Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

So What? | Sep 02, 2005 18:02

Is there anything left to say? With the two main parties slogging it out I'm thinking that you're all probably as keen as me to see the whole thing come to an end. The policy roll-out continues apace, and we're starting to get a glimmer of the National Party's main tactic.

With everyone but Hide locked out in the cold, excepting Dunne mind you, 'those who know things' are murmuring that the drive is to isolate all the minor parties if at all possible and govern without having to cut deals, placate whining minority groups, or handle difficult issues tenderly.

You know, all that stuff that makes politics what it is.

Of course, if they do get 61 seats on their own, there's still the problem of grumpy or bolshie backbenchers, as Howard knows all too well from Australia. Maybe they can just clap them in irons, or discredit such backbenchers, the way that Howard has done all too often with dissenters.

That said, National appears to be staying the course in this regard, and is playing hard ball harder than a no-doubt slightly tired and pissed off Helen Clark did the other day. Pesky damn pilots, give a man a high-speed vehicle and the lives of dozens in his hands and the next thing you know he gets a god-complex.

Mind you, being scalded by the Leader of the Nation is something he gets to tell the other pilots in the bar. And bloody good on him.

Anyhow, National and staying the course. An image occurred to me that best describes what they're up to. With their single minded determination to charge out the biggest majority they can, a foray into toilet humour is probably best.

Picture a blue man then, maybe the leader of a party. And no, we're not talking about Poppa Smurf, although the near-complete absence of women is an obvious similarity. And he's sitting on the dunny.

Now, I know that's a little distasteful to some, but bear with me. There he is, on the crapper, pants round his ankles. And, as we all know, you can't go anywhere very fast when you're in that position. Naturally, you'll feel a little vulnerable.

Next, picture the toilet itself, person on or not, in a white-tiled room. White on the walls, white on the floor, white on the ceiling. White basins and shower. Now put blue man, with trousers round ankles, on the throne.

But, and here's the catch, the room is very, very big. Although the dunny and the bathroom fixtures are all in fairly close proximity, the room itself is maybe four or five times bigger than a normal bathroom ought to be.

And the door is on the far side of the room, diagonally, from the blue man on the dunny.

Weird? It gets better.

There's no lock on the door, and no way the blue man's legs can stop anyone walking in on him taking a constitutional.

That's the National Party right now.

They're firing that big one out as fast as they can before someone walks in accidentally busts them having one. They're out there on their own, with no-one keeping an eye on the door, and no-one willing to vouch that they're up to nothing dodgy.

I'm of the opinion they'll be half-way through the roll of paper, standing just slightly, a self-satisfied look on their face, when the electorate walks on in.

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Metics Five | Sep 01, 2005 22:28

One of the reasons people seem to underestimate the power of sameness is that it's so ingrained. And much like any habit we form, usually unknown to the holder. Worse, it's difficult to pinpoint how we all get that way.

A trick I like to use to explain how I see it is to get someone to refer back to their home town. When you're a kid you just know the streets, the secrets, the best places to go, where the other kids are, that kind of thing.

But, at the same time there are still all kinds of things about the place you don't know. Everyone has had that experience of actually going inside a place they've never been before, and going, 'well, well, so that's what the old Johnson/Smith/Clarke place is like!' And that can happen in a place you've been all your life.

Imagine then, going to a place you've never been before.

When I arrived in Melbourne I had nothing but my suitcase and my old hitchhikers dufflebag. I knew no-one, no-one at all. I knew I had to make it to Monash Uni by a certain date, and that was it.

Oh, and I'd bought a great map of the city. It gave me nothing but an abstract picture of where I was in relation to a bunch of other stuff I had no idea about. Terrific.

I relied on public transport and the goodwill of strangers (goodwill that they wouldn't send me in exactly the wrong direction that is), and ran a reccy out to Monash on Sunday to escape a hostel room full of hungover and farting backpackers.

What a mission. I took a number of wrong turns, got lost at least once, had to stop frequently to nurse my own hangover, but eventually, there it was, a giant building looking like something out of the Thunderbirds.

Once I settled into the on-campus dorms, after finding my way back there a day later to ask questions, I started to fill out the spaces in my surroundings.

It's been the same way every time I move to a new city. I learn my flat or house, checking out the gardens or lack of, finding a good spot to sit in front of the telly, digging out junk to brighten the place up and make it feel like 'home'.

Next I find my way to the local shops/ATM/cinema/bottle shop/work. Usually that involves making the most direct way there, and checking out the surrounds on the way. Eventually, I start to notice little things I'd missed on the initial trip. A Bay leaf tree that I can pinch leaves from. A good pizza joint or noodle bar. A new way to get to where I'm going that saves time or legwork.

What happens, eventually, is that what was a simple, straight line from A to B becomes a kind of multi-layered network of links between places, things and people, all kind of jumbled up, but comprehensible all at the same time. And from that maze of information comes a deepening understanding of the city in which I live, both as a place, and as a place of people. The city itself comes alive, in a way.

Cultures, and societies work in pretty much exactly the same way. When you grow up in one you think you know pretty much everything there is to know about it, even though it can still surprise you, and when you leave it for awhile, it changes slightly.

But, trying to understand another culture or society is like trying to come to grips with being in an entirely new place. You'll get lost occasionally. You'll make stupid mistakes and annoy the locals. You'll find the most amazing and wonderful places and things, things that will delight, and some that may well horrify.

New places are uncomfortable, lonely, frustrating, amazing, enthralling, and grow around you like warm old jumpers, while still leaving you lost in their folds and trying to detach yourself from little snags that capture you.

Sameness is the product of people having been through experiences and places they share, and which 'outsiders' could never share. These things may well overlap with different people in different circumstances, but there are people in Melbourne, Texas and Auckland who will never meet one another, and are only connected to each other via, well, me.

And should those people meet, all the problems of garnering familiarity will be theirs, as it was mine. Of course, the advantage they'll have is both knowing me, if you could ever call that advantage, though it is a subject for another day.

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