Although
the Quarterly Essay is not strictly a book – Noel Pearson wrote this for me,
and people like me.
Pearson wants to
change the Australian constitution to give recognition to Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders.
Bleeding heart radicals
will faun all over the idea of constitutional recognition – so Pearson will be
preaching to the choir if he is solely speaking to them.
Pearson realises that constitutional change
through a national referendum needs bipartisan support:
“It [constitutional
change] cannot just be for a progressive cause:
it has to be a liberal cause; it has to be a conservative cause if you
want [constitutional] amendment.” (pg. 71)
Pearson
is completely honest in this, and he has gone to great lengths to genuinely
understand the conservative view. He is
writing to people like me. Now my
blogging about this is also to clarify my own thought. I had just read Wolfgang Kasper’s essay in
the Jan-Feb Quadrant Vol. 59 No 1-2 entitled “Looking Backwards for Constitutional change”. Kasper ends his essay:
“Spending political
energy and administrative resources on a constitutional amendment is a
backward-looking gesture and the result of guilt and shame among some
Australians. What is really needed is a
forward-looking, pragmatic engagement.
Hard work lies ahead, but the promise is that Australians – who have
successfully integrated manifold waves of immigrants into a free and prosperous
community – can do the same for future generations of Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders.”
It is
the conservatives and some liberals who will be skeptical about constitutional
change – I am. Kasper, would be
considered a neo-liberal by Pearson, who “…
tend[s] towards a free market with even fewer protections for the vulnerable.”
(pg. 43). Kasper is not indifferent to
the plight of the vulnerable, he sees room for interventions and welfare –
however, he doesn’t believe that race should be an issue in the
constitution. His words are better:
“Singling out one race
for preferential treatment has the potential to poison any society’s political
atmosphere. Judging by the record of the
of the Aboriginal advocacy industry, mere constitutional recognition will soon
be used by lobbies and courts to increase material transfer programs and create
an increasing plethora of racial preferences.” Pg. 42
For
Kasper, the Market sees no colour and is the great leveller to assimilation in
society. It is this assimilation that he
desires. There are many things in
Kasper’s essay that resonate as true, Pearson would agree. However, Pearson’s essay is significantly
more nuanced than Kasper’s; it also has more heart.
So,
Pearson is writing to me as he says, “The
challenge is to gather in conservatives and Liberals (sic) and people with
genuine anxieties about amending what is a foundational document.” I am one with concerns about amending this
document, about the judicial action that may follow, about whether or not real
good is done. Well, Pearson is
self-effacing about trite caricatures of conservative thinking and, he
genuinely wants to engage with conservative views. I have always respected Pearson’s view,
because I see his cause in wanting to conserve indigenous tradition and to
fight for his people and I see the same fight needing to be waged against the
loss of Western culture in the West.
Pearson picks up on this and his existential angst is gripping,
convicting and worthy of deep respect. I
feel that I can, in some small way, relate to him and his struggle; and I see
him as a profound thinker on these issues.
He has tried hard to grapple with little conservative me. He has read Scruton, Theodore Dalrymple and
even Windshuttle gets a mentions.
This
essay is laidened with what Pearson calls ‘existential angst’; the story of the
Tasmanian massacres of the early nineteenth century haunts him as does the
death of Truganini the last full blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal to pass
away. He is a man at war on two or more
fronts. He is forthrightly confronting
the social problems in Indigenous communities – trying to forge a vision for
the future for Australia’s Indigenous and dealing with the political
obstacles. Now that there is political
will to make such a change – Pearson now needs the voice of the people to
endorse this in any referendum. Noel
Pearson is a force of nature. It is oft
reported that Pearson has a temper (implicitly he confesses to this in the
essay) and a tirade of abusive invective can follow. Whatever shortcomings Pearson has, none of
this is evident in the essay. This is
not an emotive screed, it is a passionate plea.
He does not pander to conservatives – often asking them to understand
him as well as asking the Indigenous culture to understand us. However, he is genuinely engaging and trying
to provide arguments and reasons for conservatives to vote for constitutional
recognition.
The
most important nuance of Pearson’s essay is the distinction between race and
indigeneity. This is indeed a nuance,
but it is the lynchpin of Pearson’s argument.
Without this nuanced distinction Kapser would be correct in labelling
this amendment ‘…singling out one race
for preferential treatment…’. Rather,
Pearson would say that he is - acknowledging indigenous people for appropriate
recognition. Pearson wants to end
discussion of race. He finds ‘race’ an
illegitimate idea– we are all one race, members of the Human race – however,
all of us are ‘…indigenous to some place
on the planet…’ (pg. 37). What need
for racial discrimination laws are there then?
Shall we remove racial discrimination from our laws as we remove notions
of race from the constitutional recognition?
Pearson says ‘No’. Racial
discrimination laws should stay in place as he ‘…sees no contradiction in banishing notions of race from our
constitution while at the same time ensuring protection of peoples against the
illegitimate use of this distinction.’
(pg. 53). This sounds like a
contradiction to me – Pearson gives no reasons to refute this clear
contradiction – he merely asserts that it doesn’t exist.
If
we banish any idea of race from our constitution and give recognition to the
indigenous peoples – what will that accomplish?
Well, Pearson is clear here, this is not jut symbolic rather deeply
pragmatic. Pearson believes Indigenous
people are responsible for getting themselves out of the welfare trap, that
they need to be agents of their own development; that they need a bicultural
future and need to be empowered to do so – by taking back liberty and
responsibility. This recognition will
invoke ‘psychological liberation’ for as Aboriginals or Torres Strait
Islanders, regarding themselves as a people with distinct heritage and language
not as a certain race will be deeply beneficial. As a conservative, these aims
are grand; indeed, it seems to require of me a certain largesse in return. These goals certainly should be applauded and
supported. However, will these goals be
realised this way? Can they be realised
this way?
Pearson’s
chapter entitled “Conservative arguments
for constitutional reform” he spells out his reasons of why conservatives
should approve of and support Constitutional reform. Pearson quotes Waleed Aly as saying that
conservatism “eschews utopian designs and
adopts far more modest and pragmatic approaches to policy.” The first part is most certainly correct –
with good reason utopian ideals should be treated circumspectly. Unfortunately, some of these things that
Pearson has proposed seem a little Utopian – especially banishing race as a
category. It is loaded with ideological
zeal and leaves me quite suspicious – suspicious in the same way that
socialism, when expressed as a moral virtue, does.
Moreover,
I hear the ideological zeal of Pearson in trying to reach conservatives loud
and clear – and it seems to amount to wishful thinking.
“We can find a way of…”
“Perhaps we could consider…”
“Constitutional recognition could therefore
include…”
"A new body could be established…”
I
want what Pearson wants – I would be happy to support him, but how do I know
that these views are not more widely held in the Indigenous leadership, let
alone the raft of lawyers and bureaucrats that will oversee the process. Are
these merely statements in the subjunctive mood or are they widely held beliefs
that are actionable? It is Pearson’s
dealings in counterfactuals that are most concerning.
I
want Aboriginal self-determination; I want the bilingual and bicultural
assimilation into society. I want to acknowledge the brutal treatment of
colonialism and to make peace with the Indigenous community. I eschew collectivism and separatism and
desire national unity; and want responsible indigenous voices in indigenous
affairs. Will constitutional change
bring that? I don’t know. Will it bring an activist judiciary –
probably. Will it bring further positive
discrimination, that will not seriously effect
an Indigenous self-determination – probably.
Where
I live we have huge problems with indigenous issues. Money is being thrown at the communities to
keep kids in school and there is free University education. Yet, there is a shortage of Aboriginal nurses
– no girls who finish Year 12 go on to University and will take up these
roles. The community actively discourage
it. The Aboriginal leadership in the
area is one family who drive around in expensive co-op cars, managing little
and leading none. White welfare class
single mothers cannot afford to enrol children in swimming lessons – Aboriginal
mothers in the same position get it all free.
This positive discrimination is a hotbed of bitterness and angst for
those around. At every meeting I attend,
acknowledgement is given to the first owners of the land. Indigenous recognition is given; it is in the
consciousness of most people now. The
Scottish divine Andrew Fletcher once said ‘Let
me write the Songs of a nation and I care not who writes its Laws’. The acknowledgement of Indigenous recognition
has more wings in meetings, school halls and public gatherings than in the
preamble.
Will
a constitutional change mean anything to Aboriginal girls in Bairnsdale High
School or in Lakes Entrance? Will they
be empowered to go to University and invest positively in their culture or will
they continue the cycle of poverty and the Government sanctioned
welfare-trap? Apart from Pearson and a
few others, real Aboriginal leadership is a silent void. Aboriginal advocacy groups have failed in
providing real leadership or vision for their peoples.
I
read Pearson’s vision and whole-heartedly agree – I wish more Indigenous
Australians held his views.
See Here.
However,
in the same Quadrant edition as Kasper wrote his article, Luke Torrisi wrote an
excellent article entitled “Tradition and
Reaction in Conservative Politics”.
Let me quote from Torrisi quoting Russell Kirk:
“’…prudence is the chief
among virtues. Any public measure ought
to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary
advantage or popularity. Liberals and
radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent:
for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk
of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away.’ Nevertheless,
sometimes the conservative is forced to question exactly what it is that he is
conserving.”
I
don’t want to conserve what we have – I want what Pearson wants. I want Indigenous culture to be a serious
culture. The Elephant and mouse in the
room in Indigenous discussions, says Pearson, is the fact that Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders are 3% of the population. They are a serious minority. Pearson says that voices are not heard at
Parliamentary levels and Indigenous leaders have little power to change things.
My
heart goes out to Pearson, he is truly a leader among men, not just his
people. He has been tested in the most
personal and heart-wrenching areas of existence – the demise of his people and
their identity. He is clearly vexed and
distressed when he says that maybe activist judges can do something – why is
that so bad? At times one feels that he
is groping for solutions – any solution, lets do something, as doing something
is better than nothing.
Torrisi
ends his article with the following quote:
“When people ask me to
summarise my conservative disposition to them in a single sentence, I usually
reply: To impart a life for my
grandchildren what my grandparents would have wanted for them.”
This
is Pearson’s conservatism too. However,
how should I vote in any upcoming referendum?
I honestly don’t know!
5 Stars - Must be read.
