Labor’s difficulty in pivoting to the centre and the ‘burbs has been perfectly illustrated by the ISIS foreign fighter family issue. The party’s Right suits recently spent a few days doing what passes for debate on the right: grunting the word “aspirational” at each other. This will get them out of the inner-city ghetto! Then Kristina Keneally launched an assault on the government from the liberal-Left, concerning the rights of such Australian citizens abroad, and Labor were back on Brunswick Street again.
The problem is not the position per se. I agree that we should not abandon these people, and so I suspect do most of you. But that’s the point, isn’t it? We are most of us of either parts of the general left or of the knowledge class, for whom a universalistic rights-based morality is simply second nature. And there would be many out in the ‘burbs who shared that view.
But there are many who would not, and many of them would be Labor voters, or possible ones. They would hold a communitarian morality, grounded on the idea that much more is owed to those close to us than what, if anything, is owed to strangers. Since the ISIS families have supposedly become Australia’s enemy, they have become the stranger.
Now it gets complicated. In conditions of real risk — repatriating possibly unrepentant, violent caliphate Islamists, for example — there is no absolute way to choose between the two moralities (and this writer is far more sympathetic to the communitarian stance than many around). Each is valid. Yet I suspect many inner-Labor types would suggest that I am being dismissive of how human rights are viewed in the suburbs. But the two moralities simply correspond somewhat, to the abstract mindset of the knowledge class — for whom all localism is suspect — and the concrete world of the rest, for whom disregard for kith and kin amounts to disloyalty. It is difficult, impossible for some, to break from these ways of thinking.
And this is one of the problems for Labor. Its leaders and inner-groupings are quite capable of shifting the settings on tax, renewable energy etc. But to shift to a communitarian, nationalist morality, with its ability to simply disregard the life or death of people deemed to be outside the circle, would demand a shift in oneself. Which beyond a point, is simply impossible. Labor would reclaim suburban territory if it could simply become the pre-1948/Whitlam party it once was and say “these people tried to kill us. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not Australians anymore. Their fate isn’t our problem.”
But Albanese, Plibersek, Wong and Keneally are Whitlam’s grandchildren. Not only could they not do it, they couldn’t even fake it convincingly. Yet without that full pivot — which would inevitably open up spaces on the left for the Greens — Labor remains trapped between two party types. Hence the continuing confusion. How can you be for a few exiled radicals and then give a new green light to coal, when it will kill us all?
One impossible answer would be for Labor to simply hand the party over to a leadership that could unequivocally represent the social-cultural centre they seek. The other would be to realise that putting together a coherent progressive-nationalist vision will take a little more than banging the aspirational button.
“Labor would reclaim suburban territory if it could simply become the pre-1948/Whitlam party it once was and say ‘these people tried to kill us. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not Australians anymore. Their fate isn’t our problem.'” But Morrison is already saying that. Why would people switch to Labor just because Labor starts saying it as well? Wouldn’t that just give Morrison additional stature, since Labor had given in to his way of thinking?
My argument would be that there are working/middle class people who are economically left, collectivist and statist, and who reject Labor for its cosmopolitan rights based politics – and thus, go with the Libs in the last instance. Its not a political policy auction in that sense – its that labor has a contradiction in its policy mix
Political parties have been around for a long time and there is no longer the simple class-based loyalty there once was.
It’s not only Labor; the Liberals have to cater for the billionaires and the socially conservative migrants; the parties in the US and UK are also fragmenting.
Who knows how it will all shake out?
Given that the US expects various nations to take responsibility for their nationals in Syria, I’m at a loss as to why Albi can’t crucify Morrison over the Govts failure to do its job
and get our nationals out and deal with them as and how needed back in Australia.
All good analysis Guy. But I suggest the moral dimension fails at the outset. The alleged morality is based on a mere assumption that the Australians in northern Syria have done wrong. Nothing has been proven about the culpability of those Australian citizens needing rescue from northern Syria. The moral dimension of this supposed Labor dilemma simply assumes guilt simply because of where these Australian citizens are woven together with the rampart anti-Islam rhetoric of many who claim to be leaders. As a general principal, it is morally reprehensible that because of some entrenched bigotry in Australian society that these Australian citizens be abandoned to satisfy that social bigotry. That is just as reprehensible as Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds in the same region.
Is it not as simple a do the right thing for a change, rather than engaging in theoretical analysis of which may vote for you and who may not?
I think a ‘strong’ communitarian ethic would be relatively indifferent to actual guilt, their simply being thrre sufficient to disdain them. Concern about proof of guilt is inherently part of the universalist rights agenda.
The Australian citizen kids stuck in the camps?
The simple point is that, like it or not, they’re our responsibility.
The more involved point is that many weren’t there by choice to varying degrees. I saw the three young women on the ABC the other week. Various parts of their stories were flaky and gilding the lily however the basics weren’t. They were underage and there due to other family decisions or got caught up in events beyond their understanding and control. After that they just got married off and impregnated successively. Their stories could easily be presented as evil religious nutters exploiting immature women.
Repatriation could be a simple uncontroversial matter if it suited the COALies to present it as such. Just frame it as a responsible government and law n order matter. Bring them back and subject them to security interrogation and due legal process.
A valid argument, and you could say its an alternative communitarian take – but one based on an implicit idea of rights (to citizenship). What im saying is that a ‘collective first’ communitarian position would say they long since ceased to be our responsibility. Neither side can ackowledge the validity of the others basic principles….
There doesn’t seem to be any logic in claiming that those Australian citizens have forfeited their right to citizenship and are no longer our responsibility, whereas Kiwis who have committed crimes in Australia are New Zealand’s responsibility.
Oh, yes. Well said.