Review of Faith in Diplomacy by Archie Mackenzie and No Longer Down Under: Australians Creating Change by Mike Brown

Faith in Diplomacy

Mr. Archie Mackenzie was a career diplomat for the British government during a long and distinguished career. His book, Faith in Diplomacy provides an incredibly lucid window for us to observe his life and the positive national and global governmental contributions he made because of his unique attitude in the world of diplomacy. Philosophers, political historians and students of human behaviour, especially aspects of human diplomacy, would describe Faith in Diplomacy as a fundamental book — fundamental to our sense of who we are, how we interact with one another through means of formal and informal diplomacy, and how we can go about resolving our great political and historical dilemmas by being honest, respectful, generous of sprit, and most importantly, by making sure our own house is in order before we can progress diplomatically. Mr. Mackenzie’s life is a history of his faith in the diplomatic process. This faith in diplomacy stems from his deep abiding faith in the Creator and one in which virtually all faiths and traditions can draw the fundamentals of knowing right from the wrong. As a lifelong student of the ethics of diplomacy Mr. Mackenzie’s modus operandi centers round a coming together of different peoples and the resolution of serious problems via a ‘reconciliation born of spiritual conviction’.

Perhaps the single most important thing I learned from Faith in Diplomacy is that serious political negotiations are often stymied not by political reasons but by petty personality problems of negotiators themselves. Mr. Mackenzie remarks, “—the problems on the table (the apparently irresolvable points of political convention) were really not as complicated as the problems sitting around the table (personalities of the diplomats)”. Mr. Mackenzie discusses a number of examples of how a moment or two with key negotiating dignitaries often unblock log-jammed negotiations leading to diplomatic process, and how his quiet moral reasoning (concept of his spirit of discernment), apologies and appeal to people’s ‘higher wisdom’ salvaged failing negotiations. These are valuable lessons for all of us; we simply need to have the moral fiber and character, as does Mr. Mackenzie, to draw them from our inner self and put them into practice. By practicing this common enterprise of humanity in the negotiation process, profound constructive changes can occur.

The book is divided into fourteen chapters. The first eleven chapters provide fascinating and clear accounts of his various diplomatic postings all over the world -New York, before and during World War II, Bangkok, Cyprus, Burma, the former Yugoslavia, Tunisia, and elsewhere. These chapters provide the ‘case study materials' or the data for the remaining and culminating ones (the real heart of the book) dealing with the Brant Commission, Mr. Mackenzie’s rationale for the development of his faith in the diplomatic process and his
recommendations for the future of statecraft. Based on his lifelong affiliation with Moral Re- Armament (now Initiatives of Change ), Mr. Mackenzie is a firm proponent in the synergy that can develop in multilateral or conference diplomacy operating hand in hand with traditional bilateral diplomacy.

Mr. Mackenzie calls himself a simple man. But his analysis of the world politics and human nature is subtle and profound. Mr. Mackenzie understands the nature of mankind — ‘the irreducible human factor in all social and economic issues’; he remains realistic and optimistic for our future. Profound concepts are made simple. If we all adopted Mr. Mackenzie’s diplomatic philosophy of honesty, respect, caring and human interaction based on a set of common and enlightened moral principles, the world would be a far better place indeed.

Nels H.Granholm
Professor, South Dakota State University, USA
Faith in Diplomacy by Archie Mackenzie :Caux Books,Grosvenor Books

No Longer Down Under :Australians Creating Change

Once asked by a journalist for his ‘message’, Mahatma Gandhi replied, ‘My life is my message.’ The message of No Longer Down Under is sharply focused through the lives of the remarkable people Mike Brown writes about. It is a lively, refreshing and insightful book by an Australian author who loves India.
Written in a racy style, it tells of actions taken and lives lived, warts and all, by people who have made an impact. Its message is that people can change society.

Brown describes himself as a ‘baby-boomer’, a term used in the West for someone who was born at the time of the heightened birthrate at the end of the Second World War. This was the generation which in the’ sixties tried to upturn western society, sometimes with high idealism and sometimes through rebellion and drugs. With the passion of youth and the rudiments of a faith Brown relates how he travelled to the United States and poured himself out in a bid to give a new purpose to Americans. By the end of the sixties he returned to Australia ‘burnt-out ’.He worked at his family’s orchard, using the cool of the nights to rethink his life. Despite the failures, the turmoil and cynicism he decided that he would be, with God’s help, ‘a participant, not a spectator ’.

The people who spoke meaning and purpose to Mike Brown were not great academics or philosophers: they were Australians who lived out a vision, ‘walked the talk’ in the rough and tumble of politics, industry, business, police work, and family life. This is what makes reading the book so compelling. Although it is about Australians, the hopes, the challenges and the failures these people experience are global in scope.

Mike first learns from his father, Gordon Brown, a man of phenomenal energy, who started his working life during the Great Depression. The author relates how his father at one point decided to ‘put my business at God’s disposal to bring change in the world around me.’ One consequence was that Gordon and his staff provided their services without charge to design Asia Plateau, Panchgani, as a conference centre for the expanding work of Moral Re-Armament in Asia. He regarded this project as ‘the pinnacle of his career’.

Brown introduces the reader to a panoply of people and their extraordinary experiences. He takes us from hard-working dairy farmer Max Gale’s determined backing of Indian milk-producers by airlifting 165 pure-bred cows and six bulls to India in 1978 to the heights of Australian government policy-making reflected in the experiences of a politician, Kim Beazley Senior, and a high-ranking public servant, Allan Griffith.

But Brown is not simply a chronicler of the actions of others. He writes about his and his wife’s own striving to bring about a real reconciliation between Australians of British and Irish descent and the continent’s original inhabitants, the Aborigines. He goes to a place in South Australia where his forebears had fought and killed Aborigines and where one of his ancestors was killed. He makes his first step in reconciliation with an Aborigine in the local town nearby and from this beginning he and Jean set out on the uphill road of reconciliation between the races in Australia. It is a story of victories and disappointments. Brown takes us to the heart of one of the unrelieved agonies of Australia, but does not leave us without hope.

He depicts Australia as a land of opportunity and potential. From his experience overseas he is also aware that it is sometimes seen very differently and that to the foreigner ‘down under’ is home to some strange and humorous idiosyncrasies. Mike Brown serves the reader an invigorating cocktail of forgiveness and compassion, grit and fortitude, hope and accomplishment. Its stories will strike a chord with readers anywhere and everywhere.

Brian Lightowler
No Longer Down Under: Australians Creating Change by Mike Brown:Grosvenor Books