On Borrowed Time Read online

  PREVIOUS WORKS BY ROBERT MANNE

  AS AUTHOR

  The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage, 1987

  Agent of Influence: The Life and Times of Wilfred Burchett, 1989

  The Shadow of 1917: Cold War Conflict in Australia, 1994

  The Culture of Forgetting: Helen Demidenko and the Holocaust, 1996

  The Way We Live Now, 1998

  In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right, 2001

  The Barren Years: John Howard and Australian Political Culture, 2001

  Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference (with David Corlett), 2004

  Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977-2005, 2005

  Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Australian Complacency, 2011

  Bad News: Murdoch’s Australian and the Shaping of the Nation, 2011

  Cypherpunk Revolutionary: On Julian Assange, 2015

  The Mind of the Islamic State, 2016

  AS EDITOR

  The New Conservatism in Australia, 1987

  Shutdown: The Failure of Economic Rationalism (with John Carroll), 1992

  The Australian Century: Political Struggle in the Building of a Nation, 1999

  Whitewash: On the Fabrication of Aboriginal History, 2003

  The Howard Years, 2004

  Do Not Disturb: Is the Media Failing Australia? 2005

  Reflected Light: La Trobe Essays (with Peter Beilharz), 2006

  Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia, 2008

  W.E.H. Stanner, The Dreaming and Other Essays, 2009

  Goodbye to All That? On the Failure of Neo-Liberalism and the Urgency of Change (with David McKnight), 2010

  The Words that Made Australia: How a Nation Came to Understand Itself (with Chris Feik), 2012

  The Best Australian Essays 2013

  The Best Australian Essays 2014

  Published by Black Inc.,

  an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd

  Level 1, 221 Drummond Street

  Carlton VIC 3053, Australia

  [email protected]

  www.blackincbooks.com

  Copyright © Robert Manne 2018

  Robert Manne asserts his right to be known as the author of this work.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

  9781760640187 (paperback)

  9781743820391 (ebook)

  Cover design by Tristan Main

  Text design and typesetting by Tristan Main

  Author photo by Andrew Curtis

  For Anne

  daughters Kate and Lucy

  son-in-law Daniel and nephew David

  CONTENTS

  On Borrowed Time

  CLIMATE CHANGE

  A Dark Victory

  Explaining Our Failure

  Naomi Klein: This Changes Everything

  Jonathan Franzen: This Changes Nothing

  Laudato Si’: A Political Reading

  THE MURDOCH EMPIRE

  Bad News

  Andrew Bolt: “Name Ten”

  Rupert Murdoch’s Politics

  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

  The Second Rudd Government?

  Labor’s Long Goodbye

  Malcolm Turnbull: The Promise

  Malcolm Fraser: An Unlikely Radical

  Malcolm Turnbull: A Brief Lament

  AUSTRALIA AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

  Tragedy of Errors

  On Refugees, Both the Left and the Right Are Wrong

  How We Came to Be So Cruel

  There is a Solution to Australia’s Asylum-Seeker Problem

  AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

  Burchett and the KGB

  While Rivers Ran Red

  The Sorry History of Australia’s Apology

  Noel Pearson and Indigenous Constitutional Recognition

  THE UNITED STATES

  Julian Assange: Alex Gibney

  The Snowden Files

  Donald Trump’s Victory

  The Muscovian Candidate?

  Julian Assange: Laura Poitras

  THE ISLAMIC STATE

  The Mind of the Islamic State

  THE UNIVERSITY

  The University Experience – Then and Now

  Acknowledgements

  ON BORROWED TIME

  In the early spring of 2016 I woke in the middle of the night, at a time when my defences were down, aware of a lump in my throat. When I was a child there had been an advertisement on television called “The Seven Warning Signs of Cancer”. One of the signs was described as “a lump or thickening in the breast or elsewhere”. The reference to “elsewhere” was rather alarming. Although I did not yet know it, the “elsewhere” had finally caught up with me. Whatever it was that was not right persisted. Eventually I consulted the GP I have been seeing regularly for the past twenty-five years or so. I mentioned my lingering sore throat. Should I perhaps return to the ear, nose and throat specialist who had diagnosed a cancer on a vocal cord eight years earlier? He thought that to be on the safe side I should.

  Even though the reason for my regular rendezvous with the ENT specialist over the past years was far from ideal – checking that the cancer had not made a return – strange to say I had grown to be very fond of him, with his warmth, humour and no bullshit directness. Because of the combination of his kindness and his old-fashioned Anglo-Australian grammar school manner – he always referred to my wife as “Mrs Manne” – I thought of him as a Weary Dunlop type. (This turned out to be more accurate than I imagined. Every year, he travelled to the Kimberleys and the Northern Territory to examine scores of Indigenous patients and conduct simple operations. As I soon learned when we were discussing future appointments, like Weary he has a keen and practical interest in social justice despite his conservative demeanour.) The specialist now looked down my throat with the aid of an instrument that passes through the nose, and in a matter of seconds announced, “Cancer, I’m afraid.”

  Because of the previous cancer, I knew the ropes, or at least thought I did. A simple operation would remove some of the lump, in part so that an almost certainly unnecessary biopsy could be carried out. Then, so I imagined, I’d be travelling down to the Epworth Hospital in Richmond five days a week for radiation treatment or, in the worst of cases, maybe also chemotherapy. I phoned my wife, Anne, to tell her the news. On the car trip home, my mood was one of defiance and (inexplicably) slight elation. On our verandah, looking onto the garden of the cottage where we have spent the past thirty-five years together, Anne and I calmly discussed the many implications.

  On 26 October the small operation took place at the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg. The biopsy confirmed the bad news. Shortly after, I spoke on the phone to the radiation oncologist at the Austin who had advised us at the time of the previous cancer. It was then that I learned I didn’t know the ropes. The oncologist thought that the larynx – popularly known as the voice box, although it is considerably more than that – would most likely have to be removed. Without even thinking I responded: “I’d rather die.” From time to time I’d seen a cheerful old codger in the local shopping centre speaking through the use of an electronic device placed against his throat. He sounded like a robot. This was what I thought might await me.

  By now everything had become more intense. Before the biopsy, in Brisbane, where we were both speakers at a conference, I dined in a quiet restaurant with my friend of fifty years, Rai Gaita. A young woman approached us. She spoke almost with solemnity: “What a beautiful friendship.” How could she possibly know that? She told us she had been watching us for two hour
s. Around the time of the diagnosis, a book I had written on the ideology of the Islamic State was published. This meant that the news of the cancer’s return coincided with a number of public engagements, most of which had to be abandoned. I will never, however, forget one interview after the biopsy – for a religious program on ABC Radio National – which was not cancelled. I arrived at Southbank in torrential rain. To my complete surprise, the ABC building that I had visited scores of times looked like it had been bombed. It was, in fact, being entirely renovated. I ran in panic trying to find the new entrance. As the interview began, I was still panting. Andrew West, who had obviously read the book carefully, asked all the right questions. When we were finished I expressed my gratitude for his uncommon conscientiousness. I explained that this mattered to me more than usual as I was about to undergo a laryngectomy, and it would probably be the last interview I ever recorded. I was standing in a temporary tardis in Melbourne. He was in Sydney. Perhaps the combination of high praise and bad news overwhelmed Andrew. As we spoke, his voice broke.

  Shortly after, Anne and I saw the Austin oncologist, a kind and sensitive man. We discussed alternatives to a laryngectomy, an unfamiliar word for me at that time. Radiation would most likely be useless, as my skin had previously been irradiated. Anne had read about so-called partial laryngectomies. The oncologist doubted this would be a possible treatment. My wife, who has dealt with horses for much of her life, has a far better understanding of physiology than me. She took in what I hardly heard. Without a laryngectomy, there was a strong possibility that within a matter of months I would be facing a very painful death. With delay now, the chance of performing a laryngectomy later might have passed. Nonetheless, despite all this, we left the appointment hanging onto the slender hope of some less radical treatment. The oncologist told us his colleagues would think that even considering anything other than a laryngectomy in my case was a serious mistake. He had, however, taken to heart my first words – “I’d rather die.”

  The oncologist arranged two appointments: one with a surgeon and a speech therapist at the Austin, the other with a surgeon at the Epworth. At the Austin the surgeon who might operate had been called away. We spoke briefly to one of his colleagues. I recall, with a certain grim amusement, only one remark: “A laryngectomy is a straightforward operation.” More important was the meeting with the speech therapist. With an intact larynx, the throat facilitates four vital human activities: breathing, speaking, eating and drinking. Without a larynx, the principal functions of the reconstructed throat are eating and drinking. A new passage to the lungs, to enable breathing, has to be created surgically. The surgery leaves a roughly ten-cent-size hole below the chin, where the Adam’s apple used to be, which is called a stoma, another new word for me which would become all too familiar. Speaking is possible, we now learned, not only as in the past with an electronic device but also with a rather magical silicon prosthesis which connects the reconstructed throat to the newly created passage to the lungs. The Austin speech therapist introduced us to a laryngectomite of five years’ standing. He spoke remarkably well, in his old tone of voice, he told us, but with slightly reduced volume. He was presently trying to teach himself to sing. To speak he had to place his thumb over the stoma, which was concealed behind a piece of spongy cloth. He did not use the alternative way of speaking open to a laryngectomite – a flexible base plate holding an air filter that allows one to talk when it’s pressed down by the thumb. Before showing us his stoma hole, the laryngectomite asked us, rather delicately, not to be alarmed. We weren’t. To illustrate the point about the retention of the old voice even after the removal of the larynx, the speech therapist told us a rather charming story. A Scottish woman, about to undergo a laryngectomy, had inquired nervously: would she keep her Scottish accent? She was assured that she would.

  Some days later Anne and I went to our appointment at the Epworth. There were, in fact, two surgeons. The cancerous growth on my throat was displayed on a television screen. The surgeons discussed the problem and the treatment options as we listened and asked the occasional question. The ideas of more radiotherapy or a partial laryngectomy were both summarily dismissed. Within less than half an hour of eavesdropping on their discussion, we had both been convinced. A laryngectomy was unavoidable. Indeed, because the cancerous growth was so large, the operation would also require a plastic surgeon. The younger of the two surgeons we met with would perform the operation. The slightly more senior surgeon assured us that he would trust him with the lives of his own family. The date for the operation at the Epworth was set: 24 November. My initial thought – that I would rather die than have the larynx removed – by now seemed a decade away. During this time there were a flurry of tests. The one I remember best was the so-called “PET scan”, to see whether the cancer had spread. It took place on the day of the American presidential election. When my body entered the chamber, horizontally, Donald Trump was faring surprisingly well. When it emerged, he was president-elect of the United States.

  As the major operation approached, Anne asked me to say something on her phone so she would be able to remember my voice. I quickly wrote and then recorded a letter to the love of my life. The supposedly straightforward operation took ten hours or more. When I regained consciousness, there was a hole in my neck, my slit throat had been sown together, the area around the neck was grotesquely swollen, and of course I could not speak a word. Apart from the doctors and nurses, the only person I wished to see or to see me was Anne. To observe the condition to which I had voluntarily submitted must have been a terrible shock. Anne is incapable of self-deception and feels things intensely. And yet on that day and on every day after that I spent in hospital, she remained calm, cheerful and optimistic. Partners in life who have been truly close for a long time often begin to think and feel as one. Our new friend, Gerry Gill, calls this the “third mind”. One of the central concepts of Anne’s and my third mind is “moral effort”. This is what Anne was able to summon. Without her calmness, cheerfulness and optimism, her moral effort at this time, my body would, I suppose, have survived but my spirit would most probably have been, perhaps permanently, damaged.

  On the first day after the operation, I was bright. On the following days that brightness faded. In this state I was encouraged by the energetic Epworth speech therapist to learn how to clean the prosthetic device by twirling a brush inside it while gazing into a mirror, an intricate manoeuvre involving not inconsiderable hand–eye coordination. I resisted. This was not, as she imagined, because I could not bear to look at the stoma. It was rather because I could not bear to look at my swollen neck. In one of my nightmares at this time, where I dived headfirst into an empty concrete swimming pool to my death, I was bloated and my skin a jaundiced pale yellow. I was also encouraged very early on by one of the ward’s physiotherapists to get out of bed. I tried to stand. As I was about to throw up, she faced a split-second choice as to whether the vomit should be captured by cloths or in a metal half-full wastepaper bin. Unfortunately, the conventional cloth option was chosen. Some of the vomit fell on the wounds.

  Since the operation I communicated with pen and paper. I “told” Anne that there were two recurring phrases in my head. One was “a paragon of manual ineptitude”, a description given me by the filmmaker Ben Lewin when we were university students. This explained my pessimism about cleaning the prosthesis. The other was “my weariness amazes me”, a line from a Bob Dylan song. This was how I felt.

  Even before I developed a temperature, Anne was the first to notice that something was seriously wrong. On a routine early morning ward visit, less than a week after the first operation, the plastic surgeon recognised that my condition was perilous and rushed me back to the operating theatre. A very kind and gentle man, he rang Anne to explain the situation and put his phone to my ear so she could talk to me. Anne realised that this might be our last conversation. While I was being operated upon, she listened to the letter I had recorded a week before and wept. For my part
, foolishly I felt no fear. The second operation, to clear the infection and once again to reconstruct the throat, in part by drawing on muscle from my chest, also lasted ten hours or more. I have since asked my surgeons whether at this time my life was threatened. According to both, it was.

  The anaesthetic was wearing off as I was wheeled from the operating theatre to the intensive care unit. I had entered a weird and profoundly disturbing state of consciousness – between dream and reality – that I have not experienced before or since, and to which I hope never to return. Names of wards, the true names, flashed past. When I reached the intensive care unit I was still in this netherworld. A voice kept asking: “Professor of what? Professor of what?” Later I recognised that the voice belonged to the ICU nurse assigned to watch over me. When I returned to the world, I asked for some sheets of paper so I could “speak” to Anne. I wrote: “We made a MISTAKE – should have decided otherwise. NO TREATMENT no chemo no radiation I had a terrible nightmare coming out of the coma I feel clear in my mind I know there is now a logic I/we must see to its end I have never feared death I am resolute But”. Shortly after, with the title of George Orwell’s short essay on Malcolm Muggeridge, “The Limits of Pessimism”, in mind, I wrote: “The Limits of Optimism”. This was the only time I was overtaken by despair. Anne talked me round. The head of the ICU asked me whether I’d like to speak to a counsellor. Why not? I wrote: “Like Karl Marx I’m interested in everything.” I doubt if he knew what I was “talking” about. But my spirit had returned.

  After leaving the ICU, I settled again into the private room I had been allocated, very grateful that it was not shared, and quickly established a routine, as is my wont. First thing, an email to Anne and one or two emails, depending on my strength, to my daughters, Kate and Lucy, or, later, to my nephew David, son-in-law Daniel and closest friends. Then a morning newspaper. For the first time in my life, some morning television. Reading for an hour or two. Cricket or golf interspersed throughout the day, if being played. The test match was a blessing. An afternoon nap. And finally an evening film, almost always with Anne. We celebrated our thirty-fourth wedding anniversary sitting alongside each other by the side of the bed, with a Claude Chabrol moral-psychological thriller playing on my screen.