Sunday 5th of May 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

taking care of "rattus" business .....

taking care of "rattus" business .....

The Queen's decision to bestow the Order of Merit on our former PM is self-interested. With luck, it will expedite the monarch's demise, Bruce Haigh writes .....

What has former prime minister John Howard in common with, Joseph Lister, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Edward Elgar, John Galsworthy, John Masefield, Dwight Eisenhower, Bertrand Russell, Albert Schweitzer, Henry Moore, Isaiah Berlin, Kenneth Clark, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Leonard Cheshire, Sydney Nolan, Graham Greene, Mother Teresa, Tom Stoppard, David Attenborough, David Hockney and Nelson Mandela?

Nothing at all, except that they are all recipients of that very quaint British royal insignia, the Order of Merit. Howard was invested on January 1 this year.

According to former British diplomat Stanley Martin, who has written an exhaustive and rather pompous history of the award, The Order of Merit, it was instituted by the dissolute Edward VII on June 26, 1902. It was to have been the date of his coronation but he instead suffered acute appendicitis and his crowning, by necessity, was delayed.

Even Martin thinks ''Bertie'' an unlikely founder of the award, which sensibly he never awarded to himself; merit not being one of his strong points. Bertie's father said of him, ''his intellect is of no more use than a pistol packed in the bottom of a trunk if one were attacked in the robber-infested Apennines''.

Bertie received inspiration for his award from his German relatives. In 1740, King Frederick II of Prussia instituted an award known as the Pour le Merite. It was an order into which military officers and civilians could be admitted. In a portent of things to come, King Frederick William III, in 1810, decreed that the award should only be given to military officers. The award had a French name because, in common with the Russian royal family, the language of the Prussian court was French.

The award was commonly known as the Blue Max, and was handed out to German pilots in World War I who shot down their British and allied counterparts. In any event, when Bertie's brother-in-law, King Frederick III (father of Kaiser Bill) died in 1888, after a considerate 99-day reign, Bertie was a bit cut up and, at the compulsory funeral, in conversation with his sister, decided to implement an equivalent British award. His mother, in common with other well-known monarchs, was not as accommodating. Bertie needed to wait until 1902 and, by that stage, things were becoming a little competitive with nephew Bill, who was starting to strut his stuff.

The Statutes of the Order of Merit were promulgated on June 23, 1902. Martin says, ''The preamble, with all its royal flourishes, recites the authority of the Letters Patent passed under the statutes ... The Order of Merit is to have a sovereign and one class of members. That class is to consist of ordinary and honorary members. The ordinary members are to be subjects of the Crown who: may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service in our navy and our army, or who may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service towards the advancement of art, literature and science.''

There can only be 24 members at any one time. Prince Philip and Prince Charles are both members; Philip because he is the royal consort and Charles because he is the heir to the throne and a conservationist, so already we see the merit thing being stretched a bit.

There is no doubt that many of the recipients are people of exceptional merit. However, one looks to see where Howard might have achieved exceptional merit. So why was he recognised in this way by a foreigner, who also happens to be our head of state? Howard has not excelled in the arts, literature or science, so a reason for his investiture must be sought elsewhere. Several Commonwealth prime ministers have received the Order of Merit; they are South Africa's Jan Christian Smuts, and Canada's William Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson and Jean Chretien. Reasons for giving the award are not provided, but all of the above rendered a service by maintaining the influence of the Crown. On this basis, it would seem that Howard's claim to the award was his wrecking of the republican movement in Australia and saving the country for the Queen. Both in this and in accepting the award, he showed himself to have interests other than the nation at heart. Despite claims in the Australian media, former prime minister, supporter of the monarchy and admirer of the Queen, Robert Menzies, did not receive the Order of Merit. He did not increase or in any way save the influence of the crown. For his fawning and loyalty to the crown he received a Companion of Honour, was invested as a Knight of the Thistle and made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, I kid you not.

I was of the school that the Queen was a harmless and dear old thing. She was a part of my life. As a child, I waved flags as her car went past during royal visits. I thought she should be allowed to serve out her term before we once again looked at the question of the republic. Not any more. She has shown that she is concerned above all else with preserving her influence and, in this, Howard connived with her.

Shackled as we are to a mouldering monarchy, burdened with past scandals and a feeble heir, Australia has little to be proud of. Lacking self-confidence, we have been prepared to allow the United States to dictate our foreign and defence policies. We have a reduced vision of the future and our place in the world simply because we refuse to take responsibility for ourselves.

As a matter of course, the Queen notifies the prime minister of the award of the Order of Merit to a citizen. Although the award is the gift of the monarch, as we have seen others can come into play. Martin says, ''In the highly unlikely event of an 'outrageous' appointment, especially if it had political overtones, the prime minister could not realistically absolve himself from all involvement.''

British prime minister David Lloyd George successfully opposed the nomination of Gilbert Murray. Martin says, ''Nevertheless, he was daring the king to over-rule his advice - and have it known that he had done so. No monarch could afford to do that, then or now.

''A careful - and apparently successful - balance has therefore been struck between the sovereign's special rights in relation to the order and the prime minister's ultimate constitutional responsibility.''

It can safely be assumed that the palace informed our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, of its intention to bestow the Order of Merit on Howard, and it can equally be assumed she concurred in what I believe to be an outrageous appointment.

Having acted with such blatant self-interest, Howard has, in my view, substantially pushed the envelope toward an Australian republic.

Bruce Haigh is a political commentator and retired diplomat who supports a republic ....

Howard, Slayer Of The Republic

 

the ghost of "rattus" past .....

the ghost of "rattus" past .....

On the first Monday of the new year, on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, former Prime Minister John Howard was pictured below a heading which said that he had been 'honoured for Queen and Country.' Such a tribute - he had been made a member of the British Crown's Order of Merit - belies the man's record.

Even if we were to ignore Howard's leadership over issues such as his hostility towards the Australian prisoners in Guantanamo, Australia's inclusion in the war in Iraq, plus the Howard government's cruel treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, I wonder what the Queen had in mind when she rewarded this man.

Her Majesty is no doubt aware that Howard is a devout monarchist and perhaps she still feels sorry for him that he lost his seat in Bennelong and was ignominiously kicked out of parliament. But even the clear terms of reference of the award make you wonder how on earth John Howard crept in. The terms refer to a subject of the Crown who has rendered exceptionally meritorious service 'towards the advancement of the Arts, Learning, Literature, and Science or such other exceptional service as We are fit to recognize.'

The reference to 'literature' might be about John Howard's autobiography but even those pages of self-justification are part of the hypocrisy which sees one set of criteria for judging the rich and powerful versus indifference and even cruelty towards people whom establishment sources would regard a of little significance. John Howard eventually did a deal with Vice President Dick Cheney to produce trumped up charges against Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks so that - for Howard's election purposes - the young Australian could be convicted and then brought home, albeit straight to a Federal prison. But he had languished in Guantanamo for almost six years and Howard had colluded with Donald Rumsfeld and others in regarding Hicks as one of the worst of the worst even tho' there's still no evidence that he harmed let alone killed anyone. Subsequently, under the 'principle' of one law for us, another for them - Hicks is not allowed to sell his book, not allowed to profit from his story about Guantanamo.

I mention David Hicks because this introduces discussion of John Howard's alliance with his US friends in America's war on terror, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. John Howard's foreign policy record was mediocre in several respects. His love for America and the British monarchy was coupled to his disinterest in Australia's place in South East Asia. To ingratiate himself to his big neighbour Indonesia he was indifferent to the plight of West Papuans and the Australian Government's eventual rescue mission in East Timor was followed by a characteristically selfish ' the powerful takes most' division of oil resources in relation to that impoverished country.

But it's Howard's enthusiasm for and justification of the war in Iraq which makes his Order of Merit sound like an act from a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera which would be funny if it was not so deadly serious.

After nearly nine years America declared an end to the war and withdrew its last troops in December 2011. In that war, John Howard, once described by President George W. Bush as a man of steel, was also regarded as the US's staunchest ally. Under his leadership and however small Australia's contribution, this country was seen by the Bush White House as always there, always ready to go the extra mile. This extra included the lies, the financial costs and the monumental loss of life in one of history's most disastrous foreign policy escapades.

When deliberations about the award to former Prime Minister Howard were being considered, was there no recall that this war was illegal, immoral and initiated under completely false pretences? There never was any link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, never any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq. The invasion of that country started, not with any authorization from the UN Security Council but with the much advertised shock and awe bombing of Baghdad.

That bombing of Baghdad, so proudly reported by the mainstream media outlets in countries forming the Coalition of the Willing - USA, UK and Australia - was the beginning of a carnage in which Australia colluded. Almost 5,000 American soldiers were killed and more than 32, 000 seriously wounded. The Pentagon admits that 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives but by several other accounts, over one million Iraqi civilians died in this war. Over five million Iraqis were displaced from their homes and approximately four million became refugees. The long term financial and human costs of running an illegal war do not include the devastation to a fragile environment.

Under the principles enunciated in the Nuremberg tribunals which followed the end of the Second World War , an illegal war was defined as an atrocity which represented a 'crime against peace'. Under that principle the architects of the Iraq war such as former President Bush, and former Prime Ministers Blair and Howard should be in the dock of the International Criminal Court charged with crimes again humanity. They'd each be presumed innocent and entitled to a transparent due process of international law, a right never afforded to David Hicks let alone to the thousands of Iraqi civilians, including many women and children murdered on suspicion of being terrorists or for allegedly aiding enemy insurgents.

John Howard did introduce stricter gun control laws in Australia and that initiative could be regarded as rendering 'extremely meritorious service.' But in so many other respects and my focus on the Iraq war is only one example, the electors of Bennelong not the Queen's advisors have made the most sound judgment of the man's record.

Instead of producing out of date honours for those whose merits have been created by a distorted version of history, it would be a better start to a new year to think just a little - don't let's overdo it - about the notion of a common humanity. Alongside the laudatory remarks about brave war leader John Howard we should perhaps recall Ali Ismail Abbas, a 12 year old Iraqi boy who lost both of his arms, his father, his pregnant mother, his brother and thirteen other members of his family in the Iraq war. A poem about Ali says that smart bombs killed his dreams but it wasn't their fault as they did not know who he was. By contrast the Sydney Morning Herald's picture reminds us who John Howard is and the invisible Buckingham Palace pundits overlooked his cruel record and have given him an honour he does not deserve.

John Howard's Dishonour