What's on the Australian I:URI:-KA STRI:-ET & PEN GUIN Special Book Offer PENGUIN 60S CLASSICS
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Vol. 6 No. 6 July1 August 1996 $5.95 What's on the Australian I:URI:-KA STRI:-ET & PEN GUIN Special book Offer PENGUIN 60s CLASSICS A whole library in one black box. Spice your winter reading with 60 pocket-sized editions of the classics, including Aristophanes, Balzac, Cervantes, Conrad, St Augustine, Dante, Darwin, George Eliot, Plato, Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe and Edith Wharton. This month, thanks to PENGUIN, we have four complete boxed sets of Penguin 60s Classics, each worth $65.00, to give away. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and send it to Eureka Street July/August Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond, 3121. Australian Book Revie-w Australian Volunteers Abroad (AVAs) work the essential magazine in many occupations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and Latin America. Lengths of assignment vary, for Australian books but are usually up to two years. Salaries are modest but cover overseas living costs. IN JULY: You may be a qualified professional or lnga Clendinnen reviews Robert Manne's tradesperson looking for a change, or perhaps The Culture of Forgetting a recent graduate wanting to gain experience, or maybe a retiree with skills and knowledge Henry Reynolds reviews Ted Egan's to share ... Justice All Their Own If you 're interested in finding out about the AVA program, contact the Overseas Service Bureau. Jack Hibberd on the screenplays of Cosi and Bad Boy Bubby Appl ications are being rece ived now. An essay by Liam Davison And a symposium on the Public Intellectual NEW SUBSCRIBERS - $44 FOR TEN ISSUES WA : 09 382 3503 SA: 08 410 2770 WITH A BONUS BOOK OLD: 07 38911168 NSW 02 2111277 Subscriptions may be phoned or faxed PO Box 350 Fitzroy VIC 3065 Ph: 03 9279 1788 iii w Ph (03) 9663 8657 Fax (03) 9663 8658 2 EUREKA STREET • JmY/Auc usT 1996 Volume 6 Number 6 EURI:-KA SJRI:-ET July/August 1996 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology 36 CoNTENTS THE CONTEXT OF ABUSE Peter Lynch traces the history of sexual abuse in the Church. 4 COMMENT 38 BOUGAINVILLE ESCALATES 7 James Griffin details the new hostilities. CAPITAL LETTER 41 If we are a third-rate 8 OUR REPUBLICAN HERITAGE HIGHER EDUCATION SPECIAL Australia is republican in essentials, economy, then we can It's not looking good, say Tony Coady, argues Philip Pettit. only afford a third-rate Bruce Williams, Jon Greenaway, and Desmond &Roland Manderson. 46 'quality of life', SCEPTICISM AND TABOOS including third-rate 13 What can be gleaned from the LETTERS Demidenko debate, asks Raimond Gaita. higher education. 16 And if it is true that 50 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE BOOKS the sacred cow of David Braddon-Mitchell argues that Peter Steele looks for golden pavements tolerance is not enough in New Zealand 'privatisation' affords in The Oxford Book of Londoni racial politics. Max Teichmann has reservations illusory comfort, about Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 18 Hitler's Willing Executioners {p52}i then our situation is ONE VOTE NO Jon Greenaway reviews R.M. Eversz's very dark indeed. Frank Brennan suggests that the US Shooting Elvis {p56) . Bill of Rights won't transplant here. -Tony Coady, The market 55 place of ideas, p8 . 22 IN MEMORIAM TALKING ON THE PRIVATE LINE Juliette Hughes pays tribute to Gerard Goggin and John Quiggin argue Ella Fitzgerald. that the privatisation of Telstra will be no party. 57 Cover: What's on the Australian MUCH LESS MIS-ERY EN SCENE mind. Graphic by Tim Metherall, 27 Geoffrey Milne records developments in design by Siobhan Jackson. ARCHIMEDES recent Aboriginal Theatre. Photograph p6 by Greg Scullin. Graphics pp8, 10, by Tim Metherall. 28 59 Photographs ppl1-12 by Jon Greena CONTEMPT FOR THE LAW FLASH IN THE PAN way. Do we do the law justice, asks Moira Reviews of the films The Last Supper; Graphi cs pp16, 17, 18- 19, 37, 46 Rayner. Shine; Richard IIi; Bitter Herbs and by Siobhan Jackson. Photograph pp22-23 by Bill Thomas. Honey; What I have Written; Cable Guy; Cartoons p24, 25, 26 by Dean Moore. 30 and of the history of the Swinburne Film Cartoon p28 by Andrew Marlton. RADIATING LIFE School, Renegades by Barbara Paterson Cartoons pp31, 32, 33, 34 by Robyn Cooper heads off a brain tumour. (p61). Peter Fraser. Photograph p41 by Andrew Stark. Eureka Street magazine 35 62 Jesuit Publications POETRY WATCHING BRIEF PO Box 553 Too Man y Mira cles, & Bad Dreams, Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1 Christmas Eve (p39) by Peter Porter. 63 Tcll03) 9427 73 11 Ballad, by Dimitris Tsaloumas (p47). Fax 103) 9428 4450 SPECIFIC LEVITY VOLUME 6 NUMBER 6 • EUREKA STREET 3 CoMMENT I:URI:-KA STRI:-£1" MORAG FRASER A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Winners Editor Morag Fraser Consulting editor Michael McGirr SJ Assistant editor Jon Greenaway Production assistants: Paul Fyfe SJ, Juliette Hughes, Chris Jenkins SJ, Amy Block, Siobhan Jackson, Dan Disney I Nrue W>NTm wm that Nod Pca,on announced hi''"~ Contributing editors ignation from the Northern Land Council and made the de Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ cision to hang up his shingle elsewhere, it was cheering, and Brisbane: Ian Howells SJ in some ways consoling, to get some good news about other Perth: Dean Moore Australians who have also devoted much of their working Sydney: Edmund Campion, Andrew Riemer, lives to the betterment of their people. Gerard Windsor Last year Jack Waterford (above left), editor of the European correspondent: Damien Simonis Canbena Times, wrote a long profile for Eureka Street of H. C. ('Nugget') Coombs (right), the man whose signature was Editorial board for so long on Australian banknotes, one of the now endan Peter L'Estrangc SJ (chair), gered breed of grand-vision public servants. Jack described Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey, Nugget Coombs as a man who 'had been the greatest living Valda M. Ward RSM, Trevor Hales, Australian for so long that he has almost vanished into the Marie Joyce, Kevin McDonald, scenery, his nagging and very modern messages almost tak Jane Kelly IB VM, Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ en for granted.' With the shape of Australian institutions and Austral Business manager: Sylvana Scannapiego ian assumptions mutating around us, it is bracing to listen Advertising representative: Ken Head to those nagging and very modern m essages of Nugget Patrons Coombs. 'What I want to do with such time as I have left is Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the support of Colin and Angela Carter; the to look at what Aborigines are doing where they are in some trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; position to make choices. There's some very exciting stuff,' Denis Cullity AO; W.P. & M.W. Gurry; he told Jack. At the time he was 89. Jack remarked then that Geoff Hill and Janine Perrett; Nugget was visibly frail and just a little conscious of his the Roche family. mortality. 'But not slowing down.' Well, the judges at this year's Australian Religious Press Eurelw Street magazine, ISSN 1036-1758, Association and the Australasian Catholic Press Association Australia Post Print Post approved endorsed Jack Waterford's view of Nugget Coombs and paid pp349181 /00314 tribute to the man himself when both bodies awarded Jack's is published ten times a year profile the prize for best Australian feature article for the by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 1995-1996 season. Their award is for fine journalism that 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121 looks beyond the story of the day but is alive to what makes Tel: 03 942 7 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450. e-mail: [email protected] the day matter. Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by They are a tribute to an exemplary life, and to mastery Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. of the journalist's craft, but their essential focus is towards Printed by Doran Printing, the future. 46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3 195. Still in celebratory mood: Eureka Street is also delighted © Jesuit Publications 1996. to announce that the Australasian Catholic Press Associa Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and tion's award for best social justice feature went to our regu fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a lar columnist, Moira Rayner, and the best photograph award stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for to our photographer Bill Thomas. Eureka Street has long been permission to reprint material from the magazine in debt to both for their zest and skill. It is a fine thing to see should be addressed in writing to: them thus acknowledged. The editor, Eurelw Street magazine, This is our winter double issue. See you again in Spring. PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121 . -Morag Fraser 4 EUREKA STREET • jULY/AUGUST 1996 COMMENT: 2 JoHNS. LEV1 Masada versus McDonald's 0 NL Y tN ISRAH COUW RWGtON •nd politiCS bt Damascus is the home of a dozen radical anti-Israel so closely linked. Only in Israel could there be two guerrilla groups. versions of the McDonald's hamburger franchise. In During the recent cease-fire negotiations, most one the 'Big Macs' and milk shakes are sold indis Israelis must have asked themselves how a fruitful criminately. In the other the biblical and rabbinical dialogue with Syrian President Assad could be restrictions concerning food are enforced. The meat expected after he contemptuously kept the American and the buns must be kosher. Milk and meat prod Secretary of State cooling his heels at the Damascus ucts may not be mixed and cheeseburgers are there airport.