By Tony Smith
SYDNEY — If you are among the 95% of Australians alarmed by the way some politicians have exploited the concept of a republic, the conference "Republicanism, citizenship, community" at the Australian Museum on November 6 was for you.
The conference, organised by UWS-Nepean's Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, promised a breath of fresh air for observers tired of the Waddy-Turnbull-Kennealy Horne-Keating show. Here was the chance to focus on ideas rather than on short-term political point-scoring.
Three of the eight papers emphasised the importance of finding a basis for concepts to enable participation of Aboriginal people.
These papers — by Heather Goodall on the shifting concept of "boundary" since 1788, by Tim Rowse on attempts to incorporate Aboriginal Australians and their land into the capitalist system, and by Terry Widders on the difficulties of defining indigenous — made it plain that Mabo was not a panacea, particularly in the restricted form that it is being marketed.
There is a huge ethical question involved concerning possession of and relationship to the land, and a large question mark over citizenship when it has been of dubious benefit to people granted the "right" in 1967.
The need to conceive a definition of citizenship which caters for the unique position of the dispossessed original inhabitants is the very challenge of republicanism.
Barry Hindess of the Australian National University pointed out that current expectations about what republican status could deliver for society are unrealistic. The discourse about self-government, social homogeneity and the capacities of governments is therefore "parasitic".
David Burchell, in examining the "prehistory" of republicanism, was similarly sceptical of the possibility that the idea can be easily grafted onto modern capitalist systems. His examinations of the ideas of Aristotle, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx and others revealed that capitalism and modern styles of government have little in common with the ideals of civic activism which underpin most republican theory.
Somewhat closer to the current debate were stimulating presentations by Ghassan Hage and Helen Irving.
Hage has an ongoing interest in critical appraisal of the way the dominant culture in Australia deals with "multiculturals". In the debate, multiculturalism is exploited as a stimulus for the move to a republic.
Yet, argues Hage, the establishment wants us to gain from the experience of cutting the apron strings, despite the fact that many Australians do not feel that the Queen, or England, is in any sense "mother" in the first place.
Women could well fear exploitation in the republic debate. Helen Irving referred to recent criticisms of the male domination of the current discourse.
Perhaps unavoidably, the mind kept wandering back to the instigator of the popular debate.
Can a man who refers to senators as "pansies" envisage a republic which is pro-feminist? Can somebody who has pursued politics as a first career conceive of a form of citizenship where all are invited to participate in their governance? Can a mouther of platitudes and sentimentality about his Irish origins cope with a truly multicultural Australia? Can the architect of deregulation and the panderer to the international market forces really think that a "self-governing community of citizens" is a likely cure for our economic ills?