I would like to give you one simple example of how fiction and public life interact. David Williamson, who I have been publishing for 25 years, has extraordinary antennae for how Australians are feeling. Readers are often puzzled at the apparent ordinariness of his writing style; but the secret of his success lies in this instinct for the public mood and his focus upon writing within his audience’s experience. Earlier this year I read a draft of his latest play, After the Ball, which, he has publicly averred, was inspired by emotions surrounding the death of his mother. The play did not attract me. The principal characters are a frustrated and vindictive mother, a weak-willed father and a self-serving, compassionless son. ‘Why would I want to spend two hours in the company of such unpleasant people?’ I asked myself. And would others? I was wrong, of course. Robyn Nevin’s production of the play in Brisbane in July left me awash with emotion. And with the emotion came the realisation that the issues of the play were not simply David’s personal demons but our own. What public issue has been supreme for the last twelve months? Reconciliation, of course. And of what does the play leave us convinced? That only after we receive forgiveness, from others and ourselves, can our lives move on. This play is also as savage a critique of family values and their legacy as the funeral of Diana could expose.

That’s how a good fiction works — critical examination through realisation. That’s why it is subversive. To translate it to real life I have only to remind you that in the debate surrounding the release of the Human Rights Commission’s stolen children report Bringing Them Home, the gap between the response of those who read with their head and those who realised with their heart was palpable — and will have long-lasting effect. The tragic thing about our Prime Minister’s discomfort over the stolen generation issue was that he appeared genuinely not to understand the meaning of ceremony or the weight of a spontaneous gesture of sympathy. What we do not understand or control we cannot help but fear.

Such processes are those of the drama, of learning, of realising by enactment. Information we learn and forget if it has no immediate application for us. But those things that engage our emotions as well as our reason, that make us realise the truth of the evidence before us, we store away in our hearts. These are the things that will affect our future behaviour and our future judgement. If, as some have predicted, Princess Diana’s death begins the end of the British monarchy, it will be not through the rational arguments but because people don’t feel the same any more.

On the evidence of the language it uses, our government no longer sees itself as visionary, nor even as a servant of the public good; but as a corporation reporting to ‘stakeholders’ — and one whose job it is to downsize its expenditure and to keep up the price of its shares. This division into industries, each trying to make a profit, at the expense of others, is making our world more and more fragmented. The government is trying to solve our problems — as have all governments in living memory — with legalism, by persuading us Procrustean beds are comfortable for all. This is causing a deal of passion in the country — and it is through the containment of emotion itself, curiously enough, that cracks are beginning to appear in the Coalition solidarity. Frustration leads to anger and anger to violence. It is the responsibility of everyone in public life to read the signs. The important sign at Diana’s funeral was that the monarch was forced to acknowledge the will of the people and that the modern Prime Minister Tony Blair understood and stage-managed the drama.

Do we, yet, understand the drama of the Wik debate? And will it be resolved by 400 pages of legislation? To me it is like the White Knight in Alice Through the Looking Glass, trying to cover every contingency:

‘I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for’, said Alice. ‘It isn’t very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.’
‘Not very likely, perhaps,’ said the Knight, ‘but if they do come, I don’t choose to have them running all about.’
‘You see, he went on after a pause, ‘it’s as well to be provide for everything. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets round his feet.’
‘But what are they for?’ Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
‘To guard against the bites of sharks.’

Being practical, objective, keeping empathy and imagination at bay is a lonely course and antipathetic to human nature. What you cannot imagine you cannot resolve. Being a practical person and thinking of everything, is too difficult for the individual human being. The only solution we have is to help each other and to share a sense of humour. For however much we believe in our own views, however much we care for the public good, however much we choose to disguise our motives, in public life the way we think and act reveals us. ‘I am a human being’, said Terence, ‘and believe nothing that is human is alien to me.’ In the end we must learn to be our own critics as we face the daily revelations in the press, the adversarial tone, the headlining, the beat-ups and the human dramas, the moralising of the columnists; we must make our way together through the sound and fury, recognising we are all human beings, and try to find inside it all a still small voice of truth.

Katharine Brisbane

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