Amerikan throughout the piece – if anyone understands the reason, would love to know it).

Jindal uses the aftermath of September 11 to point out how efforts to assimilate by many in the queer movement meant assimilating into a ‘white heterosexual nation’.

“The response of the mainstream gay community to 9-11 was to focus on how “we” were affected just like the rest of white Amerika and to prove the “we” would respond in the same way: to stand behind the war on terrorism. This essentially means standing behind the killing and terrorizing of brown people inside and outside of Amerikan borders. The gay community’s emphasis on the similarities of experiences between (white) heterosexuality and lesbian/gay homosexuality, through a shared racism agains brown folk, has helped white gays and lesbians to assimilate and become part of the white heterosexual nation.”

As Jindal continues:

“9-11 created a space for the privileged gay community to talk about their rights vis-a-vis the terrorists. Who is worse: the white middle-class gay person next door who wants to see Amerika “succeed” just as much as any heterosexual, or the terrorists?”

As I said, Jindal uses the reaction to 9-11 as a launching pad to discuss the ongoing racism they find within the mainstream queer movement. As they state:

“Most spaces identified as radical queer spaces, unless they are explicitly for people of colour, generally lack any significant attention to or inclusion of issues or struggles not specifically queer. In this context, unfortunately, those spaces are not radical alternatives to gay identity, but a continuation of the legitimisation of white identity that exists in gay mainstream culture. This has led to deep-rooted forms of racism in alternative sites of resistance. Organisers of these spaces may give lip service to an anti-racist agenda, but in practice their actions maintain the status quo.”

So the issue here therefore is twofold. Firstly, gay mainstream spaces are still dominated by white voices. Secondly, within this context, these spaces tend only to advocate for what are seen as ‘queer’ issues – i.e. things like marriage equality, adoption rights, Don’t-Ask Don’t-Tell. As other voices are missing, so are the other struggles, which are just as queer as the issues focused on. Jindal describes the problem as thus:

“Why do sites of radical queer resistance consistently fail to effectively resist racist ideology? The answer is that these sites have been created from and organised around the lived experiences and political agendas of white people.”

Jindal points to a number of instances of this, one being ‘radical’ drag king shows.

“We see this pattern again in “radical” drag king shows where performers generally fail to interrogate the role of racism in their performance of gender. I have been to performances where I am one of the few brown faces in the crowd, and all the performers are white but not all of the performances are of white masculinity. There are many instances where white queers perform masculinities of color and do not recognise this as a very racist act. Just because it’s queer blackface doesn’t make it any less racist.”

As a white man in the queer community and movement, this says a couple of really important things to me. Firstly, it is about time that we all recognise that just because you are part of one minority, or even a part of a struggle as part of that minority, doesn’t not mean you cannot be discriminatory to another group. Too often we forget to challenge our own sexism, racism and homophobia within our communities, because we seem to think that it doesn’t exist.

The next obvious link therefore is to recognise that these issues are all linked and you cannot have one without the other. Unfortunately however much of ‘gay ideology’ doesn’t do this – it solely focuses on ‘gay issues’.

“The discussion of gay rights shaped by this ideology centers around providing assistance to gay partners; fighting for gay marriage, gay adoption and social security benefits; and fighting against the don’t ask/don’t tell policy. Needless to say, these are not the most pressing issues amongst working-class, poor, and transgendered people of colour whose race, documentation, class status, or gender identity often prevent them from receiving the wide array of social benefits afforded to white, middle-class gays and lesbians.”

A queer movement that does not join the fight against racism, sexism and classism however is not doing our community justice. We do not live in a ‘queer isolation’, meaning that these fights are just as much ours as they are anyone elses. And importantly if we do not recognise this, we have the very real potential to become a white male movement – one that ignores other struggles and focuses solely on things that benefit white gay people. This is not the movement I want to see.

In the aftermath of the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, there has been a lot of discussion about her legacy.  I commented on Thatcher’s legacy in a piece of my own the day after her death. After doing some more reading on Thatcher, one interesting piece I came across was this piece from Rjurik Davidson, and in particular this quote:

“On the Left there has been more than the usual triumphalism at Thatcher’s passing. My own Facebook feed is filled with crowing that ‘The Witch is Dead’, the modern version it seems to me of medieval dancing in the streets. I must admit, I find it all a bit grisly, not because I have any sympathy for Thatcher – God knows, she was an awful woman – but that it individualises a figure who was much more than simply an individual. In a sense, this crowing is a descent into the very individualism that Thatcher herself championed.”

For me, this is a striking statement of one of Thatcher’s ‘greatest’ legacies.

If you were to pinpoint Thatcher’s belief system with one word it is hard to go past ‘individualism’. Thatcher was a believer in the individual, and a strong opponent of collectivism. It is interesting therefore that in her passing so much has focused on her as an individual. We have, whether from the left or the right, put her up as a leading figure in neoliberalism – almost to the point where it could be thought that neoliberalism wouldn’t be around without her.

What’s interesting to me about this is that it links directly to a lot of the thinking around the rise of individual leadership at the same time. This is again something I posted on last week. As I said in that post, we have seen a rise in an alienating myth of leadership – a rise that has occurred at the same time as neoliberalism. This myth is based on the idea of great leaders who have specific ‘traits’ that need to be celebrated. In doing so it pushes down people who don’t have those traits, leaving them without any opportunity become leaders. As I quoted in that piece:

“Leadership theories espousing “traits” or “great person” explanations reinforce and reflect the widespread tendency of people to deskill themselves and idealise leaders by implying that only a select few are good enough to exercise initiative.”

It’s important to note that this sort of leadership myth excludes the idea of collective leadership – directly in the line with the individualistic approach of Thatcher. The point therefore is that in ideolising Thatcher, the left has almost given her exactly what she would want in death. We have reinforced the idea of a great individual, and a great individual leader, almost ignoring the collective responsibility of neoliberalism.

As Davidson points out though, although Thatcher was a chief agent of it, neoliberalism was about a lot more than individualism:

The political point is that Thatcher was one of the chief representatives of an entire political project now known as neoliberalism. There’s something misleading about the way the term is understood, for it is more than an economic doctrine of the free market, but includes an entire political project founded in virulent nationalism and consolidated by the destruction of democratic liberties and working class institutions. The Falklands war, the destruction of the miners and their unions, support for the nastiest dictatorships across the globe (Chile, Indonesia, South Africa), the destruction of the Eastern Bloc and its opening up to market relations – these are the things which Thatcher championed. They are all part of the neoliberal project, each a precondition and complement to the other.

We would do well to remember that this very project still lies in the center of power, in the US, in Britain and in Australia, we’re about to face a new wave of Thatcherite attacks by an incoming Liberal government, right in the heels of the neoliberalism kindly meted out by the Gillard government.

Neoliberalism isn’t about in individual – it is a collective ‘project’. What this says to me is that we need to move beyond the individual focus of our attack on neoliberalism. If we want to turn back to a collective focus we must not idealise individual agents of neoliberalism, as that only reinforces their ideology. Instead it seems to make more sense to focus on neoliberalism as a collective project, and therefore find collective alternatives to it.

Class warfare seems to be the argument of choice against the ALP at the moment. According to their critics, the Gillard Government is engaging in a war against the rich, one that pits citizen against citizen and creates a sentiment of resentment. As the Government announced changes to superannuation a few weeks ago for example, an editorial in the Herald Sun claimed:

“Instead of governing for all Australians, the Gillard Government is actively promoting class warfare and realigning itself with the unions”.

Even Labor MPs have bought into the story. After his resignation from the Cabinet a couple of weeks ago Martin Ferguson said:

“The class-war rhetoric that started with the mining dispute of 2010 must cease. It is doing the Labor Party no good.”

It’s about time these claims are properly challenged as the rubbish they are.

Thinking about what we mean by class warfare; a conflict or struggle between different economic classes, the policies implemented by the ALP, certainly don’t fit the bill. At best the Government has slightly tinkered with the wealth of the rich, but it certainly doesn’t amount to a war.

And the problem is therefore that whilst we’re making these fake claims of class warfare, we’re ignoring the real threat of war that is right under our noses. To understand this, I think it is worth looking across the world to some real class warfare. After the election of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, the UK Government has engaged in what can only be classified as high level warfare. Taking inspiration from the Thatcher years, Cameron made true of promises to cut the deficit and debt, and did so directly through targeting the poor. He made cuts to welfare programs, increased University fees, and slashed thousands of public service positions (directly impact the people who benefit from the services these people provide).

This program has taken a much more controversial turn recently with a new welfare platform. The most well-known of these is the so called ‘bedroom tax’, or the Spare Room Subsidy, a program where anyone receiving housing benefit payments will have to move or pay a subsidy for each room they have vacant. As George Monbiot notes, this tax is likely to hit disabled people the worst, and force thousands of poor people who can’t afford it from their homes (some councils are already saying they will not evict people who can’t afford the tax). Monbiot also points towards other policies, including cuts to relief for the poor from council taxes, the cut off of legal aid for civil cases, a cut in real terms of benefit payments for the poorest in society and the implementation of a total benefits cap, which is likely to force people who live in places with high property prices out of their homes.

All of this will be topped off with the fact that at the same time those who make more than £150,000 a year will have their income tax cut. As Monbiot says:

“What we are witnessing is raw economic warfare by the rich against the poor.”

Monbiot is right; this is genuine class warfare. This is about one class, the wealthy and powerful, using their positions of power to increase their standing at the expense of the poor. It is not about good policy, nor good financial management, but about demonising the poor to the benefit of the rich. And in doing so this is the sort of class warfare we should be really concerned about. Compared to a sort of warfare that involves leveling the playing field or tinkering with the pay checks of the wealthy, this is about kicking those who are already struggling whilst they’re down.

And, whilst we’ve heard screams about the mining and superannuation taxes, this is the sort of class warfare we should be really worried about in Australia. Whilst the Government watered down its mining tax for example, it also cut payments to single parents on welfare. This meant that over the past 6 months, the Government has cut more money to single parents than it raised from the mining tax. The Government has begun to implement a welfare management system, which provides for the compulsory quarantining of 50 per cent of welfare payments so money is spent on essentials and children. Whilst not as bad as the Cameron cuts, these provisions point to a form of class warfare that is largely being ignored.

And things only look to get worse if Tony Abbott is elected. Abbott already has a series of policies directed straight at the poor. As part of his plan abolish the mining tax, Abbott has announced that he would reverse superannuation tax cuts which have affected 3.6 million of the lowest paid Australians. He has announced a range of welfare policies, including continuing with welfare quarantining, stripping away unemployment benefits for people in areas where there are skill shortages and overhauling the disability pension. Abbott called his policy a ‘tough-love’ approach. Abbott’s approach is to be met with a range of policies that will benefit the wealthy, including the repealing of the carbon and mining taxes and the ending of the means testing of the private health rebate.

And there is the very real potential that we could expect more for Abbott if he is elected. It has already been noted that if elected the Coalition has a large budget hole, as his spending promises do not match his promised cuts. With the promise to get the budget back into surplus, and a campaign of no new taxes, it is very possible that Abbott could look to welfare and the poor.

Class warfare is alive and strong in Australia. But it is not what the Australian and Conservative MPs are talking about – it is about an ongoing, and systematic attack on the poor. There is a real chance that this campaign could get significantly worse if an Abbott Government is elected, and it is something that deserves real attention.

So, this last weekend was fun.

I mean, I’ve been getting tired of the Labor Government for months (or really years) now. The approval of coal mines, the re-starting of the Pacific solution, the cuts to single parents welfare, the cuts to federal aid, the awful policy, after awful policy, after awful policy. But then, there was the weekend. Firstly we had the announcement of billions of dollars worth of cuts to universities; cuts that universities around the country are already saying will hurt. And then the announcement of the school funding policy; one that will do nothing to deal with inequality in our school system, but will actually make it worse.

But that’s not why I’m pissed this time. I’ve learnt to deal with the shitty policies. It’s what I’ve come to expect from this Government.

What is really pissing me off this time is the apologism. This week it was really quite spectacular. We had the insistence that the Government was ‘only slowing the growth’ of University funding, and then the distribution of ridiculous graphs that made no sense to anyone at all. What was worse though was that this defence was not just happening from the right, but from the left as well; a left that is now championing cuts to universities.

But this apologism has actually gotten much more sinister than that. Because it’s not just about defending the Government, it’s about attacking those who criticise them as well. According to so many on the ‘left’ we can’t criticise the Government because all we will be doing is ‘helping Tony Abbott’. We have to stay silent, focus on Abbott, and forget about the Government’s right-wing agenda.

Well, do you know what? I’ve had enough. I’m sick of being told that I have to stay silent on this awful Government. I am sick people telling me that I am hurting left-wing politics in this country, when it is in fact those who refuse to criticise Gillard who are doing so.

I think maybe it’s about time that we sat back and thought long and hard about the point of a left-wing movement in this country. I reckon many of us have gotten it the wrong way round.

Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure progressive politics in Australia is about shifting us to becoming a left-wing country (and through that a left-wing world). It’s about (amongst others) challenging neo-liberalism at its heart, getting real protection of the environment, fighting for a progressive economic system, and ensuring that everyone has access to high quality essential services, from health and education to a strong social welfare system. It is not about a party. It is about the positions that political parties, and our community, embrace and implement.

But for some in the ‘left-wing’ of the ALP that doesn’t seem to be what we’re about any more. Somewhere along the line it has become about party first, and doing anything to ensure the ALP stays in power. Now, I see the logic. The ALP is the lesser of two evils (apparently) and therefore we should do whatever we can to help them stay in power. As we’ve been told ‘Abbott is much worse’.

But where we’ve gotten to now is a situation where the defense of the ALP has come directly at the cost of any real left-wing progress.

The uncritical approach to the ALP has meant that the party no longer has to worry about any real left backlash to its policies. When we don’t criticise, when we line up behind them, we give them cover, meaning they don’t have to answer to us any more and can just pander to the right. And in doing so we create a new standard for progressivism in this country. Suddenly cutting education becomes a political norm, the Pacific Solution becomes a bipartisan approach that doesn’t look like it will be reversed for years, and cutting welfare is a policy that becomes the standard approach. Instead of pushing the ALP from the left, we’re letting them get away with a strategy that takes them to the right.

And hey, call me crazy again, but I reckon that’s a pretty stupid strategy.

But’s it’s even worse than that. When we get up and defend the ALP’s right-wing policies, we let the Coalition go even further to the right. In creating a new definition of what is ‘left’, we’re letting the Coalition find a new definition of what is ‘right’. Just look at the big policies of today. The ALP’s adoption of the Pacific Solution has allowed the Coalition to go even further and focus on TPVs and ‘behaviour protocols’. In defending the CPRS, we gave the Coalition the perfect space to carve out opposition to any form of a price on carbon at all. In defending these education cuts, and the awful method of school financing, we are going to let the Coalition frame a new version of opposition that involves more cuts and even more unequal system. As we defend the ALP we’re letting the Coalition head even further to the right, making it even more difficult for us to carve out a true left-wing when they’re elected (not to mention that it will be very difficult to go back on all these ‘compromised positions’ after the ALP falls into opposition.)

I don’t think I should have to defend a Labor Government just because they are ‘slightly better’ than the Coalition. Shit right-wing policies are shit right-wing policies, whether they come from the ALP or the Coalition. And as long as they are shit right-wing policies I am going to stand up and criticise them. The truth is that that is the only way we’re going to actually achieve any real left-wing progress in Australia.

One of the things I noticed about the ALP leadership dramas recently was the complete lack of substance behind the brawl. Even though a number of Government policies have changed quite dramatically since Julia Gillard took charge of the party (the mining tax, welfare, and asylum seekers most importantly), the leadership tensions did not seem to be about any substantive policy differences. Instead, the tension was focused on personal issues and on the different ‘leadership styles’ of Kevin v Julia. This is something I posted about on my blog recently – an almost irrational (I hate the way we use the word irrational, but that is a blog post for another day) feeling of having an innate desire to have one leader over the other. The public generally seems to have this same feeling – despite the lack of policy differences, there are significant differences in voter intentions depending on whether Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd are the leader of the part.

This debate about leadership has come up recently through some paid work I have been doing. I have managed to secure myself an academic job this year – helping write papers on project management. You may think the content seems boring (I wont say it is because my supervisor may read this), but more recently it has taken an interesting turn, as I’ve started to read some material on leadership. One paper in particular that I thought I would review today is called “Leadership: An Alienating Social Myth” by Gary Gemmill and Judity Oakley. Sounds dull  – but stick with me!

Firstly, let’s have a quick look at the idea of leadership. I’m not going to cover over the basics of leadership, but what is important to note is that leadership has turned largely from a communitarian system, to one focused on individuals (obviously linked with the growth in individualism under neoliberalism). As John Storey says:

“Despite prevailing and persisting cultural differences between certain countries, the diffusion and increasingly dominant influence of American values in recent years may also help to explain the increased attention given to leadership across much of the world. The American Dream and the focus on individualism and the can-do attitude have permeated international teaching and development in relation to how organisational leadership is viewed.

“This individualised interpretation is fuelled by the media. Business magazines such as Business Week, Fortune and the Director  are especially prone to focus on the supposed crucial impact of top managers. Even serious financial newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times tend also to profile and give huge prominence to individual personalities and attribute to them apparent critical importance.”

This trend goes well beyond corporations. Leadership has become more and more important in our political sphere, as the influence of the collective of the party has weakened. The same can be said for NGOs, the public service and even places like schools. For Gemmill and Oakley this is what they’ve called the resurgence of the ‘great leader myth’ – that leaders, who have particular, and prescribed traits, “are unquestionable necessary for the functioning of an organisation.”

This myth, they argue, has been created from a growing sense of social despair and helplessness (maybe for more information the growing sense on despair and helplessness, check out my post on The Western Cultural Crisis). As they explain:

“It is our thesis that much of the current writing and theorising on leadership stems from a deepening sense of social despair and massive learned helplessness. As social despair and helplessness deepen, the search and with for a messiah (leader) or magical rescue (leadership) also begins to accelerate.”

“The leadership myth functions as a social defense whose central aim is to repress uncomfortable needs, emotions, and wishes that emerge when people attempt to work together (Gemmill, 1986; Jacques 1955). Stated somewhat differently, when members of a group are faced with uncertainty and ambiguity regarding direction, they often report experiencing feelings of anxiety, helplessness, discomfort, disappointment, hostility, and fear of failure. Frightened by these emerging emotions and impulses, which are ordinarily held in check by absorption into the prevailing social system, they collude, largely unconsciously, to dispel them by projecting them onto “leadership” or the “leader” role.

In other words, based largely around the push around indvidualism, we have created a social myth that we need leaders in order to survive. This myth occurs in an unconscious manner, creating anxiety and depression when it’s not around. In doing so it reinforces already existing power structures, by identifying particular people as leaders based on particular traits, and then depowering those who don’t have these traits:

“The social myth around leaders serves to program life out of people (non-leaders) who, with the social lobotimization, appear as cheerful robots (Mill, 1956). It is our contention that the myth making around the concept of leadership is, as Bennis arrests, and unconscious conspiracy, or social hoax, aimed at maintaining the status quo (Bennis, 1989).”

“Leadership theories espousing “traits” or “great person” explanations reinforce and reflect the widespread tendency of people to deskill themselves and idealise leaders by implying that only a select few are good enough to exercise initiative.”

We can see this everywhere. Whether in our workplaces, or in our politics, we place faith in particular leaders, and rely on them to provide solutions to the problems we need. The problem with this is not just that it enforces power structures, but that it can create a non-empowered community, one which relies heavily on particular individuals, and has the capacity to crumble when those leaders fail. Gemmill and Oakley argue therefore that we need to break down our understanding of leadership:

“In recent years, empowerment has emerged as an idea designed to increase involvement and participation in decision making by those perceived as working in environments where taking orders and being told what to do is the norm and self-management is not practiced.”

“For change to occur, it is necessary to experiment with new paradigms and new behaviours to find more meaningful and constructive ways of relating and working together. While such social experimentation is a process marked by uncertainty, difficulties, awkwardness, disappointment, and tentativeness of actions, it is indispensable if people are to experience a non-alienated mode of existence in a work environment or in a society.”

If we go back to our example of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd what this would mean is that their leadership traits – the very thing we seem to be arguing about – wouldn’t matter anywhere near as much. Political leadership, or just politics as a whole, would be more about everyone being empowered as political leaders. Instead of being alienated from the process, we would find ways for everyone to be leaders – to create a more communitarian approach to political leadership.  To paraphrase Kennedy, it would be to not ask what our leaders to do for our community, but to ask what we can all do for our community.

As people reflect on the life and times of former PM Margaret Thatcher, an age old debate has once again arisen, what impact did she have on feminism? I think it is a debate that is worth having.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to go down the line of Lionel Schriver and argue that ‘Thatcher was a real feminist’. It is clear that she hated feminism and a lot of what it stood for. She was once quoted to say, “I owe nothing to women’s lib”, and “I hate feminism. It is a poison.” Beyond this, as Jenny Anderson has argued, there are many other reasons Thatcher was bad for women and feminism. Despite this however, many people still argue that despite her hatred for the movement, the mere existence of Thatcher was good for women, and good for feminism. As Irin Carmon argued:

“It’s better to have women in public life, even when we vehemently disagree with them, than to have no women in public life at all. Every single one counts toward the normalization of women in charge, however abhorrent their policies.”

Now, I am not a woman. So I therefore cannot explain how women should and did feel about having Margaret Thatcher rise to the top of the British political class. In fact, it is clear that different women experienced it differently, with many different views out there on her premiership. However, I think this view deserves discussion. It is about a lot more than just feminism – and can reach out into queer (something I can directly connect with), and race politics.

There is a growing trend in these forms of ‘identity’ politics (which is the cover term I will use from here on in) to focus on ‘representation’ – the idea that we need to increase the representation of people of minority groups in political office, boards etc. The basis behind these sorts of arguments are threefold; first that ‘equality’ is inherently good, second that it is important to have a ‘woman’s/queer/person of colour’ perspective in different positions and finally, the argument that Carmon brings up, that having people from these different identities ‘normalises’ the experience of having them as leaders. Using these theories therefore, people would argue that Thatcher was good for women because she brought a woman’s perspective to the premiership, and she normalised the idea that women could be leaders.

However, whilst these theories seem to have merit on paper, when taken in the context of broader identity politics I think, if pursued on their own, they fall down. Identity politics is about a lot more than equality. It is about directly challenging dominant power structures – whether that be the class system, or the heteronormative, racist and patriarchal society. It is these power systems that are holding back equality, and it is therefore these systems that need to be challenged.

The ‘representative’ arguments, again if pursued on their own, however fail to effectively challenge these structures. For example, let’s look at the womens/queer/person of colour ‘voice at the table argument’. In many ways this argument makes sense – that if we bring people of different identities to the table then we will get different perspectives and greater understanding of the issues facing minority groups. The problem is that whilst we may get representatives at the table, they are still operating under the dominant systems of the time. And whilst people from minority groups may be able to change the system from the inside, unless a direct challenge to this system from the outside occurs, they will always be hamstrung by it.

This builds directly into the issues with the ‘normalising’ argument. I agree that having people from minority groups does allow for the ‘normalisation’ of them being in positions of power, and Margaret Thatcher is definitely a testament to that. The question is though, do we want to be normalised in this way? If normalisation means putting yourself into an oppressive power system, and becoming part of that system, then why would we want it? This is what we can see with Margaret Thatcher – yes, to an extent this ‘normalised’ having women in power, but in doing so it also ‘normalised’ the power structures that we should be wanting to tear down.

Turning this around however, this is where Thatcher may have done something good for feminism. As Carmon also stated:

“Thatcher herself was a necessary rebuke to essentialism, to the humanity-constricting idea that women are inherently more collaborative, peaceful or nurturing.”

I think this is an essential point, because it provides and important structural analysis to the issues women, queer folk, and people of colour face. For centuries, people of minority groups have been treated as if they have no capacity to be leaders. As the identity struggles of our times however have gained momentum however, this ‘essentialism’ has started to break down. Replacing it however has been a system which allows a particular few into the power systems that already exist – often those who, whilst as a member of a minority group, have wealth and power in the class system. These people have gained access to a system, but the system still stands. This can be good for identity movements though as it takes away the focus from essentialism, and puts it back onto the power structures we need to challenge.

Finally, I hear you say, what about equality? Isn’t that still important? Well, yes, equality is still important – but I don’t think it is the be all and end all. Whilst equality has some inherent benefits, I don’t think it is worth pursuing it if it means building up the very structures that we should be wanting to tear down. If we want to find the best way to achieve equality, what we are better doing is spending our energy on tearing down these structures. It is the best opportunity we have.

Representation is a good thing. But pursued on its own, I don’t believe it provides an inherent good. It has to be part of a broader campaign, and this is certainly not the sort of campaign Margaret Thatcher was part of.

Margaret Thatcher is dead. Thatcher was not only the United Kingdom’s first female Prime Minister, but she was also the longest serving PM of the twentieth Century. As she passes on, it is important to turn our attention to her ongoing legacy; a legacy that is once again rearing its ugly head.

There are two parts of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy that I want to reflect on today.

Firstly, of course, is Thatcherism. As the ABC describes it:

“Thatcherism’s appeal was to the individual, its rhetoric was all about freedom and an end to class division, about less state control and more private enterprise, about smashing anything that believed in collective power, from trade unions to the Soviet bloc.”

Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Excheaquer, Nigel Lawson, describes Thatcherism in this way:

“Free markets, financial discipline, firm control over public expenditure, tax cuts, nationalism, ‘Victorian values’ (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatisation and a dash of populism.”

Played out in real terms, Thatcherism, along with Reaganism in the United States, and economic rationalism in Australia, saw the growth of neo-liberalism in modern economic thinking. Neo-liberalism turned to individuals and free market, working against any state involvement, and fighting directly against collectivism, and the union movement. It is difficult to cover everything Thatcher did to move in this direction, but some of her most famous moves included the crushing of the mining unions, the mass privatisation of state assets, cuts to welfare, the sell off of community housing, the implementation of the ‘poll tax’ (which implemented a minimum tax of 20% on all residents) and the famous move away from communitarianism; based in Thatcher’s own comments that “there is no such thing as a society.”

The consequences of these moves were clearly devastating. During Thatcher’s time, unemployment rose to new highs, with the term, “Maggie’s 3 Million” (relating to the 3 million unemployed) being termed. Thatcherism also brought with it a significant rise in poverty rates. Throughout her tenure, poverty rates in the United Kingdom doubled, whilst as she left office 28% of children were below the poverty line. The rise of neoliberalism has also brought with it a significant rise in income inequality. Research last year said that income inequality in the UK was the worst it had been for a 100 years. As professor Danny Dorling said:

“If we look back about 100 years, we can see that inequality in the UK did drop significantly in the 70 years from 1910-1979. More than half of that drop in inequality took place prior to 1939. Since 1979 these inequalities have risen dramatically and continue to rise.”

It is through the very continued existence of neoliberal policy that Thatcher will continue to have her influence. Neo-liberalist policy continued directly with the election of the Blair Labour Government (as Germaine Greer said last night, Blair was Thatcher’s best disciple), and the election of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 has seen Thatcherism rise even higher once again. After cutting public servants, welfare programs, and talks about reforming the NHS, recent months have seen an ever greater push of Thatcherism by the Cameron Government. This program has taken a much more controversial turn with a range of policies in recent months. The most well-known of these is the so called ‘bedroom tax’, or the Spare Room Subsidy, a program where anyone receiving housing benefit payments will have to move or pay a subsidy for each room they have vacant. A whole range of other policies are also being implemented, including cuts to relief for the poor from council taxes, the cut off of legal aid for civil cases, a cut in real terms of benefit payments for the poorest in society and the implementation of a total benefits cap, which is likely to force people who live in places with high property prices out of their homes. All of this will be topped off with the fact that at the same time those who make more than £150,000 a year will have their income tax cut. This is, at its heart, and individualist, Thatcherist, approach. And it means, as Billy Bragg commented, that Thatcherism is as strong as ever:

“The death of Margaret Thatcher is nothing more than a salient reminder of how Britain got into the mess that we are in today. Of why ordinary working people are no longer able to earn enough from one job to support a family; of why there is a shortage of decent affordable housing; of why domestic growth is driven by credit, not by real incomes; of why tax-payers are forced to top up wages; of why a spiteful government seeks to penalise the poor for having an extra bedroom; of why Rupert Murdoch became so powerful; of why cynicism and greed became the hallmarks of our society.”

And this is a legacy that we can see around the world. In Australia we’ve seen many attacks on the welfare recipients, the privatisation of assets both federally and at state levels, an increase in the demands of free trade and ongoing attacks on the union movement. These policies began in earnest with the Hawke and Keating Governments (who were around at the same time as Thatcher) and continued in full force with the election of John Howard. And whilst the current Federal Labor Government has taken a slower approach (providing some extra rights to unions, increasing some taxation on the wealthy etc), Thatcherism looks to be heavily reignited as Tony Abbott heads to the Lodge. As part of his plan abolish the mining tax, Abbott for example has already announced that he would reverse superannuation tax cuts to those in the lowest income brackets. He has also outlined a range of welfare policies, including continuing with welfare quarantining, stripping away unemployment benefits for people in areas where there are skill shortages and overhauling the disability pension. Abbott called his policy a ‘tough-love’ approach. He has also promised to dramatically cut public servant numbers, including abolishing a number of Government Departments, continue to privatise state assets (for example Medibank Private) and has recently announced new attacks on the right to strike. In many ways you can see Abbott’s Thatcherist approach in his speech to the IPA last week. Thatcherism is alive and well not only in the UK, but Australia as well.

The second, and rather interesting, legacy of Thatcher, is the impact she has had on feminism.

Thatcher was clearly no feminist, and she certainly didn’t believe in the collectivist activism that many in the feminist movement are fighting for. She was once quoted to say: “I hate feminism. It is a poison.” In that sense, the impact Thatcher had on feminism should be quite easy to understand; it should simply be a history of a fight against an anti-feminist.

However, in being one of the first conservative woman political leaders in the Western World (or possible the first leader of a major political party?) Thatcher opened up a real challenge for much of feminism. How do we critique her policies, whilst acknowledging that a woman has made it to the top? For many that challenge continues today, and it is a real impact of Thatcher’s legacy. We can see it in the reaction to her death, as many have tried to tread a fine line between criticising her, but also congratulating her for her ‘strength’ and ‘courage’ (why we should congratulate someone for having the strength to crush unions and the poor is beyond me).

But the legacy goes well beyond this. As this challenge rose, so did a strand of feminism, which focused its fights in board rooms and political offices. It is no coincidence that this strand of feminism focused, just like Thatcher, on the individual rather than the collective. Instead of challenging patriachal structures, it looks towards finding acceptance into it – allowing particular women to enter the elite. It’s the sort of feminism that thinks that even though she was violently anti-feminist, that the election of Margaret Thatcher was good for the cause. And the challenge of dealing with this continues today – the celebration of women making it to the top continues, despite the often anti-feminist approaches many of these women take (see for example Julia Gillard in Australia).

Thatcher is now gone. But her legacy, and the awful impacts it has had continues to live on. As she passes away therefore it is worth reflecting on her legacy, and looking at ways to reignite the fights against her ideology. Let us hope that it soon can join its architect.

A couple of weeks ago, as part of some ongoing discussion I’ve been posting about police violence following the shocking footage coming out of Mardi Gras, I posted an interview with Ray Jackson, the President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association. Ray and I discussed the links between police violence towards Indigenous communities, and that which we saw at Mardi Gras, and following the interview I thought it would be worth quickly reflecting on what he had to say.

I think there were two really important parts of the interview with Ray Jackson that is worth reflecting on. First, is his statements around the origins of police violence.

“I always start the answer to this question by saying we have to go back in history (what issues to Aboriginal people face in relation to the police). We have to go back 225 years to when the boats first sailed into Sydney Harbour. The troopers who were with them were later used to ‘clear the land’, as they were commonly known to do, which meant of course the genocide of the Aboriginal mobs around Sydney and the outlying areas.

“When the police were formed, they were formed out of the troopers. So there’s been, I would argue, a historical ethos of the police in their attitude and their handling of Aboriginal issues. It’s always been a war, and it always will be a war. More bad than good has happened over the years of course.”

Understanding the history of the police in this way is really telling in the way that we deal with them now. Because, when you look at the history of the police, what you see is a history of an organisation based in the oppression of particular groups. It shows a structural problem with the organisation. And as Ray said, this is not just relevant to Aboriginal peoples.

“As I said at that rally, I link the gay mobs and the Aboriginal mobs into one basket. For 225 years both our mobs have been discriminated against, ostracised and abused by the police.”

What this says to me is that we can’t solve police violence by tinkering around the edges. In other words, external investigations and meetings to talk about how we can work together will not solve the problem. We need to directly challenge the structure of the police, a structure based in oppressional systems.

And in doing so, I agree with Ray that indigenous and queer communities can and should be working together:

“As I said at that rally, it is high time that both our groups worked together. We have one common enemy in this situation and that is violent police. We need to curb the violence of the police.”

We do have a common enemy here, and although the histories with the police are very different, they are also in some ways the same; that is that they are based in a history of oppression. In this sense, queer issues are indigenous issues. And for me, this means that it is time some in queer communities (I can’t really speak for indigenous communities in this context as I am not a member of those communities) put aside some our prejudices (dare I say, some of our racism) to work better with indigenous communities. That’s clearly a bigger issue, but I think it is one that is holding us back, and one we need to address. In doing so we could create a greater union, and truly challenge the police more effectively.