AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 31

POLITICS AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

Carmel Shute

t is not surprising that it was a w om an — and a w om an anarchist I at that — who uttered the im m ortal words, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution”. Male socialists have never waxed lyrical about pleasure in politics or the joy we might expect after the revolution. Altruism (saving the working class) and pleasure (having a good time) are mutually incompatible, or so weVe given to understand.

Putting pleasure back into politics has been a bit of a hobby-horse for me over the last couple of years. Like all passions, all ideologies, it has a material basis — frustration with attending fifteen years of boring meetings on the left; exhaustion from attending these same boring meetings most nights and weekends; and despair about the diminishing influence of the left and the prospects for socialism in Australia. Something must be wrong, I began to think, if we’re all so tired and exhausted but getting nowhere fast. I became increasingly dispirited as 1 watched a number of my comrades-in- arms “burnt out” from to many meetings and not enough fun. Others got ulcers or retreated into their careers or middle-class lifestyles. Some have disappeared, never to be seen again, into the human potential movement, the Orange People. And who could blame them after so many years of mostly fruitless slog? I’ve been tempted myself by the idea of a more normal life — time to read, write letters or even articles, to see more of Left Aloft: Order by Numbers my friends, my lover, my lover’s 32 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW

children ... my mother’s admonition that I should spend more time on myself rings in my ears. Undoubtedly she’s right, but how does one square the desire to see socialism in one’s lifetime with the need for a saner life on the left in the meantime? So far, I've concluded that the only solution is to build a New, Larger Socialist Party (more people, less meetings) and, at the same time, to inject more pleasure into politics so there’ll be more people to join the NLSP. One of the reasons that the left in Australia is so small is that our whole culture, our whole way of operating, is alien and unattractive. It is based on the denial of pleasure — and, by pleasure, I mean pleasure in the popular, everyday sense, not in some highfalutin’ definition from the academics. The leninist heritage of discipline, tight organisation, self-sacrifice and denial has undoubtedly played a big moralistic dogmatism. Often, we don't Though child care has now been role in determining current left show a caring and supportive attitude tacked onto the agenda of every left practice, more than seventy years on. towards our comrades. We aren’t very group and party, we rarely address the But, in other societies, such as those of understanding of comrades who can't larger question now of the oppressive Southern Europe and Latin America, make it to meetings for “personal" relations between men and women on the puritanical aspects of leninism reasons. We often lack common the left. aren't so evident in many respects, courtesies like introducing strangers to It’s not simply a question of child perhaps because of vigorous peasant each other. We don’t go out of our way care, as Marilyn Lake points out so traditions of music, song, dance and to make new activists feel at home. The urgently in the recent volume Moving festivities. gulf between the public and the private Left: The Future o f Socialism in all too frequently becomes a chasm. Australia. Child care at meetings or One of the reasons that the conferences is not an answer for kids left in Australia is so small Activism on the left doesn’t only who’vc already spend thirty or forty mean little time for friends, family, hours in institutionalised child care. is that our whole culture, and lovers, little time for sport, Nor is it an answer for parents who our whole way of recreation, making love. It also means want to spend more time with their little time to do your share of the kids. It’s a question of time, Lake says, operating, is alien and housework and child care. Of course, determined by both the capitalist unattractive. some male comrades still have their system and gender relations, and she time on the left subsidised by women’s advocates a twenty-five hour week so labour in the home,1 though feminism that men can emjoy the equal right to Unfortunately, we in Australia has made this more problematic. “My child care and housework while are saddled with a more repressive, wife's not interested in politics”, these women assert their right to paid work Anglo-Saxon heritage. In Australia, comrades mumble defensively. Well, if If men resumed their responsibil­ the Irish perhaps came closest to she’s not, we have to ask ourselves ities as fathers, women might be freed meshing pleasure with politics — male why? Is political activism on top of to participate on more equal terms in drinking sessions in pubs, wakes, everything else (including perhaps politics. More importantly, the wonderful St. Patrick’s Day festivals. financial support of professional content and focus of our politics might However, this tradition was all but revolutionary husbands) just too shift considerably. John Halfpenny, annihilated by the DLP split of the much? William Lane called women interviewed over a pile of steaming Tifties and the rapid social mobility of “the weary sex”2 in his 1892 novel The nappies? Laurie Carmichael speaking the Irish in the post-war boom. Workingman's Paradise, and political to the media while stirring a declicious Most young activists “starting women are often even more weary pasta sauce? Who knows, maybe we out" must find life on the left a bit with the triple burden of work, home could really come to grips with strange. Our meetings are frequently and politics — often with little “Accord Mark HI" over a hot tub or characterised by harsh language and a assistance from the men in their lives. stove. AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 33

The denial of pleasure in left organising the group sex?” On another If we’re going to convince more politics is reflected in our public occasion, when I spoke about pleasure Australians that socialism offers a image, we appear, too often, as and politics, half a dozen male better future, if we’re to get a new latterday puritans, as hostile, angry comrades made similar comments — socialist party off the ground, we have and oppositional — “smash ... ”, “ban which indicated that their only notion to abandon a politics where there are ... ”, “oppose ... " — always against of pleasure was sexual pleasure. the speakers and the spoken to. We something and not for much at all. Of need more active, democratic forms of course, there is lots to be angry about Our notion of pleasure should, participation. In this respect, we have — but what we stand for, what indeed, include the sexual. Eileen a lot to learn from the organising constitutes our vision of a better Phillips, who edited a book entitled strategies of the environmental, peace The Left and the Erotic in Britain, and women's movements. quoted her friend's reaction to the While existing left groups and John Halfpenny inter­ incongruous idea that there might be a parties are increasingly moribund, viewed over a pile of relationship between the left and the these movements continue to draw in erotic: “I can’t imagine anything less activists of all ages. I can’t speak from steaming nappies? Laurie erotic than sitting on hard chairs in a personal experience about the affinity Carmichael speaking to the smoky room trying to avoid the groups which were the organising media while stirring a chairperson’s eye when they’re asking basis for campaigns — such as the for volunteers for leaflets”.4 I believe successful action to save the Franklin delicious pasta sauce? we need to escape from that smoky — but, from all accounts, they were room before we can properly discuss very effective. One of the participants society, gets lost in the welter of the left and the erotic — or, to put it at my Broad Left Conference oppositional politics. A friend recently another way, we need to work out workshop was an older leftie who remarked that the left speaks the who’s doing the washing-up before we confessed that he’d been initially “language of hate". She has a point — ask if Lenin was correct to ask during sceptical about becoming involved in we should be speaking the language of his discussion with Klara Zetkin on the Franklin campaign. At first, he love for our fellow human beings, of free love, whether a normal person said, he thought it was stupid for love for our natural environment, our would drink out of “a glass with a rim people to stand around in circles country, for the oppressed people greasy from many lips”. holding hands. Later, he found that everywhere. At a recent conference, a comrade of forty-nine years’ standing remarked that the Brotherhood of St. Laurence had a better public presence than socialists. She advocated a mroe caring attitude on the left. The bourgeois media, of course, loves to focus on our confrontations, strikes, demonstrations and internal disputes, but it is only partly to blame for the public perception of us. We could, if we wanted, also use the media more effectively to say other things — to project a more positive and attractive image. Our iconography — banners, badges, flags, posters, symbols — doesn’t do us much good in the public eye either. Too often, we borrow our symbols and slogans from overseas and they appear alien, un- Australian. Last year, i twice tried to organise a discussion weekend on the theme “How to Survive Politics and Live to See Socialism in Your Lifetime: A Stress Management Weekend”. The camp never took place, however, because everyone had too many meetings to attend! What was also revealing, though, was that one male comrade asked me twice, “Who's 34 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW

“relating to each other" did not organise pleasurable things to do as and a meeting which celebrated the necessarily mean a loss of politics. "We part of a political campaign — dances, Women’s Social and Political sang, danced, chanted our way dinners, balls, film nights, raffles Coalition’s first anniversary. The SL through the confrontations in front of offering gourmet breakfasts in bed for meeting, held, as always, on a Sunday the bulldozers, with the police, and one, two or three ... According to morning — the same time as mass even in going to jail”. He concluded Cyndi Lauper, “Girls just want to have was, in fact, quite like mass. There that massage, touching and closeness fun” and she’s probably right. Before were several priests, rather than one, were essential for combatting the but the fundamentals were the same — “heavy” machinery of capitalism — Women's meetings do, to the word was given from the pulpit, police, violence and jail. there were ritual incantations at some extent, bridge the gulf various stages, and then the money 1 can, however, speak from first­ was collected (though not in velvet hand experience of the women’s between the personal and bags on the ends of sticks). movement and, to a lesser extent, the the political. In contrast, the WSPC meeting’s peace movement. Without a doubt, rituals were a lot less formalised and the women’s movement offers a lot Lauper’s song became a No. 1 hit, more friendly — discussion, films, a more pleasure than the men’s (left) Doris Lessing spoke of the different specially printed anniversary T-shirt, a movement. Women's meetings do, to behaviour of women when they’re cake decorated in purple, green and some extent, bridge the gulf between beyond male control: "... when the white, cups of tea, singing ... and no the personal and the political. Women men go away, the women instantly high priestess! are more caring, warm and friendly, create a kind ot hedonistic, permissive What was clear from the less likely to be hung up on their egos, world where they try on dresses, cook workshop discussion is that women less likely to make long, hectoring gossip and have a lovely time ... ”5 derive pleasure from a wider variety of speeches. The meetings are less Lessing’s point was admirably sources in politics than do men. Men structured, more likely to involve the supported by one workshop definitely get pleasure from a good sharing of laughter, food and drink. participant who compared the fight, a good argument, a good win The work still gets done. Women, divergent experiences of attending a and getting drunk. Women are not more so than men, are likely to Victorian A LP Socialist Left meeting immune from these pleasures but also enjoy other things — friendships (as opposed to mateship), exchanging confidences, and so on. lam reminded of Rosa Luxemburg’s plea from the SUBSCRIBE TO heart to her lover, Leo Jogiches: “Your letters contain nothing but nothing except for The Workers’ Cause ... WOMANSPEAK When I open your letters and see six sheets covered with debates about the Polish Socialist Party and not a single MAGAZINE word about ... ordinary life, 1 feel faint”.6 We could well do with some small-scale hedonism in the left in WOMANSPEAK is a feminist magazine in its twelfth Australia. Where are our festivals, our year of publication, produced by an all-women, Sydney- celebrations on a large or small scale? based collective of volunteers, and including only women’s In much of Western Europe, the left contributions. It provides information on women's parties maintain a rich and vibrant involvement in film, art, fiction, theatre, work and cultural life. They possess a long and domesticity, politics, feminist activism. WOMANSPEAK covers such issues as child-care, aboriginal and migrant women, rape, pornography, ALR IS IN THE NEWS prostitution, education, homosexuality, law reform, working and domestic conditions for women and nuclear energy. Or at least in the newsagents. If you ISSUE 48, Vol 10, No 3, contains articles on Girls at live anywhere in NSW or in metropolitan Melbourne, you should Risk, The New Right, Divorce in Ireland, Women in Local Government, Short Stories, Poetry, Film & Book Reviews, be able to get ALR at your local and all our regular features. newsagents now. If they don’t stock it, suggest to them that It’s about time they SEND $6 for 4 issues (individuals) or SIO (institutions) did. And don’t forget to tell your friends to: WOMANSPEAK, PO Box 103, Spit Junction, NSW that the left’s most read quarterly is now 2088. as close as the local shops. AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 35

dynamic tradition of music, dance, succumbs to market forces? Why events, we will also need to reclaim theatre, film ... The Spanish aren't we conccrncd enough to discuss some festivals like M elbourne’s Communist Party’s Fiesta in Madrid what’s happening to sport? If we can Moomba, which was originally a attracts over a million people each interrupt conferences for progress labour movement celebration of the year. Even more attend the Italian reports on the Grand Final, surely we eight-hour day, but which has now Communist Party’s Festa dell’Unita in should be discussing it politically? And been appropriated by the ruling class. Rome and regional centres. Music, why don't we have organised sport on If we're going to build a new song, theatre, dance and film can be an the left any more? The W orkers’ broad-based socialist party and live to extremely powerful means of Sports Federation of the ’thirties and, see socialism in our lifetime, let’s put politicisation. When it is actively later, the Eureka Youth league, some pleasure back into politics now, attracted thousands to the left by their or, as they used to say in the days of my organised sporting and social youth, “Keep a smile on your face, and While we lost hundreds of activities. We would do well to a song in your heart, while you’re thousands to the suburban emulate them — and we might get fighting the state”. wastelands, we gained fitter in the process. The Palm Sunday rallies are the millions of migrants...who only vaguely leftish events to be NOTES brought with them successful in Australia’s recent past. 1. Writing about her past in (he Communist different political tradit­ This year’s Palm Sunday rally in Party of Great Britain. Zetda Curtis says, “Some Melbourne was a joyful, life affirming of the women in the party knew their place only ions. event — lots of street theatre, to well. Otic such said she knew her role in the party was to make sure her husband, a leading wonderful banners and costumes, comrade, was best able to perform his party involving, music, song or theatre can anti-nuclear dogs, punks for peace, responsibilities. She made sure, she said, he had be a great way of creating solidarity. songs and music — all culminating in a good hot meals and clean clothing.” Z. Curtis, festival near that monument to the “'Private Lives'and Communism" in E. Phillips, Singing The Internationale with cd., The Left and the Erotic (London, 1983), 50,000 people — even if you don’t dead, the Shrine of Remembrance. p. 154. speak Spanish — transforms you into There were speeches for those who miss the ritual of mass and lots more 2. Cited in M. Lake, “A Question of Time" in D. something greater. Music played a McKnight, ed„ Moving Left (Sydney, 1986), crucial role in drawing me and besides — stalls, music, dancing, and p. 135. thousands of others into the left in the lots of soft, green places to sit and talk 3. ibid., p. 144. late 'sixties and early ’seventies. More with friends. recently, the songs of Midnight Oil The peace movement can teach 4. Phillips, p. 11. the left a thing or two about have probably won more people to the 5. J. Rigg and J. Copeland, eds,. Coming Out! anti-nuclear cause than a thousand penetrating the outer reaches of Women’s Voices, Women's Lives (Melbourne, well-intentioned speeches. Go to a suburbia and even country towns. 1985), p. 179. Despite what some of the more elitist “Stop the Drop” concert and listen to 6. E. Ettinger. ed,. Rosa Luxemburg: Comrade all the kids — they know all the words. may think, it is possible to politicise and Lover, (London. 1979), p. xv. the honest burghers of Glen Waverley Of course, youH say, Australia and the disenchanted youth of used to have more of a leftworking Broadmeadows. The success of groups CARMEL SHUTE works for the ABC class culture until it was destroyed by like People for Nuclear Disarmament Staff Association in Melbourne, and is a the suburbanisation and anti­ member of the Communist Party. rests precisely on its suburban network communism of the fifties. This is true because this allows women to — but while we lost hundreds of participate more actively. The left thousands to the suburban needs to concentrate less on wastelands, we gained millions of overthrowing the state and more on DROP US A LINE ... migrants from Southern Europe, the building the grassroots organisation Middle East, Latin America and Asia In our next issue, ALR will introduce a which, one hopes, will one day create a letters page to stimulate debate and to give who brought with them different movement strong enough to tackle the readers a chance to air their thoughts and political traditions. Not all these state. feelings about the articles they liked, the traditions are of the left, but many are, Palm Sunday rallies are positive, articles they hated, the “hidden agendas” and they offer a lot to Australian left too, because they foster the equal they may have discovered, or the issues culture. involvement of men, women and they feel are being ignored. The Italian workers’ and families’ children. If the left is really to The deadline for letters for issue No. 99 is January 31, 1987. As a general rule, organisation, FILEF, is organising a encourage the greater participation of letters should be no longer than 250 words conference in Melbourne about the women, we have to organise more and, preferably, should be typewritten. future of soccer. FILEF expects over a activities which children (and their The author^ address should be included, thousand to attend. Where is the parents) can attend — that is, less although this will not be printed. Anglo-Saxon left conference on the night meetings in- the city, more clouded future of Aussie Rules as it picnics, festivals and recreational