upton-on-line
25th November 2003
In this issue
In the French Corner, we have exciting new ideological convulsions
amidst France's extensive array of extreme left parties, plus some
extra-terrestrial ambitions on the part of the alter-mondialistes;
back in the world of Treatyology, we discover a rich seam of academic
writing on the subject of tribalism in contemporary New Zealand lurking
in a French electronic journal; Andrew Sharp's contribution is
particularly recommended.
What the postman did
Almost every country can point to something in which it is extravagantly
over-endowed. Sometimes the cornucopian dowry is provided by nature -
rhododendrons in China's Yunan province or venomous reptiles in
Australia. These 'hot spots' of the natural world are often referred to
as 'mega-diverse'. But mega-diversity can be a human phenomenon too.
Languages in Papua New Guinea come to mind (for reasons which are still
obscure). More explicable are the forseeable consequences of regulation.
There are more pharmacies in New Zealand or rice growers in Japan than
the Darwinian forces of the market would ever throw up. But sometimes
mega-diversity appears almost like a gift from the cosmos - an
inexplicable bounty of the gods visited upon a chosen people. So it is
with France and the Extreme Left - the one remaining hot spot of fervent
revolutionary activity in a sea of bourgeois indifference.
At least, that's how it seems to the hopelessly pragmatic Anglo-Saxon
mind confronted by the latest manoeuvrings on the French Left which
revels in the rampant luxury of at least five parties. Shock waves have
swept through the political landscape with news that two communist
splinter groups are going to work together in next year's regional and
European elections. (There is really no home-grown parallel against
which New Zealand readers can gauge the significance of this truce. It
would be tempting to compare it to ACT and the National Party deciding
to join forces in a bid to take over the Christchurch City Council but
in fairness to National it has never had the energy to get particularly
ideological and ACT probably doesn't believe in City Councils...)
In any event, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR)
and Lutte Ouvrière (LO or Worker's Struggle in English)
have decided to bury the sickle, so to speak. Ordinary mortals would
need an electron microscope to detect the subtle ideological differences
that flicker across the neuronal pathways of their adherents. But to the
true believers this is about as big as it gets. The rapprochement seems
to have come from LCR, whose boyish leader is a 29 year old postie, Olivier
Besancenot. Besancenot appears to have great charismatic appeal on
account of being a real live working postie. (In France this is almost
like being a fireman who spends his life rescuing kittens from trees).
It is, apparently, a novelty on the Left to have a political leader who
holds down a real, low paying job. Most politicos on the Left here have
transformed themselves into full-time revolutionaries funded by other
workers. Only Besancenot it seems can speak with first hand knowledge of
the unutterable plight of the working classes as he pedals his early
morning round before heading to the barricades. (Even then one can't
help wondering whether this bold alliance of practice and principle
could ever have been possible had its exponent not worked for a glorious
state-owned enterprise). Whatever the case, the LCR has put fight ahead
of faction in opting to struggle in tandem with Lutte Ouvrière led by
the grim-faced Arlette Laguiller.
Decisions like this do not come easily and it was only after deep
soul-searching that the LCR took the historic decision to drop
references to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" from its
sacred texts. Experts divine here a move away from a Leninist
orientation towards a more subtle Trotskyist stance. But none of this
should cause any anguish to the deceased Marxist pantheon. The party's
programme still calls on its membership to fight for a socialist
revolution through the construction of a mass party that is
"anti-capitalist, feminist and ecologist". Deviant tendencies
are given no quarter. France's mainstream Social Democrats led by François
Holland will no doubt be delighted to learn that the 'impasse'
represented by their policies is mentioned in the same breath as those
of Stalin!
The draft LCR/LO programme is equally reassuring. Bosses and financiers
will have their economic power removed from them, their financial
dealings will be subject to full public transparency and redundancies
will be forbidden (under threat of nationalisation in the event of
breach). And in the European elections the coalition will fight for a
'United Socialist States of Europe'. The cadres can rest easy. But just
in case this 'acceptable face' of revolutionary communism has in fact
stepped from the straight and narrow, there's still the Parti des
Travailleurs (PT the Workers Party), a Trotskyist cell that has not yet
decided to abandon a good old fashioned dictatorship by the workers. And
herein lies the genius of mega-diversity. What appears as redundant and
wasteful duplication is in fact an ingenious protection against mutancy
or genetic vulnerability. If this departure from the texts sees
revolution wither on the vine, there are still toilers out there hoeing
the true and straight path.
Not that the Left seems presently vulnerable to some spontaneous
ideological retrovirus. A recent poll indicated that 22% of voters who
had never previously voted for the extreme left were considering doing
so. Add to those the further 9% who were already in the fold and you
have 31% of the electorate poised to sock it to the grande
bourgeoisie. All those nicely coiffed matrons in the 16th
arrondissement had better keep an eye on what the postie is pushing
through their front doors.
Meanwhile in another corner of the galaxy...
As if this orgy of choice were not enough, Paris has recently been
besieged by the alter-mondialistes who represent a bewildering
array of tendances. Roughly 50,000 people (i.e. barely more than
half a rugby stadium full) attended the 'European Social Forum' designed
to maintain the momentum of the anti-globalisation movement founded in
Porto Alegre, Brazil. If debating the entrails of the Marxist legacy is
proving too cerebral for some, being an alter-mondialiste offers
almost unlimited scope for remarkably little effort. As long as you are
against one or all of the USA, the World Trade Organisation,
trans-national corporations, something called 'ultra-liberalism' and
mainstream Social Democratic parties, alter-mondialisation is for
you.
The fate of the traditional centre-left is perhaps the most fascinating
phenomenon. France's former socialist finance minister, Laurent
Fabius and UK PM Tony Blair were particular targets of
hatred. French opposition socialist politicians hoping to reingratiate
themselves with such progressive forces instead found themselves having
to shelter from a hail of beer cans. They were apparently not
progressive enough. Only a stance of perpetual opposition and hostility
to life as most (non-attenders) want to live it will do. Despite the
less than overwhelming turnout, the French media gave unbelievable
coverage to the event including numerous tortured articles trying to
sort out exactly what all these people were in favour of. That remains a
mystery but upton-on-line found that you got a pretty good idea by just
reading the names of the many acronym-dripping factions.
The oldest of them appeared to be Attac (the Association for the
taxation of financial transactions for the aid of citizen). Founded in
1998, this organisation is in alter-mondialiste terms, looking
distinctly middle-aged and dangerously comprehensible in comparison with
others. These include Glad (which means the opposite; it's a French
acronym for the campaign to globalise struggles and acts of
disobedience), No-Vox (including a large number of people who
shout rather well, especially at traditional social democrats who
believe in democracy) and something called Claaac G8 (which
stands for the convergence of anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist
struggles against the G8). But upton-on-line's favourite by far is the Réseau
(Network) Intergalactique. Not content with stopping Coca Cola on
planet earth some far-sighted people are determined to stop ignoble
views reaching the stars.
And just before anyone writes it all off as a tired make-over of the
1960s, this is all being taken deadly seriously by France's
theoretically centre-right government. Half a million euros from the
French government helped swell the total budget for the forum (mainly
funded by more radically left-leaning town councils) to €3.4. A tidy
sum. Now where was that village that needed a safe fresh water supply?
What are we to make of this?
The hyper-factionalism that attends events like the European Social
Forum make them a sitting target for cynical column writers (including,
he must admit it, upton-on-line). One wonders whether its leaders could
long survive in an ism-free zone. But there is no doubting the popular
undercurrent of discontent that is being tapped and it has little to do
with the working classes in whose name all manner of struggles are being
constantly evoked. How can it be that unparalleled prosperity, freedom
of expression and security have spawned such angst on the part of those
who are obvious beneficiaries of societies that not only tolerate
opposition but actually help fund it? Upton-on-line has his own opinions
here. But if you were searching for a real authority, you probably
couldn't go past Jérôme Bonnafont.
While socialist luminaries were being stoned, one of President
Chirac's most polyvalent and linguistically peerless experts was
hard at it working the traps. It has has been his task to track the
progress of the alter-mondialiste movement from its inception, trying
always to decode the polysyllabic fog and seek out points of
convergence. It's such a different approach from the one New Zealanders
are used to - either you're for us or against us. That certainly makes
for certainty but it may mean you don't know how to read your opponents
when the chips are down. Of one thing we can be sure: the French
Presidency as an institution makes it its business to know what's going
on. Being forewarned is forearmed when the barricades are raised.
Tribalism meets political theory
Upton-on-line is still meeting and corresponding with readers who admit
that they haven't read Histories, Power and Loss, a
ground-breaking series of essays edited by Andrew Sharp and Paul McHugh
(Bridget Williams Books, 2001). Needless to say, the great political
debates of the day are not won in academia and this sort of writing is
not to everyone's taste. But it is surprising how careless New
Zealanders are about debates going on under their noses. For those
prepared to devote a couple of hour's summer reading to such a reckless
recreation, upton-on-now recommends a companion piece this time,
surprise, surprise, from a French institution.
Upton-on-line was simply stunned to come across an electronic journal
entitled Ethnologies Comparées (Comparative Anthropology)
published by CERCE, the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Comparative en
Ethnologie at the Paul Valéry University in Montpellier. This journal
(scarcely a household name even in Montpellier one suspects) devotes its
spring 2003 issue to Océanie, Début de Siècle, and contains no
fewer than five essays by New Zealand academics under the grim but
familiar title of New Zealand: the Crisis of Bi-culturalism. An
even more apposite title might have been Tribalism meets political
theory. All deal with the tensions that have been set up in the last
decade by governmental attempts to settle grievances with traditional,
Treaty-linked tribes and the appearance of contemporary pan-tribal
authorities.
Some of these essays are must-reads for anyone whose intellectual
curiosity is not exhausted by the Sunday Star Times. They may be
found at this web page: http://alor.univ-montp3.fr/cerce/r6/n.6.htm
(Don't be daunted by the French: the papers are in English!) While all
are of interest they are not equally challenging. Toon van Meijl
recapitulates (at length) the changing interest the Government of New
Zealand has shown in recognising the tribal unit over 160 years. In what
is a largely unreflective piece, van Meijl awkwardly introduces a
Machiavellian motivation into the Crown's recent recognition of tribal
authorities in noting that "[T]he intense division of Maori society
following the implementation of devolution raises the question whether
it had perhaps been a deliberate government tactic to divide Maori
interests by encouraging tribalism and cut spending." This sort of
unsubstantiated conjecture mars an otherwise workmanlike account of the
history of Crown-iwi relations. It will also seem surreal to politicians
of all colours who have often felt bewildered by this debate. A more
realistic (though by no means more noble) explanation might be that most
non-Maori politicians don't have any strong feelings - they just wish
someone would sort out representation issues for them.
A much more focussed piece entitled The Bureaucratisation of
Genealogy by Lyn Waymouth, examines the transformation of
Ngai Tahu's governance from a communal tradition-based system to a
legal-rational bureaucratic system. It reaches a similar conclusion not
too far from van Meijl:
"A small number of pan-Maori bureaucracies that instigate policy
and control the future direction of Maori could override and threaten
any final remnants of whakapapa-determined organisation. The resulting
structure would accomplish what historic and contemporary government and
Crown policies set out to do — amalgamate groups under one system
regardless of boundaries, whanaungatanga alliances and issues of
self-governance. The bureaucratic structures would become the censored
versions of Maori society."
Van Meijl closes with the stark observation that the effect of
embracing traditional iwi has been "to widen the gap between a
tribal aristocracy and a pan-tribal proletariat". The idea is not
developed. But Elizabeth Rata does, in a most remarkable essay
entitled An Overview of Neotribal Capitalism. Some may recall
that Rata was introduced to upton-on-line readers in our May 2003
edition. On that occasion she was wearing Kantian protective gear in
grappling with the treacherous shallows of post-modernism and Kura
Kaupapa Maori learning. Here she dons neo-Marxist garb to describe what,
in her terms, is the hi-jacking of a movement for cultural and political
bi-culturalism rooted in ideals of social justice by a
neo-traditionalist movement that sees the control of significant
resources being vested in hierarchical tribal structures. Rata does not
mince words and her conclusions are bound to offend. Take this for
example:
"The frequent use of post-colonial
approaches, such as post-colonial trauma, to explain continuing Maori
disadvantage had become less plausible given the visible evidence of
considerable advantage to some Maori and ongoing disadvantage to Maori
poor."
Her conclusion is a textbook Marxist account of how traditional
structures are transmuted in their encounter with capital:
"...Exploitative class relations, based upon
differential access to and control of the traditional resources,
replaced the traditional relationships located in the tribal
hierarchical structures of a redistributive economy.
The tribe as the structuring principle of the
social relations of the kin-group, was a legally defined economic unit
within a democratic nation-state, a corporate neotribe. Despite the fact
that the neotribe continues to practice certain cultural customs of the
traditional tribe and is comprised of the descendants of its historical
members, it is a new social structure, defined primarily by its economic
functions. It is an economic corporation in a capitalist economic
system, the same as all capitalist organisations in that it is
accumulative not redistributive, class not communally structured.
It is not the modernised productive forces that
determined the character of the tribe but the underlying relations
between the people. Despite claims that these relations were still
communal as in the traditional tribe, the logic of capitalism is that of
an accumulatory regime which privileges those who own or control the
capital resources. Accumulation follows resource ownership or control of
the commodification process. Class division results from that control.
The elite of the neotribe has a privileging relationship to the
resources under its control. This fact separates them from those who, as
a result of their detribalised status, are not even nominal owners of
the tribes’ resources, and from those, who, as tribal members, are
nominal shareholders in the tribal corporation, but whose influence is
limited by the leadership ideology of neotribal capitalism."
You don't have to be a Marxist to observe the gap between traditional
institutions and their reconstruction at the hands of rationalising
modernists. It is this phenomenon that Andrew Sharp explores in
a truly superb essay entitled Traditional Authority and the
Legitimation Crisis of 'Urban Tribes': the Waipareira Case. It
involves a careful critique of the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal's
Waipareira decision in 1998. Sharp is a philosopher and he provides a
stunning reading of the Tribunal's argumentation that forensically
uncovers the fault-line that runs through its earnest desire to
demonstrate that the Waipareira Trust held tino rangatiratanga even
though (as a pan-tribal authority) that could not be rooted in whakapapa
and therefore be self-justifying in a fundamentally traditional way.
The Tribunal had run up against the absolute assertion of Apirana
Mahuika's now famous statement that "to deny whakapapa ... as
the key to both culture and iwi is a recipe for disaster, conflict, and
disharmony." Sharp describes the way in which rational thought
runs up against custom in this way:
"It might be a reasonable question to ask in
English or many other natural languages whether a particular law or
custom is a good one, or even whether a body of law or custom should be
regarded as morally binding on a people. But these are not intelligent
questions to ask of tikanga. To ask them would be to misunderstand the
concept, which carries the affirmative answer within itself. Tikanga
simply is that which is (to quote dictionaries) « right, just, the way
» (e.g. Williams 1971 sub. « mana »). It is the basis of all
justification and it is inappropriate to ask that it in turn should be
justified."
The problem the Tribunal faced can be simply stated. It wanted to
assert that its findings were fully consistent with tikanga. But it was
not content simply to assert that because tikanga was intact, all must
be good or right. It sought to adduce arguments that justified
tikanga, that sought to explain the legitimacy of the Waipareira
Trust by reference to abstract ideas - and in doing so let
modernity through the door.
Sharp identifies two lines of reasoning by the Tribunal that were
inconsistent with what one might term the traditionalist position. One
is an identification of tikanga with abstract principles - like some
ideals of good community relations. The moment you erect abstract
principles you set up a yardstick against which real contemporary
tikanga can be judged - and that of course undercuts that view that if
something accords with custom it must, ipso facto, be valid. The
other line of reasoning viewed tikanga as an evolving body of custom
that is validated by the implied consent of those who continue to
practice and respect them. But again, if consent and contingency operate
as a validating force, the traditionalist view is again undermined.
Sharp's critique of the Tribunal is a sympathetic one since, in his
view, the contemporary reality is that Maori don't operate in a universe
that is beyond external critique:
"As will already be evident in the Waipareira
case, Maori do just this, and there is abundant evidence elsewhere that
they do (Sharp 1995). When they do, they may be described, with Michael
Oakeshott, as rationalising their tradition (Oakeshott 1974b). Having
abstracted its leading principles — even though, like the Waitangi
Tribunal, they cannot go so far as to list everything that is good —
they then apply those principles as a critique not only of alien ways of
proceeding, but of their own. This is inevitable. Propositions (unlike
ceremonies, or dances, or images in sound or space) naturally call to
the mind their contraries. The presence of contrary propositions leads
to dispute; custom fails in its central function of containing dispute ;
a process of subjecting a tradition to question is set in train."
In a neat closing manoeuvre Sharp points out that the
destabilisation of Maori custom is not so very different from the
destabilisation inflicted on early modern European societies by two
towering figures in the pantheon of western political consciousness, Machiavelli
and Locke. He describes it in these terms:
"It is fascinating to contemplate the
similarities in thought of one whose thought has deeply pervaded
individualist liberal-democratic ideology with that of Maori theorists
intent on saving the appearances of tikanga.
Modes of justification and legitimation are
open-ended. Maori modes are no different. The operation of reason in
conditions of contingency will always make the appeal to tikanga a
difficult manoeuvre. Confronting the collected, inter-generation iwi,
bound in love by whakapapa, there will always be either the « poor
forked creature » (Ignatieff, 1984 : 27-53) who stands alone and makes
his world because he must, or the confident liberal-democrat who is an
individualist, makes his world and is cheerful with it."
Are we drowning in erudition?
One answer might be to poll readers to see how many got as far as
this! Obviously, real political debate and nation-building doesn't take
place in seminar rooms. On the other hand, Sharp's reflective treatment
provides a critique that is not harnessed to the agenda of any
contesting party. This is why (or should be why) societies like ours
support scholarship - to subject our institutions and assumptions to
open enquiry in the belief that human beings, whatever their beliefs,
are capable of communication and reciprocation - the sine qua non
of an open, peaceable society. It brings to mind Pocock's comment
cited in u-o-l some months ago - namely, that the two major
peoples of New Zealand have
"known and shaped each other for two
centuries, and the antagonisms and incomprehensions between them do not
altogether preclude that situation in which ‘they know what I think of
them and I know what they think of me’ and the relations between them
are implicit as well as explicit.”
Sharp's essay is written (explicitly) in the shadow of Pocock whose
'Machiavellian moment' is used to explain tikanga as "a method of
containing and controlling the potentially catastrophic invasion of
contingency (or fortuna) into their [Maori] affairs". It is
an entirely worthy act of identification with New Zealand's greatest
living thinker in the humanities. Sharp respectfully places the entire
history of western political thought at the service of some of the most
potent debates surrounding Maori identity. Contrary to the charges of
those who would allege intellectual colonisation, (and Sharp cites
without judgement Moana Jackson in this respect), this essay is
proof that what we have in New Zealand is not some impenetrable,
autochthonous mystery, nor some shallow derivative discourse, but a most
amazing fertility of intellectual creativity in the face of the cultural
dislocation of both Maori and European New Zealanders.
That is mightily reassuring to those of us who worry that the
isolated gold-fish bowl of New Zealand culture will become anoxic. If
our leaders miss the boat completely, it will not be because some of our
best academics were found wanting. The political establishment has got
to start connecting with this debate. To spell it out in really bald
terms, the political Left has to start applying its rich inheritance of
arguments based on justice and human rights to constitutional and
political debates that the Treaty has unleashed. And the political Right
has to weight up the arguments not just in terms of the Lockean
properties of "life, liberty and estate" that Sharp recalls,
but also its own ambiguous relationship with the world of tradition,
custom and the sceptical embrace of rationalism embodied in a thinker
like Oakeshott. Sharp provides all these signposts and more. Has
anyone got their eyes on the road?
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