| Review of: | Keeper of the Faith: A Biography of Jim Cairns by Paul Strangio |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Drew Cottle |
| Reviewed in: | Australian Journal of Politics and History |
| Date accepted online: | 11/01/2005 |
| Published in print: | Volume 50, Issue 3, Pages 440-468 |
Book Reviews
Paul Strangio's study of the former deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party, Dr Jim Cairns, is the third biographical account of one of the most complex figures in Australian political life. Earlier biographers, Irene Dowsing and Paul Ormonde, portrayed Cairns either as Plekhanov's "great man" or as one who held so much promise but failed. The Strangio book, redolent with primary and secondary sources, presents almost the entire life of Cairns, from humble Wesleyan origins to the aged isolated seller of self-published books at various Melbourne markets. A weakness of
Nevertheless, the formative influences on Cairns' political outlook are deftly sketched. The material adversity of the Great Depression, the deep and lasting wound of a father's absence and a mother's emotional distance, the family belief in young Jim's brilliance, the sporting prowess, and the deprived education would finally determine Cairns' quality of character and political maturity. From an early age, Cairns became a loner, independent, respected, a leader, but never known, troubled and almost friendless. Strangio's brief explorations of Cairns the copper, the reluctant soldier at the end of the Pacific War and the limitations and disappointments of the academic life experienced at Melbourne and Oxford partly explained how the "socialist without doctrines" became, surprisingly, a maverick member of Labor. Cairns as a federal Labor parliamentarian coincided with the tentative beginnings of the Great Split in the Party. In Victoria, where the Split was as deep as it was acrimonious, Cairns rose quickly as a lion of the Left. Cairns found few kindred spirits, apart from Uren and, for a time, Hayden, in a party led by Evatt and later by Calwell in parliamentary opposition. His criticisms of Cold War power politics and his growing concern for national liberation in Asia, as Strangio illustrates, endeared the loner to no one. Menzies' parting gift of sending Australian troops to Vietnam to support the American war of intervention, buttressed by selective military conscription, brought further division to Labor's ranks and thrust Cairns into political prominence. As the popular war in Vietnam turned sour, Cairns took a leading role in galvanising peaceful opposition to it. He found his politics of engagement, moral certainty, radical commitment and community on the streets in the mobilisations against the Vietnam War. It was this realisation which separated Cairns almost entirely from his parliamentary colleagues and the institutional power of parliament.
According to Strangio, Cairns, through his experience of the Vietnam War moratoria, had found a way to connect. This form of rudimentary participatory democracy was seen by Cairns as the way to establish a socialist Australia. That moment had lit his life.
When Labor came to power in late 1972, ending the "ice age" of Menzies, Cairns learnt the tribulations of high office. He became a prisoner of executive power. He could do little toward his socialist dream and was constrained or denied whatever he did as a Minister. Cairns was a fish on a bicycle.
Events like the mysterious bashing of Cairns at his home, and the sudden appearance and influence of Junie Morosi upon Cairns when he was a senior Labor minister, are not sufficiently interrogated by Strangio. Conspiratorial conclusions about both of these episodes in Cairns' life are cast aside by the author. It is unlikely, however, that the files of security agencies, domestic or foreign, when finally opened, would offer any evidence of operations against Cairns. Such is the world of intelligence. Was Cairns a danger or a dreamer? Or, mistakenly, a dangerous dreamer? His life after parliament suggests he was a seeker on a fruitless quest. Cairns's role in the Vietnam anti-war movement kept it, largely, within the safe bounds of parliamentary politics. After the Tet Offensive, Cairns commanded vast mass support to end the war. Jim hoped he could construct a society based on social equality, and to end all forms of oppression. Yet he realised the limits of Labor's reformism and its fundamental adherence to capitalism. When in government, he could and would do nothing which would end Labor's commitment to the system of private ownership and profit, with or without Junie Morosi. Unknowingly, Strangio has offered us a cautionary tale in this biography of a now barely remembered Labor saint.