Republicanism in an Age of Global Terrorism

By Peter Botsman
Republicanism Conference, Griffith University/The Australian, Brisbane
16-17 November 2002

On May 30 1895 Oliver Wendell Holmes told the graduating class at Harvard University. "Behind every scheme to make over the world lies
the question, What kind of world do you want? …I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of the doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use". (The Soldiers Faith, p. 2)

I find these words at once perturbing and engaging in the global age of terrorism. They were not of course a justification for terrorism, Holmes was talking about the spirit behind the modern democratic nation. Holmes words reverberate in the foundations of the Australian nation and in his correspondence with our foundation constitutional writer Andrew Inglis Clark . The idea of building a bulwark, defended by soldiers of democracy, was also primary consideration in the hearts of many who attended the Australian Constitutional conferences of the 1890s.

As a Boston "Brahmin", Holmes had gone to the Civil War for the noblest of reasons. On the battlefield, however, it was the soldiers who fought for a living whose courage he came to admire most. Holmes returned to the front three times after being seriously wounded each time. When he did not return for the fourth time, it seems amazing to me that he felt like a coward, and that his parents had urged him to return, and to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Holmes instead threw his battlefield guilt and experiences into an exposition of what he called a "Soldiers Faith". Spared from the slaughter, his battlefield experiences were at the heart of his famous conception of a "living constitution". In his Lowell Lectures of November 1880 and his modernist concept of the common law, Holmes was building a doctrine that intertwined the mercenary and idealist in common cause. His argument was that each man and woman was caught in a spiral of development that was beyond reason. "Humanity was like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing that it was never seen to be". In the sequence of evolution it was each generations duty to choose and act. His view of the law was that it must be interpreted within the contradictions and duties of the battlefield of life: "a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, but the skin of a living thought".

From this steely organic evolution of human grubs, the modern democratic nation would develop.

The Civil War was as keenly followed by Tasmanians as by any people in the world. Through the Boston Whalers that anchored at Battery Point, Hobart, news of the latest battles and developments was received faster than even London. None more keenly followed the battles than our future constitutional writer and original republican Andrew Inglis Clark. When Lee surrendered at Appomattox the seventeen year old ran through his father's foundry shouting the news. As Clark became interested in the law, Holmes, the warrior judge, became the logical, jurisprudential hero of the American republic and a guiding spirit for the future Australian republic Clark foresaw.

For Clark modern political evolution began in July 1776 with the first deliberate adoption of natural rights as a basis for the political sovereignty of human society. For Clark this represented a transformation of the soldiers faith. The "evils of monarchy" were such that the soldier was fighting for a world in which title and privilege would be valued and striven for as the prizes of life. After 1776, for Clark, the soldiers faith became about fighting for a world which protected the right of everyman and woman to seek and win the prizes of life. This was the Australia he foresaw and would mean that Clark's own son would directly take up the soldier's faith on the battlefields of France.

I find Clark and Holme's philosophy eerie today. In our age one's duty to the nation may seem to be over-ridden by the supreme rights of the individual, but it is well to remember the context of war and battlefields that forged the foundation stones of our nation. But I am more with David Malouf than with Holmes or Clark on war.

But at this time, Australian republicans, whether through peace or war, must be able to demonstrate that the republican form of government is best able to endure the severest of tests. That in the darkest hours of the nation, the republican character of the nation will serve us better than any other. I think that is our challenge in the global age of terror. That more than any other challenge will cause Australians to rise from apathy to interest about the future form of Australian government. I think the Beazley option of simply holding a plebiscite on a republic and then debating the model of the republic lacks leadership. Perhaps we can defeat a referendum with a gimmick but I don't believe we can win one with a gimmick. Australians need to be sure of the form and structure of the republic they are getting. Furthermore I would rather see a thousand meetings that lead to nought, than an easy option that is carried, but endangers the nation because it has not been well debated or established by the people.

One of the profound questions that we face in the evolution of the Australian republic concerns the mode of appointment of an Australian Head of State. The recent history of Israel is of great relevance to us in this context.

Urged by academics, and after a major and effective national campaign, in 1987 Israelis voted overwhelmingly for a separate, direct election of the Prime Minister. From 1990 Israelis voted separately for their Prime Minister and for their local representative. Bibi Netanyahu was the first PM directly elected in 1992.

The direct election process was supposed to bring national unity and end the fractional party political process that had lead to periods of up to three months when Israel did not have a government in the post war period. The direct election process was supposed to make Israelis feel at one with the decisions of the nation and was supposed to be able to ensure that decisions in times of crisis could be taken efficiently and easily with the mandate of the people. The direct election process was supposed to give the people a sense of control over the party process.

In effect the direct election process has done the opposite of all it was said to do. It led to the deterioration of the capacity of the leader of the country and the people's representatives in the parliament to work together. After a five year experiment the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly to scrap the direct election process and to restore the one parliamentary election process that had operated until 1996.

At a time of profound crisis, I would argue that the direct election process has hindered the prospects of peace in the middle east, almost as surely as the fanatical cliques that undermined Yassar Arafat's capacity to sign on to the Clinton peace accords of the late 1990s. The chief defect of the system was that it enhanced the fragmentation of the nation. Israelis voted for big party Prime Ministerial candidates and small party members of parliament. All of the directly elected Prime Ministers Netanyahu, Rabin and Sharon struggled to form coherent governments. Decision making became complicated, and costly and worst of all, political survival absolutely prescribed that controversial decisions be postponed.

The lessons of Israel, while not in direct parallel, are profound for Australia. A directly elected Australian Head of State would be potentially even more disruptive and could potentially test the parliamentary system to its limit. It has proved impossible, under the Israeli system, for the directly elected Prime Minister to work with the parliament and to be accountable to the parliament. A directly elected Australian head of state would have loose ties to the parliament and as a result potentially more profound problems of accountability. The fears of a directly elected Australian President undermining the activities of the parliament and the Prime Minister during time of war are real. Furthermore the tendency for Australians to vote for a President to counterbalance the political tendencies of the parliament I think could be real. Could we afford to have these forces at play between the man or woman who is commander in chief of Australian armed forces and the Prime Minister of the day?

In these contexts, the risk of the parliament or the Prime Minister of the day making an unpopular decision about who should become President or Head of State to me far outweigh the risks of an unworkable political system of direct election which particularly in time of crisis leads to profound human suffering. That to me at least is one of the lessons of the Middle East.

I have drifted, since the referendum, back towards a minimalist change to the constitution in favour of an Australian head of State. However I do not make these comments in order to disrupt or suppress the arguments of Ted Mack or Clem Jones or David Solomon or any other advocates of direct election. To the contrary it should be clear to those of all political and ideological persuasions within the Australian Republican cause that even if the final position of the ARM is seen to be sound, the tactics for achieving it were flawed. Unless an overwhelming majority of Australians and a majority of Australians in a majority of states do not feel certain that a republican form of government is superior to our current form of government, then we should proceed gracefully nowhere. It puts the onus on republicans to have the widest and most inclusive of debates in which all positions are tested to their limit. There cannot be a committee which decides our final position and then takes it to the people. Our final position must come from the people.

So I welcome the direct election position and I remain open to argument that is properly tested in the toughest of arenas.

There is a lot learn from the referendum campaigns. I think it is fair to say that the ARM started with the true believers and didn't get too far in advance of them. This time we must have the widest and most inclusive debates in the hardest seats for us, with the hardest most ardent monarchists and in the most skeptical working class electorates. Unless we can win arguments for a republic in Maranoa not just Melbourne, Blair not just Sydney, Wide Bay and Groom not just Grayndler, O'Connor not just Kooyong, the Mallee not just Higgins, Kennedy not just Canberra, the Murray not just Batman, Parkes not just North Sydney and in places like Hinkler, Dawson, Capricornia, Forde, Braddon, Grey, Barker, New England, Canning and Wakefield then I think we will be riding another ghost ship into the future.

The Republican campaign has to start in the bush and on the fringes of our cities. It's here that people need to hear the debates about our future.

What will convince the great majority of Australians of the need for an Australian head of state and an evolving Australian republic? Perhaps it is about creating a soldiers faith for this age we live in. Our strength does not lie in blind loyalty. But what is the equivalent of a soldier's faith for this new time? Ultimately we will defeat terror and acts of war by creating a system of government that is organically linked to our way of life. I do not believe any act of terror could break this nexus. I think with this argument we have the best means of convincing our adversaries and skeptics that an Australian republic is the most secure and safe form of government for all Australians in an age of global terrorism. I think we can rely on that argument from Capricornia to Canning.