Allen & Unwin Tim Costello Special Book Offer TIPS FROM A TRAVELLING SOUL-SEARCHER by Tim Costello In times when materialism and competition threaten to overwhelm all that we used to hold dear, Reverend Tim Costello senses a common cry: What can we dol H e believes there are some things we can do, like reasserting the humane values n ecessary for genuine progress. His inspiration is his Christian tradition and the aspirations of people he encounters on his travels. In candidly exploring experiences of friendship, ambition, risk, public-versus-private identity, home, ritual and grace, he shares the insights, m om ents of confusion and new m eaning which lead to growth. Tim Costello offers these reflections as tips to fellow soul-searchers. His stimulating mix of personal wisdom and street-wise humour leads us to reflect on what will be precious to us in the long run, not only as individuals f!JJ from a traYcLLi;g but also as families, workmates and fellow citizens. JtJUL-Jearclter Thanks to Allen & Unwin, Eureka Street has 15 copies of Tips from a Travelling Soul-Searcher to give away, each worth $19.95. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and send it to: Eureka Street December Book Offer, PO Box 553, RICHMOND VIC 3121. C£"Relax with God and Minister to Yourself! Integrate theology, spirituality, ministry and personal development through a sabbatical specifically designed for mid-life persons . Deepen your journey with God enriched by men and women from diverse cultures. Nurture your heart and soul in a holistic envi ronment in the San Francisco Bay area. OPTIONS: SCIIOOL OF APPLIED TIIEOLOCY Nine Months, Fall ur Spring Graduate Theological Union Audit, C•·cdilnr M.A. noom/lwanl availai.Jic on site 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley CA 94709 Partial Scholarships E-mail: [email protected] For a Free Hrochu•·c, call : Website: http://www.satgtu.org/ HOU/lBI -0555, or 510/652-165 I Serving religious, clergy awl laity since I 960. Fax: 5111/-Uil-0542 Volume 9 Number 10 December 1999 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology 24 SALT OF THE EARTH CONTENTS Margaret Simons investigates salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin. 4 27 Eureka Street COMMENT PERFECT ONE DAY? With Peter Steele and Geoffrey King. Jon Greenaway reports on the challenges wishes all our of building a nation in East Timor. 7 readers the CAPITAL LETTER 3 1 peace and FROM STRUGGLE TO 8 RECONSTRUCTION blessings of LETTERS Dewi Anggraeni talks to Xanana Gusmao. 10 32 the 1999 THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC THE MANY-FACETED McAULEY With Paul Collins, Frank O'Shea and Martin Krygier on James McAuley, Christmas Maggie Helass. communism, passion and Cassandra Pybus' new biography. season. 11 BUSH LAWYER 38 BOOKS 12 Paul Collins reviews David Man's The High Price of Heaven; Hugh Dillon Cover: Two millennia of images SUMMA THEOLOGIAE of Jesus Christ, from East and passes judgment on David Solomon's West, from ancient wall fr escoes 14 The Political High Court (p40). to modern African painting. THE REPUBLIC OF CONSCIENCE Design by Siobhan Jackson. Moira Rayner speaks up for advocacy. 42 Mosaic p4, Nativity with a disconsolate Joseph, from the THEATRE Baptistery of S. Giovanni, 15 Geoffrey Milne on Australian plays Florence. ARCHIMEDES in print. Graphics pp6, 15, 19, 20,23 by Siobhan Ja ckson. 16 44 Cartoon pl3 by Dea n Moore. Map and photographs pp24- 25 WEARING HANDCUFFS FLASH IN THE PAN courtesy the Murray-Darling AS JEWELLERY Reviews of the films eXistenZ; Th e Sixth Basin Commission . Anthony Ham in Beirut with Robert Fisk. Sense; Black Cat, White Cat; An Ideal Ph otographs pp27-29, 3 1 Husband and Summer of Sam. courtesy Jon Greenaway. 19 Eureka Street magazine SOUTH AFRICA: 46 Jesuit Publications TIME FOR THE GRIQUA PRAYER WATCHING BRIEF PO Box 553 The euphoria is long gone: now South Richmond VIC 3 121 Tel (03) 9427 7311 Africa, under Thabo Mbeki, must build a 47 Fax (03) 9428 4450 safe, civil society. Jim Davidson reports. SPECIFIC LEVITY V OLUME 9 N uMBER 10 • EUREKA STREET 3 CoMMENT: 1 EUREKA SJREET P ETER STEELE A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology General manager Joseph Hoo Vinegar Editor Morag Fraser Assistant editor and song Kate Manton Graphic designer Siobhan Jackson Publisher Michael McGirr SJ Production manager: Sylvana Scannapiego Administration manager: Mark Dowell Editorial and production assistants Juliette Hughes, Paul Fyfe SJ, Geraldine Battersby, Ben Hider Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ, Perth: Dea n Moore Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor Queensland: Peter Pierce United Kingdom correspondent T MBCW o•FTo RoM' " cwm, again" expectation, l was Denis Minns OP abnormally alert to trifling detail. The police blew their South East Asia correspondent whistles as though each hankered to be, for the day, Jam es Jon Greenaway Galway or Childe Roland; the astrologers and the pliers of Jesuit Editorial Board Tarot cards itched to get back to their cellular phones; the Peter L'Estrange SJ, Andrew Bullen SJ , window of the immensely expensive m enswear shop next to Andrew Hamilton SJ the rooms where Keats died was packed with shirts named Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ after Byron, who despised Kea ts deeply and outlived him Marketing manager: Rosanne Turner briefly. So it goes, when you leave your standard locale. Advertising representative: Ken Head And they are, yet again, recycling the stones. Romans Subscription manager: Wendy Marlowe have been about this for well over a thousand years, switching odd bits of the Colosseum into a palace on the make, Administration and distribution harrowing expendable m emoranda of this or that god towards Lisa Crow, Mrs Irene Hunter, Kristen Harrison a later florid shrine, and in general obeying the sacred dictum Patrons of m y wise father who commended 'what you do with what Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the you've got'. At present, the Romans are plucking up some of support of C. and A. Carter; the the paving stones, giving them a brisk brush, and relodging trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; them sleekly for the expected feet of the devout and the W.P. & M.W. Gurry curious next year. Eurel<a Street magazine, ISS N l 036- J 758, It is, as I say, an old habit. And of course the practice is Australia Post Print Post approved pp349181 /00314, not confined to the ston es. A few minutes' walk from the is published ten times a year Colosseum there is a statue of Julius Caesar, kitted out for by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3 12 1 war- well warranted in his case, since on the evidence he seems Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 to have fought virtually in his sleep. This time, his plinth email: eu reka@jespu b. jesuit.org.a u has an inscription which reminds us that he was 'Dictator http:/ fwww .open planet .com.a ufeu reka/ for Life', and annmmces that the statue was erected 'in the tenth Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by year since the Restoration of the Fasces'. It is as neat an Michael McGirr SJ, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. Printed by Doran Printing, instance as one is likely to see of ancient grandeurs' being 46 Industri al Drive, Braeside VIC 3195. invoked to warrant and adorn later aspirations. I did not notice © Jesuit Publications 1999 any salute, nearby, to Mussolini, but perhaps that was the jetlag. Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and The empires rise, fall, or modulate, but the dream fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for perdures. Waiting in Zurich airport for the long ride home, permission to reprint material from the magazine I watched a sizeable blood-red aircraft take its way upwards, should be addressed in writing to: an d wondered idly who would own such a thing: until The editor, Eurel<a Street magazine, I noticed, high on the nacelle, those all-too-familiar Golden PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121 Arches. And I thought of the occasion, years ago, when, 4 EUREKA STREET • DECEMBER 1999 driving south from Sydney, I heard on local radio a farmer the occasion, which has to do with imperial edicts, with the reporting that he was exporting, by air to England, planeloads compulsory shifting of the poor and the vulnerable, with the of lettuce, to be enclosed with other commodities within the burgeoning of unkillable new life against all the human odds, celebrated buns. Perhaps, a couple of thousand years hence, some and with the heartening of those perilously close to being group will be making a fuss about the Restoration of the Arches. broken-hearted. Not with rage, but with a new-found realism, If they do, I hope that someone will point out that the the story has to do with the trashing of the triumphalistic. And catenary arch is so named because of its allusion to the hang of that warrants applau e, even from the weary. chain -which might stimulate reflection on power's proneness As a poet, and thus at war with the glib, I am reminded of to be its own enchainment. One of the things that comedy and one of Thomas Hardy's best poems, 'The Darkling Thrush', tragedy, as artistic forms, have in common i their declining to which is dated 'December 31, 1900'-a sufficiently evocative be bluffed by the narcissistic enthralment of the powerful­ moment. There, Hardy acknowledges the great force, authority which, accurately, the most penetrating imaginations of the even, of a sense of waning all about him.