A lot of people want to know how and why I ended up studying politics, in particular Japanese politics but politics in general. I mean, if you are going to 'do Japan', aren't there better things to do than politics?
No.
Start with 'politics', you can go anywhere. I suppose it was a bit of a strategic accident in a way. I commenced my university studies in what is now referred to quaintly as 'area studies', back when moving on to higher education meant you could explore your curiosity, learn about 'others', expand your horizons, and have it considered a positive rather than a waste of time and failure to think about a job.
(#a digression: I remember participating in one of the annual university days, when they were at the crossroads between--come to uni and study, meet the lecturers--and--university PR opportunity, ignore the academics--those times. Anyway, a rather overbearing fellow was talking to me about what he wanted his daughter to study and was saying he'd rather we taught Chinese instead of Japanese, so as I was wont to do, I spoke through him directly to his daughter and asked what interested her; she wanted to study Japanese, go to Japan, listed all the things she was interested in; I said great, I gave her a potted history of what I did over the years--teaching, living in Japan, working at DFAT, working in parliament...etc etc; her eyes lit up, her father harrumphed and said, 'well I want my daughter to have a career, not a series of jobs!' Seriously, I've never forgotten that.)
Anyway, back to that first degree. I ended up in politics for two reasons I suppose, firstly, and simply, the politics and history lecturers were the most interesting and economics, which is what I was supposed to be combining with Japanese at the time was frankly, boring. So secondly, while economics was the go-to discipline to understand Japan, I figured with so many 'Japanese and economics graduates' potentially on the horizon, I should distinguish myself from the pack. So politics it was. OK, I was more interested in Chinese politics but, since I was studying Japanese, I went in that direction. Interestingly, in those days, International Relations was considered inappropriate to study at the undergraduate level, no subjects were offered except for a final semester, final year all-round 'Australia and Asia' subject which sort of introduced us to some concepts. No, the priority in those days was learn the language, learn about the society, understand commonalities and differences, and then go on.
Thus politics has been a thread throughout all that I have done, all that I do. My first degree encouraged a comparative approach to other societies, as a way to understand our own and learn about others; it offered ways to 'reflect' on our own actions, before 'reflection' became the norm in education. I moved through postgraduate studies in International Relations, but my interest these days is to stand back from the frontlines and 'think', in the Arendtian-style, about politics--what motivates us to do, or not do, act, or not act, and so on.
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| Modern leadership |
And twitter is a funny place. I'm there for lots of reasons but I'm always amused when a tweet about today's lunch gets more likes and RTs than my 'expert' commentary on something political but this week, for just a brief moment, a short thread I wrote garnered more tweets, comments (and new followers) than my last Friday night beer and curry tweet and given we've been in semi-lockdown for nearly two months, that is quite a while.
There were six tweets in the thread (I was even 'threadreadered'):
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Praising the PM's leadership at this point is like giving a student 10/10 for their first assignment of the semester and telling them 'no worries, you're on track for a high distinction now, sit back, relax, all the hard work is done'. Nor is it his 'leadership' alone. 1/6
The premiers have contributed in equal, if not greater amounts to get to this point. The *collective* effort here is to be noted. The PM's record until now and hereafter cannot be excluded from any assessment. I'm actually yet to see any propensity for reflection on his part. 2/6
Beware 'SnapBack', I mean who, anybody with any sort of capacity for courageous leadership, who thinks this is an appropriate way to proceed in these times. Leaders are willing to find billions to pay for endless wars, often in another's name, with no end, no 'SnapBack'. 3/6
I see no fundamental change in the PM's style or manner, much less leadership.
In the tension between journalism and academia, we acknowledge journalists are compelled to 'write the first draft of history' while those of us in the back rows have time to mull over things. 4/6
And I for one would be happy to concede all of the above and proven wrong. Maybe there will be recognition that snapping back (I mean, it even sounds sadistic, snapping legs off insects-type awfulness) to the old way will not be in the interests of society at large. 5/6
But until then, until we work our way through this, let's just temper the hype. And maybe think about redirecting that bottomless pit of defence budget to the more immediate needs of human security, a greater vision of our human potential. 6/6
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It was as much a meditation on what political 'leaders' will learn from this pandemic and wondering who among them will have the courage to reflect on what is really needed for our societies as we emerge from this. I doubt Morrison has the wherewithal to do so. He is what I would call a 'shallow' political player, one of those who chases votes but doesn't understand what he should do once he gets there (the proverbial dog that caught the car it was chasing).
In the next post, (this one ended up a little longer than I anticipated) I will look a little more closely at the Japanese and Australian political leadership in this time of semi-lockdown. While Morrison's polling has been going up, Abe's has headed south. On the surface, the respective responses (and outcomes) to the pandemic, have been similar, so why the difference in the perceptions of their leadership? And which country will be better positioned to take the next steps.
