DUCKPOND

People in countries such as Australia tend to take for granted our relatively long history of stable government and question why it is not so possible for others. While it is true that Australian government and democracy are evolving, as we have seen today in the “Welcome to Country” ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra, it is the case that government was not invented here. The same case could be made for the United States, although there the element of invention was greater, but nevertheless they too drew on precedents and historical experience of an early European history. Both Australia and the United States were formed self sufficient and not dependent on external forces for the maintenance of public order. Few countries, for example, could have weathered the 1975 Constitutional Crisis that Australia endured.

Experience tends to suggest that the formation of nation states is not quick process, but a long drawn out process in which the processes of peace eventually triumph over violence, but often not long after violence has almost torn any consensus to threads. The Norman Conquest of England overlaid a feudal/clerical system of government on an existing Anglo-Saxon government that was among the richest in Europe, meaning it has an efficient system of collecting taxes, and yet England was almost torn asunder by the dynastic wars of the War of the Roses. While now they are an oasis of peace, the Nordic Countries were often at war before the twentieth century. The border between France and Germany was an occasion for war until 1945 and the formation of the European Union, and now military conflict is unthinkable. France, consisted one of the original national states, is from 1958 onto its Fifth Republic since 1789.

It is easy to postulate that the more diverse the population, the more discontinuous the history of government, and the long or brutal subjection to colonial rule the more difficult stable government will be. The history of East Timor (officially, The Democratic Republic of Timor Leste) is a case in point. It seems to me the effect of foreign occupation is additional compounding factor in that, perhaps among other things, creates the environment for sustained armed resistance and division among the population between winners and losers determined by the occupiers.

In any case, the casual consumer of news, such as myself, finds it difficult to understand the career of a person such as Alfredo Reinado, and inclined to dismiss his views and his behavior as weird. History provides the context. Now Alfredo has been killed and the President of Timor Leste is in a critical condition suffering from gunshots in the Royal Darwin Hospital. Here is some background, via you tube.

ABC journalist Chris Bullock was able to track down Reinado in the Timor high country, giving us the opportunity to hear his side of the story. Here is the interview:

It seems that Ramos Horta was susceptible to physical attack, but when a person is president who is there to tell me what to do. Despite what Ken Parish suggests, who otherwise no doubt is correct about the necessary application of the rule of law, there was some sense in developing dialogue with a group of armed soldiers who could not be easily tracked down, and the prosecution of whom was to be entirely in the hands of foreign soldiers, in this case Australians. Now Reinado and his colleagues for reasons I do not understand decided to stage a coup or effect an assassination.

ELSEWHERE:

Andrew Bunscombe, Asia Correspondent for The Independent, provides his overview of the the history of Timor Leste and report of the assassination attempt of the President. Could this be another case, as the suggestion implies, of the now familiar refrain, “It’s the oil habibi, the oil”?