What does "Asia" and the "Asian century" mean?

Waking up early this morning with no deadlines for the rest of the day, I enjoyed the luxury of a relaxed stroll around my part of the blogosphere. There were many things that I could write about as a consequence, some serious, others not so. In the end, my attention was caught by the on-going discussion on the Lowy Institute blog on Australia in the Asian Century. You will find the full series of posts here.

By way of background for international readers, the Australian Government has commissioned a White Paper (The Henry Review) on Australia in the Asian Century to consider the likely economic and strategic changes in the region and what more can be done to position Australia for the Asian Century. The Lowy Institute is attempting to encourage discussion on the issues raised.

In this brief comment, I want to look at just one issue, the importance of definitions.

Over the last few years, I have written a fair bit on the way our mental mud maps and the words we use to express those maps affect thinking.

The world is a complex place. To understand it, we have to simplify, to create patterns. We then attach labels to those patterns, each representing a bundle of thoughts and views. Those labels acquire a life of their own, conditioning subsequent thought and actions. Importantly, the labels act to exclude alternative ways of thinking.  

"Asia" is example of such a label, as is the idea of an "Asian century". You can see the influence at work in this quote from an interview with Bob Carr, Australia's new Foreign minister in The Phnom Penh Post.  

I think our engagement will grow. The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has a very cordial view of Australia. I remember one minister saying that Australians may have white skin — but that’s less and less true, as our population has Asianised — but we think like Asians. That’s a very great compliment, because we are working hard to adapt to a century that will be dominated by Asia.

Now I have no idea what this quote actually means. We can see that Hun Sen has a view of Asia and Australia, Bob Carr has a view of Asia and Australia, but beyond that?

Take "we think like Asians". What do Asians actually think? Indeed, what are Asians?

Asia is a useful geographic descriptor, although the boundaries of Asia have varied.

Take, as an example, the use of term subcontinent to describe the Indian peninsular. This recognises that the peninsular is part of Asia, but is also distinct, almost a continent in its own right. Of course, the very idea of continents is an example of another label.

Now if we look at the subcontinent and immediate surrounds, is Afghanistan or Shri Lanka part of Asia? Or, for that matter, Tibet?

The old British centric label of the Far East, a label synonymous with Asia, excluded India. The Indian Empire adjoined, but was distinct from Asia. Japan or China were Asian, India was not. It was a world of its own.

Just at the moment my train reading is Geoffrey Blainey's A very short history of the world. The river civilisations that arose in what is now China and India were very distinct, although there was a flow of ideas. To lump the whole lot now with their very different histories under a single label, Asia, is to mislead.

Power is always expressed in geographic terms.

To Australia with its dependence on sea lanes, the critical geopolitical issues are in fact maritime. This country's world centres on the Pacific and Indian oceans and on the critical sea lanes. This coincides with main national groupings - India with its focus on the Indian ocean and its relationships with adjoining Pakistan and China; North Asia and especially China with their relationships to each other, the Pacific and the US; and the ASEAN countries and especially Indonesia that straddle key sea lanes and provide something of a natural buffer against developments further north.

This is a complex pattern, further complicated by our relationships with the US. Further, it is a pattern over which this country has very little control. Australia may, as our foreign ministers delight in telling us, be a mid range power. However, the words of themselves indicate the limits. We are important enough to be a player, but our role will always be a subsidiary one outside certain limited areas.

Much of the current discussion on Australia in the Asian century centres on economics. Even here we have to be careful about the application of the label Asian, for Asia is not an economic entity.

To amplify this, consider the Sydney Morning Herald piece: How corporate Australia found a niche in India. However Asia may be defined, each Asian country represents a different market place or indeed market places, each with its own complexities. You cannot speak in generalities.

The growing integration between Australia and various Asian countries will continue, bringing their own changes in this country.

Just as major Australian hotels and tour operators once focused on the Japanese market place, now China is the flavour of the month. From congee for breakfast to the inclusion of Chinese language TV stations in room offerings, Australia's hotels are attempting to meet the needs of the growing Chinese visitor marketplace. In doing so, they are not focusing on the generality Asia, but on the specifics of a defined group of customers.

I think that this really captures my point. Rather than focusing on Asia as such, Australia's approach has to be multi-level and nuanced, taking differences into account. This leads to me to doubt the value of the white paper itself beyond a very superficial level. To my mind, there is actually a real risk that it might mislead, translating into generalities that conceal the need to respond to difference.        

That crumpled look

Today I found my mind drifting again to clothes, following on from Refashioning Dad and then End of the fashion big brands?

One thing that I has amazed me a little is the return of the crumpled look.

If you at old photos other than posed shots, you will see that clothes are often very crumpled. It was just such a pain to press things, if indeed you could. I actually remember the old irons heated on top of the stove, for they lingered on well into the fifties if only in store.

Now when I look at fashion shots, both men and women sometimes look very crumpled indeed.

At one level I don't mind. Crumpled saves time. At a second level, I do wonder.

Why pay a huge sum just to look crumpled when you could achieve just the same effect by sleeping in your clothes overnight? It's on par with It's on par with what we might call "aged" jeans. Fancy paying a premium for a piece of clothing when you can achieve the same effect through normal wear and tear!

But then, I will never be a dedicated follower of fashion.    

End of the fashion big brands?

Continuing my muse on fashion that began with Refashioning Dad, one of the points that Marion Humes makes in her review of the Australian fashion industry is the explosion in choice available to women since she became editor of Vogue in, I think, 1997. That would certainly fit with my own impressions. 

Part of the increased choice came from reduced tariff protection making a wider range of cheaper goods available. Then many people simply had more money to spend. Most recently, the internet has provided access to a very wide range of fashion choices indeed.

Neither choice nor indeed designer labels necessarily means quality or style. I thought that the man's outfit in this photo was remarkably daggy. I was reassured that eldest daughter shared that view.

The cost of the outfit, by the way: Armani gray jacket $1,390, pants $690 and cotton shirt $390. I can look just as daggy at far less cost.

As often happens, my interest in the review was sparked by professional as well as personal interest.

In the first half of last year I did some work for Dilanchian Lawyers. This included analysis of particular client matters. I am not a lawyer, although I have a reasonably good general knowledge of certain areas of law. Instead, I focused on disentangling the economic and commercial issues underlying the various cases. A number of the cases I looked at involved the fashion industry.

In her review, Ms Humes pointed to some of the changes that have been taking place in the structure of the fashion industry. Those changes lay at the heart of the cases I reviewed.

The simple bricks and mortar models of the past were being replaced by a multiplicity of distribution channels in an increasingly global market place. In turn, this had created a complex web of legal agreements as suppliers attempt to maximise their position across markets and channels. The result has been some something of a lawyers delight!

Fashion has always been fickle. Styles change, as does brand positioning. The rise of the brand has been one of the remarkable features of the last twenty years. No matter where you go in the world, you will find the same brands, real and counterfeit.

But can the brand survive? I do wonder about that.

I am not saying that brands will vanish. People are still attracted by labels that have particular status or images attached to them. But increasingly, consumers use the internet to search for styles they like independent of brand.

The concept of territory, a defined geographic market, has already become a victim of the changes. Why buy a brand at a particular store when you can source exactly the same thing from a multiplicity of sources?

The big brands are  already struggling with this one. It lies at the heart of many commercial disputes. Now they have to face multiple competitors and an increasingly sophisticated consumer. It all makes life a tad difficult!

Refashioning Dad

Eldest daughter Helen has become the fashion guru for her father and also, if to a lesser extent, her mother.

My train reading this morning was in fact an article, really a set of articles, that appeared in Australia's Friday Financial Review glossy magazine. In a status update on Facebook I wrote:

I  normally don't read the glossy magazine that appears in Friday's Financial Review. Too many things that I either don't like or can't afford! This time I was attracted by Marion Humes' review of the Australian fashion industry. It was bitsy, that's pretty much normal now because of reduced attention spans, but there was some interesting stuff. Maybe a story or two!

While my focus in the comment was on the stories themselves, I was also thinking personally.

When I got home tonight, I gave Helen the section to read, asking her opinion. I also asked her about some of the ads for men's clothing. Her opinions mirrored mine. That was reassuring. We then talked about my desire to buy some new clothing. I wanted to shift my image.

As a writer trying to support a writing addiction through contract work, I simply cannot afford the clothes I used to buy. The money is just not there. On the other hand, I like to look smart.  So H and I worked trough my wardrobe.

I was reassured that she thought my basic taste was good. I never buy top fashion stuff, more classic lines that are likely to last. I also try to buy clothes that will fit in different circumstances.

We worked through my remaining clothing, much old. I will throw half of this out, replacing it with a limited number of new purchases built around strong statements. That way I get a good mix, things that will make me feel smart.

Influenza baby

I have been at a function for much of the day and don't really feel like writing. So just a family shot.

This is Aunt Phyllis. She was an outgoing and much loved child who died from influenza during the First World war.

We in Western countries forget today just how dangerous diseases like influenza were. Somehow we believe that we can escape the fragilities of life. The reality is quite different. 

Life is remarkably fragile. So enjoy life while you have it.

Saturday Morning Musings - civilisation, progress & the importance of empathy

Once or twice on this blog I have written on the concept of progress. I was reminded of this by Legal Eagle's post The Hunger Games.

Back in July 2007 in New Barbarians? I said in part:

In all this, when I look at the history of European civilisation, I can see just that, the progressive development of a civilisation. I say European civilisation because I do not know enough of other streams to exactly follow the same process there, although I am sure that it exists.

The civilising process was never uniform nor exact. There were major retreats from time to time, but the progress was there.

Alfred North Whitehead's Adventure of Ideas traced this process through in a European context showing how different threads came together to create European civilisation. Whitehead published this book in 1933 and did not see the uniquely European barbarism that was to come with Hitler and the Nazis.

But even here, when we look at the outcomes, the Second World War introduced the concept of war crimes. Further, the German people were not punished, as Rome punished Carthage, through extermination down to ploughing the fields with salt. Instead, Germany was rebuilt, while Europe itself moved to put put previous civil wars behind it by creating the EU.

Whitehead had an enormous influence on my thinking because he seemed to me show a process of change, of the way in which combination of ideas could, with time, create what I thought of as civilisation. Later, I did ethics as part of my Philosophy I course.

I actually found the ethics component depressing because it challenged my idea that there was a "right", showing that different ethical systems all depended on different forms of rationalisation. However, it gave me greater tolerance for different views, while also reinforcing my belief in the importance of civilisation and the concept of progress as a process. Some of the alternatives were just so sterile. Empty of hope or even choice, they offered nothing but despair.

In May 2009 in Saturday Morning Musings - the concept of progress, I worried about the loss of our belief in progress. "Some might argue that progress is an illusion, that its pursuit has done damage", I suggested. I went on:

I do not share this view. To my mind, progress is a liberating concept because it implies that change for the better is possible. If you don't believe that progress is possible, then what's the point in trying?

To my mind, the emergence of post-modernism with its very denial of the concept of progress was in some ways a sign of the ennui that began to envelop life in many western countries.

I seem to have chewed away at this many times.

Moral Courage, Fear, Technology and the Decline of the West (August 2007) looked at the impact of terrorism. There my concern was, in part, the impact on liberty and life of Government's desire to control and protect:

While all Governments have authoritarian tendencies, the last three decades have seen to my mind a remarkable rise in state authoritarianism in Australia. Governments do less for their people, but attempt to control more. This control permeates every activity and every level of society.

As I saw it, the rise of state authoritarianism was a denial of some of the central tenets in my own view of civilisation.

I am not a libertarian. However I do believe, as Thomas Jefferson may or may not have said, that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. 

In November 2008 in Why I remain an optimist - and why I still believe in progress I restated my belief in progress. There I wrote in part: "if you look at the evolution of human society and thought, you will see that the need to control our human weaknesses, the desire to find a better way, is a constant thread."

This is only a smattering of the things that I have written, but it gives a taste of my personal views.

I am no longer a Christian in the way I once was. I do not miss the anguish created by conflicts between stated views of moral right as prescribed or defined, the very real fear of rotting in hell, and my natural inclinations. I do miss the certainty that that my beliefs also created.

The King James bible is one of the most wonderful books in the English language. The grandeur of its language permeates much of English writing and indeed conversation at so many levels over so many years.

In the midst of the decline in my own religious views came a focus on certain things expressed with simplicity and clarity and indeed a certain grandeur in that book. These were things that I heard in church, chapel or Sunday school.

It is hard to believe now that during term time I went to school chapel five days a week, was part of a school bible study group, went to the Methodist Church on Sunday and was a member first of the Junior Order of Knights and then the Methodist Youth Fellowship. This broad pattern continued into university.

As the broad superstructure of my beliefs dropped way, I came to focus on a small number of key things.

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" was the first. Such a simple idea, but so powerful, for it can be applied in all aspects of human life. 

"Go the extra mile" is more complicated because the concept that has now become enshrined was originally a little different as expressed in the bible: "and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

This is an example of the long historical reach of some of our concepts. At the time these words were recorded, the law allowed a Roman soldier to make a person carry his back pack for a Roman mile, or a thousand paces. In making his reported statement, Jesus was saying that if you are required to carry that pack for one mile, do it also for the second. Now the "extra mile" is deeply enshrined in our thinking.

The combination of do unto others with the extra mile is not a bad base for a moral philosophy. But then there is 1 Corinthians 13, my old school lesson. This begins:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Charity or love is a pretty important concept. The idea that without this our lives become little more than a sounding brass or tinkling symbol provides a useful corrective. The section finishes:

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

I have quoted these words from Paul before. I heard them once a term for for six years. they became very familiar.

Overall, they are important ideas. But listening in the school chapel, it was the words "For now we see through a glass, darkly" that grabbed.

Then it was just the sounds of the words. Now it has become so much more.

As what we now call a teenager with very strong sex drives and teenage confusion, I heard the words in terms of the comparison with my childhood. Now when the dark clouds sometimes gather, when things seem confused and difficult, when clarity or certainty seems distant, they become something that I can focus on.

This is not meant to be a sermon, simply a Saturday Morning Muse. So to finish, let me return to Legal Eagle's post.

In that post, she quotes Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I haven't read the book, but Pinker outlines the ‘inner demons’ which cause us to be violent and the ‘better angels’ which cause us to refrain from being violent. The four better angels listed are:

• Empathy – particularly the sense of sympathetic concern leads us to feel the pain of others and align our interests with theirs;
• Self-control – this allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses and to moderate them;
• Moral sense – a set of norms and taboos which may decrease violence (although sometimes they increase it too);
• Reason – this allows us to extricate ourselves from parochial vantage points and to deduce ways in which we could be better off.

Of these four, I think that Legal Eagle believes (as I do) that empathy is central. If you cannot feel others pain and joy then you are, at the end, a limited human being.

Modern mobile life

I couldn't resist this one.

Just back from a workshop in Moruya. Three colleagues, three mobile exchanges! Modern life.

I, the recalcitrant, taking the photo.

Ewes and Rams

Only in Australia would you see this, and now much less frequently since Australia fell off the sheep's back. Now most Australians, I suspect, wouldn't know what a ewe or ram was.

Many years ago I remember going to the Edgeroi Urge,  an all-night recovery dance held after the Bachelors and Spinsters Ball. The thunder from the men's tin urinal between dances was almost deafening!

Currencies, China & the mineral tax

There has been a lot of interesting economic and company news around over the last week or so.

Back in July 2011, Saturday Morning Musings - fall of the US dollar looked at the disparity between weightings in global trade and traded currencies. There I said in part:

I do not pretend to be a currency expert, but on the surface there are advantages in denominating transactions in the currency of one or other of the trading partners. If Australia is trading with China, then (other things being equal) denomination of the transaction in either aussie dollars or yuan limits exchange risk.

I am aware of all the counter arguments. All I am saying is that I feel that, in the longer term, traded currencies are likely to better reflect real patterns of economic activity.

At the time, Fortescue Metals had just announced that it was going to denominate certain contracts in yuan. As another sign of continuing change, last week the Australian Reserve Bank announced a $30b currency swap arrangement with the Chinese central bank. This followed China's decision to allow convertibility between Australian dollars and yuan on the interbank market in China.

These type of change processes are often slow, but you can see the emerging pattern.

On a related topic, there has also been continuing debate in the Australian papers about the amount of revenue that might be raised by the Mineral Resource Rent Tax. This one is quite important in political terms. If the tax raises less than expected, there will be flow on budget and political effects.

Part of the argument about the likely revenue from the tax relates to the structure of the tax itself. However, projected revenue is also being affected by the weakening of the mining boom.

There are two very different mining booms. One is an investment boom, the second the high prices Australia has been receiving for mining exports. The size of investment pipeline means that the first will continue. However, the second is clearly off the boil.

Latest data out of China suggests continued softening in the Chinese economy. This will flow on to prices received for our mineral exports.

It's interesting actually. The estimates I have see suggest that around 40% of mining investment will flow direct to imports. That could push the Australian current account into substantial deficit.

Indonesian views on Australia

In Sunday Essay - the importance of the individual, I referred to a comment I had made on Sam Roggeveen's post, 'Is there an Australian blogosphere?', on the Lowy Institute blog. They have kindly run the comment as a post in their reader riposte series. 

Staying with the Lowy Institute bog in this morning's brief post, in Lowy Institute round-up, Stephanie Dunstan reported on the results of a Lowy Institute poll of Indonesians suggesting that popular opinion towards Australia had warmed markedly since 2006. I have written quite often on the future importance of Indonesia to Australia, so the result was obviously pleasing.

The full poll report is worth reading. You can access it through a link in Stephanie's post. 

Our changing personalities

Earlier in March, Winton Bates had a short piece How much does personality change over time? looking at some evidence suggesting that individual personalities may change more than is often realised.

This topic has always interested me. One of the difficulties lies in the distinction between personality and the way that personality manifests itself. Our personalities lead us to react in particular ways that can then feed back into apparent personality changes. But has our personality actually changed?

Just from observation, I think that the answer here has to be yes. This links to some of the discussion here from time to time on things like the impact of stress and the linked topic of resilience in both individuals and organisations.

A stressed organism may react to stress to the point that those behaviours become inbuilt even where the source of stress has been removed. For all practical purposes, personality has changed.   

Sunday Essay - the importance of the individual

Going into Saturday's Queensland elections, the opinion polls suggested that the ALP Government faced electoral disaster. Even so, the scale of the disaster still came as a surprise.

As I write, the latest electoral figures are:

• Liberal National Party 49.7% with a predicted 78 seats
• ALP 26.6% with a predicted 7 seats
• Katter's Australian Party 11.6% with a predicted 2 seats
• The Greens 7.6% with no predicted seats.

A defeat on this scale creates obvious difficulties for Labor in both being an effective opposition and in rebuilding. It also increases pressure on the ALP Federal Government.

Over on the Lowy Institute blog, Sam Roggeveen's Is there an Australian blogosphere? is, as the title says, a short muse on the existence or otherwise of an Australian blogosphere. The post begins: 

'Europeans can't blog', reads the headline from a newly created blog by the Brussel-based think tank Bruegel. One phrase in particular stuck out at me from this lament about the poor state of European blogging: 'Europe has bloggers, but no blogosphere'.

It seems to me this might be true of Australia also, at least in the political sphere in which this site operates. The distinction between blogs and the blogosphere is that, on its own, a blog is a platform to push out ideas, information and links to other sources. That's a powerful thing in and of itself, but it's when many blogs form a blogosphere that you get, in Bruegel's words, 'a living ecosystem to exchange and debate'.

We have some outstanding political blogs in this country, but from my observation, the 'ecosystem' is a bit barren.

For their own reasons, the Lowy Institute has a somewhat clunky comment system. You have to email your comment and then wait for it to be moderated. While I understand the reasons for this, it does work against interactivity. For that reason, I thought that I should reproduce my comment here: 

Hi Sam. I think it true to say that the Australian blogosphere is fragmented. It’s also true to say that Australian bloggers don’t cross-link as much as they might or indeed should. But it’s not quite as clear-cut as this.

Back in 2010, Dr Alex Bruns released some initial mapping results on the Australian blogosphere. I dealt with it in a post at the time - http://belshaw.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/mapping-australian-blogosphere.html.

If we look at political blogs, you find a clustering effect around main nodes. You also find outriders – the independents – who also link. The patterns change with time, but they are there.

One of the difficulties in the clustering is that, not unexpectedly, the major nodes attract people of common views. A second problem is that there is sometimes very little cross-linking on the major nodes. Yet that said, there are underlying currents that are not always apparent.

The very partisan blogs including those attached to some media outlets tend to attract only the like minded. However, there is a broader and different stream that, while sometimes still partisan, actually focuses on issues. Most of the bloggers in this group either know or know of each other. I call this the village. There are links and interlinks that are not always apparent on the surface.

I was trying to think of the best way of illustrating this. Perhaps one way is to say that I have some ten bloggers who are Facebook friends, another overlapping but different group who follow me on twitter. Then there are those who email me or come through in comments.

I am not an A list blogger, although I have reasonable traffic on my main blogs. My point is that there are a whole series of interactions that have a cumulative impact over time.

There are particular issues that attract major bogging attention. However, a lot of the real work is simply the on-going discussion.

Most mainstream bloggers don’t just blog. They reach out through a variety of channels. We do influence each other, but we also influence the broader debate. The effects here cannot be easily measured, but they seem to be significant over time.

I guess that’s my real point in this comment. Don’t focus on the headline, the grand impact on public discourse. Focus instead on the cumulative effect.  

Regular readers will know that the type of issue raised by Sam have been of interest to me for a long time. I blog a fair bit, so its only natural that I should be interested.

I do think that the Australian blogosphere has declined measured by interactivity and cross-fertilisation. I have suggested that this is in part due to Twitter. Twitter is an aid to interactivity, but it also distracts.

There is only so much time. Some of my fellow bloggers put so much time into tweeting that they greatly reduce the time available for other writing or, indeed, responding. Twitterdom has become a community or series of communities in its own right, but it is a very different community.

Turning to other matters, at his place Neil Whitfield's Trundling into the 21st century talks about a new ABC documentary series Country Town Rescue. The series is described in this way: 

Produced by Zapruder’s other films, Country Town Rescue is the compelling story of how ordinary Australians come together to save a small rural town whose falling population threatens its very existence.

Filmed over twelve months, this series follows five families who ‘up sticks’ with their kids and move to Trundle, a small town in central western NSW. They are welcomed by a passionate group of locals determined to see the small town not only survive but prosper.

Now in what will seem like an unrelated segue, this photo shows the old mining settlement of Silverton outside Broken Hill.

Once much bigger than Broken Hill, Silverton now is a scattering of picturesque buildings in the middle of the desert.

At school, I was fascinated by Nevil Shute's book A Town Like Alice. This tells the story of Jean Paget,  spanning her experiences as young Englishwoman and prisoner of war in Malaya during World War II, then in London and finally in outback Australia. There she sets out to turn a small outback community into a town like Alice.

It wasn't so much the first part of the book that interested me, but the last part, the re-birth of the community. It created an interest in community regeneration that has stayed with me until today.

A Town Like Alice was very popular, generating a film and a TV mini-series. The second was part filmed in Silverton, hence the photo.

The interest created in my mind by the book has really had a profound impact on my life.

Decentralisation and community development was one of the planks I ran on when seeking Country Party pre-selection. It influenced my approach as a policy adviser. It was a factor in the creation of Aymever as a national business headquartered in regional Australia. It influences me today in my writing and in some of my professional work.

I guess that one of my continuing personal frustrations lies in my inability to make some of my ideas stick in a practical sense. I have put my heart, my time and indeed my personal cash into community redevelopment at local and regional level and beyond. There have been successes, but there have been far more failures.

One of the things that I have tried to do in my writing is to get across the importance of the individual. When I look at my own work or the results of my historical research, what comes through time and time again is the importance of individual effort.

If you look at national level, individuals start to blur in the face of broad trends, of the need to summarise and to consolidate. As you drill down, localise, individuals start to stand out. Broad based history, indeed everything that happens, actually comes back to the combination of generally unseen individual effort.

In Queensland, the ALP won't be rebuilt by Party wide election studies, by national or state efforts, although these are necessary. Rebirth will come from the electoral workers who hold the faith and provide the base required to mount future efforts. Individually, each has miniscule impact. Collectively, they are the future. Lose them, and the Party is lost.

I spent a fairly large slab of my life campaigning against the ALP. Yet I never lost sight of the value, indeed the necessity, of those ALP people that I saw on the booths. Often, I had more in common with them than I had with my own party machine. You see, we disagreed but we also cared. As we shared tea and cake and talked, we talked about things that jointly mattered.       

In blogging, I talk about the village. It's the same thing.

Sam Roggeveen is concerned with what we might call macro failure, the big picture stuff. My perspective makes me focus on the small, the cumulative. Real change, the best change, generally happens there. It happens because people strive, hold the faith, even though things sometimes seem hopeless.

I went to Parkes (Musings on a visit to inland NSW) for a workshop. There I talked to an Aboriginal woman who had spent much of the last seven years working to improve housing for her community. She was tired as indeed I am tired, yet she kept on going.

As I listened to her, I thought how marvelous she was. Her impact is not easily measurable on the grand scale, nor in our obsession with macro performance indicators. However, to the families that have better housing as a result of her efforts she is far more important than all the big picture stuff. I think that's kind of important.