National Observer Home > No. 51 - Summer 2002 >Editorial Comment

Mr. P.P. McGuinness and The John Howard Syndrome

 

When Mr. P. P. McGuinness became editor of Quadrant after his predecessor’s impulsive and long overdue resignation, almost all the magazine’s readers wished him well. They had been wearied beyond further endurance by Robert Manne’s obsessive determination not only to disseminate pious frauds about Aboriginal “genocide” at whites’ hands, but also to turn Quadrant into an epigone of Eureka Street or Arena. Thus they hoped that Mr. McGuinness’ editorial policies would be a marked improvement over Mr. Manne’s.

This belief did not spring from any undue respect for Mr. McGuinness’ earlier career (including three years’ employment in the Soviet Union’s banking system during Brezhnev’s dictatorship). Nor did his very first enunciation of future Quadrant policies inspire solace. Those who dreamed that Mr. Manne’s self-inflicted destruction might lead to detailed analysis in Quadrant articles of anti-white and pro-immigration humbug — let alone to any criticism, however mild and logical, of the Israel lobby’s excesses — could derive little satisfaction from Mr. McGuinness’ statement in the magazine’s January-February 1998 issue:

“It [Quadrant] has been a living celebration of multiculturalism in its best sense, of diversity and cross-fertilisation of ideas and cultures. It has never embraced racist ideas in any form and never will . . . There is no scope for discrimination in our immigration program against any race, nationality, religion or culture.”

Nonetheless, and despite the combination of spurious transparency with actual secrecy which brought about Mr. McGuinness’ installation in the Quadrant editorial chair — advertisements for the job appeared in national newspapers, but in practice no candidates save Mr. McGuinness himself received thorough consideration — an optimistic trust remained that under his leadership Quadrant might yet regain its former role as an intellectual force. Certainly Mr. McGuinness has permitted Aboriginal issues to be treated in the magazine’s pages with tough-minded candour (as distinct from Mr. Manne’s type of partisan lachrymosity); and for that we must be grateful.

Unfortunately, little time elapsed before indicators emerged in Quadrant of, first, a novel Cæsarism; of, secondly, the editor’s undue acquiescence in various encroachments of State influence. The former manifested itself in such minutiæ as successive Quadrant covers’ emblazoning of Mr. McGuinness’ name, which continued until it became the target of media ridicule. The latter became most obvious in his insistence that Quadrant would continue its long-established regimen of consuming taxpayers’ money, thereby surely rendering hypocritical its own free-market credo. (Suggestions that Quadrant might raise funds from the private sector by a consistent policy of classified advertising — a revenue source which The New Yorker, The New Republic and other high-quality overseas magazines of smallish circulation find spectacularly advantageous — have been as unwelcome to Mr. McGuinness as they were to previous Quadrant editors.)

One particularly depressing side-effect of the 11 September attacks has been the re-emergence as hawks of those who, when themselves of con- scriptable age, were the noisiest possible doves. Thousands if not millions of erstwhile student activists — whose nearest approach to a genuine moral dilemma during the Vietnam War involved no more than needing to determine which professors’ offices should be vandalised first — have now rein- vented themselves as chest-thumping warriors à l’outrance. Serious tax cuts; freedom from Big Government’s control or malice; the right of association; newspapers that are something more, or at least something other, than mouthpieces for petty bureaucratic tyrants: in these virtues Mr. McGuinness, the self-styled libertarian of yore, now displays little interest. Further, in his November 2001 Quadrant editorial, rather than refuting or even denying the charges levelled against American globalism by Noam Chomsky — charges that might indeed be refutable, and are undoubtedly deniable — Mr. McGuinness merely dismisses Chomsky as “deranged”. Since when did the totalitarian habit of attributing opponents’ remarks to psychiatric illness become an acceptable substitute for evidence-based debate?

That this habit should have manifested itself in a publication which James McAuley specifically founded to oppose totalitarian ideology would seem humorous, if its consequences for intellectual life were not so dire. But Mr. McGuinness, not content with name-calling, goes further: he concludes his editorial with demands that every Australian be compelled to possess an identity card. No, these demands did not appear in Pravda or Vanguard or Tribune. They appeared in Quadrant. Foreign publications — The New York Times (26 November 2001), The New American (17 December 2001) and Britain’s Daily Telegraph (22 November 2001), Spectator (24 November 2001) and New Statesman (26 November 2001) — are sufficiently courageous to denounce the power-mania of their respective countries’ governments since 11 September. But Quadrant, as long as Mr. McGuinness prevails, does not display comparable fortitude.

It behooves all Quadrant’s well-wishers (how many of these remain after Mr. McGuinness’ recent performance is for others to determine) to remind Mr. McGuinness that he owes every scintilla of his Quadrant power to what might be called the John Howard Syndrome. Just as John Howard owes his office to public rejection of Paul Keating and Kim Beazley, so Mr. McGuinness owes his Quadrant promotion to rejection (not least by the magazine’s own board) of Mr. Manne. If he abases himself before the same dirigiste Baal which claimed Mr. Manne’s allegiance, then the question inevitably arises: would he not be well advised to retire, and seek employment at one of the extremely numerous magazines which lack the Quadrant tradition of upholding freedom?

National Observer No. 51 - Summer 2002