Politics

Though reviewing books is a humble enough task, it frequently leads to elevated thinking. As I read these books, it occurred to me that, perhaps, unwittingly, they pointed to the ambiguous legacies of the Enlightenment. One of those legacies is found in the conventional political distinction drawn between ‘left’ and ‘right’; the other concerns the role of the expert.

Governments lie, as the veteran US journalist I.F. Stone used to remind us. Worse than that, some of them now defy with impunity the clearly stated wishes of the majority – and international agreements, too. We seem to have entered an era in which the meaning of democracy is being alarmingly redefined. Let us hope it is merely a passing phase.

These two books represent two different stages of what will be remembered as the US occupation of Iraq. Firstly, we have senior News Limited correspondent Peter Wilson’s account of his somewhat hapless adventures on the road to Baghdad during last year’s invasion. He begins by listing the clothing and equipment he plans to take with him, and by explaining why he doesn’t have an opinion on the conflict. He also lets us know that he has a reputation as a ‘hard man’ around the office.

There has been a wide range of books published on Australian and US foreign policy since September 11, but few link these issues as coherently as Robert Garran’s True Believer. This essentially journalistic account of the road to war in Iraq is approachable and includes valuable insights that will make it a catalyst for further debate on Australia’s foreign policy. In eleven concise chapters, Garran documents the close affinity between George W. Bush and John Howard, the case for and against war in Iraq, and the method by which Howard’s ‘new nationalism’ has become entwined with the Bush Doctrine. In joining the chorus of criticism against Howard’s foreign policy, Garran will raise the ire of true believers of Howard’s ilk. For those of the opposite persuasion, and those who inhabit the vast middle ground of politics, Garran eloquently details the weaknesses in the US case for war in Iraq and in Howard’s support of Bush. The practical and ethical dilemmas raised by pre-emption are exposed, as is the uncritical support for the ANZUS alliance.

Klaus Neumann’s book is the latest in the ‘Briefings’ series from the Institute for Social Research at the Swinburne University of Technology, which explores ‘social, political and cultural issues in contemporary Australia’. This book complements the earlier one in the series, Spencer Zifcak’s Mr Ruddock Goes to Geneva (2003). With access to the National Archives and an acute curiosity to inspect files marked ‘not yet examined’, Neumann sets out to debunk assumptions about Australia’s response to refugees and asylum seekers in the past. He confines himself to case studies pre-dating the formal abandonment of the White Australia Policy, which limited and focused Australia’s response to refugees and asylum seekers.

The two finest politicians of their generation’: one can imagine Peter Costello choking over his cornflakes as he reads the cover blurb of Michael Duffy’s new book. The juxtaposition of Mark Latham with Tony Abbott will be taken as a shrewd journalistic punt on post-Howard politics. Many believe that John Howard is staying around long enough to ensure that Abbott replaces him.

Any life, even the most unadventurous, can be made interesting in narrative if it is artful and well written. Valerie Barnes has had a fascinating life if the criteria are travel and meeting people from other cultures. But really, these are not enough to make an engaging memoir. There is a need for shapeliness, for an elegant prose style and, most of all, for a strong subjectivity in the narrating voice. Sadly, these are seriously lacking here. The failure to interpret and filter the meaning of the lived experience through a powerfully established speaking subject leaves Barnes’s life story strangely unrealised. Perhaps this bears out Sidonie Smith’s suggestion in A Poetics of Women's Autobiography (1987) that there is often in women’s life writing a ‘self-effacing speaking posture’ negating ‘the ambition inherent in the presumption of writing her story at all’.

On the face of it, this book represents a strange project: to elaborate for the reader’s consideration the moral beliefs of a man whom the author judges (and judged in advance, one suspects) to be shallow, inconsistent, lacking moral and intellectual sobriety, and to have failed so often to act on the moral principles he repeatedly professes that he can fairly be accused of hypocrisy ...