Mainstream coverage of the major parties campaign reveals a narrow-minded, forgetful and somewhat inward-looking stand. While this federal election is heavily focused on cost-of-living pressures, Australia also faces urgent international relations challenges which candidates cannot ignore.
As a major trading nation, Australia’s wealth and standard of living are highly contingent on what is happening overseas. Where Australia positions itself on the international stage is a salient question.
History tells us that we can be more independent and that we have stood up against authoritarianism and fascism.
There are profound ideological and geopolitical shifts taking place in addition to extreme weather events, the result of the climate emergency.
We are witness to ongoing genocidal wars, widespread civil wars and conflicts continuing without end.
There is a marked and discernible return to authoritarianism and fascism. Simultaneously, there is a sudden collapse in faith in international law and international institutions.
A chaotic and isolationist second Donald Trump administration has upturned a world order already shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key destabilising events
A number of destabilising events over the last decade have tested any belief that Australia could be immune, or insulate itself, from the wider world.
The catastrophic 2019-2020, long bushfire season or Black Summer induced great fear and resulted in a direct loss of 33 lives and damages estimated at more than a staggering $200 billion. This and more recent extreme weather events have alerted many once complacent people that global warming and climate change must be treated seriously.
The global COVID-19 pandemic revealed Australia’s vulnerability to interruptions to international trade, underscoring the need for self-reliance. The pandemic led to a sense of disjointedness, alerting people to how easily things can fall apart.
At this time China, Australia’s major trading partner, chose to inflict tariffs on a range of exports designed to intimidate and coerce. It is ironic and salutary that today the US, Australia’s major “security” partner, is using tariffs to wage a trade war against us.
There have been two major invasions this decade, with subsequent ongoing wars, in which large numbers of people have been killed and injured. They have seriously impacted the world with far-reaching repercussions.
The unprovoked Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the largely stalemated war evoking images of the trench warfare of World War I. Russia, with a seat on the UN Security Council, has been able to veto any serious attempts to curtail its aggression.
The second, Israel’s full-scale invasion by land, sea and air of the Gaza Strip, is being backed by the US, also with a seat on the Security Council. It has used its veto to provide Israel with protection and impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A key feature of the Israeli Defense Force invasion of Gaza and the consequent asymmetrical war, however, has been the overwhelmingly disproportionate, vengeful and punitive response (continuing today after 18 months). A merciless blitzkrieg has terrorised and displaced a whole population held captive in an enclave with no escape.
Justice Hilary Charlesworth, the only Australian judge on the International Court of Justice, stated unequivocally in the months after Israel’s invasion that war crimes by one side never justify war crimes by another.
Israel, once seen by many including itself, as David, has now turned into Goliath. Last October 1, it launched a ground invasion of Lebanon. Despite a ceasefire last November 27, it has continued incursions into Lebanon and has regularly bombed Syria and neighbouring countries.
Today with two key members of the UN Security Council, Russia and the US, blatantly and fragrantly breaching Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter, both countries disqualify themselves from any creditable pretence at world leadership.
Impotence of world leaders
The passivity and impotence of many world leaders, including ours, in the face of all the destruction, terror and death, is stark.
Devastating wars in the Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar largely fail to register with anyone. Deeply unsettling too is a willingness of many leaders, including some of our own, to justify the barbarism we are witnessing. By normalizing violence and war as a means to an end, these politicians are making the world more unsafe for everyone.
An exception among world leaders has been Pope Francis, who, every week, called for those who so quickly reach for the gun to engage in dialogue and negotiation. His death on Easter Monday is a great loss for the cause of peace.
Finding inspiration in history
The full-frontal dispossession and occupation by invaders over the late 19th century and early 20th twentieth centuries, during the age colonialism and imperialism, was cataclysmic for this continent’s Indigenous peoples. It continues today as other Australians fail to come to terms with history.
We can take inspiration though from the strong survival instincts of First Nations peoples, their adaptability and deep resourcefulness. We can understand that there is value in a life lived in close connection with, and respect for, the natural environment.
Generations that faced the 1930s and 1940s collapse of banks and financial systems in the Great Depression and during the World War II knew of our vulnerabilities full well.
We can look for inspiration in the immediate post-war World War II generation of leaders such as John Curtin, who as a former Prime Minister, turned out to be a strategic thinker, capable of asserting an independent foreign policy.
After the war, Australian leaders who learned that the country was linked to the fate of the world, were prepared to reimagine and help reshape a world that promoted peace over war and cooperation over competition.
They were keenly attuned to the dangers of ethno-nationalism, authoritarianism and arms races, and were instrumental in asserting, for the first time in history, a role for smaller nations and middle powers, in the affairs of the world.
Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley was an internationalist who stood up for independence for India and Indonesia, and supported the United Nations playing a role in the decolonisation process.
Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, as head of the Australian delegation to the UN at the time of its foundation and in 1948, as president of the UN General Assembly presided over the adoption of the .
Australian feminist Jessie Street ensured that Article 1 of the declaration was changed from “All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights” to “All human beings are born free in dignity and rights”.
Today, we see a retreat into an easy forgetting and a confident complacency characterised by comfortability in small-mindedness. The major party leaders seem ready to jettison the concept of a shared humanity and, instead, ally us with a superpower that threatens world stability and peace.
This is unforgivable given that, as an immigrant country, Australia is uniquely qualified to speak up for an interconnected cosmopolitan future for the world and to argue that diversity is not a dirty word.
Einstein and Arendt’s open letter
On December 4, 1948, when Evatt was at the UN helping to formulate the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, together with other Jewish scholars and intellectuals, published an to the New York Times.
They warned Americans against giving support to the extremist Zionist Freedom Party (Tnuat Haherut), led by Menachem Begin in the then newly-created state of Israel.
They were concerned that the Freedom Party was an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority. They feared that Israel would become a “Leader State”, with the unmistakable stamp of fascism. They further identified a fascist political party or government as one characterised by a willingness to weaponise intimidation, terrorism and misrepresentation as means to their goals.
What would Einstein and Arendt say about Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump, Vladimir Putin and many other leaders and governments today?
Candidates seeking our vote need to show they can identify global threats and promote the idea of Australia acting as a sovereign state. They need to show that they will be bold, strategic thinkers, with the courage to stand up to a resurgent fascism and authoritarianism.
“… it is when we play it safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.” — Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1953-1961.
[Mark Gillespie is a human rights advocate, '78er, teacher and social anthropologist (retired). He is a member of City of Sydney for Palestine.]