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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Re: Noel Pearson’s comments on Lateline (‘children sleeping soundly…’ etc). Pearson is a politician. He appeals to the emotions rather than the intellect to get what he wants. The thing you have to ask yourself is always, ok, but what is it that he wants? Is it desirable?<BR>
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As for sending the troops in to remote communities, this really is classic Howardism. ‘War on the Waterfront’ in 1998 & ‘Operation Relex’ (the Naval blockade of Australia’s North coast against Asylum Seekers, including those on the <I>Tampa</I>) in 20001 both involved military deployment against the enemy within - or just without. Like in this new ‘war’, so then: the presence of troops is thoroughly theatrical. In fact, it’s astounding. We’re meant to believe that the situation is so bad that we have to declare war on a section of our own population? <BR>
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Actually, I don’t think we need to believe that, for this sort of politics to have its effect. What’s more important is that people allow it to happen, however contrary to reason – or rather, precisely because it’s contrary to reason. Howard knows that a collective suspension of disbelief is far more powerful than actual belief. He’s got a much better intuitive grasp of ideology than us. That’s why the fictions he enacts are so utterly crazy: are we really meant to believe that the way to protect indigenous minors from sexual abuse is to subject them to a medical examination involving anal and vaginal penetration? It’s not necessary for us to believe that this is the right way of doing things, not at all. Rather, we need a shadowy awareness of the fact that something about this whole campaign is completely and utterly insane. That’s how Howardism works, as a violation of common sense. Which includes a massive, indeed blinding, hypocrisy.<BR>
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In the media, these details – the presence of troops, the fact that examination is physically penetrative, just like the abuse it apparently wards off – recede to the side of the picture, to be replaced by the everyday business of getting the job done, which is now the chief substance of reporting. The rapidity with which things become business as usual is something Walter Benjamin reminded us of. It’s part of the way this government – this repeated violation of common sense – acquires its power. Not only does it brain us at regular, pre-electoral, intervals. It reminds us that reality reforges itself on these grounds too, that even here, we’re safe in the force of the habitual. Well, at least some of us are.<BR>
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In saying that Howardism works as a violation of common sense, I don’t mean that common sense is our usual lot. Life’s a lot stranger than that, and it’s even a lot stranger than Howardism, which simply avoids the issue. Common sense is not common. You need a War on the Waterfront, or a Children Overboard, a War on Indigenous Communities, or a ‘This election, ladies and gentlemen, will be about trust’ – you need something as unbelievable as those interventions, for common sense to make sense. Whatever it is, it’s not that. And nor are we. Then people can write soberly that the only reason Howard is still in power is that he delivers on the economy. <BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">Dr. Paul Magee<BR>
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President, Cultural Studies Association of Australasia<BR>
Lecturer in Creative Reading<BR>
School of Creative Communication<BR>
University of Canberra<BR>
ACT 2601<BR>
02 6201 2402<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="American Typewriter Condensed"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10.0px'>Australian Government Higher Education (CRICOS) <BR>
Registered Provider number: #00212K <BR>
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