Islamic Violence and Pluarism - Hebdo and the rest

So here I am recalling being lost in Java in a ‘I sort of know where I am but I am on the wrong side of the volcano’ kind of way and meeting some poachers in the national park. They were shooting bats with ancient air rifles and taking the meat back to the village so I tagged along. They were a great bunch of guys and it mattered very little to me that they were Muslim. We ate the bats back at their home which was dirt floor surrounded by thatched walls. Via a network of friends and contacts they eventually figured out where I needed to be and put me on the back of someone’s moped and drove back around the volcano. They were good people. It was a great day.

I had been travelling East from Ambon. A couple of years later Jemaah Islamiyah invaded Ambon sparking a one sided civil was that left an estimated 10,000 people dead. Ambon is or was the only majority Christian province in the world’s second largest democracy and the world’s largest Muslim country. It is also the place where Christianity and Islam had coexisted in relative peace for at least seven centuries. When I left Indonesia 200 churches were burning across the country. Read more here. No Mosques were. Then we had the Bali bombings, then a few years later, after six months of security warnings, we had Martin Place.

Apparently Islamic violence has nothing to do with Islam. (Somewhere Dawkins’ eyes are rolling into the back of his head and George Orwell is rotating in his grave. See further the ‘no true Scotsman fallacy’).

By this illogic the hostage taking at Martin place, just before Christmas, in a (very) nominally Christian Western Country had nothing to do with Islam – which would be a fair comment if we ignore the broader context. For example, when was the last time a Catholic forced hostages to hold copies of the Nicene creed against windows? When was the last time a Hindu flew a plane into a building? When was the last time a Buddhist blew something up? Outside of the communist block (there still is one by the way), when was the last time an atheist forced someone to convert at gunpoint? These rather obvious questions lead to the bigger question of whether Islam and pluralism can coexist? We might also ask, where did all this God business and all its craziness come from anyway?

To get to the root of this we need to visit ancient Sumer circa 2000BC in the fertile crescent in modern day Iraq . Agriculture had taken off but the agrarians needed rain which belonged to the sky gods including the sun god. If it didn’t rain it was assumed that the sky gods required offerings which took the form of child sacrifice and self-cutting. Abram belonged to this culture but received a new revelation – there was only one ‘God of heaven’ who required only one cut (circumcision) and provided an alternative to sacrifice - in this instance a goat. The same God called Abram’s family to leave his home town and start both a new religion, a new race, and a new nation in ‘the land of Canaan’. I will leave the scholars to debate where that was, but broadly speaking it includes modern day Israel and Palestine.

Abram had two sons. The first was with his wife’s female servant. Uptight evangelical morality wasn’t on the scene yet, polygamy was normal, there was no government, and none of the old patriarchs would last long in any church I have ever been to – in short, life was good. The first son Ishmael was the father of the Arabs. Abram said of him that he would be a wild and violent man and that ‘his hand would be against every man’s hand’ but God would bless him. Abram’s second son Isaac was with his wife this time (good idea guys) and he inherited the promise i.e. Canaan. Isaac was the father of the Jews. Abram disbursed the brothers prophesying that they would never be able to live together in peace. Go figure.

Isaac had two wives and lots of kids whose descendants kind of forgot about Canaan and spent 400 years in Egypt while the Canaanite tribes got busy with child sacrifice and sexual perversion. Then Moses showed up and told them it was time to go to Canaan again. After 40 years Moses eventually led the Israelites to the only place in the Middle East that doesn’t have oil. Guess Ishmael got the blessing on that one. The Israelites at this time still believed in the ancestral ‘God of heaven’ but were pretty keen on the Egyptian gods as well. Moses wasn’t and demanded circumcision, animal sacrifice, and laid down a strict moral law including what we would today call a civil and criminal code. Few people have bothered studying the law of Moses but it is a foundational underpinning of the Western World legal system and culture. Most people have heard of the ten commandments. Moses also created a Priest class. The world now had a new organized, literate and highly structured religion. Only one part of Abram’s original mission remained – to conquer Canaan.

Moses’ successor led the invasion with instructions that were chilling and clear. There was to be a complete annihilation of the Canaanite religion and culture. All artifacts were to be destroyed, all buildings torn down, every field filled with stones. Every adult male was to be killed. There was to be no let up until Canaan ceased to exist and became only Israel. The Israelites made Islamic State look tame…except that they failed. It was just easier to settle down. The Canaanite religion remained – if marginalized. In time the Israelites mostly converted back to the culture Abram had left. Over the centuries the pendulum swung back and forth between the old and new ways. This cultural conflict is what most of the Old Testament is about. The Old Testament prophets spoke about this and related issues. They also prophesied about a Messiah that would come and save Israel from their sins. Believing Jews today are still waiting for the Messiah. Christians believe he came in the form of Jesus and it is this event that is celebrated at Christmas.

Christians believe that Jesus fulfilled all of the Messianic prophesies of the Old Testament, some of which were highly specific. For his part Jesus was pretty cagey about it and what claims he made about himself were mostly made to his inner circle. His concern seemed to be that any public claim to Messianic status would distract from his message – and get him and all his followers killed. That said, the symbolism of riding to Jerusalem on a donkey in public fulfilment of that prophesy sent a pretty clear message and basically sealed his death warrant. Never-the-less his closest followers were sufficiently convinced that he had subsequently risen from the dead to both make that claim and die for it.

What Jesus did not do was write a book, leave a succession, or really do any of the things you do when starting a new religion. His disciples were members of a new Jewish sect. Nothing more. Nevertheless they started to experience persecution almost immediately. One notable Zealot leading the charge against them was a high ranking Jewish scholar named Paul of Tarsus. It was on his way to arrest a number of Jesus’ followers that Paul experienced an epiphany, joined the new sect, and became a leading proselytizer and teacher. Paul uniquely was able to explain Jewish concepts to the Greco-Roman world drawing on cultural analogues also used by Jesus’ closest disciple John. It was this cultural translation that transitioned this Jewish sect into becoming a universal faith. To a large extent Christianity is Paul’s legacy. His key message – that Jesus crucifixion was the last sacrifice that buys forgiveness of sins for all people for all time; this forgiveness is appropriated through faith in Christ (Jesus) and personal repentance; and that following Christ’s example will lead to eternal life.

Christianity had a complex history under the Roman Empire but became sufficiently popular that eventually Roman Emperor Constantine saw it as something that could unite and strengthen an empire coming under increasing external pressure. Christianity became the official Roman religion though Constantine continued to embrace all the others. At this point the church abandoned Moses’ emphasis on separateness and uniqueness to absorb surrounding practices. The Sun god became the son of God celebrated in the Catholic wafer. Mother Mary replaced the earth mother goddess (in her many manifestations), the pantheon of saints replaced the Greco/Roman pantheon, and the Holy Trinity replaced the pagan trinity of Isis, Horisis and Seb. The pagan winter festival became Christmas and the pagan fertility festival became Easter. The Roman genius for organization also found its way into the church and over time this new structure came to claim an absolute monopoly over forgiveness of sins, and claimed sole right to determine the eternal future of every soul. Hell fire awaited those who rejected the new religion. As much as it incorporated the old religions, Roman Catholicism persecuted what it could not incorporate. The persecuted had become the persecutors. Christianity had moved a long way from the teachings of Jesus, his inner circle, and Paul.

It was this religion that one of Ismael’s (remember him?) descendants, a Bedouin by the name of Mohammad encountered in the seventh century. It is unlikely that Mohammad ever understood Christianity. He didn’t speak Latin and very very few Catholics at that time had ever read the Bible, much less understood it. It is almost certain that Mohammed never saw one. Mohammad did however claim a revelation of his own.

There is a belief common to pagan/occultic practices that there are places and times where the veil between the natural and spirit worlds is thin. Commonly those places are thought to be certain caves, or wooded ‘sacred’ groves. This belief is found across the globe including for example among native Americans and Indonesian witch doctors. It is unsurprising to me that the founder of the Mormon faith received his revelation in a grove while Mohammed received his in a cave. Initially Mohammed was concerned that what he encountered there was a Jin (evil spirit) but he was encouraged to persevere and did so. What came out of this communion was the beginning of what is Islam today. Mohammed positioned the new faith in line with Abram but diverted sharply. The Jewish prophets are not recognised. There is no Messiah. There is no sacrifice for sin. The promise falls to Ishmael not Isaac. Mohammed is the last prophet. The Middle East belongs to his followers. In the end times God vindicates the Muslims not the Christians. However there is no certainty of welcome after death; the Muslim can only hope that their piety and observance is enough to win Allah’s favour. Only by dying in the cause of Islam (Jihad) can one’s eternal future be assured. There is therefore a violent impulse within Islam that is not found in the other Abramic religions. The ten commandments were more or less appropriated.  There is no New Testament. Islam remains firmly an Old Testament religion. As a common pumper sticker in Indonesia (when I was there) proclaims: “Islam – the Last Testament.” As the Jews were once told that there would one day be no Canaan, Muslims are told that in the end there will be …only Islam.

So in summary:

• Jews believe that God gave them Palestine, Moses gave them the Torah, and the Messiah has yet to come.

 

• Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah, that Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism, and that it is their job to tell the world the ‘good news’.

 

• Muslims believe that Mohammed was the last prophet and that the Jews and Christians got it wrong.

Islam was evidently an improvement on local traditions of moon worship (though it appropriated the moon god symbol) because it spread rapidly through a combination of willing conversion, tribal alliances, and outright conquest. Mohammed continued to expand on his initial revelations throughout his life, often in response to particular situations he and his followers faced, and in response to the domestic challenges that accompanied living with his many wives.

During Mohammed’s life his movement went through broadly three phases. In the first phase they were a small and vulnerable group trying to establish their faith and practice. The focus was perhaps more internal – defining more and more what it meant to be Muslim. Jews and Christians were spoken of favourably as ‘people of the book’ and there seems to have been a certain amount of fraternity. Muslim minorities in many non-Muslim countries may identify with this experience.

In the second phase Islam had become established and was more broadly tolerated. Muslims were encouraged to spread the faith by example and seek to convert others, including Christians, through respectful dialogue. Muslim ‘moderates’ identify with much of the teaching from this era. In this interpretation of Islam there is room for mutual tolerance, there is intellectual and social engagement with the broader society, pluralism is accepted, Jihad can be understood as an internal struggle against sin, or as a struggle more broadly for social justice and ‘right’ in public life. This is pretty much how Christians have come to see the world. In this Christians, Muslims and Jews have a great deal in common. We are in a sense, one big squabbling family – but no one fights like family.

Then there is the Medina period and the period following Mohammed’s death. At Medina Muslims established the first Islamic State and expanded it through conquest. As the Muslim empire expanded there was no pluralism. Persons were allowed the opportunity to convert or they were killed. Christians and Jews, as ‘people of the book’, were allowed to buy peace through taxation, being forced to pay the Jizyah. If the Jizyah was not paid, the war resumed.  This war continued into the Middle Ages as the Muslim empire expanded to the borders of Europe. The Spanish eventually defeated the Muslims but Islam’s ambitions towards Europe remain unchanged. What war failed to achieve in the Middle Ages is now being purposed through immigration and fecundity. Specifically Saudi Arabia, in addition to sponsoring Islamic terrorism throughout the world, is pumping large amounts of money into Islamic communities in Britain with the express aim of Islamising what has historically been a key Christian nation.

Setting aside the superficial differences and the Sunni/Shia divide, there are today three Islams just as there were three phases to Islam during Mohammed’s life. The first Islam concerns itself primarily with personal piety. This may express itself in many ways, but the focus is internal to the individual and to the Islamic community. This corresponds to the early experience of Islam and represents no problems for pluralist societies so long as bad cultural practices such as wife beating, female circumcision and child marriage are not tolerated.

The second Islam is that more commonly found in Western societies – the one which seeks engagement and example. There is no harm in being confronted with a faith that preaches more than mindless consumerism and the pursuit of personal gratification. What is unfortunate is that host societies have often failed to engage, intellectually or socially. On the one hand engagement has often been seen as intolerance, and on the other hand we have resented the tribal take-over of geographic areas and communities by Muslims.

(See for example: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2367/european-muslim-no-go-zones )

Nevertheless at face value there is no reason why Muslims cannot live peacefully in any society but the extent to which an active and resurgent Islam can coexist in the West depends on Muslims. The evidence today points compellingly to an Islam that uses pluralism as a cover to gain influence but rejects pluralism as a value. As an example I recommend reading this summary of Muslim conflict for the year 2014 in Britain. ( http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4996/britain-islamization ). This is what we will soon have to deal with in Australia.  This kind of Islam may achieve an uneasy coexistence but it rejects outright any integration. This inevitably leads to alienation and fosters extremism. It is telling that many leaders from the Muslim world either failed to denounce the Hebdo killings or dressed up their denunciations with thinly veiled threats and excuses. In their minds European Muslims should not tolerate insults to the Prophet and violence is justified. To quote one leader “"We resolutely announce that we will never let anybody insult the name of the Prophet without punishment". Just to be clear, that is anyone anywhere. That includes Atheists having coffee at Martin place in Sydney.

The third part of Islam is at war – with anything and anyone that does not conform to its image. The true nature of this Islam is best seen in weak and failed states like Afghanistan, Palestine, Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, and large parts of North Africa. But it is also seen in Islamic countries, notably Saudi Arabia where converting from Islam carries the death penalty. In the West it spills over as terrorism and anti-Semitism. Whatever the form, it takes seriously Mohammed’s mission to bring the world, or at least the Middle East, into submission. In their minds these people are not ‘radicals’ or ‘extremists’ or ‘psychologically unstable’ they are just true Muslims who take the Koran at face value. Remember that Osama Bin Laden was not an unemployed French youth but a wealthy and well educated Saudi with close links to the Bush family, and a former favourite of the CIA (of whom Bush senior was the head) in the 1980’s when he was a Mujahadeen leader. He was also a terrorist.

The fact that the majority of people killed by various violent Islamic movements are Muslims, or that most Muslim’s denounce this behaviour, does not mean that it is un-Islamic. Islamic State of the Levant and the various other groups and their supporters can cite textual support and historic precedent for what they do, and obtain material and moral support from the Muslim diaspora. The fact that many thousands of Muslim people are actively at war in the name of Islam supported by unknown numbers of other Muslims means that this is uniquely a Muslim issue. There is no other religion or ideology in the world today that behaves in this way. Let’s say for arguments sake that two per cent of Muslims support terrorism. With, say a billion Muslims in the world that is twenty million people who support terrorism. There are 23 million people in Australia. Clearly we have a problem.[1]

This kind of Islam cannot coexist with the West or any other civilisation. There can be no rapprochement, no compromise and no negotiation because they will allow none. We are at war. To suggest otherwise is absurd and to imagine that appeasement will buy peace is to repeat the mistake made by Britain and France between the wars.

So the question confronting Muslims today is whether or not to embrace pluralism as a value. We need to be clear here that we are not just talking about renouncing violence. Pluralism can be a tactic on the way to Islamisation. The fact that you are not killing people does not make you moderate. Many Muslims see Islam as the inevitable fate of mankind. The question for them is how to get there and for many that is about timing. If you have just taken over Egypt burning down Coptic churches is OK. If you are a minority in Denmark, better set a good example and start a study group at the University. If you are in Northern Sudan it’s OK to kidnap Christian children and bring them up as Muslims. If you are in Pakistan it is OK to murder ‘blasphemers’. Different tactics – same goal. Others disagree with this behaviour but globally it is predicable and systemic.

So what to do?

In the end movements succeed or fail based on the strength and appeal of their ideas over time. Monotheism has most to offer when it understands that God is kind. It is the idea that we do not need to win God’s favour because we already have it, because we are his children. That forgiveness is something God wants to do; that the heart of God is restoring and building up not punishing and tearing down. That love by its nature allows choice.

It is this idea, however expressed and in whatever tradition, that defeats extremism and builds civilisation. This idea is the bridge between Abram’s children. It is what has built the West. It can be the point of commonality between the West and Islam, but we have to want it. 

 

 

 

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[1] These are generous assumptions. Surveys in Britain and France suggest around ten per cent support for extremism among Muslim populations in those countries.

Ferguson Shooting - what Russians and African Americans have in common

 

Ukrainian army advancing on rebel positions? No, US police advancing on unarmed protesters in Ferguson

Australia’s Prime Minister has said two things of significance in recent months. One, we can all expect less freedom. Two, we are at war with Russia. Meanwhile our closest ally appears to be at war with itself. Um…does anyone see a problem?

Let’s start with Russia. When a nation state seeks to force a change to the foreign policy of another nation state through sanctions this is a form of warfare. Australia has imposed $400 million worth of sanctions on Russia and appears eager to get involved in Ukraine. Abbott has been talking about giving them weapons. For Australia, a nation with 39 operational battle tanks, that’s pretty brave. As a Japanese defence official once commented “We have 500 tanks and call ourselves a peace keeping force. You have 50 tanks and call yourselves an army”. Translation: “shut up Australia you are not important”. It’s comical. Police forces in the US have more armour than the Australian army.

The crime of which Mr Abbott has, unilaterally and without parliamentary debate, convicted Russian eaters of Australian beef, is support for the Donetsk republic. Um…why does a small South Pacific country care about a small self-proclaimed East European/Russian/Eurasian republic? Perhaps Russia, the world’s second greatest nuclear power but deprived of Australian beef, will by these sanctions, be forced to disarm those naughty terrorists.

Now that my government is telling me who my enemies are I thought I should hear from them. Since I couldn’t find a reliable Western World news source I thought I would let them speak for themselves. This is a revealing interview.

 

You may need to expand the screen to get the subtitles http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/watershed-press-conference-by-top.html 

 

Turns out the Donetsk guys don’t want their country fracked for shale gas, want control of their economy and natural resources, and want the freedom to choose their own future. They don’t want to be in debt to the West. They just want to be left alone. No wonder they are being shelled.

When I studied political science I was in a conservative faculty headed by an expat American liberal and I didn’t learn much. However in the course of development studies they did let slip that Western banks extract orders of magnitude more money from developing countries through interest payments on loans to various regimes than Western countries contribute in foreign aid. They also mentioned that the loans mostly came from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and that the IMF always imposed “structural adjustment”. That sounded interesting so I wandered off the official reading list in pursuit of the truth. Too bad for Ukraine they are about to be structurally adjusted.

Structural adjustment IMF style requires that all subsidies and most public spending be cut, public utilities sold off, national assets handed over to multinational companies, and open slather foreign investment allowed. Having been plundered and privatised the economy typically struggles and countries can be forced into a debt/povery cycle unless granted debt relief. Furthermore, all loan repayments and all trade must be made in US dollars. This creates an indirect form of taxation because poor countries can’t readily buy US dollars and the exchange rate is poor.

 

This ‘structural adjustment’ pushed many Latin American countries into poverty and rebellion during the '70's and '80's. The US then provided military aid to quash public unrest including torture training the in ‘School of the America’s’ as it was then known. Governments that resisted external control and wished to retain control of their national resources or trade in their own currency tended to experience coups – Venezuela, Chile, Argentina; or destabilisation –  Nicaragua; or support for repressive regimes against social democratic movements – Honduras, Guatemala, et al. Other countries have experienced bombing/invasion – Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Iran, (threatened and intended) for seeking to control their own economies. If these measures don’t work US foreign policy prescribes containment, sanctions, and demonisation – Russia.

Libya was destroyed as a nation state after its leadership proposed a pan African currency and trade zone. Iraq was destroyed as a nation state after its leadership began selling oil in Euros. Russia also refuses to sell its oil and gas exclusively in US dollars. Suddenly there are destabilisation operations, nuclear missiles and NATO military bases on its door step, and sanctions. Donetsk meanwhile has committed two crimes unforgiveable to the US. First it refuses to hate Russia, and second it wants to control its own resources. Unsurprisingly it is at war.

 

For a primer on how this works see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC3tINgWfQE   

For some informed commentary on this from a former Reagan administration staffer see here: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/09/14/washingtons-war-russia-paul-craig-roberts-2/

 

 

Funny thing is, lots of towns in the US are being structuraly adjusted too; most notably Detroit.

Ukrainians meanwhile seem to have forgotten that IMF loans are not aid, they are loans. The really sinister aspect though to the IMF package in Ukraine is the insistence that Ukraine open its borders to GM crops. This lays bare the US foreign policy agenda. The Ukraine/Russian plains and the mountain grasses of the other nations of the 20/40 window are the genetic seed store of the world. It is from here that most of the world’s genetic diversity in grains comes from. The US wheat belt was first sown with Russian wheat. Ukraine was formerly the breadbasket of the Russian empire. It is one of the reasons Hitler was keen to conquer it. GM crops pose a direct threat to the food security of those countries within pollen blowing/bee flying distance of anywhere that has GM cereal crops. It is for that reason that Putin has banned them in Russia. Monsanto is more dangerous to Russia than any Ukrainian nationalist.

Russia has threatened nuclear war.

On that topic see here: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/17/stumbling-towards-nuclear-war/

Can’t see the Donetsk boys accepting Monsanto and can’t help feeling that Australia is well out of its depth here. Which brings us back to the other thing our Prime Minister said; that we can all expect less freedom. Nice of him to at least let us know. If this has something to do with the USA we should have a look at the USA.

So what about our closest ally? Since 9/11 US police have become incresingly militarised. This has included handing over large volumes of ex Iraqi military equipment including heavy weapons, armoured vehicles, and resistant vehicles. In other words, stuff custom made to crush a violent insurgency/uprising by people armed with the stuff American citizens have at their disposal. Regular police are increasingly being trained and armed for full scale war on civilian populations with essentially all legal niceties removed. Coincidence?

So in what civilised not tin pot dictatorship/third world/Islamofascist state is it OK to shoot an unarmed teenager and leave his body to bleed on the street for four hours? Oh, that would be Ferguson USA, or pretty much any town with a significant non-white population.

For some commentary on this from a conservative Republican see here:http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/10/john-whitehead-guest-column-washington-arming-public/



US police are being trained and equipped to treat citizenry as insurgents. Meanwhile Abbott tells Australia to expect less freedom. Note the graffiti.

 

If Australia wants to support freedom we might usefully become an example of a civil society that does not live in fear of its own government. Like a friend who stops a friend getting into a car drunk, Australia can start talking truth to the American people. This does not mean breaking with the alliance (which we don’t actually have). It means actually caring enough to be authentic. While we are at it, let’s kick out Monsanto and share seeds with Russia.

 

This is a mine resistant vehicle of the Ukrainian army. Used for defeating the Russians.

 



This is a mine resistant vehicle of the local US Sheriff's Department. Used for defeating persons suspected of possessing marijuana and persons who object to being shot by their government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Brown - 'Optimism' a review of his memoir

I like optimism. It’s one of the reasons I bought and read former senator and national Greens leader Bob Brown’s book ‘Optimism, reflections from a life of action’. That, and the fact that I got to know Bob a little while working as an activist in the 90’s.

Optimism is not a political memoir and those looking for political intrigue, expose, or detailed history will need to look elsewhere. Rather it is a very humane and deeply personal account of how a confused young man came to terms with his sexuality and found his place in the world. The fact that this young man helped found a national movement, a political party, two NGO’s, became the voice of left wing resistance in Australia, and went to jail at least twice along the way, is incidental to the story.

Each chapter is a complete account of a person or event that impacted the author. All are engaging and some are surprising. There is a good deal of humour and irony. Bob doesn’t preach and while his passion comes through only once does he get angry, describing the apostle Paul as an “ancient sociopath” for his condemnation of homosexual activity. Mostly the reader will encounter his sensitivity. ‘A young person is as likely to ignore their sexuality as a butterfly is to keep its wings folded, and I was 30’ he says of a time before he came out publicly.

While Bob describes himself as an atheist I have never really been convinced and after reading the book I am less convinced. ‘God is a God of love’ Bob records himself saying to a member of the Exclusive Brethren who threatens him with hell fire. Elsewhere he clearly rejects his Presbyterian upbringing but speaks positively of Jesus and of Christian social justice activists. However his Presbyterian background shines through with his intuitive grasp of materialism as an essentially religious belief system in the tradition of the pre-Christian pagan gods who must be appeased. This is the only place he delves into theology and he is, in my opinion, absolutely correct. Here is the core of his belief system and this is really the message of his book, with relevance to believers and non-believers alike.

On a final note, Bob founded The Wilderness Society with fellow ex Presbyterian Helen Gee Decades later he was MC at her funeral where we sang some beautiful old hymns. The wilderness that inspired them exists beyond human reason. It seems that when sensitive people spend bulk time in the wilderness it is hard to believe that there is nothing out there.

 

Optimism is available from all good bookstores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting the Most out of Public Service in an Time of Austerity

 

There are two basic truths about the public service. First, the demand for government services is ever growing and insatiable. Second, the willingness and ability of governments to finance the public service is finite. In the end, we have the public service we can afford. The service lives in the tension between these two things. How then to get best value for money?

 

First, what can the public service do well?

If enough intelligent people are given enough job security to feel comfortable speaking truth to power, then the public service is capable of long term strategic thinking. The same is true of Universities, and of think tanks that are actually about thinking rather than pushing an ideological agenda. That is why job security matters.

 

The service is capable of objectivity in a way that politicians are not and consequently is better equipped to moderate competing demands and deliver good policy on a range of issues.

If the right people are in the right positions, the service is also capable of understanding science. This is hugely important because politicians generally don’t understand science, particularly in this country. They tend to be lawyers, business people, ex unionists, or persons with a background in community service. There is almost no one in the Federal Parliament with a background in engineering, medicine or environmental science. It’s one of the reasons why our government is just plain dumb when it comes to things like coal seam fracking, climate change, and defence procurement.

Finally, the service has a long history of delivering defined services to defined groups of people in specific ways. It’s like a big train that, once on track, just keeps going. The introduction of the GST, the change from Imperial to metric measurement, and the change from the sterling to the dollar were singular triumphs.

What does the public service struggle with?

Anything technical. Once upon a time I worked for the Commonwealth Environment Department writing management plans for marine reserves. Essentially that meant making rules to restrict certain fishing methods and gear types in various bits of ocean. Of the 20 or so people on the team one was a recreational fisherman. None had ever worked on a commercial fishing boat and most had never been on one. There was no relevant induction or training – like spending a couple of weeks working with the guys in industry. I was one of only four people with a background in compliance. After a 10 year process (I was there for six months) one of the bosses suddenly realized that compliance was going to be an issue – like for example in the entire Coral Sea. Hmmm, maybe Queensland could look after that… State governments are better on the whole because of Australia’s odd constitutional arrangements, they do a lot of the actual service delivery.

So what works?

Small focused expert teams

It is a common story that a large well funded government organisation failed to deliver powered flight but a couple of bicycle mechanics working at the same time did. There is an energy that happens in small teams that can’t be replicated any other way. Plus they are more efficient. While the Wright brother’s story is often cited as an example of why business does it better, the fact is that any organisation that grows beyond a certain size will require more bureaucracy and operate less efficiently. For that reason large organisations work best as collectives of smaller groups.

Clear lines of accountability

The message coming out of the inquiry into the national home insulation scheme (which led to several home fires and deaths) is that everyone is sort of responsible but no one is really. That lack of accountability is common in large Departments and is something that bedevils Defence. It is the reason why Australia was unable to maintain its submarine fleet in state of operational readiness. Accountability has to stop with an individual who is resourced intellectually and materially to understand what is going on and to ask the hard questions. That person will never be a government minister. Ministers are too busy and have too many competing demands. They rely on those under them to manage risk. That means that if there is a stuff-up, the person accountable needs to be sacked because they had it in writing at the start that it was their responsibility.

Relevant expertise

The person responsible must be qualified or have relevant other expertise. I wager there were very few electricians managing the home insulation scheme. At both State and Federal level the service needs far fewer BAs and LLBs and lots more engineers, scientists and people from industry. In the home insulation example there were obvious rorts but nice middle class university graduates just don’t think like that. A lot could be gained from a program that gave bureaucrats first hand industry experience.

Allowing initiative

In the Second World War no one came even close to the tactical brilliance achieved by the Germans and Japanese. On the eastern front the kill ratio was seven Russians to every German. There are many reasons for this but one seldom discussed is that forward commanders were allowed to take their own initiative and respond to the battle without getting permission from the higher ranks. The British only really every achieved the same level of initiative with commando units.

In the public service initiative is frowned upon.  It is seen as insubordinate and risky. Those on a fixed salary have no incentive to take risks because they will likely not be rewarded for success. However they may be penalized for failure, so it is safest to stick with whatever makes the hierarchy happy and keep plodding. In the lead up to the Commonwealth Games in India it became a talking point that those at the bottom were working hard, those at the top were brilliant, but there was complete paralysis in the middle. People need to be given explicit permission to fail, and assurance that they won’t be penalized for trying.

Empowering managers to sack underperforming staff

Machiavelli observed that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved. Having worked with underperforming staff I know the frustration of dealing with inept people who know they won’t be sacked. There is no reason why, if the job description is clear, that work goals cannot be set and long term underperformers cannot be got rid of. The sad fact is that while many worked hard, even heroically, too many people did too little for too long and now the entire service is being hammered. Output managers who sack staff should be thought well of, not looked at askance. Would that result in unfair dismissals? Yes in some cases, because incompetent managers feel threatened or because they are on a power trip. On the other hand capable people will pick up work elsewhere. Overall it is better to shed the dead wood. 

 

Providing incentives for initiative and productivity

Which brings me to the other side of the same coin – good workers are not rewarded, they just tend to get asked to do more. Productivity can be a hard thing to measure. How to you measure policy advice, research or financial analysis, or staff management? However a lot of front line service can be measured. There is no reason why incentive bonuses shouldn’t be paid were practical in the public service.

Beware outsourcing

Outsourcing is often held up by the pro-business crowd as a panacea of many of the ills I have mentioned. Sometimes it is cheaper to hire outside expertise but there are also risks. First is that if key services become dependent on contractors those contractors gain a lot of leverage in price negotiations. Second, relationships can become too cosy by far. Third, you risk losing important in-house expertise. Fourth, public servants have to do pretty much whatever they are told. Contractors don’t have to step an inch outside their contract terms which means everything has to be negotiated.

Consulting internally first

Governments often get criticised for spending too much money on consultants. However there is often a wealth of freely available knowledge within the ranks of the organisation that doesn’t filter up, and a wealth of open source knowledge that just needs time to access. University graduate staff are very good at this and they don’t charge $100 per hour. I have yet to work in a place that had a knowledge/skills register but I have been reprimanded for approaching a subject matter expert in my (then) own Department and talking to people outside.

 

For more on open source see here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38903.htm

Expert boards are value for money

Highly qualified specialists seldom work for government. They can make more money, have more fun, and achieve greater career satisfaction elsewhere. However one thing they like to do, particularly in semi-retirement, is sit on boards and committees that look into interesting things. Expert boards thus provide a cost effective way for government to purchase independent expertise across any issue. Further, if they report publicly or to the Minister, they can break the deadlock created by self-seeking agency heads advising unqualified ministers on the basis of advice from uniformed underlings. This is an obvious way of addressing the lack of internal technical expertise in areas such as health, defence, and natural resource management. Indeed, one of the things the Department of Defence steadfastly resists is independent expert boards reporting to the Minister.

Other

 

There seems to have been a time, perhaps in the 1970s and 80s when a person on graduating university could get a public service job, underperform for 40 years and look forward to a generous retirement. Those days are over and increaslingly the service will have to justify its existence and do more with less. There needs to be a generational culture shift.

I am sure I am not the only one with good ideas so feel free to make comment.

 

 

Tasmanian State Budget 2014 - Reflections

If the spin doctors are to be believed this was the budget we had to have, and they are sort of right. We can’t keep borrowing, and that’s not about political colour. GST revenues have gone south (actually they went North to NSW and Vic), the Federal government is cost shifting on health, and their policy of declaring war on science and renewable energy is causing Tasmania real problems. There is very little room to move and we have to cut.

…which is why it is hard to understand why the Liberal (supposedly free market) State government feel it necessary to spend big on racing and a footy team while cutting the heart out of basic services…

Apart from that there haven’t been mass sackings or massive borrowing and that is a relief.

So what does it all mean? Mostly I can’t tell you because as a public servant the State Service Act 2000 and the State Service Code of Conduct prevent me talking about what I know. I am also not allowed to protest about anything, or ask for a pay rise. I can apply for a redundancy but there are no jobs to go to afterwards. According to one Mercury columnist I am “bloated, inefficient and debt laden.” What the columnist has no comprehension of is the extent to which basic services are propped up by industry funds, ad hoc Commonwealth grants, vanishing incentive payments, and the administrative equivalent of gaffe tape. There is a real naivety in this budget – which clearly reflects the business view that public service is about front liners – teachers, firies, ambos’, and the rest is a make work program for unemployable shiny bums. Perhaps they should look at their own organisations. Try running BHP Billiton without an HR department, an accounts department, an IT department, contract managers, project managers, oh, and did I mention records? When one of the 100 new coppers hands out a fine it clearly doesn’t occur to people that someone designed and printed the ticket, that the form fields in the ticket go into a database, and that the database links to other important things which mean that the authorities actually know if the fine isn’t paid. Meanwhile someone is maintaining the police vehicle and managing the officer’s workplace health and safety issues. Without this, that police officer can achieve very little.

So my real concern with the budget is that rather than actually making a principled decision to close specific services the government is simply pushing those services to the point of collapse. They may exist in name and on paper but they are not really there. A better approach would be to do what Bob Hawke did federally and bring the parties into the tent. Tell the unions, Department heads and NGOs how much money we don’t have and have an authentic conversation about what to cut. Union members were willing to talk wage restraint in return for fewer job losses. It’s more difficult but history shows that the results are better, and they are accepted better by the community. Instead we have anti-protest laws.

The comedian in me really hoped that someone would protest against the people who were protesting against the anti-protest laws –which come on top of the anti anti-abortion protest laws from the previous government, and the anti-protest gazettal provisions which have been used for arresting green protestors on Crown land since 1983….but the anti-protest laws were drafted by my Department so I can’t talk about them.

However I can probably say that my union representative stated that new provisions will remove the right of the Tasmanian Industrial Commissioner to arbitrate a public service wage dispute in a manner which differs from government policy. In other words, if it is government policy to have a $5.00 minimum wage and I put in a wage claim for $5.50 the Tasmanian Industrial Commission cannot increase my award. The Crown Employees (Salaries) Bill 2014 states:

 

"The regulations may restrict the performance and exercise of the functions and powers of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission under the Industrial Relations Act 1984 and may override any provisions of that Act in the manner specified in the regulations."

This appears to be a blatantly ideological act which has Eric Abetz’s finger prints all over it. If rolled out beyond the public service it could lead to a collapse in wages which would in turn collapse the economy – it’s that simple. Small business will suffer the most. This is the American model and it is a proven disaster. The last time I looked up any stats the US had twenty percent unemployment, a vast underclass of working poor, real hunger particularly among the elderly, and twenty million people homeless….but the rich are very rich, the police are militarised and the prisons are full. A university degree can mean a lifetime’s debt and lifesaving surgery can cost your life savings. Australia needs this like it needs a punch in the face. The only reason why we have a budget crisis at a national level is because multinationals pay very little tax on the wealth they export from our country.

It is in the nature of investigators to be suspicious and so am I. Those with longer memories will recall the Burnie paper mill union blockade. At the time management urged on by the HR Nichols Society and supported by Tony Abbott and Eric Abetz tried to break the union movement, collapse enterprise bargaining, and effectively abolish trade unions as a form of social organization. They failed but they never gave up.

So Tasmania may be ground zero in an ideological push to roll back enterprise bargaining across the country. If so the Tasmanian State Budget 2014 will be remembered for more than hiring more police.

 

Note: the HR Nichols Society openly advocates abandoning the minimum wage. See here: http://hrnicholls.com.au/category/youth-wages/

Joint Strike Fighter Imboglio - Open Letter to Sen Johnson

Senator the Honourable David Johnston

Minister for Defence

PO Box 6100

Canberra ACT 2600

 

Dear Senator Johnston

My letter concerns future acquisition of the Joint Strike Fighter.

The recent fire in the engine of a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) highlights the risk that Australia on your watch could be left without an operational air combat capability in the JSF fleet should similar incidents occur in the future. The malfeasance inherent in “concurrency” whereby aircraft are tested and manufactured at the same time leaves our future fleet vulnerable to being grounded for a currently ‘unknown unknown’ problem. This would be a national security embarrassment greater than having the entire Collins submarine fleet in for repairs at the same time. If you doubt this I suggest obtaining an independent (non-Defence Department) review of the inherent risks in the JSF project.

I write to suggest a practical and face-saving way out of what has become the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) dilemma. The dilemma consists of the following:

1.       The JSF is a proven failure, already obsolete, with well documented fundamental design flaws that cannot be remedied by future upgrades.

2.       Defence has never compared JSF combat performance point by point with reference threats out to 2030. Such analysis as has been done found that the JSF was massacred in any ‘hot war’ scenario and locked out of contested airspace by modern IADS.[1]

3.       Over ten years senior defence bureaucrats and former defence ministers from both sides of politics have wedded themselves to the project to the extent that they are now in a classic ‘prisoner’s dilemma’.

4.       In the current fiscal environment the true cost of the project is unsustainable over time.[2]

5.       Australia has already committed to the delivery of 14 JSF units.

6.       The Superhornet is too slow and insufficiently stealthy to be a serious air combat contender.[3]

7.       Having retired the F-111 Australia is now without an effective air combat capability.

So let’s look at what we have.

The Superhornet is optimised as a reliable medium sized bomb truck with self-defence and EW capability, but not as an air dominance fighter. As a naval aircraft it carries the tomahawk anti shipping missile. Used as a naval strike asset the Superhornet can assist the RAN in sea defence. Used in the close air support role it may plug a big gap left by our lack of armour and mobile artillery. The Superhornet could and should be tasked primarily to these roles.

The JSF is a networking platform with limited stealth. Our best hope is that the JSF will deliver on the promise to be a capable networking platform. In this role 14 JSF may be valuable force-multipliers as ‘eyes in the sky’ along with Wedgetail. The investment in 14 JSF is therefore best leveraged by networking them with a capable air-to-air platform. In this model they are protected by air dominance fighters but assist the same by enhancing their situational awareness.

The task of chasing and shooting down evolved Sukhois, the Chinese J-20 or the Russian PAK-FA demands a top end high performance combat aircraft – which takes us back to where this all began when the AIR6000 project cancelled was and no comparison of available aircraft allowed. This the JSF cannot do for reasons inherent in the design - too small, too heavy, too tightly packed, too slow, only four missiles in stealth mode, can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run, and these problems cannot be overcome by future upgrades. I refer you to the literature.

Australia can still obtain and use 14 JSF but save billions and protect our sovereignty by finally engaging in realistic comparison of available aircraft against regional reference threats, namely the evolved Sukhoi, the J-20, the PAK-KA, double digit Russian and Chinese SAMs and modern IADS. I do not wish to pre-empt what actual research might find, but note that, if our diplomatic arrangements require us to purchase planes from the US, then the ‘Silent Eagle’ program should be considered. This program fields a genuine mach 2+ twin engine combat aircraft at roughly half the unit price of the JSF with none of the inherent risk. The Swedish JAS Grippen program is perhaps the most affordable while delivering supercruise and credible performance against the evolved Sukhoi[4].

In this manner Australia can have a diversified, flexible and affordable RAAF combat capability that:

·         honours our existing commitments;

·         maximises the utility of existing platforms;

·         plugs gaps in our land force inventory; and

·         provides air-to-air combat capability which the JSF alone cannot provide.

This model replicated the highly successful USAF model in which types of specialist aircraft were combined in ‘packages’. While conventional wisdom now favours a single aircraft type this leaves defence highly vulnerable if problems develop. I note that the entire F-22 fleet and the entire JSF fleet have been grounded in recent years. Australia successfully fielded both the FA-18 and the F-111, and now intends to field the Superhornet and the JSF. The addition of an air dominance fighter to this mix is now the only viable way forward.

I therefore request that you raise with you cabinet colleagues the option of acquiring an air dominance fighter in preference to purchasing more JSF.

I further request that you discuss with operational commanders options to best utilise current and future aircraft inventories in combat.

I also request that you engage non Department of Defence experts in a genuine assessment of risks inherent in the JSF program and what that may mean for Australia’s future defence.

This letter does not require a written response. However please note that I have studied this issue in depth over 10 years and written extensively on it. Please therefore spare yourself the indignity and me the tedium of including any of the following in any response:

·         a ‘cut and paste’ statement from the Lockheed Martin publicity office e.g. ‘unrivalled fifth generation capability…sensor fusion…unparalleled situational awareness…let the missiles do the turning...bla bla;

·         a statement expressing confidence in the project without reference to anything real;

·         a statement to the effect that because the Americans have confidence in the program (they don’t) it must therefore magically be able to shoot down Russian and Chinese stealth fighters (it can’t);

·         a statement to the effect that because a number of northern hemisphere nations have bought into the program it must be right for Australia (this is contrary to analysis); or

·         a statement to the effect that the program is too big to fail so it must be OK.

Yours sincerely

Erik Peacock

---

[1] See analysis by Dr John Stillion of Rand Corp, Air Power Australia, and Eagle Vision Ltd. See also the leak to Vanity Fair, and reports to US Congress.

[2] Cost is defined as ‘what you pay for the capability you get over the life of the aircraft’ and includes training, tooling, parts, maintenance, weapons, fuel, changes to facilities and basing, simulators etc. The true cost likely to be well over AUS$30 billion.

[3] I refer to Air Power Australia analysis since no other analysis was undertaken.

[4] Pers Comm Chris Mills CEO Eagle Vision Ltd