Denis Freney Memorial THE AusTRALIAN REsEARCH Scholarships - up to $1 o,ooo Applications are invited from people currently engaged THEOLOGY FouNDATION INc. in (or about to commence) a research , writing or cultural project which contributes to the labour and progressive invites applications for grants towards movements in Australia. research in theology, wh ether via formal The SEARCH Foundation wi ll award scholarships to assist with the cost of such projects, with priority to projects with academic structures, new projects, or other good prospects of publication or other public use, but means, for 2004. without access to other funding . SEARCH is an independent, non-profit foundation Requests for further information and applica established to promote social justice, environmental tion forms should be made in writing to: sustainability and the development of a more democratic and egalitarian society. Details of its aims and objectives The Administrative Officer are available on request. Suitably qualified appl icants should contact SEARCH for A.R.T.F. Inc. detailed application guidelines. P.O. Box 782 Applications must be received by Croydon, Vi c 3136 July 10, 2004 (Previous app lica nts please note the new address) Social Education and Research Concerning Humanity (SEARCH) Foundation Applications must be received by the 15th of Rm 610, 3 Smail Street, May. The governors will dec ide the grants by BROADWAY NSW 2007 Ph : (02) 9211 4164 ; Fax: (02) 9211 1407 the end of june. Funds will normally be www.search.org.au [email protected] .au avai lable for successful applica nts by instalment over a calendar year beginning no SEARCH ea rlier than September. FOUNDATION ACN 050 096 976
I I Pl ease note that our custom has been to Our raffle gets bigger & bigger! se nd a book of raffle ti ckets to each sub I Yes, all prizes are up! Beca use of th e overwhelming popularity of th e jes uit scr iber to thi s magazine. If you do not wish to receive th e ti ckets, please return the form Pub li ca ti ons Raffle, we have increased all prizes, so yo u ca n w in eve n more. I I below, by mail or fax, or contact us directl y First prize is a $10,000 shoppi ng vo ucher for Harvey Norman's sto res . Your at PO Box 553, Ri chmond, Vic 3121 entry is one of th e ways you ca n help ensure our continuing financial viability. tel (03) 9427 73 11 After six yea rs, we have found it necessa ry to raise the ti cket price, though yo u fax (03) 9428 4450 ca n now get a book of five for th e price of four! emai l
6 Marilyn Sh epherd, Brent Howard )> ~ 36 Th e legacy of Ern M all ey ~ THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C Guy Rundle reflects on the lives of 6 8 Rosie Hoban A sporting chance Jam es McAuley and H arold Stewart. :i m 8 Morag Fra ser Seven last words 39 En gaging the enemy § 10 Ka te Stowell Dutch (er, Russian) courage Peter Hartnett looks on as social policy S! advocates and economists meet. COLUMNS 41 Th e ministry of women Annette Binger on the business of 7 Ca pita l letter fe m ale clerics. Jack Waterford Credit overdrawn 46 Don't give th e gree n I ight to the red 9 Summa Th eo logiae light distri ct f. G. Danders The thick and thin of inter-religious dialogue Georgina Costello critiques Tasm ania's proposal to legalise prostitution. 10 Archimedes Tim Thwaites Green science 11 By th e w ay TH EATRE Brian Matthews Butchering words 44 Anna Straford reviews the MTC's The Glass Menagerie. Publisher Andrew Hamilton Sl 50 W atching brief Editor M arcelle Mogg Juliette Hughes Hot buttered bliss Ass istant editor Beth Dohert y Graphic des igners )anneke Storteboom IN PRINT and Ben Hider Direc tor Christopher Gleeson SJ SNAPSHOT 20 Lost in the battle Business manager M ark Dowell Marketing & advertising manager Kirsty Grant 12 Estimating God and oily w recks. fane Mayo Carolan considers Jim Subscriptions Denise Ca mpbell Griffin's fohn Wren: A life reconsidered. Editori al, production and adm ini stration 29 Frontier romance assistants Geraldine Batt ersby, Steven Cont e, POETRY Lee Beasley, Ben Hider. Radhika Corm reviews Brigid Hains' Fi lm editor Siobhan Jackson 15 Dimitris Tsaloumas Old Man's Last Th e Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn Poetry editor Philip Harvey Pilgrimage and the Myth of the Frontier. Jesuit editorial board Andrew H amilton Sl, 15 Mich ael Farrell poem without dice Greg Baurn, Virginia Bourke, M ari e Tehan, 30 Flintlike Jane M ayo Carolan, Christopher Gleeson Sl, M arce lle M ogg, Jack Wa terford. Aaron Martin m eets Madeleine Albrigh t Patrons Eureka Slreel gratefu lly FEATURES in Madam Secretary: A Memoir. ackn owledges the support of C. and A. Ca rt er; th e trustees of th e estate of 13 Remembering Herbert 43 Cultural coll apse Miss M. Condon; W. P. & M.W. Gurry Greg Barns on the life of Xavier Herbert. Jim Davidson explores M orris Berm an's The Twilight of American Cultme. Eureka Street magaz ine, ISSN 1036- 1758, 18 Th e durab ility of poverty Australi a Post Print Pos t approved Beth Doherty examines the Community, 45 Lega l ridd les pp349181/00314, is published ten times a Godfrey Moase casts a legal eye yea r by Eureka Street M agaz ine Pty Ltd, Adversity and Resilience report. over Litigation: Past and Present 300 Victoria Street, Richmond VIC 3121 21 Of pass ion and belief PO Box 553, Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1 and Adventmes in Law and Justice: Ju liette Hughes looks at the impact of Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 Ex ploring Big Legal Questions in email : eure ka@ jespub.jes uit.org.a u The Pa ssion of the Christ. http://www.eurekastreet. com.au/ Everyday Life . 22 Th e future offami lies Res ponsib ility for editori al content is 47 Shortlist accepted by Andrew Hamilton SJ, Frank Ca stles examines the politics and Reviews of the books: The Mmdoch 300 Victori a Street, Ri chmond values of social choices for fa m ilies. Printed by Dora n Pr inting Archipelago; A chieving Social Justice: 46 Industri al Drive, Braes ide VIC 3195. 24 Rwanda n mist Indigenous Rights and Australia 's © j esuit Publications 2004 Michele Gierck visits Rwanda ten years Unsoli ci ted ma nusc ripts w ill not be Future; Th e World from Islam and A returned. Pl ease do not send ori gi nal after the genocide. Story Dreamt Long Ago. photographs or art work unless reques ted. Reques ts for perm ission to reprint materi al 26 A fa ir go in an age of terror from the magazine should be addressed in Frank Brennan's address at the Jesuit FLASH IN THE PAN w ri ting to th e editor. Lenten Seminar Series. 48 Reviews of the films The Station Agent, Th is month 31 Th e state of ed uca ti on The Pa ssion of the Christ, The Fog of Cover: Ph oto of Bam by Anthony Ham, full Mil< e Ticher looks at the value of public story pp.l 6- 17. War and Irreversible. Cove r des ign: Jannekc Sto rt eboom schools to the community. All illustrat ions by Janneke Stort eboom 33 Wherefore art th ou Billy? unless oth erw ise indicated. PUZZLED Cartoons: p 1 9 by Dca n Moore, p3 8 by Tro y Bramston opens the files on the Katheri ne Brazenor. government of William McMahon. 51 Joan N owotny Cryptic crossword Andrew Hamilton
The final word
L,L>NT TH' Pa ssion of the ch,ist h" been of your policies when putting them in place. You the biggest Christian show in town. Among the are free sunnily to involve yourself in bombing many faults theological critics have found in it, they Iraq or in imprisoning children without seeing the have accused Mel Gibson of being false to the Gos faces of those whom you have maimed physically pel by wallowing in the gore and weat of the Pas or spiritually. You need not contemplate your own sion at the expense of the Resurrection. death or the death of those whom you afflict. Where That criticism surely misses the target. In the policy is radically dissociated from the reality of Gospels, Christ rises only after fully testing the dev death, the paradoxical result is a society dominated astating power of death. Although Mark's account of by the logic of death. It is caught in the cinematic the Passion is understated in its detail, he enumer image of the future city where human govern ates all the things that might make us believe, or ment, having devised a policy that will guarantee even hope, that death has the final word in human security through the bombardment of enemies, life. He tells of power cynically used, of betrayal, has subsequently been wiped out. But computers injustice, torture, terror and of humiliation. In the continue to organise and deliver the daily bombard lead-up to Easter, we are invited into the bear cage in ments of an abandoned city. The transition from a the company of a death whose claws are unsheathed. human government based on the denial of death It is there that we recognise that death's embrace is to the dominance of a pure technology of not fatal, not final. If we were to usc Easter as a rea death is seamless. son for avoiding or softening the brutality of death, we would show that we feared its power. INAusTRALIA OVER the last few years, we have We commonly learn from experience that our endured the myth of public life as technology and personal way to life runs through death, or at least the denigration of those who criticise policy on that it goes through no other place. But public life moral grounds. More recently, in the discussion of tells another story. Politics defines human well the ways we should educate our children, and sup being as the prosperity, security and reassurance port the elderly, there have been seeds of hope that of the majority, offering a passing assurance that our public conversation can encompass death. But even in sickness and misfortune you will be looked we are still hearing advice that we should move after. The art of politics is to persuade people that on from Iraq, move on from Tampa. The counsel you have the technical skill to devise strategies indicates that the denial of death is alive and well. and policies that will give them what they want. To the extent that we heed it, we shall render cos To introduce into this conversation moral consid metic the transformation of Easter. Easter will have erations that speak of human purposes, dignity, des touched our public life when we are able to enter tiny, despair and mortality is to drag a dead bird into respectfully the Passion to which we condemn our the political drawing room. Politics is built on the fellow human beings. Th n we may discover that denial of death. death does not have the last word. • The denial is useful. It allows you to happily think in abstractions and neglect the human effects Andrew Hamilton SJ is Eurelw Street's publisher.
4 EUREKA STREET APRIL 2004 L om nw n t • 2 Michael McGirr Just the ticket
SoMR LATHAM think< he has a pwblem. II might get an extra ticket, for example. The same elected Prime Minister this year, he is worried that policy can be used to create desirable social out he will have two houses, one in Sydney and the other comes. Those on maternity leave might get extra in Canberra. He made the point that it is only pos tickets and families could be offered a ticket for sible to sleep in one bed at a time. A man with small each child. The policy can be further developed to children should know better. Most children have no make sure it pushes all the right emotional buttons. trouble sleeping in three beds in the same night: their Surviving diggers from World War II can have own, their parents and the spare bed to which the par twenty tickets. Foreigners arriving on leaky boats ents have fled in desperation. with tickets purchased illegally overseas will have Mr Latham seems to have forgotten one extra them publicly confiscated and put in another bed made available to the PM at taxpayers expense. raffle with no date set for the draw. Parliamentarians This is the bed in the flatette located in the PM's get no tickets. This would avoid embarrassment if, office in Parliament House itself, a curious facility by another stroke of the bizarre fortune on which given that the Lodge is so handy. Perhaps the archi he has built his career, Mr Howard were to tects of the house considered it a risk to stable gov win the raffle. ernment to allow a sleepy Prime Minister to walk in on his wife in the middle of the afternoon. Or maybe T IE POLIC Y WILL BRING Mr Latham into govern they thought that the resting place of power would ment in a landslide. First of all, people will trust him. be a tourist attraction when, in due course, the new They will support a man who tries to bribe them house becomes too small and has to be superseded by openly and shamelessly more than if he tries to do one still further up the hill with more room for secu it by subtle means. Second, the policy is cheap. It is rity staff. Presumably, Mr Latham intends to make a while since I bought a harbourside mansion in Syd the flatette available to the homeless of Canberra for ney, but I believe they are still going for under $50 emergency accommodation. million. Believe me, this is not a lot of money. You The real issue for Mr Latham is what to do with can pay more for a decent haircut in Hollywood. Paid Kirribilli House. Unlike Mr Howard, who never maternity leave has been costed at $200 million, and wanted to live anywhere else, Mr Latham does not that is an annual expense. Fixing Medicare will cost appear to want to reside there. It is rare for Mr Latham even more. A one-off raffle for Kirribilli House is the to be so out of touch with his constituency. He has cheapest way Mr Latham can get into power. done well so far on a list of populist ideas. He should Mr Latham will become a folk hero overnight. In realise that, if he doesn't want to live in a harbourside a single stroke of genius, he will have given the people mansion, then he is one of the few aspirational voters of Australia the two things most of them really want. in Australia who doesn't. One is the chance to own a house with great views Yet Kirribilli House holds the key to Mr Latham's of all major firework displays. The other is another success. The only policy Mr Latham needs to take to lottery. We have become accustomed to government the next election is a clear plan for Kirribilli House. services being paid for with gambling revenue. In fact, He should raffle it. we seem to like it. It makes abundant sense that not The policy goes like this. Labor promises, if just government services but the government itself elected, to give every citizen a free ticket in the raffle. should be provided in this way. Of course, Mr Latham There is one prize: Kirribilli House. Winner takes all. may find that there are still voters who care about Elements within the Labor Party will protest that more than over-priced little pieces of real estate, but this is a regressive system, that the rich will have as they can be told not to spoil the party. much chance of winning as the poor. Fair point. Let's As for winning a second term, Mr Latham might give those on the top marginal tax rate one ticket. consider raffling Telstra. It wouldn't be a backflip. He Those in the next bracket two tickets. Those with only said he wouldn't sell it. • health care cards might get six tickets. The raffle could be tailored to provide incen Michael McGirr's biography of the Hume Highway, tive as well. Those paying their HECS fees up-front Bypass, will be published this year by Picador.
A PRIL 2004 EU REKA STR EET 5 the following: Mr Howard cited UK and US documents from which 'the uncertainties had been Post script letters removed' and which relied heavily on 'new and largely untested intelligence'. As Eureka Street goes to press, the 'Government presentations were in people of Madrid are marching in pro A refugee problem some areas incomplete', notably in relation test at the recent terrorist actions and to some significant UN information. Not families gather to bury their dead. Two years ago I attended a forum with Peter mentioned were judgements that Iraq 'was The import of the event was Mares (journalist) and Jeremy Moore (activ only likely to use its WMD if the regime's brought home to us at Eureka Street as ist lawyer) as keynote speakers and bought survival was at stake' and that 'war would our much loved roving correspondent Peter's book Borderline. I sat and read that increase the risk of terrorism.' Anthony Ham and his wife Marina live book twice through and have read it a dozen The government argued, 'Iraq possessed and work in Madrid. We spent a nerv times since. WMD in large quantities and posed a grave ous 24 hours waiting to hear news. Throughout the past two years I have and unacceptable threat.' Yet this is 'not the come to work with some of the most decent picture that emerges from an examination of 'Es una barbaridad ... We're all fine. people in this country as they have worked all the [intelligence] assessments provided to It was something of a frantic morning, pro bono to release those incarcerated in the Committee'. as we couldn't get through to my wife's places like Woomera. 'Assessments by Australian agencies family as the mobile system was over I have read and written millions of about possible degradation of agents and loaded. Marina's dad had just passed words about refugees, asylum seekers, SIEV restricted delivery capability cast doubt through Atocha not long before [the X, the children overboard affair, Woomera on the [government's] suggestion that the explosions] and her sister lives lOOm and children in detention and I have a refu Iraqi "arsenal " represented a "grave and from one of the other stations affected. gee problem. immediate" and a "real and unacceptable, A couple of anxious hours later, we'd My first family members came on boats threat". finally tracked down all family and in the 1850s as refugees from the Prussian The inquiry's report reinforces early friends, all of whom are fine. As one army, the next wave came in the 1890s as criticisms of the government. It exposes of them said, there's a 'special silence' migrants from poverty in England, Wales the selective use (and hence misuse) of right now in Madrid. and Cornwall with the last arriving on a boat intelligence and information, and the 'Needless to say, we're all devas from England in 1920. Given that all but the portrayal of Iraq as a greater and more tated and plan on joining millions on Indigenous owners of this land have similar immediate threat than logic and the balance the streets of Madrid tonight. It's a very tales, this is my problem. of intelligence and information justified. special place for me, as are its people, What gives us the right to write laws Brent Howard so I confess to feeling a bit lost today. which make it impossible for people with Rydalmere, NSW As I send this email, all work and eve real problems to reach our shores and claim rything is stopping around Spain for 15 asylum I Eureka Street welcomes letlers from our readers. minutes. And every one of us has an There is a reluctance on the part of the Short letters are more likely to be published, ,1nd uncontrollable desire to weep.' nations who wrote the refugee convention to all letters may be edited. Letters must be signed, live up to their obligations. and should include a contact phone number and Anthony Ham I don't have a problem with anyone but the writer's name and address. Madrid, Spain fellow Australians who use refugees for polit Send to: [email protected] or ical gain; who imprison innocents and call PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121 it border protection; with those who fail to understand that in the absence of travel docu ments refugees must have 'illegal' transport; and the stupidity of criminalising asylum. Peter Mares says in Borderline that 'the Winners December Winners January/February more we seek to deter asylum seekers and Eureka Street Book Offer: Eureka Street Book Offer: refugees through harsh treatment, the more J. Artup, Hawthorn, VIC; E. Burke, D. Brooker, Aberfoyle Park, SA; A. Australia comes to resemble the repressive Dooley, Cl ifton Hill, VIC; J. Dudley, East nations from which they flee.' Cremorne Point, NSW; V. Ferris, Sydney, Marilyn Shepherd NSW; G. Mahon, Canterbury, VIC; B. Fremantle, WA; J. Gomeze, Brighton, VIC; Kensington, SA McDermott, East St Kilda, VIC; R.D. Fr D. McKee, Adelaide, SA; E. Melville, Moore, Surrey Hills, VIC; M. O'Connor, Cherrybrook, NSW; K. Norris, East Misguided intelligence Edgecliff, NSW; B. Roberts, Sydney, Launceston, TAS; F.B. Robinson, Pens NSW; P. & B. Snell, Glen Waverley, VIC; hurst, NSW; F. & A. Thompson, Highton, Important findings of the parliamentary J.W.Vod arovich, Claremont,WA. VIC; C. Williams, Heathmont,VIC. inquiry into intelligence on Iraq include
6 EUREKA STR EET APRIL 2004 capital letter~~ Credit overdrawn
M ARK LATHAM " omNG fa. bette< than anyone management of the economy. It's not just children overboard expected. No one had particular faith in him, though there was or gilding the lily about weapons of mass destruction, though a bare majority in his caucus, if not in his party's machinery, these are the areas where he has lost trust, not only among who had the sense to recognise that a great gamble with his enemies, who never believed him anyway, but in core an outside chance was more sensible than a low-risk, low constituencies. He's been spending his credibility with dividend Kim Beazley. But the signs, so far, are good. It's farmers, home buyers, school parents and hospital patients. probably six months out from an election, but the polls put The evidence is that an increasingly cynical electorate simply Labor well in front, and show Latham, personally, gaining in doesn't believe him any more. Even when Howard delivers, or stature with the electorate. The doubters worried about his gets some grudging credit, there is widespread suspicion of his self-discipline; he has kept it. The doubters thought that a motives. Mark Latham, moreover, seems to have some knack history of flirting with often contradictory ideas would make at wrong-footing Howard over symbolic politics right in the him vulnerable to parliamentary attack. The attacks have been middle of the legend he is trying to sell, whether about values, made, but they have not seemed to work. John Howard does or the Australian dream, or self-reliance. Perhaps Latham is not seem able to get a fix on him, and often responds to Latham being cunning too, playing the same policies game that Howard rather than making Latham go after him. This has weakened did, so successfully, in 1995. The bland assurances about not the Government's self confidence and faith in Howard as upsetting the apple cart, keeping the focus on government and leader, although there is no evidence that Peter Costello is a broad management credentials, together with some sharply surer bet. Indeed even Costello's supporters suspect that his focused policies on issues such as Medicare, superannuation unwillingness to wield the knife against Howard is a proof of and tax, while (unlike Beazley) uttering vague but incapacity, not only to use it more successfully on Latham, but sincere-sounding slogans directed at long-term Labor to govern generally. constituencies to keep them quiet. John Howard has been in this fix before. Six months before the 2001 election he was in much the same position at the W LL THAT BE ENOUGH? Enough, perhaps, for Labor to win polls. Howard fights well with his back against the wall. At back power, though Howard will be trying to shut down issues that time he dumped unpopular policies and not a little of his where he cannot win and polarise on issues where he may, all reputation for fiscal rectitude. He looted the Treasury to buy the time seeking to probe and expose Labor's weaknesses. But off key groups who were critical. He kept hammering away at ought it be enough for constituencies looking for something to a complacent Kim Beazley, who had imagined that government believe in, some moral crusade they can get behind, even some would fall into his lap, if only because the Howard Government amends, perhaps, for those who have been let down, whether had plainly run out of steam and ideas. And Howard was pulling by the Government or by Labor, or both? Does Labor really back the margin well before two extraordinary bits of political have a refugee policy anyone who has cared about the issue can luck came his way; the Tampa, and the events of September 11. support? Does anyone know what Labor plans for Indigenous Even in his exploitation of that luck, he left nothing to chance, Australians? Does anyone know who Labor's shadow minister quite happy to mislead the electorate, to misuse defence forces on the subject is? Has Labor offered an education policy beyond for crude politics, and to throw $1 billion away to save face slogans? Or should those who worry about such issues shut up over his Pacific solution. That Labor panicked and, seeking and hope for the best, assuming that, however awful, it must to neutralise Howard's issues, abandoned any moral right to be better than Howard? Is Labor properly positioned to take on govern was mere bonus. Howard does not panic, and, this time, the Greens in any contest over the environment or over moral does not even have any core agenda or principles to defend. righteousness? Or does it just hope or expect that the votes will He will do whatever is necessary to win, and is still better at drift back via preferences? One's answer to such questions may calculating the chances than any of his rivals. vary according to faith, hope or taste. But some who yearn to Howard's problem as he sets his budget, is not how much see the end of Howard, because they think he deserves to go, money there is in the bank but how much credit he has, or have yet to persuade themselves that Labor deserves to win. • more accurately, credibility. He's used a lot of it in areas where he has been regarded as stronger; national security, and Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of the Canberra Times.
Ai>Ril 2004 EU REKA STREET 2003 Golden World Award in recognition participants are being applauded on the month's of the success of the campaign. The gala national and world stages, but the East dinner was attended by several people (at Timorese people at the centre of the cam traffic their own expense) from the Yarra City paign are still waiting, desperate to find Council, which took up the baton for the out what their future holds. East Timorese people and has not stopped - Rosie Hoban arguing for the rights of the several hun dred still awaiting determination. Also A sporting at the award dinner in New York was the Seven last words 'front man' for the East Timorese com chance munity and the Let Them Stay advocacy AUSTRALIAN CHAMHFR ORCHESTRA campaign, Fivo Freitas. Fivo, 29, came to EAST TIMOR ESE IN AUSTRALIA Australia in 1999 and was one of the 800 I T wAs LATE MAR CH, with Easter promis people granted permanent residency in ing and a new seasonal crispness in the air. A STAGGERING NUMBER of religious December. H e has become a strong voice Perfect timing for the Australian Chamber and human rights groups as well as local for his community over the years, speak Orchestra (ACO) to program the newly government people joined forces several ing to anyone who will listen. commissioned Seven Last Words, with years ago to try and convince the Federal The campaign was one of six world music by Georges Lentz and words by a Government to grant permanent resi wide to be short-listed for the 2003 royal flush of Australian writers-David dency to Australia's 1650 East Timorese Golden World Award representing a spe Williamson, Thomas Keneally, David asylum seekers. Most of those seeking cific program area of interest to the United Malouf, Peter Goldsworthy, Dorothy a change in status fled to Australia after Nations. Fivo participated in many of the Porter and Michael Leunig. The reader the Dili Massacre in 1991. Their state of events organised as part of the campaign, his bass voice throwing to the gods of the 'limbo', which has been a roller coaster of including a highly-publicised 10'h birth Melbourne Concert Hall with the ease of emotions, came to a head in 2002 when day party for many of the children from Ivan Rebroff-was Jack Thompson. they discovered the Government's reluc the East Timorese families who came The seven last words-Jesus' from the tance to grant them a permanent visa. to Australia after the Dili Massacre. cross-have been a staple for composers They have been drip-fed information over The party illustrated how embedded in for centuries. Perosi, Schutz, Haydn-all the years telling them that their category Australian life and culture most of the have interpreted the words in their times, was unusual and it would be considered families have become. Many of their chil translating them, as music can, with a tran down the track. But as deportation notices dren were born in Australian hospitals, scendence equivalent to the source. began arriving, agitation and fear in the have only ever been educated in this coun It's characteristic of the ACO, and East Timorese community grew and led to try and play cricket and football for subur its galvanic artistic director, Richard a massive public campaign. ban Melbourne teams. Tognetti-who seems to play his By the end of 2003 the Federal Fivo also accompanied a cricket tour, Guadagnini violin mostly on his toes-that Government had granted permanent called It's Ju st Not Cricl 8 EUREKA STREET Ai>Ril 2004 commission. Born in Luxembourg, and summa raised in 'a predominantly Roman Catholic environment', he was intimate with the theologiae tradition. Christ's Passion, he writes 'is still for me the most powerful narrative about the human condition.' But he was also hesitant, inhibited by doubt, and anxi The thick and thin of eties both religious and musical. It took a poem by the great German, Friedrich Hi:ilderlin, to spur-or release-him into inter-rei igious dialogue composition. Among Hi:ilderlin's own 'last words', and written at a time when the old poet was thought mad, the poem D lALOGUE 15 NO LUXURY; pe•ce depend' on H. The que,ion mo" e1mply translates, says Lentz, something like put is: How shall we live our lives together? this: 'What is God? Unknown, yet full of Years ago Pierre Teilhard de Chardin re-told a story from Genesis. his being is the face of the heavens ... The According to him, homo sapiens originated som ewhere in East Africa and more a thing is invisible, the m ore it wraps itself in strangeness.' Lentz found a record swarmed from there all over the world, rather like the 70 or 72 grandsons of ing of the German philosopher Martin Noah when he asked them to move out of his homestead. Without realising Heidegger reading the poem 'in a brittle that they were walking on a globe, they walked further and further away from old voice in the 1960s'. ' So many mean each other, passed the equator and started to meet again. It is that m eeting we ings of last words/ remarks Lentz. call in our day and age 'globalisation'. So that is the complex provenance of Biblically, it is seen as a kind of family get-together. Each community the music, and the beginning of an explana Christian and Muslim, Jewish and Hindu, and all the others-has its own tion of its form. But only a beginning. The history, its own unique religion, and its own interpretation of the shape and music itself-sheets, or curtains of sound future of the world. Yet, while living in these different worlds, they all have that peel into silence, stutterings, breath been living in the same world with a future still to be determined. ings on strings, percussive beats, skittering These separate histories find their full m eaning only if seen in the notes, cosmic shudders (Lentz refers to a perspective of God's 'whole-ing' or healing the whole of God's people. This love of astronomy, of Aboriginal dot paint being so, dialogue is essential to discern the focus and shape of God's work and ings)-is layered and mysterious, evocative mission in our world. A dialogue based on this insight participates in God's without ever being programmatic. work and mission. It will respect how the Spirit is at work 'from within' the The words, poems and prose poems, are other, just as the Spirit is at work 'fr om within' myself. variations, excursions. Read between each This dialogue is not a discussion or debate. There will be no winners and musical movement, they provided both losers, though there might be changes and conversions. There will be a mutual springboard and platform for the music. enrichment, and an approach to God as not experienced before. To alienate And the writers themselves seem to have one's self from this community, in a kind of monologue, would mean to cut been more liberated than bound by their one's self off from humanity. commission. They range, and sound so The dialogue asked for is not only a question of listening. There is also like themselves. the aspect of 'speaking', of witnessing. Christians would not be fair either to David Williamson: 'Sorry Jesus, but I themselves or to the other, if they failed to m ention Jesus' role in their past and think they knew exactly what they were present. Christians have to be clear to themselves and to others, that what they doing ... 'I ... "Do unto others as you would do is because they discovered, in Jesus, the reason for a dialogical approach. have them do to you ", was without any Witness is not so much a technique to convince, as an opportunity to open doubt, the most threatening moral maxim ourselves to the other on the reality of God in our lives. It is not so much a the powerful, the messianic, the corrupt and the indifferent had ever been con question of 'conversion' but one of convergence, progressing together toward a fronted with.' full understanding of what it m eans to be the one family of God. Or Tom Keneally, with the rhetorical Inter-religious dialogue should be much more than about bringing members tang of Herman Melville's preacher in of religious communities into discussion with each other. It is what some Moby Dick: 'My thirst hangs, a thunder would call the thin, or spiritual, of inter-religious dialogue. The Federation head of absence, above deserts, above the of Asian Bishops Conference constantly stresses that a serious inter-religious least village, the dark streets of the assas dialogue can only be done through solidarity and sharing with the poor. That is sins; and the lit rooms where narrow men the thick, or corporal, aspect of inter-religious dialogue with its implications for consign the humble lives to furnaces.' the political, social and economic organization and life of humankind. Its goal Or David Malouf, seriously playful is total human dev lopment. • in his 'Seven Last Words of the Emperor Hadrian': 'Soul, small wandering one, I My J.G. Donders M. AFR. is an Emeritus Professor of Mission and Cross-Cultural lifelong companion, I Where will you go I Studies at Washington Theological Union, USA. APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 9 - numb, pale, undefended- I now the jest we shared is ended?' Or Dorothy Porter, personal, intense: archimedes 'I am here, I ninth hour, I I am here I stripped and shivering.' Or Peter Goldsworthy, with his analytical mystical mix: 'At first I thought this world a dream, I whether Yours or mine I couldn't tell. I My mind could find no footholds I in its HAS BHN ONO firman1ents ... ' 1 m~ S::s~me'~:,~ :u~h~[: And, finally, Michael Leunig: 'It is fin dominant. The heat, the drought,t9 the dust and the ever-present, terrifying spectacle ished. I So let us share ... ' of the bushfires, sweeping away all in their path. Sadly, but not surprisingly, The drama of the concert was subtle wherever the fires have touched they have inflamed environmental politics but powerful. Jack Thompson sat, monu dividing those who believe nature should serve humanity, versus those who want mental, as the music shed around him, but to live in harmony with the environment. then he would stand, as though on steel On one hand, the forestry industry and others who make their living in the springs, and speak. bush are calling for an increase in burning off, greater logging, and clearing the The ACO's performance wa s lithe and forest of fueli yet conservation authorities and environmentalists argue that exact- perfectly cued to the words, their bushfires are inevitable and that we must develop ways of living with them. meaning and the meaning of the music. Most of us are caught somewhere between. And just as God was traditionally What more can one ask, or say? Except that invoked against the infidels by both sides in the Crusades, so the standard of before Seven Last Words they gave us appo science is now flown into battle by both sides of the debate. Keeping science site Brahms, Beethoven and Bach, glorious, apolitical, like keeping politics out of sport, is never an option. and gloriously played. This sort of argument is not confined to the forest. According to a report released -Morag Fraser last December by the UN-sponsored Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the bulk of the Great Barrier Reef is in comparatively good condition. Many prominent reef scientists and conservationists, however, argue that the reef is in trouble, Dutch (er, Russian) increasingly affected by rising sea temperatures which cause bleaching, under attack from recurrent plagues of crown-of-thorns starfish, polluted by sediment and courage chemicals from nearby agricultural land, and exploited by fishermen and tourists. The truth seems to be that the proportion of the 2000-kilometre long reef TRAVrL'> fHROUC..II RLJ'JSIA impacted by any of these factors tends to be small. The question is when to sound the alarm: when you first become aware of a potential threat, or only if the impact W NSTO NCHUR CHI LL once described is obvious by which time it may be too late to redress the damage? Russia as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery Even President George W. Bush is finding the environment a hot political inside an enigma'. Like the quote itself, topic. His administration has refused to ratify the Kyoto agreement as it views the former USSR is a region that rarely the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions as bad for the US economy. Yet across makes sense to the outside observer. America, states and municipalities and even the Senate are contemplating and Despite the initial culture shock, there passing laws which undermine the Bush position. is no doubt the 9289 kilometres from St Petersburg to Vladivostock are fi lled with California, a state built around the motor car, is cracking down on vehicle enough chaos and mystic tranquillity to emissions. N ew York is boosting the use of renewable energy, and the six New satiate the thirst of any adventure-crav ing England states have instituted a program of cuts to greenhouse gas emissions backpacker. which ultimately go further than Kyoto. These states argue that their measures Western stereotypes paint Russia as will contribute to a better environment, and improve their economies. None a land of cloak-and-dagger politics run of these problems has an easy answer, and there are many more waiting in the by a network of spies- the fr eezing cold wingsi fish stocks, resources of fresh water and genetically modified foods. Each Siberian steppe as the backdrop for what issue has proponents of all persuasions waving scientific data to support their is perceived as continued Cold War senti point of view. Does this make science the whore of the environment, bending ment. However, while there's no fo oling before the will of all? No, it reflects the complexity of environmental problems, anybody about the cold, there is no doubt where people find it easier to generate half-truths. We have to educate ourselves that Russia is looking to a brighter future. and establish cen tres of knowledge which can provide balanced views. It was Travelling on the descending escalator good to see, for instance, that the Australian government funded a Bushfire into the former nuclear bunkers that now Cooperative Research Centre last October. make up the St Petersburg and Moscow Without the aid of knowledge generated using the scientific method, we have metro systems is an excellent time to no chance of sorting out the complexity which surrounds us. • 'people watch'. The traditional hard, stoic faces dominate, but upon closer inspection, Tim Thwaites is a fr eelance science writer. sparks of colour, life and culture exist. This Continued on pnge 12. I 0 EU REKA STR EET A PRIL 2004 Butchering words A mwn o• M>NE, fond of f.,hioning his own b"nd of Brilliant, yes, concedes M. Leclos, wonderful to watch. But, his aphorism, announced one day, after what he claimed had been a face contorts as he searches for an image, comme les oiseaux. long period of research, 'butchers are much given to bullshit.' Like flitting birds. Whack. The cleaver halves the first of It was actually said with some affection and, unlike most the birds' legs on his block. He moves aside the two pieces, of his other putatively pungent reflections on the cosmos, this positions the next one and, with weapon again airborne, one struck me as having some truth. says the Australians, the New Zealanders, even recently the Butchers tend to be rather jolly blokes (they are almost English, train hard. The Australians, he says, what do they do invariably blokes) with a ready line of patter, chitchat, jokes, as soon as a Coupe du Monde de Roogby has ended, win or small talk, wisdom, footy gossip and observations. lose? He waves an interrogative cleaver at my chin. 'Je ne sais This is because, unlike their retail brethren, butchers pas,' I answer dutifully, but I can guess. need to fill silences which might otherwise be punctuated They start training again for the next one, says M. Leclos by the slash of the cleaver, the crunch of bone, the whine of and his savage emphasis dismembers another chicken leg. saw, the splat of soft tissue and pulpy organs, the secretive but 'Et les Franci? Ils vont en vacance,' he says with derision, noticeable oozing of blood. Butchers' endless verbalising making it sound as if the vacation lasts three and a half years. This their 'bullshit'-distracts us from all this and turns what hardly sounds fair to me, and I try to tell him how well regarded might have been a gory, vegetarian-inducing experience into the French had been for their attitude to the game, and how a kind of theatre. disappointing was the philosophy of the conquering Anglais. This is why, when I first entered the village's sole But he is scarcely listening. He has wrapped the meat and boucherie, I did so with certain anticipation. What would is contemplating the till, the drawer of which has sprung open be the Gallic butcher's manifestation of his trade's verbal and is nudging his generous midriff. He looks at me, glances embroidery? out the window to the narrow street, and takes a deep breath. At first, I was disappointed. My opening gambit-an When les Franci lost the semi final-his voice is full of import, enquiry about chicken fllets-elicited an unequivocal Non and like the first rustle of the mistral-! was sick, he says. 'J' avais silence. Taken aback, and being taken aback often happens in a mal a l'estomac.' foreign language, I asked for some pate de campagne and left it I embark on a sympathetic anecdote to show that a sick feeling at that. But my second visit was much more successful. in the stomach is a condition associated almost continuously with Monsieur Leclos, the butcher, is a big man, perhaps in his following my team, which plays les regles Australiens, a game, I mid thirties. His white apron covers a vast area of chest and add proudly, that we Australians invented. stomach. His face is large, its features pronounced and definite. 'Ca ne m 'interesse pas.' He is very dismissive about Heavy black eyebrows make him look as if he's ill-tempered anything to do with football, which to him m eans soccer. What and scowling, but bronze tips through his thick mop of black is the secret of the Australians, he asks and then tells m e. 'Les hair suggest a more playful nature. Still, it's heavy going again Australiens sont Cool' he says, handing me my parcel with a until he refers to me as Anglais and I correct him: Je suis triumphant flourish. 'Vous comprennez Cool?' Australien, I say. But now he must retire to the back of the shop to watch a Had I seen La Coupe du Monde de Rugby? Absolument, Roogby match between Toulouse and Edinburgh. Each side has I lie. (Well, I saw the semis and the final on telly.) He has a five internationals playing. He is expecting a memorable Toulouse heavy local accent: he corrects my pronunciation of Australien victory over les Ecos ais. I wish him bon ieu and leave. to Australienne which makes me female; he calls les Francais, In Le Figaro the following morning, I see that Toulouse his team, les Franci; when we get round to talking about wine, won 33-nil. I can't wait to discuss it with him. In the manner as we inevitably do, vin becomes ving. But it isle Roogby that of butchers everywhere, he will speculate, reflect, pronounce, is his great interest and passion. With blade poised above the report, conclude. It will take a roast of pore, some veau three large chicken legs that he is to cut each in half for the pot a morilles, half a dozen sa ucissons and a tranche of pate to au feu, he anatomises les Franci and their faults. analyse the game. • They are not strong enough, he says, too easily brushed aside. I tell him that many Australians had hoped for an Brian Matthews is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Victoria Australia-France final in the interests of attractive rugby. University, presently living and working in France. APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 1 I snap shot Continued from page 10. is, after all, the country that boasts the Bolshoi Theatre, Hermitage Museum and imposing Soviet monuments. In people as well as place, Russia is a land of extremes. The streets of Moscow are full of the sounds of thumping night clubs, bustling shopping centres and majestic churches. Out in the Siberian Far East, the middle-aged owner of a Soviet-s tyle coffee shop laboriously hand winds his antique 0 gramoph one for his customers listening pleasure. He then looks at them quizzically, eagerly ga uging their responses To be or not to be: What are the odds? to his treasured music. Burger-munching, m oney-grabbing corporate giants are A risk assessor has recently calculated the odds on the existence yet to spoil the sparsely populated villages of Siberia and it of God as exactly 67 per cent. According to The Guardian report, remains a place where small town feeling exists. The inti Dr. Stephen Unwin set his book after considering the things that m ate hospitality shown by Russians in these locales is a far persuaded for the existence of God, including miracles and natural cry from the h eavy military presence and fast-paced life on goodness, versus the evils that counted against it. Dr. Unwin the streets of St Petersburg and Moscow. sees his project as an attempt to reconcile science and faith-two It is sometimes easy to forget that th e epic train route worlds that collide but rarely concur. covers almost on e-third of the globe-making it the longest William Hill, the big UK bookies, however, are not impressed, train route on earth. One of the primary pleasures of the and are refusing to accept bets. Their refusal, it must be said, does experience is simply sitting back and watching the world not reflect an anti-religious bias, but rather a prudent problem of pass by the fros ty-edged window. finding unbiased judges. They will happily take bets on the Second However, the truly unforgettable moments come from Coming on the grounds that the Archbishop of Canterbury would interaction with oth er Russian passengers. Breaking out a universally be accepted as a reliable arbiter of whether it had taken pack of cards can start conversations that m ake for hours place or not. of cultural exchange. After just a few hours on the train, But asked to declare correct weight on the existence of God, the commotion of Moscow is a m em ory. Endless steppes even the Pope would have to disqualify himself as having a conflict sweep past the window, sprinkled with tiny wooden huts of interest. We do not know, however, whether William Hill would and minute industrial towns. Train station s are few and accept a double on the Second Coming and the Existence of God. far between. Despite the monotony one might expect on a week-long journey, sights take on a fairytale quality thanks to the blanket of pristine snow. The trains are run by a legion of carriage conductors, commonly known as provodnil 12 EUREKA STREET APRI L 2004 nation Greg Barns Remembering Herbert 0 N W N OVCMBCR 1984 in October 1935 he was one of this country's most appointed Superintendent of the paradoxical, complex and truly Kahlin Aboriginal Compound great individuals breathed his in Darwin. His record there was last. Xavier Herbert, without not unblemished- far from it. He peer as a chronicler of white was accused of taking a stock Australia's injustice to its whip to an Aboriginal 'half-caste' Indigen ous peoples, died aged girl and confessed to assaulting 83. Twenty years later, Herbert an Indigenous man. But Herbert's has been consigned to the hazy achievements on behalf of those recesses of m emory; a deep Indigenous people 'imprisoned' wrong given his role in shap in the compound were tangible ing our awareness of white and definitely set him apart from Australia's morally dubious the Territory's racist administra history. tors of his era. Unlike the rather sanitised De Groen (no shrinking vio authors of today who have let when it comes to criticism fallen into the clutches of pub of Herbert's ego and capacity for lishers' marketing departments exaggeration and excess) notes and say little of consequence, that Herbert built a windmill Herbert had definite views and a school for 'half-caste' chil and campaigned relentlessly to dren in the compound, erected bring them to reality. toilets and repaired the corru He was, as his biographer gated iron huts. De Groen writes Frances de Groen rightly says, that, 'Aborigines who knew a man who 'found himself end Herbert at this time, appreci lessly fascinating and expected ated his efforts on their behalf, others to do so too.' But, as de particularly his attempts to Groen notes, Herbert was indeed encourage pride in their cul- fascinating, thanks to his 'inci- Xav ier Herbert by Jaqueline M itelman tural heritage. In befriending dent filled, wandering exist- many of his charges and treating ence.' tragedy of Australia's Indigenous and them as fellow human beings, Herbert Born in Gerald ton, Western Australia in white divide in Capricornia (first pub represented a threat to Darwin's 1901 , Herbert's mother was an interesting lished in 1938), an epic novel that spans prevailing white supremacism .' woman to say the least. By the time Xavier the first 50 years of white settlement in was born, she had two other children to the Northern Territory. H ERBERT IDENTIFIED WITH those different fathers, and there is conjecture Unlike many in the writing gam e, born of Indigenous and white parentage. about the identity of Xavier's father. Herbert was not only a storyteller but an He claimed that only if he 'infused' his Herbert grew up in Fremantle and the activist, who 'rolled up his sleeves' for blood with that of Indigenous Australians Swan Valley town of Midland Junction, the Indigenous cause. Writing to a friend would he be able to 'claim the right to and it was in those years that he first wit in 1936 he plaintively observed, 'You live in this land'. White Australians were nessed Aboriginal dispossession. He stud know how I have slaved and suffered simply invaders according to Herbert. ied pharmacy and in his early twenties and impoverished m yself for the cause He founded, in 1936, a 'Euroaustralian left the West to travel to Queensland, the of aborigines.' League' for people of white and Indigenous Northern Territory, Sydney, Melbourne, In his two sojourns in the Northern ancestry. 'Fantastic, is it not, to teach peo and the Solomon Islands. Eventually he Territory, in the late 1920s and mid ple to feel proud of Aboriginal blood?' settled with his Anglo-Jewish wife Sadie 1930s, Herbert made himself unpopular he wrote to Dibley. This was a wacky in the Cairns suburb of Redlynch. with the local administrators, or 'tin-pot but perhaps understandable inversion Herbert graphically describes the rajahs' as he called them. N evertheless, of the 'racial purity' theories circulat- APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 13 New from UWA Press ing in Europe and the British Empire at the Northern Territory and the top end the time. Confusingly, at times Herbert of Australia generally these days is The also indulged in anti-Asian rhetoric, Australian's Nicolas Rothwell, who but in a period when the 'inferiority' rarely if ever cites Herbert as an inspira Reform and of Indigenous Australia was taken as tion. Rothwell's writing misses a beat or Resistance in immutable fact (Capricornia portrays two as a consequence of this omission. Aboriginal Territory station owners according more Herbert's novel Capricornia, (and Poor Fellow, My Country, for that mat Education status to their horses than to Aborigines), he otherwise challenged the ter), should be compulsory reading for THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE prevailing orthodoxy. any writer in that part of the world. Almost 50 years after Herbert's travails Edited by Quentin Beresford HERBERT'S CHARACTER Peter in the Northern Territory he returned to and Gary Partington Differ pointedly observes in Capricornia, give evidence in a major land rights case This well researched the governmental system of 'protection' the Finniss River Land Claim. As de Groen ISBN 1 920694 03 X and strongly argued of Indigenous Australians was designed describes it, Herbert's evidence to the $38.95 pb book looks at the to ensure 'humility'. court in Darwin on 25 August 1980, 'was Available now origins of the cu rrent crisis in Aboriginal And while white Australia in the helpful in establishing the presence of the Education and 1930s applauded the Warai and Kungarakan provides an invaluable ref erence point f or efforts of Christian peoples on parts of the solutions. missionaries to make land ... and in illustrat 'good God fearing' peo ing the way officialdom From the ple out of Indigenous had inhibited Aborigines peoples, Herbert merci from maintaining their Mountains to lessly and accurately traditional cultural links the Bush ridiculed that effort in with "country" by break ITALIAN MIGRANTS Capricornia. He noted ing up families and forci WRITE HOME FROM AUSTRALIA 1860-- 1953 in a letter to his friend bly removing them into Arthur Dibley, on 17 government institutions.' By October 1936, ' the mis Xavier Herbert's Jacqueline Templeton sions have failed to do burning desire for justice " .. . the crowning achievement of more than upset tribal for Aboriginal people [Templeton's] life work discipline'. was often clouded by his ISBN 1 920694 01 3 and likely to be an Capricornia lifted the t APR CORNI own ambition, scheming, $54.95 hb instant classic." Available now The Australian scab off the Indigenous- grandiose visions and white conflict. The his anti-Asian rhetoric. novel's hero is Norman, But the genuineness Mission Girls MISSION GIRLS the son of a white man of that commitment, ABORIGINAL WOMEN ON CATHOLIC and a black woman. At and the ever-present MISSIONS IN THE the time, as de Groen acknowledgement that KIMBERLEY, notes, white Australia perceived 'half white Australians will always be the WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1900- 1950 castes' as a threat to its conquest of the invaders of this ancient land, never land. This group of people might 'revi wavered. In an age when both the Liberal Christine Chao talise' what was alleged to be a dying and Labor Party, encouraged by elements "Its notes and Aboriginal civilisation. of the media, refuse to deal with the bibliography are meticulous and its Herbert's memorably bleak descrip threshold question of a formal apology arguments thorough tion of the food at the compound was for the horrific wrongs described in ISBN 1 876268 55 7 and persuasive. More widely quoted in the 1997 Human Rights Indigenous people's testimony, its timely $38.95 pb signif icantly, it makes Available now good reading" and Equal Opportunity Commission's to remember that once upon a time The Australian report on the Stolen Generation: 'The one Australian placed it before us and porridge, cooked the day before, already pricked our collective conscience. Xavier was sour and roped from the mould Herbert's cultural and political legacy in it, and when doused with the thin deserves constant recognition. • UWA milk, gave up the corpses of weevils by Crawley WA 6009 Tel (08) 9380 3187 the score. The bread was even worse, Greg Barns is a Hobart based writer and Fax (08) 9380 1027 stringy grey wrapped about congealed lawyer. He is a former senior adviser to www.uwapress.uwa.edu.au glue, the whole cased in charcoal.' the Howard government and is now a PRESS Yet Herbert's legacy remains member of the Australian Democrats. obscured by current literary fashions. Greg's book What's Wrong with the Because quality matters One of the most frequent writers on Liberal Party! was published in 2003. 14 EU REK A STREET APR IL 2004 Old Man's Last Pilgrimage verse On this my last pilgrimage I travel by what light and signs the sky affords. I do no penance, seek no remission of sins. Majestic highways and safe roads took me to famous places of worship in the far country of youth, where I prayed and saw my dreams come true. Yet archmagician time turned all those gifts to tracts of waste and thirst, where poem w ithout dice I wielded number and calculation to reckon the worth of friend and foe. there are only two types of movies worth watching This I regret, though my riches grew movies taken of a road & movies taken from a road and glowed, yielding a measure this assertions of course open to criticism & possibly outright of satisfaction. attack just think how political discourse is altered when you Now new lands exchange all the vs for ws or js forks for that matter born of the lifting mists the poem taxis & avoids the spot on the lesion of ac beckon to the nomadic soul, or aesthetic correctness preferring a kind of continental uncharted streams and mountain paths sprawl the long line favoured by for example frank ohara lead it to shrines long strayed suitable for the beach or sydneys or melbournes streets from memory, its no surprise to be a little heavier around the waist mentioned in parchments long decayed & if you can get home without donating too much loose change & other sentimental objects to the world hey thats where doing well besides my bloods internationally worthless I now hear musics not heard before, smell scents from alabaster jars anyone can carry on in this way to the readers anxiety and phials buried in vaulted tombs inside time & expectations of nourishment if not to make sweet the sleep of queens, from the page then a passing waiter is your bladder visit old crimes that strange faith in order an ultimately meaningless question designed has turned to things of veneration. by waiters to annoy & discourage diners from requesting too many glasses of water meaninglessness accrues On this my last pilgrimage like anything & any sense of the reader becomes faint I seek no evidence of fact imagine Stevie smith on her death bed playing an atheist but firmer certainties, not hope bishop she calls for her cat & draws him a door there but truth of nobler substance where, in secret folds, the mind rudolph like many cats named after reindeer theres where im still dreams of wings. going through the monsignor door like so many santas to follow - Dimitris Tsaloumas -Michael Farrell A I' RIL 2004 EU REKA STRE ET 15 foreign correspondence Anthony Ham recalls the people and place of Arg-e Bam L ERE ARE PLACES in the m emory In July of the same year, I spent almost of the old Silk Road. I remember being which no longer exist. In late 2000, I a week in the ancient city of Bam, in the overwhelmed by the hospitality of the visited the Indian Gujarati town of Bhuj corner of south-western Iran, close to the inhabitants, who greeted me with gentle and stood atop its clock tower to survey borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. ness that contradicted the harsh austerity the decaying splendour of a remote, beau Now Bam, too, has fallen, also destroyed of the mullahs who had ruled Iran since tiful old city near India's troubled border by a devastating earthquake which took 1979. Elsewhere along its streets, women with Pakistan. the lives of almost 50,000 people on 26 cloaked all in black hurried by in the shad Three months later, the tower December 2003. ows, eager to avoid the impropriety of an remained, but nothing else within the When I arrived in Bam, I had only been encounter with a man. old city walls had survived an earthquake in Iran for a few days. The city instantly My interpreter for much of my time which killed more than 30,000 people. became for me a symbol of those early days in Bam was Akbar, an eloquent English The photographs I took were so over of discovery. There I was, in Persia, the teacher who had lived in London but who exposed they made any identification of Islamic Republic of Iran, a collision point had chosen to live in Bam because it was Bhuj impossible. I still have them, for for the charms and contradictions of the his home and the only place where he felt they are a symbol of what can never be Islamic world. Bam was at the crossroads he belonged. 'I am happy, here with my seen again. of ancient civilisations, and lay on a branch family and my date palms', he told m e one 16 EUREKA STREET APRIL 2004 afternoon after the heat had forced us into yet seem ed remarkably unassuming and Over time, the ravages of invading armies the shade. We drank from the springs of joked that he would always be married to saw the Arg-e Bam fall into disrepair. By clear water which rose up from the earth his city first. July 2000 it was in ruins and uninhab and ran through channels along the streets. Indeed, Mohammed's true love was ited, but still relatively well preserved and He was the perfect guide to Iran, at once the Arg-e Bam, a city built of mud and one of the most enchanting old cities in making a mockery of Iranian hostility to surrounded by a forbidding wall with 36 the world. The walls of the city, particu the West and fiercely proud of his home watchtowers overlooking the abundant larly those of the citadel, had in ancient land. His guesthouse became a haven for date palms of the oasis. Of uncertain origins, times been reinforced with palm trunks to travellers from across the world, a place to the Arg-e Bam possibly dates back 2000 provide flexibility during earthquakes. relax without worrying about dress restric years. At the height of its power under the On 26 December, the earthquake that tions or running foul of the police. Safavid dynasty ( 1502- 1722), the city was destroyed the city, and so many lives with For two weeks after the earthquake, I hom e to som e 11 ,000 people-Zoroastrians it, drastically hastened the process of the received no news of Akbar. Then I heard and Jews amid the Muslim majority-and Arg-e Bam's return to the earth. Parts of the that his guesthouse had been reduced to contained within its walls some 400 old city remain intact, but large sections rubble. That Akbar had died was incompre houses, mosques, a synagogue and a fairy collapsed, taking with them a heritage hensible to m e, and I felt a grief, as much tale citadel rising high above the town. which had survived for centuries. I cannot for the world's loss as for my own, that I had rarely felt before. Three days later, news reached m e that Akbar and his family had survived! Two travellers had died in the rubble of Akbar's gue thouse but eight m ore were pulled out alive by rescue workers. Amid the deaths of so many others, Akbar's miracu lous survival (very few families were left untouched by the tragedy) prompted a pro found sense of relief. At the same time as hearing that Akbar was alive, I learned that Mohammed Ali:, a young resident of Bam and another guide, had also escaped relatively un cathed. Mohammed was an instantly likeable young man who claimed that he had no greater love than his town. An eligible bachelor, he had the looks of a movie star, reach him, but I wonder whether Mohammed Ali's heart has been bro ken, and whether he will stay. On my last day in Bam I took one last walk through the deserted byways, silently promising I would one day return. As sunset neared, I sat in a cafe above the citadel ga te, and there I came across a description of the old city by local writer Abdolreza Salar-Behzadi. Since 26 December his words have never ceased to haunt m e: 'Watch and pass very gently by these ruins, because every spot that you put your foot on, there may lie a king, a swordsman, an old sage, a lover, a mother.' • Anthony Ham is Eurel Photography by Anthony Ham. APRIL 2004 EU REKA STREET 17 II( t L Beth Dohert y The durability of poverty E OM CoLUNCWOOD TO Kew, ' nd hom it's not going to go away without special mining of these very same locations, the Redfern to Baulkam Hills, there are larger effort', says Vinson. same suburbs, but building more prisons is divides than a road or a river. Communities 'In areas where there is a m easurable not the answer.' in New South Wales and Victoria are often degree of social cohesion then there is the Vinson's understanding of the criminal defined by their position on the socio-eco possibility of the harmful consequences justice system reflects years of experience. nomic ladder. of conditions like unemploym ent, incom At 22 he was the youngest parole officer Disadvantage is strongly corre plete education, low work skills, and low in Australia, working at Longbay Jail, lated with location according to the income being held in check by communi Australia's largest prison. He's worked as a Community Adversity and Resilience ties working together.' psychologist, in social work, education and research report recently released by the Jesuit Social Services' Policy Director Fr has studied justice systems in Australia Ignatius Centre, the policy and research Peter Norden, says that politically, parties and internationally. During his studies at arm of Jesuit Social Services. are keen to match each other regarding The Hague, Tony had the opportunity to The report, authored by Emeritus important social issues as we move analyse the Swedish and Dutch judicial Professor Tony Vinson, indicates that towards a Federal election later this year. systems and this gave him an understand the negative effects of social adversity in As one party makes promises, the other ing of how things could be better handled Australia are heavily concentrated in par is ready to pounce. 'A bipartisan approach in Australia. ticular areas, defining these people's oppor is needed to address these critical 'I've had the chance to see what really tunities throughout their lives. The report rr issues', he says. progressive systems are like. Australia aims to provide data to policy m akers would do well to aspire to the civilised way about the location of social disadvantage .1. ONY VINSON BELIEVES that serious prison system s are run in those countries . in Australian society and to contribute to social problems could be addressed more They don't just rely upon the prison system research into the influence of place on pov easily if governments were to heed the as the first way of dealing with social prob erty and social disadvan tage. findings of the report. lems. There, prisons are used as a m easure Community Adversity and Resilience 'I think that politically, the most of last resort and their prisons preserve a builds on earlier research by Jesuit Social important thing is that governments are degree of normalcy.' Services in 1999, Unequal in Life. The aware that there's quite a concentration Prior to the release of the report, both findings of the new report echoed those of of serious social disadvantage in a small Tony Vinson and Peter Norden have had Unequal in Life, concluding that a small number of places.' the opportunity to m eet with Federal number of communities in Victoria and 'We know that the criminal justice Ministers and the leaders of the Labor NSW were over-represented in the figures system is involved in ever more intensive Opposition, and senior Public Servants in for early school leaving, unemploym ent, crime, low income, low labour market skills and child maltreatment. Unlike its predecessor, the new report examines the mediating role of social cohesion in assist ing communities to overcome disadvan tage and its attendant consequences. The report explores the concept of community resilience-a sense of mutual responsibility and commitment that encourages communities to work together to overcome the problems that stem from social disadvantage. The report identifies those communities that function better, those that have a sense of control over their destiny and strong community leadership. 'Now that we have the benchmarks from 1999, it's very clear that disadvantage is remarkably durable. It hasn't changed to any large extent at all since 1999 and the ProfTony Vinson and Fr Peter Norden ST. Ph oto by Pru Tay lor. situation is as it was even 25 years ago. So 18 EUREKA STREET A I' RIL 2004 both Sydney and Melbourne to discuss the ment departments in Victoria and New options for young people and encouraging research findings. South Wales, and the Australian Bureau of them to complete secondary school would Vinson says that the report places the Statistics. mean that they are less likely to enter the onus on policy makers to focus on specific Vinson is well aware that the report has poverty cycle. regions. In some locations for example, the potential to be inflammatory, and that 'Nothing better predicts what's going young people do not have the protection the stigma attached to being listed in 'the to happen to you than the number of years of, or exposure to, positive adult bottom five' communities could incite fur you stay in school.' influences. ther problems. He well knows how some The Community Adversity and government policies seem to preserve a Resilience report is available to policy D URING MEDIA OVERAGE of the bad situation rather than preventing them. makers and is likely to be valuable to a recent Redfern riot, Opposition Leader Vinson describes such policies as 'crimi broader inquiry into poverty which could Mark Latham questioned where the par nogenic' as a culture of social problems is well follow the forthcoming Federal elec ents of those young people involved were. perpetuated by the pLmitive measures used tion. The answer, according to Senator Aden to respond to them. The current methods of The report supports the suggestion Ridgeway, was that many parents were in incarceration and punishment are one such that Australia is, in general, more pros jail, or fighting mental illness, and that example as the justice system is not inter perous than it was even ten years ago, but many young Indigenous people are being cepting criminals, but creating them. that not all people share the benefits, and raised by extended family. In order for disadvantaged commu some will not benefit at all unless specific In discussing the report, Vinson explains nities to benefit in the future, Vinson localised responses are made. that instead of simply listing the most dis believes that developing health and educa Peter Norden, concludes: 'If for the advantaged areas, as in the 1999 Unequal tion services is the best starting point. first time in Australia's history, one's des In Life report, Community Adversity and 'If you apply the scales of disadvan tiny might be shaped by one's location, or Resilience features a classification system tage to particular portfolios, one question even one's postcode, it might be time to to avoid furthering the stigma often associ you might ask, for example, is "Is bulk rethink some of the rules of the game'. • ated with particular regions. billing available for these most disadvan The information underpinning the taged areas?".' Beth Doherty is the assistant editor of research was gathered from state govern- Similarly, providing better educational Emeka Street. [1..oosY 10URIS1 ATIRI\C110~S"' ) ,,, THE:. GfAN\ PARK lt\\& 6AY APRIL 2004 EU REK A STR EET 19 Lost in the battle John Wren: A life reconsidered, James Griffi n. Scribe, 200+. I '>BN 1 92076 9 11 0, RRP $60 T ,., "ACMO" " much heat 'short wiry, with sharp features attribution) does Griffin quote generated about John Wren as there is and the wags said that he and Wren. The quotes are from about Ned Kelly. James Griffin's book will Wren could have been mis speeches, newspapers, Royal certainly raise the temperature. His the taken for each other'. Griffin Commissions, and a smat sis could be construed as 'glory without also dismisses Frank Hardy's tering of letters in the Barry power'. By examining every account of description of West/Wren as and Wren papers. The most Wren, incident after incident, commenta 'Looney Tunes'-not a serious outspoken of these are the tor after commentator, Griffin argues that literary work. two letters to Th e Herald in Wren did not rig sporting events but did Griffin, all too often, does to 1906 following the bomb use his wealth to influence pre-selection others what he so vehemently ing of Detective-Sergeant ballots-he was a productive investor and objects to in studies of Wren. JOHN WREN O'Donnell's house. Yet even a genuine philanthropist. Why then did he He perpetuates the furphies. f,¥ l"t"UIII~~i~-rn/ Griffu1 wonders if Wren was receive such damning press? This extraor William Lawrence Baillieu, of the author. dinary biography leaves many puzzles and Collins House fame, is pillo- Aspects of Wren's stance does not produce a clearer picture of the ried for his 'secret compositions' during the on the Irish question and the Catholic 'real' John Wren. Depression, but no m ention is made of his Church are still unresolved. Griffin's book Griffin relied heavily on journalist and later work in war munitions or industrial is riddled with suppositions ranging from 'it Wren confidant, Hugh Buggy. His retrospec welfare schemes. From my own investiga is not fanciful to imagine the Wren family tive and laudatory accounts in Th e Real tions, Wren, the teetotaler, was not instru were stirred by Ned's self-justifying Jerilderie fohn Wren were published to refute charac mental in the transfer of the liquor licence letter, like those who protested against his terisations in Frank Hardy's Power Without of the Tivoli (German) Club to Collingwood execution, and were riled by the manifest Glory, A Novel. Griffin sets about dispelling Football Club in 1941. The idea and the bias at his trial by the Anglo-Irish hanging the myths-well some of them. He argues execution belongs to architect Robert Henry judge, Sir Redmond Barry', to assumptions Wren was not a Tammany Hall figure (as Mcintyre, whose practice was largely in such as 'Wren would have been more at ease asserted by Frank Hardy and Manning hotel renovations. Griffin's real ire is directed with the affable, ursine Queenslander than Clark); he ran his totes with 'fair dealing and towards journalist Monty Grover, describing with his own awesome, gaunt archbishop, orderliness'; and Buggy's title of a 'human him as 'patently a hostile commentator rely who liked to put people down where Duhig benevolent institution' fitted. In so doing he ing on hearsay and seemingly disturbed by preferred to placate his opponents'. Does he provides some subtle variations. the existence of knockabout Collingwood agree with Brennan that 'even historians Whereas historian Niall Brennan in blokes, though not by the raffish should be allowed some imagination'? John Wren: Gambler, His Life and Times chaps around The Bulletin'. If you can ignore the frequent swipes has Wren born in a slum of slum parents, at Manning Clark's 'yarrasiders', (the Griffin's Wren, a resident of Collingwood, G RIFFIN DESCRIBES Grover's 1907 article gentility on the other side of the river); was the product of illiterate parents who in the Lone Hand as diatribe. Yet the not choke on Sacrc Coeur and the Titian had initiative. He describes the Wren fam Australian Dictionary of Biography refers haired Mary Wren being described as ily as 'upper working class' asserting that to Grover as being renowned for his hon 'posh'; and accept that the intent of the Irish who came to Australia were not esty and hatred of opportunism. Why were Evatt's cryptic letters to Wren are about as destitute as their American counter Grover's perceptions widely accepted? his preferment (wanting to become a parts- they could afford the higher pas Perhaps there was an element of truth, or Privy Councilor), then this account opens sage or presented well enough for state perhaps Buggy's statement, 'malicious gos new vistas. It is a detailed account of an assistance. He delineates the litany of sip about Wren's motives for this or that intriguing man who, reputedly at his Wren's family disasters with siblings, chil action ran off him like water off a duck's death, had two books by his bedside, the dren and grandchildren. Unfortunately he back' is closer to the mark. Bible and a history of the Collingwood fails to explore either cause or effect. Griffu1's expose is not for the faint Football Club. Unfortunately the book is To understand Wren, writers have hearted. In 419 pages almost every event, almost indigestible in its detail. Perhaps focused on his physical appearance. Brem1an association and activity in Wren's We is a better title would be, fohn Wren: describes him as 'short, bandy-legged, rather explored in microscopic detail. Yet mystery A life rehabilitated. • rodent-faced and almost instinctively furtive surrounds his schooling. What kind of rudi of mam1cr', while Griffu1's portrayal is 'short mentary education (state or Catholic) did Jane Mayo Carolan is a Melbourne historian but not inordinately so'. Ironically Griffin Wren receive? Only in about 25 instances and author of a history of Trinity Grammar, later refers to Wren's nemesis, Judkins, as (the notes arc frustratingly unclear in their Kew, For the Green, the Gold and the Mitre. 20 EU REKA STREET APRIL 2004 I i lm juliette Hughes Of passion and belief E nmc TAM>R HAS TO fini,h the intmiew by ,;x know that we can't agree on what to eat for lunch!' because it's Friday. At sunset he will need to be home I reflect on the film's stark array of Jewish high from work for the Sabbath. He is a prize-winning film priests near the beginning, plotting, all decked out in maker: one of his films, Lilliput Cafe won a Protestant costumes that recall some of the ceremonial clothing film award in the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, and of rabbis todayi it must be very distasteful for Jewish this year his latest, Father, will be shown at the St Kilda people to watch that. Film Festival. He is also the owner of two small subur 'And Pontius Pilate, he is painted as a complex ban cinemas. One is the Classic, in Elsternwick, the character: he was other the Cameo in Belgrave which he bought recently, a brute, so brutal and refurbished. He picked out the most controversial that five years later film of the year for the Cameo's gala opening. The film even Rome got was Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. rid of him!' Tamir It has been doing, he says, 'back-to-bad<: box feels that the depic office'. I ask what that means and he tells me that tion of Caiaphas it's when someone goes to see a film, comes out and Pilate skews when it's over, goes straight back to the box office to the moral balance buy another ticket and goes back in to see it all over as outrageously again. That is one extreme of the range of views that as though a story Gibson's film has engendered. The other reaction of the Holocaust is of antipathy, ranging from aesthetic judgements were to downplay ('really bad film-making, tedious and boring') or moral/ the role of Hitler, theological ones (it is inaccurate, dangerous and even while raising Pope Pius XII's role to that of the main anti -Semi tic). evil-doer. Before seeing the movie, I tell him, I wondered Mel Gibson's assertion that anti-Semitism is how on earth anyone could blame Jewish people for the a sin is nice, Tamir says but it still concerns him, death of Jesus: it's like blaming Danes for the death of because he thinks that it is reductive of Judaism, Hamlet. Then when I saw it, I realised that the depic and sees it as simply part of the Christian tion of Jews might, despite Gibson's small attempts at world view. balance, still be offensive and dangerous. Why show it then? 'The Jewish response has a W HAT DOES HE THINK of the film as film? 'It's opera whole other level. I think,' Tamir says, 'that the ques rather than drama', he says. 'I don't think it's a great tion of the piece of art versus the actual artist-a lot film and I don't think it will stand the test of timei but of Jewish commentary has enmeshed that.' We talk time will tell.' It does, disturbingly, remind him of the for a while about the fact of Gibson's father being a medieval Passion plays that were used to manipulate Holocaust denieri I worry because it seems to me that Europeans into hideous crimes against Jews. I agree that Gibson has, in interviews, publicly affirmed his rejec the flavour is of very traditional older Catholic beliefs, tion of that position, but doesn't want to go to the similar to the meditations on the Stations of the Cross extent of saying that his aged father is either deluded or that I was brought up with. I feel impelled to tell him intentionally in grave error. where I come from, that my childhood was full of the But it goes deeper: Tamir has seen and heard com knowledge of the war that had finished not long before I ments after the movie that concern him. 'Someone was born, of the horror that everyone I knew felt at the said, "the Jews didn't actually kill him but they made fate of the Jews who were murdered by the Nazis. But it happen"'. He fears that some people believe, as I'm probably not the kind of person that would worry Gibson's father is said to, the evil and ludicrous con him, I hope. I say that perhaps the depiction of the suf spiracy theory of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. fering of Jesus in the film is meant to make a whole lot Even if ordinary people around the world don't of people empatllise with anyone who is being abused. know of the theory, says Tamir, the stereotype is per I agree that it's clumsy, that it's Gibson's well-meant petuated in the film, of elite Jewish figures cynically attempt to portray deeply felt belief. He isn't convinced manipulating a nation's titular powers-'that Jews and I don't blame llim. • are this all-powerful, dark force behind the scenes.' He laughs and says, 'Anyone who really knew Jews would Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 21 Frank Castles The future of families How society chooses: Policy and values, past and future Soc tAL Poum,, and 'owl pohcy out. A second point to note, however, 'liberal' welfare states (a nd I call the English comes, are different in different countries demonstrating the range of social policy speaking family of nations) spend less, have because they have been shaped over many choice open to us, is that differences between weak maternity lea ve schemes (in general), decades by a diversity of values concerning countries are huge. At one end of the dis and spend little on publicly funded child the purposes of social policy-a diversity, tribution, we find countries like Sweden, care. The values expressed are a preference which is continually affirmed, but occa Denmark and Switzerland, spending for market solutions, and for intervention sionally, modified through political only in demonstrated cases of need and choice. What the welfare state does and incapacity. This is generally described as is expected to do is, in other words, a a 'residual' approach to welfare. In line reflection of a country's ideas about with the preference for market solutions, social justice and how that end may be several countries, but not Australia, achieved. Such ideas differ. Generally, have large private childcare sectors. the character of a country's social pol At the opposite extreme from icy profile changes only slowly. For the the 'liberal' welfare states in most most part, social policy systems are like respects are the 'social democratic' or 'elephants on the move', going forward Scandinavian welfare states, spend ponderously one step at a time. Very ing more on average than any other occasionally, they move at a canter and groupings, with excellent maternity change direction radically. leave schemes (and parental benefits as Over recent decades, Australia has well) and large public (b ut not private) been elephantine in certain respects and at and around 30 per cent of national childcare access. The choice here is to use radical in others. We have been extremely income on the welfare purposes, and, at the social policy and taxation systems to slow in modifying our family policies to the other countries like the United States promote egalitarian values. High levels of cope with the new realities of family life, (14.6 per cent) and Japan (14 .7 percent), public childcare express a strong emphasis but have m oved much faster to remove spending less than half that figure. Despite on free provision of services as an instru key elements of the system of social pro recent expenditure growth, Australia ment of egalitarian redistribution and of tection that once made Australia unique. remains, as it has always been, close to gender equality in the labour market. I would also suggest that our choices do the bottom of the social expenditure In between, are the 'conservative' wel really matter: that the way we structure league table, with only Japan and fare states of continental western Europe our systems of welfare provision can have the US spending less. and southern Europe. These countries major consequences for the quality of the were the pioneers of high social spend society in which we will live in the future. I N THE ARENA OF family policy, the story ing, remain generally large spenders, with It follows that, if we care about families, is very much the same. The Scandinavian generous maternity leave schem es, but we should choose carefully. countries score highest on all aspects of offering little in the way of childcare pro In examining the facts of social expend family-friendly provision. Once again, the vision to the under threes-neither private iture and family policy development across United States is at the other end of the dis- nor public. Esping-Andersen sees these the OECD area, I have compared total tribution on most counts, but here the US countries as 'conservative' because their social expenditure as a percentage of Gross at least outscores Australia in one respect. social security systems focus on replicat Domestic Product (GDP) in 21 advanced We share with the United States the dubi- ing in the social policy arena, distinctions Western nations from 1960-1998. ous distinction of having no public mater drawn from the world of work. The vast A first point to notice is that, contrary nity leave schemes and almost no public majority of benefits are earnings-related to the warnings of the globalisation litera provision of childcare places for the under and contributory, while egalitarian service ture, there has been no 'race to the bottom' threes, but the US does, at least, have provision is no more prominent than in in social spending, with OECD average ample access to private childcare for this the 'liberal' countries. expenditure rising by four percentage points age group. Australia does not. Given these distinctions, can we sim of GDP over the past two decades. Contrary There are clear distinctions in social ply classify Australia as a 'liberal' nation, to the views of many domestic critics, policy responses among OECD nations. preferring market outcomes and, in its Australia has been amongst the countries in Social policy choices have been made on means-testing of benefits, employing a which expenditure growth has been greatest the basis of quite different conceptions of characteristically 'residual' approach to in that period, increasing from 11.3 per cent social justice. social provision? I would argue that, for of GDP in 1980 to 17.8 per cent in 1998. What Gesta Esping-Andersen calls much of the post-war era (say from 1945 22 EUREKA STREET APR IL 2004 through to the early 1980s), this would in the past. working 'for the joy of it'. Women are self have been an unfair characterisation of These changes m ay not have been eas financing the preservation of their human Australian social policy, given the exist ily avoidable, they may have been forced capital, once the costs of the private provi ence of a wider system of social protec on us by international developments in sion of childcare are taken into account. tion, which by controlling wages, border any case, but they have been deliberately Under these circumstances, it is hardly protection and migrant inflows succeeded embraced by politicians across the board surprising that there is so much complaint in producing a high wage economy of a as part of their agenda of 'economic ration about the difficulty of combining work remarkably egalitarian kind. In my book alism'. This is the radical change and the and family and that Australian fertility The Worl APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 23 the\ mid Michele Gierck Rwandan mist Ten years after the genocide Rwanda still mourns its dead 0 N A LATE FEBRUARY mornmg a m1st General of the Rwandan Ministry of Justice, was also non-existent and even the Central blanketing the hills and valleys of Rwandan is certain of this,' ... across Rwanda there is Bank had been looted. capital Kigali, refuses to lift. a determination never to return to the kill- The GNU's reconstruction strategy was Below the mist is one of the small- ing, to get out of the past. not only to get the country ft.m ctioning and est, poorest and most densely populated 'If we lost one million people in 100 to transform post-genocide Rwanda- in spite countries in Africa. It is also a country still days, then a lot of people are implicated as of the loss of so many professionals and civil coming to terms with its past-the 1994 killers, looters, rapists, plmmers and finan- servants and the destruction of infrastruc- genocide of Tutsis and the massacre of mod- ciers.' He adds, 'Genocide is not just about ture-but also to begin a program of unity erate Hutus in which an estimated 800,000 criminal killers, nor is and reconciliation. to one million people were killed. it just about criminal The 'top-down' Images of the exodus of millions of justice issues ... The nation-wide education refugees across the Rwandan border and seeds of this genocide program on wlity was hundreds of thousands in makeshift camps come from decades of as extensive as it was captured the international media's atten- irresponsible govern- necessary. tion. What was often overlooked at the time, ance.' Back in the exhibi- however, was the failure of the international That irresponsible tion space at the Kigali community- including the UN who had a governance resulted Genocide Memorial, small n1ission deployed in the country- to in ethnic discrimi- there are glass cabinets intervene and stop the genocide. nation, a culture of full of human remains. In Rwanda these days there are mm1y impunity, and the On top are human reminders of the past-mass graves, a high failure of the judicial skulls, many cracked number of widows, child heads of house- system, the rule of or smashed, evidence holds and orphans. According to Ministry law and the police to Rema ins of vi ctims on displa y, of the blows to the Ki ga li Genocide Memorial. of Justice sources, something like 600,000 protect the civil popu- head. The middle accused of crimes during the genocide, still lation. Added to this was a civil war, and shelves arestackedwitharmandlegbonesm1d await trial. Furthermore, tens of thousands the overriding poverty of the majority of the bottom nmg exhibits pieces of of Rwandans remain in exile. the population, in a country with one of the victin1's clothing. The Kigali Genocide Memorial in 11ighest population densities in Africa. Gisozi, a short drive from the capital, serves Coming to terms with the past m1d 1N ANOTHER GLASS display, weapons- as one further reminder and the government rebuilding a m1ified Rwanda takes enormous many of them wooden instruments used intends tl1is one to be permanent. political resolve and reform. Yet if last year's to bludgeon victims to death-bring home Partly modelled on a holocaust museum, overwhelming election of the Government the shocking aspect of this genocide. The it will serve as a memorial- the surround- of National U11ity [GNU)- its main political number of Rwandans not shot at a distance ing gardens are the burial place of 250,000 party the Rwandese Patriotic Front [RPF)- is with sen1i-automatic gun-fire, but hacked, victims- and an education centre. any indication, Rwandm1s believe they are beaten and macheted to death where the Although construction began in 2000, the best option for moving forward. perpetrators were militias, villagers, neigh- in February 2004 it still looked like a con- From 1990-94 Paul Kagame led the bours, friends, and in some cases the vic- struction site. Hundreds are working to Rwandese Patriotic Army [RPA) which tim's own family members is abhorrent. complete it by 7 April-the date earmarked stopped the 1994 genocide. He then became With almost every village in the country as the tenth anniversary of the Rwm1dan Vice-President and Minister for Defence in affected by the genocide, the government genocide. the new government, before being elected searched for a way forward to establish the In the week leading up to this anniver- president in 2000. truth about 1994 and bring to trial those sary, survivors will gather from all over When the GNU came to power, it implicated in the genocide, while fostering Kigali to remember and plant roses in the inherited a decimated country. Social and restorative justice and forgiveness. bare garden beds. Other commemorations economic infrastructure had collapsed, 'We needed to look at our history and will take place throughout the country. there was a high level of insecurity and law our future as a community,' explains It's hard to get your head around geno- enforcement agencies no longer functioned. Busingye Johnston. Rather than follow cide. Even Rwandan government ministers Nor did basic services like hospitals and truth and reconciliation commissions and officials echo this sentiment. schools, since many of their staff had been used in other countries, such as South Yet Busingye Jolmston, Secretary targeted in the killings. The civil service Africa, Rwanda embarked upon a 24 EU REKA STRE ET A PRIL 200 4 traditional model of village justice -Gacaca. Gacaca does not replace the criminal justice system, but rather allows for the col lection of evidence at the local level. Where the crimes are considered appropriate to be dealt with by a panel of local judges-those against property, as distinct from murder, rape or planning the killings- the judges have capacity to do so. Gardens at Kigali Genocide Memorial, where garden beds await planting and cement tombs cover mass graves where 250,000 people are buried. with are teachers, cultivators and local prison term already served, may be deemed business people. They were all elected by adequate. the village members to preside over the Tills is Mary's second year as a Gacaca local Gacaca court. judge. Of the evidence she has heard, eight In the community where Mary lives, accused who were in prison have been freed, she, along with a panel of between 10 and ten others have been sent to prison. and 19 judges must deal with crimes of There is a sense that the Gacaca process the past: listen to the evidence, establish is going to take a long time. 'It may,' agrees the truth, and refer the accused where Mary, 'but the results will be good.' appropriate to the criminal justice sys 'After 1994 people just wanted to be tem. (The accused and the victim often alone. They were afraid to look at each live in that same community, or nearby.) other. But now it's different. That's a big Exhibition and Edu ca tion Centre, Kigali Genocide Memorial 'One judge cannot preside over a Gacaca change.' case,' says Mary, explaining that having And even the International Criminal Like so much of the reconstruction of the accused face friends, neighbours and Tribw1al for Rwanda (ICTR), established Rwanda, the establishment of the Gacaca respected community leaders i by the UN Security Council in 1994, has system, including the education of the an integral part of the process. had its difficulties. Although high-level judges and reviews of the process, has genocide orgar1isers have been convicted, taken time. Although it is too early to RWANDAN PRISONS were SO filled the process has been slow, expensive, ar1d speak of its success, many believe it is with people awaiting trial, that tens of dogged with administrative and procedural worth the investment. thousands have been released because, after difficulties. Tl1is includes reports of geno Mary Gasengaire, 35, a widow with eight years in prison, their crimes would cide suspects working at the tribunal. three school-aged children, and a worker at carry a lesser or equal sentence to the term As Rwanda faces the tenth aru1iversary the Seeds of Peace tourist resort-a recon they had already served. Mary explains that of the genocide, democratic institutions, struction project at the village of Gahini in many people come to Gacaca to confess and including a new constitution have been the eastern part of the country, supported by to seek forgiveness. In this way, Gacaca is as implemented, basic social services restored, Anglicord-has been elected by her village concerned with reconciliation at a commu strategies for economic development to be a Gacaca judge. nity level, as it is with justice. implemented, and there is no longer talk of She recalls that during her grandparents' When I ask how people can forgive, she Hutu and Tutsi, but rather of 'the Rwar1dan lifetime, Gacaca was the system of partici stops in her tracks, looks me in the eye and people'. Much effort has been invested in patory justice used in the villages. says, 'We must forgive. If we do not, then mlifying the country, in establishing truth, One day a week she is released from her God will not forgive us'. justice ar1d reconciliation. work at the resort to attend Gacaca proceed 'But not everyone is religious, or shares Looking out over the gardens from the ings. She received one month's training to be this view, surely?' I ask. Kigali Genocide Memorial, one can't help a judge and like the other judges, she is not 'No, but we must teach everyone to for wondering when the burdens of the past, paid any additional salary for her services. give, otherwise how can we live together?' not unlike the mist in the valley, will 'Rwanda is a poor country and we all have But everyone must pay for their crime, finally lift. • to do something to make it a good place in some way. According to the local Gacaca to live', she says. judge, there are no exceptions to this, Michele M. Gierck is a freelance writer. Judges come from a variety of back although some form of commw1ity service, grounds. Some of the ones Mary serves compensation for destroyed property or a Photos by Michele M. Gierck APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 25 Frank Brennan A fair go in an age of terror The following is an edited text of an address given by Frank Brennan SJ as part of the Jesuit Lenten Seminar Series 2004 A ,WE MOVE >NTO AN election yeo< told our parliam entary inquiry into the now admitted unreliability of the intel in Australia and in the United States intelligence operations preceding the ligence, it would be better in future to where the incumbents John Howard recent war: 'We m ade a judgem ent here have decisions made by a community of and George W. Bush have led the in itia in Australia that the United States was disparate nations united only by a com tives for countering the em erging terror committed to military action against m on concern for in ternational security ist threat unveiled since Se ptember 11, Iraq. We had the view that was, in a against terrorism, ra ther than a coalition 2001, there is the risk that any critique of sense, in dependent of the intelligen ce of allies wh o either share, or are neutral these initiatives can be seen to be party assessn1ent.' about, the strategic objectives of the US political or partisan. That is not m y pur When tabling the unanimous, all administration . pose. I am quite agnostic as to w hether party report, the government m em Our politicians have a difficult deci Mark Latham, John Howard or an y oth er ber David Jull told Parliam ent of the sion to m ake when assessing intelligence conceivable inhabitant of the Lodge, Committee's conclusion 'that there was about the likelihood of weapons of mass would be an y more solicitous of human unlikely to be large stocks of weapons of destruction being developed and handed rights and protective of Australian iden mass destruction, certainly none read on to terrorist organisations. In times of tity in response to such a crisis. Thou gh ily deployable.' We did not go to war crisis, we need to trust our leaders. It it is important to exam ine the conduct because there was an imminent threat to becom es m ore difficult to grant that trust of political leaders, my purpose is to see our security. We went to war because the when the rationale for war is changed how robust our democratic processes are Am ericans asked us to. The reasons why aft er the event. T he belated emphasis in fi nding the right balance. To examine have becom e a m ovable feas t. Before the on the humanitarian concern for the how inform ed and committed we are war, Prim e Minister H oward insisted the Iraqi people was rank hypocrisy on the in insisting that our politicians do not goal was disarmam ent. 'I couldn't justify part of the United States which first gave diminish fundamental hu m an rights in on its own a military invasion of Iraq to Saddam Hussein his WMD capacity fo r the nam e of national security. change the regim e. I've never advocated countering Iran. Hypocrisy too, fro m an At times of national insecurity, there that. ' The problem was that George Australian government which punished is an increased need for citizens to trust Bu sh's advisers did, and their request was Iraqi asylum seekers who had the temer their political leaders and those leaders are m et . Howard told parliam ent that Iraq's ity to seek asylum w ithin our borders. likely to feel acutely any criticism of their 'possession of chemical and biological Trust in government would be better discharge of that trust. There are lessons weapons and its pursuit of a nuclear m aintained if Mr Howard simply admit for us, withou t our canonising or dem on capability poses a real and unacceptable ted that his public rationale for war was ising, any particular political actors. threat to the stability and security of the h onouring of the US alliance irre T he United States now claims the our world'. Walter Lew in camp, the head spective of the wisdom of seeking regim e prerogative for u nilateral action, not only of oro, said this 'was not a judgemen t change in Iraq withou t UN endorsement, in making pre-emptive strikes against that DIO would have m ade.' It's and the con cern abou t readily deployable imminent threats, but also in taking a pity they were not asked! WMDs rega rdless of shortcomings in the preventive action to destroy a prospec intelligence. tive enem y's capacity to becom e a threat. E VEN IF THE United N ations Security Prior to the Madrid bombings last Bush claims a mandate for 'deal(ing) with Council be n ot considered fo rmally to be month, many Australians thought our those th reats before they becom e immi the relevant authority fo r deciding just participation in the war was justified nen t '- The bottom line for Bush with cause fo r war, it remains a suitable sieve because the world was now a safer place. Saddam Hussein was: ' the fact that he fo r processing the confl icting claims in We had won without an y Australian had the ability to make a weapon . T hat determ ining whether there is 'a real and loss of life, and the m urderous Saddam wasn't right.' unacceptable threat to the stability and Hussein had lost power. Post-Madrid, we The in vasion of Iraq was consist security of our world', and whether or have to question whether the world is ent with the previously published neo not war is the only realistic resort. T he indeed safer and whether Australia is at conservative agenda of Mr Bush's key French and Germ ans had various motives n o greater risk of being a special target for advisers. Regime change in Iraq was a for their stand, just as the English and terrorist groups. centre-piece of their agenda. O ur own the Am ericans did. Given the mix of In the lead u p to the Iraqi war, the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) m otives, the elusiveness of truth, and the church leadership in the US, UK and 26 EU REKA STREET A PR IL 2004 Australia was remarkably united in its justified and must be deemed immoral. A time, at what is seen by militant Muslims criticism of the public rationale for war. case for war against Iraq based solely on to be the decadence of western culture. ' However, there was a variety of views "regime change" would have been inad Does anyone now seriously doubt about the margin for error to be afforded equate and I would have been obliged what Carnley was saying? Australians to government. When asked about the to share this conclusion with those for were being targeted both because we clear opposition from church leaders whom I have a pastoral responsibility.' are identified with the decadent West by such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Despite the Prirne Minister's fudging militant Muslims and also because of our John Howard told the National Press of the issue, Cardinal Pell has never given close relationship to the United States. Club: 'There is a variety of views being any public indication that the war was There may also have been other fac justified. Pell did not m ake tors, including our intervention in East any clarifying statement Timor. Carnley's remarks greatly upset once the war commenced. Anglicans John Howard and Alexander He let stand his earlier Downer. In the 2003 Playford Oration, caveat, 'The public evidence Downer singled out Carnley's behaviour is as yet insufficient to jus post-Bali as an instance of 'the tendency tify going to war, especially of som e church leaders to ignore their without the backing of the primary pastoral obligations in favour of UN Security Council.' The hogging the limelight on complex politi Prime Minister's statem ents cal issues.' Ignoring Carnley's earlier and the Cardinal's later pastoral letter of support for the victims silence left many Catholics and their families, Downer falsely stated, confused. Presun1ably the 'There was no concentration on comfort Prime Minister drew solace ing the victims and their families, no from the Cardinal's pre binding up of the broken-hearted while war observation, 'Decisions a shocked nation mourned.' Two m onths about war belong to Caesar, before Downer's Playford Oration, the not the church.' Though government was arguing for an expan Caesar m akes the decision, sion of ASIO's powers in the Senate. the church must discern and Government Senator Santoro told the comm ent on the morality of Senate: 'We know from horrific expe that decision. Church leaders rience that not only do Australians must publicly help their peo face the same level of threat as any ple make the moral assess- other people but also, as was the case m ent. It is not good enough in Bali in October last year, they expressed. I think in sheer number of to suspend the moral faculty and simply are very specific targets-' published views, there would have been trust the government of the day. If we do more critical than supportive. I thought that with war, then what of other moral W AT SANTORO SAID is quite con the articles that came from Archbishop issues? When it comes to war, Cardinal sistent with Carnley's position. So what's Pell and Archbishop Jensen were both Pell allows more scope for an unformed the problem? Are we not permitted to very thoughtful and balanced. I also read or uninformed conscience than most speculate on why Australians are very a very thoughtful piece from Bishop Tom other church leaders, including the Pope. specific targets? Or is that no role for Frame, who is the Anglican Bi shop of the Church leaders like the Anglican refl ective church leaders? Our political Australian Defence Forces. The greater Primate, Peter Carnley, have received leaders have readily conceded that we volume of published views would have rough handling from government when are a target with terrorists because we been critical, but I think there have been they have publicly questioned the moral are Western. They have also conceded som e very thoughtful other views and the ity and prudence of our strong alliance that we are a target because of the fine ones I have m entioned, I certainly with the United States in an 'age of ter things we have done such as assisting include in them.' ror'. Two days after the Bali bombings with the restoration of peace and order in in October 2002, Archbishop Carnley East Timor. But they get very testy when 0 NCE THE WAR commenced, promptly published a letter pledging there is any suggestion that our closeness Archbishop Jensen said, 'For my own part prayers and support for the victims and to the Americans, or our commitment to I remain unpersuaded that we ought to their families. A few da ys later he then coalitions of the willing, could heighten have committed our military forces, but addressed the annual synod in Perth, the risk to our security. There must be I recognise the limitations of my judge observing, 'The targeting of a nightclub, room for informed and divergent debate ment and the sincerity of those who dif which is known to have been popular without vehement governm ent attacks on fer.' After the war, Bishop Frame said: 'If with young Australians on holiday, sug people such as Archbishop Carnley. Trust it is establish ed that the weapons did not gests that this terrorist attack was aimed and respec ought be mutual even in times exist and the Coalition did or should have both at Australia, as one of the allies of the of crisis. known this, the war will not have been United States of America and, at the sam e In the wake of the Madrid bombings, A PR IL 2004 EU RE KA STR EET 27 Federal Police Commissioner Mick mentary committee system worked well government likes to portray the Senate Keelty answered the question, 'Could when the government tried to bluff the as obstructionist, but the Senate has this happen here?' in words reminiscent Parliament into passing amendments to modified national security legislation to of Archbishop Carnley: 'If this turns out the ASIO legislation that would have better protect ci villiberties. to be Islamic extremists responsible for entrenched draconian measures on our When we experience a low ebb in the this bombing in Spain, it's more likely statute books in 2002. Originally the political cycle with government encoun to be linked to the position that Spain government proposed that ASIO would tering little opposition in the House of and other allies took on issues such as be able to detain any person incommu Representatives, or on John Laws and Iraq. And I don't think anyone's been nicado, including a child. ASIO would Alan Jones' radio programs, it is diffi hiding the fact that we do believe that have been able to detain indefinitely cult to conduct robust public dialogue ultimately one day, whether it be in one any person without charge or even sus about policies related to minorities month's time, one year's time, or ten picion. While detained, any person could and national security. Fear and flab years' time, something will happen.' have been strip-searched, questioned biness take over. There is an ongoing Though there was spirited debate and for unlimited periods and prevented deficit in public honesty and rigorous cabinet resignations in the UK because from contacting family members, their inquiry when it comes to debate about of Mr Blair's ready membership of the employer, or even a lawyer. They would the morality of our engagement in war, Coalition of the Willing, Canberra com not have been able to inform loved ones about the limits of ASIO's powers, about pliance with prime ministerial direc of their detention and could our treatment of asylum seekers and the tives was complete. It was troubling have been denied legal advice. identification of their deprivations with to hear differing m essages at that time national security and border protection. from Prime Minister Howard and Tony SENATOR JOHN FAULKNER said that There is an important democratic role Abbott about the increased risks of ter 'the original ASIO bill was perhaps the for unelected citizens, including church rorism to Australian citizens. Abbott, worst drafted bill ever introduced into leaders, to question government's pub the Leader of the Government in the the Australian parliament-' Thanks lic rationale and private purpose, to House, told Parliament, 'There is the to the Senate, the legislation is now correct the misperceptions, and to increased risk of terrorist attack here in more protective of human rights, while espouse rational and coherent policies Australia'. Next day, the Prime Minister responsive to the present terrorist threat. that do less harm to vulnerable peo told us, 'We haven't received any intel There was a lengthy stand-off between ple and to our peace and security. We ligence in recent times suggesting that the government and the Senate over would all profit from more respectful there should be an increase in the level this legislation. Before Christmas 2002 and rigorous dialogue betw een elected of security or threat alert.' Regardless of when the legislation was deadlocked politicians and unelectcd community who was right, their contradictory state John Howard warned, 'If this bill does leaders, including that between ments provided incontrovertible evi not go through and we are not able to church and state. dence that there was insufficient debate, clothe our intelligence agencies with discussion and discernment within the this additional authority over the sum C HURCH LEADERS LIKE Archbishop Cabinet and political party processes, mer months it will be on the head of the Carnley, the courts, the Senate, an inde prior to making a commitment to war Australian Labor Party and on nobody pendent media, and a robust civil society in such novel political circumstances. else's head.' The government then fur are enti tied to express a view contrary The thinking was done in Washington. ther delayed the legislation so it could be to the executive government of the day, We signed on, presuming that ou r added to the mix of a double dissolution even if the majority are satisfied that the national interest and the international election, if need be. Having been intro government will do what is best for ' us' common good would be served by duced in March 2002, the legislation was (as against 'them') in tough times. The Alliance compliance. In these circum passed in highly amended form in June morality of our engagement in the Iraq stances, there is a place for unelected 2003. The legislation now contains a war cannot be left contingent only on citizens, including church leaders, to three-year sunset clause so it has to be self-interested outcomes; one, whether speak out. If they are misunderstood reviewed by our parliamentarians after our special relationship with the US and then correct the public record, as the next election. Sir Harry Gibbs pro bears fruit, and two, whether we are more Archbishop Carnley did, that should vided an assessment of the final prod immune from onshore terrorist attack. be acknowledged by our very uct in his Australia Day address to the And even if it were so contingent, the sensitive political leaders. Samuel Griffith Society. He notes that jury is still out on both counts. A more the powers given to ASIO are 'drastic' coherent morality of war may yet be even C ONFRONTED WTTH THREATS of ter and 'only experience will show whether in our own short-term national interest rorism, government has a responsibility (the) safeguards are sufficient'. Gibbs in an 'age of terror'. to arm police, defence and intelligence says the law goes too far in prohibiting • personnel with the powers to protect us lawyers and others publishing informa Frank Brennan SJ is the Associate while respecting the civil liberties of all tion about the questioning of any person. Director of UNIYA, the Jesuit Social persons. We Australians lack a Bill of This could 'prevent publication of the Justice Centre. His most recent book Rights to guide our judges or restrict our fact that an abuse of power or a serious is Tampering with Asylum, 2003, governments. The Senate and the parlia- error of judgem ent had occurred.' The University of Queensland Press. 28 EUREKA STREET APRIL 2004 hool <;.' Radhika Gorur Frontier romance The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier, Brigid Hains. Melbourne Umvcrsny Press, 2003 ISBN 0 5228 036 7, RRP $49.95 E VERY ONCE m • while • book come' h,mh envimnmen" w" tho< the wild e<~ of the book • nd the mond-in which along that defies the Dewey decimal ness brought out the best in men and she talks about Flynn- this connection classification system . Would you call weeded out the weak and the unfi t, the seems a bit tenuous. As she points out, it history? Or a biography? Although 'spawn of [the] gutters'. Such adventures Mawson and Flynn were contemporaries, it was short-listed for the 2003 NSW were for m en who wanted to get away and Antarctica and the outback were Premier's History Awards, I am tempted from the domestication imposed by city both frontiers being explored at around to categorise Brigid Hains' environments and fam- the sam e time. Mawson's Antarctic The Ice and the Inland as ily life. It was a chance to expedition was a time bound trip, Flynn a sociological thriller. pit his ingenuity and wits, was trying to achieve a lasting victory Hains uses the stories not to mention physical over the outback environment. Mawson of two Australian fo lk strength, against the forces and his team tell the story of man against heroes, Douglas Mawson, of nature. the elem ents, whereas Flynn's narrative who explored Antarctica, The landscape which is m ore of a political crusade, fi rst to get and John Flynn, whose allowed m an a trans- p ople to settle the 'reel heart' of Australia, efforts centred around the cendental experience could which was unsuccessful, then to make outback, as the launching also sink him into the outback communities m ore viable by pads fo r studying the the INLAND depths of depravity as the providing m edical and communication frontier myth and the veneer of civilisa tion wore facilities to remote settlements. effects on the psyche of off. Herein lay the paradox Flynn wanted to settle the interior the individual and the of wilderness landscapes- imagination of a people. attractive because of The Ice and the Inland their wildness, but this provides a novel window very wildness a threat through which one can that needed to be tam ed, glimpse how a young nation might be mapped and bounded. It was sublime influenced en masse, and how national because it was far from the trappings of opinions or even identities can be forged 'progress', yet itbecame liveableonlywhen by significant events, or by the actions and the products of progress-communication writings of a couple of individuals. and medical facilities-were 'The frontier mythology of the early made available. 20th century is epitomised in the stories r-r of these two extraordinary-and very .1. HE FIRST PART OF the book deals different-men', says one reviewer. with the effects of environments on However, The Ice and the Inland is not individuals. Many subtle aspects are a biographical account of the lives of exquisitely probed: the role of language Mawson and Flynn. There is not even and metaphor in comprehending so alien a descriptive account of the successes a landscape; the tendency to describe Jesuit Social Services of the two men- Mawson's heroic lone the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar; ANNUAL DINNER struggle for survival or the crowning glory the loss of perspective in the endless of the achievements of Flynn, the flying freezing expanses and the epistemological Melbourne Town Hall doctor service. Instead, Hains examines uncertainty imposed by the need to re Saturday, 29 M ay. a huge amount of primary evidence, the examine all that was taken for granted, $100 a head or writings, letters and journals of these when faced with 'wind like a solid thing', $1000 a tabl e of 10 men and their contemporaries, and comes or a 'river like a gigantic torrent of air'. Tel: 03 9427 7388 to a series of conclusions that explain the Excerpts from the diaries of members of shaping of the frontier myth in the Aus the expedition team, as well as other poets tralian imagination. and writers, make this portion of the book Booking form available What drove Mawson and his m en to almost lyrical. on the JSS website. the inhospitable landscape of Antarctica? While Hains used the interlude to www.Jss.org.au• One of the great rationales for confronting draw parallels between this first part APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 29 with 'smiling homesteads' coast to coast, precursors to the way the internet is bl end of romanticism, individualistic not only for Australia's economic hea lth servin g to transcend distances today. rebellion against conformity and social but to ensure that there was no invasion Mawson and Flynn saw the frontier nostalgia', and formed the basis fo r from the north. Just as importantly, people as having the power to renew civilisation present attitudes towards the frontier, who moved to the outback and stuck it and affect moral character. They extolled nature and conservation. out in the difficult terrain were the very the transcendental qualities of sublime Hains' theories arc convincing and people who would enrich Australia's gene landscapes-immovable, eternal and novel, though the book suffers somewhat pool. T hey were the salt of the earth- the powerful as opposed to man who is from a repetition of ideas. While her style brave, the persevering and indefatigable. transient and insignificant. The vast and is unobtrusive, she speaks with clarity and Unfortunately, white women were hard harsh Antarctic and outback landscapes, accuracy, a virtue that is, alas, quite rare. to come by in the outback. Worse still, to this clay, stand utterly indifferent Quotes from a number of sources enhance the outback wilderness, like its Antarctic to m an and his feeble struggles, to his and enrich the book immensely, and allow counterpart, could have exactly the successes and his failures. 'The symbolic the reader to play a part in creating images opposite effect to the sublimating one to power of the frontier,' says Hains, 'was and forming impressions as an equal partner which both Mawson and Flynn alluded. refigured in the lifetin'les of Mawson and with the author. This is an original and The solution ? Provide facilities in the Flynn.' This power becam e embedded in commendable piece of work. • outback so that more people, including the Australian imagination as 'the potent women, would move there and create Radhika Gorur is a Melbourne writer. communities in which individuals would support each other. Here we com e across yet another paradox-individuality is what the wilderness is all about. But )() without a community for support, the Aaron Martin individual was in danger of overstepping the boundaries of the accept 30 EUREKA TREET APRIL 2004 H 1.1 llll Mike Ticher The state of education W ON I RHURNm to Au,mfu &om five schools: a public school specialising in Protestant evangelical of various stripes) England last year, two things struck me the arts; a single-sex public school several and to high fee-paying private schools who immediately about education. The first was suburbs away; a quirky private school; a are recruiting earlier and earlier. the gulf between the public primary school Catholic school; and even a hugely expen I am sure my views on education differ our children had left behind in London and sive top-notch establishment. from those of many Eureka Street read their new one in Sydney. The co1m11it I wondered why they had not considered ers. However, you don't have to send your ment of the staff was the same. Everything the standard public school almost literally children to a public school to be concerned else-buildings, open spaces, resources, staff across the road. Was it the academic stand about the crisis that appears to be threaten levels, curriculum, parental involvement, ards, or the social mix? Perhaps the princi ing them. It is obvious (and confirmed by access to sport, music and drama-was so pal had not impressed them, or the facilities studies worldwide) that public education can much better in Australia that it was almost were inferior? I was amazed to discover fall into a downward spiral of low achieve painful to make the comparison. that the thought of checking out the school ment and demoralisation if it becomes a Paradoxically, it became apparent that had not even crossed the parents' minds. system of last resort, catering only for those middle-class Sydney parents were suffer It wasn't simply that it had a poor reputa who do not have the resources to escape it. ing a crisis of confidence about the state tion-it did not even intrude on the view Australia has certainly not yet system. Defections to private schools have of their peer group who swapped anxieties reached that stage. already begun among our children's peers, about secondary schools. even at kindergarten level. A neighbouring In fact, I have found almost no parents WHILE OUR overall standards primary school which offers an 'opportunity who have even considered the local state compare well with the rest of the world, class' (OC) for high-achieving students in secondary. We live in one of the safest Labor Australia scores worst in comparative years 5 and 6 is packed to the rafters. But seats in the state. Attendance at the demon research (such as the Programme for it was the flight from the comprehensive strations against the Iraq war was virtually International Student Assessment studies compulsory. Yet belief in of the OECD) on equitable outcomes the concept of the local, those at the bottom are getting left behind. truly comprehensive pub This clearly has consequences for society lic school, is dying a death as a whole. Sydney Morning Herald com among the liberal middle mentator Paul Sheehan has aptly called class here. schools 'the hammer and anvil of culture'. The evidence is not It is in no one's interests for what is still the just anecdotal, of course. largest single sector of the school system to In the past 30 years, the become a workshop where debased metals proportion of NSW chil are turned into cheapjack tools for build dren attending private ing a divided nation. To become more like schools has increased England, for example. from 22 to 32 per cent, Why have so many parents (not exclu figures mirrored in other sively middle-class, but predominantly) states. But that is only half lost their nerve when it comes to public the story. For an increas schools? We know that John Howard thinks secondary system that was most strik ing number of public school children now it is because the schools are 'too politi ing. The word comprehensive may have attend an institution which selects students cally correct and too values-neutral'. Mark English connotations, but it is necessary to in one or more ways: by academic ability, by Latham, in his 2001 book What Did You use it because the kind of schools increas proficiency in an extra-curricular activity Learn Toda y~ put it down to their 'homo ingly being sought by worried middle-class such as music; or by gender. In NSW, only geneity and inflexibility'. Others point to Australians cannot be defined simply as half of all secondary students now attend a the perceived academic success of the non 'non-govermnent'. non-selective public school. government sector. However, a study in A couple of years ago, friends told me The trend is rapidly extending to pri 2000 for the Centre for Independent Studies of the secondary school options for their mary schools. NSW public primaries have found that the major consideration for pro daughter. 'All we want,' they said, 'is a lost more than 6,000 students in the past spective private parents was 'not differences normal school for a normal kid'. When two years, mostly to the small new schools in academic standards and curriculum, but the time came, however, they considered ambiguously labelled as 'Christian' (in fact issues of discipline and order'. APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 3 1 Leaving aside religious conviction, I behaviour has its own dynamic, quite sepa fall into the trap of appearing 'anti-choice' believe the most useful way of thinking rate from the actual condition of public or or of identifying itself with the perceived about such choices is in terms of advantage. private schools, which remains to be ade shortcomings of state schools. So its support The rhetoric is about 'choice' and 'diversity' quately analysed. It cmmot be described as for them, in NSW at least, has taken the of schools, but increasing choice for the bet 'doing the best for your children'-it is more form of mimicking their non-governm ent ter-off inevitably restricts it for everyone like an extreme neurosis. counterparts. As well as promoting selec else [a point rigorously dissected in Adam Two of the many possible reasons for tive public schools, Bob Carr promised last Swift's recent this state of mind year an extension of the 'gifted and talented' British study, are worth high program to every state high school, in an How Not to be a lighting. As fam explicit bid to keep wavering parents in the Hypocrite: School ily size decreases, system. This followed the report into pub Choice for the Mor parents have more lic education by Tony Vinson, whose m ost ally Perplexed). resources to put important recommendation [according to In fact, whether into each child, Vinson himself) was to 'provide advanced consciously or and that may be a educational opportunities for talented stu subco n sciously, factor in promot dents in all public schools'. the motivation of ing an over-protec It is easy to see why the ALP might many parents is to tive and altogether favour this approach. Just as Mark Latham give their children a too precious atti has stressed 'opportunity' and 'aspiration', it hand up the ladder, tude. A study by must enlist voters who instinctively reject as Latham himself the Association the language of egalitarianism and anything might put it. of Independent that smacks of welfare. I would go fur- Schools of Victoria On the other hand, you have to wonder ther and argue that it is not always an actual found that many who chose private schools whether pandering to the preciousness or advantage that parents are seeking, but a per 'thought their child was not only unique but the ambition of the middle-classes is the ceived advantage. In some circles a failure to vulnerable and in need of special care: they best way to sustain the core virtues of a avoid the local public school is regarded as were shy or quiet or fragile or sensitive, and in public education system. Bob Carr, in pro a poor reflection on the parents-they have a large and vulgar school would be moting the 'gifted and talented' program, not exerted all their energy and resources to damaged or lost to sight'. cited his own experience at Matraville 'do the best for their children'. That would High, where he was forced to do woodwork help to explain why the parents I !mow A SECOND TS T H E emergence of 'parent and technical drawing, rather than being would not even visit the local public school ing' as a skill that can be learned, an idea allowed to pursue his obvious gifts for lan to see for themselves, and why the clamour which has grown along with the increasing guages and history. to escape the local comprehensive appears role played by fathers in child-rearing [moth From a policy point of view, however, to have no particular target. Private, reli ering, of course, was always 'instinctive') he is the perfect example of the redun gious, selective, single-sex, specialist-as and which is fostered by the bookshops' dancy of spending money on such pro long as the parents can point to any aspect grom1ing shelves of manuals and the 'Good grams. Those it is aimed at are precisely of their chosen school that marks it off Parent Guides' of the broadsheets. The those who need it least, as his own career from the lowest common denominator, main outcome of this trend is anxiety, and amply demonstrates. then they have done their job. They feel the the desire to enlist whatever help is avail By contrast, money spent to improve need to be doing sornething-almost any able to achieve the status of 'good parents'. standards of literacy among disadvantaged thing-that demonstrates an intent to gain In response to John Howard's statement on children at an early age has demonstrable advantage. Exactly what that advantage values, Hugh Mackay suggested that one social benefits in producing economically is, or even whether it actually reason parents chose private schools was productive, law-abiding and engaged adult accrues, is not the main point. that they 'want the school to do the values citizens. So it has been good to see Mark job they can't or won't do themselves'. Latham reading to young children in the I have listened with mounting incredulity Unfortunately for those people who early days of his leadership. It would be to stories of the desperate m easures taken by might want to halt or slow the flight from even better if he could find ways to honestly parents to get their children into the desired public education, neither of those reasons promote the egalitarian and social benefits schools: the child who never showed up at suggests an obvious policy direction. The of comprehensive public schools, rather birtl1day parties because his weekends were broad consensus is that 'doing the best for than sacrificing them to the often neurotic taken up with coaching classes; the eight your children', whether through paying fees, desires of the middle classes. • year-old who told my son that 'the most moving house or almost any other means of important thing about school is getting getting them into a 'better' schooC is justi into an OC'; the portfolios of 11-year-olds' fied. Any suggestion that it is not would be Mike Ticl1er was chair of governors at a north work painstakingly compiled for applica political suicide. London primary school for two years. He tions to single-sex schools; the parents will With the prime minister spruiking for now works as a writer and editor in Sydney. ing to move house for a year into the 'right' the private sector, and favouring it with lav catchment area. It seems to me this kind of ish Federal funds, Labor is trying hard not to Photography by Bill Thomas 32 EUREKA STREET APR IL 2004 his!OI) Troy Bramston Wherefore art thou Billy? Revisiting the government of Billy McMahon McMAHoN is often the personal point of view of the minister regarded as the worst prime minister of giving the background'. the past half century. When Paul Keating The problem of cabinet leaks contin was looking for an epithet to use against ued, and in January 1972, McMal1on 'drew the then hapless Liberal leader Alexander atten tion again to reports of cabinet dis Downer in 1994, he described him as 'the cussions reaching the press in unauthor most foolish political leader of this coun ised fasluon'. As a result, cabinet agreed try since Billy McMahon'. To rub it in, he that the prime minister should first speak later apologised to the McMahon family. with the media regarding decisions, fo l Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony lowed by more detailed statements by claimed that McMahon was 'just not nlinisters. Also, that the business lists big enough for the job'. Donald Horne of cabinet would no longer carry titles of argues McMahon was 'perhaps the silliest submissions, only numbers. In September prime minister we ever had'. However, 1972, McMal1on again asked ministers to my research into the cabinet papers of avoid 'expressing views on matters which the time show McMahon in a different are witlun the portfolio responsibility of light. McMahon understood the chal other ministers'. Clearly, McMahon was lenge posed by a resurgent Labor Party unable to command respect as prime min under Gough Whitlam and he worked ister. He could not inspire unity in the tirelessly behind the scenes to regain the government. His pronouncements rang political initiative. McMal1on harassed his departments for sug hollow, especially given McMahon himself was widely known gestions, relying heavily on their policy and political advice. But among journalists and his colleagues as 'Billy the Leak'. he was caught between a government wanting to maintain its Having generally relaxed censorship regulations, McMahon conservative traditions, whilst also acknowledging the need for wanted to make government more open and accountable. social change. In the end, of course, he failed. But the path to his Whitlam adviser Jim Spigelman had achieved quite some media eventual failure shows a prime minister with a steely determina coverage with the publication of his book Secrecy: Political tion to hold on to government. Censorship in Australia. Spigelman, who is now the NSW McMahon was the fifth Coalition prime minister in just over Chief Justice, argued that McMahon presided over a secretive, five years, succeeding John Gorton in March 1971. Since the dis closed government, where the decision-making processes were appearance of Harold Holt, the government had been fraught with not transparent. Shadow Minister Clyde Cameron had out diswuty. McMahon lacked Whitlam's media and parliamentary lined Labor's plans to open up government and to make it more skills. A figure of ridicule, he was not popular and lacked respect accountable. among his colleagues. McMal1on ended 1971 with an approval rat McMahon placed considerable pressure on his department ing of just 36.4 per cent, yet it was slightly lugher than Whitlam's to respond to these views. The departmental cabinet file on tlus personal approval rating at 35.6 per cent. What follows is an exam matter is revealing. It includes correspondence from within the ination of several policy areas through the prism of the cabinet department and between the Commonwealth Public Service papers; space prohibits a more detailed study. Board (particularly on the issue of the role of public servants), In politics, disunity is death. The disunity and cabinet leaks newspaper clippings about Spigelman's book, speeches and com which had plagued Gorton soon caused McMahon the same mentaries on Labor's proposals, draft answers to questions that anxiety. In 1971, McMahon took it upon himself, at the very McMahon might face in parliament, and notes for file first meeting of his cabinet, to make sure that his ministers by departmental officials. were 'familiar with, and to observe, the practices and procedures instituted for the effective operation of the cabinet system'. He G EOFFREY YEEND SENT a file note to Deputy Secretary Peter emphasised the central role played by cabinet in government: it Bailey on 21 September 1972, noting that 'We are under some 'determines policy and it ensures coordination. It brings together pressure to give the prime minister a statement he can make as necessary the political and administrative elements in the on secrecy'. Yeend noted that he was 'a little Lmsure about it' decision-making process'. The statement explicitly noted that and asked for further work to be done by the department before background briefing of journalists 'should not be to distort or crit the statement was sent to the prime minister. Yeend also noted icise a government decision or, in this or other ways, to advance that a summary of the ALP's policies was being prepared and APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 33 that McMahon's statement 'will be seen as a response to Mr policy of assimilation. Unease in the Country Party and ele Cameron's statement'. Two days later, a clearly irritated prime ments of the Liberal Party (not least Peter Howson) stalled the minister phoned the Secretary of the Department, John Bunting. issue throughout 1971. At 9.20 pm, Bunting recorded in a confidential note, 'The prime On Australia Day 1972, McMahon stated that the govern minister rang'. Bunting noted, 'He said he was "listening to ment understood 'the deep affinity between the Aboriginal Spigelman",' presumably on the radio. McMahon reminded him people and the land with which traditionally they arc asso that he had sent several questions to the department in the past ciated,' and his desire that the cabinet's work should reflect few weeks 'about what Whitlam and Spigelman were saying', this. McMahon announced that the government would and, clearly agitated, asked again, 'Where were the answers' Can make leases available for Aboriginal people in the Northern I get them hurried up'' Bunting noted that McMahon asked for Territory for 'economic and social usc'. The Sydney Morning 'something' to be prepared in response to Spigelman's accusa Herald concluded: 'it represents a quite important advance tions. He concluded, 'The prime minister said that the opposi in federal government thinking', but 'it will fall far short of tion will be making a good deal of this in the election campaign satisfying all, or even most, Australians'. Whilst McMahon if the government is not alert.' Clearly McMahon was rattled by understood and showed empathy with the position of Whitlam (and Spigelman), but was looking for opportunities to Aboriginal people and the mood of the community gener respond to, and counter, their proposals. all y, he failed to reflect this in the government's position. Finally, after several drafts, McMahon presented cabinet The government did not embrace a land rights agenda, with his own submission on the issue of secrecy in government. but instead initiated a system of leases for land as part of The date was 25 October 1972, just days before the election Aboriginal reserves. Whilst land could be used for specific campaign. McMahon noted, 'I do see merit in our deciding that, activities, the government baulked at surrendering native title when policy decisions or actions are announced, the considera rights to Aboriginal people. It did not want to establish any tions which have led us to the particular course should wher policy that could be construed as endorsing separate develop ever practicable be made public'. He raised issues such as the ment, as opposed to the long established principle of assimila role of public servants, the release of background material, and tion. Whilst McMahon was probably disposed to a more radical the introduc approach in Aboriginal affairs, he moved cautiously, taking a tion of green middle course between his more progressive and white advisers and his conservative colleagues. papers. The submission W ILST WHITLAM rs REMEMBERED for ending Australia's also included involvement in Vietnam, it was the McMahon cabinet that a detailed withdrew all Australian combat troops. In early 1968 the summary of Gorton government announced that no new troops would Labor's poli serve abroad and a year later announced a planned with cies in this drawal of troops. On 26 July 1971, the McMahon government area, propos 'decided that it should move immediately to withdraw, and als submitted to do so to an "accelerated" timetable.' Whilst not wanting by the public service, and papers on recent devel opments in Former PM john Gorton and William McMahon, the United 31May 1971. Kingdom and the United States. The cabinet minutes recording the outcome of the meeting reveals a rebuff for McMahon. It reads, 'The cabinet deferred con sideration of the submission'. Whilst the complex matters cer tainly warranted more detailed consideration, the evidence from behind the scenes outlining McMahon's strong desire to effect a change clearly signals that he wanted to move faster than his cabinet permitted. In 1971 , McMahon continued the Gorton government's more progressive stance on Aboriginal issues, which included increased funding for education, health, housing and com munity services. The Council for Aboriginal Affairs, headed by 'Nugget' Coombs, had helped persuade McMahon towards this position. However, the cabinet was uncomfortable about embracing land rights. There had been a ministerial and depart m ental focus examining land rights and its consistency with a William M cMahon and Treasurer William Snedden, 6 April 1971 . H EUREKA STREET APRIL 2004 to trumpet such an announcem ent, the cabinet noted that there lishing its own inquiry on 16 May 1972. McMahon had written to is 'no longer .. . a combat role for Australian forces.' the Minister for Social Security seeking his opinion. Whilst unsure Whilst the Gorton and McMahon governments had effec exactly how to respond to the Murphy motion for a Senate inquiry, tively ended Australia's involvem ent in the war, they could the cabinet discussed the subject again in May and then in July. hardly make political mileage out of this, as it was their Liberal The government decided against establishing its own inquiry, but predecessors who had committed Australian troops to the war was not opposed to a Senate inquiry, although they wanted the in the firs t place. In contrast, the Labor Party's earlier opposi proposed terms of reference am ended. Then, in August cabinet rec tion helped it to gain credibility on this important issue. One of ognised that 'there had been a growing public concern about pov the first decisions of the Whitlam government, via press release erty' and therefore decided that 'the govermnent should take the no less, was to announce the withdrawal of the remaining 128 initiative in the matter' by instituting an inquiry into poverty. Two members of the Australian Army Assistance Group, which had days later cabinet agreed to a terms of reference for the inquiry. provided training to South Vietnam ese and Cambodian troops. Despite expressing doubts over Ronald Henderson's use of the There were no Australian combat troops left in Vietnam when term 'Henderson poverty line', cabinet agreed that the Whitlam government was elected. Henderson be invited to conduct the inquiry. One of the Whitlam opposition's m ajor proposals was a new emphasis on urban and regional development. Whitlam 's W HAT THIS DEMONSTRATED was that, far from taking the 'ini imaginative agenda fo r 'the cities' struck a chord in the elec tiative', the cabinet had identified an issue in response to the oppo torate, as the urban sprawl of the post-war 1950s and 1960s sition's proposal, then delayed making a decision, made a decision demanded a renewed focus by government. It proved to be a declining to instigate an inquiry, then reversed that decision, and decisive issue in Labor's 1972 election victory. The demand for appointed a chair whilst expressing doubts about that chair's such attention was not lost on the McMahon government. research methods. It is a further example of where the McMahon In early 1972, the Minister for Housing, Kevin Cairns, made cabinet recognised a need but was slow to act, in this case due to a submission to cabinet titled The Role of the Comm onwealth poor leadership from the prime minister. in Urban Affairs. In that submission, Cairns acknowledged that One of the key tasks of the McMahon government in 1972 'there is a growing call for action now by suburbanites, motor was to produce a favourable budget in the lead up to the election. ists, commuters and social welfare workers to improve living Throughout 1971 and 1972 the economy had deteriorated and conditions in our towns and cities by alleviating existing prob McMahon and Treasurer Billy Snedden argued over economic lem s before they becom e worse, and to plan to avoid the crea strategy. McMahon was unable to secure widespread agreement tion of new problem s.' Understanding the political need, Cairns and unity on the strategy needed for the economy and how it was sought more information and research on planning issues, and to be executed. Frustrated by delays and departmental advice, foreshadowed a coordinated approach with state and local gov McMahon went to great lengths to have his views recorded for his ernment. The official records of the cabinet proceedings are tory, noting where Treasury had made mistakes, rather than focus limited, yet what is clear is that despite recognising a need for ing on the present need to devise an economic policy which would a new commonwealth approach on urban affairs, cabinet was reap a political dividend at the coming election. divided on the best way to move forward. The editorial of The Australian, 30 years after the cabinet There were a number of other submissions and decisions papers were released, concluded 'the ship of state wallowed rud that followed the Cairns submission, which were all m et derless on the sea of politics with the prime minister incapable of with a lukewarm response from cabinet, and a cool response plotting any course'. In reality, McMahon's cabinet was attempting from the prime minister. In July, the Deputy Prime Minister to chart new policy courses, but the small moves instigated were Doug Anthon y, who was also Minister for Trade and Industry, more reactive than forward looking. The cabinet papers reveal a suggested in his own submission that, prior to a larger pol prime minister who clearly understood the challenge of the times icy being implem ented, the government 'participate in the and was fighting to get his ship back on course. development . . . of several selected, decentralised Indeed, Whitlam him self acknowledged that: growth centres'. He advocated a cautious approach . 'It now tends to be forgotten that McMahon was an extraordi narily skilful, resourceful and tenacious politician. Had he been I N AuGUST-FIVE MONTHS after Cairns' original submission otherwise, the ALP victory in December 1972 would have been McMahon weighed in, with cabinet noting that he had asked more convincing than it was.' John Overall to 'submit a report to him ... on the proposals relat- ing to urban and regional development ... to assist the cabinet During the election 1972 campaign McMahon blan1ed in its deliberations'. Next month, after interdepartmental con cabinet disunity for his woes, believing that without it he might sultation, cabinet decided that a 'National Urban and Regional have been a more activist prime minister. In so doing, he identified Development Authority' would be established with Overall his own failure. In the end, despite his efforts, he was unable to as head, contrary to the wishes of Doug Anthony. Whilst the provide the leadership that his goverm11ent required. • government had recognised a problem, its slow policy response was symptomatic of its political woes. Lacking leadership and Troy Bramston is co-editor of The Hawke Government: A critical wracked by disunity, it was unable to retake the policy ground per pective (Pluto Press, 2003), works for a Labor Senator and is stolen by Whitlam. completing a Masters in Politics at UN SW. Following a Senate motion by ALP Senator Lionel Murphy proposing an inquiry into poverty, the cabinet considered estab- Photographs are courtesy of The Canberra Times. APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 35 \"' l \ Guy Rundl e The legacy of Ern Malley S from John Ashbery- the leading exponent of postmodern discon with in pre-war Sydney. Stewart was reticent and humorous, a tinuous poetry in the English language today. man who had conceded defea t early in life. In the crazy intelligence Like most great literature, the poems add resonance to the Directorate where the poems were conceived (and celebrated as an places they describe: the domed reading room of the State Library experiment in psychological warfare), McAuley was an officer and where Ern would go to read; and the quiet de Chiriquesque Stewart a librarian with the rank of corporal. Prior to enlistment streets of South Melbourne, where his sister Ethel says he spent McAuley had stLffered reverses in his academic career, ending up his final days in Melbourne. 'Princess you lived in Princess street, as a private tutor, and his early brilliance was, by his own lights, where the urchins pick their noses in the sun/with the left hand', fading badly. In this period the nightmares that had plagued him he writes in 'Perspective Lovesong'. Malley roamed the night all his life became worse- he was sleepwalking, smashing win streets, bug-eyed and strung-out from the hyperthyroid condition dows and even jumping out of them. This abated somewhat dur alleged to be slowly killing him. At the same time Albert Tucker ing the Malley period, only to return with such force afterwards was wandering the sa me streets, churning with rage and fear, that his fri ends were convinced that suicide was only a matter of and visions of monstrous women. So too was US Army private time. Creating another self-Malley-into which all the badness Eddie Leonski, the 'brown-out strangler'-alcoholic, psychotic, and chaos could be poured, particularly that of a poetic nature, he strangled three women because, he said, he was trying to steal took the pressure off. When Ern was exposed as a hoax and 'their voice'. started to fade as a separate persona, the badness returned in full J6 EUREKA STREET APR IL 2004 force. What McAuley came to regard as a literal case of demonic despised- the English all-rounder Herbert Read in particular, possession was only assuaged when he entered the church. whom McAuley had hoped would be drawn into discrediting One key to this is the (in part) striking poem 'Culture As himself by supporting Malley's candidacy for genius. Exhibit'. In part it is a found object, the first lines taken from a Where did that anger come from? That sense of doom ? In manual of malaria prevention that McAuley was reading a secular form, McAuley's symptoms are not those of demonic possession, but of what has come to be known as borderline per Swamps, marshes, borrow-pits and other sonality disorder-a loosening of the psyche that does not express Areas of stagnant water serve itself in actual psychosis, but which leaves the sufferer with dif As breeding grounds .. . ficulty telling inside from outside of themselves- distinguishing The verse has always been taken as an example of how lit emotional reactions from external phenomena. Manic depressive tle McAuley and Stewart seemed to understand what they had cycling, splitting of self, promiscuity, violent nightmares, and a done, for they always poured scorn on the idea that verse taken certain dashing, cruel, wild energy are characteristic of the condi from such a source has any merit. Yet it's clear that not only does tion, and McAuley had all that, in spades. the passage have a rhythmic punch (magnified by McAuley's The crucial point about borderline personality disorder is line division of it) but that the imagery of stagnancy and decay is that it is overwhelmingly associated with one thing-childhood immediately powerful. Malley warns: sexual abuse. And that might make us wonder about the origin of McAuley's recurring dream-that of a man in a stovepipe hat, now have I found you my Anopheles casting his shadow on the wall. It is this figure that came to (There is a meaning for the circumspect) McAuley in nightmares, and had him up and smashing windows A clue to Max Harris that the whole thing is a hoax- he is in his sleep-an attempt presumably to escape. Is it a child's view being stung. But if Harris is being stung that makes McAuley the of a man in a hat frozen in the psyche? A trace of some experience mosquito-even though he says he has found 'my anopheles'-his that laid the ground for McAuley's torments? He himself thought own mosquito. McAuley is the mosquito-the parasite, living off that he was only saved from self-harm by a total and mystical the blood of others-but he has also been stw1g by the mosquito, conversion to Roman Catholicism in New Guinea that is, by himself. He is living off himself, drawing away his own (where he also contracted malaria). energy. This is the key poem in explaining McAuley's own relation C ONSCIOUSLY OR OTHERWISE the move was a trade-off, for ship to Malley, for 'Ern Malley' is not only echoed by the word it ended McAuley as an interesting poet for some time. His next 'malaria' (Mal-ey-ria), a disease carried by parasites from stagnant volume was one of pious religious devotion, and he then became conditions, but is also un mal air, a 'bad tune' (McAuley, it should bogged down in the composition of Captain Quiros, an extended be remembered, had majored in French and German literature). theological exploration, whose only interest for most today lies Ern Malley-un mal air, or une malle aire-is also a bad odour, in its rollicking, almost Errol Flynn-ish rendition of discovery an ill wind or a bad feeling. It is bad poetry as disease (or dis-ease), and conquest. He had made a deal with God- he would give and McAuley fears that he is the carrier of it- the anopheles. up the psychic freedom that allowed real modern poetry to be Stewart's contribution to this poem comes in here, with the line composed, in exchange for a guarantee of his life and sanity. It 'culture forsooth! Albert, get my gun'-a snippet from one of his was only when-in his last decade-even this protection wore letters. After this the poem loses its tension and becomes a silly, away and he was left face to face with a pure despair that he suc if fluent, riff. ceeded in writing a handful of poems that touch near greatness. McAuley's disease is that he cannot feel, that he is parasiti- Alcoholism, adultery and the paranoid political style of cold war- cally living off the dreams of others. Much has been made of the riordom seem to have been the mechanisms by which he main idea of the 'black swan' as a symbol of antipodean alienness-but tained such psychological equilibrium as was possible. it could also be said that a black swan is a shadow of a white swan, Much of this was predicted by Stewart, who cautioned that what is distinctively antipodean is not even embodied, but a him against wading into the cesspit of worldly politics, and mere effect. Malley it could be said is all these things- not only became wearied of his proselytising. The two drifted apart. While Mallarme (the master symbolist poet McAuley had tried to be) McAuley could function in the world of professional teaching and without the 'am e'-soul- but also McAuley with the 'call', the Cold War intrigue, Stewart's bohemian diffidence saw him fall vocation, or even without the 'core'. for a long time until the synthesising doctrines of Rene Guenon's Is it worth deconstructing the name and these verses so 'Traditionalist' movement-a basic commitment to eastern reli deeply in pursuit of its authors? I think so, because the Malley gion as the surviving example of the genuine religious impulse poems were composed under conditions of great psychologi and relocation in Japan gave him ground. Paradoxically, he became cal pressure. McAuley and Stewart were both smart enough to the more famous poet. His two collections of haiku translations know how far short they fell of great poetry, and were confront sold tens of thousand of copies in the 1950s and 60s, principally ing a gradual fading of youthful promise. Harris, at the tim e, was in the US, and were a major factor in the form becoming popu not. His eager self-boosterism must have seemed like a local ver lar in the West. Yet even this triumph underscores the tragically sion of other boosters whose optimism and judgement McAuley silly nature of Stewart's life-for the translations, done in heroic APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 37 couplets, look as kitsch as tiki art today. McAuley's finest work- be read not as a work of McAuley, but Stewart was flippant about being a victim of the curse of as the last known verse of Ern Malley himself? Is it his lament Ern Malley, but it seems to have had a more fundamental effect for his stillborn nature, as a product of a love that could not be than he admits. As confirmedly homosexual as McAuley was consummated' The poem speaks of a father who has dammed up heterosexual (at least in McAuley's post-adolescence), Stewart all his spontaneous loving feeling out of fear of where it might was clearly in love with his collaborator. The Malley poems take him. Were these McAuley's feelings, and his awareness of functioned as kind of rapid marriage and family life, and Stewart Stewart's feelings- feelings he did not want to reciprocate in refers not once, but three times, to Ern as his and McAuley's full. Was he conscious of Stewart's hurt and rejection? We will 'baby'. Like a literary wife of the period Stewart had typed the never know. The question itself is unanswerable, even unpos manuscript, done the bulk of the work inventing and giving able. There is only the mystery that deepens, and the awareness voice to Ethel, and providing, it seems, much of the lightness and that these things, once started, start a rip in the fabric of life that humour within the Malley poems. rapidly goes beyond any possibility of control. Or, as the poet Indeed I suspect the intensity of their relationship can per has said, in lines that I suspect many Malleyists have had float haps be found recorded elsewhere- in 'Because', a poem usually through their head at times of great trial attributed to McAuley. I have been bitter with you my brother, My father and mother never quarrelled Remembering that saying of Lenin when the shadow They were united in a kind of love Was already on his face "the emotions are not skilled workers". As daily as the Sydney Morning Herald - 'Colloquy With John Keats' Rather than like the eagle or the dove Happy sixtieth, Ern. There will no doubt be many more. • I never saw them casually touch ... Can this record of a thwarted marriage- universally seen as Guy Rundle is co-editor of Arena magazine. Modern Day Neanderthal by Kath erine Brazenor. 38 EUREKA STREET A PR IL 2004 f l011(Ji111l" Peter Hartnett Engaging the enemy Social policy advocates equip themselves for the economic debate Eono" RnunNHY HAND would have been prior to the out assignments such as inter conference. If the standard of viewing rebel leaders in Iraq, or care is guaranteed and 'the hang-gliding over minefields numbers make sense', then in Cambodia, as if issuing an several policy advocates said it invitation to a barbecue. So I sounded sensible. If the private sensed danger when one edi sector could be left to run tor began a briefing with an most aged care facilities, then apology. Joining a US patrol in charities and the government Baghdad, perhaps? No, worse. could use their resources for A four-day economics confer those in greatest need. ence. It would take Hunter Drawing on the lessons S. Thompson to make a story of the past week, other from this. participants moun ted a case The Window On Economics for continued government conference was designed to subsidies. It was observed give policy advocates and social serv rather slippery, non-technical phrase per that increased funding for aged care ice employees a better understanding of petuated the stereotype of economists as reduces the cost of acute medical care. economics. The introductory material heartless conservatives. The phrase was It costs more to treat an elderly person failed to mention that economists and little more than a term of abuse, and the who breaks a hip than to put them into policy advocates are not typically fond participants needed to engage in real eco residential care at an earlier stage to of each other. All the economists who nomic debate. avoid such injuries. The policy advocates spoke were male, while 32 of the 40 pol Sitting beside me at the introduc now seemed ready to critique the Federal icy advocates were female. (Apparently tory session was Bryan Lipmann, Government's soon to be released social services are 'staffed by women CEO of the residential aged care pro Review of Pricing Arrangements but run by men', in part because women vider Wintringham. Bryan's facili in Residential Aged Care, often lack the training in finance that ties cater to the homeless aged, with prepared by Warren Hogan. boards of not-for-profit organisations the majority of residents in his care now require.) I was about to witness a having less than $1,000 in assets. He I NTERESTINGLY, THE LOWER reliance clash of cultures not seen since Nino confided his view that many of the on aged health care facilities due to Culotta arrived in Australia. participants in the room who provided informal care in ethnic communities, Participants indicated that they were aged care should have their not-for was cited as a positive economic benefit attending the conference to learn the profit status revoked, with the resulting of multiculturalism. The greater cultural language of economics. There was an savings to be channeled into pressure to take care of elderly relatives implicit assumption that economists ~ facilities like Wintringham. in many ethnic communities was seen speak a distinct language, presumably to result in a lower usage of aged care to exclude the outside world from their .1 HREE DAYS LATER, at the closing facilities. Although this benefit of evil cult. From the outset the battle lines session of the conference, I questioned multiculturalism has not been examined were drawn. participants about Bryan's comments by any empirical studies in Australia, Conference convenor Tim Moore, on aged care funding, particular! y studies do confirm the positive economic from economic consultancy firm ACIL in the light of the Salvation Army's impact of informal care. Tasman, began by defining economics announcement, made that same day, Of gr at concern to some, it was as the allocation of scarce resources. that it was selling most of its residential revealed that economists must deter Economic rationalism, he added, was a aged care facilities. The response was mine the price of a life, or perhaps the divisive term, best avoided, since this radically different to what I imagine it amount the government will spend to APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 39 prevent the loss of a life. The amou n t of the financial resources to produce costly hours. Economists are quite aware this funding allocated to such areas as health reports that support their point of view. understates the true level of unemploy and road safety im plicitly includes this (Witness the $7.2 million being spent on m en t, and are equall y concerned about calculation and is a decision that m ust the Hogan report into aged care .) under-em ployment, where people work be m ade. Anyone serious about having an impact in jobs that do not make use of their The survival rate of the conference on the nation's policy debates cannot education. Yet economists must draw itself was high, about three quarters mak afford to put economics in the 'too hard' an arbitrary line in order to meas ing it through to the fi nal day, and som e basket. Economics has ruled politics since ure unemployment. All professional even chose to forego lunch to continue an well before the Howard government. As groups, from doctors to social services economics lecture! A group that had far back as the 18' 11 century Edmund Burke employees, have a language particular to initially gathered to u nderstand the lan lam ented 'The age of chivalry is gone. That their discipline. guage of the enemy had discovered that of sophisters, economists and calculators As I departed the conference, con economics is not only jargon but a valua has succeeded and the glory of fident that the social policy analys ts ble, though limited, tool. Used honestly, n Europe is extinguished forever.' were now better equipped to deal with economics can provide a fram ework for economic issues, I discovered a parking productive debate. The participants were r OLIC Y ADVO C ATES MUST learn the fi ne lodged under my windscreen wiper. now better placed to battle cost-benefit language and the concepts. A wealthy Don't parking officers realise the cost of analyses that fully casted social programs country such as Australia should be enforcem ent results in a negative net but neglected their wider benefits. able to care for its aged, but economic impact to society? Or do the behavioural Participants also discovered that analysis is required to determine incentives and the increase in employ economists aren't necessarily the exactly how much we can afford to ment offset the costs of this highly enemy. Most academic economists at spend. Governments must behave in regressive form of taxation ? Where is the confe rence were more ideologically an economically responsible fa shion . an economically astute policy advocate in line with the participants than with Maintaining a healthy economy is the when you need one? • the boffins in Treasury. The presenters only way to create jobs and pay for argued that economic analysis is often education and healthcare, and it is an Peter Hartnett is an investment banker hijacked by politicians and over-sim underrated achievement of the dismal with a social conscience. plified by journalists. A good analysis science that we have learnt to takes into account the wider impact prevent recessions becoming of social policy, even if only in a mon 1930s style depressions. etary sense. Reducing unemployment, Economists often sound as for example, indirectly saves costs in though they have just walked the provision of healthcare and off the set of an episode of Yes, law enforcement. Minister. I recall a wonderful episode in which the Minister W ILE POLICY ADVOCATES must is excited to find that spending engage in economic debate, in so doing a relatively small amount of they risk conceding that economic money to reduce smoking arguments are pre-eminent, and that we would result in huge savings "TI1 ese seven men will live on in the hearts must becom e a cost-effective society. to the health system. Then, and minds of our community. Oh how Using economic cost-benefit analyses in magnificent bureaucratic much the world -wide Anglican Church to secure funding may make it more mumbo-jumbo, h e is at the moment could learn from th eir witness:' likely that such analyses will becom e persuaded not to do so because mandatory for all social programs. the go vernm en t couldn't Rich ard Ca rter, chaplain to This migh t not always be appropri afford to pay the pension to the Melanes ian Brotherhood ate. Given a limited budget for drug all those people living for so enforcem ent, it might be sensible to much longer. establish the most cost-effective way to Economic terms are not "Our current Prime Minister appreciates the spend it, however cost-benefit analysis just used to hide unpalatable power of the sy mbolic when it is a matter of also shows that the treatment of drug decisions. They are used to being photographed am idst healthy young soldiers or sports people, but not when it addicts is economically inefficient deal with complex matters comes to acknowledging sorrow." m ore lives would be saved by fo regoing in the most convenient way, all drug rehabilitation and redirecting and to make definitions pre- Bp Philip Huggins on these resources to oth er areas of h ealth cise, even if precisely wrong. South Africa and Redfern care. Most in our community would The accepted definition of unemployment, for example, consider this unacceptable. Mention this ad for a free sample copy of 7MA Policy advocates must also be aware is to have looked for work Phone: (03) 9653 4221 that economics is the traditional home during the past week but to or email: [email protected] ground of conservatives, who often have have worked for less than two 40 EUREKA STREET APR IL 2004 rclig1on Annette Binger The ministry of women RCGARDHSS m cmmR m APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 41 my Judaism inspires me to behave properly, and I learned that to be a "mensch" [an honourable person]-which is totally from people like him.' formulated on the basis of what I understand Judaism to be-l Aviva Kipen, 51, was the first Australian woman to cannot be an Australian, I cannot be a woman, I cannot be a receive rabbinic ordination in the Progressive (also known as mother, I cannot be a teacher, I cannot find a way of separat Reform or Liberal) stream of Judaism in London in 1991, and ing those identities from my Judaism.' is one of three female rabbis in Australia. She is an imposing woman who expresses herself with expansive arm gestures, Rev Sue Gorn1ann has been known to blow kisses to members of her congrega tion during a service and, at her own admission, is an invet 'I didn't have a religious upbringing and when I was 14 erate talker. 'The problem is to shut me up', she says. When thought the church was rubbish. At 16 or 17 I was even Bentleigh Progressive Synagogue invited her to become their antagonistic.' rabbi in 2001, she believes it was who she was, that was up for Not any more. In September 2003, Sue Gormann was consideration, not her gender. inducted as Moderator of the Uniting Church, Victoria and Tas 'I had a whole lot of life experiences that made me a much mania, as the church's spiritual head in both states, and at 43 is more approachable person than a stereotypically male, bearded the youngest person in Australia to take on the appointment. rabbi fresh from rabbinical school. So, in fact, I did 'The position comes with a lot of responsibility', she says. not find much resistance because of my gender.' 'And it's really quite overwhelming because there aren't many positions where you are voted in by 500 people and have to get 66 A S A TEENAGER, KIPEN did not do well at school, didn't per cent of the vote'. matriculate and felt she was branded as being quite odd. 'There Sue was previously the Chaplain at Methodist Ladies Col were rays of pleasure in my teenage years that had nothing to lege in Melbourne and recently gave the sermon at an MLC cer do with school,' she says. 'I loved singing and joined the choir emony in the Melbourne Town Hall. She began her sermon with at St Kilda Synagogue, partly also to perve at the good a story about new communication tech looking boys. When everyone else went out for a fag dur nologies-her excitement at receiving ing the sermon I would stay and listen to Rabbi Lubof emails and text messages-which created ski, an electrifying preacher, who nourished my love of an instant rapport with the young women Judaism and made it possible, even for the occasional in the audience. 'It's a knack she has', said girl, to get some serious scholarship and engage with a teacher. 'People are drawn to her'. Jewish issues.' So, what brought about her dramatic Had she been a man, Kipen says she would have shift in attitude to the church? It wasn't attended rabbinical school by the time she was 25, but until her late teens, she says, after being there simply weren't any women rabbis at that time. introduced to the Uniting Church by So instead, she became a primary school teacher, mar friends and experiencing the effect of ried-but is now divorced and single-had a daughter 'authentic relationships'. and moved overseas, much to the consternation of 'I listened to Gospel stories and heard friends and relatives. how God was seen in the life of Jesus. 'I think everyone expected I would stay exactly as Rev Sue Gormann Jesus became this radical life choice that I was. Thankfully all that went out the door with my cut across politics ... everything. It must generation. I left teaching, trained as an adult trainer in indus have been a powerful change in my thinking because all my fam try, returned to teaching so I'd have enough time to do an Arts ily came with me after that. Three of us are now ministers.' degree at night, went to rabbinical school and then returned Even though the Uniting Church has ordained women since to Australia 17 years later as a trained and experienced rabbi, amalgamation in 1977, Sue feels that women still have a chal ready to work in a completely new way, in a new identity, in a lenging time in traditionally male roles. She has to continually new moment of history where women were able to do that.' remind herself that only 35 years ago women didn't receive equal Working at Bentleigh Progressive Synagogue takes up pay and had to resign from work when they had a baby. about one and a half days of Kipen's week, but her diary looks Throughout her religious career, Sue has combined work like a coloured maze with numerous commitments. She is a with motherhood, but has also taken time out to devote herself PhD candidate at Monash University, works at the Education to parenting her two children. Her advice to other women in min Department credentialing teachers in religious instruction istry is to 'keep your hand in' when children are small, but not to from non-Jewish and non-Christian religions, and received a be too hard on yourself either-enjoy the different stages of life. Centenary Medal for her work with multi-cultural commu 'At this stage of my life I feel that anything is possible. But nities. Kipen has worked for the Department of Premier and I might not have felt that way six years ago when my children Cabinet in Victoria helping design large, public religious events were younger. I think women need to listen to those needs and to mark the centenary of Federation and September ll, and has give themselves a break.' • conducted 36 funerals this year-only two of which were for synagogue members. Annette Binger is a freelance writer, living in Melbourne and 'The work I do with other communities is also Jewish currently working on a novel for young adults. work. It may not appear in the vocabulary of someone from an orthodox position, but in my understanding of what it m eans Photo by Pru Taylor. 42 EUREKA STRE ET APRI L 2004 Jim David son Cultural collapse The Twilight of American Culture, Morris Berman. Norton, 2001. ISBN 0 393 04879 9, RRP $26.95 T"BOOK" pwmpted by' pmdox. hospital insurance part of Medicare Christianity is one aspect of it, another At a time when American culture has going bust by 201 5. Partly this is due is N ew Age faddism (much m ore pro never been m ore pervasive and at a time to the problem Costello identified nounced in America). Berman is perhaps when America itself has become the here: life expectancy is rising, fertil least satisfactory here, lunging about as hyperactive hegemonic power, Morris ity rates are falling. This is not helped he only half-proves his case. Yes, a lot Berman nonetheless argues that as a civi by an American national debt that of common courtesy has been lost. Yes, lisation, and even as a state, it is show continues to accelerate, or by an elec there is a constant slagging of 'elites' ing signs of die-back. On the surface, all torate which doesn't want taxes to (which doesn't m ean, as it should, the points to a kind of renewal but 'a super increase-but isn't happy about people who actually run the country). ficial vitality', he writes, 'is hardly the lower benefits, either! And yes, as Paul Fussell writes, 'Nothing same thing as a healthy culture. A false will thrive [in America] unless inflated dawn is not a real one'. B ERMAN'S NEXT FACTOR is perhaps by hyperbole and gilded with a fi ne coat There are fo ur particular characteris the m ost devastating, 'the collapse of of fraud' . So it is hard not to agree with tics of contemporary America that feed American intelligen ce'. There are many Berm an's proposition, but only later Berman's pessimism . The firs t is the horror stories here, of a kind m ore or less does he m ake it clear what he's driving increasing social and economic inequal fa m iliar already. But the sheer weight of at. 'Civilisation is impossible without a ity. We are becom ing used to statistics this culture- lite, a sm othering in doona hierarchy of quality', he states, 'and as like those which point to the fact that feathers, m akes depressing reading. soon as that gets fl atten ed in to a m ass up till 1973, all levels of society ben There are high sch ool kids who can't phenom enon, its days are numbered'- efited, more or less, fr om a rise in real nam e the three branches of government, N ot only civilisation will go, though, wages; since 1973, it has only been the but can readily com e up with the names but also freedom . Berman's first epigraph highest quintile. The bottom 40 per cent of the Three Stooges, and is a quote from Jefferson: has actually experienced a decline in real so on. Educational insti MORRIS BERMAN 'N o people can be both income. And whereas in 1973 the typical tutions in m any respects ...... -···. ignorant and free.' Third CEO of a large company earned about 40 have been hollowed out: World status for all is tim es that of a typical worker, today it students, at all levels, It coming, he is certain, would not be uncommon for that figure expect info tainment. for 'dem ocracy has tradi- to be 400 times as much. Berman shows how col tionally depended on the Less well known is that since 1979, leges and universities in THE TWILIGHT OF existence of high literacy, som e 43 million jobs have gone in the United States have a large middle class, and Am erica. The squeeze is on. Desperate been happy to oblige, as a flexible hierarchy'. for any work at all, the underclass glumly knowledge has becom e These are all going under. accept worsening conditions and wages commodified. Daringly AMfRICAN The m asses are becom knowing that Third World people may he likens their position ing more indifferent, the take their jobs, either by coming to to that of the church in elites less accountable Am erica, or by staying at hom e, where the late Middle Ages, and m ore nepotistic. As the jobs are increasingly outsourced. selling indulgen ces (now in Rom e, spectator sports Meanwhile Am erica itself, with its diplom as or degrees) so L~l~~~f provide ever greater mass in crease in ga ted communities and vis that people can get into diversion . ibly entrenched privilege, takes on more heaven (i.e. a well-paying job ). The real Berman engages in a comparison with and more of a Third World aspect. problem is that faith in their own enter the decline of Rom e, and m akes som e The second factor to be noted-and prise has been sapped, exacerbated by the useful points. The growing division one that is now in evidence here-is the effect of postmodernist dogma. Berman between rich and poor was evident there, increasing incapacity of the state to han quotes a French philosopher: 'Once hat too, particularly when it cam e to the dle support programs and m anage grow ing culture becomes cultural in itself, the landowning class; and one of the reasons ing socioeconomic problem s. In America, life of the m ind loses all significance.' why the Eastern Rom an Empire urvived predi ctions m ore alarming than Peter The fourth and final factor to be much longer, he claims, was that there a Costello's, warn that Social Security noted is spiritual death. The rise of peasant proprietorship was much m ore will becom e insolvent by 2004, with the superstition and newer, shoddy form s of entrenched. Turning to state incapacity A PRIL 2004 EU RE KA STRE ET 43 Anna Stt·aford to m eet financial commitments, he cites the immense growth in standing armies and the spectacular instances of currency debasement. Spiritual and intellectual debasem en t also occurred, with dumbing Reality versus illusion down evident in the decline of sophisti cation in surviving Latin texts. The Twilight of American Culture is, then, a pessimistic book. Globalisation will surf along on the integration that T NNOSm W 44 EUREKA STREET APR IL 2004 books: > Godfrey Moase Legal riddles Litigation: Past and Present, Wilfrid Prest & Sharyn Roach Anlcu. UNSW Press, 2003. ISBN 0 86840 550 7, RRP $65.00 Adventures in Law and Justice: Exploring Big Legal Questions in Everyday Life, Bryan Horrigan. UNSW Press, 2003. l~BN 0 86840 572 8, RRP $39.95 TUWTYm, GWERAUSATWN' Prest and Sharyn Roach Anleu. It provides s much needed quantitative and qualitative and assumptions are everywhere in our ,Ad ... entures in lives. I wonder how often we actually data on the subject of litigation. Prest and stop to think what exactly is the basis LAW& Anleu tackle issues such as case manage for most of our opinions/ For instance, JUSTICE ment, judges' workloads, approaches to E)(ploring during most of history the majority of big legal qur•tlon• indigenous activism in court and legal people thought that human flight was access, in a thorough manner. impossible. Litigation also takes an historical A contemporary perception is law /;1)) view, examining litigation in a range of yers are greedy ambulance chasers incit contexts from medieval England to con ing people to litigate. This is one factor, temporary Australia. I was amazed to amongst others, that erodes a sense of find dramatic increases and falls in the personal responsibility. When things go volume of cases in early modern English wrong, we look to blame others. The society. Litigiousness, it seems, is not result is a litigation explosion which under sensationalised and shallow. just a contemporary issue. mines community cohesion and trust. This Questions of native title and the While some may find a book dedi may be true to a certain extent but is it the treatment of asylum seekers continue cated to the topic of litigation boring-and whole story? to be, two of the most divisive issues in Litigation: Past and Present is more aca Litigation: Past and Present and Australia. One of the things common to demic in style than Adventures in Law Professor Bryan Horrigan's Adventures in both is the use of a perceived divide in and Ju stice-it has important public policy Law and Ju stice are two books that deal opinion between 'chardonnay socialists' ramifications. Especially in light with common misconceptions about the and the 'battler'. This rhetorical device is '"T""' of recent tort law reform. law. Given that big legal questions arise used to manipulate existing prejudices and from so many political and moral prob misconceptions for the benefit of powerful .l.oRT LAW, PARTICULARLY the tort of lems, the breadth of Adventures in Law interests. Adventures in Law and Ju stice negligence, has often been blamed for the and Justice is wide, making it an excellent deftly deals with these and other major insurance industry crisis that has swept introductory book to the major issues fac questions, such as the republic, a bill of Australia, threatening access to medi ing the Australian legal system. It is also rights, and the war against terror, sweep cal care and the continuance of valuable worthwhile reading for those more experi ing away the sensational claims that tend community services. State parliaments enced with the law. to cloud the debate. responded by curbing some of the common Horrigan has a broadly postmodern Adventures in Law and Justice also law legal rights we possess, placing caps on approach and applies a coherent philo presents a challenge; to improve public compensation payouts. Yet Prest and Anleu sophical method to his topics. To dismiss legal knowledge. Horrigan says, ' ... com point out other factors were also contribu Adventures in Law and Ju stice on ideological munity legal literacy remains largely unp tors, such as the HIH collapse. grounds would be to miss the point, which is rioritised and relatively under funded in According to Prest and Anleu, the to delve into the big legal questions. government plans'. In our democratic sys media-with the assistance of certain Many conservative commentators tem public legal and political literacy is of interest groups-has helped to maintain write endlessly of the divide between supreme importance. the appearance of a 'litigation explosion'. 'elite' and 'common' opinion. While it Adventures in Law and Ju stice makes a The response by Australian governments would be foolish to deny the existence of powerful case for legal and political reform has been to water down our legal rights, this gulf, it would be too easy to label it and attitudinal change. As Maxine McKew thereby exposing insurance companies to as a sign of how irrelevant 'elite' thought writes in the foreword Horrigan is less risk. Prest and Anleu draw broad impli is. Instead, what I think it signifies is a 'iconoclastic'. cations regarding power relations, particu gap, in Horrigan's words 'a nationwide larly between our governments, media and gulf in public understanding about law M cKEw ALSO RECOGNISES that, 'we've well-funded interest groups, and law reform and government'. Horrigan eloquently never been more litigious'. Many would in democratic societies. • argues for a more rigorous and philosophi likely agree with her. Does the evidence sup cal approach to resolving the important port this claim? Litigation: Past and Present Godfrey Moase is a law student at the questions at a time when public debate is is a collection of essays edited by Wilfred University of Melbourne. APRIL 2004 EUREKA STREET 45 Georgina Costello Don't give the green light to the red light district L E TASMAN 46 EUREKA STREET APRIL 2004 short list The Murdoch Archipelago, Bruce Page. Simon & The World from Islam, George Negus. Harper Schuster, 2003. ISBN 0 74323 936 9, RRP $49.95 Collins, 2003. ISBN 0 7322 7623 3, RRP $29.95 Chronicling the life of Rupert Murdoch and 'Salam !' Was the m essage inscribed in the his empire was never going to be easy. Thus front cover of my copy of The World From when Bruce Page begins the opening chapter Islam by author and journalist George Negus. recounting the history of terra nullius, the The Arabic greeting means peace, a theme reader knows they are in for the long haul. which dominates the book as Negus unravels The Murdoch Archipelago's strength is the colourful tapestry of the Islamic faith. that it strays from the typical biographical Broadcaster Negus uses a technique where style. There is limited mention of wives and he focuses on the extremes of Islam to give children and the story is not sentimentalised. voice to a moderate, peaceful religion. He Instead, Page chooses to trace the complex business of the gathers his information from some of his travels-from Gaza to Murdoch media kingdom. Page argues that in this age of electronic Dubai and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre-to the company of multi-national media, entertainment has replaced information Suha Arafat, the Christian wife of the leader of the PLO. and commercial interests are paramount. However, to the media Negus interviews those who are willing to speak to him, enthusiast-and one would have to be, to tackle a treatise of this recording their explanations to help decipher their misunder length- this is nothing new. stood religion. The Murdoch Archipelago joins the dots between the countries Negus appeals to a very Australian audience, addressing each linked by Murdoch enterprise: Australia, Britain and the United issue and attempting to give all sides a 'fair go.' He also writes States. Page manages to make sense of Murdoch's 'tactical populism' on US foreign policy, and it's effect on Australia and on Islam. He that was once too gargantuan and cunning to fully appreciate. writes in the style of a broadcaster-the words seeming to lift off In addition, the historical quotations at the start of each chapter the page in his broad Aussie accent. provide quaint food for thought and some political context. 'People like being Muslim, whether they pray five times a day, Bruce Page demonstrates staggering attention to detail and go to Hajj, wear a hijab, they like it. It's like being a Collingwood tireless research. This can be both a curse and a blessing. While supporter.' he says, inciting the response from his interviewer at the the book is full of relevant information for understanding the Melbourne Writer's Fe tival, 'Though probably more honourable'. climate of today's media industry, the narrative is encumbered by The book depicts a distinctly Middle-Eastern Islam as opposed to too many facts. Th e Murdoch Archipelago is essential reading for a world view. It explains the pillars of Islam for a Western audience, the niche audience of m edia afficionados and professionals. deciphering the significance of the declaration of faith, Hajj, prayer, -Kate Stowell alms-giving and fasting for Muslims. Negus does well in removing the stigma attached to Islam Achieving Social Justice: Indigenous Rights created by fundamentalism. His simplified study of the religion Lanna Behrendt and Australia's Future, Larissa Behrendt. The makes his book an important read for Australians and one of it's Federation Press, 2003. IS BN l 86287 450 6, timely reminders is that terrorism is fundamentally un-Islamic. RRP $29.95 - Beth Doherty When the Law School at university set us a piece of assessment on Native Title, we A Story Dreamt Long Ago, Phyllis McDuff. ~~ wondered how useful it would be to know how Bantam Australia, 2003. ISBN l 86325 400 5, Justice to legally extinguish indigenous property rights. RRP $29.95 ~~~~.~« Larissa Behrendt's book provides an answer to Though innumerable accounts have been the question. Behrendt draws indigenous issues written of people's experiences during, and into the wider discourse about Australia's moral in the aftermath of, the Second World War, future. The book counsels that we should stop there are still individual stories that present asking whether such knowledge is 'useful' and begin to look at the a different perspective. A Story Dreamt Long injustices in this country. Ago is one such account. The book begins with a routine analysis of the rights that have Pl,,ll ; . ~ l .t l.,££ McDuff's background in storytelling is been created post-Mabo. Behrendt then argues that the protection immediately evident as she recounts the offered to Indigenous Australians by legal and political institutions is history of her family, with the focus on her enigmatic mother. too fragile when one government can extend rights and protections, This memoir has the tone of being handed down by word of and another can swiftly relinquish them. Behrendt argues for a series mouth. The writing is plain. The focus is the remarkable story of symbolic and substantive solutions based on rights and pressing itself and the clues McDuff gathers from her mother's family needs like healthcare. The legal, political, economic and cultural and friends. Indeed, the history reads like a mystery novel and institutions in this country need to be stirred into a different way includes travels through exotic locations, two Picasso drawings of being, one that truly incorporates Indigenous peoples and their which are unable to be identified, and a large cast of characters voices. Behrendt advocates recognition of Indigenous sovereignty as all holding a piece of the puzzle. the first practical step in this process. Although the writing sometimes slip into sentimentality Achieving Socialfustice is another important element of social particularly in one or two of the anecdotes about McDuff's justice discourse. What we need now are writers which take up its father-the overall tale has the air of an authentic mystery and themes and deliver them to a wider audience. -Emily Millane makes for an engaging read. -Chloe Wilson APRIL 2004 EU REK A STREET 4 7 these tensions ('objective' documentation is anachronistic-as if h is 21st-century versus 'subjective' aestheticism, 'rational' cinematic-or spiritual- imagination statistical analysis versus human cost) in were not equal to the task. a single image: the view from a bomber When the film is not mind-numbingly flash in the pan as it flies over the burning ruins of Tokyo violent (the scourging seems as long as the dropping not bombs, but numbers, statis chariot race in Ben Hur) it can be moving. tics. This is not a 'documentary' image, The spoken and unspoken communi but it captures what is essential about cation between m other and son (Maia The view of a hawk documentary: not reality, but rather how Morgenstern as Mary, James Caviezel as the choices we make about how we grasp Jesus) is potent. The Fog of War dir. Errol Morris, takes as and represent reality constitute questions Is the film anti-Semiticl Well, it por its subject former US Secretary of Defense not only of ethics, but also of power. More trays the Sanhedrin as unalloyed in their Robert McNamara, a man described as importantly, it also demands we ask our determination to destroy Jesus (why? an IBM machine on legs, and a coldly selves if the picture of reality illustrated we don't learn), and while they inveigh rational hawk held responsible by many by our political leaders is an adequate against him, Satan (Rosalinda Celentano) for pushing Lyndon Johnson into the basis for their actions on our behalf. glides between their ranks. You decide. Vietnam War. Errol Morris certainly offers WMD anyone? -Morag Fraser a more complex perspective on the man. - Allan James Thomas McNamara's reflections on the processes by which the US drew itself into a war he Station master now clearly regards as a mistake, have a Borrowed memories startlingly direct message for the current The Station Agent, dir. Tom McCarthy. course of US foreign policy. At one point The Passion of the Christ, dir. Mel Gibson. When in the second week of release a McNamara says apropos of Vietnam, 'If The phenomenon preceded the film. As film earns double what it made in the we can't persuade nations with compara my aunt and I walked into Adelaide's first, cinemas know they have a 'sleeper' ble values of the m erit of our cause, we'd Norwood multiplex we were handed on their hands. The Station Agent is one better re-examine our reasoning'. glossy brochures. Director's notes? N o, such film. The more fundam ental problem that a Bible Society Mal 48 EUREKA STREET APRI L 2004 your interest. Factually the plot is sim a wealthy middle-aged artist who has at least not while we're watching! ple, yet the character interplay is com taken refuge in a cocoon of grief after the At its end, what crises lie ahead are plex and challenging. death of her son. She first meets Fin when anyone's guess, but why fret when you've Fin (Peter Dinklage, recently seen in she nearly runs him over. just been privileged to spend 90 minutes Elf) is a train enthusiast who works in Three remarkable performances in the company of these characters? Hoboken, in the back room of a m odel engulf the screen, and result in a wonder Don't miss The Station Agen t. railway shop. The owner dies and leaves fully satisfying film . -Gordon Lewis Fin a rural property in N ew Jersey upon This is a first film for writer and direc which there is an abandoned train depot, tor Tom McCarthy, who has previously an old railway car and a section of rail been a film and television actor. Unremitting way track, all of which have stood idle Some of the best mom ents have no fo r years. dialogue at all. In one scene the odd trio Irreversible, dir. Gaspar N oe. Form Fin is a dwarf, tired of stares and take a walk along a disused railway line. over function. Or should I say cin tired of being pointed at. He is a man of For Fin, the distance between sleepers ematic trickery over real cultural and extraordinary presence who has suffered is just about right. For Joe and Olivia, emotional investigation. Irreversible, a for being different. The depot has no the sleepers are too close together. N o, film told backwards (o pening with the water or electricity, but it off ers peace. It nothing else happens! Ju st three fri ends end credits and weaving its way back is an opportunity to be left alone. walking along a railway line, but it is an from brutality to tranquility), traces the events of a young woman's brutal rape and her boy friend's revenge. Opening with swirling cam era m ovem ents and an inscrutable conversation between two down and out m en, this film takes you from the violent sexuality of a hard core gay night club to the light hearted sexual play of a young cou ple in love. T he impenetrable m ean derings of the overly anx ious cam era operator felt contrived, the airy-fairy pop philosophy of the tag line (time destroys eve rything) was pretentious, the 'clever' structure was laboured and artful, and the violence exposed nothing except shock and horror. Irreversible was such a sadly wasted exercise in brutality fr om a doubtlessly talented team-fine actors and talented craftspeople flirting precociously with a Peter Di nklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Ca nnava le in Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent. subject that wa rrants graver That aloneness lasts for one night, enchanting scene. cultural treatment. then to his dism ay Fin wakes up to find There are several scenes which involve I don't doubt the intentions of this a hotdog and coff ee van parked close by. abrasive personal confrontation, which I project were noble, but its execution was The van is run by Joe (Bobby Cannavale), felt were irrelevant, but presumably were devoid of real gravitas. Played in a more a human puppy who ga mbols around the introduced for fear of the film becoming conventional narrative style this film reticent Fin. Fin doesn't know whether to cloying. McCarthy n eed not have worried, would, I suspect, have gone relatively pat him or tell him to sit. He is as loqua because this fi lm is devoid of self-pity or unnoticed. Although its shock value cious as Fin is taciturn. false sentimentality. Indeed, contrary would have remained, its threadbare con And then there is Olivia (played by to Hollywood tradition, none of the tent might have been easier to pick . that spl endid actress, Patricia Clarkson ), relationships go quite where we anticipate, -Siobhan Jackson APR IL 2004 EUREKA STREET 49 watching brief Hot buttered bliss ERWHAnvm REASON, I neve< 50 EU REKA STR EET APRIL 2004 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM puzzled Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 122, April 2004 ACROSS l. English flower festival with accompanying funny duet, say, in 7-down. (6J) 10. Go other way, left perhaps, to find the blessed liquid! (4,5) ll. Direction taken in minor thesis. (5) 12. Keen to control wild anger with a change of direction. (5) 13. Does one hold it to steer the ship, or would he rather cultivate the soil? (3,6) 14. Formerly tense or taut, we hear, the muscle is used for stretching. (8) 16. What possible use are lines in a pattern to French astronomersl (6) 19. In speech, similar rantings characterise such a fool, for instance. (6) 20. Count down in order to the day Lent ends? (8) 22. Part after a grim breakdown? Long-winded nonsense! (9) 24. Papal office distinguished by triple symbol. (5) 25. When will he have the bottle? Could be never. (5) 26. Pet hate in Paris? (4,5) 27. Looking for a spiritual dimension, perhaps, through deep self-analysis. (4-9) DOWN Solution to Crossword no. 121, March 2004 2. 'See you later' one could say in rhyming slang to this reptilian beast. (9) 3. Transporter to the castle? (5) 4. Turning of the earth in sequence? (8) 5. Wind back? Sounds fanciful. (6) 6. Dispatched workers about information technology with som e feeling. (9) 7. Many are tricked on its opening day. (5) 8. Change hose, putting them into pairs again, for sole service, m aybe. (4,9) 9. Highways where Thomas briefly consumes coarse food. (13) 15. Plain Reno could be a city without equal. (9) 17. High spirits about Evelyn, in short, achieving such eminence. (9) 18. Look to past lore, perhaps, for one's guiding principle. (4,4) 21. Change the leader for twice Russian money. (6) 23. Does former reclusive film star collect the rubbish ? (5) 24. Quarter way through 20-across would give you this place. (5) Thi s subscription is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill in your own contact details, left) D New D Renewal D Gift IMrs/M1Ss/Ms/Mr F1rst Name F1rst Name Length of subscripti on: Surname D One year (1 0 iss ues for $70, $60 concession for Street Name Street Name pensioners, students and un employed. Inc. CST.) 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The Petrov Affair by Robert Manne The defection of a Russian spy, the tearful rescue of his wife from a Russia-bound plane, an election won by a government previously well behind in the polls, a divided Opposition party and a Royal Commission, is a tale of the 1950s. But in Australia after Tampa and Iraq, the intricacies of the Petrov Affair bear rumination. Robert Manne's account, revised for the 50th anniversary of the case, is both a well-told story and an example of the detached and sceptical reflection we need in times of political passion, as well as in retrospect. With thanks to Text Publishing, Eureka Street has ten copies of The Petrov Affair to give away. Just send your name and address on the back of an envelope to: Eureka Street April Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121. See page 6 for winners of the December and January-February book offers. J oin a richly diverse group of p riests, religious, and lay ministers for study and reflection in our residential sabbatical program located in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts. D iscover a renewed call to ministry after you have been truly refreshed. WESTON JESUIT ScHooL oF THEOLOGY AN INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL (ENTER For information please contact: Office of Admi ssions · Weston jesuit School of Theology 3 Phi llips Pla ce • Cambridge, MA 02138 -3495 USA • Phone (617) 492·1960 · Fax (617) 492·5833 Admissio [email protected] • www.wjst.edu