The following excerpt from Gavin Mooney’s review of God Under Howard by Marion Maddox (posted to On Line Opinion) suggests the book throws a timely arclight on the pathology of “us” and “them”.
“Maddox documents superbly how right-wing Christianity has captured Howard and several of his government ministers. She shows how he has used and abused the Christian Church to foster his political ends. She details how he has manipulated power since his blundering days of yore, when his comments expressing racism were interpreted, diagnosed and explicitly named for what they were (i.e. racist), and which in 1989 led him to lose the leadership of the party to Peacock.
Since then he has learned. His minders have got him to adopt a new tack. His fighting style has changed. He himself no longer leads with his (racist) right. He has learned to “feint”, coming in behind someone else who has made an extreme right-wing statement (perhaps at Howard’s behest) with an “I understand” comment. “I understand where Jim is coming from but …” or “I understand what Jo is driving at but …” But the “but”, seemingly disagreeing with Jim or Jo and sounding like the voice of reason, is but a shade less extreme than the original. This strategy, leading to that “softer” tone, as Maddox reveals, leaves Howard seeming to be more moderate, less extreme. This is very clever - and very scary.
Howard’s style of divide-and-rule is fascinating. It is the separation of “us” and “them”. I suppose most of us are already aware of this in respect of Aboriginal people and asylum seekers. Maddox outlines how, at different times, “Howard’s ‘Us’ has excluded same-sex couples, mothers in the paid workforce, single parents, step parents, stay-at-home fathers, feminists, migrants, Aborigines, churches, Muslims, other non-Christians, unions, ABC listeners, the tertiary-educated and more”. Divide “us” from them; keep “us” apart from the other."
2 comments:
Looking at the list of "Howard’s ‘Us’" I would have to disagree with a great many.
"Mothers in the paid workforce" - what of getting women back to work when their children are school-aged?
"Single parents" - what about trying to get fathers greater paternity rights?
"Migrants" - what about wanting more migrants to tackle the skills shortage, including from countries like India and China?
"Aborigines" - what about the idea of mutual obligation? In his tour of the NT yesterday he went to a pool built on the condition that kids only use it if they go to school. Result? The school now needs more teachers and new buildings because so many students are turning up each day!
"Churches" - Preachers tend to be much more left-wing than their congregations, so I think Howard's disagreement is more with a political opinion held by some in the church than with the Church itself.
"Muslims" - If I recall correctly, Muslims tend to vote Liberal more strongly than the general pop'n (though this is a recollection I wouldn't bet on).
"Unions" - what happened in Tasmania at the end of the last election campaign?
"ABC listeners" - You mean all ten or so of them?
"Tertiary-educated" - You mean those who make up the bulk of the Liberal Party, and those who come from wealthy families and will tend to stay wealthy, hence encouraging a Liberal vote???
John Howard has used division in the past, but let's not forget the ever-present Leftist hatred of "rich schools", or the ALP's crusade against supposed "corporate greed".
Of course, the ALP did precisely the same thing with the minor difference being that they tended to target white males, "forelock tugging" conservatives, the British, etc.
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