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Wars and conflicts International Australia
Reality of war rewrites the script
by Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.
At times of war, Anglo-Celtic societies tend to support their leaders, writes Gerard Henderson.
LAST Thursday was the second night of David Hare’s play Stuff Happens at Sydney’s Seymour Centre. Company B’s production of the British playwright’s latest work was extremely well acted and directed. Yet the play seemed strangely out of step with the times.
Stuff Happens is a docudrama about the events leading to the invasion of Iraq by the coalition of the willing and the subsequent fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Some of the dialogue is taken from the speeches of such key players as George Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and more besides.
However, as Hare acknowledged in the Los Angeles Times on May 29, he had to "invent" much of the dialogue. Consequently, at times, it is difficult to work out that which is real and that which is a product of what Hare has conceded is his "imagination".
In any event, Hare’s message is clear enough. The political leadership of the United States and Britain is at best deeply flawed and, at worst, downright devious. There are only two goodies in Stuff Happens and they are both Arabs who are hostile to Bush and Blair.
At the start of the second act an Arab-looking male suggests that the contemporary problems of the world turn on the fact that the issue of Palestine has not been resolved - without any mention of the notorious corruption of the Palestinian Authority during Yasser Arafat’s time.
Then, at the end of the play, an Iraqi female condemns the policies of the coalition of the willing but does not address the fact that without the invasion Saddam would still be in power and without making the point that, right now, the resistance in Iraq is primarily killing Iraqis.
There was a degree of unreality about the Stuff Happens performance last Thursday. The overwhelmingly well-educated, middle-class audience celebrated Hare’s put-downs of Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, and embraced the play’s message that the West is led by part-time charlatans and part-time fools. Then, soon after the patrons left the theatre, there was news of the latest terrorist attacks on London.
The reaction to the mass murder in London on July 7, and the attempted mass murder two weeks later, demonstrates that there is a dramatic difference between Hare’s views of the West’s leadership and that of a majority of the electorate in Britain, the US and Australia.
At times of war, Anglo-Celtic societies tend to support their leaders. This partly explains why Howard, Bush and Blair were all recently re-elected. And this is why support for the British Prime Minister appears to have risen in the wake of the London suicide-homicide bombings. In Australia, the most recent Newspoll has the Howard Government substantially ahead of Labor as to which party is best equipped to handle national security.
Bush, Blair and Howard have all presented themselves to the electorate as wartime leaders. That’s what successful politicians do at times of conflict. However, even if this were not the case, there would be political pressures for the elected leaders of the three nations to take a tough line on terrorism - at home and abroad.
A clear majority of the public have a much more positive attitude to their heads of government than do many members of the intelligentsia, like Hare.
If the war against terrorism takes a form similar to other conflicts where the very existence of democratic societies has been threatened, then the following consequences should be expected in Australia:
– In the present climate, the Australian electorate will tolerate restrictions on civil liberties which would not normally apply in peacetime, despite what civil libertarians assert. This could include far greater surveillance by closed circuit TV cameras and the introduction of an identity card, if the latter proves cost efficient.
– Voters will expect that the Prime Minister and the premiers will name and, if possible, shame any Muslim leader who makes statements which deny reality or which are capable of being interpreted as giving succour to Islamic jihadists. If Sheik Mohammed Omran continues to deny that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 - or if Wassim Doureihi continues to state that Muslims cannot co-exist with Westerners in democratic societies - then they should expect public criticism.
– The clear majority of moderate Muslims leaders will be expected to unequivocally condemn advocates of, or fellow travellers with, jihad. It is understandable that some Muslim leaders feel intimidated and, consequently, reluctant to take a stand in what journalist Christopher Hitchens has termed this Islamic civil war. Muslims are targets of jihadists in the West just as they are within such Muslim nations as Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq. Even so, moderate Islamic leaders will be expected to take a stance against terrorism.
– Some citizens will overreact to the crisis. Already the former National Party senator John Stone has argued that Australia "must sharply reduce, indeed virtually halt, Muslim immigration inflow". This is a grievous insult to law-abiding Muslims which does nothing to prevent a London-style attack by young Australian citizens who have been indoctrinated into the jihadist cause. The task of government is to support the moderates in the Islamic civil war, in Australia and overseas.
– Others will seek to point the blame at the wrong causes. Multiculturalism has worked well in Australia. It is not a factor in the rejection of Western societies (including those, like France, which are monocultural) by jihadists. Also, asylum seekers are not a problem. As former ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson pointed out during a speech in Hobart on May 8, 2002, security checks on asylum seekers entering Australia have not found any terrorists or potential terrorists. Terrorists are invariably either native-born or enter a country on visas.
Political governance at time of war is seldom easy. The task of Western leaders in the current conflict with jihadists is to be unequivocally resolute, while attempting to ensure that the rights and reputations of minorities are not abused. The lesson of history is that most political leaders get it right most of the time. Which is why Mr and Mrs John Doe have greater faith in representative government than David Hare and his (mostly) uncritical audiences.