Decline and fall of the Empire of Ideas

Around AD17 the Emperor Tiberius fixed the northern border of the Roman Empire on the Rhine. There would be no further campaigns of conquest.

Communications were stretched, there was little economic benefit in the gloomy Germanic forests and the tribes which lurked there were too difficult to control.

In AD2018 United States President Donald Trump decided to withdraw his forces from Syria and half of those in Afghanistan, deciding the cost of maintaining them in the fight against Islamic extremism had no economic benefit with no end in sight.

Unlike Rome’s, the US Empire is not a physical one of territory, but of ideas and ideals – summed up by one of the greatest American Presidents as government of the people, for the people and by the people.

This empire opposed the other significant ideologies of the 20^th century — first fascism, where people were subservient to an all-powerful state; then communism with its emphasis on government by an elite of a single political party — and defeated them both.    

For a while it seemed the US Empire of Ideas had triumphed as its traditional enemies crumbled before it, but the borders, while extended were still borders and beyond it new enemies were gathering strength, marshalling under the banner of radical Islam.

Just as Rome’s forward march was halted by the disastrous Teutoburg Forest campaign, The US became bogged down in messy, unending conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and like Rome, has made the momentous decision they are no longer worth the effort.

To Tiberius, living in the first decades of what is now called the Common Era, the decision would have seemed a no brainer. The empire was vast and prosperous, containing all that was needed for the good life. There was no need to be troubled with a bunch of barbarians living in distant unprofitable lands. Let them keep their miserable forests.

For Trump, elected on an America First platform by voters many of whom are proud to proclaim they have never owned a passport, his decision would have seemed equally logical; why waste the nation’s wealth on endless wars in distant places when a border wall, built for far less cost, could maintain the bountiful land from sea to shining sea?

History is long. The Roman Empire did not collapse for another four centuries after Tiberius’ fateful decision and, in fact, continued to grow in strength for a while, but the seeds of its destruction had been planted, momentum had been lost; its eventual decline inevitable.

Likewise a world without US involvement and leadership is not going to disintegrate overnight. It will even be hailed by those who prefer to concentrate on US failings rather than its achievements.

The hysteria of the 24-hour news cycle may proclaim dissolution and chaos around the corner, but there will probably be no great change in the lifetimes of those reading this article.

Yet the enemies lurking outside the borders will have taken heart from the latest decrees out of Washington, noting them as the first signs of vulnerability. Future historians may well mark 2018 as the date when the long, inexorable decline of the Empire of Ideas began.

Public Service News from around the world

Pledge to protect UK officers

PARIS (December 13): The French Government has announced it will protect the jobs of more than 1,700 United Kingdom nationals working in the country’s Public Service even in the event of no deal being reached with the UK over its departure from the European Union (Brexit).

A draft legislative proposal adopted by the French Parliament's special Brexit committee states that the officers, working mostly in the Education and Health Departments, "must be maintained in the same status and work conditions."

A member of the committee, Alexandre Holroyd said the proposal was supported by a large majority of political parties.

“It is the most human solution and the most compatible with the services that these Civil Servants have given to the French State," Mr Holroyd said, adding that similar solutions had been proposed by the European Commission and Germany.

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Unions threaten anti-austerity strike

HARARE (December 13): Zimbabwe’s Public Servants will strike if the Government fails to reverse its austerity measures, a key union body has warned.

Public Service Chair of the Apex Council of Trade Unions, Cecilia Alexander said the situation currently obtaining in the country, particularly in Public Servants’ conditions of service, demanded that the Government should adjusts some of its policies.

“It is our position that any further move to implement austerity measures will certainly cause disharmony between ourselves and the employer and may in the end defeat the Government’s well-intentioned objective to stabilise the economy,” Ms Alexander said.

She said unions were not consulted before the measures were put forward in the national Budget, a violation of Section 65 of the Constitution which guaranteed Government employees the right to consult and be consulted.

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Campaign to find selfless workers

NAIROBI (December 14): President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya has launched a campaign aimed at identifying and celebrating individuals and institutions who provide honest public services without expecting anything in return

He said the campaign would be “driven by youth and ordinary citizens through social media and other platforms”. 

Mr Kenyatta said the campaign was a continental initiative that was being rolled out first in Kenya. “This is an honour to our country,” Mr Kenyatta said.

“It aims to promote values and principles of public service and serves as a call to recognise and celebrate Public Servants who offer honest public service every day with commitment, devotion and selflessness.”

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Departments ‘at breaking point’

LONDON (December 14): A union representing senior United Kingdom Public Servants has warned that overstretched Government Departments are reaching breaking point.

A survey by the FDA union found more than 80 per cent of Public Service leaders were having to put in extra unpaid hours just to get their work finished, with the additional work involved in the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) mostly blamed.

A quarter said they usually gave up between six and 10 hours of their time every week, and nearly three quarters believed their Department was understaffed.

One Home Office employee said he had “never felt so dispirited” after decades of working in the Public Service saying “years are being taken off my life and my wellbeing and marriage suffer enormously.”

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‘Fundamental changes’ in PS needed

BELFAST (December 14): Northern Ireland’s Renewable Heat Incentive inquiry has been told there needs to be a "fundamental appraisal" of the Province’s Public Service.

In written evidence to the investigation into the botched scheme, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster suggested one possibility might be extending the United Kingdom Public Service to cover the Province.

“With advances in technology, the increasingly complexity of policies, and the emergence of new approaches within the private sector, there is a need for greater specialism and expertise within the Civil Service,” Mrs Foster said.

"In my view, there is a case for consideration of extending the Home Civil Service to Northern Ireland."

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Service reminder amid festive fun

MANILA (December 14): The Philippines Civil Service Commission (CSC) has ruled that there must be no interruption to public services over the festive season.

Chair of the CSC, Alicia dela Rosa-Bala said that while it was not prohibiting Public Servants holding Christmas parties, the continued delivery of efficient services must be maintained.

“Christmas is the season of sharing and giving and I know that the best gift Government workers can give to the transacting public is the provision of responsive, compassionate, and effective public service, not only for the holidays but throughout the year,” Ms Rosa-Bala said.

“Agencies that render frontline services are encouraged to adopt appropriate working schedules and assign skeletal forces to ensure that all clients who are within their premises are attended to during office celebrations.”

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Qatar funding Gaza PS

DOHA (December 15): The Gulf State of Qatar has stepped in in to pay the salaries of nearly 30,000 Gazan Public Servants, delighting the impoverished workers, but angering some in the deeply divided Palestinian leadership who balked at the intervention of a foreign power.

Thousands queued in the winter cold to get their cash at post offices — one of which was decorated with a large mural of Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the message "Thanks Qatar".

"If the Qatari donation stops, we will be destroyed," said 45-year-old Public Servant Ammar Fayyad, the main bread-winner in his 13-strong family.

Palestinian sources said Friday's payout, thought to be around $US15 million ($A21 million), was part of a $US90 million ($A125 million) Qatari donation that began in November and is due to be paid into Gaza over six months.

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Concern over harassment inquiries

KUALA LUMPUR (December 15): The Malaysian Government is seeking ways to shorten the time taken to investigate cases of sexual harassment in the Public Service.

Deputy Minister, Hannah Yeoh said victims might feel as though the 21-day period stipulated under the current Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) was too long.

“Usually for sexual harassment at the workplace, even 14 days of investigation may seem like forever when the perpetrator is a colleague,” Ms Yeoh said.

She said the Government was also looking at revamping the SOP so that all sexual harassment reports were channelled to the integrity unit of each Agency.

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President demands PS improvements

PORT OF SPAIN (December 15): The President of Trinidad and Tobago has called on the country’s Public Service to “step up and improve on the level of service” given to citizens.

Paula-Mae Weekes said the public sector had a reputation for ineptitude, inefficiency and stagnation, which was alarming. 

"While no one doubts there are pools of competence within the service, the overall impression is disheartening and alarming," Ms Weekes said.

"Alarming because our economic climate, our international partners, the reasonable increasing demands of our population and technological advances all require that the Public Service be efficient, sophisticated and responsive to the needs of those it serves. It is high time that we eradicate this stigma.”

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Minister battles to defend Budget

EDINBURGH (December 15): Scotland’s’ Minister for Finance has vowed to protect “vital public services” and prioritise spending on health and education in his forthcoming Budget – despite not yet appearing to have the support to get his plans through the Parliament in Edinburgh.

Derek Mackay said he would have talks with other parties “in the weeks ahead and into the New Year” in a bid to convince them to back his tax and spending plans for 2019-20.

He cited Brexit as continuing to be the “biggest threat to Scotland’s prosperity”, but insisted his proposals would not be defined by this.

Instead, he said the Budget would set out “how we help protect Scotland as far as we can from the damaging uncertainty of the UK Government’s Brexit policy”.

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Agencies agree to flexible work

WELLINGTON (December 17): The next step in the New Zealand Public Service Gender Pay Action Plan has been launched with seven Agencies committing to flexible work pilots.

Announcing the move, Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter said more flexible working arrangements would enable more diverse and inclusive State services.

“We know organisations that encourage flexible work have a stronger ability to attract and retain staff and it leads to a greater diversity of staff,” Ms Genter said.

“Flexible-by-default work practices will help close the Public Service gender pay gap by removing barriers to flexible options at all levels, and the career penalty often associated with working flexibly.”

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Measure to end ‘disintegrating buses’

NAIROBI (December 16): Kenya’s National Transport Safety Authority has announced that all passenger buses will undergo a thorough inspection every five years that will involve tearing the body apart to assess structural strength.

In a statement, the authority said this was essential after a spate of accidents in which public service vehicles disintegrated, exacerbating the impact on crash victims.

Managing Director of the Kenya Association of Bus Manufacturers, Carrey Mbaraka said the inspections would be done at selected garages and at the owners’ cost.

He said it would be in addition to annual inspections of all commercial vehicles during which basic requirements for braking systems and general road-worthiness was checked.

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Survey finds 30,000 ‘ghosts’

MAPUTO (December 16); A survey of Mozambique Government employees has identified 30,000 ‘ghost workers’ costing one of the poorest countries in the world $US250 million ($A348 million) between 2015 and 2017.

Some of those on the Government payroll, which accounts for 55 per cent of the African nation’s State expenditure, did exist but were paid for jobs they did not do, while others were dead or fictitious.

Minister for the Civil Service, Carmelita Namashulua said the ‘proof-of-life tests’ were carried out to assess the effectiveness of officials in the country, which has been ranked as the 153rd most corrupt in the 2017 Transparency International Index.

She said the tests were carried out on around 348,000 workers.

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Pay rise vanishes into pensions

KAMPALA (December 16): Uganda’s Public Servants will get a five per cent pay increase next year — but the money will all be paid into a new contributory pension scheme.

Minister for Public Service, Wilson Muruli said the scheme would address issues of “affordability, sustainability, poor governance, accountability and timeliness of gratuity payment”.

He said the scheme would replace the existing system where Public Servants were paid their pensions only from Government contributions upon their retirement.

“However, retired officers who are already receiving their pension and those left with only five years to retire will remain on the current benefits scheme where they only receive Government contributions,” Mr Muruli said.

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‘Culture of greed’ corrupts PS

LUSAKA (December 17): A Zambian activist for good governance says self-enrichment and greed have replaced selflessness and values such as honesty and accountability in the nation’s Public Service.

Maxson Nkhoma said the time was long overdue for President Edgar Lungu to take a decisive stance against Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, and other senior Public Servants who had been found wanting.

 “Zambians are at pains to hear that over $US4.7 million ($A6.5 million) meant for the vulnerable and poorest of the poor was misappropriated to benefit only a few individuals,” Mr Nkhoma said.

He said good work by the Government during the year had been overshadowed by revelations of corruption and theft of public funds.

The full public Service News from around the world service will return in the New Year

Working together for the benefits of all

Last month I was thrilled to follow the progress of the United States’ InSight probe as it made a perfect landing on Mars. This was after a six-month journey, ending in seven minutes of drama as it made the final plunge to the surface of the Red Planet. 

The landing was the best National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) staff could have hoped for. Despite the vast distances involved InSight kept in radio contact during its descent and within minutes was sending back pictures of its landing site.

It was a triumph deservedly celebrated at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, but it was far from just a US achievement.

Now that it is on the surface, InSight is deploying a package of Franco-British seismometers to listen for ‘Marsquakes’; a German-developed ‘mole’ system will burrow up to five metres into the ground to take the planet’s temperature, giving a sense of how active Mars is.

This kind of international cooperation in space has been going on for decades and is the only sensible way humankind can explore the cosmos. The most prominent example is the International Space Station, which has pushed the frontiers of science in so many areas during experiments and research conducted by 230 individual from 18 different countries.

It is not only in space that technological innovation thrives on international cooperation. The internet itself originated in the US, but much early development was carried out in the United Kingdom, followed by contributions from a host of other countries, notably Australia.

Significantly, its earliest use was to link researchers in defence and universities around the world, allowing cooperation to be carried out over great distances in real time.

Facebook’s initial purpose was to allow students from US universities to keep in touch after graduation wherever they were in the world.

The free flow of ideas across national boundaries has been behind technological progress for at least the last two centuries. Without it much of what we take for granted today, from motor cars to mobile phones to transplant surgery would not have appeared or been developed so quickly.

It is therefore alarming to see growing movements around the world that seek to withdraw behind traditional tribal boundaries; to raise barriers against contact; to turn inward.

Worse, viewing their neighbours only as a source of exploitation, from which to bludgeon concessions in order to benefit themselves.

History gives plenty of examples of what happens when this becomes the normal way nations deal with each other. The establishment of international organisations in the middle of last century was in a direct response to two ruinous world wars brought about by the failures of that old order.

It was hopelessly idealistic, as some suggested at the time, that these new global institutions would bring about an end to warfare and the misery it created, but compared with what had occurred previously, these bodies, United Nations, the World Health Organisation, the World Trade Organisation and others, have achieved moderate success.

And, as I never fail to point out, in the European Union’s existence, no wars have been fought by countries within its borders.

Dismantling them because they have not achieved all their founders hoped for is idiocy. Seeking to destroy them in order for the powerful once again to bully and dominate those less fortunate is downright evil.

Early voting for the disengaged

I note that one of the more significant issues to come out of the recent Victorian State election in Australia (apart from the landslide Labor win and its consequences at the Federal level) has been the number of people who did not wait for polling day to cast their votes.

Some 1.4 million voters had performed their constitutional duty before the actual election date on November 24 — out of 4.2 million who were enrolled.  This continues a trend in other recent State elections and in the last Federal poll in 2016.

Because voting is compulsory in Australia, with fines for those who fail to vote without a very good reason, successive Governments have found ways of making it easier to cast ballots, mainly through the establishment of numerous pre-poll stations operating for up to a month before the actual election.

The system was set up in 1984 for those who would be physically unable to reach a polling station on election day, but with no way of checking it became obvious that vast numbers were using this as an excuse and more recently restrictions have been quietly dropped.  

This has led to the various parties wondering how they should run their campaigns in the future — what is the point of leaving juicy, vote-catching policies to the last week when half the electorate will have already made its decision.

Campaign ‘launches’, often left to the week before polling day in the hope of getting a late ‘bounce’ are being re-thought. One researcher has attacked the whole concept of pre-poll voting, saying that it breaks with a key tenant of democracy — that everyone should vote at the same time “as this confers equality on the contest”.

My view is that all this is a fuss about nothing, because in more than a half century of reporting and studying elections I have found that up to 60 per cent of any electorate rarely, if ever, change their votes.

When asked their views, these rusted on supporters of whichever party usually resort to ancient and questionable slogans: “Labor is the party for the working man”; “business always does better under the Liberals”; Nationals have the farmers’ interests at heart”.

Almost certainly it is these voters who are making increasing use of the pre-poll system. Their minds have been made up, not just for the current campaign, but for all campaigns in which they have ever taken part.

To them, the issues are irrelevant and they see no reason to waste their Saturday leisure time waiting in line to cast their vote.

They form the solid platform from which their parties launch their arguments to capture a majority of the remaining 40 per cent.    

In the usually stable Western democracies it is this 40 per cent of swing voters that determine who governs, and it is this 40 per cent who are most likely to follow the issues and the policies, saving their vote until late, perhaps even until polling day itself.

What is happening in Australia is a simple evolution of the way voters engage, or choose not to engage, with the democratic system. There will be those who find it deplorable, yet there is little any party, or Government can do about it.     

Last chance to halt the Brexit bulldozer

As the United Kingdom’s Brexit process stumbles on, Prime Minister Theresa May is increasingly falling back on Trump-style nationalist rhetoric in support of the deal she has negotiated to take her country out of the European Union.

The arrangement will “strengthen the borders”; “give us back our laws and control over our finances” and “end free movement, once and for all”.

Her explosive reference to EU nationals, lawfully and productively in the UK, as “queue jumpers” was too much for some, with Scottish Chief Minister, Nicola Sturgeon describing the reference as “offensive and disgraceful”.

There is no doubt that nothing short of her removal will sway the Prime Minister from her course. May is blind to everything other than her place in history as the Prime Minister who led her nation out of European entanglements.

Whether she believes this is best for the nation is irrelevant. To quote her: “The people have spoken in the 2016 referendum and we must deliver the verdict of the people.”

She, along with all the other dogged Brexiteers, endlessly quote that referendum where the vote was 51.9 per cent against 48.1 per cent in favour of leaving. Those raw figures are the only things they care to remember about the process.

Not the lies (the promise that £350 million will return to the National Health Service after Brexit — not a penny will come to the NHS as a result of leaving the EU).

Not the misrepresentations (the anonymous United Kingdom Independence Party official who tweeted: “We just have to send a resignation letter to Brussels and we will be out in a week”).

Not the allegations of misuse of data and other cheating that could well have skewed the result (Cambridge Analytica).

Not the allegations of funding violations by various Leave campaign organisations, including mysterious donations that had their origins overseas.

With opinion polls showing a swing in favour of remaining in the EU, the Brexiteers cling to the 2016 result like a drowning man clutching at a straw, yet that referendum has proved to be rotten to its core — a victory only for tricksters and manipulators.

Even if the result were not flawed, there would still be a case for a second vote, given the thinness of the majority and the fact that so many of the dire consequences of leaving (dismissed in 2016 as ‘Project Fear’) are now there for all to see.

In the face of this the Brexit camp has resorted to the lowest form of bully-boy intimidation, threatening “blood in the streets” if its aims are thwarted.   

Finally, if Brexit is bulldozed through who will lead the United Kingdom into the Promised Land? Opportunist May? Boris Johnson? David Davis? Or will it be Jeremy Corbyn’s version of a workers paradise?

Or the worst nightmare of all, the Latin quoting Minister for the 18^th Century, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It is late in the day for some mature refection, but not too late. The United Kingdom remains a parliamentary democracy and it is time for parliamentarians to put aside party loyalties and allow the people a final and decisive vote.

Another messy Middle East mistake

Almost a century ago Mahatma Gandhi railed against the victorious World War I powers for carving up the Ottoman Empire.

This, he said, was in contravention of promises made to Indian Muslims in return for them joining British Imperial forces in the conflict.

Gandhi was protesting the first in what was to be a catalogue of duplicity, mismanagement and irresponsibility characterising the West’s involvement in the Middle East, leading to the maelstrom that is the region today.

As a result there are many who concede there can never be a solution in this troubled region without the cauterisation of some cataclysmic, all-out conflict. That doomsday scenario has been brought closer by the reckless, shoot-from-the-hip diplomacy from the current Administration in Washington.

President Donald Trump’s decision to move the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and his eager courting of the despotic Saudi Arabian regime has removed the United States from any semblance of neutrality in the region.

It is difficult to see how any future Administration can ever make up the ground and play the honest broker again.

The biggest misstep has been the decision to resume the confrontation with Iran, all the more tragic because it seems to have been done not for any reason other than to negate the major foreign policy initiative of Trump’s despised predecessor, Barack Obama.

The best hope of bringing Iran back into the international fold was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the 2015 nuclear deal, which exchanged Iran’s nuclear ambitions for sanctions relief.

Trump castigated the JCPOA from the onset of his presidency, describing it as the worst the US had ever signed up for — something which seemed incomprehensible, not only to Teheran but to the other partners, the European Union, Russia and China, who thought it was working quite well.

Before Trump’s precipitous action it seemed there was a chance of genuine reform in the Islamic Republic. In late 2017 protests against harsh economic conditions spread throughout the country, constituting the greatest challenge to the theocratic regime in recent years.

While the crackdown eventually turned bloody, the events were widely covered on State television and the voices of reformist lawmakers were heard.

Washington’s reimposition of sanctions threw a lifeline to Iran’s hard-line elements opposed to any lessening of tensions with the West.

There is nothing like an external threat to unite a country and Trump’s actions have brought Iranians into the streets in their tens of thousands to support the Government.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, initially seen as a moderate, is now firmly in the camp of those who now describe the US as a duplicitous Great Satan. The threat that Teheran will now push forward with its nuclear and missile development has been voiced and remains real.

Most observers now believe nothing short of military intervention will bring about regime change in Iran — a possibility that is horrifying Trump’s military advisers and likely to result in the end-game conflict mentioned above.

If Iran was a significant threat to regional stability before, it is a much greater one, on a far wider stage, now.