my column

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades - this is the first of my 2000 columns which I write for the local
anarchist throwaway.  I have been mightily encouraged by some kind comments
from list members and so have been emboldened to post this.

regards

Gary

1. The experience of returning from wintering out in Ireland to the
excruciating rigors of a late summer heat wave has been an exhausting and a
disorienting one for me.  Not even the copious amounts of cold beer that I
have consumed can disguise the realization that this land is for the
European a strange and peculiarly unreal destination. The nagging question
that must have so haunted the first white settlers, persists  what are we
doing here?  There have of course been many attempts to create myths that
would provide an answer or to be more accurate to shore us up against
doubt.  The most successful of these was that this was a great white nation
founded as a god fearing civilization  an isolated but still blessed
bulwark against the heathen hordes of alternatively Asiatic barbarism or
Russian communism.   However capitalist modernity has ruthlessly and
brutally destroyed this myth. The bulwark has been battered down by the
forces of globalization.  The erstwhile hordes are the eagerly sought after
customers of today.

No new myth has been forged to endear us to the vicissitudes of
late-capitalist modernity.  Regularly commentators on the Right such as
Michael Duffy, bemoan the fact that John Howard cannot come up with a story
which will have us all eagerly striving together. This is what right wing
commentators mean by the ?vision thing?. Not only has Howard been unable to
articulate a vision, worse in his opposition to the Republic he murdered
the only possible alternative myth.  This was that we had grown up as a
nation and now no longer needed the mother country Britain. We could now
become an adult nation  a new republic.  By and large middle class
Australia bought this myth.  It seemed to reconcile us to capitalist
modernity and globalization while at the same time give us our own niche.
However in a fit of resentment against the modernizers the working class of
Australia voted down the republic. So now we are adrift and all the social
surveys show that we are plagued by insecurity, anxiety and depression.

But the dialectic never dies.  As Holderin pointed out where there is
danger there too the remedy begins to grow. I was immensely buoyed up by a
seemingly trivial incident. In the one day cricket game against Australia
the Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar came on to bowl.  He had been
labelled as a thrower by a committee of the International Cricket
Council.  Thus Authority had designated him as a pariah.  His whole career
and way of life had been threatened. However his country had pulled some
strings and although under a cloud he had been permitted to participate in
the one day series.

How would Australians respond to his presence against their own
team?  Would they go with Authority or would they side with the outsider,
the Asian, the foreigner?  No one knew.  The answer when it came was truly
beautiful in its sincerity, spontaneity and unpredictability. The entire
Southern Stand at the Gabba cricket ground rose at the end of Akhtar?s
first over and gave him a standing ovation. The people had spoken.
Authority had been rejected.  The most noble of all human
emotions  solidarity with the underdog, the outsider, the victim - had
manifested itself.

For there is another Australia.  One that is seen all too rarely but is
nevertheless still there.  It is an Australia which holds faith with the
knowledge that this nation was forged in the fires of slavery and genocide.
It is an Australia which knows that beneath the smoothly efficient mask of
Authority is the  reality of cruel and brutal domination and exploitation
of the people.  It is an Australia which still feels the pulse of freedom.

2.  Lest it be thought that I am suffering from nostalgia for the Old
Country I have to report that the dominant impression I received of Blair?s
Britain is that of an enormous dumbing down of the popular culture.  This
finds its clearest expression in the activities of the paparazzi in the
Murdoch Press.  The issues that dominated public attention were the Queen?s
refusal to link arms with Tony Blair for the singing of Aul Lang Syne,
whether soccer star David Beckham wore his wife, Posh Spice?s underwear,
and the divorce traumas of Scarey Spice. The Daily Mirror had a headline
?Ma?am was right? defending the Queen?s refusal. I almost puked at the
sight of that.  The paparazzi then outdid themselves and succeeded in
producing a photo which revealed Beckham was wearing white y-fronts.  We
were subsequently innundated with photos of Scarey Spice grieving topless
in the surf in Phuket and photos of her husband?s career as a dancer in the
gay bars in Amsterdam.

Meanwhile the slaughter continues in Chechnya, hundreds of thousands die of
starvation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and as a species we humans continue
recklessly on the path of eco-suicide. Yet these facts seldom figure in the
media. Noam Chomsky in his book Manufacturing Consent argues that popular
media works  to distract the working class from the political process.  It
serves above all to hide the fact that their citizenship is only a hollow
mockery. A month in Blair?s Britain has reminded me all too forcibly of how
accurate his analysis is.

3.      Finally back to the happy couple Posh Spice and David Beckham
Manchester United?s Golden Boy. When he was sent off in the World Cup he
was renamed as  ?Stupid Spice? by the British media.  Every week he is
endlessly mocked and ridiculed by the soccer fans. The revelation about him
wearing his wife?s underwear has spawned a thousand jokes about David
finding life a drag etc. When he was sent off again in the tournament in
Rio De Janeiro the tabloid media had a feeding frenzy.  He is of course one
of the most brilliant of contemporary soccer players and has been crucial
to his team?s success.

As for his wife Posh Spice, she made millions from her career as a Spice
Girl. Over the New Year British Television showed a program which was to be
the beginning of a new career for Posh as an interviewer of the rich and
famous.  The quality press urged us all to view this program so we could
see how empty the lives of the pop stars were and how stupid and inept Posh
Spice was .  I tuned in at the end to see her interview with her husband
David.  This was seemingly the worst interview and viewing it was supposed
to confirm our intellectual and cultural superiority.   Now like most
academics I am more than prepared to feel superior to others, however my
experience of watching the program was radically different.  These may not
have been the brightest of young people, but they were both beautiful and
moreover had patently discovered the ignoble truth that lust is greater
than love, or if you like Eros is more powerful than Agape. I thought of
the lines from Keats? Ode on a Grecian Urn:

         Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal  yet do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!

?
More happy love! More happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy?d
For ever panting and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy?d
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.


So for once I resisted the allures of intellectual snobbery and I wished
Posh and her hubby well.  Life will no doubt hunt them down. Nothing
against time?s scythe can make defence. Moreover Keats was right when he
described this world as one

         Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
         Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

All too true, but I will never rejoice in that.