The Real Challenge of Pauline Hanson
by Veronica Brady
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 61
Winter 1998

Part 3

It is too easy, however, to see this merely as a slaves' revolt. In our kind of a world it is surely not surprising that people are increasingly mistrustful, suspect one another of the hardness, aggressiveness and intolerance which is exerted against them on all sides, and are increasingly afraid of being different (there is safety in the crowd); spontaneity, impetuosity and letting go are luxuries only the secure can afford.

In a world with little sense of meaning, what is specific and different can be dangerous. It is much safer to live by generalities, to dream of 'one nation' in which everyone will behave and look alike, conform to what we ourselves regard as respectable and usual. The intolerance and dogmatism that results and which we deplore is not necessarily the product of malice, therefore, but of personal need. What then can be done?

At the general level it seems clear that political parties need to take the point of which they are being so vividly reminded, that in a democracy their task is to serve people, to create a society in which, as John Lilburne said in the 17th century, "the poorest he [or she] that is in this country hath as much right as the richest". We, too, who are not members of One Nation must make this demand. Political involvement may be unfashionable, but it does behoove those of us concerned about the use of One Nation to enter the arena. But we must do so in order to widen and enlarge this arena.

Here, of course, a crucial problem arises. However sympathetic one may be to the anxieties to which Hanson seems to give an answer, when that answer ignores or denies the unique history of aboriginal Australians and the problems arising from it, or appeals to outdated notions of white supremacy in dealing with Asian peoples, it simply cannot be accepted. This is so not merely because it is divisive and destructive and likely to damage us internationally but also and more crucially because it is ethically unacceptable, and the good society which in their muddled way so many Hansonites seem to be seeking must rest on justice.

But doesn't this bring us back to a point of division and mutual hostility? A sense of suffering, unmerited and unjustifiable, underlies the rise of One Nation in general and their hostility to aboriginal people in particular. Why should they get so much assistance and sympathy, Hanson asks, while 'ordinary Australians' get so little? Pain leaves little room for sympathy and imagination and the hostility they really feel towards their situation and those in power is turned on those weaker than themselves and on their supporters. Do-gooders, middle-class people who are perceived as speaking from a lofty position of assumed righteousness without having really understood the pain "ordinary Australians" are suffering, are also special targets of scorn, if not hatred.

We have a real problem, then. But there is, I think, a solution. When the enemy is in a commanding position, according to that wily tactician Comrade Mao, it is foolish to mount a frontal attack; rather, we should retreat to the mountains and put in practice there what we believe in. In the long run it is conviction which prevails, especially conviction which offers a way out of the impasse.

To: Part 4

Veronica Brady Veronica Brady is a Loreto nun and author of the recent South of My Days: a biography of Judith Wright.