Seeing the con in reconciliation
Insecurity in a COVID world
Vicarious
The girls are exaggerating
'Truth is more than a matter of being accurate about facts.'
'In times of contagion, it seems, a place of exile can be transformed into a one of blessings and longevity.'
'The music scene, and indeed the arts in general, do not just deserve the support, they are integral to the rebuilding process.'
'This is why we must resist the idea of a snap back. There can be no snapping back.'
Calling healthcare a business was always logically flawed. Money is involved, but it is unlike any consumer product businesses. For one thing, the ‘customer’ in health does not decide what represents value, the provider (the doctor or equivalent) does. Patients may have a say, but usually only on the margin.
In thinking through how social services can contribute to what society or the economy needs in light of the ramifications of COVID-19, Catholicism and communism are not two traditions that probably come to the mind for most. But for the kind of thinking that governance and leaders require to make good decisions in and beyond a time of crisis, there are people and concepts from each tradition that we can learn from.
I spent the first six or seven years of my life spellbound by my mum’s stories of her childhood in Far North Queensland. Herstory came from warm, outback and subtropical places. She and her sisters wrote on slates at school, played in custard apple trees, kept their own bees.
Nothing in the world is single, as Shelley said, and we have proof of this in the general reaction to COVID-19. That spirit, however, seems to have its limitations. For some politicians are set on dividing people, rather than on uniting them.
Many women and children in Pakistan might not be safe within their own houses. They are being forced to be locked in with their abusers, with little to no hope of intervention from authorities or the outside world, as everyone is engaged in fighting with the virus.
After building a reputation for foreign intervention and collateral damage — the most recent example being Libya — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is asserting its influence during the COVID-19 pandemic, this time by exploiting the humanitarian paradigm.
Reconciliation week itself begins on the 27th May, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, which granted Aboriginal people the right to be counted in the census. The anniversary of the Mabo ruling in the High Court rounds out the week. Yet every year, I would swear that this week means nothing more to most people in this country than to call on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their workplaces and community to do more work.
But insecurity breeds insecurity. In the face of insecurity we can feel insecure. Our identity as persons can be shaken by the insecurity of our circumstances. This is not inevitable. Nor is it necessarily lasting. Some people will be temporarily or lastingly paralysed by anxiety; others will be more resilient.
Over the past few weeks we’ve seen the government pull out all the stops in an attempt to convince the Australian public to download the COVIDSafe App. There are plenty of issues with the app itself, including its technical flaws, and valid concerns around data privacy, security and the normalisation of surveillance. But the other fascinating aspect of COVIDSafe has been the commentary surrounding the app.
Another biblical motif or metaphor may prove more fruitful in the long run: the apocalypse. No, not the end of the world, however appropriate this may feel. It’s the apocalypse but not as we know it.
In Christian churches the celebration of Easter this year will look more like Lent or Passion week. All Australians, too, will be without football, concerts, interstate and international travel and family gatherings. The atmosphere, too, will be one of constraint, not freedom. Instead of celebrating the present, we may be weighed down by fear and anxiety about the future. We are all captive to COVID-19.
For millions of Australians of varying degrees of religiosity, prayer will play a key role in dealing with the novel stresses associated with this novel virus. Religions bring us not just closer to our creator but also to each other, especially in times of crisis. And you don’t have to be devout to feel the blessing.
Multiple media reports have focused on individuals and households moving away from sustainability — mostly because of understandable concerns about contamination — and yet, the conversation about the impacts of our biggest businesses and corporations hasn’t been as loud.
But just as the frighteningly precarious nature of our lives has been thoroughly exposed, so too has the inequality of it all. Even in a pandemic, we aren't all suffering equally. Even in a pandemic, structures of privilege continue to operate.
While the federal government has set a zero net emissions target by 2050, along with the states and territories and local councils in some areas, the steps that are taken to get there are vitally important. Yet there seems to be no signs of a rapid move away from fossil fuels.
Ah, how they floated in the clouds, back before the first world war, those decent heady phrases: the common good, the living wage and how they came across the seas, those writers and professors, to study what we’d done down here.
As the small-l Liberal who attempted unsuccessfully to stare down the right-wing of the Liberal Party, known to his enemies as ‘Mr Harbourside Mansion’ or as the best Labour Prime Minister to ever lead the Liberal Party (2015-2018), Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was a man who dreamed, spoke and spent big.
The dweller in the bone attic holds countryside as home; thinks of food, safety, health and warmth for family, self and group. Frenetic scuffles rage in the brick canyons where the hunt is commerce and food constructed.
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