When I was a kid, and before daylight savings was implemented, our family would go down to the local beach camping ground each summer for a short holiday. We stayed in a caravan my dad built and it got dark early. I can recall going to bed with the tide in and getting up in the morning and it was as if the tide had never gone out. It fascinates me till today that the sea keeps a regular cycle that no one can interrupt or prevent.
Then I heard the story of King Canute. He was the King, who myth has it, was the most powerful ruler of the then known Western world. A real historical figure who ruled from Scandinavia to England, he was ruthless in his youth but was supposed to have mellowed in is old age. His advisers kept telling him he was the best thing since thinly sliced reindeer– well they didn’t have sliced bread back then – that he decided to teach them a lesson. Because they kept telling him "even the sea obeys your commends" he took the royal throne to the seaside and waited. The myth has it that as the tide rose he kept yelling, "stay back". Within a few hours he had proved his vincibility to his advisers and shown them up to be the toadying, sycophants they were.
We live in similar times. Yet the roles are reversed. No matter how we view it, we have no absolute rulers lauding it over us. Sure, it seems that the Bush and Howard regimes are all conquering juggernauts but if we look closer there are rumblings from below. These men are not the wise leaders who will stand out the front and demonstrate the stupidity of those around them. Rather, their role is to be the focus point of public attention while the real powers do their work.
I find it ironic that in the week we find out that almost a quarter of all American children are living in poverty and in Australia the latest UNICEF report reveals that "14.7 per cent of Australian children now live in poverty" our homes are invaded by two princes and a princess whose lives are taken up by, well, as one report has it, gala dinners, ribbon cuttings and "official engagements".
The tide is turning.
Just the other day we had an interest rate rise thrust on us as the best treasurer and PM in the world continued to tell us that all is well and that in no way was the sky going to fall in on us. Then we hear that the same British company that runs some of our government’s detention centres is found to have employed racist bigots to "guard" the detainees and who happen to physically, psychologically and sexually abuse them. Then (will it ever stop) we find out that the Grand Prix is costing Victorians quite a bit more than the proverbial arm and leg.
But, the tide is turning.
Where are our Canutes? Some have argued, quite erroneously, that our erstwhile leaders are really the Canutes. They argue that if it wasn’t for the Bushs and the Howards and the Costellos and the Beasleys and the Rumsfelds and the Blairs and the Fredericks and the Marys and the Charles and the Greenspans and the Murdochs and the Laws’ and the Sattlers and the Mitchells and the Jones’ we would all be stuffed. They argue that unless we surrender our mental, moral and other faculties to these people our worlds will collapse, nasty towel heads will kill our children and the water in all the rivers will dry up.
Well, the tide is turning.
When I was a child holidaying in the family caravan I spent the nights sleeping warm and comfortable in my bunk totally oblivious of the natural order of things. The sea was "out" once a day and over night, well, like me it was too tired to go out after dark and so stayed in, warm and comfortable on the beach. Or so I assumed.
Then I saw the tide turn.
I heard the story of King Canute and how the tide went in and out twice a day. "Silly me," I thought. "I slept through the cycle". In a short space of time I came to understand that the natural order doesn’t allow human interference for to long. I learnt that the sun and the moon and the sea cannot be stopped, no matter how hard we try. I learnt that when the tide is out there is more than just more beach to play on. We did class excursions to rock pools and were made to pick up all sorts of slimy, smelly things.
The tide was coming in.
As I grew up and living in a beach side town, I realised that there was a great beauty to be found in the oddest places. The tide played its part. When it was in it washed up all sorts of interesting things and carried with it what at first glance might be beasties and monsters ready to be examined. I discovered the wonders of the rock pools and the beauty that resided there.
The tide is out at the moment and we have no King Canutes to lead us and demonstrate to us that no matter how many diversions, tricks, smoke and mirrors, press releases or mega-events the advisers organise, the tide is turning against them.
Our potentials as individuals, communities and societies are being diverted into even more narrow pursuits. The advances we have made in technology, that when I was an apprentice were being sold as offering "more leisure time", have now placed even more Australians in a permanent state of "leisure time". The children of the partially or non-employed are living in conditions that our grandparents worked hard to escape from. Meanwhile our leaders display their unwillingness to work for us and their absolute willingness to surrender to those who they think keep them in power.
The tide is rising.
While our papers and TV and radio news bulletins are filled with reports of princes and princesses and racing cars taking over the streets of Melbourne we have events like those in Macquarie Fields in Sydney which offer a counterpoint to the waste and obscenity that is the Grand Prix. While more middle aged men will take their own lives today because of the shame of unemployment and their own feelings of inadequacy, more time and space will be taken up in our media on the opinions of the affluent are offended by interest rate rises. We will hear, read or see little, if anything, of the young children who will miss out on a meal because there just is no money in the kitty. While our talkback radio stations will be filled with the indignant callers, decrying the Howard government’s backflip on interest rates, no time will be devoted to examining the social conditions the present political economy constrains us to.
How long do we have to wait? The tide is lapping at our feet. We are not asleep. We are sleepy perhaps, but not comatose. Yet we allow our society to be overwhelmed by structural changes that threaten us both personally and collectively. What can we do?
As the tide of human misery in those places that have lived under oppression for many years rises we are finding that people are turning against the complacency their leaders show. In places like Aceh, the independence movement grows in strength even as the Indonesian persecution of their society increases. In Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s resistance to the military junta remains as firm as ever and her followers there remain resolute in their resistance to the military regime. In Iraq, the resistance to the invaders grows bolder, stronger but more deadly each day. Those who hope for a free and open Iraq turn to force when reason fails. In Venezuela the people are willing to die to protect their president from US sponsored assassins. Here we may well let the bus hit Howard but then we have to look at who would step in.
The tide has turned and as it went out it left, in its wake, a drying beach on which, in small pools and hollows, those with stamina and foresight remained, waiting for the refreshing water to return. They did not sleep. They did not lose hope. They never gave up their faith in the basic goodness of the natural order. In some corners of the globe, or to use the analogy I’ve drawn on, on some beaches, they now show up as fools those who have tried to maintain power in the face of the ever powerful natural order and attempt to return their communities to a state of peace and tranquillity.
In my youth I slept through the change. This time, I want to be on the beach when the tide is high again. I hope I see you, with wet feet, standing beside me.