Is there a South for Rudd?

The first days of the Rudd government have revealed an interesting exclusion. In discussing the appointment of West Australian Stephen Smith as Foreign Minister, Rudd claimed:

This nation doesn't just look east, it looks north and it looks west.

That's three directions. Is there another direction missing?

Then in 12 December, Rudd greeted with the world with a stirring declaration of the new government's commitment to global cooperation over climate change.

As our host, President Yudhoyono, said to me when we met yesterday, there can be no North or South, given the dimensions of this challenge. Together we are custodians of the planet.

It seems an important and inevitable gesture to take a united perspective. And it's a wonderful role for Australia play as a mediator between North and South. But this role can only be successful if Australia is sensitive to the history of the South and its suspicion of the North.

Someone, somewhere, decided that there would be a North and a South. And that North would be above South. It doesn't mean that they can't work together. But can we deny the difference?

Nation 'too parochial' to engage - Merewether's lament

The curator of last year's Sydney Biennale Charles Merewether has just taken a job as deputy Director of a $33 billion new cultural district in Abu Dhabi. He leaves embittered by the response to his biennale:

Merewether says he is disappointed by "the lack of residue, the lack of ongoing discussion" it instigated.

"We may have failed to distinguish issues that could be discussed in an ongoing manner. I had hoped, for instance, that the work from the Middle East might have raised issues about what is going on there, culturally and artistically. Likewise with work from the Balkans. But in the end, it had no traction. It was if it were all just a passing event, a fashion.
Nation 'too parochial' to engage | The Australian

The problem is not that Merewether's was too radical for Australia, it was too predictable. The biennale colluded with a seeming noble interest of western liberals in the plight of those in transitional zones, such as the Middle East or the Balkans. But such an interest presumes a pity for those who are unable to enjoy the benefits of the west. There is nothing in this art that conveys the validity of the culture from whence it arises. It is simply there to attract our victimist gaze. The biennale thus left its audience feeling just as 'relaxed and comfortable' as it was before. The fact that it included 'difficult' issues like the MIddle East does not mask its globalised position.

For the biennale to be more than fashion, we needed to see something of ourselves as visitors in the picture, to understand our own place in this world. Without that, the world is just 'an amazing place'.