On Politics

“Everyone seems to think you’re on their side

But I don’t think you’re that small

How could they see it when reason has died

We haven’t a clue to it all”

~ ‘Half Light, Epoch And Phase’, by Terry Scott Taylor

from the Daniel Amos album “Darn Floor, Big Bite”, 1987

I have a horrible, dark confession to make.  The following confession will not likely win me new friends among many of the circles I belong to.  It may even make me a couple of new enemies.  Are you ready?

I’m a Leftist.

I’m a Left-wing Liberal Hippy Tree-hugging Pinko Commie.

OK, perhaps that is going a little far for the sake of effect, but it remains that I am far more sympathetic to left-wing politics than to the conservative.

Left and right-wing politics, as I understand it, came from the time of the French Revolution, when those involved in the Legislative Assembly of 1791 sat on either the left or right depending on their political allegiance.  The left has traditionally been linked with socialism, the rights of the (often poor) lower classes and working people, while the right is  associated with class order, consumerism and capitalism, and in its extreme, fascism.

What I don’t get, what I cannot seem to wrap my head around, is the so-called Christian Right.  At the very least, I cannot understand why the Christian Church seems to be inextricably linked with the right of politics, as if being a conservative automatically follows a belief in God.  Left-wing politics, as defined during the French Revolution, was associated with the secularisation of politics, so a degree of connection between the Christian Church and the conservative right is at least understandable.  However, it does seem to me that in left-wing politics, an individual of faith may very well find much that ought be considered desirable; a respect for the rights of individuals, a sense of social justice, the belief that all are created equal, a sentiment which finds itself an echo of Biblical Scripture.  This last point has a particular resonance for me, being a descendant of the Huguenots, a left-wing French Protestant people that were persecuted heavily by the ruling Catholic nobility in the time before the Revolution.  It’s true that the Left often views the Christian Right’s pro-religious stance as a tendency to authoritarianism and repression, and historically, sadly, it seems there is often good reason, as the Huguenots can attest.

On a personal note, I tend to find a coldness in right-wing politics that I often find distasteful.  In the recent long period of Federal conservatism in Australia under John Howard’s Liberal/National coalition government, there seems to have been an uneasy increase in the politics of fear, where free speech was curtailed*, and lowest-common-denominator politics was frequently pushed to the forefront of national debate.  One doesn’t need to go much further than the ongoing asylum-seeker debate to see evidence of the legacy of this push.  It saddens me that many of the Left are seemingly competing with the Right for the slimy bottom-of-the-barrel of that particular issue, which frankly should be a no-brainer for those who espouse tolerance and kindness.

If I’m sounding like I’m really not enamoured with the (oxymoronic) Liberal party in Australia, then you’re not at all wrong.  If you still don’t quite understand why, then I guess I can say only two more words: Children Overboard.  If you’re not familiar with this nasty little episode, please look it up.

I’m bringing all this up because these viewpoints have not won me friends with Christians, and I have been a target of petty and dismissive scorn on more than one occasion for not choosing to have a political bent that many of my friends have.  I once heard Jim Reiher (Christian, theological lecturer, author and shock! horror! Greens candidate) say** to a disgracefully hostile Christian gathering that in his opinion, one cannot expect to find a single political party whose policies line up absolutely and completely with an individual’s personal views on each and every issue.  Indeed, not every member of a political party will agree with everyone in their own party on every issue.  Perhaps the best one can do is to weigh up all the policies of every party and find the party that represents your views the most. I remember the crowd scoffing and even jeering whenever Mr Reiher spoke.  I took what he had to say to heart. I find more compassion in left-wing politics.  As a Christian, when the choice is either dogmatic stringency or compassion, I’ll choose compassion every time.

In the end, it seems that of recent times, the Left has been doing it’s darnedest to shift to the middle.  There is an increasing pressure in politics to be fiscally conservative, so much so that the Left and Right are often fighting for the same ground rather than delineating points of difference.  The Right doesn’t seem quite so anxious not to be who they are than Australia’s Labor Left seems to be, and the Australian Greens are now very far more to the left of Australian politics than the ALP.  In my efforts to avoid confrontation (honestly, who needs more ridicule?), perhaps I have also been too quick to be hide my politics, much like the ALP has.  Perhaps I shouldn’t allow myself to be embarrassed by my convictions.  Maybe being a Lefty is not such a horrible, dark confession after all.

*I have strong memories of Mr Howard and his ministers physically and forcibly preventing opposing members of the Federal Senate, specifically Kerry Nettle, from passing on a letter to a visiting fellow-arch-conservative in George W Bush - see http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s973858.htm for details.

**I’m paraphrasing rather than directly quoting.  I hope I’ve expressed the sentiments of Mr Reiher’s words accurately.  If not, then sincere apologies.