No Joy, only Division: It’s just the stupidest stupid we’ve yet seen
Claims a boomer wearing a T-shirt with one of his favourite bands, which has a history of being loved in Australia, is antisemetic makes a joke of actual antisemitism – and makes it harder to address what are actual, real, growing concerns, writes Amy Remeikis.
Source: The Australian Jewish News
We are in, quite possibly, the stupidest timeline.
A self-processed former “punk” using her position in Parliament to criticise the Prime Minister for wearing a Joy Division T-shirt is stupid-stupid, even for Auspol, which long ago shifted the bar from low to subterranean.
To borrow from Shakespeare, it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Given the nation is being forced into having a conversation about a boomer wearing a band T-shirt, let’s take a little bit more of a look at it shall we?
The T-shirt depicts the album cover of Unknown Pleasures, which – in turn – features a graphic of radio waves from a pulsar. In other words, a signal from an object of extreme density spinning away deep in the void. A perfect metaphor for this “debate”.
Physics tells us that empty vessels make the most noise, which is another perfect analogy for Sussan Ley and the modern Liberal Party. Ley’s desperate need for relevancy, underscored by her office sending her 90-second statement around the press gallery to ensure coverage, perhaps disproves the notion that nothing can be truly empty.
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Ley’s “argument” was that by wearing a Joy Division t-shirt, Anthony Albanese risked upsetting Australia’s Jewish community, given the origins of the band’s name come from a 1950s book that told the story of sex slaves kept by the Nazis, who referred to them as the “joy division”.
Albanese in the T-shirt that sent Ley into a spin this week. Photo: ABC screengrab
She demanded an apology, claiming it was tone deaf. Which, OK, if you want to argue that line, will Ley apologise for posting on her social media a tribute to her first car, a VW Beetle, a vehicle conceived during Nazi Germany, following Hitler’s request for a “people’s car”?
She made the post in May last year, which was after October 7 – did she consider the risk of glorifying such a potent symbol of a regime known for its genocidal mania against Jewish people?
Of course, that is a ridiculous argument. It’s just as ridiculous as pointing out that Ley deliberately changed her name to create an SS in the middle of her given name. And just as ridiculous as claiming that a boomer with a professed love of music and T-shirts, wearing a T-shirt with one of his favourite bands, which has a history of being loved in Australia, is antisemetic.
It makes a joke of actual antisemitism in this nation and makes it harder to address what are actual, real, growing concerns. That Ley has not acknowledged the also very real issue of Islamophobia while conflating genuine criticism of the actions of Israel’s government, with antisemitism makes it even worse.
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No major Jewish group had raised any concerns over the picture of the PM in the T-shirt, which, as Mark Di Stefano at The Australian Financial Review rightly pointed out, had been floating around for five days before it suddenly became an issue of national importance.
As Di Stefano (who keeps a very close watch on the culture, as well as the national debate) mapped out, Ley’s allegation had its origins in the dark, cooked, corners of the interwebs, before popping up on SAD (Sky After Dark) and then being aired out in the Parliament.
Which meant it took close to a week before Ley and her minions decided this was an issue of national importance, driven, of course, by the yearning need to find someone in the Coalition base to support her rudderless ship.
These base instincts are so bereft of meaning, it’s like finally reaching the bottom of Lake Baikal and then finding the Mariana Trench below. It’s empty, stupid politics and it reflects an empty, stupid politic.
It truly says something about how utterly bereft is the direction of Ley’s leadership that one of the smartest responses came from Bridget McKenzie, of all people. She refused to spend any time on the issue because: “Look, there’s a lot to legitimately criticise the Prime Minister about – trillion-dollar debt, skyrocketing house prices and job losses in our heavy industrial sector. Wearing a T-shirt isn’t one of them.”
It was too stupid for McKenzie.
And she is right. There is a lot to criticise this government about. But if the Coalition can’t find something to build legitimate criticism on, and create policy to counter, and has to rely on the conspiracies of @Bot79u379795t49u57493 on social media to find a line, while at the same time Albanese is overseas making deals with trading nations and allies, well, it is confirming its place as a party of opposition.
This week we have seen the consequences of privatising the care industry, rising inflation (potentially driven by the increase in house prices and the associated fees that come with that), an audit announced into the Housing Australia Future Fund, and the need for an Australian Federal Police taskforce to counter a horrific trend of young women and girls being “hunted, stalked and drawn-in” and coerced into carrying out serious acts of self-harm and violence, as part of the “gamification” of control. The fact Ley decided to elevate a T-shirt as an issue … the stupidity limit does not exist.
Perhaps the leader who created a personality out of lore she once wore Dr Martens and had coloured streaks in her hair should find her own Joy Division albums and see if there is any wisdom to be found.
Maybe from Twenty-Four Hours:
Now that I’ve realised how it’s all gone wrong
Gotta find some therapy, this treatment takes too long
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway
Gotta find my destiny before it gets too late
Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute
