Heart land. Image by Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

“The consequences of Labor’s decision electing Latham as their leader are utterly profound. It has shattered the psychic fabric of our nation. We wake up now in a totally different country than we have done for 7 years of a dominant Howard.” Robert Bosler

Robert Bosler is a Sydney artist and regular Webdiary contributor. His last piece, on Labor’s leadership choices, is in Time for Labor to play to win, not just play safe.

 

After 7 years of living in John Howard’s landscape we had grown used to the scenery. Whether it’s hit you yet or not, that scenery has all changed with the rise of Mark Latham to Labor Leader.

There is another, fascinating landscape we all deal in on a daily basis – all of us. It’s the landscape of the mind, the landscape of the heart, the landscape of the soul, all immaculately welded together. This is the ‘psychic fabric of our nation’.

The powerful thing about it is that it is a fabric, where each of our hearts and minds and souls play a role. This psychic fabric is just as real as the roads and the trees of our visible landscape.

The consequences of Labor’s decision electing Latham as their leader are utterly profound. That decision has shattered the psychic fabric of our nation. We wake up now in a totally different country than we have done for 7 years of a dominant Howard.

Two people who wake up each day to this totally different world are Mark Latham and John Howard. How each of them respond to their new world will create the new roadmap for our country’s future. Will it be more of living in John Howard’s Australia? Or will it be Latham’s vision we live in?

Because of Labor’s decision, whether we like it or not, neither future is certain to arrive. Each of those men must now make it happen.

What follows is my suggestions for how Mark Latham can do just that. It sets him apart from his opponent, and defeats his opponent, and causes mistakes in his opponent, and Mark lives to enjoy it all.

1. The most important point Mark must remember is that he doesn’t have to do too much.

This is the central, coldest, hardest fact of the upcoming battle. Stating that fact will crash up against mountains of resistance, screaming at him that there is so much he has to do to win from this position. But that’s just the point. The more he listens to that, the more he will have to do. The first and foremost point of winning is this: keep it simple. He must not get swept up in other peoples’ energy or ideas. In short, to win, he must, more, remain himself.

2. Men like Mark know they are winners.

He knows it, don’t worry about that. If you want to enjoy seeing this in him you need look no further than his simple statements, like: “I’m just a guy having a go.” That simple truth and the way he says it speaks theease of the winner. It shows you he has all the complications of his role under control. That is the sign of a man who knows how to win. He must, daily, feel and enjoy his own winning nature.

3. Having all the complications under control – being on top of it all – allows him his sense of humour.

You can’t laugh about something if you’re buried up to the hilt in it. If it’s bigger than you, your only laugh is a nervous one or a forced one. Mark’s laugh so far has been positively wicked. It’s the laugh that brings out the spirited mischievous schoolboy in us if we are male, and the laugh that puts a mother’s hand to her brow as she faithfully prepares the next load of mud splattered washing, along with a ‘what am I going to do with you’ comment. It’s an infectious laugh, and its adorable. But it has also been the laugh of a man bored witless. And so to this point. Mark’s humour will change naturally, as the boredom and the mischievousness of previous times change for him. But his humour must remain. If it does, you’ll be looking at a man who has absorbed his new responsibility and who has the complications under control, who is on top of it all, and that is the safest and most secure leader you can have. Look for it. If you see his humour remain in the months of growing responsibility ahead, he’s already won.

4. We are all human, what happens on the days it all gets too much?

What does he do when the mountainous screaming whirlwind is just too much for now? Absolutely, he must say nothing. This crashes against the screaming mass and all hell will break loose. His minders will be screaming at him: “you must speak to the media or they will tear you apart”. He must let the media do just that.

Let’s say that again. He must ignore the exhortations to comment under those circumstances and if the media tears him apart, he must let them.

This is a standout point. It only lives successfully under these conditions: little time to go coupled with uncertainty, which is where we are now before the next election. It works because it creates a vacuum. A vacuum is powerful. It sucks things into it. During times when Mark is uncertain, if he ignores the screaming mass he then gives himself time to centre his spirit and get on top of it again.

Let the media tear him apart – because they will have nothing from him to tear apart. The media will be tearing apart only the substance that the media itself throws at it. Mark is silent. He, then in good time, has regathered within himself, he has created the vacuum, there is greater intensity of interest in what he has to say, and when he speaks again he speaks with incisiveness and strength and fills the vacuum with substance of his own choosing.

The net result: Mark has reset the agenda. He is back on top of it all, and the game plays out under his renewed terms and conditions. This point is crucial to his winning. Failure to do so, by listening to the exhortations to speak under duress, will show only a man not yet ready to lead.

This is a tough game we are playing now, and the conditions are not normal. You have to play it your way, and the critics will acknowledge, at the very least, your own style and your own strength in the way you play it. That’s a double win from a dangerous position.

5. Mark’s great strength is that he is the real thing.

He’s a real human being. We’re going to go on a roller coaster ride with him, but isn’t that what life is, in truth? We’re going to laugh with him, shout at him, wonder with him, grow thoughtful with him, all of it. We are not used to that. Mark has to be comfortable with how we respond to that human intimacy. He must fully realise right now his own natural and easy response to our future responses to feeling his intimacy with him. He must address this now, within himself. If he doesn’t, when we respond to his natural ways, en masse like never before, he will himself be uncomfortable with his own nature and we will feel it as uncertainty, or worse, rejection. He must not grow aloof. He must be himself prepared and natural with our unusual response en masse to his naturalness. We are not used to naturalness or intimacy in a leader now and Mark must prepare for our response to it. This way, he stays natural, and he stays the real thing.

Mark, and his minders, must realise that its better for us to be taken on a roller coaster ride of his naturalness than to feel rejected by him closing off that naturalness. This will not be easy for Mark, because he doesn’t want to upset us; his intentions and his ambition wants us to feel better about life. What Mark must overcome within himself is any tendency to be frightened about how we might feel about this intimate naturalness. He will be doing this in the face of at times overwhelming questioning as to its validity in a leader, because we are simply not used to it.

We are human too and will forgive him the downs along the way, but we will not forgive him our feelings of rejection. He must trust in us, and know that its ok for us to feel life again. When we feel secure in the weeks ahead that Mark is fully comfortable with himself and our intimate response to him, he will be unbeatable.

In short, Mark must set the agenda. His biggest challenges come not from his opponent, but from within himself, and from exhortations from within his sphere of influence. He must, then, keep the agenda, which means stepping back from it and letting it thrash itself around, not get caught up in that thrashing, and then go back in and reclaim it.

His party must grow enormously in their own understanding of these things about him. His party must understand that Mark is unique. His party must learn to see him, and not be looking at their own idea of what he should be. His party must understand that falling into the agenda Mark sets, even though it’s utterly foreign and probably utterly frightening to them in ways, is the only way they will win.

This point is of absolute importance to a win. Members of his party will be under enormous pressure to want to speak up and try to right what they see is wrong from his agenda, but if they do, they will lose. They must learn to sense this within themselves and hold it in check. They must not cut him down. They must realise that all agendas are flawed in some way and that it’s this oneness with his agenda that is unbeatable. They must not get in the way from him growing. Instead, they must put it all aside and grow with him, and by him. And if they do not realise this themselves, individually, Mark must make it clear.

And, finally: Time.

Time is illusory. You have a bad day at work and the day goes forever. Have three good days on holiday and they’re all gone in a flash. Winners know time is illusory.

When you set the agenda, you are controlling time. In fulfilling all the points above, Mark will slow the screaming thrashing rush down to a holding pattern under his control. Then, whenever he needs, he will be able to glide through spaces and score while his opponents look on dreamlike. Or, for fun, he can unleash it in a lightning blast and tear his stunned opponents apart.

Fulfill the points above, and time will be Mark’s to own, and everything that happens will fall into place, albeit challengingly, for him to win.