By Dr George Venturini  

At its heart, Australia is a system of representative government. More specifically, Australian parliamentary democracy is a variation of the Westminster system, the system which is characterised by responsible government.

The question is: responsible to whom? Both Her Majesty’s Australian Government and Her Majesty Loyal Opposition in Australia are responsible to the Queen – not to the people of Australia.

Now, the legislation enacted by the Parliament, the relative regulations, and also the international agreements and/or conventions freely acceded to and ratified by Australia must be regarded as the body of laws which is called, briefly, ‘the rule of law’. There is quite frequent reference to that in the statement. See, for instance, pp. 4 and 9 thereof.

It seems that there should be a kind of reciprocity between the government and the people: the government respects the law that Parliament has enacted or received as much and as long as the subjects do the same. It could be a condition for the protection of the people by and from the government.

The government commands and enforces respect for the ‘rule of law’ and at the same time protects the people within ‘strong borders’ and guarantees ‘strong national security.’ It is the statement proclaiming that much on p. 11, where the statement adds: “This helps to ensure that Australia remains an open, inclusive, free and safe society.” [Emphasis added]

The Australian Government of the time largely contributed to the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948), where Article 14 (1) reads: ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’ (Thank you Dr. Herbert Vere Evatt). Nowadays that means absolutely nothing in Canberra.

Successive Australian governments have acceded to, ratified and made the law of the land what is largely referred to as the International Bill of Human Rights, which is the name given to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) and two international treaties established by the Organisation. The Bill consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) with its two Optional Protocols and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). The two covenants entered into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them. Australia was one such country.

Australian governments have entered into other treaties and conventions. To the extent that those instruments relate to the condition of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia, every single one of those treaties has been violated by the Australian governments of the last twenty five years, including the present.

As Christos Tsiolkas wrote on 25 March 2017 in an extract from his foreword to They cannot take the sky – Stories of detention (Sydney 2017), apropos the “destructive national debate about asylum seekers”, “In all the screaming across the parliament floor or on social media, we forget that the asylum seeker and the refugee is a real person, with a real body and a real consciousness, that they are as human as we are.”

And he went on:

“For nearly two decades now, Australian politics has been corrupted by a toxic and destructive national debate about asylum seekers and refugees. Unfortunately, fought out as much across media – traditional and digital – as it has in our parliament, the issue of asylum has become inexorably entwined with our security and existential fears arising from the threats of international terrorism.

Our leaders, across the political spectrum, have failed in the democratic imperative to ensure a cogent and humane approach to the issue. In fanning the hysteria of partisanship they have betrayed our trust. That great leveller, history, will ultimately judge us on what kind of country we created for ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century. This isn’t the place for political analysis.”

“We know that the detention centres we have built on our continent, on Nauru and on Manus Island, are not places we would ever countenance imprisoning Australians. We know what we have done. We don’t need history to instruct us on that.”

As Primo Levi had been reduce to number 174517 at Auschwitz, so we have turned all ‘undesirables’ into numbers at Nauru and Manus Island.

Such is the respect for ‘the rule of law’ by Australian governments since 1992.

One concluding observation: the 20 March Turnbull Statement on Multiculturalism boasts of Australia as “the most successful in the world.” Well, it depends on whom you are reading and to whom you are talking.

If one is talking about multiculturalism as expressing cultural diversity and/or ethnic diversity, then one could hear different voices.

A recent work by the respectable Pew Research Center presented the study of cultural diversity and economic development by researcher Erkan Gören of the University of Oldenberg in Germany.

In his paper, Gören measured the amount of cultural diversity in each of more than 180 countries. To arrive at his estimates, he combined data on ethnicity and race with a measure based on the similarity of languages spoken by major ethnic or racial groups. “The hypothesis is that groups speaking the same or highly related languages should also have similar cultural values,” affirmed Gören. He used his language and ethnicity measures to compute a cultural diversity score for each country which ranged from 0 to 1, with larger scores indicating more diversity and smaller values representing less.

Not unusually, the list of culturally diverse countries is headed by Chad, with Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo following. (In Chad in north-central Africa 8.6 million residents belong to more than 100 ethnic groups). These and other African countries typically rank high on any diversity index because of their multitude of tribal groups and languages. According to Gören, the only ‘western’ country to break into the top 20 most diverse is, again, Canada.

Such data should be observed with considerable caution: cultural diversity is a different concept from ethnic diversity. As a result, a map of the world reflecting ethnic diversity looks somewhat different from the one based on Gören’s cultural diversity measure which combines language and ethnicity profiles of a country.

The Harvard Institute of Economic Research developed a map similar to the one offered by Gören’s findings.

Still, a comparison of the Harvard and Goren maps shows that the most diverse countries in the world are found in Africa. Such conclusion could have been a source of worry for Mr. Turnbull, permanently concerned as he was about his difficult relations with the troglodytes at his right and with most of the ‘Nationals’.

The cave-men, and probably some of their women, would feel more comfortable with the dreams of Menzies and his “British to the bootstraps”, or the menaces of Howard and his “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” than with looking, if they ever look at such things, for a real multicultural experience and finding it in … Chad. The comparison with Toronto comes back here: in Toronto there live 53 per cent ‘Whites’, 7 per cent Blacks, and 40 per cent ‘Others’. Every member of the Melbournian bene society would be entitled to worry. What? Some 250,000 Blacks going about in Melbourne? There is enough to hear about ‘being swamped’ by them!

And how would Mr. Turnbull have reacted if faced with a motion similar to the one passed by 201 votes to 91 on 24 March 2017 by the Canadian Parliament? On that day, the Parliament adopted a landmark anti-Islamophobia and religious discrimination motion which calls on politicians to condemn anti-Islamic behaviour and rhetoric. It called on the Canadian Government to recognise the need to “quell the public climate of fear and hate.”

It is worth reproducing that motion verbatim:

“Whereas: “Islam is a religion of over 1.5 billion people worldwide. Since its founding more than 1400 years ago, Muslims have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the positive development of human civilization. This encompasses all areas of human endeavors including the arts, culture, science, medicine, literature, and much more;

Recently an infinitesimally small number of extremist individuals have conducted terrorist activities while claiming to speak for the religion of Islam. Their actions have been used as a pretext for a notable rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in Canada; and

These violent individuals do not reflect in any way the values or the teachings of the religion of Islam. In fact, they misrepresent the religion. We categorically reject all their activities. They in no way represent the religion, the beliefs and the desire of Muslims to co-exist in peace with all peoples of the world.

We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia.”

How can one even imagine such a thing happening in Canberra?

Try.

Beyond the words which decorate the composition of a multiethnic society such as Australia, and coming to the real substance of life – and in Australia that is money – it remains a reality that in multicultural Australia as described, the levers of command in the corporate boardrooms are still overwhelmingly in the so-called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ hands.

“Anyone that sounds different, behaves different, or has somewhat different views  –  which is the point of diversity and the strength of diversity – it can be a little hard to get into the club.” the chairwoman of the Asian Australian Foundation, Cheri Ong, told the A.B.C.

A look at the statistics bears out Ms. Ong’s point.

In the past few decades Australia has become a very different country.

Only 58 per cent of Australians still have British roots; 18 per cent are European; 21 per cent non-European; and 3 per cent of Australians are Indigenous.

By contrast, in the big end of town, three quarters of C.E.O.s are from British heritage and 18 per cent from Europe, meaning a total of 93 per cent are white.

And in the boardroom, 70 per cent of directors come from a British background.

A detailed breakdown of the other 30 per cent is not available, but they include directors from other white, first-world, countries.”’

And there is more.

“But as tough as it is for people like Ms. Long [chairwoman of A.M.P. Capital Funds Management] and Ms. Ong to become directors, there’s one group that’s completely shut out, and that’s Indigenous Australians.

I think it probably stems from the generations of exclusion of Indigenous Australians from mainstream Australi,” said Ms. Laura Berry, who is the C.E.O. of Supply Nation, a company which links Indigenous businesses with the big end of town.

As an Indigenous person making her way in the business world, Ms. Berry has no doubt there are many Aboriginal people more than capable of being company directors.

Ms. Ong had one more interesting comment: “With company boards so un-reflective of Australian society, inevitably the issue of targets, or even quotas, gets raised in discussions about how to fix the problem.

Targets and quotas actually force boards to actually explore the option, and I think that’s where as a mechanism, in a tool-kit for change, that progresses the cause, if you like,” Ms. Ong said.

Targets and quotas have been shown to work in boosting the percentage of women on company boards, but as in the gender-diversity debate, there is one issue that’s also very important on dealing with cultural diversity.

“And that is it’s not what you know but who[m] you know that can determine your board prospects.

“If you didn’t go to that private school and you didn’t meet at university, or play in the rugby club together, then it’s really hard to have that network in place to be able to be considered in the first place,” Ms. Berry lamented. (A. Robertson, ‘In multicultural Australia, corporate boardrooms are still overwhelmingly white Anglo-Saxon,’ abc.net.au, 2 October 2018).

Despite the claim to multiculturalism prejudice remain. It is not possible to dismiss that as recently in October 2018 a question was seriously being asked such as: “How much prejudice is there against Australians of Greek and Italian descent in Australia?”

Interestingly one of the respondents noted: “Growing up as Greek Australian I did face some prejudice and discrimination, especially during my early school years where I had an ethnic name and could’t speak English properly. I did change my name to an Anglo name when I moved to a different school, but I still got some racial hate. The high school I went to, there was a clear distinction between the ‘skips/Aussies’ (Australians of Anglo and Celtic descent) and the ‘wogs’ (Australians of southern Europe, Balkan and Middle Eastern descent). There were constant racial fuelled fights during lunch breaks and even after school hours w[h]ere the groups would meet at certain locations and fight. I did repeatedly get told to ‘go back to my country you wog’, have been spat on, was called s ‘greasy hair wog’ and stuff like that. Even some teachers had obvious biases too. But I never paid much attention to it.

…

We have integrated into society quite well and, in fact, some Greeks and Italians now don’t acknowledge their own heritage. [Emphasis added]

There are still isolated incidences [sic] that do come up every now and then. But for the most part, it is limited to really backward thinking Bogans (Australia’s equivalent to a redneck). Most of us live our lives in peace and the prejudice and discrimination we once faced is a thing of the past.”

Xian Zhao, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Management at University of Toronto at Mississauga, in a study appearing in Social psychological and personality science has observed that “We do not suggest immigrants to Anglicise their ethnic names in order to avoid discrimination” and “This certainly puts the onus on immigrants to promote equity and our previous studies also suggest that Anglicising names may have  negative implications for one’s self-concept.” (‘Biases Against Immigrants With Non-Anglicized Names’, eurasiareview.com, 27 December 2018).

There being no question as to existence of prejudice against minorities in Australia, one may well ask: is Australia racist? The question has disturbed and is returning from time to time amongst persons seriously concerned.

One of the biggest ever survey conducted on racism and prejudice in Australia was commissioned early in 2018 by Special Broadcasting Service with the Western Sydney University.

Professor Kevin Dunn, from Western Sydney University, led the survey of just over 6,000 respondents and examined issues including attitudes to cultural differences, tolerance of specific groups and racial hierarchy.

The conclusion was that one in five Australians had experienced racism in the previous twelve months.

More specifically:

1. 31.6 per cent of respondents claimed to have ‘negative’ feelings towards Muslim Australians, 22.4 per cent claimed to have ‘negative’ feelings towards Middle-­‐Eastern Australians while only 9 per cent had negative feelings towards Aboriginal Australians.
2. 36.4 per cent believe the number of immigrants accepted into Australia is too high or much too high.
3. 41.1 per cent believe Australia is weakened by people of different ethnicities sticking to their old ways.
4. 20.5 per cent believe that African refugees increase crime in Australia. Men and older participants were more likely to believe that African refugees increase crime.
5. 32 per cent of respondents reported having experienced racism within their workplace. 32 per cent of respondents reported having experience racism within an educational facility.
6. Those who belong to a Language Other Than English, LOTE background reported the highest rates of workplace racism (54.1 per cent) and racism within various educational institutions (55.8 per cent).
7. The experience of racism on public transport or in the street was the highest at 34.1 per cent, followed by at a shop or shopping centre at 32.2 per cent. Online experiences of racism were also quite high at 28.2 per cent.
8. Those of LOTE background experienced the highest rates of discrimination in shops/shopping centres (56.9 per cent), on public transport or in the street (58.2 per cent), and online (49.1 per cent).
9. 48.6 per cent believe people from racial, ethnic, cultural and religious minorities groups should behave more like mainstream Australians.
10. 54.4 per cent of respondents agreed that Australia should help refugees fleeing persecution in their homeland.43 per cent believe that all boats carrying asylum seekers should be turned back. (M. Acharya, ‘Is Australia racist? Here are 10 stunning stats?’, sbs.com.au, 8 April 2018).

When Dr. Tim Southphommasane, Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, gave his final speech ahead of stepping down on 20 August 2018, his message struck a sombre tone. Racial disharmony is on the rise, he lamented.

Dr. Soutphommasane warned that Australia’s success as a multicultural society is under threat. This threat is not from extreme factional groups or mask-wearing fascists, it is from the mainstream of Australian public life. So wrote Professor Carl Rhodes, of the University of Technology, Sydney

The real danger, Dr. Southphommasane argued, comes from “dog-whistling politicians” and “race-baiting commentators” eager to harness populist attention through the careless “mixing of race and politics”. Just about a week later, Senator Fraser Anning proved how devastatingly true that was when he called for a “final solution” to “ethnocultural diversity” in Australia in his first speech to Parliament.

“There is much more to the resurgence of cultural and gender politics in Australia than that.” wrote Professor Rhodes.” More than the playing out democratic differences, this is the acting out of white male privilege in a democracy fast turning to tyranny.

It is an absolute affront to democracy, at least insofar as democracy is understood in terms of a way of life that values equality over elite privilege.”

“Nowhere is the reality of [white male] privilege more blatantly obvious than in the workplace – a location where the intersection of whiteness and masculinity dominate top leadership,” wrote Professor Rhodes. And he confirmed that “Recent research reveals that 95 per cent of corporate executives have Anglo-Celtic or European heritage. Despite comprising almost half the workforce, only 5 per cent of C.E.O.s are women. A third of those companies have no women at all in executive roles.”

For the past two decades, the gender pay gap has favoured men by between 15 and 19 per cent. Of women, 28 per cent report having been sexually harassed at work.

Clearly, the comfort and spoils of the Australian workplace are disproportionally skewed towards white men on a vast scale. Only staunch advocates of patriarchal white supremacy would have the audacity to suggest Australia is an equal society when it comes to gender and cultural difference at work.

The brute facts of white male dominance in the workplace – and politics – demonstrate that the promise of equality that is built into the very idea of democracy is not being kept. (C. Rhodes, ‘Anning and Latham fight for a white male privilege ‘final solution’, independentaustralia.net, 17 August 2018).

As Dr. Soutphommasane intimated, “If there is now political unity against racism let’s start seeing that unity and leadership every day. No more racial hysteria about “African gangs”. No more false alarms about multicultural “separatism”. No more assaults on racial equality and the Racial Discrimination Act.”

Continued Wednesday – Comedy without art (part 5)

Previous instalment – Comedy without art (part 3)

By Europaeus *

Continued from Part 19

Moyers: I want to ask you about another side of him that is taken up in the book. It involves the much-discussed video that appeared during the campaign last year which had been made a decade or so ago when Trump was newly married. He sees this actress outside his bus and he says, “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her,” and then we hear sounds of Tic Tacs before Trump continues. “You know,” he says, “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet, just kiss, I don’t even wait.” And then you can hear him boasting off camera, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, grab them by the… You can do anything.”

Lifton: In addition to being a strongman and a dictator, there’s a pervasive sense of entitlement. Whatever he wants, whatever he needs in his own mind, he can have. It’s a kind of American celebrity gone wild, but it’s also a vicious anti-female perspective and a caricature of male macho. That’s all present in Trump as well as the solipsism that I mentioned earlier, and that’s why when people speak of him as all-pervasive on many different levels of destructiveness, they’re absolutely right.

Moyers: And it seems to extend deeply into his relationship with his own family. There’s a chapter in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump with the heading, “Trump’s Daddy Issues.” There’s several of his quotes about his daughter, Ivanka. He said, “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody, and I helped create her? Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall. She’s got the best body.”

Again: “I said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Ivanka was 22 at the time. To a reporter he said: “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married – and, you know, her father…”

When Howard Stern, the radio host, started to say, “By the way, your daughter – ” Trump interrupted him with “She’s beautiful.” Stern continued, “Can I say this? A piece of ass.” To which Trump replied, “Yeah.” What’s going on here?

Lifton: In addition to everything else and the extreme narcissism that it represents, it’s a kind of unbridled sense of saying anything on one’s mind as well as an impulse to break down all norms because he is the untouchable celebrity. So just as he is the one man who can fix things for the country, he can have every woman or anything else that he wants, or abuse them in any way he seeks to.

Moyers: You mentioned extreme narcissism. I’m sure you knew Erich Fromm –

Lifton: Yes, I did.

Moyers: – one of the founders of humanistic psychology. He was a Holocaust survivor who had a lifelong obsession with the psychology of evil. And he said that he thought “malignant narcissism” was the most severe pathology – “the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity.” Do you think malignant narcissism goes a long way to explain Trump?

Lifton: I do think it goes a long way. In early psychoanalytic thought, narcissism was – and still, of course, is – self-love. The early psychoanalysts used to talk of libido directed at the self. That now feels a little quaint, that kind of language. But it does include the most fierce and self-displaying form of one’s individual self. And in this way, it can be dangerous. When you look at Trump, you can really see someone who’s destructive to any form of life enhancement in virtually every area. And if that’s what Fromm means by malignant narcissism, then it definitely applies.

Moyers: You said earlier that Trump and his administration have brought about a kind of malignant normalcy – that a dangerous president can become normalized. When the Democrats make a deal with him, as they did recently, are they edging him a little closer to being accepted despite this record of bizarre behavior?

Lifton: We are normalizing him when the Democrats make a deal with him. But there’s a profound ethical issue here and it’s not easily answered. If something is good for the country – perhaps the deal that the Democrats are making with Donald Trump is seen or could be understood by most as good for the country, dealing with the debt crisis – is that worth doing even though it normalizes him? If the Democrats do go ahead with this deal, they should take steps to make clear that they’re opposing other aspects of his presidency and of him.

Moyers: There’s a chapter in the book entitled, “He’s Got the World in His Hands and His Finger on the Trigger.” Do you ever imagine him sitting alone in his office, deciding on a potentially catastrophic course of action for the nation? Say, with five minutes to decide whether or not to unleash thermonuclear weapons?

Lifton: I do. And like many, I’m deeply frightened by that possibility. It’s said very often that, OK, there are people around him who can contain him and restrain him. I’m not so sure they always can or would. In any case, it’s not unlikely that he could seek to create some kind of crisis, if he found himself in a very bad light in relation to public opinion and close to removal from office. So yes, I share that fear and I think it’s a real danger. I think we have to constantly keep it in mind, be ready to anticipate it and take whatever action we can against it. The American president has particular power. This makes Trump the most dangerous man in the world. He’s equally dangerous because of his finger on the nuclear trigger and because of his mind ensconced in solipsistic reality. The two are a dreadful combination. [Emphasis added]

Moyers: One of your colleagues writes in the book, “Sociopathic traits may be amplified as the leader discovers that he can violate the norms of civil society and even commit crimes with impunity. And the leader who rules through fear, lies and betrayal may become increasingly isolated and paranoid as the loyalty of even his closest confidants must forever be suspect.” Does that sound like Trump?

Lifton: It’s already happening. We see that it’s harder and harder to work for him. It’s hard enough even for his spokesperson to affirm his falsehoods. These efforts are not too convincing and they become less convincing from the radius outward, in which people removed from his immediate circle find it still more difficult to believe him and the American public finds it more difficult. He still can appeal to his base because in his base there is a narrative of grievance that centers on embracing Trump without caring too much about whether what he says is true or false. He somehow fits into their narrative. But that can’t go on forever, and he’s losing some of his formerly loyal supporters as well. So he is becoming more isolated. That has its own dangers, but it’s inevitable that it would happen with a man like this as his falsehoods are contested.

Moyers: You bring up his base. Those true believers aren’t the only ones who voted for him. As we are talking, I keep thinking: Here we have a man who kept asking what’s the point of having thermonuclear weapons if we cannot use them; who advocates using torture or worse against our prisoners of war; who urged that five innocent young people here in New York, black young people, be given the death penalty for a sexual assault, even after it was proven someone else had committed the crime; who boasted about his ability to get away with sexually assaulting women because of his celebrity and power; who urged his followers at political rallies to punch protesters in the face and beat them so badly that they have to be taken out on stretchers; who suggested that maybe some of his followers might want to assassinate his political rival, Hillary Clinton, if she were elected president, or at the very least, throw her in prison; who believes he would not lose voters if he stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone. And over 63 million people voted to elect that man president!

Lifton: Yes, that’s a deeply troubling truth. And I doubt the people who voted for him were thinking about any of these things. What they were really responding to was a call for change, a sense that he was connecting with them in ways that others never had, that he would express and represent their interests, and that he would indeed make this country one dominated again by white people, in some cases white supremacists. But as you say, these people who embraced that narrative unquestioningly are a lesser minority than the ones who voted for him. And of course, he still didn’t win the popular vote. But it’s true – something has gone wrong with our democratic system in electing a man with all these characteristics that make up Donald Trump. Now we have to struggle to sustain the functional institutions of our democracy against his assault on them. I don’t think he’ll succeed in breaking them down, but he’s doing a lot of harm and it’ll take a lot of effort on the part of a lot of people to sustain them and to keep the democracy going, even in its faltering way. [Emphasia added]

Moyers: He still has the support of 80 percent of Republican voters – 4 out of 5. And it seems the Republican Party will tolerate him as long as they’re afraid of the intensity of his followers.

Lifton: Yes, and that’s another very disturbing thought. Things there could change quickly too. What I sense is that the whole situation is chaotic and volatile, so that any time now there could be further pronouncements, further information about Russia and about obstruction of justice, or another attempt of Trump to start firing people, including Mueller, and that this would create a constitutional crisis which would create more pressure on Republicans and everybody else. So even though that is an awful truth about the Republicans’ hypocrisy in continuing to support him, that could change, I think, almost overnight if the new information were sufficiently damning to Trump and his administration.

Moyers: Let’s talk about the “Trump Effect” on the country. One aspect of it was the increase in bullying in schools caused by the rhetoric used by Trump during the campaign. But it goes beyond that.

Lifton: I think Trump has had a very strong and disturbing effect on the country already. He has given more legitimacy to white supremacy and even to neo-fascist groups, and he’s created a pervasive atmosphere that’s more vague but still significant. I don’t believe that he can in his own way destroy the country, just as he can’t eliminate climate awareness, but he can go a long way in bringing – well, in stimulating what has always been a potential.

You mentioned Erich Fromm. I met him through [the sociologist] David Riesman. David Riesman was a close friend, a great authority on American society. He emphasized how there’s always an underbelly in American society of extreme conservatism and reactionary response, and when there’s any kind of progressive movement, there’s likely to be a backlash of reaction to it. Trump is very much in that backlash to any kind of progressive achievement or even decent situation in society. He is stimulating feelings that are potential and latent in our society, but very real, and rendering them more active and more dangerous. And in that way, he’s having a very harmful effect that I think mounts every single day. [Emphasis added]

Moyers: Some people who have known Trump for years say he’s gotten dramatically worse since he was inaugurated. In the prologue to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, Dr. Judith Lewis Herman writes this: “Fostered by the flattery of underlings and the chants of crowds, a political leader’s grandiosity may morph into grotesque delusions of grandeur.” Does that …

Lifton: That’s absolutely true. It’s absolutely true. And for anyone with these traits – of feeling himself victimized, of seeking to be the strongman who resolves everything, yet sees truth only through his own self and negates all other truth outside of it – is bound to become much more malignant when he has power. That’s what Judith Herman is saying, and she’s absolutely right. Power then breeds an intensification of all this because the power can never be absolute power – to some extent it’s stymied – but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.

Moyers: But suppose that if Donald Trump is crazy, as some have said, he’s crazy like a fox, which is to say all this bizarre behavior is really clever strategy to mislead, distract and deceive others into responding in precisely the manner that he wants them to.

Lifton: I don’t think that’s quite true. I think that it’s partly true. As I said before, Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding and perhaps most egregious falsehood – the claim that Obama was not born in the United States – he’s crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrée onto the national stage – and also, incidentally, was not rejected by many leading Republicans. So he was crazy like a fox in that case. But it’s more extreme even than that. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that’s why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them. Neither is true. The combination of both and his talent as a manipulator and falsifier are very much at issue.

Moyers: You may not remember it, but you and I talked 16 years ago this very week – a few days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. ll – and PBS had asked me to go on the air to talk to a variety of people about their response to those atrocities.

Lifton: I haven’t forgotten it, Bill.

Moyers: And in our discussion, we talked about your book, Destroying the World to Save It, about that extremist Japanese religious cult aum shinrikyo that released sarin nerve gas in Tokyo subways, you compared their ideology to Osama bin Laden: “He wanted to destroy a major part of the world to purify the world. There was in this idea, or his ideology, a sense of renewal.” We saw it in that Japanese cult. So the issue I am getting at is that such an aspiration can take hold of any true believer – the desire to purify the world no matter the cost.

Lifton: It is a very dangerous aspiration, and it’s not absent from the Trump presidency, although I don’t think it’s his central theme. I think it’s a central theme in Steve Bannon, for instance, who is an apocalyptic character and really wants to bring down most of advanced society as we know it, most of civilization as we know it, in order to recreate it in his image. I think Trump has some attraction to that, just as he had attraction to Bannon as a person and as a thinker, and that influence is by no means over. He’s still in touch with Bannon. So there is this apocalyptic influence in the Trumpean presidency: The world is destroyed in order to be purified and renewed in the ideal way that is projected by a Steve Bannon. And there is a sense of that when Trump says we’ll make America great again, because he says it’s been destroyed, he will remake it. So there is an apocalyptic suggestion, but I don’t think it’s at the very heart of his presidency.

Moyers: So our challenge is?

Lifton: I always feel we have to work both outside and inside of our existing institutions, so we have to really be careful about who we vote for and examine carefully our institutions and what they’re meant to do and how they’re being violated. I also think we need movements from below that oppose what this administration and administrations like it are doing to ordinary people. And for those of us who contributed to this book – well, as I said earlier, we have to be “witnessing professionals” and fulfill our duty to warn.” (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: Robert Jay Lifton and Bill Moyers on ‘A duty to warn’, billmoyers.com, 14 September 2017).

So, if one accept that no-one as mentally unstable as President Trump should be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency, could one be entitled to say that America has lost its grip on reality?

Or should that view be confined to Donald J. Trump?

Watching any part of the impeachment hearings, one would realise that there are at least two different versions of reality – not simply disagreements about facts and interpretation, but about reality itself.

Professor Lifton argues that one way to understand the America of Donald J. Trump is to consider the phenomenon of what he calls “ideological totalism.” He explains the similarities between the current ideological polarisation and efforts like Chinese communist thought reform in the early 1950s. The one element which makes today different – he says – is Trump’s lack of ideology. Instead, the President lives in a self-created “solipsistic reality” – the self is all which can be known to exist.

In Lipton’s view, Trump’s appeal, in part, to something he calls “psychological apocalypticism,” a pull toward “a new collective mindset which is pure, perfect, and eternal.” This combines a desire to be part of something bigger than oneself with a call to share in the effort of destroying reality in order to save the world.

Professor Lipton details the parallels between cult leaders and demagogic politicians, and makes reference to some of President Trump’s statements, going back to the inaugural address, when he spoke of “American carnage” and asserted that “I alone can fix it.”

Still, the public has been left to wonder whether Donald J. Trump is mad, bad, or both. The prestigious mental health experts who have contributed to the expanded and updated version of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (same publisher, 26 March 2019) argue that their moral and civic “duty to warn” supersedes professional neutrality. Whatever affects him, affects the nation: from the trauma people have experienced under the Trump Administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across America and beyond. With eight new essays and about one hundred pages of new material, the updated edition covers the dangerous ramifications of Trump’s unnatural state during the first two years of his administration. Readers are assured that “it is not all in their heads.” It is in his.

Continued Thursday … (Part 21)

* Europaeus landed in Australia over fifty years ago. Except for the blue skies and starry nights between 02.12.1972 and 10.11.1975 the place has been constantly overwhelmed by what Hannah Arendt called the ‘sand storm’ – a metaphor for totalitarianism.

By Dr George Venturini  

In October 2012 a former senior royal aide revealed that notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile (actually Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE since 2006), who was said to have acted as a kind of marriage counsellor between Prince Charles and Diana, was a cause for “concern and suspicion” at ‘The Palace’. Mr. Dickie Arbiter had handled media relations for the Prince and Princess of Wales while press spokesman for the Queen between 1988 and 2000.

Savile was known to have visited Prince Charles’s official London residence several times in the late 1980s when he was acting as a kind of marriage counsellor between Charles and Princess Diana. A spokesman for the Prince of Wales confirmed that the Charles and Savile formed a relationship in the late 1970s after coming together through their work with wheelchair sports charities. Charles led tributes to Savile when he died in 2011.

“He would walk into the office and do the rounds of the young ladies taking their hands and rubbing his lips all the way up their arms if they were wearing short sleeves.” Arbiter said of Savile. “If it was summer [and their arms were bare] his bottom lip would curl out and he would run it up their arms. This was at St James’s Palace. The women were in their mid to late 20s doing typing and secretarial work.”

Arbiter did not raise his concerns formally and there is no suggestion Savile committed any crimes while on ‘Royal premises’ or when he was with Prince Charles on numerous occasions from the 1970s onwards. But the concern over his behaviour expressed by a senior aide will raise questions over how Savile, who was under investigation in relation to child abuse involving 300 potential victims, managed to develop such a long-standing relationship with the heir to the throne.

Asked about Savile’s behaviour with the royal assistants or whether Prince Charles had taken any action to find out if anyone in his family or staff might have suffered any abuse or have any information relating to the criminal investigation into Savile’s alleged paedophilia, a spokesman for the Prince said: “We have no record of anyone making a complaint.”

“The Prince first met Savile through their shared interest in supporting disability charities [the Prince became patron of the British Wheelchair Sports Foundation in the late 1970s] and it was primarily because of this connection that they maintained a relationship in the years that followed,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Arbiter said that he thought the women might have thought Savile’s greeting was “rather funny”, but he said it was a cause for concern and he struggled to understand why Savile was granted such access to the ‘Royal Family’.

“I looked at him as a court jester and told him so,” said Arbiter. “I remember calling him an old reprobate and he said ‘not so much of the old’.”

Concern about Savile’s behaviour at ‘The Palace’ emerged as Sir Roger Jones, former chairman of the B.B.C.’s corporate charity Children In Need, said he had been so uncomfortable about Savile that he did not allow him to have any association with the cause. Jones, a B.B.C. governor from 1997 to 2002, said that he had “no evidence” that Savile was up to anything but “we all recognised he was a pretty creepy sort of character.”

“When I was with Children In Need, we took the decision that we did not want him anywhere near to the charity.” he told the B.B.C.

Prince Charles met Savile on numerous occasions. In 1999 he accepted an invitation to a private meal at Savile’s Glencoe home which was later in 2012 daubed with graffiti reading “Jimmy the beast.” Savile asked three local women to dress up in pinafores emblazoned with the letters H.R.H. and Charles subsequently sent the television presenter a Christmas card with the note: “Jimmy, with affectionate greetings from Charles. Give my love to your ladies in Scotland.”

Charles reportedly sent him a box of cigars and a pair of gold cuff-links on his 80th birthday with a note which read: “Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.”

Savile used to boast of his royal connections, made sure to be photographed with Charles on numerous occasions and ingratiated himself once telling the press that the Prince was “the nicest man you will ever meet. Royalty are surrounded by people who don’t know how to deal with it,” Savile said in an interview. “I have a freshness of approach which they obviously find to their liking. I think I get invited because I have a natural, good fun way of going on and we have a laugh. They don’t get too many laughs.”

The day after the meal in Glencoe Savile persuaded Charles to join him for a photo opportunity at his local post office where he went to pick up his pension money.

“The post office photo opportunity was definitely [down to] him [Savile],” said Ms. Coleen Harris, Prince Charles’s press secretary. “You always think that other people are getting more out of these things [than the prince] but on the whole it is for a good reason, for the charities and it is a positive thing.” She added: “Personally I always thought he was slightly eccentric, but beyond that I had no idea. He was a slightly odd bloke, but not in a cruel way.”

Mr. Arbiter said that despite Savile’s unusual behaviour with the royal administrative staff there was no evidence of any other cause for suspicion.

“There was a limit to what he could get away with in the royal household,” he said.

He also said ‘The Palace’ advisers felt the Prince’s charities might benefit from a connection with Savile, at the time one of the country’s most famous TV stars.

Perhaps Savile’s most unlikely role was that of personal counsel to Prince Charles in the late 1980s at a time when the ‘Royal Family’ was in deep trouble. The marriages of Charles and Diana and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson were falling apart. Around new year 1990 Charles asked Savile to help the Duchess of York with what Savile later said was keeping her profile down.

Princess Diana was recorded telling her friend James Gilbey on the so-called “squidgygate tape”: “Jimmy Savile rang me up yesterday, and he said: ‘I’m just ringing up, my girl, to tell you that His Nibs [Prince Charles] has asked me to come and help out the redhead [the Duchess of York], and I’m just letting you know, so that you don’t find out through her or him; and I hope it’s all right by you.’ ” (R. Booth, ‘Jimmy Savile caused concern with behaviour on visits to Prince Charles’, 30 October 2012, theguardian.com).

Sometime in the 1980s Prince Charles met the Anglican priest Peter Ball. They remained good friends since, and Ball, who was boasting of his powerful friends, claimed to be a confidant of the heir to the throne.

In time Ball became Bishop of Gloucester, which is the district covering Prince Charles’ private estate Highgrove.

In July 2018, at an inquiry into Ball’s paedophile activities, Prince Charles appeared and submitted a letter – amongst others – which was read at the inquiry in July 2018, and in which Charles wrote of his “deep personal regret” at being “misled” by Ball.

The inquiry was investigating the actions of the Church of England after an earlier inquiry in 2017 found senior church figures covered-up the abuse allegations against the paedophile Ball, who was gaoled in 2015 after finally being convicted of abusing 18 teenagers and men over a 30-year period. Now aged in his late 80s, he is out on parole.

The inquiry was read extracts from a number of letters exchanged between Ball and Prince Charles when abuse allegations began to surface, including one in 1997 where Charles wrote of a victim: “I’ll see this horrid man off if he tries anything.”

Two years earlier, in 1995, Prince Charles wrote to Ball: “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strong about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you.” This letter came despite Ball having accepted a police caution for gross indecency.

In November 1993, after a police investigation ended in the caution and his resignation, Ball wrote to Prince Charles: “Life continues to be pretty nasty for me, for it seems that my accusers still want to continue their malicious campaign. Luckily, they are beginning to show some of their fraudulent plans.”

A letter from Prince Charles, dated 16 February 1995, said: “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated.”

He went on to say it was “appalling” that the archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, had “gone back on what he told me before Xmas that he was hoping to restore you to some form of ministry in the church. I suspect you are absolutely right – it is due to fear of the media … If it is any consolation, the archbishop has written me a letter (between you and me) in which it is also clear that he is frightened of the press – what he calls ‘public perception’, which in fact, [is] perception of events and characters based entirely on lies, invention, speculation and sensation.”

In 1996 Prince Charles referred to efforts by the Duchy of Cornwall to buy a house that could be rented by Ball and his identical twin, Michael, also a bishop.

He wrote: “I pray the Duchy will be able to find something suitable for you both in due course, but it may take a little time to locate it! I long to see you both settled somewhere that suits you and gives you peace and tranquillity – and not too far from here so you can come over more easily.”

In March 1997 Prince Charles wrote to Ball: “I can’t bear it that the frightful, terrifying man is on the loose again and doing his worst.” He added: “I’ll see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.”

In his submission to the inquiry, Charles said that he was “unable to shed any light on references … to a ‘horrid man’ or a ‘frightful and terrifying man’ ” after a gap of more than 20 years. However, he suspected it referred to people trying to discredit Ball.

Prince Charles added that the letter to Ball needed to be read “in the context of my understanding at that time, namely that Peter Ball had been falsely accused of a single offence (the nature of which was unknown to me) … Events later demonstrated beyond any doubt, to my deep regret, that I, along with many others, had been misled.”

Charles was asked to submit a witness statement to the inquiry covering his friendship and correspondence with Ball. After protracted discussions between legal teams representing the prince and the inquiry, he submitted a letter.

In it he said he first became aware of Ball during the 1980s after hearing him preach, and found him to be “an interesting and engaging person.” From 1993 – the year Ball was cautioned by police – he invited Ball to give holy communion at the prince’s home “from time to time.”

The pair corresponded, although contact was “normally instigated and driven” by Ball. The bishop told the Prince that he had been “involved in some form of ‘indiscretion’ which prompted his resignation.” Ball suggested that the complaint came from a single individual who bore a grudge.

According to Prince Charles, the “true context and details” of the complaint did not come to his attention until Ball’s trial and conviction in 2015. “As context, it seems important to say that in the 1980s and 1990s there was a presumption that people such as bishops could be taken at their word and, as a result of the high office they held, were worthy of trust and confidence … At the time there was a presumption on my part of good faith.”

Prince Charles said that he was not aware of the “significance or impact” of the police caution and was “not aware until recently that a caution in fact carries an acceptance of guilt.”

He occasionally sent the Ball brothers “small gifts of money” as well as arranging for a house to be purchased by the Duchy of Cornwall which was rented by the Balls between 1997 and 2011.

The letter said: “At no stage did I ever seek to influence the outcome of either the police investigations into Peter Ball and nor did I instruct or encourage my staff to do so.”

He said he had ceased contact with Ball once he was convicted in 2015. “It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of many who were deceived over a long period of time about the true nature of Mr Ball’s activities.”

Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer representing a number of Ball’s victims, said the Prince’s explanation that he was not aware of the meaning of a caution left his clients “dissatisfied”.

He said: “Prince Charles had access to the best legal advice that money can buy and, as a man in his position, a particular responsibility to check the facts. It is difficult to see his failure to do so as anything other than wilful blindness. His evidence, together with that of Lord Carey, the then archbishop of Canterbury, and other establishment figures who have given evidence this week, will do little to dissuade survivors from the conclusion that the British establishment aided and protected Ball and even now have failed to give a transparent account of their actions.” (H. Sherwood, ‘Prince Charles kept in touch with ex-bishop later jailed for abuse’, 20 July 2018, theguardian.com).

Prince Charles told the inquiry of his deep regret at supporting a Church of England bishop later gaoled for sexual abuse of 18 teenagers and men. Prince Charles will become the global head of the Church of England whenever he ascends the throne.

“Peter Ball told me he had been involved in some sort of ‘indiscretion’ which prompted his resignation as my local bishop,” Charles wrote in his letter.

The Prince wrote that Ball had told him one individual had complained to police but the Crown Prosecution Service had taken no action.

While he had believed Bishop Peter Ball’s denials, Charles said that he had never sought to influence a police investigation.

“Events later demonstrated beyond any doubt, to my deep regret, that I, along with many others, has been misled,” Charles wrote. “It remains a source of deep personal regret that I was one of many who were deceived over a long period of time, about the true nature of Mr. Ball’s activities.”

Prince Charles wrote that his position had occasionally brought him into contact with prominent people who were later accused of serious wrongdoing. “Rather than rushing to private judgement I have always taken the view that the judicial process should take its course,’’ he told the inquiry through his letter.

He said he ceased all contact with Ball once the “true context and details’’ emerged against him at trial in 2015.

“My heart goes out to the victims of abuse and I applaud their courage as they rebuild their lives and so often offer invaluable support to others who have suffered,’’ he wrote (E. Whinnett, ‘Prince Charles’ deep regret over supporting Bishop Peter Ball who was later jailed for sex abuse’, 28 July 2018, news.com.au).

Continued Saturday – A conga line of bludgers: Prince Charles (part 3)

Previous instalment – A conga line of bludgers: Prince Charles (part 1)

Darwin, Northern Territory

Lush mangroves, the spray of emerald water from the Timor Sea, the sense of the untainted: the journey to the Tiwi Islands, some 80 kilometres north of Darwin, was crudely advertised as one of the Things to Do in the Northern Territory. “Take the opportunity to have a truly fantastic day out. Visit Bathurst Island for this special day and a chance to view and buy Tiwi Island artwork and watch the grand footy final.”

The ferry service seemed a sloppy operation. Locals heading back to the Tiwi Islands new something visitors did not: do not bother pre-purchasing tickets. Do them on the day itself, and avoid the queue. On getting to Bathurst Island, the elegant wooden structure that is St. Therese’s Church is swarming with worshippers and guests: a wedding is about to take place.

Background reading on the Tiwi Islands lends one to squirming discomfort. They are glossily advertised as singular in their indigenous quality. But this count soon unravels. The populace on both islands, Bathurst and Melville, became witness to both the Catholic Church and the obtrusive efforts of roughing pioneers of the British Empire.

One such figure was Robert Joel Cooper, a figure who looks like a man who killed everything he came across. Anybody termed a pioneer in this particularly harsh environment would have to have a certain acquisitive tendency. What was seen, witnessed and met had to be possessed. His gravestone in Darwin’s ill-kept Gardens Cemetery suggests the flavour, reminding us of his known title of “King Joe of Melville Island”, “a man of courage and love for everyone”.

He had all the attributes of the ruthless frontiersman: patriarchy, a tendency to sow his not-so-royal oats, a capacity for a certain work regimen, a firm disciplinarian. He established the buffalo industry on Melville Island, extracting some thousand hides a year. He took an Aboriginal wife, Alice, in what seemed like a primordial gesture. One of his brood, Rueben, became a figure of sporting repute, adept and talented across a range of codes and ultimately minting history as a formidable player of Australian Rules Football, known colloquially in these parts as “footy”.

Cooper’s resume reads like that of any figure of conquest deemed important after the fact. His entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography shows suitable wildness, with hints of admiration from the authors. Along with this brother George Henry (Harry) Cooper and pastoral lessee E. O. Robinson, he ventured to Melville Island “despite hostile Aborigines.” He did not seem discouraged in being speared in the shoulder; if anything, it emboldened him to “to abduct four Tiwi Aboriginals.” While such acts might well have been seen as those of a traditional looter of specimens and possessions, the authors of the entry condescend to suggest that he “treated his captives kindly and learned their language.” (The rough pioneer as accomplished linguist?  Go figure). In 1905, Cooper became the first “settler” since Ford Dundas was abandoned in 1828, using twenty Port Essington Aborigines to allay the fears of any locals as to what his intentions might have been. The ruse worked; he established his name.

Cooper’s profile matched like attitudes adopted to the indigenous populace more broadly speaking. They were there to be used, abused and infantilised, their autonomy relegated to the level of trinket exotica. Indigenous parenting was effectively disregarded: the Chief Protector in the Northern Territory, by virtue of the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910, became the “legal guardian of every Aboriginal and every half-caste child up to the age of 18 years” irrespective of whether the child had parents or other relatives. This came with the power to confine “any Aboriginal or half-caste” to a reserve or Aboriginal institution. In the Aboriginal Ordinance of 1918, the clutches of the Chief Protector were extended to Aboriginal females from birth to death unless married and living with a husband “who is substantially of European origin.”

Cooper the hunter was also Cooper the connected figure. The Catholic Church, through the figure of Father Francis Xavier Gsell, was convinced by him to focus on neighbouring Bathurst Island to set up a Catholic mission. The good Father got to work, landing on Bathurst Island in 1911 and buying rights to marry Tiwi girls. Fiancées and fathers were won over (again, the message of seduction and appropriation are never far) with cloth, flour and tobacco. With due boastful extravagance, Gsell would recall his time on the island in his memoir, Bishop With 150 Wives.

The influence of Gsell and the church has become part of a formidable public relations exercise executed by the Vatican, masking the effects of what came to be known as inculturation. Publications of praise such as Australia: The Vatican Museums Indigenous Collection, conveys the impression of church guardianship and preservation of Tiwi tradition. No tincture of irony is present in the work. The collection itself boasts an early set of Pukamani poles (tutini) from the islands, grave posts that had made their way into church possession.

Anthropologists were not be left out of the stealing game, and German anthropologist Hermann Klaatsch, the first anthropologist to successfully make his way to Melville Island on September 20, 1906, recounted several feats of theft of Pukamani poles, lamenting that, “due to the smallness of my boat I could not transport more examples.” The penny, he was relieved, never dropped. “Luckily, we remained unnoticed by the blacks in our grave violating enterprise.”

The account might have been somewhat different. A certain Harry Cooper, no less the brother of Joe, may well have distracted the islanders by firing shots over their heads while Klaatsch did his deed. “There, that sounds more like it,” wrote Marie Munkara acidly.

The lingering Catholic presence, through immersion with Tiwi custom as both imposition and adjustment, has left its own traumas. The missionaries used “psychological warfare,” insists Munkara, a process which “corroded our ancient beliefs.” And much more besides.

Having assumed the role of converters and educators, the Church mission on Bathurst Island would eventually be shown in its ghastly manifestations. Protectors, whether religious or secular, became ready abusers. In 1993, claims that some 40 children who had been to St. Xavier’s Boys’ School on Bathurst Island had been sexually abused by Brother John Hallett were reported. Two years later, he received a five-year jail sentence, one quashed five months later by the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal.

Cooper’s circle of intimates supplies a direct line to the spoliation of the Tiwi Islands, but more broadly, the indigenous population in the Northern Territory. Professor W. Baldwin Spencer, the anthropologist who became Chief Protector in 1912, stayed with the King of Melville Island at stages in 1911 and 1912 as he was conducting his own investigations. There was a meeting of minds: one appropriator to another.

Spencer’s 1912 report furnished the natives with a terrifying vision, executed with brazen cruelty towards children who had, by law, been executively entrusted into his care. “No half-caste children should be allowed to remain in any native camp, but they should all be withdrawn and placed on stations.” The mother should, as a matter of necessity, accompany the child “but in other cases, even though it may seem cruel to separate the mother and child, it is better to do so, when the mother is living, as is usually the case, in a native camp.” Unsurprisingly, Cooper, having obtained the confidence of Spencer, would himself be deputised in this less than protective role.

Visiting the Tiwi Islands has the discomforting effect of moving around in a historical zoo. The islands are haunted by Church, the Coopers, and civilisational predations. While the idea of the reserve is now regarded as a vestige of administrative barbarity, the Tiwi message and advertisement is one of false purity and the deceptively unspoilt. This has the effect of a museum feel with damaged artefacts. The wondering tourists with heavy wallets, backpacks, hats and sunscreen resemble the plundering pioneers of old. This time, instead of abducting native residents and doing a spot of grave robbing, they prefer to purchase the art.

Idealisation becomes hard to ignore; the spectator and viewer effectively participate in an exercise of unwarranted elevation and the words of Klaatsch in his Ergebnisse meiner australischen Reise (1907) come to mind. “When you see the black man walking by, with his erect posture, his head decorated with feathers, with the spear in his right hand, then who cannot help form the impression that you have a ‘savage gentleman’ in front of your eyes, a king in the realm of the surrounding nature, to which he is so well adapted.”

The brochure language does little by way of improvement on Klaatsch’s observation. In fact, it replicates it as a timeless fib, a gallery caption. Instead of the “Island of Smiles”, you are greeted by dazed wanderers of the walking wounded playing out a distorted cultural play. In 1999, attention was brought to the fact that the Tiwi Islands was facing a suicide epidemic. The then resident medical practitioner, Chris Harrison, noted a number of instance: 100 attempts, meaning that 1 in 16 or 1 in 20 on the islands had attempted some form of suicide. Nothing to smile at, let alone induce cheer.

When suggestions were made that such rates might be attributed to the influences, amongst other things, of the Church and its predatory practices, officialdom fumed. As then Bishop Ted Collins explained with irritation, “I think they’re trying to put the blame somewhere outside the people rather than acknowledge that it’s happening within the people.” How ungenerous of them to think otherwise.

Beside the Bathurst Island cemetery are two men, seemingly hypnotised, finding shelter under a lonely eucalypt. They gaze aimlessly at a billy boiling over a roughly made fire. There are no fragrant smells of cuisine, no sense of culinary wonder. Instead, there is a distinct sound of eggs clanking against the rim, no doubt hard boiled to oblivion. On the island, there are no food markets or stalls of fresh produce. Food items, canned and frozen, are imported. It is the afternoon, and the islanders migrate from their homes to the various shady spots under suitable vegetation. Lit fires across the island send their bluish plumes towards the sea. The church, in its wooden majesty, is quiet but for the whirring fans. The guests have left, the singing done. We leave Bathurst Island with a sense of loss, and not a smile in sight.