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H ow would you like to sp end sorne Art Monthly sabbatical time in a beautiful G eorgian AUSTRALIA n1ansio n house set in peaceful E nglish countryside? IN THE "..JPRIL ISSUE A ll.. edemptoriq ho use, th e mixc· d con1111unity of priests, sistns and la y people here offer you :1 • Humphrey !\lcQ_ueen and Tim !\lorrell 3-m o mh course to study sc ripture .tnd personal at the :\.dclaide festiYal develo pme nt. A popular extra of each course is a pilgrimage to the H o ly Land. Our lecture • Helen !\laxwell checks out the graduate programm e explo res J es us and the Gospels, T he P.tr.J bl es, Paul and his Communities, Spirituality in shows around :\.ustralia the :21 '' celltury and much . nH1 c h m ore. Yo u may • Christopher Heathcote and the join o ur semin.1rs on such topics as Celti c Spirituality, Fa c ing Stress or Parish Ministry Today; Exile of imagination Aromatherapy, Art, R dkxology and Shi atsu JIT also offered. Whilst at 1--IJ wkstonc, you ca n take up new • Joanna :\lendelssohn on cows ho bbi es and re lax in lovely, tranqu il surroundings. and outside art For more details o n o ur Course dates , co ntcm and costs for 2000, comact Jul ia at H awkstone H all , • Jon Conomos on art & film M archamlcy, Shrewsbury, SY -t- SLG , England. Fc1x: +-+-+ 1630 6H5565 o r e- mail S.'i ..'i() .fi'om all good hoohhops and newsagents. H awk l-lall @ ao l.co1n or phone 02 62-/1.) 31.)86 fiu· your ml,scrlptlon W eb-Site: www. hawkstonc-hall .cont Volume 10 Number 3 April2000 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology
'We must create a strong civil society to prevent the government forgetting universal values and the CoNTENTS sacrifice everyone has made for this 4 change. COMMENT But Ea st Timor will With Michael McKernan and 30 not value material Bruce Duncan. WHERE DO WE GO NOW WITH THE REPUBLIC DEBATE? development as 7 Frank Brennan looks at the options. much as its moral CAPITAL LETTER 32 and cultural 8 BUSH LAWYER identity. ' LETTERS -Xanana Gusmao, 34 interviewed by 10 BOOKS Jon Greenaway, page 26 THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC Brett Evans reviews Andrew Scott's With Morag Fraser, Grahan1 Apthorpe Running on Empty: 'Modernizing' the and Liz Curran. British and Australian Labour Parties; Andrew Hamilton enjoys Graeme Garrett's 13 God Matters: Conversations in Theology SUMMA THEOLOGIAE (p35); Rita Erlich reviews Inga Clendinnen's Tiger's Eye: A Memoir (p36); 15 Peter Craven looks at Gerard Windsor's ARCHIMEDES I Asl Emel Vo LuME 10 N uMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 3 EUAJ:-KA srm:-er COMMENT: 1 MICHAEL M c K ERNAN A magazin e of public affairs, the arts and theology General manager Joseph Hoo Editor Morag Fraser After Assistant editor Kate Manton Graphic designer Siobhan Jackson Anzac Publisher Michael McGirr SJ Production manager: Sylvana Scannapiego M ," "'T"<'TO GAw,ou w" in 1990. Clifton Pugh Administration manager: Mark Dowell and I had gone ahead of the veterans who were still catching Editorial and production assistants their breath in Istanbul; he to sketch and I to roam the Juliette Hughes, Paul Fyfe SJ, battlefi elds. The captain of HMAS Sydney, our host, had given Geraldine Battersby, Ben Hider us two young sailors to help Clifton with his gear. We had Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ, Perth: Dean Moore Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor Queensland: Peter Pierce United Kingdom correspondent Denis Minns OP Sou th East Asia correspondent Jon Greenaway Jesuit Editorial Board Peter L'Estrange SJ, Andrew Bullen SJ, Andrew Hamilton SJ Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ Marketing manager: Rosa nne Turner Advertising representative: Ken Head walked Anzac Cove and, leaving Clifton behind, had climbed Subscription manager: Wendy Marlowe up to Lone Pine. N ow we were having lunch on the edge of the Beach Cemetery n ot far from Simpson's grave. Adrninistration and distribution One of the sailors, in particular, w a in aw e of the place Lisa Crow, Mrs Irene Hunter, Kristen Harrison and its people. H e was of the same age as the Anzacs who Patrons stormed ashore here; much older than the midsh ipmen who Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the had guided the diggers to the wrong place. But to him these support of C. and A. Carter; the m en were ancients, almost mythical creatures, not the blokes trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; h e knocked around with in Sydney and beyond. 'But you're W.P. & M.W. Gurry in the D efence Force,' I needled, 'you might be called on to Eureka Street magazine, ISSN 1036-1758, do these things too.' The thought was foreign; these were Australia Post Print Post approved pp349181/00314, h eroes, he insisted. Six m onths later he and Sydney were is published ten times a year steaming to the Gulf War. by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3 121 They must drum it into them , surely, in the Defence Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 Force, that all this training has a point and you might need email: eureka@ jespub.jesui t.org.au to put it into action. Peace-keeping sounds innocu ous http:/ fwww .openplanet.com .au/eureka/ enough; better, by far, than war. But a journalist with the Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by Australian s in Rwand a told m e of a team of youn g Michael McGirr S), 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. Printed by Doran Printing, Australian m en and women detailed to clean out and clear 46 Industrial D rive, Braeside VlC 3 195. up a morgu e that had been without electricity for some © Jesuit Publications 2000 weeks. The decomposing bodies were disgusting, the sights Unsoli cited manuscripts, including poetry and and smells unimaginable. The journalist lasted a matter fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for of seconds only, as did m an y of the soldiers at first. The permission to reprint material from the magazine difference was that the soldiers would seek fresh air to vomit should be addressed in w riting to: and to vomit again and then, because it was their duty, they The editor, Eurel 4 EUREKA STREET • A PRI L 2000 until the morgue was back in working order. Then it nothing now can lessen. It rises as it will always rise, was on to the next job. above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted I travelled far with these young Australians men; and, for their nation, a possession forever.' abroad on various veterans' pilgrimages and they were It's a pity that those who shaped the Australian always interesting to observe. Intensely curious about monument at Hamel, inaugurated in 1998, did not the places they were visiting and more strongly stick with Bean. The monument can strike the visitor interested in the story we had come to commemorate as boastful, verging on the notion that but for the than I could ever have anticipated, they enjoyed a good Australians the war might have dragged on and on. time too and like soldiers everywhere, I suspect, they It's a pity, too, that the Interfet commander in East knew to sleep whenever they were waiting. They Timor, Major General Peter Cosgrove, apparently left wanted to pack in as much as they could. his Bean at home: 'One of the battalions,' he told a In East Timor, the men and women of the journalist, ' ... has been on the border. It's the Australian Defence Force say they learnt more than equivalent of being on the border in the Somme. It's they had expected and possibly more than Cabinet the equivalent of being in the trenches at Gallipoli.' ministers and defence planners will ever learn. They Well no, it's not really. Peter Cosgrove has won learnt the madness and misery of war, the deceit of high praise for the straightforward way he went about politics, the evil of hatred. They had to be alert to his extremely challenging task. He deserves our danger, to understand grief and to dispense compas thanks and our praise. And it is important that he is sion. They said they would miss the people among proud of his troops and prepared to tell the world that whom they had lived for they had come to they have performed to the highest expectations of share their lives. Australians and in a manner entirely in keeping with the Anzac tradition. C I-I ARLES BEA N LIVED and worked among such But as my sailor friend at the Beach Cemetery soldiers for the four awful years of the Great War and would have been quick to point out, comparisons will he came to venerate them, too, for their achievement, not help us on this one. Let us be proud of what the their constancy and their victory. They learnt a lot, m en and women of the Defence Force have done for he observed. They were curious and intensely Australia as peace-keepers and in East Timor. Let us interested in the people among whom they moved. hope that they say to the world that there is an They were compassionate and they learnt more, Australian spirit greater than the morally timid, small certainly, than the Cabinet ministers and defence minded and hateful official positions on so many Above left: At the planners who moved them around the Western Front matters crying out for robust notions of social justice. Dili wharf, Maior like so many pawns. If they serve us in that, they will have earned the General Peter And when Charles Bean came to write the last words that a Charles Bean could offer them. They Cosgrove signs, at words of his official history which was to be their would say, though, like those who have gone before her request, the momm1ent and over which he had laboured for 20 years, them, that they were just doing a job. • lnterfe t armband he knew that he would do their spirit wrong if he big of one young noted. 'What these men did nothing can alter now. Michael McKernan is the inaugural Frederick Watson Australian soldier. The good and the bad, the greatness and the smallness Fellow at the National Archives of Australia for Photograph by of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains 1999-2000. Jon Greenaway. COMMENT: 2 BRUCE DuNCAN The justice contract R"'" ONCH'TIONS of social JUst V o LUME 10 NuMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 5 Such nco-liberals tend to shrink the classical socio-economic conditions so that all their people can concepts of social justice and distributive justice live a decent life. Hence they are obliged to promote whereby government allocates the benefits and full employm ent. If this is not possible, then the state burdens of citizenship-down to contractual justice. is bound, according to the level of economic develop In other words, they tend to accept as just only what ment, to help upply the m eans of livelihood to needy people freely agree to do, as if by contract. Anything people. more is fundamentally charity in their eyes. Hence In Australia, unemployment benefits are set at a the trend to small government, and the attempt to punitive level. They were not designed to support shift welfare provision further fr om government and people for long periods and are much below on to business and private charity. comparable benefits in most other OECD countries. The concept of social justice, however, is one of The original assumption in Australia was that this the most fundamental in European political thought, low level of benefits would support people until they and needs to be reclaimed as a guiding principle in could take advantage of the then abundant work social policy. The term 'social justice' only came into opportunities. common use late last century. Pope Pius XI However, today there is simply no suitable work adopted it in the 1920s as a more contemporary for many unemployed people. In this regard, the state Th e aim should term for what Thomas Aquinas in the 13 th cen and society have failed in their obligations to them. tury had referred to as 'legal' or 'general justice'. Melbourne Catholic Social Services recently not be to punish or Following Aquinas, Pius understood social conducted research into the adequacy of income justice as providing a norm against which to eval support for various recipients. Without exception, publicly humiliate uate government policies to ensure that they these people experienced acute difficulty on their those on income enhanced the common good, providing the con meagre benefit, and overwhelmingly were desperate ditions necessary for the human flourishing even to find work. Many had suffered extreme disadvantage support, but to of the poor. Far from being a propaganda tool, from child abuse or abandonment, illiteracy, social justice stands as one of the most impor hom elessness or ill health. If anyone thinks that help restore their tant concepts in evaluating social policies. making a single adult survive on unemployment In a strong challenge to nco-liberalism with benefits of $ 16 .35 a week is anything but draconian, dignity and in his own party, the Liberal member for Koo y he or she should try it. ong in Victoria, Mr Petro Georgiou, recently To give the impression that the primary failure expand their called for a recovery of the Liberal tradition of to find employment lies with the unemployed would social justice. Speaking at the 1999 Menzies Lec be in most cases to blame the victims and to inflict a capacity. ture last November, Georgiou reminded his au cruel new injusti ce on them. dience that the founder of the Liberal Party, R. Nevertheless, recipients of income support can G. Menzies, had emphasised social justice and the still contribute within their means to the common need for a better distribution of wealth. good, most especially, however, by promoting their Georgiou continued: 'Over the past 30 years, own well-being so they can play their full role in work however, the notion of social justice has come under and society. Improved services could help people intense and systematic attack.' Increasingly prevalent, assume grea ter control over their lives, through, for he said, are views that social justice 'is a disguise for example, retraining, financial or personal counselling, a discredited socialism', that it 'unduly interferes with literacy training and parenting training. This is where the freedom of the marketplace', or 'leads more money i needed, and programs to implement to an unacceptable welfare ys tem '. these goals should be restored or expanded. It would be especially counter-productive to force L EsE D ISPUTES AHOUT social justice underlie the people into work-for-the-dole programs at the expense current debate about 'mutual obligation' and the of caring for children or other dependants during duties of unemployed people receiving incom e vulnerable years. support. Mutual obliga tion should not be used to press If one assumes that relationships between these recipients into compulsory labour. The aim individuals and the state are mainly contractual, then should not be to punish or publicly humiliate those mutual obliga tion will be seen as an exchange in on incom e support, but to help restore their dignity which benefit recipients are bound as if by contract and expand their capacity as responsible persons. to make payment through their labour. Imposing unreasonable and burdensome obliga However, this conveniently minimises the tions can indeed result not only in added damage to obliga tions of the state and society, which should be individuals and families but, paradoxically, in greater seen not primarily in terms of contractual or market long- term costs and deepening welfare dependency.• exchange just ice, but in term s of social and distributive justice. Bruce Duncan cssn lectures on history and social According to the church's notion of social justice, ethics at Yarra Theological College, Melbourne, and the state and societ y are required to organise also works for Catholic Social Services. 6 EUREKA STREET • APRIL 2000 No consistency please, we're politicians T,ume "ON'" m •>ouncs. A few weeks •go, focmec Pcime 'Wet' Fraser ministers could claim, weakly, but with some Minister Malcolm Fraser was at Parliament House giving a justification, that their achievements might have been limited speech in honour of the late Alan Missen, the Liberal's liberal but that they had at least succeeded in softening some of the of his day and a thorn in the side of the Fraser Government raw edges of harder ministers. That's a claim that few of the 20 years ago. Howard moderates could make. Indeed, it is a part of the Howard In those days Malcolm, for all of his foresight on race, was skill that, when he detects things have gone too far, it will be hardly seen as a liberal figure. Not a little of his legislation was he himself who moves in from the left of his ministers. He considerably reshaped by the arguments and floor-crossings of seems warm and responsive, they appear aloof. Senator Missen and some of his close colleagues. Nor does the voice of the moderates count for much in the It is rather more difficult to imagine a john Howard, in the party room. On policy, there is scarcely a debate. A few year 2020, rising to speak at a Peter Nugent memorial lecture stalwarts, such as Petro Georgiou and Brendan Nelson, seck to harder even, given the small impact that liberals have in the have influence in wider forums. But they cannot claim present Liberal Party, to imagine anyone or any achievement to have any in the primary one to which they belong. that anyone would be busy memorialising. About the same time as Malcolm Fraser was speaking, some INSOME RESPECTS, one might think the tide could be turning. of the party's liberals were earnestly cogitating a revolt on the Panic about the situation in rural and regional centres has question of mandatory sentencing in the Northern Territory sparked a new wave of government spending. So has the counter and Western Australia. Within a week, they had been reaction to Tclstra's plan for job cuts and Howard's determination neutralised by being allowed to pour out their angst at a to sell Telstra. Social issues are much more strongly on the agenda. party-room debate: John Howard had conceded no ground to Debacles such as the nursing-homes affair (which has seen them whatever. Responding to a comment in the party room ministers of all colour united in their pleasure at Bronwyn that the moral conservatives now standing most firmly on state Bishop's discomfort) and the shutdown of clothing factories have primacy were precisely the same people who had argued a need put far greater pressure on the government to drop some of its to interfere with state and territories on euthanasia or heroin, mean-spirited approach to social welfare. Howard could say calmly that one could not expect consistency If there is any change in direction, however, it does not in politics. involve giving any leeway to the moderates. John Howard is The liberals in the Liberal Party are far from an impotent the one who sends out the messages. If it is done by anyone force. It will be liberals and moderates such as Robert Hill and else it is by close lieutenants- Tony Abbott, for example, on Michael Wooldridge who will determine which of the Liberal unemployment-or by ministers with hard-line credentials. And leadership aspirants will succeed John Howard. They lack the the message is still aimed at the pub-talkers and the radio power to get up one of their own, but their numbers will be talkback audience. It beams back their prejudices-as some critical in choosing which one of the hard-liners will misrep opinion polling has recently demonstrated most clearly on resent them in the future. issues such as Aboriginal affairs. For those who had hoped that Not a few of the key spending departments are, or have some phrases coming from Howard had signalled that he meant been, led by liberals. Health, education, immigration and to put more effort into reconciliation, it is by now clear that environment have been in liberal hands. It is doubtful, however, the polls have pushed him in the opposite direction. that the personal and philosophical attributes of the ministers Malcolm Fraser did not begin his office with much interest have had any great impact on policy. On the contrary, these in Aboriginal affairs. He subscribed to the popular view that it Liberals have had to seem tougher and more hard-line than many was riddled with waste and corruption. But he wanted it of their colleagues, if only to show their worthiness to be in the neutralised as a political issue, and not weighing the govern councils of the government. ment down. It was only about three years into government that The illiberalism, for example, of a Philip Ruddock in he became personally interested and then, as he actually visited immigration, or of an Amanda Vanstone as she was merrily Aboriginal communities, committed to change. In his day, of slashing into education or pretending that the drug problem course, there was more room under the Liberal umbrella. More will be resolved by police work, has won them neither respect noise too, from those closest to the rain. • from their ideological enemies in their own party nor reputation among their friends. Jack W aterford is the editor of the Canberra Times. V oLUME 10 NuMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 7 L ETTERS Eureka Street welcomes letters from its moguls and the techno-crazed ABC which readers. Short letters are more likely to has already used digitisation as an excuse to Let readers judge be published, and all letters may be cut down on their artistic output. edited. Letters must be signed, and Gerry Harant From Anne O'Brien should include a contact phone Blackburn, VIC I write in response to correspondence from number and the writer's name and Leo Dunne and Marga ret Slattery in Eureka address. If submitting by email, a Street, March 2000. Their lengthy efforts contact phone number is essential. Lay employment offer nothing of substance in respect of my Address: [email protected] t .org.a u book, Blazing a Trail, the fruit of a PhD From William Brennan, Bishop of Wagga thesis. Wagga Nowhere was it suggested that Mrs Might I m ake a few comments on Dr Neil Slattery was or had been a member of a Ormerod's thoughtful and well researched politica l party. She claims that her com mu article, 'Drawing the Line' (Emeka Street, nication with the Australian bish ops March 2000 )? 'always contained the latest facts and fi gures First, Centacare workers are employees on the "State Aid" issue.' But these data of the Diocesan Corporations. They are refl ected the views of the Australian Parents agents of the bishops, and that gives them a Council [APCj and not the real needs of different ecclesial status fro m Catholic laity Catholic schools. who work, say, for Employment National I do not cite The Bulletin in my book. or w ho run their own job search agencies. The articles by G .E.F. Hugh es were I believe that when Paul VI spoke about the published in Quadrant. 'world of politics, society and economics' Dr Ken McKinnon's view of Mrs Slattery being properly the arena of lay activity, he refers to the impression she crea ted in her in the light of previous excursions into was not talking primarily about laity who lobbying for state aid. changing broadcast technologies (FM radio, are part of the church structure. It was the The real source of contention was not cable and sa tellite TV) which, while disas lay employees of the Sisters of Charity who the issue of state aid but the method of trous commercially, had little impact on fronted the TV cam eras over the injecting fund in g. The APC advocated equal per ca pita those who stayed with the old delivery pipes. room proposal yet no-one had any doubt grants to all children in non-government The currently mooted changes, which that that was the project of an Institute of schools plus an extra all ocation for 'special will require all current receivers to be Consecrated Life, not a lay initiative. needs'. Had this policy prevailed, many obsolete in seven years' time, are unlikely Similarly the activities of the Centacares Catholic schools would not ex ist today. to work. The proposed channel allocations are activities of the di oceses. The block method of funding consequent are likely to ca use interference. Datacasting Secondly, while it is true that the on the Labor Government's acceptance of the would ask you to stop the family watching 'expertise of bishops does not lie in the vast Karmel Report saved m os t Catholic schools. TV while accessing e-commerce; why not and complicated world of econ omics, And the influence of B.A. Sa ntamaria I use your computer for that instead? Multi politics and social policy', it may be Let the reader be the judge. My book proves channelling would be m eaningful if there conceded that we have some expertise in that he wrote the response to the Kannel were alternative content to endless re- runs. church matters. Report published under the name of the Considering the grossly mis- tuned sets Thirdly, while it is also true that Australian bishops. T his statement formed happily used by most people to receive the Centacare has been involved in employ the basis for attacks launched by Santamaria, present quite adequate PAL transmissions, ment work for the last ten years, this the bishops, the APC and the independent who would want to spend $5000+ on higher involvement was of a minor, subsidiary and schools lobby throughout 19 73, and fro m definition in ga me sh ows, sport and ads? support nature, targeting specific cases and som e sectors until the late '70s. Besides, how long would it take before the niche problem areas, such as the disabled. Why did I not interview Mrs Slattery? latest techno-gimmick is superseded by the My concern is that, with these latest Apart fr om the role played by the APC in latest-plus-one? In the UK, DTV owners contracts, Centacare Australia has taken a this debate over the method of funding, she have just discovered that recent DVD quantum leap to becom e a m ain player in played no part in the issues being examined players are incompatible with their DTV the big leagu e. While each bishop may know in my book. and standards are changing constantly. what his own Centacare is doing, only the Anne O'Brien Apart from this farce, there looms a real Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Cheltenham, VIC tragedy. The standards conversion is esti sees the full picture and, though the bishops mated to cost A$30 billion by 2007. A very were told that 12 dioceses had tendered for large percentage will be spent overseas, and employment contracts, we were not informed Dis-content local initiatives will contribute little. For a of the size of the tenders or of the exponen fraction of thi m oney, we could have a tial shift they represented in Centacare From Gerry Harant thriving drama and doco production indus Australia's involvement in this fi eld. Kate Manton's chilling insights into the try with a proven export potential. After all, Fourthly, no-one as yet has addressed minds of media moguls and government with all those channels everywhere, surely my basic philosophical problem, namely, ministers itching to exploit digital television som ebody will be looking for content even what justifi es a Catholic social welfare (Eurel 8 EUREKA STREET • APR IL 2000 out of world If the matter had been brought I identified a horrible error in Robert or may not have been a correct assessment, to the bishops, it would at least have been Menzies: A Life (a photograph of Wilfred but w e still maintain that without the debated. Kent Hughes purporting to be that of Athol marketing imperatives that are currently Finally, Catholic involvement in a Townley) . A reviewer is entitled to draw fuelling this debate, sales of this book would tender system for social w elfare leaves m e attention to su ch an error no matter where have turned a loss for MUP. We operate as uneasy. A process which results in the the fault lies: author, editor, 'process'. Long an independent publisher, receive no direct organi ation which submits the low est may MUP continue to edit books with care funding from our parent university and tender being contracted to service the and attention to detail and long may reviewers have the capacity to publish only about 50 disadvantaged seems to m e to be one of the attempt to keep them up to the marl<. books per year. We have to choose carefully uglier faces of economic rationalism. which books m ake our small publishing William Brennan program and som etimes rejection is a Wagga Wagga, NSW Hard pressed reflection of our capacity, rather than the quality of the w ork. From fohn Mecl V OLUME 10 NUMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 9 ~Sh The Month's Tra«ic s '))i is more than 100 years since the papal state funeral, on the Friday, was a true encycli ca l, Rerum Novanzm, set the celebration of a full and extraordinary life. Catholic Church on a path which made 'There was a handful of them, a Visiting close consideration of social justice issues generation of So uth Australians,' wrote integral to the church 's activity. That journalist Tony Baker in the Adelaide J UST BE FORE LENT began WC had a visitor. commitment, admits Michael Czerny, is Advertiser, 'but Roma Mitchell was distin The Secretary for Jesuit Social Ministries, still controversial. But essential. guished by more than just being the only Fr Michael Czerny, came to the Eurel 10 EUREKA STREET • APRIL 2000 the crowd size. Of course they came for that I heard. But that is so often the summing novelist Richard Ford, for Bernhard Schlink, up of Adelaide Writers' Week. Even the German author of the controversial novel, weather under the tents stayed benign Push for The Reader, for Fay Weldon and Vikram except to a very moist Edvard Radzin sky, Seth. But they also did what Adelaide crowds who had come direct from Russia, where it often do- they responded to the word-of was minus som ething unimaginable, to the the bush mouth that zings like electricity around thermal sh ock of Adelaide's slanting the tents. So Russian biographer of Stalin autumn sunshine. 'You'll die,' his Russian 0 VER THE LAST 25 YE ARS, the USA has and Rasputin, Edvard Radzinsky, becam e advisors warned him. But he did not. supported its regional and rural areas an instant favourite. Fireball academic and Elsewhere the Festival was running full through successful economic development social commentator, Mary Kalantzis, kept throttle. Water was a theme- one close to m echanisms. The result: the revitalisation a full tent spellbound with her point-by Adelaide's heart. Not that Adelaide perhaps of many rural areas. It's not socialism point itemisation of the values Australia wanted it poured out in such lavish exactly, but it works. NB Canberra. Good news: La st yea r, we published a photograp h of the devastated marketplace in Dili (see in set). When Eureka Street's South East Asia correspondent, jon Greenaway, revisited and photographed th e M ercado Municipal Dili recently, it was clea ned up, repainted, and once aga in a scene of bu stling life. seems to have abandoned at the moment. quantities as in the N etherlands Opera Government in th e USA ca n be Whe n three theological book s w ere production of Writing To Vermeer, with surprisingly interventionist- much more launched in the west tent by Veronica Brady libretto by Peter Greenaway. The cast, with than in Australia. Three uccessful US IBVM, the crowds stayed to hear not just her extraordinary fortitude, kept singing while regional develo pm ent s trategies are splendid launch speech, but the reason why they were doused with showers from above particularly worthy of the Australian this new initiative by the Writers' Week and obliged to wade through moats below. government's attention. committee should be an inevitable, a natural It was an emblem for the enthusiasm of the The first strategy is direct funding of development in a city of churches. As indeed whole Festival, which year after year keeps local and regional bodies. Local govern it was. bobbing up with new ideas, old traditions m ent in the USA receives direct funding Diverse enthusiasms were served, and newly rendered, and an overall atmosphere under the federal system of Community no disillusion registered, or at least none of vivacity and grace. -Morag Fraser Development Bl ock Grants, developed over V O LUME 10 NUMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 11 25 years ago. The level of funding is decided achieves certain goals. Goals could include makes good sense. It provides further u sing a formula based on the level of the purchase of new equipment, employing employment, gets people off welfare and economic deprivation in individual local target groups, employing peopl e in quality increases the activity within the domestic go vernment areas compared with national jobs, and providing credits back to banks for economy. The Australian go vernment a verages. T he amounts provided are lending to companies in the EZs. worries that giving tax credits in one area substantial and give local authorities the The Australian federal governm ent gets would be unfair to businesses in other areas. m eans to achieve rea l results-subject to a case of hives when it hea rs about EZs. The USA is not so timid: it provides the their m eeting national objectives, such as They say they are philosophically opposed cure where it is needed. benefiting low and moderate incom e to the concept because EZs 'prop up non Why is it that this outwardly free- market earners. viable industries'. This is certainly not a andlaissez-faire government is so keen to Eligible areas of expenditure include concern in the USA. In fact, EZs were a control commercial activity ? For two gra nts, loa n s, interest supp le ments, creation of the Republican Party, w hich princi pal reasons: first, to make technical assistance, and acquisition and saw them as a way of bringing more and opportunities for private en terprise available rehabilitation of property. While local more businesses up to speed through modest to all and not just a few, and second, to governm e nt s upervises the funds, a levels of public assistance. ensure that the fortunate are made to face community-based board of trustees, chosen The Australian government gets nervous their responsibilities and deliver posi ti ve for their skills and interests, selects the when tax rebates are mentioned, but they social outcomes. projects to be funded. Whereas this US need to acknowledge that tax credits on Al so of interest in Australia is the system involves significa nt devolution of EZs in the USA are only partial credits and behaviour of our banking industry. Which power, in Australia funding is controlled only apply from a baseline of business brings us to the third regional development more strictly (with the exception of the activity esta blis hed when the EZ is strategy. Since 1977, the US has had the untied Financial Assistance Grants paid to gazetted. The benefits apply to the in Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) local government ). Match the narrow crease in the business activity, not to t he which imposes (s hock, horror) respon selection criteria and yo u get the money. level of business operating before the EZ sibilities on the banking industry to deliver Or don't, if you don't' was created. Using that m eth o d of its services across the entire demographic T he second strategy worth exa mining is calculation, a government only forgoes in other words, to all the people. The CRA the establishment of 'Enterprise Zones' part of the increased tax liability crea ted requires banks to ea rn credits by acting in (EZs) . These are a creature of State govern as a result of the expansion. certain ways: lending to low / moderate ments and they provide higher than normal Supporters of EZs argue that forgoing income ea rners and into depressed areas; credits against state taxes if a company tax revenue from the expanded business lending to innovative projects and to target 12 EUREKA STREET • APRIL 2000 groups. When the CRA became operative, the banks suddenly became nicer. The legislation does not require banks to operate 1 a e branches at a loss or to make unsafe loans or investments, but it does require them to conduct business across all sectors of society and not just 'take the cream'. Similar responsibilities apply in other areas. Real When the earn ivai estate developers and local government • must work together to provide up to 15 per 1s over cent of any housing development for low and moderate-income earners. It is naive to suggest that the USA has 'IIs YEAR, THE GAY AND LESBIAN MARD I GRAS in Sydney passed with a flourish socialist tendencies. The reality is that the of controversy. The Anglican and Catholic Archbishops of Sydney both wrote USA is a tough country, often tough on the in mild criticism of it, and were in turn criticised by groups active in the festival. world, tough on its poor, but also tough on The controversy did not reduce the numbers on the day. Nor did it prevent the its corporations. Successive legislatures churches from being liberally made fun of during the parade. The events pointed have demonstrated a will to make people to two elements of the Mardi Gras which stand in some tension. The Mardi Gras and corporations responsible for their was born as an instmment to change intolerant community and church attitudes actions and for the wealthy to share their to homosexuality. But it also continues the traditions of Carnival: the days of gains with those less fortunate and, in doing excess and feasting that traditionally preceded the fast and straitness of Lent. so, minimise the public expenditure burden. Community Development Block Grants, The Carnival has been the subject of much historical and theological writing Economic Zones and the Community in recent years. Many historians have studied Christianity as a form of social Reinvestment Act are three examples which control. The Carnival then arouses interest because by definition it is could translate very well to the Australian uncontrolled, and indeed parodies such instruments of social control as experience. hierarchy, public mores and sacraments. At the Carnival, roles and hierarchies Whatever happens in regional Australia, are reversed. Servants and slaves become masters for a day, cooks are served by either from John Anderson' Summit or their guests, women take the initiative in relationships, church and secular whatever follows, it must be geared to rituals are parodied, thrift yields to impulse, while sexual inhibitions and quality job creation in the broadest sense. boundaries are transgressed. Regional Australians need to work, to feel The historical response of the churches to Carnival has been taken as an a part of a community and its economy. index of the desire for social control at any given period. Preachers loved to The very great fear among country people is excoriate it precisely because of its excesses and particularly because of its that 'the economic system' will continue to oppose their basic needs. While reversal of the commandments. While the (bad) Renaissance Popes encouraged community spirit is important, much of it (Julius II introduced bear-baiting), the later (gloomy) ones, like Sixtus V, what is required will be money-based, and shortened the period of Carnival and even erected gibbets along the streets to that presents a difficulty. Government has remind people of the consequences of excess in his Rome. Their attitude was successfully pandered to our greed by adopted by later Protestant writers who described the Carnival as peculiar to holding up tax cuts at every opportunity. decadent Roman Catholic countries. Modern scholars have tended to rehabilitate When everyone's tax bill is cut, the public the Carnival. By throwing off social controls, Carnival struck a blow for liberty. purse is diminished. Whatever of that, Carnival flourishes only where there are clear hierarchies This paucity of available funding is seen and social norms. It is parasitic on the rigorous order of Lent, as its name, derived as a major problem for John Anderson. It from the laying aside of meat, indicates. Only when laws of conduct and of affects his preferred choice of mechanisms belief and social hierarchies are firmly established can there be a celebration to bring the bush back to life. But the reality which reverses them. Without an order, there is only Showbiz. This makes the is that regional Australia docs not expect ongoing heavy subsidies. What it does Sydney Mardi Gras interesting. For in the universal tolerance enjoined in expect is that federal and state govern Australian secular culture, there seems little space for reversal and mockery of ments will take a genuine interest in the established mores. From the perspective of Carnival, criticism from community common good of the nation and the way in leaders might be reassuring: underneath a surface tolerance lies a network of which its regional citizens fit into that values to be laughed at. picture. But if it belongs to Carnival, you might wonder whether the Mardi Gras is The final example from the USA is one an effective way of changing community attitudes and, for that matter, whether of commitment. If one is in love and utters it is really open to question for being socially subversive. For, by reversing sweet nothings into the ear of the object of accepted patterns of social relationship, the Carnival paradoxically reinforces one's desire, it is expected that chocolates their acceptance. The more things are made different for a day, the more they and flowers will follow. Canberra appears are the same for every other day. • flirtatious, but the box only contains half a chocolate. -Graham Apthorpe Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne. VoLUME lO NuMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 13 sentencing. Despite this public sentiment, you're out'. They take away the judicial it seems unlikely that the federal govern di scretion to take account of the history of When change is ment will act. Already, Prime Minister John the offender, the circumstances surround Howard has stated that these laws are ing the offence and the circumstances of mandatory matters of domestic concern and not m 14 EUREKA STREET • APRIL 2000 criminologists have concluded that mandatory sentencing laws do little to deter criminals. Instea d, they put young offenders into schools for crime, they increase prison costs and add to prison overcrowding. (See, for example, the Report on Mandatory Sentencing, Declan Roche, Australian Institute of Criminology, December 1999). A caller to our CCJDP office, who was a victim of a minor property offence in High-tech detection Darwin, told us that, had he known that the result of his pressing charges would be a prison sentence for a homeless boy who INLATE J ANUARY, a British court convicted Harold Shipman-a family doctor needed help, not jail, he would never have in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester-of killing 15 elderly patients. pressed the charge. Another caller, from The police think he may have murdered more than 100 others. Western Australia and also a victim of a How did h e get away with it? Surely his activities should have been picked minor offence, expressed similar concerns up sooner? That's what the British Medical Association argued, as it demanded about the lack of proportion between the the immediate introduction of computer technology to alert authorities to offence and the penalty imposed, and the anomalies such as an abnormally high death rate in one m edical practice. 'Here lack of judicial discretion. we are, with technology in most parts of our lives, but there isn't the ability to If anything, these laws work against law actually select out trends with the sort of technology we should have,' the and order. If they are allowed to remain on the statute books, they will engender a la ck chairman of the Association, Ian Bogle, is reported as saying in the science of confidence in the integrity and fairn ess weekly, New Scientist. of the Australian criminal justice system. Well, the problem is not to do with the technology. Known as geographic -Liz Curran information systems (GIS), computer programs to do what the British Medical Association asks have been around for more than 30 years. They allow data to This month's contributors: Morag Fraser is be stored, manipulated and analysed on a geographic basis. Originally complex Eureka Street's editori Graham Apthorpe is and available only on mainframes, nowadays the software is easy to use, fits on Economic Development Manager for Cowra a standard PC, and is not even expensive. State Councili Liz Curran is the Executive So why is GIS technology not in widespread use in the h ealth system of Officer of the Catholic Commission for any developed country? Some of the answers are provided by a research project Justice, Development and Peace (Melbourne in the Department of Geomatics at the University of Melbourne. A team led by Archdiocese). Dr Francisco Escobar has developed a program for plotting and analysing the health services of a region, so that, for example, neighbourhoods of low Books reviewed in immunisation rates can be detected, or the location of new medical services Eureka Street can be better planned. In addition to the lack of government funding, Escobar's group has come up against a couple of other barriers. First, doctors are generally may be ordered from not particularly computer literate. Second, the efficient use of GIS demands up THE jEsun BooKSHOP to-date, accurate information, and plenty of it. Setting up such data collection PO Box 553, Richmond, systems demands time, money, expertise and attention to privacy issues. But it can be done. A group from the Mayor's Office in N ew York City is VIC 3121 planning to collect and review information on admissions to all the hospitals Tel : m 9427 n11 located in that city's five boroughs. The project involves commissioning special iax: m 9428 4450 software to detect any anomalous patterns which might emerge-clusters of patients with unusu al symptoms, or surges of patients with commonplace symptoms, for example. The project was initially supported as a measure against biological terrorism, but it has rapidly become clear that it could be used for Women & Pilgrimage much more-like detecting and treating a 'flu epidemic or highlighting the lack of services in a particular area. I am seeking u?omen, The slow introduction of GIS technology illustrates a deeper modern mid-l!fe, as walking problem- the all-pervasive complexity and specialisation which mitigates co mpanions on a against generalists, people with an overview. While it is easy for suspicious pilg rimage lo Sanliago de specialists to marginalise generalists because they seem to possess no particular Co mpos/eta in ,Sep1e111ber. expertise, it is those with broad knowledge who can build the links between J<:.ay Cfh eresa.Jones disparate groups such as health professionals and geographers-links which often lead to important advances. • (OJ) 98 13 2 -1 30 Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer. V OLUME 10 N UMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 15 FoREIGN CoRRESPONDENCE On the edge of the desert In Lhe welter of disaster stories about Africa, it is easy to lose sight of the people who live with small means but great determination. Anthony Ham met some of them in Niger. L NAM' m the end of the wth " m o,c pmn". H"dly ' "'P"' ing, given cycle with' Mc.nge pwtmion fwm he< Niamey. The capital of Niger- by the that many civil servants have not been head, a child on her back and another UN's reckoning th e second-poorest paid in almost a year. One in 20 women trailing along behind in the dust. Huge country in the world- is a place of dies during childbirth. basins of meat with a petrified goat's head unrelenting harshness. The dust never N or is it surprising that the streets of at one end, a lengthy hairy white tail at settles in this city of almost one million Niam ey have an air of trapped despera- the other. And, in the shade, sits a man people, w h ose low-slung mudbrick tion. My reason for being here-to write intently reading a piece of paper as if it dwellings combine to create a village the Niger chapter for a Lonely Planet contains the instructions for how which long ago far exceeded its capacity travel guide-seem s absurd, obscene to put everything back together. to cope. In such a place, it can seem that even, in a place which most of its B Niger's history, having led to its people inhabitants will never leave. The conver- UT THI S IS NOT another story of living in cities without access to basic sations I have on the streets of the capital helpless Africans, another pitiful dispatch services and infrastructure, has been a are as familiar to m e as they are from a con tin en t associated in the series of tragic, irreversible mistakes. demoralising for all concerned: Where are popular mind with hopeless misery or Imagine a country where m ore than you from z Australia. Ah, Australia ... afari parks. 60 per cent of the people survive on less Niger is no good. Life is very difficult While the images of misery can be than a dollar a day. Imagine a city where here. I want to go to your country. You overwhelming, the people of Niger are the fiv e-star hotels, which charge m ore can helpZ too busy struggling to survive to want than $150 per night, occupy the prime I tell them that it is very difficult, your pity. Perhaps, though, some under locations along the tranquil and beautiful almost impossible, although I cannot to standing of the root causes of their Niger River. Imagine a city where there their satisfaction (or mine) explain why. desperate plight might encourage a are more white Landrovers belonging to Sometimes, to my shame, I give them m y radical rethink on Africa, highlighting the non-government organisations, and more address-false hopes on a torn scrap of resilience and daily dignity of the government ministries, than there are paper- more to satisfy my own need to Nigeriens' struggle, recasting them as kilometres of paved roadi where the do something than because I believe it individuals bravely fighting against great dedicated doctors at the central hospital will come to anything. It would be better odds. can do little more than provide palliative to give them nothing. One of Niamey's Niger became independent from care because there are few medicincsi countless beggars extends her hand. 'Oui French rule in 1960. The colonial legacy where running water is a luxury. patron, patron. Un ca deau patron ... for the newly independent state and its As befits a country so desperately patron.' I quicken my pace and shut my people was an ongoing dependence on poor, Niger's statistics are shocking, and eyes to the pain of Africa. patterns of living and trade wholly alien they are overwhelming when you are At twilight, the bush taxi in which to Niger. confronted with their human fa ce. For I am travelling pulls into Dogondoutchi. The French had asserted their control every 1000 children under five, 320 will It is a beautiful small town in south- through a series of punitive military not sec their fifth birthday. More than western Niger, in the arid zone where the expeditions, the most notorious of which 80 per cent of children suffer som e form Sahara Desert meets the Sahel. A striking was the Voulet-Chanoine mission which of m alnutrition, the m ost h orrifying escarpment, turned soft yellow in the laid waste to much of sou thcrn Niger, consequence of which is the return of sunset, overlooks the town. The lake is including a terrible massacre in Birni noma, a severe form of gingivitis where blue as blue, circled by palm trees. At N 'Konni. gangrene slowly eats away the flesh of the bus station, I stumble into a post- The next stage of France's annexation the m outh and face, and which is apocalyptic vision which presses close. of th e country is a story of colonial particularly prevalent in children. This Young boys without legs. An old woman exploitation common throughout Africa. disease could be prevented with a five- who will not cat tonight. A boy missing Cash crops, predominantly peanuts, were dollar mouthwash-beyond the m eans of an eye. A woman on a hand-propelled forcibly introduced, replacing traditional 16 EUREKA STREET • APRIL 2000 subsistence forms of agriculture. Small compensation. The local means of But with virtually no infrastructure, villages were 'consolidated', their exchange was replaced with the French Niger was still one of the most taxed populations relocated into higher density franc, in which taxes had to be paid and colonies in the region. towns located along French access roads. seeds purchased. Youn g men of the It is easy to argue that 40 years of The combined pressures of ill-sui ted south ern tribes-Hausa, Songhai, independence ought to be enough for crops, more intensive farming and Djerma- were forced to migrate to the Niger to have overcome the eff ects of deforestation ravaged a land accustomed coast in search of employment paid in French rule. Certainly it has not always to rotating fa llow periods on small land hard currency, thereby causing frequent been well served by its indigenous holdings. labour shortages at harvest time. The politicians, most glaringly in 1973-74 Patterns of interrelation between French consciously limited the em er when, at the height of a devastating tribes and regions were similarly dismpted. gence of any educated group in Niger, drought and famine, government minis The complex interdependence of the instead relying for control on traditional ters were caught squirrelling away stock southern farmers and the Tuareg-a chiefs whom it favoured and whose piles of international fo od aid. nomadic desert people of the north- was abuses it ignored. However, som e processes are impos ruptured as trade was oriented away from With its control assured, French rule sible to reverse. Niger's soil, which once the ancient salt caravan routes of the was thereafter increasingly characterised supported vast, fabulously wealthy Sahara towards coastal ports controlled by neglect. Few teachers were trained, empires, has been so depleted that only by the colonial authorities. The French fewer schools were built, and of 1032km three per cent of Nigerien land can requisitioned camels, the mainstay of the of paved road built by the French in West sustain any form of agriculture. The Tuareg economy, usually without Africa, only 14km of them were in Niger. most serious problem is that of