The Japanese are in Johore
It isn’t funny any more
— James McAuley*
Fidelity is an important value that comes to politics from Catholicism. Fidelity in politics means that you take the religious spirit of faith — that it persists in the absence of evidence, that it fills that absence — and you apply it to your politics at its darkest moments, when all seems lost. Fidelity is not necessarily consistency, honour, application. It is a determination to stick to your politics.
Whatever else Tony Abbott has or has not, fidelity he’s got. But what is it fidelity to? The man appeared in our national politics as a graduate of the Santamaria school of insurgents, championing a form of social conservatism more inflected with continental Catholic European reaction than most.
In 2009, this writer noted that those who sought to assimilate Abbott’s politics to an Anglo-American Burkean conservative tradition had it hopelessly wrong: Abbott’s social imagination was in the spirit of “The Executioner”, De Maistre’s key text of European conservatism. Nothing since has served to prove that wrong. Abbott’s final, fatal screw-up — offering a knighthood to Sir Prince Philip — was in De Maistre’s spirit.
Society, in this conspectus, must have transcendent institutions, created in a spirit of fidelity to the ideal, defending it from all comers. Absurdity is no disqualification; quite the contrary. “I believe it because it is absurd,” the early church father Tertullian noted of faith in the Trinity. Devotion to the ideal of Sir Prince Philip is simply the milk-and-water earthly reflection of that for a Catholic knight stuck in an Anglican polity, and making the best of it.
But the question raised by recent events is: what is Tony Abbott faithful to? One answer, I suspect, in the wake of the Monash Forum fiasco is that beyond all concrete and particular beliefs, Tony Abbott is devoted to the beau idéal of failure. Failure has been his political muse for decades, coming to the fore once he gained power. Failure, in politics, is a form of secular martyrdom. Success? That would mean administration and governance, mingling your soul with the muck of the world. Failure preserves the soul’s integrity.
No one who is not seeking failure would start a political ginger group without sounding out the family of the man it is named after. This is not simply incompetence; it is a form of self-sabotage of the sort Abbott has displayed since he won the premiership in 2013. Since he was executed by an exasperated party room, failure has become pretty much the sole focus of Tony Abbott’s activity. He has created an entirely new thing, Beckettian Westminster politics: fail often, fail better, fail again. His collected stuff-ups should be gathered in a single volume, as a sequel to Battlelines.
Will the Monash Forum fiasco finally finish the right-wing fantasy that Abbott could ride back to the Liberal leadership, as the paladin of Christian civilisation? Abbott has been a would-be Pope Julius II, Savonarola, De Maistre, a Guy Crouchback, latterly an Iago, of which Australian politics has no shortage. But now one has to raid popular culture for a register: he is Gareth/Dwight Schrute from The Office, the awkward, perpetual work-around man, fantasising secret missions in the reserve army that will not have him.
The truth is, that beneath the religious sanctity, the purity of spirit that Abbott seeks through serial failure, is a less creditable motive: pure, modern, secular narcissism. Abbott perhaps believed that he could go to the backbench and be some sort of austere presence of principle, a Jack Lang, throwing a long shadow. But he is the exact opposite: a joke, a gargoyle hanging among the buttresses of the backbenches, a jester whose outsize features are redolent of Mr Punch. To call Abbott and his new companion Barnaby Joyce “Statler and Waldorf” is an insult to muppets. At least the muppets can keep a show on the road. Time to move on Tone, for our sake and yours. It isn’t funny any more.
* From a song written by McAuley for a Sydney Uni revue in 1942, renouncing his youthful anti-war anarchism, as the Japanese army surged southward.
It would seem with the close proximity of Easter, and his religious purity, Tony should get off his bike pick up a large wooden cross and a whip and wander around the bush flagillating himself, now that would really attract attention.
Yes indeed Richard. The Flagellants (1349) attracted great sympathy and when it became too popular (the movement spread throughout Europe) it was condemned by the Church as heretical; only one authority at a time!
Given that Francis canonised a deceased nun from current-day Macedonia who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of sick people [“the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross” – but she selected sophisticated treatment for her cardiac condition] with a bit of money laundering on the side (read Robert Maxwell) then why not Abbott?
“Abbott has been a would-be Pope Julius II, Savonarola, De Maistre, a Guy Crouchback, latterly an Iago, of which Australian politics has no shortage.”
More like Homer Simpson.
Other than incompetence Abbott has nothing in common with Homer Simpson , who is a boofhead but hardly malign.
He’s more like a human manifestation of Gollum. Once he had his “Precious” but lost it through a “thief” and now is only focused on getting it back whatever the cost. If by some bizarre act of political lunacy he achieves his aim, the Lord of the Rings analogy will hold even more true as Abbott will fall with the Precious into Mount Doom and destroy the Liberal Party’s hope of power forever (or for at least a generation).
Gollum is good. The facial similarities are substantial, the mannerisms similar.
I always thought Dutton had the greater similarity to Gollum, both in terms of looks and actions.
I agree with your premise that Abbott has failure as a personal fetish – it explains everything you need to know about the man quite adequately.
But, to pretend for a moment that Tony is a rational human being – what is his possible endgame? I mean, looking through the lens of the man himself. Does he really believe that with these stupid antics, and in such cretinous company, he will return his good self to power? It is one thing to rub Turnbull’s nose in the 30 Newspol anniversary thing, and deservedly so, but what will it achieve apart from well aimed spit of gob in the PM’s eye? Not much?
Abbott is political antimatter.
Repeated failure means Abbott can wear a hair shirt continuously, perhaps this fills his Catholic heart with glee.
Australians should be grateful that, instead of picking on Philip, he didn’t make ERII a dame.
I often wonder how many cilices the Abbotrocity has upon his person.
Their number, not to mention location, would explain a lot.
Let’s at least hope that they hurt, a lot.
Hmmm, don’t know, Guy. Failure would attract Abbott only if it were noble and for that there needs to be some perceived and worthy, albeit Quixotic, grand Principle – it might be narcissism in practice, but it’s surely not the thought of that that is getting him to sleep at night. The problem he has is that he has ditched every possible coherent cause that he could pin to his mast, particularly with his latest Grand Nationalisation plans that would have made Chavez gasp with astonishment and admiration. No, I think the failure is just a spandrel of his particular “skillset”: greed, solipsism, narcissism and negativity. The consequence of the greed is that he has no underlying philosophy, the narcissism and solipsism mean he does not consult others (or see any need to) and the negativity results in entirely destructive outcomes, so failure is almost inevitable.
This conjecture can be proved false, of course, by pointing to others with that same constellation of attributes who have not routinely and repeatedly failed in their endeavours. I am happy to be wrong here and invite suggestions.