Last week Jason Scott Montoya interviewed me on the subject of seven essential qualities of a political leader, which he had gleaned from a previous post of mine. You can access the interview, along with ancillary material, by clicking on the link in the previous sentence. Or you can watch it here:
This is the third interview that Montoya has had with me. The others concerned my Political Visions and Illusions and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
David and Montoya:
ReplyDeleteHow much does David's dual citizenship, his "semi-outsider" status, enable him, from his Canadian "perch" to explicitly affirm "citizenship without illusions"? He is aware that insight can thrive sans frontieres and this is confirmed when he says: the observations that I am making are not based in partisanship... i.e. refusing to take one or other side since "I am much more concerned about the health of the political system as a whole, and of the political culture that supports it." Does this not comport with our ever evident globalised interdependence in which for any polity those, who like David, after decades living away from their "polities of origin", can yet drop positive critical gems of wisdom into political discourse "back home", and does not this attest to something embedded in our citizenship that is implicit in our political responsibilities that enables us to reach beyond our immediate "local" context .... When unhealthy political debate ensures it needs wise stimulants to help citizens overcome emergent political unhealthiness ... politics as a competition between healthy stimulants may emerge when citizens stay open to the possibility of crucial insight coming from those who though semi-outsiders have something worthwhile to add as they come close to our political life. Political wisdom "without illusions" may well arise from the stimulants of immigrants and refugees. "Debate about immigration" in such immigrant polities as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand so often lacks wisdom precisely because this kind of semi-outsider contribution is easily ecclipsed by attention to short term political objectives i.e. to defeat opponents in an election. Was not the wife of the former President born in Slovenia, the Australian foreign minister born in Malaysia, Rishi Sunak the son of Indian migrants from East Africa? In a mere five pages Heiko Oberman - also a migrant from The Netherlands who died in Arizona - wrote a marvellous essay "The Cutting Edge: The reformation of the Refugees." This cutting edge interview makes sense in that context too.