Getting the Story Straight: Greg Sheridan in the Shifting Moral Sands of Iraq
This essay traces the evolution of Greg Sheridan's public statements on international affairs since September 11, 2001, finding coherence in the moral epistemology that underpins his arguments. In a global media world dominated by news about the American-led 'war on terror', Sheridan has written extensively on the fall-out from September 11, the Bali bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq and terrorism more generally over this period. What becomes clear, when one looks closely at this oeuvre is that Sheridan is an ideologue, a crusader and an apologist for one of the most barbaric regimes on the planet and for the acolytes who, without question, back the war crimes and despotic violence that this regime visits on those who disagree with its religious fundamentalism and lust for world domination. In Sheridan's worldview, it is also legitimate to vilify, denigrate and misrepresent your intellectual and political opponents, while maintaining your own position in the face of competing facts and analysis.
Screened Australianness : representations of Australian national identity and national character in Australian-made cinema, 1945 into the 21st century
In the Australian nation's experiences of modernity and late modernity, Australian made films have become a popular conduit for the promulgation of national narratives. Employing a cultural studies paradigm, this study identifies, maps and describes some instances of the Australian national identity and nation building project's attempts at meaning-making, through an identification of various discourses associated with the national identity and the national character, as they have been represented in Australian made films, throughout the second half of the twentieth century. This study argues that the Australian national identity and national character is often defined, in Australian cultural, social and political life, by association with a set of discourses I label the representative regime, a discursive regime that uses as reference points notions associated with : Australian values (mateship, a fair go, egalitarianism), gender (with masculinity occupying most of this space), ethnicity (including notions of race, whiteness or indigeniety), the landscape (including the anxieties of belonging to this place) and class (including notions of 'the battler' and 'the Ocker'). The representative regime, while discernible in fields and spheres as diverse as political rhetoric, advertising and business practices are best described by reference to cultural products and practices. The instances of meaning-making that employ the referential regime remained constant over the period studied; however, the ways in which the reference points are employed change with the times. This study examines some examples of the films produced between 1945 and 2007 in the context of the times in which they were produced and viewed and from within social/cultural and political/economic/industry contexts. The discussion uses some film examples, chosen from various periods, to illuminate, illustrate and explain ideas around my contention that the main area of national identity meaning-making in Australian made film is to be found in the changing relationships between the mainstream of Australian society and some discourses (what I call the referential regime), associated with constructing, defining and bounding the national identity and national character. These are often deployed in an Australian made film, in an attempt to provide a shock of recognition . The result of these attempts at meaning-making, in the chosen film examples, is discussed. certificate acknowledgements abstract V
Fear of the Dark: Indonesia and the Australian National Imagination
In late 1999, former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, attacked the Howard government's handling of the East Timor crisis, arguing that John Howard had neglected the most important priority in the management of Australia's relationship with Indonesia. Citing the enormous population imbalance between the two countries, Keating argued that Howard had failed to 'square away' the potential threat arising from Indonesia's population of more than two hundred million people. Keating's invocation of this reason to be fearful seems distinctly at odds with his confidence and pride in Australia's relationship with Indonesia and his own personal closeness to former President Suharto during his period as Prime Minister. But the use of fear to win a political point in debates about Australia-Asia relations or to discipline Australian voters is far from unusual. Indeed, fear has been perhaps the dominant factor in shaping Australia's relations and policies towards Asia and the perceptions of a sceptical community. This article argues that fear is an integral and inescapable element of Australia's relations with Indonesia. However, rather than presenting fear as evidence of flawed diplomacy or as being necessarily irrational, I argue that fear is a constitutive element of relations with Indonesia in much the same way that trust has been an enduring feature of Australian relations with the United States. There have been, of course, many critics of unquestioning Australian alignment with United States' foreign policy and, equally, there have been critics of the various manifestations of Australian policy towards Indonesia over the years. It is not my intention to suggest that Australian attitudes to Indonesia have been without contradictions or that they remained unaffected by changes in Australia, Indonesia and the region more generally. Among politicians on both sides of parliament and among journalists and academics there have been many who have sought to improve what has been a troubled relationship. But despite these efforts, Australian attitudes towards Indonesia are partly constructed in immutable discourses of fear and anxiety. The images and metaphors used to describe Indonesian society and assumptions about 'our' and 'their' national character reflect an enduringly negative view of Indonesia. Moreover, politicians, journalists and academics alike are caught up in this historical web of anxieties and fears. Seemingly routine and benign descriptions of Indonesia's 200 million plus population, its low levels of political and economic development and its status as the world's largest Muslim nation, all play deeply on white Australian fears of Asia even if the authorial intention is to alleviate concerns about Indonesia among Australians. This article explicitly discusses the politics of fear in modern Western societies and explains how domestic anxiety about the policies of multiculturalism and immigration overlap with other concerns about events and peoples external to the Australian nation. Later, I analyse particular images that have been used to describe Indonesia and argue that not only do they have antecedents in colonial depictions of Indonesia but also tend to imply that Australian values and attitudes are superior. Finally, I argue that the key to establishing better relations with Indonesia is not a clearer understanding of 'them', but an ongoing and thoughtful unpacking of the values and fears that constitute 'us'.