On Reflection

Barely 48 hours after Howard's crushing defeat, my resentment towards him has ebbed considerably, and I can even feel some pity for this ageing man now forced into an undignified retirement. Nevertheless, I find myself reflecting on Howard's years and the mark he made on Australian politics with undiminished disapprobation. Apart from the individual scandals, mostly associated with immigration, Howard's years were marked by a reversal of political progress and a return to incorrectness: what his adversaries called reactionary bigotry and his supporters called common sense. He claimed recently to have won the culture wars. Part of his strategy was to construct himself as the sensible one, the moderate one, against whom advocates of political or philosophical ideals seemed like dangerous extremists. He shot down the cultural reforms of the late 80s and early 90s. He made it ok to seek privilege and repel the disadvantaged. He affirmed latent fears of the power of minorities, and disaffirmed diversity. Equality was not in his vocabulary, except as a euphemism for monotony. He was essentially Pauline Hanson in sensible shoes: galvanising support from WASPs who felt unaccountably threatened, yet maintaining his position as the voice of reason. He was villainous without the imaginative or aesthetic appeal of a villain; he was not Voldemort but Uncle Vernon (and he has now been magicked out of office by a plucky kid in specs). Labor's victory, whatever else it will deliver, has at least restored to Australian progressives a sense of legitimacy. We can now begin, as a nation, to rebuild the moral and social platform of justice, equality and diversity that Howard strove for nearly 12 years to demolish.