In his Notre Dame of Paris, Victor Hugo observed that there used to be a day of demonstration each year in medieval France. On this day, the townsfolk gave vent to their grievances against their oppressors. The powers that were used by the people on this day were used as a safety valve. Not only did the dominant classes learn the chief grievances of the populace, but also the lower classes got everything off their collective chests and went home satisfied. The illusion of rebellion quickly gave way the following day to the familiar order which was then imposed for yet another year.
Mikhail Bakhtin, writing rather more recently, has described this type of demonstration as the 'carnivalization' process. It included not only the secular universe, but also the religious, 'as in the popular feast which "decentred" Christian ideology by placing the ass and not Jesus or Mary at its centre' (Bennett, 83). The moral and political order of the day was defined negatively by this drama. The protest was no protest therefore, but a signifier of institutional control. Little has changed today.
Today, as in medieval France, the protest is an enacted drama which follows clearly established patterns of interaction. These patterns signify the institutional order by negative definition. Like the day of protest in medieval times, the actions of the demonstrators remain under strict control, making the 'protest' less of a communicative act than a repeated liturgy, a secular play under the direction of a director that is as intangible as the God worshipped by Christians. The director may be non-existent, but its control is everywhere manifested. Far from being an individual, thisdirector is the 'system' itself, built upon the consensus of little people described with uncanny precision by Umberto Eco in his essay titled 'Falsification and Consensus' (175). The regulatory power of this system shows itself in the building structures. It is manifested in the behaviour of the authorities. And it is most visible of all in the self-regulating and self-incriminating behaviour of the demonstrators themselves. This structure of demonstra-tional semiology corresponds to the semiology of the theatre, and to the semiology of the church celebration of mass. In all three, there is a building structure, there is a congregation, and there is a group of actors. All three perform a drama which is not of their
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own making, although both church and theatre are conscious of this. In this article, I propose to examine these correspondences through a discussion of building structures and behavioural patterns of interaction.
The most obvious building structure is the A.C.T. (Australian Capital Territory) itself. Like Washington, D.C. in the United States or Bonn in the German Federal Republic, Canberra is a working semiological model of power removed 'from' the people. The 'city' which ostensibly houses the Australian political power structure is artificially (artfully) isolated from the dense population centres on the eastern seaboard. Because it was artificially created and is thus maintained, Canberra has not the potential for natural growth of a distributional or financial capital, such as Sydney or Melbourne. Put bluntly, an Australian revolution (such as what should have happened after the events of November, 1975) cannot take place here because the large population centres are cut off from the visible fulcrum of political power.
The people of this 'city' are mainly government employees and their families. This gives the city a well-fed homogeneity. While public servants are people like everyone else, comfort tends to take the edge off both the intellect and the feelings. Also, their workplace, with its rules and regulations affects their behaviour outside as well as inside the office. The people they meet after work are likely to be public servants, even if they come from other departments (some of them don't mix 'business and pleasure'). Even on weekends, they know who is buttering their bread, and, more than most people, their work leads to a cast of mind which tends to respect law and order. Indeed, it's likely they helped draft its provisions and subclauses.
The revolution then has no natural base. It cannot be spontaneous. It must be transported and transplanted from Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. The transportation process is one with which the inhabitants of Canberra are familiar. At about midday, the coaches and cars with placards and people begin lumbering into the national capital. The traffic disruption is minimal because the coaches are organized outside the town, and in any case, the motorway entrance bypasses most of the town. Order appears first in the road-structure of the city.
This sense of order is reinforced as the buses drive past the huge government buildings: conservative, yet designed by modern architects of 'taste.' There seem to be no people in the town. Presumably they are inside the imposing buildings. Spacious foot-
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paths, large signs, and a man-made lake make one feel one is inside a science fiction movie set rather than a city. Then the buses pass silently over a large man-made bridge (needed to get over the man-made lake) towards the Parliament buildings. The shopping district of Canberra (its mall and so forth) will not even realize that a demonstration is taking place because the Parliament is even removed from this natural population centre.
Then the buses are assembled by the police on the lawns before the Parliament. Much space has been provided for this: although it's hard to imagine that the city planners foresaw the space which would be needed for parking the protesters' vehicles. In any case, the buses are neatly organized in ranks by the controlling officers. Now the destination, the semiological icon of power, gleams white and strong in the distance.
The building stands like an altar, a throne, a recognizable (thanks to television) emblem of power. While on the subject of media and representation (a subject which also arises later in my discussion), it is worth noting Liz Ferrier's remarkable paper on the matter at the 1986 A.S.A.L. Conference in Townsville. In this paper, she explored the relationship between literary forms and architecture. Her perspective enables the observation that the Parliament is one of the most potent symbols of power, not just because it is a building, but also because it is translated into other artistic media. Power is thereby subliminally reinforced through representations of the building, as well as through the building itself.
It is to this God that the protesters have come to pray. Apart from demonstrators, police, and photographers, one is still struck by the absence of people. Presumably they eat, as well as 'work,' inside. The pattern continues as the demonstrators arrive on the famous lawns before Parliament House. One stands on holy ground, the nave of a massive open-air church.
In Canberra, it is always a cold and windy day. Inside the centrally-heated tabernacle, a man called Bob Hawke speaks sarcastically about the politics of 'the warm inner glow.' Outside in the rain, the congregation pray. While pews are not provided, the organizational pattern is obvious. It shows itself in a series of signs: 'Education,' 'Aboriginal Affairs,' 'Migrants,' 'Uranium,' and so forth. One stands in the section one identifies with. The great God of the Public Service has seen all; he knows all our grievances in advance. So there the people stand, miserably looking up, while mute imposing statues of King George the Fifth look blindly down.
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An iron railing delimits the edge of the lawns. This is the first structural limit. The next is the footpath. Then there is the road. This is followed by a broad footpath on the other side. The steps then mount to the altar, which is ceremonially, as well as actually, protected. These limits are partly established by the interaction of the people present, but the architectural design of the huge church means that passage to the altar is not meant to be easy. But neither, apparently, was life.
And life, despite the Canberran design, is relevant, if not predominant here. Because it is the people who design the buildings, rather than vice versa. This is true despite the appearance: the buildings are designed and intended to appear to create the situation, when in fact the designers of Canberra created the buildings which create the situation. This structure naturalizes the author-ity-citizen distinction. A clear and socially relevant analogy presents itself in the present day cargo-cult worship of the economy, although this mysterious device is an invisible structure. Writing for Nuovo Paese in September, 1986, F. Barbaro noted that The economy is presented as the master when in reality it is only a tool to help us achieve the society we all agree we want' (4). Unfortunately, despite the democracy mythology, not all of us are there when this 'tool' is being refined. Like the apparently immutable buildings, the economic 'crisis' is presented to us as a fait accompli, a blow of providence, a curse of the Gods, to which we must all adjust ourselves. This conveniently decentres the blame for economic hardship. The economy it would seem, has a life of its own. Ironically enough, by completing the circle, we see that the economy, an invisible structure, gains its institutional power through the imposing appearance of its buildings (banks, offices, etc.). We see then that social norms and behaviour patterns are both translated into, and imposed by, social building structures. There are, I maintain, people in there.
Meanwhile the demonstrators are on the lawns. I would like to suggest that the semiotics of demonstration is both a revelation of, and is revealed by, the semiotics of theatre. We may begin with an historical observation. The pilgrimage of diseased Christians to Lourdes and (perhaps equally diseased) Wagnerians to Bayreuth. Bayreuth, like Lourdes (and Canberra) is a shrine. Like Canberra (and perhaps Lourdes), Bayreuth is also a stage. Indeed, this 'concretion' of receptive significance in the Nineteenth Century was indicative of Wagner's belief that Greek theatre at the time of 'Aeshylus had created a community festal art, uniting poetry, music, drama, dance, and religion' (Hodson, 41). All these things are present in the demonstration in Canberra (there is even music,
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put on by the demonstrators themselves to fill in the gaps between announcements and speeches). Demonstration in 1986 is still a ceremony charged with religious and dramatic overtones. Indeed, in this context of historical precedents, it seems clear that the religious liturgy is a type of drama. In the context of demonstration however, the question then arises as to who the celebrants are.
At first sight, a demonstrator might imagine that s/he is part of an audience commenting upon the poor performance of the play which the government is enacting. This structure is suggested by the appearances of the buildings: the Parliament looks like a playhouse (or church) replete with pomp and ceremony; the audience are out in the open air. This is a cruel deception. Blink, and look again. That is the 'play-within-the-play.'
The demonstrators are the performers in a huge Roman amphitheatre, exponentially enlarged by the wonders of technology. The audience are not just the side-show of politicians and petty power-brokers encased in the Parliamentary fishtank. Rather, the modern audience are all those able to tune into the demonstration thanks to the unblinking eye of the transmitting camera crews. The 'seats' of this Orwellian amphitheatre are arranged in a vast radiating series of circles which extend to the perimeter of this continent (and perhaps beyond, via the wonders of space satellite technology). The performance is delivered through the post-processing truncation/presentation industry of newsflash distribution and ABC commentary to the vegetating viewer in the comfort of the lounge-room, his or her own private box-seat. It forms part of the night's entertainment. The viewer's experience of the demonstration is therefore a very different one from that of the shivering and shouting demonstrators.
This difference is readily understandable in the light of the reception aesthetics of Hans Robert Jauss (Jauss, 1982:22-111). Because we are treating the demonstration as drama, it is entirely appropriate to analyze the functions of its collective experience in aesthetic terms. The expressive needs of the demonstrators therefore correspond to the Jaussian productive side of aesthetic experience. Their expression, the demonstration product, is mediated through the sausage system of our media processing industry. The media is one of the many social systems which shape 'communicative' modes of protest. Through such systems, norms are instilled. The receiver's role (Jauss's 'receptive' disposition) is also important. One reason for this importance has been suggested by Jauss himself: 'The creative artist [our demonstrator] can adopt
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the role of observer or reader toward his own work. The fact that he cannot produce and absorb, write and read at one and the same time, will make him experience the shift of attitude from poiesis [production] to aesthesis [reception]' (35). The demonstrators will wish to see themselves on their own television sets that night. As well as this, potential demonstrators learn the expected pattern of demonstrational behaviour from such television coverages. Finally, despite the 'mediation' (or, should I say, distortion) of the communicative network, the receiver is the target of the demonstrators' message. If this 'authorial intention' does not get through to the living room, then the demonstrators' case is lost (even if their expressive urge has been satisfied). This is one of the reasons for the extreme simplicity of most placards and slogans at demonstrations.
The receptive response will depend not only upon what is selected and presented by the channel of their choice; it will also depend upon the receptive disposition of the viewer. The viewers interact with the performers by watching the news package, by switching them off, or by ignoring or jeering at them. In this way, demonstrators' performances are assessed. This assessment process is another facet of the demonstration experience.
Audience assessments are then the subject of 'ratings' surveys. So we see that while audience expectations are conditioned by the producers' selective and presentational processes, the viewers also contribute to these presentations through their collective response. (It is true that these are sometimes ignored, but the television station's act of ignoring, is itself, a response.) In this way, the unwieldy Jaussian 'dialogue' between producer and receiver goes on. What then does the armchair viewer see?
Certainly not the three act performance of arrival, demonstration, and departure put on by the demonstrators in the rain and wind of Canberra. Rather, they see the 'play-within-the-play' which I referred to before. They see this through the window of a Barthesian Camera Lucida of flashbulbs, lenses, and television screens. What they see are familiar scenes from an ancient Greco-Roman drama involving established rituals which are played out before an invisible technocratic God. I would like now to examine the liturgy of this secular mass, this 'play-within-the-play.' The sub-structure of demonstration, as I have shown above, has the demonstrators as the actors and the lounge-room viewers as the audience. The liturgy of the demonstration, on the other hand, is the represented occurrence of the 'Me-Thee' relationship between the demonstrators as audience and the visible power
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structure (the politicians, the police) as players. This is another dialogic pattern altogether.
The dialogue is conducted through sign language between the Supreme Deity's police force and the unruly congregation. This dialogue is a question and answer process of implied challenge and implied response. The police, by standing in a certain way, indicate where the demonstrators may stand. A series of interactions now occur. The demonstrators begin by negatively defining their position in relation to the police. They then attempt a break-out from their self-imposed limitation. This usually begins with a (doomed) attempt to get over the fence, although this can be seen as a signalling of militant intentions rather than an actual attempt to march. Then they go around the fence, and are headed off by the police. The positions of the two opposing camps are then redefined. They now regroup and try to charge the steps. This is the first real threat because it represents an implied attempt at penetration of the inviolable inner sanctum, the unthinkable rape of the God (the system) through its corporeal manifestation, the church building (the Parliament building). However, well before this assault on the sexuality of the God could occur, the Prime Minister will appear. The High Priest's appearance is not a concession, but an assertion of the ruling order through a benign nod at the transgressed. Token concessions are granted. However if he does not appear, it is an even greater assertion of power, because the demonstrators have not even succeeded in gaining his attention.
The fact that this is a liturgy, a repeated pattern, is easy enough to demonstrate. We can do this by throwing away the liturgical 'text.' This can be done by simply pretending that we do not know how to demonstrate, and that we are going to try it for the first time.
If the big buses approaching the concrete citadel ignored the traffic wardens outside the city, they could unwittingly cause chaos in the entire town. If they so choose, they could easily blockade the city from within and without by parking their buses across the access roads.
They could then march along the road to the Parliament, instead of approaching it from the lawns. I noted that the B.L.F. (Builders' Labourers' Federation) were at least adventurous enough to do this at one demonstration. This is quite remarkable for an organization which does not exist anymore (or perhaps that is the point). The assault on the Parliament could then take
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a number of forms. A small group could engage the attention of the limited police force near the steps of the building. The others could use scaling ladders and cherry pickers to get into and onto the building. The violation would thus be achieved, the headlines would have been made. Other possibilities include bombing the Parliament with paint or trying to get in the back way. Another alternative would be to pretend to be tourists or journalists, because these classes of people move with impunity through the police lines.
There's no more in such apparently absurd suggestions than a temporary amnesia concerning demonstration procedures. Such action would be no more difficult to organize than the present type of demonstration. One might not end up breaking as many laws either. However, this way of breaking the law, this liturgy*, will not catch on because it does not follow the accepted mode of law breaking, which is attempting to break through a police cordon.
By breaking the laws in the present fashion, one simply reinforces the existing authority-rebel dichotomy. The behaviour of the one defines the other. The interaction of the two groups follows the liturgy of the system which, in its totality, is what we nowadays call 'Western democracy.'
Through the demonstration, the system asserts itself. The protest is, in the end, no protest. It is at most an opinion poll, a communicative device which makes the Gods aware of their underlings' difficulties. The system continues, built as it is on the consensus of little people. Its visible symbol, the Parliament building, testifies to its continuing strength.
Despite this, there is a newer, bigger one being built. According to latest estimates, the new icon will cost taxpayers $894 million. This money is being spent in an era of 'restraint with equity.' The irony is self-evident. However the tragedy is that for politicians, their own catch-phrases have no meaning. The new monument to their self importance rises behind the existing building. From certain perspectives around the 'city' of Canberra, the half-built structure actually dwarfs the older building.
The new Parliament building will be an even more complete demonstration of the principle of power removed 'from' the people. Now it will be a truly imposing theatre of power. John Moses recently offered the following description of the way it will look:
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It is, in any sense of the word, an awesome building. It has a 'Great Verandah' across its main facade, evoking memories of some of the great Minoan buildings of ancient Crete. There is a people's forecourt, forrested with 48 green marble columns, and a 1172 sq m reception hall - the equivalent of the relatively cosy King's Hall in the present parliamentary building. Four 28-tonne stainless steel 'legs' will support the 81m flagpole for the 12m by 6m flag that will fly, floodlit at night, 24 hours a day (Moses, 1986:3).
Never mind the unemployed or the pensioners. They probably haven't the money to buy a television set to see pictures of the 'awesome' construction. But yet, as Moses says, it will be awesome in many senses of the word. In the context of this discussion, it is awesome as a symbol of inhumanly oblivious power. In their new impregnable fortress, the politicians (and their superiors) will be even further removed from their servants. Indeed, this beautifully executed insult to Australian intelligence is the surest proof of all that things in Canberra never really change.
John O'Carroll teaches at Sydney University
References
Barbaro, F., (1986) 'No Equality Without Multiculturalsm,' Nuovo Paese 8 3-4.
Bennett, T., (1979) Formalism and Marxism, London: Methuen.
Eco, U., (1986) Travels in Hyperreality: Essays, (trans.) William Weaver, Orlande: Harcourt.
Ferrier, L., (1986) 'Pleasure Domes to Bark Huts: A Study of Architectural Motifs in Some Recent Australian Fiction,' A.S.A.L. Conference, July 7, 1986.
Hodson, P., (1984) Who's Who in Wagner's Life and Work, London: Weidenfeld.
Jauss, H. R., (1982) Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermen-eutics, (trans.) Wlad Dodzich, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Moses, J., (1986) 'Grand Monument to Politics Sits under Terracotta Tiles,' The Weekend Australian, October 25-26, 1986.
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