Reconciliation as abdication

The lack of scholarly analysis of the reconciliation process in Australia remains notable, given that the policy commanded so much public attention and politieal energy during the 1990s, A frequent lament for reconciliation under the Prime Ministership of John Howard, however, evokes the lack of national political leadership that has been offered. Andrew Leigh's article 'Leadership and Aboriginal Reconciliation' (AJSI, May 2002), is useful as it brings a concern for rigour to definitions of what leadership might actually mean, while eneouraging a renewed critical engagement with the terms of reconciliation itself. The present paper is an attempt to make that engagement within the terms ofpolitical leadership: what sort of leadership is appropriate to the poliey of reconciliation? Leigh's notion of 'adaptive leadership' comprises several different strategies: the separation of 'technical' from 'adaptive' forms of leadership and work; the application of pressure to move non-indigenous Australians into a 'zone of discomfort', and a focus on 'interpersonal relations', I contend that these suggestions, while well intended, underestimate the actual dynamics of the reconciliation process. In fact, mainstream politicians offset indigenous demands against the capacities and tolerance of non-indigenous Australians, with a vague sense that a new social coalition would emerge. Reconciliation operates with an ideal of a postcolonial national identity emerging from the community as it becomes enlightened; yet the lack of definition as to that 'enlightenment' means that leadership is subordinated to a diffuse but powerful sense of 'community'. This abdication was an explicit political intention of reconciliation in Australia.