TRUTH-TELLING AND POST-COLONIAL CRITIQUES

Nicholas Hasluck’s book Print and Prize: Travels in the Commonwealth (Connor Court Publishing) provides an account of his time as Chair of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In post-colonial discussions – such as the contest over the Voice in Australia in 2023 – Hasluck found that works of fiction by entrants for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in his time as Chair of the Prize illuminated such issues, including the effects of history upon the distribution and exercise of power. To discuss the implications of this evolving effect on language and our notions of truth-telling of the past and evidence told to truth-telling commissions, Nicholas Hasluck – former Judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, author of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction – addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 28 May 2024.

TRUTH-TELLING AND POST-COLONIAL CRITIQUES

NICHOLAS HASLUCK

We are living in unreal times, an era in which political activists and others seem increasingly inclined to characterise the putting of any view contrary to their own as spreading ‘misinformation’. They commend ‘truth-telling’, a term now often linked to the righting of wrongs in former colonies, without being clear as to what exactly they mean.

This was evident in last year’s Voice to parliament referendum. At an early stage of the campaign proponents of the Yes case, including universities, big companies and, surprisingly, almost all sectors of the legal profession, seemed to be in the ascendant. They spoke with great assurance about the righteousness of their cause. Their sanctimonious tone had the unfortunate side effect of curtailing debate. To express an opposing view seemed shameful. But in the end the No case prevailed. The proposal to create a parliamentary privilege for people of Aboriginal descent, albeit well-meant, was seen as a bridge too far apparently.

Were speakers for the No case spreading misinformation when they contended that a special privilege based on race was divisive? That it was contrary to the democratic ideal of equality between citizens? That, in any event, reforms could be carried out via the current statutory process?

Questions like this remind us that nowadays the line between truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, argument and misinformation, is often blurred, distorted by loose language, political agendas and emotive forms of persuasion, pressures that can often be more effective in shaping public opinion than conventional debate. I will explore issues of this kind by looking at various works mentioned in my recently-published book Print and Prize: Travels in the Commonwealth (Connor Court).

If truth is a value, it is because the point made by a speaker is true, not because it takes courage to say it aloud, although that is important. It is not enough that the matter in issue is generally accepted as true, or is thought to be true because it has never been tested by forthright discussion. To be of any real worth, it must actually be true.

There have, of course, always been various degrees of untruth. There are lies and half-truths. At a lesser level, euphemisms are often used to soften unwelcome truths. A mean-spirited deceased is called ‘the loved one’. A slanging match is described as a “robust debate”. Treasury officials characterise a cut in funding as “an efficiency dividend”. Skilful speakers may emphasise facts and matters suiting their case to such an extent that a misleading picture is created.

Reshaping reality by using supposedly innocuous phrases is increasingly rife in the political arena. A spokesman for President Trump coined the phrase “alternative facts” as a way of presenting an issue in a more favourable light. Donald Trump has used the term “fake news” to brush aside damaging allegations, as if the truth of a matter is always malleable.

These sleights of hand are generally prompted by some underlying purpose that is thought to outweigh or to justify a reconfiguration of the truth. It follows that, in weighing up the value of an assertion, people are entitled to look closely at the speaker’s interest in the matter, and they usually do so.

What is meant by the term truth-telling? Is it referring to truths that simply “have to be told” – a definition contended for by some activists – or is it describing a process of getting at the truth? One way or another, it leaves an impression that some underlying purpose is being served, especially when used in the context of post-colonial critiques.

This is evidenced in Australia by the Voice referendum. The term was used in the Uluru Statement in conjunction with the proposal for a Voice, often described as a Voice to parliament, but in fact a proposed Voice to various levels of government. Rejection of the Voice proposal has left in its wake not only a welter of allegations about the use of so-called misinformation in the course of the referendum campaign but also uncertainty concerning the purpose of truth-telling.

The surrounding circumstances leave little doubt, as a matter of inference, that the desire of speakers pressing for “truth-telling” is to improve the prospects of people living in Aboriginal communities and of others said to be of Aboriginal descent. This in turn suggests that the process will be focused principally upon stories pointing to maladministration and other grievances with a view to advancing claims for relief. To what extent will evidence to the contrary be considered?

The Uluru Statement reads in part as follows:

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country … We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution …. We seek a Makaratta Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

Quite clearly, the purpose underlying the proposed truth-telling process is empowerment. It follows from earlier discussion that questions must then arise as to whether the underlying purpose, the push for empowerment, will affect what speakers say to the proposed Commission? Can what is said during the process be safely treated as the truth, not because it suits what is thought to be a noble purpose, but because it is supported by verifiable facts and is actually true? Will the purpose shape the verdict?

These cautionary observations lead to some other concerns, including not only the nature of post-colonial critiques but also to a consideration of what is presently taking place in the Commonwealth of Nations, for the Commonwealth is comprised essentially of former British colonies, most of which are now fully independent nation states.

If advances have taken place in these lands, especially since the formation of the United Nations in 1945, with the result that people have secured a rightful place in their own countries independently of Makaratta Commissions or the like, then this will probably bear upon the weight to be given to stories told to a truth-telling Commission and upon what is required to remedy matters complained of in years to come.

With these thoughts in mind, let me turn to George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm. It sounds innocuous. It purports to be a story about disagreements between various animals on a farming property. Upon a closer look, however, it can be easily decoded as a profound allegory about revolution and the way in which societies can slide into authoritarian rule, a slippage disguised by a corruption of language, as in the commandment approved by the powers-that-be in the final pages of the novel: all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Orwell returned to this theme in his later work 1984 in which he coined the term “newspeak”, an apparently benign term, suggestive of looking to the future in a positive way, but in fact used to disguise what was actually taking place, including the substitution of falsity for truth in whatever way Big Brother decided, until the so-called Ministry of Love becomes a place of torture.

While pondering the nature of truth and the way in which reality can be reshaped by descriptive ingenuity, it is worth keeping in mind also some remarks forming part of Orwell’s introduction to Animal Farm in which readers are reminded that what is said to be the truth of matter isn’t necessarily shaped by authoritarian decrees. He said:

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this or that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was “not done” to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.

It will probably strike many Australian readers that Orwell’s remarks about the effect of orthodoxies can be regarded as having a particular resonance in recent times. Early on in the Voice campaign, as I mentioned earlier, the sanctimonious tone adopted by various influential bodies and shapers of opinion had the unfortunate side effect of shaming people into silence. The proposed change to the constitution became virtually undiscussable, or discussable only in whispers. The orthodoxy in many places (especially elite inner-city electorates) was that all decent, right-thinking people would favour the creation of a new advisory body for Aboriginal people, notwithstanding valid concerns about the effect of such a change on the existing parliamentary structure. It was simply “not done”, and possibly “racist”, to mention any doubts about the proposal.

Academics and lawyers are generally well-accustomed to persuasive arguments being put on both sides of significant issues, especially legal issues as to which specialised knowledge is vital. But no, on this occasion, subject to very few exceptions, Bar Associations, Law Societies and large numbers of academics and influential judicial figures made it clear that in their opinion an affirmative vote was the compassionate way to go, the right thing to do, the decent thing, irrespective of parliamentary traditions reflecting the egalitarian ideal of equality between all citizens.

This conformity of opinion might suggest that the case for constitutional change was so compelling, in law and as matter of common decency, that it simply had to be approved. On the other hand, within professions accustomed to both spirited debate and dispassionate analysis, and where it turned out in the end that 61 per cent of the electorate as a whole opposed the change, this strange conformity of opinion seemed surprisingly incongruous, as if, in an Orwellian mood, within the senior ranks of the academic and legal elites, there was a widespread acceptance that to vote against the proposed change simply wasn’t the “done thing”. Money from the big end of town early on suggested a similar compliant mind-set.

One way or another, and not surprisingly perhaps given the status of these influential and generally respected leaders of opinion, it seems likely that a good many ordinary people felt obliged to keep their mouths shut, well-aware no doubt, notwithstanding the nation’s frequently voiced respect for freedom of speech, that doubts or queries about the proposal could lead to accusations of racism or other repercussions. It would be unwise, and possibly prejudicial to one’s career or standing with friends and family members (especially those of the younger generation on university campuses) to voice doubts or to say it’s okay to vote No.

If there is any force in this interpretation of the relevant events, it is a disquieting reminder that, in the end, the words and workings of a constitution will often be subject to the trends and prevailing orthodoxies of the day, including instances of emotive coercion. On this occasion, as it happened, the clear decision of the 61 per cent majority outweighed the mind-set in the elite electorates, but the incongruity of what occurred, the presence of a pervasive conformity in places where this would not usually be expected, brings me now to the importance of literary works in casting iconoclastic light on a compliant scene.

Creative works may reflect current trends or pervasive sentiments but they aren’t subservient to them. Novels and plays allow room for wide-ranging responses to controversial issues. Independence in the face of conformity. Works of fiction, such as Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, can often convey profound insights into what is actually happening: insights encouraging the reader, after stripping away the veneer of fiction, to say, yes, that’s how it is. That’s the reality. In this case, the flexible nature of the line between fact and fiction can stimulate debate and pave the way to change.

Skilful storytellers often show how things actually are in memorable ways. They can reveal underlying flaws in systems that are said to be working well, they can expose linguistic glosses that might lead us astray, they can use satire to puncture thought bubbles and pretensions, they can bring to light complexities and deeper truths that might otherwise be overlooked.

In the contentious human rights era, we have become accustomed to so many matters immediately becoming subject to legal proceedings and legalistic analysis. One must keep in mind, however, that lawyers, including judicial officers, will benefit by reading widely and exercising common sense. Works of fiction about contentious issues can be useful in keeping the legal mind alert to underlying social trends, changing patterns of right and wrong and constructive approaches to ambiguous events. A mind attuned to a wide range of possibilities may be better placed to review the available evidence and respective arguments keenly, and with insight, than a mind accustomed to sticking simply to what might otherwise be accepted complacently as the facts of a matter.

The language of human rights in contemporary times and the pronouncements of post-colonial critics, lawyers and advocates of truth-telling are often framed in abstract or general terms, as if what is said will be universally applicable in much the same way to most situations. There is a consequential danger that truth-telling projects of the kind taking place elsewhere, or envisaged by the Uluru statement, will finish up serving a familiar purpose with a pre-determined outcome. There is a need to look further afield, recognising that the individual voice and the habits of a particular society lie deep. The requirements of multicultural communities in the modern world are affected by a variety of sensitivities and demands for empowerment. Each of these must be fully considered and brought to account. According to Mathew Arnold, in a poem about the many forces at work upon us:

Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel–below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel–there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.

To get a convincing picture of what is going on in society at any moment one needs to look not only at official reports compiled by commissions of inquiry but also at works reflecting hidden feelings, for these, like votes in a secret ballot, as in eventual outcome of the voice referendum, may turn out to be crucial in showing what feelings and related truths lie below the surface, and may have to be heeded in planning for the future.

Works of fiction by entrants for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in my time as Chair of the Prize illuminate these issues, including the effects of history upon the distribution and exercise of power.

Kate Grenville in her novel The Secret River traces the fortunes of a convict brought up in the harsh world of the eighteenth century London waterfront. He lays claim eventually to a patch of wilderness on the outlying Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. The author paints a convincing picture of a determined man who has arrived at the convict settlement with nothing and will not easily be persuaded to give up a piece of land he now regards as his own. The scene is set for a dreadful confrontation between this man (and others like him) and the original inhabitants of the area he seeks to colonise.

To present the outcome simply as a tale of villainy would represent a failure to acknowledge the complexities of the novel in dealing with the inevitable effects of European expansion, the restlessness of human nature, the flow of human history. Inevitably, it casts light on the Aboriginal grievances and the consequential search for empowerment underlying the Voice referendum.

This brings me to The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson from South Africa. His book touches upon Orwellian themes, but in a realistic manner, as the reader is gradually drawn into the corrupting world of the apartheid regime.

The Native Commissioner at the heart the story, George Jameson, is a kind and conscientious man. He joins the South African Department of Native Affairs during the era when his linguistic skills and familiarity with indigenous customs provided him with opportunities to fulfil his dream of balanced race relations. When the National Party is swept into office the mood in the bureaucracy changes. Jameson’s skill at mastering tribal languages in far places is not appreciated. The Bantu is seen as an “unperson”.

Jameson’s attempts to ameliorate the injustices of the system lead him to a state of crippling depression, then to suicide.  The book breaks new ground in showing how apartheid injured even those working for it by the gradual erosion of their humanity. It shows also the way in which power can be exercised not only via the statutes and decrees of a governing regime but also by utilising emotive coercion to entrench conformity of outlook, until people generally feel they have to step to the music of approved opinion.

But when the old values are in a state of flux due to the instability or unreality of the times, other issues arise. It often becomes difficult, in the absence of clear rules, to discern what is the prevailing opinion. This brings me to a prize-winning novel set in Australia, The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas. An apparently minor incident at a barbecue – an irritated parent slaps the child of another parent – plants a seed of dissension that leads to a break-up of friendships, festering hostilities, and legal proceedings. The ill-fated disciplinary slap precipitates a major and long-running disagreement as to whether such an act can be justified. The story demonstrates the volatile nature of contemporary social attitudes, a division of outlooks that bring more than strictly legal issues into play.

A similar but more violent show of disagreement is to be found in Uwam Akpan’s book, Say You’re One of Them. A teenage lad called Jubril has booked a seat on a bus to Nigeria. The passengers on his bus come from many fractious, war-torn areas, so he uses a jacket to conceal the fact that one of his hands has recently been amputated because he was convicted of stealing. Upon boarding the bus, Jubril finds that an aged African chieftan is occupying his designated seat.

In this post-colonial setting, some of the younger surrounding passengers insist that the chieftan give the boy his seat, pursuant to Christian values and the new democratic principle of equal status. Others support the chieftan’s traditional authority. Police officers arrive to restore order on the pragmatic basis that the bus must leave on time. The turmoil escalates when Jubril’s amputation, and thus his Muslim identity, is exposed. Muslim passengers come to his aid, but not enough to protect him.

Terrified, the teenage boy, heeding his family’s advice that the safest course is always to “say you’re one of them”, is willing to abide by whatever is determined by the majority opinion around him, even the chieftan’s opinion. But in this case, as the fierce debate rages to and fro, Jubril can’t work out which is the dominant opinion or which side to join. In the end, when an argumentative soldier comes to his aid, the two of them are dragged outside to have their throats slit so the bus can get going on its way. The story suggests that in a fractious setting, without clear rules, emotive coercion is an unpredictable force, and chaos is always close to hand.

The tumult aboard a crowded bus, with so many voices in the ring, is reminiscent of turmoil in the contemporary world’s Tower of Babel, a world challenged by a cacophony of strident opinions on social media and from giant, self-serving corporations. In Rana Dasgupta’s novel Solo the head of security systems at Struction is described in this way:

It was a role for which she was superbly qualified. New York boardrooms had never heard anyone speak so nonchalantly about snipers, chemical weapons and truck bombs, and on her lips this breezy militarism seemed not retrograde but futuristic – even profound. Everyone wanted a piece of her advice.

Are there more positive or constructive themes to be found in recent Commonwealth literature? Fortunately, there are. In my book, Print and Prize, I touch on many examples. For present purposes, I will turn to Lloyd Jone’s novel Mister Pip.

The story opens in New Guinea when closure of a copper mine has precipitated a political upheaval (as at Bougainville in reality). The men of the village are forced to look for work elsewhere. The depletion of services accompanying these events leads to the only remaining white man in the village being recruited to act as a teacher. This eccentric loner’s readings from the Dickens novel Great Expectations, takes such a hold upon the minds of the villagers that when rebel troops arrive to subjugate the area, they hear of Mr Pip and immediately conclude that he is a real person. They send for him, they search, and when he doesn’t appear, they burn the villagers’ houses.

The houses are rebuilt. Mr Pip lives on as a story recollected in the minds of the local inhabitants. In this way we are led to believe that the invisible resources of the imagination will outlive the uncomprehending power of those who know nothing of Mr Pip and his kind. The search for the fictitious Mr Pip has had dire, but also life‑enhancing consequences. This powerful work of fiction looks beyond the brutal exercise of power by transient power-brokers and suggests that ordinary people have the capacity to rebuild their societies and retrieve the fruits of civilisation. The voices of ordinary people may be wiser and more significant than those of power-brokers and opinion formers.

In the work of another prize-winner, The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, about the civil war in Sierra Leone, the author explores powerful themes of redemption and reconciliation. The title points to an evocation of what once was and could have been. This author also underlines the need, even by those who have emerged from the cauldron of dispossession and upheaval, to cultivate a tone of reason and equanimity in charting a way forward.

The works I have been discussing are concerned in part with the formation and gradual shaping of opinions; they are works about what happens when someone holds the wrong opinion or a country goes in the wrong direction.  They cast light upon a matter of importance to the Commonwealth, namely, the preservation of certain crucial rights – the freedom to hold differing opinions, the freedom to speak freely.  It will therefore now be useful to say a little more about such matters, although it will be apparent from what I have said thus far that unlike the authors of legal texts about human rights and the need for truth-telling as an aid to empowerment, I am interested not so much in the formal definition of rights, or the process of enforcement, but in social attitudes that bear upon freedom of speech, the informal pressures that lead to a troubling conformity of thought, and in the prevailing orthodoxies that may eventually be imposed by an individual’s own “inner censor”.

Freedom of speech will be illusory if we all hold, or are expected to hold, the same opinion. Too often we are prepared to overlook this fact. In social situations conformity has always been with us, brought about too often by long‑standing social habits, or by inertia. In the case of political correctness, an outlook that was supposed to nurture the expression of dissenting opinions is now, paradoxically, inclined to stifle that expression. This is why the works of our greatest writers remain essential to our social well‑being. They respond to change, but they make us ponder. In holding up a mirror to life their task is to inform, to challenge, and to enlighten.

It was clear to me, upon agreeing to chair the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, that a prize linked to what was thought to be a reactionary body was bound to be disdained in various virtue-signalling literary quarters. I liked to think, however, that others on the literary scene would be more open-minded. The CWP served a number of beneficial purposes including not only interactions with educational bodies and financial rewards for deserving writers but also recognition and publishing opportunities that might otherwise be unavailable.

It may now strike some readers that one of the best ways to try and understand another country is to relate what seems to happening elsewhere to what is happening or taking shape in one’s own country, a task more easily accomplished where there are matters in common, such as language or laws or social customs, as in many former British colonies.

A country’s culture and distinctive ways are precious. They will change and mature as time goes by, but they will be ill-served by simply nurturing grievances from the past. The process of change must be constantly renewed by looking forward, with an awareness that much of value is shaped beneath the surface of daily life. Voices involved only in public debate, affected only by current orthodoxies and short-term goals, often sound shallow. The small personal voice of a creative writer makes its presence felt at a deeper and more enduring level. It shapes its own accent. Its own melody.

So let me close by recalling the well-known words of Thoreau:

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.