On community (in memory of Chas Bromley)

James 'Chas' Bromley

The value of community, and the beauty of the symphony.*

*This post was written in the hours after I learnt of Chas's passing on 10 May 2013. By special request, I have added the full text of 'Chas Bromley: reflection in lieu of a eulogy' read at his service on 21 May 2013, for and of behalf of his family, Jenny, Lyndon, Emma, Hannah and their families. I thank everyone for the privilege. 

“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt” 

― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

One of my best mates died last night. Cancer. It has that habit of picking off the good ones too soon. 

[By inexplicable coincidence, as I write, ABC Classic is playing Ron Hanmer's Pastorale (Blue Hills), recorded by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. My mate Chas played in the Orchestra, a flautist and piccolo player. Ron Hanmer was the man in charge of the St Lucia Orchestra, where I play now. Chas knew Ron, he played in the SLO while waiting for his gig at the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (which he got in 1985).]

Chas was one of those people whose appearance on your life's path can be most unexpected but one of the most transformative. Chas was a professional musician in symphony orchestras and an army musician before that. Unassuming, self-deprecating, fisherman, family man and passionate and patient advocate of the power of the community orchestra. In doing so, he broke down the stereotypes of the aloof classical musician and encouraged many of us to not be afraid to accept the challenge of the beauty of the symphony (just not 20th century music, thank you; about which I disagreed with him later...). 

My first encounter with Chas goes back to 1997 when my community band (of adult starters mind you, 60 people who had only just started to play a year or so earlier) learnt that 'one of the players from the QSO was going to be our conductor'. The thought of us being conducted by such a professional led to much nervous anxiety...why would an orchestral musician want to spend his nights conducting a bunch of amateurs, not just that, but mostly beginners? 

Therein though, lay Bromley's charm. On the first night, this unassuming bloke in jeans and thongs turned up, introduced himself and took us through the grade 2 level music we had just become comfortable playing. He was fast, he was exacting, he wanted the best from us, as much as we could give. He had a strong belief that 'amateur' players could play some of the great pieces of the repertoire. 

Gradually, he introduced playable arrangements of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, military band arrangements of his favourite British music. He loved playing music from the movies. He opened up the possibilities for appreciating music of all types, all levels. He had that rare gift of being an educator without even trying, he taught us so much through conveying his love and passion for his craft. He didn't think there was anything we couldn't do. 

Perhaps the Redlands Bands greatest moment under his baton was the year the whole group got together to perform a 'tattoo' style performance on the streets of Cleveland (Brisbane bayside, not the US). Yes, closing down streets, marching bands, performances from all bands in the group culminating in a combined band and orchestra performance of the 1812 Overture, with actual canons...And us, a community group. He believed we could do it...it happened entirely on the back of his belief in us to achieve it.

He encouraged us to come and listen to the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, which we did. Now, I had been attending many of the Ferry Road concerts, the 'meet the composer'-type concerts for some years. To me, going there was much less intimidating than going to a concert hall to hear a symphony...I just didn't think someone like me could do that. I didn't 'know' anything about 'serious' music. 
But Chas broke down those barriers. A few free tickets initially drew me in. The subscriptions and involvement in the old Friends of the QSO group and so on followed naturally. It has been a marvellous informal education about the beauty of the symphonic repertoire, and even 20th century music. 

 He taught me how to 'listen' to an orchestra, how to discern just one instrument out of the whole for that fleeting moment and then hear it again as part of the whole. He taught us not to be afraid of blowing the wrong note. He introduced many of the players to us through having them play with us in our concerts. Gosh, the anxiety of having the QSO's principal bass clarinettist sit next you for a concert. But like Chas, so many of his colleagues were equally at ease with themselves and their willingness to play with us. The privilege of knowing them has made attending a concert as comfortable and natural as sitting down to read a book. I have learnt much about musicianship (and all the gossip) thanks to so many of you. 

He said I should play in an orchestra...not likely I thought. Absolutely, he said. And that's how I ended up in the St Lucia Orchestra. His enthusiasm and encouragement led me to undertake a graduate certificate in Arts and Entertainment Management one year. He loved to spend my money on getting instruments and music. On one of our music-buying days, he said it was time I bought an A clarinet to pair with my Bb and bass clarinet...since I needed it to play some of the orchestral repertoire. I'd been caught out with him like this before and just managed to resist. So, in the shop, I was very specific. Alright, I said, if they have the Buffet E11 A clarinet to match my Bb, I will. Music shops can carry a whole range of clarinets...damn, this day, this shop had that specific one. I lost...but I think he knew the shop carried it by the way he chuckled as I parted with my money. 

Chas 'retired' from the QSO just after the merger between the QSO and the Queensland Philharmonic happened. It was not pleasant. I just wish the bean counters who make these 'efficiency-driven' decisions could stop and reflect from time-to-time on the damage they cause as they ride their whirlwind of cuts and slashes. Their decisions involve people and their lives, their raison d'être. Chas never really wanted to say so, but I could tell the way he was discarded hurt enormously. 

In my job as an academic and his as musician, we shared many things in common as far as working in traditional, structured institutions goes. Universities and orchestras are hierachically-driven organisations. They are also organisations full of creative, passionate people completely engaged in their crafts, be it a flute player or violist, a scientist dedicated to the fruit fly, a political scientist intrigued by the machinations of 1893 Queensland. Such people are drawn to these organisations as the complete antithesis of the corporation. There is not much flexibility in the corporatised orchestra or the university. Chas was a man who could have, should have been a principal player...but wasn't. Externally, we are too quick to judge the value of a player, a teacher, by their title, not their actions. The corporation likes titles. 

Chas was a musician first and foremost, with all the drive, temperament and self-centredness that can come with that. We all forgave him a lot sometimes. But he also showed that the community also mattered and that making music together was one of life's important things...just because we could.  

Much is made of professional sports stars when they get out into 'the community' to do their bit. Chas was a professional musician who didn't need to play out in the community, but he did and in doing so enriched the lives of many for whom 'classical' music was 'too hard'. He showed us how to love it. The community band always mattered. 

I have missed his presence in the Orchestra for a while now, but others are there to listen to and enjoy...no really listen...that's what he taught me, do more than just listen. 'And listen to the dynamics' he would say, the 'soft' and 'loud' of music. I work very hard at that, for him and for the music. 

I will miss his self-deprecation and our competitions to 'out-deprecate' each other given our respective occupations. I shall miss his encouragement to keep playing until you can't play anymore. He did that, his flute was never far away. And he played beautifully. 

Chas was always the much anticipated cadenza in my otherwise ordinary life. He played like a principal, even if he wasn't one. 

Thank you Chas Bromley. Your music and belief in the ordinary, common garden-variety community player will sustain us for a long time. 

For his family and my friends, Jenny, Lyndon, Emma and Hannah and their families. 
~~~~~~~

'Uncross your legs and play your F and C for me' Bromley, conductor, to a band member c.1999. 

Chas was a stickler for etiquette. No-one was allowed to cross their legs during a performance, or a rehearsal. The 'F and C' were two notes that needed to be clearly articulated in a particular piece of music. He didn't realise his faux pas until we pointed it out to him...we never let him forget it.  


~~~~~~~~
Addendum

For Chas Bromley

Reflections in lieu of a eulogy

To Jenny, Lyndon, Emma, Hannah and your families; to Chas’s friends and colleagues, to all of us here today who have been touched in some way by Chas…

言いたいことありすぎて

(‘There are too many things I want to say’)

 

I thank you for the enormous privilege to stand here today to speak to you about Chas. It is both a privilege but also something I feel perhaps inadequate to really do justice to him. I cannot eulogise Chas in front of so many of you who have known him for 30 or 40 years or more, whose friendship with him dates to his days in the Qld Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the ABC training orchestra, and perhaps even earlier in his army band days. I have known him a mere 15 years, a short time by comparison. Nor is this a eulogy in the usual sense; everything I have to say here today, Chas knew, it was the stuff of our conversations over the years.

I could regale his many stories, his experiences as he told them to us over the years. But I’m sure many of you here will have your own versions of the QSO’s northern tours, of conductors, of soloists. In the end, I thought it best that what happened on the train, stays on the train…as they say… (though I have seen the video…)

I think I am, however, able to talk about Chas Bromley, the inspiration to so many in community music and this part of his life that mattered as well.

My first encounter with Chas goes back to late 1997 when my community band (of adult starters mind you, 60 people who had only just started to play a year or so earlier) learnt that 'one of the players from the QSO was going to be our conductor'. The thought of us being conducted by such a professional led to much nervous anxiety...why would an orchestral musician want to spend his nights conducting a bunch of amateurs, not just that, but mostly beginners?

Therein though, lay Bromley's charm. On the first night, this unassuming bloke in jeans and thongs turned up, introduced himself and took us through the grade 2 level music we had just become comfortable playing. He was fast, he was exacting, he wanted the best from us, as much as we could give. He had a strong belief that 'amateur' players could and should play some of the great pieces of the repertoire.

Gradually, he introduced playable arrangements of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, military band arrangements of his favourite British music. He loved playing music from all of the movies, Dam Busters, for example. He opened up the possibilities for appreciating music of all types, all levels. He had that rare gift of being an educator without even trying, he taught us so much through conveying his love and passion for his craft. He had rich anecdotes for every piece we played. He didn't think there was anything we couldn't do.

Perhaps the Redlands Bands greatest moment under his baton was the year the whole group got together to perform a 'tattoo' style performance on the streets of Cleveland (Brisbane bayside, not the US). Yes, closing down streets, marching bands, performances from all bands in the group culminating in a combined band and orchestra performance of the 1812 Overture, with actual canons...And us, a community group. He believed we could do it...it happened entirely on the back of his belief in us to achieve it.

He encouraged us to come and listen to the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, which we did. Now, I had been attending many of the Ferry Road concerts, the ‘meet the composer’-type concerts for some years. To me, going there was less intimidating than to go to a concert hall to hear a symphony…I just didn't think someone like me could do that. I didn’t ‘know’ anything about ‘serious’ music.

But Chas broke down those barriers. A few free tickets initially drew me in. The subscriptions and involvement in the old Friends of the QSO group and so on followed naturally. It has been a marvellous, informal education about the beauty of the symphonic repertoire, and even 20^th century music… He taught me how to 'listen' to an orchestra, how to discern just one instrument out of the whole for that fleeting moment—usually the second flute— and then hear it again as part of the whole. He taught us not to be afraid of blowing the wrong note. He introduced many of the players to us through having them play with us in our concerts. Gosh, the anxiety of having the QSO's principal bass clarinettist or contrabassoonist sit next you for a concert. But like Chas, so many of his colleagues were equally at ease with themselves and their willingness to play with us.

The privilege of knowing you has made attending a concert as comfortable and natural as sitting down to read a book. You welcomed me into the old Green Room; you’ve made sitting and listening to you in concert so much easier with familiar faces around. I love watching and listening, and indeed learning from all of you. I have learnt much about musicianship (and all the gossip) thanks to so many of you, through Chas.

One day, not long after the Cleveland ‘tattoo’, Chas said I should play in an orchestra...not likely I thought. Absolutely, he said. And that's how I ended up in the St Lucia Orchestra. His enthusiasm and encouragement led me to undertake a graduate certificate in Arts and Entertainment Management one year. He loved to spend my money on getting instruments and music. On one of our music-buying days, he said it was time I bought an A clarinet to pair with my Bb and bass clarinet...since I needed it to play some of the orchestral repertoire. I'd been caught out with him like this before and just managed to resist. So, in the shop, I was very specific. Alright, I said, if they have the Buffet E11 A clarinet to match my Bb, I will. Music shops can carry a whole range of clarinets...damn, this day, this shop had that specific one. I lost...but I think he knew the shop carried it by the way he chuckled as I parted with my money. He pointed to the Selmer tenor sax as we walked out the door and said, that one next…

Chas 'retired' from the QSO a few years after the merger between the QSO and the Queensland Philharmonic happened. It was not pleasant. I just wish the people, the ‘administrators’, who make these 'efficiency-driven' decisions could stop and reflect from time-to-time on the damage they cause as they ride their whirlwind of cuts and slashes. Their decisions involve people and their lives, their raison d'être. Chas never really wanted to say so, but I could tell the way he was ‘decommissioned’ hurt enormously. 

Chas was a musician first and foremost, with all the drive, temperament and self-centredness that can come with that. We all forgave him a lot sometimes. But he also showed that the community also mattered and that making music together was one of life's important things...just because we could.

Much is made of professional sports stars when they get out into 'the community' to do their bit. Chas was a professional musician who didn't need to play out in the community, but he did and in doing so enriched the lives of many for whom 'classical' music was 'too hard' or ‘too high culture’. He showed us how to love it. The community band always mattered. For the few years he and Jen lived at the Sunshine Coast, he conducted the SunCoast Symphony Orchestra, played in Margaret Taylor’s superb productions in Maleny and other opportunities as they arose.

Up at the Coast, he also spent a lot of time driving his tractor and cutting branches off trees…I worried he’d injure his hands…that didn’t seem to occur to him.

On the Saturday morning just after I received the news of his passing from Jenny—the news we knew would come one day, but never wanted to hear—by inexplicable coincidence, ABC Classic FM played Ron Hanmer's Pastorale (Blue Hills), recorded by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Ron Hanmer was, for many years, the man in charge of the St Lucia Orchestra, where I play now and Blue Hills is one of our ‘signature pieces’. Chas knew Ron, and even today we play arrangements Ron did for Chas in his time in the Orchestra. Thirty years later, mention of Chas’s name among many in the SLO lights up the faces of many of us, those times he returned to play with us mattered to us, mattered to him. It remains a mystery to me that a rank amateur like me could be seated in the back row among so many wonderful musicians. I’m there because Chas believed enough that I could.

I have missed his presence in the Orchestra for a while now, but I still go along to listen and to enjoy...no really listen...that's what he taught me, do more than just listen. 'And listen to the dynamics' he would say, the 'soft' and 'loud' of music. I work very hard at that, for him and for the music. I think of him every time the conductor up front of my bands shows just a touch of frustration when we don’t quite get the dynamics. I try really hard, really I do.

I will miss his self-deprecation and our competitions to out-do each other on that front given our respective occupations—institutionalised musicians and academics have a lot in common. I miss comparing notes on our aches and pains and medications. I shall miss his encouragement to keep playing until you can't play anymore. He did that, his flute was never far away. And he played beautifully, every time.

To Jenny, I want to thank you publicly too for your strength and your courage. Much of what I have had to say about Chas today would not have been so without you. To leave your home and your family in England to travel around the world, the work you’ve undertaken along the way in support of Bromley the musician, has been just as significant. Your generosity in welcoming amateur bands people unexpectedly into your home on a whim of Chas’s on Sunday afternoons, I thank you. Your strength and support for Chas since his diagnosis was first realised is inspirational. That you also had the joy and sadness of Scott, your first grandchild along the way… retirement wasn’t supposed to be like this. Now is your time though, and please don’t ever feel you can’t reach out to us, your friends, as you need to do so. The Bromley family is one I feel incredibly privileged to know and trust, and care for. Rarely did we not have a conversation where Chas mentioned you all, his love and his pride in who you are and what you have all achieved. Thank you.

Chas, farewell my friend. We miss your smile; I miss your skill in getting me to pay for the coffee and buying instruments I don’t deserve to own. I’ll miss your bragging about this week’s red wine bargains. I will miss your constant nagging about changing jobs and getting my life back…to spend more time practicing my scales and my music. I won’t miss you nagging me about clearing the leaves out of the gutters of my roof, but I promise I’ll get around to it…eventually. Chas you were, and remain, the inspirational cadenza in our lives. We shall remember you for so much.

In the relatively brief time I knew you, your musical life and belief in the ordinary, common garden-variety community player will always be with me, you instilled in us the confidence in ourselves you thought you didn’t have in yourself. Your gifts are immeasurable and for that, I can never thank you enough.

 

Donna Weeks

21 May 2013

The view from here: Griffith in 2013 (no. 1.5 in a series)

So just when you though it was safe...

I don't think anyone was surprised by last Thursday's leadership shenanigans. I think many of us were surprised about the way they unfolded however. That's the disappointing aspect I think. 

In the washup, this has not ended leadership speculation. In my political lifetime/timeline, I have watched and witnessed Fraser/Howard/Peacock, Howard/Peacock, Hayden/Hawke, Hawke/Keating, Howard/Costello and now Rudd/Gillard. Perhaps it is a function of the egos at this level, what it becomes is a frustrating turn of events for voters of both sides. 

Anyway, with Kevin Rudd's 'declaration' that he will not, under any circumstances, contest the Labor leadership again, the focus of this series of posts as planned last week will change. I will take a few more days to review what I had ready to go this evening. 

I still think it is worth looking at the history of the seat and at Kevin Rudd's figures, as much as one can retrieve them from the data base. What I am now interested in though is the state electorate overlays. Rumours are already around that he might well be 'drafted' for the state premiership, to take on Campbell Newman and the LNP.

The seat of Griffith also covers prime inner city state seats including Greenslopes, Bulimba, Chatsworth, South Brisbane and Yeerongpilly. From the figures, we might be able to glean which of these seats might be his strongest bet, should he go that way. I shall rejig the posts to account for these changed circumstances. I will also be keeping my ears out in the local places to gauge the feeling of Mr Rudd's constituents. I'm expecting to see many more giveaway bikes and local media pieces.

The bigger lesson one draws from this however, is the sadness one feels as an observer and commentator and, as a voter, a participant in the political process. On one level this past week, what we witnessed was a sad corruption of process. The leadership struggles come across as nothing more than personal aggrandisement and selfish pursuit of power. This is not what our politics should be about. 

I couldn't help but fear this week that Hobbes might have been right...but the Kantian struggle continues regardless. Anon.

The view from here : Griffith in 2013 (no. 1 in a series)

The confidence of Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister

One of the aims of this blog when I started it just over a year ago (was I supposed to light a candle on its first birthday last month?) was to muse on politics as I follow it here and in Japan, with a nod to the social contract from time to time. It also allows me to explore ideas and put forward some observations outside the usual strictures of the formal academic sphere. (I have to say, the hits on the blog suggest a far higher 'viewing' rate than the formal citations system by which our careers can be judged.) 

One of my early posts was about my local member, Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister for a time and now a peripatetic backbencher (though I don't mean that in the Aristotelian sense of the word). Things are getting sufficiently interesting in Australian politics to take another moment to look at what is going on in this electorate. Over the next couple of posts I will offer some on-the-ground observations and some background on the seat including its history and a little bit of psephological insight. The talk is on again about a challenge to the Labor Party leadership and so therefore, the prime ministership, until the election, currently due on 14 September.

Let the games begin

Mr Rudd currently holds his seat by 8.5%. That has fluctuated over time, but should be considered reasonably safe. The enigma that is the politics involving Kevin Rudd is that he enjoys high popularity across a number of different opinion polls when the public is asked, reasonable popularity in his electorate but loathed by a large number of Cabinet colleagues, the people who will return him to the prime ministership. I am intrigued by the conundrum inherent in these figures. 

So what (as my supervisor would say)? There are several questions I seek to ask around this conundrum over the next few months, while reporting from the Griffith heartland as much as possible. 

The Liberal National Party (as it is known here in Queensland now) have put forward a candidate, Dr Bill Glasson, who brings to the position a reasonable media profile as a former president of the AMA, the doctors' union. He and his supporters are already on the hustings around the electorate, spending many a Saturday morning on street corners, waving placards. Dr Glasson received some unanticipated publicity on Friday last too when it was revealed his campaign was subject to some 'assistance' by way of a University exercise whereby students were asked to devise a winning campaign for him. 

When it comes to campaigning on the ground, Mr Rudd covers the local media very well. The local throwaway suburban paper the Southeast Advertiser carries his regular 'Rudd Report' and generally any photos or news of his engagement in the electorate, whether it is giving away his 'Rudd bikes' or handing out 'language awards'. One could be cynical about the purpose behind these activities, but I'm going to withhold cynicism from these next few posts. 

Kevin Rudd launching Troy Bramston's book,
16 March 2013.

I observed the former prime minister quite closely yesterday at a book launch in a local bookshop. I don't pretend to know Kevin Rudd although he has been my local member since 1998. To understand where I come from when it comes to Mr Rudd, I suggest you read the earlier post. Nonetheless, I have watched politics from the front row for a while now. And although I was sitting in the back row yesterday, I saw a man with unrequited ambition, a sense that the prime ministership was still his to be had. There was also a slightly humbled man, that look one has when one has been 'hit for six', and I reflected on how public that had been for him. (My personal career humiliations and disappointments have been much less public, but they hurt nonetheless, and they leave deep impressions, no matter how hard one tries to disguise them.) What drives someone to continue to want to do this? I got to thinking a little about the contest ahead and the vote I will cast in a few months. It is more than a mere 'place a number' in the box...

I am not the sort of political scientist who makes predictions and these posts will not present any. I will be watching this contest closely because it is my federal electorate and much rests on its outcome. Who wins or loses the two imminent contests--that for leader of the Labor Party (and with it the prime ministership) and that for Griffith--will indeed tell us as much about us as it will about the candidates. It will convey to us our modern social contract and whether or not the 'first among equals' of the Westminster traditions has been usurped by a shallow 'survivor'-type reality politics, game of drones.

In the next post, I will review the history of the electorate, past members and contests. There will be some meandering among the musings, but bear with me. I think we are in for a most interesting time here in Griffith. 

A return to where it began: an anomaly structure

On the way to Philosophers' Road, in Kyoto

Some reflections of the Japanese year ahead

There's been a little bit of loving neglect at this little place. There's been a lot of work going on in other places while my ideas on Japan's politics and the year ahead have chugged away in the background. Classes have started again too so I really do want to start putting down some thoughts again, here where it all began. 

I thought I might begin with reviewing some of the notes I made on the Japanese election back in December, having arrived just a couple of days afterwards.

I arrived on Wednesday and had a good conversation with our taxi driver on the way home. He was disappointed with the result overall and surprised by the extent of the DPJ loss, He was also very cynical about of role of religious parties in this case the Komei and held quite a strong view that there is no place for mixing religion and politics. 

The driver opened up about Makiko TANAKA, daughter of a former prime minister (Kakuei TANAKA), and who lost her seat in this election. If you 'forget your supporters, they'll forget you' he said. She just became aloof from the people who supported her. 

He was also concerned about the downturn in the economy. 'Tobikomi' incidents have increased (people throwing themselves in front of trains) and he spoke at some length about the depressed state of the economy: people aren't using taxis anywhere near the extent they have previously especially at this time of year with end of year parties and the like; people are just going to the first round of drinks and not going on for further rounds, something as a student I recall, the 'hashigo' ...what we might call a bit of a pub crawl. It was a good long chat and 3500 yen later we parted our ways. 

LDP seeks to reclaim the party rooms in the parliament

Before the week was out, there was some strong resonance with the actions of the Liberal Democrats and Queensland's Newman Government when the leaders of the LDP made quite a fuss about regaining 'their' rooms in Parliament House...right down to analysts commentating on the interior of the building, showing the 'real estate' and how it was configured across the parties and with the new seats. Remember the LNP Government in Queensland palming the opposition to rooms in another building? That sort of thing. 

Some interesting signals were being sent in this post-election week as satisfaction that the Nikkei index was back into the 10000 mark was attributed to Abe's reelection and yet, the 'feeling on the ground' was that the average person was feeling less than optimistic. A neologism was coined: 'Abenomics'

Thee was a minor tremor Thursday morning to remind me where I am because a visit to Tokyo is never complete without an small earthquake

But perhaps it was just a sign of the nepotism as PM Abe offers a significant position in his office to the nephew of a former business leader, Keidanren's Imai san.

Final numbers declared: LDP 294, DPJ 57, Ishin 54, Komei 31, Minna 18, mirai 9, JCP 8, Shamin 2, Taichi 1, Kokumin 1, Non-aligned 5; a big recovery in seats for the LDP. Already there is discussion about the next election, an upper house election due in July 2013. 

A sign I came across in Kyoto.
No, I don't know what it means either but it managed to capture
 a certain 'something' about the zeitgeist. 

In a newspaper poll taken 17-18 Dec, 57% thought the change was good; 51% have some expectation of Abe, though 42% don't. The same poll suggests it wasn't so much a win for the LDP (only 7% support their policies) but 81% were disappointed in the DPJ's policies.

Some letters to the editor in the Asahi Shimbun could be written by Australians: a 22 yo student wrote that of four friends sitting and chatting, two voted and two didn't. One said he voted the way his mother did, the other disappointed that no party opposed the consumption tax (a kind of GST). Noted that social media was the way to speak to young people since they don't read newspapers. Would like to be able to vote via the Internet. Finished saying that rather than say young people aren't interested in politics, perhaps it is politics that isn't making the effort to reach young people?

The AERA newsmagazine special issue this week contains a couple of interesting articles. One in particular looks at the promise of politics of the future with the election of a number of politicians under 40. Journalists and a commentators Keats like to focus on a particular group, previously it's been women candidates. This time however, it is this group. Of 271 candidates, 48 (17.7%) were elected in the single member electorates and 78 (28.8%) were elected in the PR electorate. There's also something interesting about the 'third wave' discussions, particularly with the Ishin no Kai party and what's to come of it. There will be some interesting material to follow up with here. 

Two weeks later, the first week of the new year, there is something of a forced optimism...a new government so great expectations on the one hand but at the same time a sense of frustration that it is Abe Mark II; so while the yen is up and the Nikkei is sitting in the 10,000 area, there are nonetheless doubts about change really happening.

We also seem to be upping the ante over the disputed islets between China and Japan, Abe might force a change in the Constitution to manage this. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. 

In other news this new year's week, we mark the demise after one month of the Kada/Ozawa party 'Mirai no To', literally translated as the 'Future Party'; instead, they called it the 'Tomorrow Party', I guess there wasn't a future in it after all.

To the next few months

PM Abe has made his initial visit to the United States. The Senkaku/ Daiyou dispute continues to play out. (I think about the paper I presented last year at a conference on this very issue, before it escalated...I must get it published.) There is a new president of the Bank of Japan...someone more compliant to the Abe Government agenda? Let's see.

And this week of course, sees the second anniversary of the Tohoku tsunami/earthquake and radiation fallout. It will be a sombre week for Japan and a test I think for the Abe Government as it feels, I suspect, the great expectations that people will put on this government to finally do something. It was this immobilism which contributed to the DPJ loss; the LDP, as opposition parties are wont to do, made great political mileage out of this. Now, it will be their turn...this week will tell us much about that I think.

Two weeks on: the Asian Century still matters, doesn’t it?

*This post first appeared on OnLine Opinion in November 2012. 

Cultivating longevity

The federal government’s White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century received a good deal of media coverage, perhaps even longer than the average white paper. Reactions fell broadly into two categories: those of the Asian Studies professionals who might appear a little jaded by the recycling of some longstanding ideas but nonetheless welcomed the paper’s promise, as they always do; and the others who saw the White Paper as a mechanism to impose unwanted strictures on their hitherto satisfactory approach to Asian markets.

Among the latter were those who sought to quantify the inevitable hurdles—quoting US CIA tables, for example, of the many more hours it takes to ‘learn’ ideograph-based Asian languages over ‘easier’ European languages. One read of 2200 hours versus 700 hours as if that were to be the primary determinant of successful language learning. It’s not of course. Passion, desire and interest in the language, people and culture make the ‘hours’ almost negligible. When asked to estimate the hours I’ve spent learning, or the number of Chinese characters I know, I have to answer ‘I don’t know’. It is there, I wanted to know, I just did it.

How many hours does it take to learn a musical instrument? Learn to drive a car? You can line up two people who have expended the same number of hours learning a skill and still have different capabilities. I’ve probably spent more hours swimming in my lifetime than our youngest Olympic swimmers, but I’ll never be an Olympic swimmer. The quantification of hours isn’t going to discourage those who have a mindset to achieve.

There was a somewhat surprising reaction too from the business community, resisting the expectation that a certain proportion of board members should, in time, have Asian in-country experience. On that score, resistance is almost useless I expect. More people are gaining experience in Asia and so that proportion should grow naturally.

These sorts of reactions seem petty in comparison with the visionary leap that governments sometimes feel they need to undertake. But government visions have political imperatives, and white papers can fulfil that function. Is it a cynical reprise to suggest that a visionary leap might be underpinned by political imperatives? Probably not, however…

The thought came to me as the media bandwagon moved on to cover two pivotal international events: the US presidential election and the change of leadership in China. As an international relations specialist, understanding Australia’s relations with China and the US and China’s relations with the US, is part of what I do. What struck me was the way the media shifted to discussing the relationships, or the ‘transition’ as the Fairfax press described it. After a week of overly self-conscious angst about ‘how’ we should be a part of Asia, we just got on with dealing with the events as they unfolded.

There is an ambiguity here which periodic white papers are not going to solve. I think the scope and ambition of the white papers overwhelm the general public in the first instance and some of the initial reaction we have seen reflects that. In time, that settles, and our approach to Asia returns to the status quo. Out of the white paper spotlight, we actually have a rather robust degree of ‘Asia-literacy’, people in the public and private sector whose day-to-day engagement is amongst the richest in the world.

On reflection, perhaps the smart way for governments to cultivate longevity in an Asian century is not by drawing attention to it via an anxiously anticipated White Paper. It has, as we have seen, really encouraged the naysayers, the reactionaries who say the mountain is too high to climb. Governments could instead simply normalise the way we approach Asia, the ways in which we engage with the region. It is political, it is cultural, it is strategic, it is educational. It does not happen by quantifying hours or putting up barriers of inconvenience.

It might also be something as simple as recognising that Australia is but one country in a region of diverse societies and cultures which actually resist the simple ‘Asian’ nomenclature. We then might feel more comfortable with engaging with neighbours, rather than masses en bloc.  

Australia in the Asian Century White Paper: a generational reboot

*This post was first published on OnLine Opinion, 30 October 2012

Months in the making, hours in the judgement, but what of its prolonged impact?

The Gillard Government’s much-anticipated white paper on Australia’s engagement with the Asian region was released on Sunday at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. Australia’s diminishing pool of Asia specialists is simultaneously hopeful and sceptical. A few of the old hands around are silently ruminating on white papers past while others eagerly anticipate the promise of a whole-of-government response to a multi-faceted document which sketches out our future in the region to 2025. Instead of starting afresh, we would do well to view this White Paper as a statement which consolidates our past with Asia while stepping up to a more nuanced approach.

Media coverage since its release has focussed on the economic and trade aspects as well as the need to learn some of the languages of the region, notably Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean. The languages and the economy have been inextricably linked. It is a common theme in Australia’s engagement with Asia, we tend to see the region as a market place to buy and sell our commodities and our policies follow. If we continue to approach Asia in this way, we will continue to churn out white papers which will promise much but deliver little.

This White Paper does cover more detail than the predominant commentary would suggest. There is a conscious effort to convey the depth and breadth of relationships and building stronger security options in the region. There is a reiteration of the importance of people-to-people contact. Out of the spotlight of white papers, it serves us well to acknowledge that this ‘sudden emergence’ of the Asian century has been, in fact, a century (or more) in the making.

In the immediacy of seeking economic fulfilment, it can be easy to overlook broader historical trends. This white paper announcement coincides with the 40^th anniversary of normalisation of relations with mainland China. The rhetoric then argued for closer, more complex relations. In 1976, Australia and Japan signed a basic treaty of friendship and cooperation which aimed to soften the sharp edges of the predominantly economic relationship. That relationship had gained economic primacy through the 1960s and 1970s on the back of resources trade. In 1989, Professor Ross Garnaut focussed clearly on the economic potential and markets in Northeast Asia, introducing the promise of South Korea to the Australian consciousness in the way China and Japan had been introduced half a generation earlier. Prime Minister Paul Keating during his term made much of an Asian turning point and notwithstanding the scepticism surrounding the sudden conversion of the Francophile, he did energise APEC through a stronger leaders’ forum.

We can go back further in our history when we were less self-conscious about our interaction. The signing of a trade agreement between Japan and Australia in 1957 where wartime enmity was slowly giving way to a strained mateship in a largely pragmatic recognition of where Australia’s future was headed. We can go further back, to the 19^th century, where Japanese intellectuals espoused the value of Australia to the region for the ‘Pacific Century’, yes—the turn of the 20^th century.

The brief history lesson is not to diminish the significance of the latest white paper. Rather, as noted above, it is better to see this white paper as a consolidation of a deep foundation of Asian engagement stretching back over a century, not stepping out anew.

When introducing students to the study of the region I like to offer a couple of anecdotes. The first is that 30 years ago, as an undergraduate, we debated the proposition that ‘Australia is a part of Asia’. Naturally, as a group of Asian studies students, we figured the answer, in the affirmative, was a ‘no-brainer’. But thirty years seems a long time to keep revisiting a debate.

The second anecdote is a little more personal. I tell students that I was one of 300 or so Year 8 students introduced to Japanese language in Queensland in the mid 1970s. There were about ten schools across Queensland at the time doing the same, so roughly 3000 new students to the language started their journey. Using my school as an example, by Year 12 we had a class of six. Of those six only one went on to university to study the language, gain a few qualifications and become reasonably fluent. Once we multiply that across Queensland and the rest of the country, and add to that the fact that Japanese and other Asian languages have become a well-established element of school curricula in the intervening 35 years, we end up with quite a mind-boggling number of potential ‘Asia-literate’ people. Our reality of course is that only the pro-rata equivalent of that 1/300 go on to make a career of it. Imagine if we had capitalised on all the energy and commitment all those years ago.

Still, I always aim to be more hopeful than sceptical. I am passing into ‘old-hand’ status now and I will seek to capitalise on this momentum while I can, as I did in 1989 and as I benefited from in the 1970s. We are now actually more deeply embedded in the Asian region than perhaps even the self-conscious commentary of the past couple of days might realise. Prime Minister Gillard’s passion for education over foreign affairs is self-proclaimed. Perhaps her educational imperatives can override the economic pragmatism of previous Asian endeavours and we can build on the momentum of Asian centuries past to embrace Asian centuries of the future.

Mirror, mirror in the chamber: a week is a long time…

In asking us to respect our political institutions, those within ought to respect them too

*   misogyny: n. hatred of women.

* misanthropy: n. hatred, dislike or distrust of mankind

*   sexist: adj. of an attitude which stereotypes a person according to gender, or sexual preference, rather than judging on individual merits.

*   context: n. the parts of a discourse or writing which precede or follow, and are directly connected with, a given passage or word.

*   adversarial: not what our politics should be…

Each time I sat down to write a post this week, so many other bloggists did the same thing: just faster and better than me. We’ve had an odd week in the political sphere, an awful one actually which does our polity no good. It revolved around those words at the top of this post, I include the simple definitions for your consideration.

The words ‘misogyny’ and ‘sexist’ have been thrown around liberally as one side of politics has sought to out-yell the other. There have been texts which probably shouldn’t have been written, let alone made public. There’s been a prime ministerial speech delivered from the dispatch box in our National Parliament but which has reverberated around the world… There’s just been a whole lot of wha? is going on out there.

One angle I’d like to add to the blogosphere however, that I don’t believe has been covered yet, is the impact this has on those who don’t like politics, those who study it and those who want to understand it but wonder why they should. These are the students I teach, the friends I talk to and the radio audience I engage with from time to time.

I’ve worked in the heart of Australian politics as it is played out in Canberra. It is contradictory, it is many-sided, it is hypocritical, it has been nasty. It also has a lot of people who mostly want to see good things done, who want to see a better society and want to do much good. Because I’ve witnessed the good that politics can be, my despair at the last week or so is greater but so too does my determination to work from my place now in the academy to make it work better.

The question for me is ‘how can we get our politics back on track?’ Why has it derailed so badly? While our Prime Minister’s most sharply delivered line might have directed the Opposition Leader to look in a mirror, I’d propose that our politics is our mirror on this society…and I think that mirror needs a little spray and wipe.

I was entranced by Prime Minister Gillard’s speech this week. As one who analyses speeches and their delivery, and as one who has written them, a political speech can convey so much. A speech can indeed have a significance beyond its intention and it can carry beyond its moment. I think PM Gillard’s speech will do that. There was evident in her every fibre, an anger and frustration that many of us have felt to some degree or another at one time or another. She did not scream, she did not yell. She asserted herself, she was passionate about what she was saying. She garnered the empathy of many because it was heartfelt.

And yet, it was not a speech that should have needed to be made in our 21^st century parliament. I am concerned that what we have seen in the last few weeks is an amplification of a tangled web of anger and sexist behaviour. It permeates our society unfortunately, and I think it is getting worse, or I’m tolerating it less. I listened in despair as some radio talkback callers aired views about the prime minister … why do people ring up the radio to publicly declare on the prime minister’s body shape, why FCS? Kudos to Rebecca Levingston (@reblev on our @612brisbane) the presenter who handled the situation so well, live to air. She had earlier set up a thoughtful dialogue between academic Dr Bronwen Levy and Andrew Bartlett. They talked about the return to civility and politeness in our political discourse. It is so much easier really, to be civil, than to be rude.

All this in the week that Malala Yousafzai, a teenage girl passionate in her belief in education for girls and women and her dreams of becoming a political leader, was shot by hostile members of the Taliban. As I write, she is still on ventilator, fighting for her life. She was front and centre of one of my lectures this week. I showed a short video of Malala talking to camera and speaking to us. Here was a 14 year old who believed passionately in the value of education, who wanted to pursue her education, who spoke highly of the importance of a strong polity and her desire that in order to do good, she must become a great political leader. I hope she does. I wonder what she would have thought if she’d watched our parliamentary example this past week.

It was one of those ‘special’ moments in class I’ve spoken of previously—those unplanned moments of learning for all of us—a thoughtful pause descended on the lecture theatre. I conveyed to students that moments like this challenge us all—can my belief in the transformative power of education sit alongside my preference that our soldiers be withdrawn from these regions? Sometimes, life and circumstance do a scornful and teasing dance upon our textbooks. I am fortunate to teach students prepared to come along for that ride.

Later that night, on my drive home, I tried a little time travel. I tried to imagine a 14-year-old Julia Gillard, 36 years ago giving a speech about her aspirations, her dream of education, her wish to become a leader. Then, I projected myself 100km down the highway and 36 years into the future when a 50-year-old Malala might be standing at the dispatch box of her parliament. I hope her speeches won't be about staring down sexist and unpleasant behaviour. I hope for her and the future, that anger which pervades now will have subsided, nay, diminished. I hope her speeches will not need to be analysed and parsed in a context of misogyny and adversarial politics.

We all need to look in that mirror held up in Canberra this week and ask ourselves, really, what do we have to be so angry about? Our polity is our social contract, and it takes all of us to make it work.

And my thanks too to Rebecca Levingston and Tony Johnston on @ABCGoldCoast for inviting me along to try and make sense of the week. We’ll just keep holding up that mirror.

All definitions at the top of this post are taken from the Macquarie Dictionary, just because.