First published 29 October 2015
Just when the ringing of the words 'I stopped the boats' had finally subsided and you were getting used to the idea of business agility and economic innovation as the key battlegrounds for the next few years, who should pop back up but the former Prime Minister and Culture Warrior in Chief, Tony Abbott.
Abbott's Margaret Thatcher memorial speech — in which the words 'a hint of Thatcher about my government' were used with apparently no irony whatsoever — was a truly stunning example of revisionism, hubris, and utterly confused ideology.
If you haven't read about it yet, you'll no doubt be shocked to learn that the focus of the speech was on stopping the boats, how Abbott stopped the boats, how Europe should stop the boats (or like, buses, I guess), and why stopping the boats is a moral imperative.
And it's this question of moral imperative that is particularly interesting. Abbott suggested that 'the safety and prosperity that exists almost uniquely in Western countries' is not an 'accident of history' but rather the product of 'values painstakingly discerned and refined'.
It's pretty clear that Abbott is talking about so-called Christian values here, although he doesn't articulate it in so many words. This makes his next line all the more confusing: 'The imperative to "love your neighbour as you love yourself" is at the heart of every Western polity ... but — right now — this wholesome instinct is leading much of Europe into catastrophic error.'
It's clear for Abbott that moral imperatives, the 'Western' or Christian values that he loves so much, are entirely subsumed by the higher motivating purpose of protecting that Western culture from perceived attack by people who come from a marginally different cultural tradition. At the heart of his assumptions is the notion that Islam is fundamentally different or at war with his world view, which is rubbish.
This is textbook clash of civilisations stuff, and one gets the sense that Abbott, with his prioritisation of cultural protection over adherence to the value that culture espouses, would've been more at home in the Crusades than in modern global politics. It's also the sort of misguided junk sociology that saw us go to war with 'terrorism'.
Now, Australia rejected the Abbott experiment, and doesn't particularly care about a culture wars-based conceptualisation of global affairs. What Abbott apparently hasn't realised is that the electorate tired of him in part because of his arcane bleating about bombing baddies and protecting the superiority of Western civilisation, especially when they realise that he cared about those issues more than their local hospitals, schools and ability to get a job.
The struggle for conservatives in the Abbott mould is that they don't seem to have arrived at this realisation any more than Abbott has. There's a vanguard of very male, very conservative, and indeed very Catholic thought in places like the right of the New South Wales Liberal party that threatens insurrection every time a fellow Liberal takes a position that puts them on the 'left' of the culture wars or, say, opens diplomatic relations with a country that represents a key culture wars shibboleth.
But existing as a leader in the modern world requires a passing understanding of the fact that there are people who may not share exactly your values, or who may share values but express them differently. Hell, existing as a politician and as a representative of your electorate and community forces you to come to this understanding.
The Liberal Party can't afford to be a party that only governs for some (white, Christian) Australians, or that cares more about the teaching of European history in schools above whether kids in those schools will be able to get a job. And it's profoundly depressing to see Scott Morrison resort to jingoistic statements about the national anthem with regard to the Melbourne school that allowed students participating in a religious tradition that prohibits them from singing during their period of religious moruning to excuse themselves from the anthem portion of their school assembly.
Australia is a diverse and mostly tolerant country. Our politicians should take the view that any pockets of fear and intolerance should be educated and brought to a position of understanding and compassion. Unfortunately, Labor have proved by reflexively mirroring Abbott's every word that they don't currently possess the intellectual integrity and strength of conviction to shift out of the culture wars.
That leaves Turnbull with an enormous job to do in silencing the culture warriors in his own party, while protecting his position as leader. But a failure to do so will only result in us becoming bogged down in the same clash of civilisations discourses that empower the anti-mosque nutters and Geert Wilders fanboys in the community to continue spreading their crap.
For European leaders who are tempted to listen to Abbott's message and reverse their compassionate refugee policies, bear in mind that Abbott was tossed out of government two years into his term, and that for us, seeing him back on the world stage pushing the culture wars barrow is a bit like seeing that Japanese soldier still fighting the war 29 years after Japan surrendered — he just looks out of touch.
Instead, Europe should embrace its cultural diversity and leaders should feel proud that their country's adherence to basic values like the right to human dignity makes it an attractive destination for people who've worked hard to escape war and deprivation.
Sabine Wolff is a Melbourne-based writer and commentator. She blogs about politics and war at sabinedotwolff.com. She tweets @sabinewolff.