• Ce1tholic Money IS Theologic'll College the root of East Melbourne CTC offers a variety of interesting, ~Ji ey gqm2 rga~ enriching and useful options also be a powerful force in making a positive change. I By putting your money with Austral ian Ethi cal Investment, you are investing in portfolios A selection of courses dedicated to benefit society and the environment. I T hey' re also th e longest es tab li shed ethi cal fund manage r in Au stra li a. I Wh ere is yo ur mo ney going? I PHONE 1800 021 227 FOR INFORMATION OR VISIT WWW.AUSTETHICAL.COM.AU Applicatio ns for in vestment ca n only be made on the form contained in th e current prospectus or sup erannuation offer document which is available from Australian Ethical In vestm en t Ltd. Past performan ce may not he indicative off uture returns.
AUSTRALIAN ETHICAL I NVESTMENT & SUPERANNUATION EUREKA STREE I ANNUAL DINNER 2003 Thursday 27 November 2003 7pm for 7.30pm NelNman College w!tn ~ue.st.s University of Melbourne 887 Swanston Street, Parkville Rod Quantock Cost: $85 per head Comedian, writer, director and produ FESt members and full-time students $70 per head Lynne Haultain RSVP: Friday 14 November 2003 as Master of Ceremonies Please note that seats are limited Bookings tel: (03) 9427 7311 Or email: [email protected] and the <)> Os: ' )> C Cl $:)> EUREKASTRE mN ~z ~ 0 s:-n "'"mC "'"'o"" n!:: n )> -j-n ( O'v I p T()f\''r o); LETTERS o::> m"', Y' 4 Cautious comparison, public attitudes 23 W indschuttle's W hi tewash ,_, -j o i and true integrity o m Robert Manne puts revisionist "-' )> history to the test. -j Vl"' )> COMMENT z 0 5 Andrew Hamilton Pastoral politics ON STAGE -j I 6 Francis Sullivan Taking responsibility m 0 38 Last word s r- 0 Christopher Wainwright on Dead Cl SNAPS HOT Man Walking. -< 8 Touch of the sun, inner happines , 42 Through a glass, darkly Germaine Greer and too much ga rlic John Carmody on Opera Australia's Lulu. THE MONTH'S TRAF FIC 9 Anthony Ham Dea th of the king POETRY 9 David Glanz Little argument 33 Peter Porter 10 Morag Fra ser Words to end winter Sleeping with the light on 36 Publisher Andrew Ham ilton Sl Peter Porter Editor Marce lle Mogg With blinds pulled down Ass istan t editor Susa nnah Bu ckl ey COLUMNS Graphic des igners )anneke Stort eboom 7 Ca pital Letter and Ben Hider IN PRINT Director Chris Gleeson st Ja ck Waterford Well-laid plans Bu si ness manager Mark Dowell 32 Language so lovely Marketing & advertising manager Kirsty Grant 11 Archimedes Subsc riptions Jess ica Battersby Tim Thwaites Unsexy science Chris Wallace- Crabbe on After Editorial, production and ad ministration Shal Eureka Street magazine, ISSN 1036-1758, 16 Denyi ng th e Grim Rea per philosophies for change by Mary Australia Post Print Post approved The Australian response to AIDS has Zournazi. pp349 18 1/003 14, is published ten times a been highly successful. Paul Sendziuk 43 Th e short I ist yea r by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, explains why. 300 Vi ctori a Street, Ri chmond VIC 3 121 Reviews of About face: A sian PO Box 55 , Ri chmond VIC 3 121 20 Who ca res about th e facts? Accounts of Australiai Diplomatic Tel: OJ 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 emai l: eu reka@ jespub.jes uit.org.a u Moira Rayner on Western Australia and Deceits: Government, Media and East http:/ / www.eurekas treet. eom.au/ the stolen generations. Timori The Complete Bool Recently the Vatican issued what h as formed the Dutch East Indies in the been aptly termed ' a call to arms' to all colonial days, before independence, is Catholics. Clearly the Vatican believes to remain forever a political unit . Why? Let's be cl ear that homosexual activity is not only Because that's the territory the Eu ropean wrong but also deserving of a public, colonialists ruled. It doesn't m at ter if Recently m any progressive activists have Cath olic condemnation . any of th e m any racial or religious or drawn an analogy between the form er This belief is at odds with its attitude to other groups that inhabit parts of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor paedophile activity. Until the secular press area n ever wanted to be ruled by the and the current Israeli occupation of forced it to change its mind, the Va tican Javan ese, who happen to be the m ost Palestinian territories in the West Bank believed that some paedophile activity populous group. Th eir country was and Gaza Strip. deserved not public condemnation, but part of th e Du tch Ea st Indies, so th ey This is also an analogy I have personally silence and a cover-up. are ruled by whoever is strong enough draw n in the past, both in order to confi rm This inconsisten cy does not trouble to dom in ate the wh ole area. It doesn't the merits of a clear-cut two-state solution the Vatican, but it troubles m any m atter either that the state th at t hey to the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict and also Catholics who, apparently, are expected agreed to be part of originally-those who to carefully delineate the precise limits by the Vatican to rally to the call an d add did agree-was not th e unitary Republic of such a solution. That is to clarify that ou r condemnation to its own. of Indonesia but the United States of 'Israel ou t of the West Bank and Gaza' The Vatican, of course, would not Indonesia, without the cen t ralised rule means precisely the same as 'Indonesia out have noticed it, but many Catholics are that was later imposed. of East Timor'. It does not and cannot m ean still trying, day by day, to live down The sam e, or simil ar, applies to the abolition of the state of Israel any m ore the sham e of belonging to a Church m an y other countries, especially in than East Timorese independence required w hose spiritual directors covered up Africa. Examples are Sudan- the Anglo the destruction of Indonesia. for paedophiles and, when eventually Egyptian Sudan, as it on ce was-and However, there are three fundam ental caugh t, tried to represent their part in N igeria. These are countries that seem differences between the two situations that worldwide disaster as n o more than destined by design to be bitterly divided. w hich need to be considered in any 'an error of ju dgm ent'. It applies too to situations resu lting balanced assessmen t. So we are not in the mood for con fro m th e interference of Western pow ers. Firstly, the East Tim orese never made demning hom osexual activity or partner Turk ey's boundaries reflect the desire of any dem ands on Indonesian territory ships. We have no desire to fl ourish the the Great Powers to deny the Kurds beyond their own state. In contrast, the Vatican 's condemnation in public debate, their own country, and deliberately split Palestinians continue to demand a Right of fo r that would only add to our sham e since them up only to becom e oppressed and Return of 1948 refugees to Israel proper, and it would leave us open and without an despised m inorities in oth er countries. the m ajor Islamic factions unequivocally an swer to the charge of hypocrisy. Using terri to rial integrity as a reason for demand all of Israel. John Haughey refraining from opposing the oppression Secondly, to the best of m y knowledge, Carlton, VIC of the Kurds by Turkey is tantamount to the East Timorese never attacked sacrificing the Kurds to the perpetuation Indonesian civilians anywhere outside of the results of Western manipulation. East Tim or. In contrast, m ost of the recent Drawing the line Is it too much to suggest that pleading Palestinian suicide/homicide bombings respect for territorial integrity as a reason have taken place against Israeli civilians From tim e to tim.e we h ear m ention for not intervening on behalf of an in Green Line Israel, rather than in the of the term 'territorial integrity'. The oppressed group could be called racism ? Palestinian Territories. n eed to respect territorial integrity was Ga van Breen Thirdly, the countries neighbouring recently invoked by Alexander Downer, Alice Springs, NT Indonesia never provided military or as a constraint aga inst intervening in the political support to the Eas t Tim orese, and Indon esian Government's suppression of certainly n ever funded extremist fac tions Aceh nationalism. N o-on e seem ed to ask, within East Tim or. In contrast, Israel's 'What is territorial integrity?' or 'Why do neighbours still support the Palestinian we need to respect it ?' Territorial integrity Eurt'!..a )ilt't'l wP icorllC'' l<'liCr<; from our re,ldPrs. intifada to a greater or lesser degree, and seem s to be one of those sacred cows, like Short lellers .:trc more likely to he publi>lll'd, and som e of them specifically fund Han1as and economic growth and mandates, which .1ll lellers m.1y be edited. Lcllcr'> mu>t lw signed, other extrem ist groups which are opposed those in power would have us believe are and shou ld inc Iurie ,, contact phone number ,mel to any two-state solution. beyond argument. the writer\ n,l lll(' ,1nd .lC icl rc•ss. Philip Mendes In th e case of Indon esia, territorial S('ncl tu: curek 4 EU REKA STRE ET OCTOBER 2003 t tll1111lt Ill I Andrew Hamilton Pastoral politics A HXANDER DowNER Master of Social Science RMIT University's Master of Social Science (Policy and Human Services) is one in lead ing government and non-government agencies. The revised program of the longest establi shed postgraduate course work socia l policy degrees will commence in 2004. in Australia. It is also one of the best. For more information contact the program co-ordinat or, It recognises the need for contemporary policy-makers and managers to develop Roger Trowbridge, [email protected], a rigorous intellectual and ana lytical understanding of poli cy processes that ph: (03) 9925 3798, or come to the School of Social Science and is well integrated with practical management, program development Planning Postgraduate Information Evening on Wednesday and eva lu ation capac ities. 15 October, 6pm- Bpm at the State Library of Victoria Conference The program has recently been comprehensive ly reviewed following Centre, Latrobe St, Melbourne. RSVP: [email protected], SC HOOL OF wide-ranging consultations in 2003 with employers and managers ph: (03) 9925 2739. SOCIAL SCIENCE & PLANNING 05974 OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 5 ( () 11 Francis Sullivan Taking responsibility TESTAGED WALKOUT by the s"te 'nd tenitmy Emergency departments remained clogged and leaders at the recent heads of government meeting ambulances were forced to bypass i1mer city for was calculated to keep unrest simmering in the health outer metropolitan hospitals. People were discharged services until the next federal poll. Dissatisfaction with earlier than ever before, with less home support, health care changes votes. Blaming a seemingly 'mean while Indigenous people suffered the worst health spirited' Commonwealth shifts the political risk and conditions of all Australians. provides cover to reduce health budgets, while directing In a nation increasingly shaped by commercial community ire towards Canberra. mind-sets, these are not impressive performance Labor leaders like to champion their commitment indicators. Governments at all levels baulk at to health care. More often than not the voters seem to setting realistic targets to reduce the rates of heart agree. The Prime Minister knows this and has raised disease, cancer, mental illness, arthritis, diabetes the stakes for Labor. By forcing the states to carry more and other chronic conditions. They readily of the funding for hospital services John Howard is instigate onerous tests for the unemployed and challenging Labor to match their political rhetoric with disabled but shrink from any tangible assessment money. Little wonder the Labor leaders are attempting of their own performances. to turn the tactic on its head. For them this is a To reduce the debate to blame and cost-shifting massive Commonwealth cut to public hospitals and is to belittle the importance of health. An effective reveals a hidden Coalition agenda to erode the benefits Medicare system requires sustainable investment of Medicare. It started with the Commonwealth's from public and private sources, and a wholehearted push to raise fees for drugs and medications, followed commitment to universal access. Political parties quickly by a GP package where more patient charges must appreciate that Australians regard health are envisaged. It is now compounded with a deliberate care as too fragile to be toyed with for attempt by the Commonwealth to 'turn the tap off' electoral gain. in paying for a free public hospital system. Access to essential care is increasingly determined by ability to 0 THER COUNTRIES have taken the leap to mod pay rather than need. ernise their universal health insurance systems to Political ideologies aside, the funding dispute improve access to hospital and primary medical care reveals a deeper divide. The shared government services. Both Canada and the United Kingdom have responsibilities for health are not evenly matched. recommitted to the goals we hold dear in our Medicare Although the states are correct to cite the almost system. The Canadians have even claimed that $1 billion reduction from the Commonwealth, their health care is a moral enterprise. protest is somewhat limp. They have gained nearly Australia should follow the lead and reclaim $7 billion from stamp duties last year alone. Their health as a social good. This means ensuring that all capacity to make up the health shortfall seems Australians receive the same level of access to essen- obvious. Yet they insist that their economies cannot tial care is firstly a community responsibility. This keep pace with the demand for services, the costs of sense of solidarity reflects our regard for each other. medical technology and the ageing of the population. If the Commonwealth, states and territories The risk management of the health system is need to better rationalise sharing the cost burden increasingly out of balance. The Commonwealth of health care then so be it. There is nothing wrong has responsibility for the viability of Medicare. This with seeking greater efficiency from government includes subsidies for medical services and listed spending. But these steps must not be used as a pharmaceuticals. The states and territories are respon smokescreen for governments to withdraw from sible for delivering the part of the insurance benefit their responsibilities. It is counter-productive to that gives free access to public hospitals. Although the shrink the involvement of government when at the promise of insurance exists for all, the capacity of the same time an ageing population requires innovation public hospital system to meet demand and evenly and investment to keep pace with the burden of dis distribute benefits is stretched. ease too many Australians face on their own. Last year up to 60 per cent of people with a It is time for government leaders to stage a 'walk diagnosed mental disorder did not receive an in' and recommit the country's resources for the appropriate service. Nearly 2000 public hospital health of everyone. patients should have been admitted to a nursing home. Up to 6000 disabled patients were waiting Francis Sullivan is the Chief Executive Officer of for appropriate accommodation in the community. Catholic Health Australia. 6 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 capital letter Well laid plans W EN PEOPLE CALCULATE the likelihood of thin&' going The situation in North Korea seems hardly likely to in1prove, pear-shaped for Jolm Howard, the usual assumption is of econom so too the prospects in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iraq is a night ic downturn, a bust in the housing bubble, sluggish world trade mare-to the Americans and the British, if not for us-and it's and increasing voter dissatisfaction over issues such as university unlikely that anything in the next 12 months will repair the much education and Medicare. On international matters, the Prime sabotaged roadmap to peace between Israel and Palestine. Minister is thought to have both the initiative and the advantage. Dangerous and unstable times, which make voters look for But most of the uncertainties of the year ahead are international, steady, reliable and calm hands on the tiller, right? Perhaps, if not particularly in our region. John Howard will be lucky if things for the role John Howard has himself played in creating some of work out as he hopes. Indeed, they could throw all the disadvan these hostilities, or in malting them worse, while assuring voters tages of his strategy into broad relief. that the worst would not happen, or that it did not matter if it did. Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia will have elec Who seemed insensitive to how som e of his smug statements, spo tions over the next year. It is hard to predict outcomes, even ken for domestic consumption, sounded in the regional capitals? harder to see how the results could work to Australia's ad Who has helped undermine the United Nations and the role of vantage. Indonesia will host the first popular election for the international law and, now that America has rediscovered this body, presidency: previously the president has been chosen by the is scrambling for a new position? Who has seemed impatient and ill parliament. It is doubtful that Megawati Sukarnoputri can win. at ease with Asian leaders, while unable to get Australia any polit While it is not clear who her opponent will be, at least one can ical dividends from appearing as the pig in the minefield for Amer didate should be a stalking horse for the TNI, the Indonesian ican pre-emptive and unilateralist foreign policy, not least over armed fo rces, and his chances-it will certainly be a he-would the volatile stand-off with North Korea? Jolm Howard is no more have to rate highly. Not a few of the candidates will campaign the man for nimbleness in a quickly changing and more ho tile from Muslim platforms, even among those who are secularist. regional environment than his foreign minister, They are unlikely to think that saying friendly things about n Alexander Downer, seems the one to advise him. the United States or its local deputy will be attractive to vot ers. The Bali bombings shocked Indonesians and do not assist L RHAPS SIMON CREAN seems as ill-equipped. His £launderings extremist politicians; but Iraq and the anti-Islamic aspects of in search of an umbrella position in the cmsade against terror sug the crusade against terror, as well as lingering resentments gest so. But the times could suit him if he, or spokesmen such as about Timor, keep the West unpopular. Australia's tentative re Kevin Rudd, were developing the right positions now, anticipating newal of relations-particularly involving police co-operation Australia's situation in nine months' time, rather than the present -may be difficult to sustain under a new regime. moment. In the way in which, for example, Laurie Brereton was Malaysia sees the exit of Dr Maha thir Mohamad, a long- time able, rather against Kim Beazley's will, to reposition Labor on critic of Australia, but also one who has successfully suppressed East Timor. A smart Labor Party, even with a strong pro-Ameri Muslim tensions and m aintained a broadly pro-Western can wing, might recognise and respond more quickly than John outlook. His successors are likely to hold similar views, but Howard to the fact that, in Washington, the neo-conservatives may find it difficult to match his capacity for juggling balls in are losing sway and that George W. Bush, swinging into election the air-not least as Malaysia aspires to champion the rights of mode, becomes rather more conventional in his foreign policy. developing coun triesinsecuringaccess to theagricul turalmarkets In areas such as this, Howard's old clevernesses may do him in. of Europe, the US, Japan and Korea. To an old reputation of being mean and tricky, he has now added In the Philippines, it's by no m eans clear whether Gloria a reputation for looseness with the tmth and a refusal to accept Arroyo will stand for the presidency again. Co-operation from personal responsibility for poor outcomes. The electorate, on the her government in countering domestic Muslim separatists and evidence of the polls, sees this but, so far, does not much care. But international connections is patchy at best and unlikely to improve it works its poison, even within the Government. Few of Howard's under her successor. colleagues tmst him these days; fewer tmst his instincts. The outlook in the Pacific is hardly rosy. Renewed Australian Unpopular as Si mon Crean is, Labor is not that far behind determination to get value for money from its extensive aid to in the polls. Importantly, once an election is on, the nature Papua New Guinea is already exciting deep anger at what is alleged of campaigning means that Crean will get equal time and to be Australian neo-colonialism. The day has long passed, if ever it att ntion-if he has anything to offer. It can only be his fa ult existed, whenPapuaNewGuineahadchoicesaboutwhomitbegged if he has not. from, but that nation is too big and complicated to be liquidated and restmctured like the Solomons. Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of the Canberra Times. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 7 snap shot responsible for Blaine as he's an American she pleads for is that white Australians but he was an accountant in Baltimore should renounce their colonial attitudes before he got to the UK. and history and embrace Aboriginality. I think it's mad cats and Englishman, This is a leap of faith and of imagination: Mr Coward. you can stand up and be converted, but you are not quite sure what you are being converted to or how it will save you. Germaine Greer displays all the evangelist's skills in evoking the totally corrupted world of white Australian society, and in offering a subtle reading of classical Australian texts in order ( hP 11ire gr.n to bring out the sad reality which we habitually ignore. And her readers are England has experienced that rare thing, likely to treat her like most evangelists a long, hot summer, and the heat and ~ j rVdllc1 Oil tfH• lllll when they return from the pulpit to the extended hours of sunshine seem to have fireside, they will wonder whether things turned the dial on the behaviour of the Meanwhile, back in Australia, bike paths are really as bad as all that, and whether locals from quaint and eccentric to strange early on Sunday morning are usually the conversion she calls for is ei thcr and disturbing. It's official: the green and bereft of naked runners or feral cats. necessary or enough. pleasant land is now brown and feral. Last Sunday, however, the local path was A case in point is that of Steve Gough divided by witches' hats and decorated who decided that it would be a tremendous by runners lured by the antipodean achievement if he could walk the length of cuckoo call that harbingers spring: the Britain from Land's End to John O'Groats oxymoronic fun-run. On the runners' clad only in a pair of boots and a floppy hat. T-shirts was a coloured rectangle, and on Reports of 'the naked rambler' filled the this patch a name and a number; Self papers for days in August, with witnesses Transcendence 9, Self-Transcendence 125, describing him in the fraught language etc. Along the path, the birds were singing, usually reserved for Yeti sightings, until the bees were beginning their working day Gough identified himself. His progress harvesting from wattle, and the sun was \,Yell 11 \ tllll lllOlltfl has been interrupted by repeated arrests by breaking through the light spring mist. bemused constabulary. But the runners were self-preoccupied. Swimming each day through a sea of Continuing with the 'there's something At the finishing line, there was a large language, Eureka Street has developed a out there' theme, Kent is supposedly being digital clock measuring out the seconds, list of words we never wish to see again. terrorised by wild cats led by the 'beast of by the saving of which, it seems, is self As is often the case, it is not so much blue bell', attacking livestock and scaring transcendence measured. the words we despise, but the service in the bejesus out of the locals. Crop circles which they are employed. were definitely out this year as a result, Historically, key offenders have probably because the spotters-a race unto included lifestyle and nuance. More themselves born, it is rumoured, already recent chart-toppers are synergy, clad in a mac with binoculars hanging actualise, sexing, positivity, discourse from their neck-weren't game enough to and enhan ce. Adverbs are best used like get out into the wheat fields for fear of a garlic, sparingly, and anyone caught mauling. thinking outside the envelope, square or But the weirdness is not only in the .Js circle shall be shot. countryside. Illusionist David Blaine, who Hoi) stec1111 r ) .. We are sure that readers have their pretends to slice off his ear in public and own list of 'love to hate' favourites. wanders around with an eye tattooed on Self-transcendence is usually the currency To soothe the jangled nerves of serious the palm of his hand mumbling nonsense of evangelists, because it involves a word watchers, we have three CDs to in a monotone someone must have told quantum leap which your ordinary self give away courtesy of ABC Classics: him gave him a sense of mystery but cannot produce or even imagine. The Malcolm Williamson's Complete Works just makes him unintelligible, decided to colloquial version of Quantum Leaps for Piano, Marcus Stenz's Mahler spend 44 days in a glass case suspended is Jump Up, a Koori coining which Symphony No. 5 and Macquarie Trio from a crane next to the Thames. He only means rising suddenly beyond your Australia's Libertango: The Music of had water to drink and a lot of nappies. capability. The phrase occurs in the title Astor Piazzolla. Please send your top five No-one has been able to answer the of Germaine Greer's recent Quarterly words to Word Watchers, Eureka Street, question: why? Essay in which she shows herself to PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121, by 31 The poms will say they aren't be a powerful evangelist. The jump up October 2003. 8 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 Uga nda to carry him around on a throne. and even tried to set himself up as a taxi the month's Amin will also be rem embered for the driver. Throughout, according to confi high farce which accompanied the brutality. dantes, he never ceased to dream of a return traffic Amin once described President N yerere to Uganda where he would be welcomed as of neighbouring Tanzania as a coward, an a hero by the Ugandan people. old woman and a prostitute. Soon after he In an w1characteristic gesture, m embers told the world's press that he 'would have of the African press overcame their usual Death of the king married [Nyerere] if he had been a woman'. reluctance to criticise political leaders, at On the 25th anniversary of the coronation news of Amin's death. Kenya's Sunday ID I AMIN DADA of Queen Elizabeth, Amin let it be known Nation newspaper declared that 'one would that he expected the British m onarch to not be fau lted for shouting" good riddance" R ARELY HAVE so FEW m ourned the dea th send him 'her 25-year-old knickers' as part fro m the rooftops', calling Amin 'one of of a man. of the festivities. He even declared himself the worst accidents of leadership on our On 16 August Idi Amin Dada, one of the King of Scotland and offered to lead continent'. the most notorious and brutal dictators the Scottish people in their struggle for The depth of the enduring pain caused in modern history, passed away quietly, in self-determination. by Amin was captured by Uga nda's Sunday peaceful and luxurious exile far from his Perhaps it is because of these twin Vision newspaper. On the day after Amin's native Uga nda. personas-Idi Amin as the face of evil death, the paper turned to an epic and Idi Amin seized power from Milton and the tragi-comic buffoon-that the bloody Old Testament vision, as if nothing Obote in a 1971 coup. He arrived on the world dismissed him as a madman. Amin else could capture the m oment. Quoting world scene with the blessing of the British was, however, a complex personality. A Isaiah, they wrote: Government, the former colonial power compelling speaker with a commanding, You used to be honoured with the music of in Uganda. He had served his time in the charismatic presence, he spoke to the harps, but now you are in the world of the British army, playing rugby with British newly independent citizens of Africa in dead. You lie on a bed of maggots and are officers, before going on to becom e one the language of African nationalism and covered with a blanket of worms. of the first Uga ndans to receive the pres won plaudits for his brazen willingness tigious Queen's commission. Upon his to confront the former colonial power. In life, Idi Amin was never m ade to pay ascension to the presidency, a British intel Denis Hills, a Briton sentenced to death for his crim es. Ugandans hope that he will ligence report described him as 'benevolent in Uga nda for criticising Amin and rescued do so in dea th. but tough ' and 'well -disposed to Britain'. only after a fra ntic visit to Kampala by the -Anthony Ham A year later, Amin expelled 40,000 British Foreign Secretary Jam es Callaghan, Ugandan Asians. Mostly Indians and refused to accept the stereotype of Amin Pakistanis, their families had been resident as a madman. Instead, he acknowledged Little argument in Uganda for generations since their grand that Amin 'personified aggressive black fathers had been put to work on British gov national leadership' and had: ACTU CONFERENCE ernment construction projects. Those exiled the successful tribal chief's compensatory were the backbone of the Uga ndan economy GAP BETWEEN the pragmatism of qualities for hi s lack of formal educa ti on: L E and most sought refuge in Britain. The Brit the ACTU leadership and the instincts of cunning, a talent for survival, personal ish government of Harold Wilson bega n to many of the 900 delegates at its congress in strength and courage, an ability to measure hatch secret (but never implemented) plan s Melbourne was revealed in the response to his opponents' weaknesses and his subj ects' to assassinate Amin. three speakers. wishes. It is not enough to dismiss Amin as Abandoned by his father as a child and Under the watchful gaze of ACTU a buffoon or murderer ... He has realised now by Britain, Amin unleashed the reign secretary Greg Combet, there was a an African dream: the creation of a truly of terror for which he will be m ost remem restrained reception for Qantas chair black state. bered. Under Amin's rule, from 1971 until Margaret Jackson, who spoke on 'the his overthrow in 1979, more than 300,000 The novelist Giles Foden captured the future of work'. As she did so, m embers people were killed in this country of 12 multifaceted Amin in The Last King of of the Transport Workers Union were million. His years in power were marked Scotland, portraying a magnetic, larger striking at Melbourne Airport over the by widespread torture, 'disappearances' and than-life figure fro m whom his personal airline's introduction of labour-hire extrajudicial killing. But what brought him doctor, a Scot, could not tear himself baggage handlers. to the attention of an international media away, as fascinated as he was repulsed. The But Kevin Quill, a member of the hungry for macabre figures of African world's attitude towards Amin's rule was plumbers' and electricians' CEPU, received barbarism were the unconfirmed reports similar: we were unable to look and we a standing ovation from most of the hall of cannibalism, his practice of keeping the were unable to look away. for his account of the attempt to rebuild heads of his victims in a refrigerator, drop From his expulsion until his dea th, unionism at a former movement strong ping opponents from planes high over Lake Amin lived a life of comfortable exile in hold, Rio Tinto's Ham ersley Iron opera Victoria and singling out entire tribes for Jeddah as a guest of the Saudi Arabian tions in Paraburdoo, Western Australia. ritual humiliation and slaughter. Through Government. He was som etimes seen Similarly, there was a warm it all, Amin forced white residents of shopping in the supermarkets of Jeddah, reception for Henry Li, a m ember of the OCTOBER 2003 EUR EKA STR EET 9 miscellaneous workers' LHMU union, who from Simon Crean and his deputy leader, walked on to deliver an hour-plus spoke about a campaign by Australian and Jenny Macklin, and video presentations history of the international situation US unions to force Westfield boss Frank by Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul pre- and post-Iraq. Not a note, and not Lowy to increase pay for shopping centre Keating. Combet urged delega tes to get a moment's hesitation. If the 1000-plus cleaners, who earn $12.80 an hour. 'We behind Labor's election campaign. crowd had come to hear the Marxist know the union is the only way we have But the union leadership cannot simply rant predicted by some columnists, they power in our job/ said Li. 'We will not be ignore widespread workers' dissatisfaction would have been disappointed. Tariq an invisible workforce.' with what is seen as Labor's weak, pro Ali crafted his address for a sceptical The tension between 'realism' and market agenda. Australian audience, and was as careful resistance surfaced in different ways. On Although the ACTU leadership of to include an American perspective (' I go the opening day, the police band played in Combet and Sharan Burrow still for there very often these days') as he was uniform on the stage, while on the final mally defends the years of the ALP-ACTU to provide a cau se-and-effect history of day virtually the entire Construction For Accord-1982 to the mid-1990s-as a plus Middle East politics from the beginning estry Mining and Energy Union (CF MEU) for the union movem ent, many union of the 20th century. contingent abandoned congress to get officials and most activists now recognise By Saturday, word of mouth had back to the real business of unionism at a that period as a disaster which laid the basis ensured that Tariq Ali's conversation with delegates meeting. for a sharp decline in union membership. David Marr was booked out. Marr played Delegates sat patiently through video That mood was reflected in the ACTU the journalist-devil's advocate, asking presentations and academic panel discus adopting policy on questions like tax, questions that might have been devised by sions, and then joined rallies outside by tariffs, free trade agreem ents and public the Prime Minister's staff- how could one the CFMEU and the National Tertiary private partnerships which put it at odds possibly regret the overthrow of Saddam 's Education Union. With so little genuine with ALP positions. appalling regime, etc. Ali's answers, if contest on the conference floor, and so The real test for rebuilding unionism, predictable, were hard to contest. Whatever much of the event given over to the placing however, is whether union m embers at the audience cam e away thinking about of stories at key points in the media cycle, companies such as Qantas can win their the politics, they'd heard more informed this was one of the few ways that activists fight for safe jobs and decent wages. history than is customary in Australia's could show where their sympathies lay. -David Glanz managed politics. The pity was that Tariq There was one exception to the rule, Ali was not debating with Australia's with a sharp argument surfacing over current power brokers. attitudes to reform of anti-union laws. Words tc) r nd Peter Carey, by contrast, did not want Initially, this led to two days of heated to be confined or confirm ed by history. debate within the left caucus. The majority winter Yes, he u sed the Ern Malley hoax as a of left delegates argued for a total rejection springboard for his new novel, My Life of non-union collective agreements. Oth TH E MELB OURNE WRITE RS' FESTI VAL as a Fal 10 EUREKA STREET O CTOBER 2003 happened in Tasmania, and what is happening in history generally. More satisfying, because less fraught, were some of the many other sessions archimedes that could loosely be labelled 'history' or 'political'. lain McCalman, Rebe Taylor and Stuart Macintyre, chaired by Marilyn Lake, made abundant sense of Unsexy science the question 'Can we change the past?' Rebe Taylor's personal experience of black/white family interrelations on AGO Mchimedes u avellcd to China to wtite about an Kangaroo Island showed how difficult S EVERAL '"""' Australian pilot program which introduced the idea of peer education about it can be to fi nd out 'exactly what AIDS to C hinese university students. happened', but also demonstrated how It was remarkable that such a program was given the go-ahead. Knowledge much can be learned by careful sifting in China traditionally flows from elders and betters, not peers. The program and even more careful interviewing of the people involved. She provided a useful was imported from a Western country. And the Chinese Government is sen counterfoil to Windschuttle's insistence sitive about sex education. Despite all this, to the Chinese academics work on 'dispassionate' history. Michael Pusey, ing in the program, one of its most significant aspects was the insight into the Judith Brett and Mark Peel looked at the Western way of doing science-specifically, how such programs were assessed. state of the nation through the prism of The most mundane, unglamorous aspects of science can often be the their recent research into the Australian most useful. All our safety and efficiency testing, programs for improving our middle class, the Liberal Party, and the industrial processes, and the reliability and durability of our products rely on poor in Australia. They didn't always behind-the-scen es science that is almost never reported. agree but the audience cam e away Recently Archimedes wrote an article about mining autom ation . The CSIRO smiling and arguing volubly as they made and other research organisations are developing technologies to take people away their way downstairs to buy the books. from the dangerous work at the ore face. The research at CSIRO Mining and At the Celtic Club, class storytellers Exploration in Brisbane is a fascinating m ix of robotics, communications, Gerard Windsor, Anthony O'Neill and m echanical engineering, electronics and navigation, but it lacks the m edia appeal Andrew O'Hagan were genially corralled of a cure for breast cancer or the extinction of a rainforest butterfly. by Michael McKernan. All three novelists Australia supplies software to more than 60 per cent of mining opera read, wonderfully, though 'read' isn't quite tions worldwide. The export of mining services and expertise puts more than adequate for O'Hagan's performance. In $3 billion a year into the Australian econom y, a figure that is growing by rapid Glaswegian, he did New Year's Eve about 13 per cent annually. Hands up those who know anything much about in a Scottish nursing home. Heartbreaking, Australian mining research? black and utterly hilarious. In another example, the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Clean There were more than 200 writers at Power from Lignite, based in Melbourne and Adelaide, is charged with finding the festival and 34,000 people came, so out how to burn our brown coal more efficiently while emitting less pollutants. I can give only a sliver of what went on Not glamorous stuff, and positively frowned upon by the greener segments of over 11 days. The festival was intensely society. But the CRC has come up with processes that have the potential for re political, 'and that's wonderful,' ducing greenhouse emissions from brown coal by m ore than 30 per cent. At the remarked the decidedly unpolitical same time, they will increase the efficiency of energy output of brown coal from Annie Proulx. 'It's wonderful that people about 29 per cent to about 44 per cent. should com e together to talk rationally Substantial deposits of such low-rank coal exist in m any of the most about such things.' And from Annie Proulx came the populou s countries of the developing world such as China, India, Indonesia, quote of the festival. How one might Thailand and Turkey (as well as in the United States and Germany). For devel react to repeated rejection by publishers? oping nations, these coal reserves represent a way of powering their expanding 'Write better', said the woman who economies and raising living standards. The work of the CRC may end up doing works her words as hard as anyone more for the environment than more environmentally acceptable studies. writing toda y. Archimedes would argue that such science forms the backbone of our soci -Morag Fraser ety, in the way that adequate sewerage, clean water and good dietary information do more for human health than heart transplants and Viagra. Yet it's not the kind This month's contributors: Anthony Ham of work that catches the eye, that people rem ember in their wills, or that news is Eurel OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 11 summa theologiae Care to remember? M ANY c oMMENTATORS HAY> demibed the cunent Aust"li'n condition as one of apathy. They refer to the puzzling coexistence of two phenomena: well-publicised governm ent actions that are morally repugnant, like the detention of children, and the commonly shared belief that govern ments lie about such things. We would norm ally expect outrage at this combi nation of evil doing and mendacity. Instead we find indifference. quality distance education The Judaeo-Christian tradition m akes much of apathy and its remedies. In contrast to the practical and cynical advice to move on, the Psalms respond acToss the nation passionately. For them the heart of the problem lies in the evidence that the wicked triumph, grow rich and esteemed, and becom e invincible. This attacks Courses include our instinctive belief that God should and will reward virtue. The Psalms deal • BTh , MTh, PhD with the temptation to give up on God and justice by urging inwardness and the • M.Min , D.Min longer view. In God's time, goodness will win. • Certificate & Dipl oma in Theology This assurance is hard to believe, not least because in God's time we are • Certificate & Dipl oma in Youth Ministry all dead. In order to encourage faith, the Scriptures characteristically appeal to • Religious & Valu es Educati on (RE) memory. In the Older Testam ent, people are constantly urged to rem ember the • Theo logy & Social Policy • Spirituality, Agein g & Co un se lli ng way God liberated the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and so made them • Church Leadership & Management a nation. As long as they keep this memory alive, their commitment to a just future will remain fi rm and their moral compass for judging their own world Student Services will not waver. Memory is the answer to apathy. Memory is equally central in the Christian tradition. When you think • Youth Allowance & Austudy of the church, your first image may be of people gathering to celebrate the • HECS based cou rses Eucharist. At the centre of the Eucharist is the m emory of Jesus Christ's • HELP (Higher Educa ti on Loans Program) death . On the face of it, this was a story of the victory of injustice, of expedi • Latest online support ency, of overwhelming power, of the death of hope that there could be som e • Distance Educatio n Libra ry facilities thing more. The appropriate response was that of the two disciples who sadly left town . But in rem embering Jesus' death, Christians remember his rising from death as victory. This grounds the hope in a just God and a just world that can overcome apathy. The Christian arsenal also stores another kind of memory that is equally subversive. It is expressed in the Ash Wednesday admonition: 'Remember m an that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.' This m emory of transi ence is liberating because it insists that empires, dynasties and conventional wisdom s last a short tim e, and that even policies written in stone will pass. We should always be underwhelmed by celebrations of power and solidity. The memory of transience cuts all ways. In bookshops, prices fa ll for the just and the unjust alike. The works of Stalin and Lenin can be bought for a song. So can the works of Pius XII and John XXIII. Nor will their worlds return. In due course, too, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush and John Paul II will be remembered for what they have m ade of God's world, but their collected speeches will also be curiosities. The Christian antidote to apathy is the m emory that seeds of hope will eventually crack the most solid concrete, and that in Christ spring triumphs over winter. Even in bookshops, remainders are reminders. • Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, M elbourne. ·12 EU REKA STR EET OCTOBER 2003 by the wa Anarchy rules Tu ST '" vou WERE on Who Wants to be a Millionaire! Party hated children and then, having done all this on and, coming up to the $500,000 question, Eddie asks you, Parliamentary notepaper or trumpeted it in the House, stood as he would be highly likely to do at that moment, 'What up in that same Parliament and, after vigorously justifying all do the following have in common? King Humbert I of Italy, his actions, about-turned and apologised for them abjectly in President William McKinley of the United States, King George I his own brand of tortuous, logic-chopping malapropisms. In of Greece and Marie Franc;:ois Sadi Carnot, President of France? comparison to Tuckey, Phil 'Let me say this in relation to that' (a) John Howard denies knowledge of any of them and says we Ruddock is a veritable fount of rhetorical limpidity. should move on; (b) Wilson Tuckey will not confirm that he If that's not anarchy of a sort-even if only intellectual has written to them; (c) Tony Abbott denies having funded anarchy, a species with which Mr Tuckey has always shown them; (d) they were all assassinated by anarchists.' Lock in (d) himself to be peculiarly afflicted-then I'll dust off my bag Eddie and let's head for the million. pipes, dig out the stiff and starchy jockstrap from under Not many contestants would get that right, but Joe Toscano, the old, still mud-encrusted footy boots and join Joe the subject of a brief, slightly awestruck report in a recent issue Toscano in Pitt Street. of The Australian, probably would. Who is Joe Toscano? I hear you cry. Well, he's Dr Joe Toscano, GP, for a start and while B uT THE GREAT ANARCH, as Alexander Pope would have said, that may not especially distinguish him from the medical ruck, is Tuckey's boss, John Howard. Returning from important talks on the fact that he bulk bills does lend him a fading and arcane war, rumours of war and plans for war, Mr Howard found himself particularity. When you add that Joe is a radical anarchist and engulfed by a distracting confusion at the centre of which stood a sometime S-11 protester he bursts from the ranks of the grey the hapless Tuckey. With drum rolls from the Westminster Sys and anonymous as surely as if he's paraded down Pitt Street in tem booming in his ears and an image of his own Parliamentary peak hour wearing a jockstrap and playing the bagpipes. Code of Conduct hovering above his head like the Holy Ghost, Anarchism, as distinct from anarchy, has fallen on hard Howard rebuked Tuckey and let it go at that. times since its heady days in the late 19th and early 20th Just over 130 years ago, Mikhail Bakunin and his barrackers centuries. The founding father of anarchism, Pierre Joseph were expelled from the First International. The expulsion Proudhon, and his so-called Philosophical Anarchists, sought occurred partly because Bakunin and team were outvoted by to remove the idea of authority from society, and replace the socialists and partly because they were regarded as too it with extreme individualism, but they expected anarchic violent. The interesting thing is that, when told to go on a matter organisation of society to evolve without violent stimulus. of principle, they went; though admittedly they probably didn't Proudhon would have been appalled by the modern equation want to stay. A kind of Westminster System among anarchists of anarchism with random terror. Though it was definitely and socialists, forsooth. This is not the kind of behaviour for anarchists who finished off Humbert, McKinley, George and which Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and others of like Marie Franc;:ois, (and who, unlike some latter-day ideologue beliefs were normally known. It is what we expect of our own of the left, right and centre, proudly owned up to their handi leaders and representatives, but probably even Bakunin, as a work), the movement was blamed for many deaths of which it spectacularly transgressing member of the Liberal-National was innocent. Party Coalition, would have had no more than an irritable nod Joe Toscano is in the apparently contradictory position from Mr Howard and stern advice to 'move on'. of being an anarchist-that is, someone who is opposed to Of course, it is distorting anarchism as a political doctrine all forms of government-and at the same time a vigorous to apply it to these and similar demeaning, shameful and campaigner for Medicare. I'll leave Joe to sort that one out for embarrassing events and behaviour among our highest elected himself while applauding the fact that a true anarchist has leaders. 'Shamble ' would be nearer the mark. Or-if we emerged at this time of anxiety and stress: such a manifesta want to stick to an 'A' word to describe the Prime Minister's tion allows us to identify the closet anarchists among us, one brazen disregard for the Westminster System and the erstwhile of whom pre-eminently is Wilson Tuckey. impressive but now tattered and comic Code of Conduct He would be appalled at such an idea, but consider the what about 'arrogance'? evidence. In a flurry of activity a few weeks ago, he attempted As for Tuckey: lock him out, Eddie. • to influence the role of a government official, accused an entire state of being soft on drugs, suggested that the whole Labor Brian Matthews is a writer and academic. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 13 i ntcn ll'\V: I Donna Noble The art of spirituality E EDHELM MENNEKES is a Jesuit ptiost biggest teacher was the sculptor James religious theme, still offer the viewer a and the parish priest of St Peter's, one of Lees Byars. His work is about questions sense of religion or faith ? the oldest churches in Cologne. Peter and he really deeply, deeply let m e know I think religious people have to get Paul Rubens was baptised there and in that art doesn't have to be understanding trained in seeing new things with their gratitude painted for the church his parallel to religion, but the other way inner eye. They have to learn how creativity famous Crucifixion of St Peter. Artists as around-religion has to be understanding can transfer into religion. This is what is diverse as Francis Bacon, Anish Kapoor, parallel to art. To him, all work he is doing, really so important. Rosemarie Trockel, Arnulf Reiner, or what an artist is doing, is to put up the The times for Christian subjects are and Cindy Sherman have all created questions, not give the answers. The one over. The time of Christian iconography is or exh ibited triptychs for display behind who really educated m e and brought over. After 25 years [in the arts] I would say the altar. m e to art was Joseph Beuys. Another is that as a Catholic I have become more of a As an art historian Mennekes holds Francis Bacon, or even the very conse Calvinist. First, I would say art is not needed honorary professorships in tern a tionall y quential female American artist Barbara in a church, we don't need any art. But and at the Australian Catholic University. Kruger. Also Rosemarie Speaking engagements and professor Trockel, Cindy Sherman ship duties have brought him again to and Jenny Holzer have Australia and Eureka Street was for really spoken to me. tunate enough to sit down with him I've had the opportu and hear h is thoughts on the place of nity to meet all of these spirituality in contemporary art. artists. I have done ES: What is your definition of spiritual many exhibitions with ity in the context of contemporary art? all of these artists, and FM: I would say spirituality, in the many others. When I most inner sense, is to question. To think was a learner, wide-eyed or reflect conscience, knowledge, feelings and hungry for art, I was and questions. always doing exhibi Which particular artists do you think tions, som etimes ten a can make the viewer question in this year. I had an exhibition way? on every corner. I've been working significantly for Can a work of art that 25 years now with the arts. I received a is not overtly religious, or particular education by the artists-my that doesn't even have a tor Sell-Portrait' hv lenni C<~rter fm AGNSW. 14 EUREKA STRE ET OCTOBER 2003 second, as a Jesuit I would say we need all So by your definition a good artist can becom e free of all th is iconographic dic art. So then art is needed, but not Christian get that content across with for m ? tatorship. Yo u know, norm ally churches subjects in art. Yes. See, why is art spiritual? I would say very strongly that they are not So you feel it's unnecessary for a say art in itself is a practical form of related to art, they are not interested contemporary artist to take up, fo r questioning. What do I do today? How do in art. T here are all these doubters, all example, the them e of the crucifixion in I do it? The artist really has to question these strange people [in art ]. C hristian their work? practically, to create. So in this way its art, liturgical art, is not art- it's kitschy Absolutely not necessary. Some [art form is structural, spiritual openness. I stuff. It is restrictive. It wan ts to be works of religious them e] work, how think a mystic person has to do the sa me. symbolic and representing som ething, ever, but this is not the reason. For exam Sure, one kn ows many things by the but art is not interested in that any ple, Barbara Kruger took a photo of fo ur credo, like an artist knows many things more. So primarily, art has to be sepa elderl y women protesting at the start of by art history, but to fill yourself with rated fro m religion because what these the Iraq war. She took this photograph and spirituality, to open your mind, it is not people think of as art is not art, and enlarged it greatly (4 x 8 metres) so they to say the credo is wrong but the credo what they have in their mind is som e look like they could be praying hands, and is only one part and maybe this is the thing totally different. placed it right in the middle of the church background of m y questioning. But like In your years of studying art, and floor. So you have to go to it, you can't art, religion is always orientated towards putting on exhibitions, has there ever avoid it, you have to put your fee t on it. progression. been a time when you felt you didn't need Then, to disturb the image she put with Is it a collaborative exercise when an it in your life? it these four questions: Who salutes the artist displays their work in your church? N ever. If you touch art once, you longest ? Who prays the loudest ? Who Yes, always. We are not doing exhi never let go. This is my experience. I dies fi rst ? Who laughs last ? This, in the bitions there, but we need artists. It's a could never live without art or religion. first instance, has nothing to do with the group of us and we invite artists to do I can't leave the one nor the other. I have church, it's just one of Barbara Kruger's space-related interventions on the basis to open up my faith to art and I have to critical statem ents. But by having this that it's art, so they have the space. We open up art to religion . • within the church it really touches you, it have an important Rubens. He was bap pushes you. In one way, if you are celebrat tised there and his fa ther was buried Donna Noble is a Melbourne writer with ing a wedding it m eans that the wedding there. So in the nature of Rubens, you an interest in theology and the arts. group is sitting on praying hands, which is have to deal with the space. You very beautiful. But then if you look at the have to do what he did, which questions, it's disturbing. means you have to be tough. This is what artists do, they disturb This space, the church, is the way to understand a sacred space. very famous and many artists They disturb everything by questioning are attracted to it. They com e and this is so important. and take, let's say, a kind of Cathohc Comrmss1on tor Just1ce De~elopmem and Pl33ce (MelbGurne) The artists that you've worked with, measurem ent of the space. It's do they share your philosophies on a broken, late Gothic church, spirituality and art? so it's very empty, very rare, I'm not interested in spirituality [when radical, no chairs, nothing else, working with the artists], I'm interested really rare. Because you know, ~•."iii• Fr Mark Raper SJ only in true art. The deeper reason may this is a very interesting thing, la'll• ..:.. Prov1nt1al otlhe Soc1ety of Jesus {Jt'SUIIS)& lormerlntematlonal Duector be, or is, that art fi lls m e up with spiritual art is more than theology; the of Jeswt Refugee SeN1ce insight, feelings; it transfers spirituality experience is a deep connection Wednesday 22 October into my life. between art and religion. Mostly 7.30pm lecture Are you still questioning in your Western art, but not only, came mind? out of a sacred background. Yes. I really must say, in a way that After the separation, artists said, is maybe a strange expression, being into 'we have to go on our own'. But art, opening your m ind to art, is ques now they're coming back to the tioning, questioning as existentialism . history and they would like But by going along with art this way to reflect this, not only theo I started to go along with religion this retically but also practically. way. And I must say this is, in a way, Everyone is pleased to see that very traditional because one always with the work can open up new spir religion has to distinguish between the itual windows. content and the form , so the content is Can art and religion ever be like the cradle and the fo rm is desire; separate? [email protected] .au like questioning, like feelings, like tak T hey m ust and they can ing up a higher level of something. not. That's a problem . Art must OCTO BER 2003 EU REKA STREET 15 l''iSc\\: 1 Paul Sendziuk Denying the Grim Reaper Austrdl1an rec;ponses to AIDS THe HRST c"e of AIDS w•s homosexual patients from his surgery, Given the hostility towards homosex rweported in'" Australia 20 years ago, health and numerous gay m en were evicted uals, and the public's fear of those afflicted experts braced themselves for a morbid from their homes or denied accommoda by HIV, it seemed likely that Australian ity rate to rival World War II. In 1987, the tion. Sydney Telecom engineers refused governments would be persuaded to enact Grim Reaper advertisements announced to carry out repairs at the Pitt Street a range of coercive public health meas that 50,000 Australians might already be mail exchange because, they claimed, it ures in an effort to contain the spread of infected and this figure would continue was staffed by a large number of homo AIDS. Opinion polls in 1986 and 1987 to rise. Due to Australia's pragmatic and sexual telephone operators 'who probably suggested that 25 per cent and 50 per cent innovative response, the rate of new HIV had AIDS '. News that three Queensland of the population fav oured the quaran infections fell from approximately 2500 babies had died from AIDS as a result tine of infected individuals and universal per year in the mid-1980s to less than of receiving HIV-con tamina ted blood screening of the entire population for HIV 500 per year within a decade. Australia's donated by a homosexual prompted a gang antibodies respectively. An even greater response represents a success story; one of men to roam Sydney's gay strip looking number supported mandatory testing of frequently cited by the World Health Organ for pooft ers to punish. 'high risk' groups, such as gay men, inject isation as a model for other countries. Such responses continued even after ing drug users and sex workers. Advocates the viral origin of AIDS had been estab of this 'traditional' approach to the con 'Gays cause AIDS' lished. In November 1984, New South trol of infectious disease also called on Wales police called for a halt on random the government to close gay bathhouses The first case of AIDS in Australia was breath testing, and then insisted on being and other venues where disease might be diagnosed by Professor Ronald Penny, an issued with plastic gloves, because they spread. In addition, they asked for funds immunologist at Sydney's St Vincent's believed that HIV could be transmitted to be channelled into research institu Hospital, in N ovember 1982. His patient via the saliva of motorists. (This caused tions and clinical facilities in the hope was a 27-year-old New York City resident one commentator to ponder which part of that a cure for AIDS might be found and visiting Sydney. The case was the policeman's apparatus the widespread HIV antibody testing reported six months later in Even doctors subject was required to blow.) programs implemented. the Medical Journal of A us Seven months later, Ansett tralia, by which time the first lent support and TAA airlines banned G AY AIDS ORGANISATIONS, which Australian had been diagnosed HIV-positive individuals from emerged spontaneously within Australia's with AIDS. The early news to the opinion travelling on their planes as gay communities in order to educate reports of these cases were that gays were a m eans of protecting their their members about AIDS prevention announced in a tone that bor staff. The Australian Flight and care for the sick, also asked for dered on hysteria. The public responsible Attendants' Association re funding and to be a part of the policy was left in no doubt about who for exposing jected the bans. A spokesman making process. This looked unlikely was harbouring the fugitive, wryly noted that if anyone while medical experts dismissed their as media reports emphasised Australians to managed to have mid-flight claims for legitimacy and homosexuals that all of the cases involved a malicious sex with an HIV-positive were still perceived to be the cause of the homosexual males and that passenger- one of the few problem . Australian governments looking this group in the US was in new killer. ways of transmitting the to the US for guidance would have noticed the middle of an epidemic. virus-they should be given that most federal and state authorities Even doctors lent support to the opinion 'points for enterprise'. No-one was laugh in that country were refu sing to fund that gays were responsible for exposing ing, however, when three-year-old Eve gay community-based organisations, Australians to a malicious new killer. van Grafhorst was prohibited from attend preferring to support program s devised The public's anxiety about AIDS soon ing pre-school in July 1985 after parents, by public health authorities. Facing manifested in discrimination against fearing contagion, threatened to withdraw the prospect of mandatory testing, the homosexuals. A Sydney dentist banned their children from her class. destruction of community institutions, 16 EU REKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 and the possible identification and collectives of current and former drug strategies. Governments also benefited isolation of HIV-positive individuals, gay users were also funded to provide educa from this window of opportunity, through men prepared themselves to fight again for tion and outreach support. which they observed the mistakes made by the rights and public acceptance they had These initiatives proved extremely civic leaders in the US. During a research slowly gained over the previous successful in preventing the trip to the United States in January 20 years. As the Victorian AIDS The spread of HIV. After peak 1985, Neal Blewett, the Commonwealth Action Committee's Adam Carr ing at approximately 2500 in Minister for Health from 1983 to 1990, warned in December 1984: expected 1984, the number of new HIV was able to witness the effect of the infections fell to less than 500 Reagan administration's reluctance to The community's tolerance for backlash per year within a decade, and speak frankly about safe sex or finance our existence, and its respect for against the has remained relatively sta AIDS prevention initiatives within the our rights, have always been frag ble ever since. Fortified by the homosexual community. Touring an ile at best, and arc now rapidly homosexual partnership between doctors, AIDS ward of a public hospital, and listen eroding .. . Unscrupulous politi community the government, and 'a bunch ing to frustrated doctors and AIDS work cians, extreme right wing fringe of poofters, junkies and whores', ers, he glimpsed the consequences of HIV groups, powerful religious bigots did not as they are often pejoratively prevention policies constrained by moral and a sensation-hungry media eventuate. called, Australia effectively ism. Similarly, Australian AIDS advisory will combine to exploit public ducked the 'second wave' of committees were able to read reports of HIV fear and channel ignorance into HIV infection that crashed on the shores spreading rapidly through injecting drug bigotry and the search for a scapegoat of North America and Europe in the early using populations in the US and Scotland [Tjhere is no doubt that we will have a real 1980s, infecting drug users and their sex before they had to deal with this reality fight on our hands to defend our rights, our ual partners, heterosexual men, women in Australia. They became convinced that freedoms and even our personal safety. and their babies. an innovative approach to HIV preven The expected backlash against the tion, using the communication skills and homosexual community did not eventu Learning to trust energy of community-based organisations, ate. Australian state and federal govern was required to combat AIDS. ments-with the exception of Queensland Australia's approach to AIDS and Tasmania-deviated from the US prevention became recognised as one model and chose to incorporate represent of the most innovative and successful atives of the communities most affected in the world. This was because politi by AIDS into a partnership with govern cians such as Neal Blewett, key doctors ment and medical experts. This decision and the first National Advisory was made in order to gain their expertise Committee on AIDS (NACAIDS), in communicating with, and educating, chaired by Ita Buttrose, trusted and people at risk. The result was an approach empowered gay men, sex workers to AIDS prevention that stressed com and injecting drug users to care for munity participation and education themselves and for others. They rather than targeting infected individuals were persuaded to do so because through testing and the curtailment of these maligned social groups proved their activities through coercive laws. themselves to be responsible and Instead of promoting abstinence and committed to the fight against relying on prohibition, Australian public AIDS. They raised funds, devised health authorities sought to inculcate an educational materials, held forums understanding that everybody was at risk and workshops and sought alliances from AIDS, but that this risk could be with sympathetic 1nedical profes minimised by the adoption of safe sexual sionals and politicians. They angrily and drug use practices. refuted the notion that they were Thus by the end of 1987, the Common recklessly spreading disease and delib wealth and state governments were fund erately poisoning the blood supply, ing targeted education campaigns that and proved themselves to be caring extolled the virtues of (safe) anal inter and committed lovers and friends. Their There was also an element of pragma course in glossy posters and pamphlets actions defied representations of them tism. Politicians and public health authori and supported the promotion of condom as hedonistic, selfish and irresponsible ties were eventually convinced that HIV use on prime time television. Comprehen pleasure seekers. posed an exceptional problem as it predom sive sex and AIDS education courses were As the epidemic in Australia effectively inantly affected marginalised individuals introduced in state (and most private) sec began 18 months after that in the US, gay and communities who had little faith in ondary schools, and nearly all of the Aus men and sex worker organisations had doctors and legislators, and who demon tralian states established needle exchange time to understand what was required strated a reluctance to alter their behaviour programs. Sex worker organisations and of them and to plan HIV-prevention regardless of laws requiring them to do O CTOBER 2003 EU REKA STREET 17 so. As High Court Justice Michael Kirby gay sexual activity and drug use would The establishment of large-scale stated, 'Law and the risk of punishment continue regardless. They committed them needle exchange program s in nearly all are usually the last things on the minds of selves to the principle of harm reduction, of the states by 1988 represents another people in the critical moment of pleasure'. placing the lives of gay men and injecting example of Australia 's commitment to Politicians and public health authorities drug users ahead of public sensibilities. harm reduction. Despite initial opposition, also came to accept that there was lit Two other examples Australia's needle exchange tle incentive for 'high risk' individuals serve to illustrate Australia's The /Grim program became the largest to contact doctors, given that there was pragmatic approach to AIDS and m ost comprehensive in neither a cure for AIDS nor (until the late prevention. The first was Reaper/ the world. Originally con 1980s) drugs to delay the onset of the syn the launch-relatively early campaign ducted by health profes drome. Moreover, there was a significant in Australia's epidemic and sionals and pharmacists, disincentive to be identified as 'at risk' or before many heterosexuals ... aimed community-based organi 'infected' as it carried the possibility of had been infected-of a large to inform sations were also fu nded discrimination and ostracism . scale mass-media education to distribute sterile inj ect As N eal Blewett acknowledged, campaign co-ordinated Australians that ing equipment, puncture an approach to AIDS control that by NACAIDS. The 'Grim HIV did not proof disposable containers, relied on testing was likely to drive Reaper' campaign, as it condom s and safe sex infor individuals away from health services. becam e known, cost over $3.6 discriminate mation. Their success in Government had to build a partnership million and aimed to inform between agel preventing the widespread of trust between medical professionals Australians that HIV did not transmission of HIV among and the communities most affected by discriminate between age, sex or gender... inj ecting drug users was AIDS, and empower gay men, drug user sex or gender, and that, in the demonstrated in studies that groups and sex worker organisations to absence of a cure, prevention fo und a large discrepancy become the vanguard in the fight was the only method of combating the between the ra tes of HIV infection in against AIDS. epidemic. It implored sexually active cities with, and without, needle exchange Australians to have sex with only one programs. Success was also reflected in L E EDUC AT IONAL MATERIALS and safe partner or, alternatively, to 'always use the continued low level of HIV infection sex messages devised by community-based condoms'. T he campaign was criticised among injecting drug users in Australia organisations were effective because they for exaggerating the risk to 'ordinary' in the 1990s-they now account for about employed a visual and textual language Australians and frightening children with four per cent of all HIV infections, as that was explicit, erotic and subculturally its macabre images . opposed to 50-60 per cent in other parts appropriate. In the hands of peer educa tors Prominent members of the National of the world. In real terms, lives have been and the designers of colourful campaigns AIDS Task Force, including David saved. A recent evaluation estimated that that depicted glistening latex-clad bodies Pennington and Ian Gust, suspected Australia's needle and syringe program in a selection of steam y sexual scenarios, that its message of widespread risk was prevented approximately 25,000 HIV condoms became the hottest sex toys of designed to remove the responsibility of infections between 1988 and 2000. the 1980s, promising safe sexual pleasure. AIDS prevention from gay men, thereby The establishment of needle exchange Large-scale surveys indicate that by the alleviating the compulsion for them to be outlets was, in part, born of the accept end of the 1980s, 85-90 per cent of gay tested for HIV. These criticisms overlooked ance that education alone would not men were using condoms or having non the campaign's other aims which relied result in behavioural change among penetrative sex with their casual part on m embers of the public personally people who lacked the resources or ners-a substantial degree of behavioural identifying with the epidemic. For example, power to act on the information. Drug change in a population that previously had at a time when the government was addicts without access to sterile needles, little reason to use condoms. curtailing public expenditure in response or the means to purchase them, would AIDS Councils and drug user groups to economic recession, NACAIDS wanted continue to share equipment regard also faced the challenge of educating to promote a sense of public urgency that less of their understanding of the risks injecting drug users about using needles would compel the Commonwealth and involved. AIDS prevention workers also and syringes safely. When they pasted states to fund AIDS progran1s. It also sought recognised that prostitutes, although posters outlining such information on the to elicit public and political support for fully informed of the consequences of doors of public toilets in an effort to reach the introduction of comprehensive AIDS unsafe sex, would find it difficult to this transient and nebulous population, and sex education in secondary schools insist that clients wear condoms when they risked being accused of promoting and the establishment of needle exchange forced to work, without peer support, drug use, just as the eroticisation of pro program s. The realisation of these goals, at the mercy of their clients, on the streets tected gay sex risked being construed as and the failure of a second wave of HIV and from the back seats of cars. Equally, the promotion of homosexuality. While infection to swell within the heterosexual there was little prospect of gay men these risks inhibited many countries from population, vindicated NACAIDS' decision taking pride in their health while they supporting the work of community-based to spend large sums of money scaring were humiliated or bashed at school, organisations, the Commonwealth and Australians and to speak frankly about safe vilified in the community or rejected most state governments accepted that sex on prime time television. by their families. Economic, legal and 18 EU REKA STRE ET OCTOBER 2003 psychological factors conspired to make in detaining a 'recalcitrant' HIV-positive it m ore difficult for some to make healthy prostitute in a hospital against her will. life choices. Brothels remained illegal in most states HIV/AID~ Australia's success in preventing the but escort agencies were tolerated, despite spread of AIDS relied on countering these the fact that they do not provide a place for impediments. Governments funded AIDS prostitutes to ga ther or receive training from HEP C.... Councils to offer workshops promot sex worker organisations. \O~~'f'~ ~IC\UQ£ ing self-esteem within the gay comnm Similarly, laws were changed to allow nity. Comprehensive needle and syringe for the possession and exchange of condoms N ~U~\QAU~ exchange schem es were established. and needles on the street-previously they • HIV danger alerts are needed in And one state legalised prostitution in had been used by police as evidence of sex mainstream media brothels as a m eans of providing a safe work or drug use. Yet neither condoms • HIV te sting need s to be encouraged working environment where condom nor sterile injection equipment was made • HIV overwhelm ingly claim s use could be enforced and prostitutes available in prisons despite strong evidence homosexual men .... that doesn't mean could be trained in safe sex that drug use and anal sex frequently occur heterosexuals and others are immune techniques and negotiation. between prisoners. or have given up sex Finally, Tasmania refused to repeal • Tho se living with HIV need to have a MODEL OF laws that criminalised homosexual sexual disease prevention, real ly meaningful slice of the available which recognised the need to educate and activity, making it difficult for AIDS funding . empower those most at risk, was very educators in that state to contact homo • Accord ing to latest Annu al Reports, different from a traditional medical model sexuals (the laws were fi nally changed the Victorian AIDS Council had an that viewed disease prevention as a fight in in 1997). Western Australia refused annual income of around $3. 5 million which only doctors and medical researchers to lower the age of consent for homo while ... could engage. It chall enged the validity of sexuals to match that of heterosexual • ... an organisation representing traditional measures of infectious disease adolescents. It was therefore difficult for positive people wa s given a grant of control that focused on identifying and AIDS organisations to target young gays in less than $120,000. This can't go restraining infected individuals on the safe sex campaigns without appearing to on. It's ju st not right. assumption that these people were condone unlawful sexual activity. • Many smaller agencies do so much autonomous agents capable of In real Such restrictions contravened the that the VAC doe sn't, yet they behaving 'rationally' once they were terms, principles of Australia's approach struggle to financially survive. informed of their HIV-status or were to AIDS prevention and remain • HIV and Hepatiti s C funding come faced with the prospect of imprison lives challenges for AIDS prevention under the one umbrella , even thou gh ment if they 'wilfully' endangered workers today. the number of Hepatitis C infections the lives of other people. It also con have While these are significant short is up to 30 times higher than tradicted the idea that some people been comings,Australia'spoliticalresponse HIV, But political clout dictates only with AIDS were deserving of their to AIDS was quick, innovative morse ls for those with Hepatitis C. plight because they became infected saved. and humane, and defin ed by its • The VAC has dozen s of employee s, through unsafe practices despite trust in the communities most Vi ctoria's Hepatitis C organisation a being aware of the risks. affected by AIDS to behave responsibly. bare handful. Thi s MUST change. Not all states and territories embraced Countries such as Russia and the the principles of explicit education, harm Ukraine, without explicit safe sex Catholic AIDS Ministry in reduction and community empowerment, education or needle exchange programs and Melbourne needs to be more and none was willing to act upon all of the now experiencing the fastest growth in new than a part-time service recommendations of the AIDS Councils and HIV infections in the world, have much to located at an undisclosed the Commonwealth's chief advisory com learn from Australia's pragmatic approach. address with an unpublicised mittee. Queensland refused to distribute Australia's success should also prove NACAIDS-approved educational materials illuminating to those public policy-mak phone number. or have contact with its AIDS Council ers and community leaders who scorn until the end of 1987, forcing the Common 'harm reduction' approaches to social Visit us at wealth to channel funds to this organisation and health problem s such as drug use, www.aids.net.au to see through the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, and who are still reluctant to trust and what we do . whom Neal Blewett described as 'the most empower marginalised communities to cheerful and altruistic of money launderers'. care for themselves. • THE AUSTRALIAN AIDS FUND INC. Queensland also baulked at the estab PO BOX 1347, lishment of a needle exchange scheme until Paul Sendziuk is a Postdoctoral Fellow in FRANKSTON, VICTORIA, 3199 1990, and Tasmania resisted untill993. All the School of Historical Studies at Monash (An agency of Catholic Social Services Victoria) of the states enacted laws against the 'reck University. His book Learning to Trust: less' and 'knowing' transmission of HIV, and Australian Responses to AIDS, will be HOW ABOUT A HELPING HAND? New South Wales displayed little hesitancy published by UNSW Press in November. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STR EET 19 lclllllt.l Moira Rayner Who cares about the facts? i\ \or ( C'\ dc•t <( ('Ill( < lot tfH <:.tol<.·n g< tl( r~ltlotl O H 20 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 Aboriginal children who had been The Minister acknowledged and hardly be a clearer admission. transferred to Sister Kate's Home without initialled the Commissioner's advice and On 18 November 1954 Hansard records their mothers' consent. He was aware that asked for a copy for his own records. the Hon H .C. Strickland telling the WA they were not 'native' children under the Why then was nothing done? Minister Parliament that in about 1950 Minister Act. The Crown Prosecutor advised that he McDonald was also a QC and Attorney McDonald had indicated that his statu had no right at all to detain children who General. By November 1950 the Commis tory warrant should not be used because were not 'natives in law' within the 1936 sioner was writing to another Minister in of its potential to authorise indeter definition, even if their parents were. The an advice, set out below, which the Min minate civil detention. The Minister definition of 'native' remained w1changed ister personally referred to his Premier. In had also directed that 'native' children for ten more years despite significant other this memo the Commissioner reveals the should be removed from their parents statutory amendments, eventuating in the real policy underlying the application of only through the Children's Court. The Native Welfare Act of 1954. the N ative Administration Act provisions 'warrant' provision had been repealed in Acting Commissioner McBeath felt to the removal of Aboriginal children: 1954. However Mr McDonald's instruc he should have such a power and noted tions were apparently not effective. In a he intended to have the Act amended. He It is, in my opinion, questionable if the use 1958 m emorandum to the Commissioner brought the anomaly to the attention of of the Ministerial warrant is permissible about suggested amendments to the Child then Minister for Native Affairs, the Hon in the case of children being removed to Welfare Act (i.e. eight years after the Ross McDonald Qc, in a June 1948 memo a Settlement or Mission in the interests Minister had been told about the anoma in which he identified both Sister Kate's solely of their physical and spiritual wel lous definition of 'native' and had directed Home and the Convent and Holy Child fare, education and training. Fortunately no further arbitrary and unappealable Orphanage at Broome as places where such it has never yet been challenged, but apprehensions) he was advised that child children were being unlawfully detained. native parents are rapidly becoming more protection proceedings had been and were He also acknowledged that he did not have enlightened on the matter of what may be still being 'initiated and carried through' the power to reclaim a child who was not their just and lawful rights within a white by native welfare officers in the purported a 'native' if a parent removed them . He community and it would not surprise m e exercise of child protection powers that did not say whether he had instructed the if the Department was called upon soon only child welfare officers possessed. If so, institutions either to release such children to defend its action by the issue of a Writ then these children, too, were unlawfully or inform parents of their entitlements. of Habeas Corpus before a Court of Law. apprehended and detained. Such legal action would, I think. have The Commissioner referred that advice quite a reasonable chance of suc- cess. [Emphasis added] . . . [T]he Tlrt· Department would be placed in an . embarrassing position by the mere '--· --- -·-·-··-·~--~~ -~-~ •-n .,.,iuJont" 1Jtrll£NOJGO,I ~ fact of its administrative ac t, how ever well-intentioned, being chal lenged by the very people whose "The Church has complacently lived off welfare and protection represents the moral capital of Christendom until it its most important function. is nearly gone." In the same m emorandum The Anglican Church 's new draft code of the Commissioner records that professional ethics for church workers certain country Justices of the Peace had 'already quite illegally committed children and natives' " . .. many things in this nation frankly are directly to certain native institu tions, and the need for ensuring rotten - in foreign policy, in immigration that such illegally removed chil policy and in welfare policy. And the dren be brought before a Children's opposition federally is as responsible as Court. Perhaps he assumed that a the Government is for this." Children's Court order could ret rospectively validate unlawful New National Council o_fChurches removals and detention. It could President the Revd ProfJam es Haire Isabella Lynott, who w as taken aged four from her not. The Commissioner proposed Halls Creek home in 1907 to Beag le Bay Miss ion, that the 'native institutions' be WA. Her story, under the th eme of Separation, is designated child welfare institu The Melbourne Anglican told in th e exhibition Eternity: Swries from th e Em o tions too, to empower authori Mention this ad for a free sample copy of TMA tional Heart of Auslralia, at th e National Museum ties to deal with the children (and Phone: (03) 9653 4221 of Australi a, Canberra. Photo on loa n from Pearl their maintenance needs) under or email: [email protected] Hamaguchi . Used w ith permission child welfare laws. There could OCTO BER 2003 EUREKA STRE ET 21 and its proposal, which he said he supported that these accords were unenforceable, is - that child welfare authorities 'm ake avail overwhelm ing. able if possible any desired statutory author This is a sm all spotlight upon the fragil ities under the Child Welfare Act' to his ity of the rule of law in our tim es. Between officers-to the head of that departm ent. 1 January 1937 until about 1960 To cure such a litany of serious procedural government officers broke laws defects one might expect authorities to have m eant to protect Aboriginal people, reviewed the apprehension, detention and severed the bond between par circumstances of all Aboriginal children ents and children without a proper and to ensure that any anomaly be brought process and som etim es with neither right nor need to Between 7 january 7937 until about 7960 government do so. In so officers broke laws meant to protect Aboriginal people doing, they flouted the to their parents' attention. This did not absolute human right not to be subject to occur. Commissioner Middleton directed arbitrary arrest and detention, and failed his officers to 'encourage' parents to sign to rectify grave wrongs when they became 'voluntary agreements' for the admission aware of them, persuaded that this was in of their children to missions to be educated, the best interests of those fo r whom they which were later claimed to empower were responsible. these institutions to refuse to return the What should be done? Perhaps a group children. In 1955 he had acknowledged of interested Aboriginal people should ask that these 'agreements' were not enforce the Western Australian Suprem e Court for a able and authorised 'consent' fo rms in their declaratory judgm ent. The Attorney-General place. No 'consent' can deprive a parent should be asked to consent to the applica of his or her natural guardianship rights tion being lodged so m any years outside the and obligations, either, especially if they limitation period, in the public interest. were coerced through threats of It must be in the public interest to know forcible removal. what else is to be found of the motivations and acts of ministers, cabinet and governor I N 1958 THE AcTING Commissioner in council beyond what was fo und in over advised that when it cam e to the discharge looked 'administration' files. Was there a of children from missions, 'The laws should rem oval policy based on 'race'? Were chil New Directions Sabbatical be used as a broad guide for procedure, but dren removed and detained illegally? If so, New spirit for a new world in our work the most important factor is did government authorities know? How far Renew what is in the best welfare interests of the up did that knowledge go? Was any person your spirit in a fl exible program, a global native or natives concerned'. under a duty to put it right? If so, what community, and the scenic The pattern is clear enough . From 1 should they have done? What, if anything, San Francisco Bay area. Wh ether you January 193 7 it would seem that a kind did they do? want to take a break or take on new of benevolent inertia continued to drive A clear finding by one state's Suprem e experiences, you wi ll enjoy a wide a native welfare bulldozer over the civil Court might soften our impatient politi range of spi ri tual, recreational, and and human rights of uncountable (because cal ethos. Sir Ronald Wilson, President of academic resources. uncounted) Western Australian Aboriginal the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity children and their parents. Their removal, Commission when it conducted the New Directions transfer and detention without hearing Bringing Them Hom e inquiry, and the a sabbatical for one or two semesters or righ t of review was, to the knowl subsequent report, have both been nastily edge of the Crown Law Department, the dismissed as sentimental and foolish. JESUIT SCH OOL OFTHEOLOGY Commissioner for N ative Affairs, the How harshly we judge those whose at Berkeley Minister for N ative Affairs, the Attorney inadequate parenting, confidence and life a member of the General and the Premier, against the skills are causally linked to what m ay at Graduate Theological Union law. Parents of Aboriginal children were last be a provable fact: that successive misled about their legal entitlem ents and Western Australian governments did have 1735 LeRoy Avenue remedies, if not always by actual misrep a removal policy; that the law was repeat Berkeley, CA 94709 resentation then through offi cial silen ce. edly and knowingly broken; that it was a (800) 824-0122 The fi nal hypocrisy of inducing 'agree 'pragmatic' but immensely discriminatory (51 0) 549-5000 m ents' and 'consents' from parents with approach; and that the same forces are still Fax (510) 841-8536 enforceable legal rights-but who had been denying it today. E-mail: [email protected] accustom ed to complete powerlessness www.jstb.edu - by governmen t officers who were aware Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer. 22 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 Robert Manne Windschuttle's Whitewash This is the full text of the speech prepared for the debate with Keith Windschuttle at the Melbourne Writers ' Festival. It draws on some of the contributions found in Robert Manne's (ed), Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication ~ of Aboriginal History (Black In c, 2003). ~ HE FIRST BRITISH troops and settlers As is well known, Windschuttle's recorded, it was simply impossible to arrived on Van Diemen's Land almost book has been hailed by conservatives arrive at an even approximately accu- exactly 200 years ago. At the time, it is with overwhelming enthusiasm. Geoffrey rate figure of British settler killings of thought by scholars, there were about Blainey described it as 'one of the most Aborigines. Plomley's 1992 mono- 4000 to 5000 Indigenous people on the important and devastating written on graph is concerned exclusively with the island. By the early 1830s the number of Australian history in recent decades'. record of Aboriginal attacks on Brit- these people had been reduced to 200 or Professor Claudio Veliz went further. He ish settlers and not with settler kill- so. These survivors either surrendered or described Fabrication as 'one of the most ings of Aborigines. In his charts he did were captured and transported to Flinders important books of our time'. My view is not even include the evidence about Island. By the end of the 1870s not one of different. I regard Fabrication as one of the British killings of Aborigines recorded the 'full blood' Indigenous inhabitants, most implausible, ignorant and pitiless in the Robinson diary he himself had of a people who had lived on the island books about Australian history written spent many years editing. In Fabrication of Tasmania for perhaps 35,000 years, for many years. I will begin to demon- Windschuttle finds it 'puzzling' that remained alive. Ever since the 1830s what strate why I hold this view by an exami- Plomley himself never attempted to had happened in Tasmania has been con- nation of Windschuttle's claim that in Van compile a list of Aborigines killed by the sidered by civilised opinion as one of the Diemen's Land 11 8 Aborigines were killed British. There simply is no puzzle here. most terrible tragedies in the history of by British settlers. Like virtually all other scholars, except British colonisation. The figure of 118 Aboriginal deaths Windschuttle, Plomley was aware, in This is not Keith Windschuttle's view. was calculated by Windschuttle using the general, that, as he put it in the introduc- According to the dust jacket of his book research of the man generally regarded as tion to his 1992 monograph, 'the written The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, the pre-eminent empirical scholar in the record suffers from one particular defect: Volume One, Van Diemen's Land 1803- area of the Tasmanian Aborigines, Brian it is only concerned with attacks by 1847, the British settlement of Australia Plomley. In 1966 Plomley published the Aborigines on the settlers' and not with was 'the least violent of all Europe's extensive diaries of the man responsiblefor British settler attacks on Aborigines, encounters with the N ew World', while the surrender of the Tasmanians, according to its concluding chapter, Van George Augustus Robinson. In Diemen's Land was 'probably the site 1992 he published a monograph on where the least indigenous blood of all the Aboriginal attacks on British was deliberately shed'. Between 1803 and settlers in Tasmania. By combin- the removal of the Aborigines to Flinders ing the figures of som e of those Island, 30 years later, Windschuttle con- Aboriginal deaths in the Robin- tinues, 'the British were responsible for son diaries which, for reasons best killing 11 8 of the original inhabitants- known to himself, Windschuttle less than four deaths a year.' In a differ- regards as plausible, with those ent section of his book he claims that it records of Aboriginal deaths found is 'clear' that 'the number of Aborigines in Plomley's 1992 monograph, killed by colonists was far fewer than the Windschuttle arrives at the figure colonists who died at Aboriginal hands'- of 11 8 deaths. Windschuttle regards Aboriginal killings The firs t problem with this 'Die letzten Tasmanier', 1886, by Ludwig Salvator, 1847-1915, of the British as mere criminal acts: rob- figure is that the scholar on whom Tasma niana Library, State Library ofTasmania. bery and murder. He blames Aboriginal Windschuttle relies, Plomley, criminality, Aboriginal callousness towards made it clear in many of his writings and that, in particular, an unknown their own women and the dysfunctionality that documentary records could be relied and unknowable number of Aborigines of their society, as well as the introduction upon only with regard to British deaths at had been killed by the so-called 'border of European diseases, for the total collapse Aboriginal hands and that, because ers'-the stockkeepers in remote regions, of Tasmanian Aboriginal society. so many Aboriginal deaths were not the sealers, the timber-cutters and the OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 23 escaped convicts, who had no reason to woman who was in Van Diem en's Land in no-one in the past 200 years had doubted report their killings and good reason not the early days, Rosalie Hare. Because he that some killing at Risdon Cove took to report them. Plomley knew that we has failed to consult it he does not know of place. As he also notes, in Windschuttle's would never know how many Aborigines an incident reported in her diary relevant opinion there were only four killings of were killed by the British . to the subsequent m assacre at Cape Aborigines in the history of Van Diemen's There is a second reason why Winds Grim, which occupies an entire chapter of Land whose plausibility is rated chuttle's pseudo-precise figure is absurd. Fabrication. Here is the extract: as 'high'. Let us assume for the sake of argu We have to lament that our own country ment that every time a settler killed an TAKE THE CASE of Cape Grim in men consider the massacre of people an OR the north-west . Robinson was told by one honour. While we remained at Circular of those responsible for the main massacre, Plomley knew that we would never Head there were several accounts of con Chamberlain, that 30 Aborigines had been sidera ble nu mbers of natives having been know how many Aborigines were slaughtered. A second man who admitted shot ... The mas ter of th e Company's Cut responsibility, Gunshannon, was less killed by the British. ter, Fann y, assisted by four shepherds and forthcoming but did not dispu te the figure his crew, surprised a party and killed 12. Aborigine some documentary record came of 30. On the other hand the Superintend into existence and has been preserved. There is a fourth reason to doubt ent of the Va n Diemen's La nd Company, Even if this was the case no remotely Windschuttle's fig ure of 11 8 dea d. Even Edward Curr, reported to his directors in accurate figure of Aboriginal deaths could when Windschuttle is aware of relevant London, 'six dead ... and several seriously be produced. As Henry Reynolds explains, sources he often misrepresents what wounded.' Even though Curr's directors the reason is straigh tforward. In violent they reveal. Again one example must doubted his account; even though his encounters between the British and the suffice. Following a violent incident subordinate later implicated Curr in Aborigines, while som e Aborigines were that took place in Van Diemen's Land several Aboriginal massacres; even killed on the spot, others were merely in September 1829, John Batman wrote though Curr spoke of the necessity of a wounded. Henry Reynolds points out in a report in which he told of having been policy of extirpation and issued instruc his chapter in Whitewash that Robinson informed by two Aborigines his party had tions to employees to shoot Aborigines on noticed 'not an aboriginal' on Flinders captured that another ten were dead of their sight; even though Curr was thoroughly Island 'but what bears marks of violence wounds or died shortly after. perpetrated upon them by the depraved In his report Batman admitted whites. Some have m usket balls now to shooting his two prisoners. lodged in them .. . Some of the natives Windschuttle accepts this evi have slugs in their bodies .. -'. dence. But in his text he dis There is obviously no way now of misses the evidence of the ten knowing the ratio of wounded to killed, wounded or dea d. And in his and it is, of course, quite certain that a pro Table where the 118 deaths portion of those not killed but wounded are found, he even omits the subsequently died of their wounds. two prisoners Batman admits This is the second reason why to having shot. the figure of 11 8 is absurd. Where there is a dispute about the number of deaths A THIRD REASON IS this. If anyone in a particular incident imagines they are able to arrive at a plau Windschuttle almost invari 'Ta smanian aborigines at Oyster Cove Station', c. 1900, attributed to sible number of Tasmanian Aboriginal ably accepts the lower figure. Annie Benbow, 1841 - 1917, W.L. Crowther Library, deaths it is obviously a requirement that Concerning Risdon Cove, State Library of Tasmania. they read whatever available published for example, Windschuttle and unpublished sources exist. Winds accepts the evidence of two eyewitnesses, detested by his employees and by the chuttle has not even remotely done this implicated in the killings, who claimed a Governors at Hobart, Windschuttle has work. According to Jam es Boyce, of the very sm all death toll. He rejects the evi no trouble in accepting his word. In his 30 books published on the subj ect of Van dence of another eyewitness who, 27 years table six merely plausible killings at Cape Diem en's Land, in the years between 1803 later, at the height of the Black War, when Grim were recorded, with no mention of and 1834, Windschuttle is aware of at feeling against Aborigines was intense, those even Curr had described as 'severely most five of these works and has 'directly told the Aborigin es Committee that he wounded'. cited' from only three. Moreover he has had seen 'a great many Natives' being Even this does not exh aust the prob consulted alm ost none of the unpublished 'slaughtered and wounded'. There is no lem s with Windschuttle's account of the diaries or collections of letters, which are obvious reason why this witness should Aboriginal death toll in Tasm ania, which available to scholars. Given his claim to have lied. In his death t oll table, for Risdon he claims was the lowest in the history of certitude, this is unacceptable at best, Cove, a m ere three deaths are recorded. British colonisation. In Whitewash, Mark scandalous at worst. Let one example And these are only listed as 'plausi Finnane examines Windsch uttle's own suffice. There is a published diary of a ble'. Why? As James Boyce points ou t, fig ures-11 8 violent deaths among a base 24 EUREKA STREET O CTOBER 2003 from obvious. Why the Aboriginal popula tion of the north-west died out so rapidly, for example, where there were few free settlers, and where contact between employees of the Van Diemen's Land Company and the Aborigines was small and often lethal for reasons uncmmected to catching a cold is, as Ian McFarlane makes clear in Whitewash, a genuine historical problem. Windschuttle argues that 'for some reason' the Aborigi A~ ~ f5 ~Kt(,t~Jftt; J~arrtf nal women who went with the sealers did "JJ'"J'· . GJ..'l J II... U..'i."l ,dl: 1>~... l.,'24~ • ~a ~ Mttd_ ~ "'~ r.;;;_ ~'J!om not succumb to disease. 'For some reason' is not, to put it mildly, a sa tisfactory way 'Aborigines making & straightening spea rs', n.cl ., Benjamin Duterrau, 1767-1851 , All port Li brary and of brushing away a problem that threatens Museum of Fine Arts, State Library ofTasmania. Windschuttle's explanatory edifice. Indigenous population which, he claims, To summarise, thus far. Windschut If Windschuttle's claims about violent was 2000 in 1803. According to Winds tle's 11 8 deaths is reliant almost entirely deaths are implausible, even more so are chuttle's own figures the violent dea th rate on the scholarship of Brian Plomley, who his speculations about the m otives of of Aborigines in Tasmania in the late 1820s believed it impossible to calculate the those Aborigines involved in the violent was 360 times the murder rate in contem number of violent deaths. It is based on conflicts of the 1820s. According to him porary N ew York. According, moreover, the assumption that no Aborigines died of Aborigines did not attack British settlers to Windschuttle's own figures, if in the their wounds. The figure is reached with because they resented the loss of their period between 1824 and 183 1 as high a out the examination of many published or land and hoped to drive the British away. proportion of British settlers had died as unpublished records. Where there is a dis Lacking both 'humanity' and 'compas Aborigines, there would have been 3200 crepancy between witnesses Windschut sion' they behaved as common crimi dea ths, not the 187 on record. If Aborigines tle accepts the lower estimate. Even if his nals-murdering with pleasure, simply had died at the same rate as the British set own figures are accepted, they suggest a because they could; robbing because they tlers one would expect six deaths, not the violent death toll 360 times greater than coveted British consumer goods. The 95 admitted by Windschuttle. the current murder rate in N ew York Tasmanian Aborigines not only lacked And not only that. Windschuttle and an Australia-wide death toll higher nobility. They even felt no patriotism. entered this fi eld of inquiry by pouring than Henry Reynolds' estimate of 20,000. According to his account, having wan scorn on Henry Reynolds' figure of 20,000 On the basis of Windschuttle's own dered aimlessly over the island of Tas Aborigines killed during the entire course sources, a careful, even pedantic scholar mania for 35,000 years, they had form ed of the British settlement of Australia. If has discovered an additional 70 certain no attachment to any particular piece of Windschuttle's own figures for violent deaths and an additional 145 land. All this is nonsensical. killings of Aborigines are extrapolated to either rumoured or doubtful. The most important evidence Winds Australia as a whole, and if it is assumed, chuttle advances for this last proposition as some scholars believe, that there were EYEN WI NDSCHUTTLE cannot dispute is the fact that 'N one of the four vocabu as many as 75 0,000 Aborigines alive at that between 1803 and 1834 almost all laries of Tasmanian Aboriginal language the time of European settlement, then the Tasmanian Aborigines died. Why? Accord compiled in the nineteenth century, number of anticipated Aboriginal killings ing to Windschuttle the most important nor any of the lists of their phrases, would be 44,000. The only way one could answer is introduced European disease, sentences or songs, contained the word arrive at a figure as low as 20,000 violent concerning which, he claims, evidence "land'". Why the 19th century? As Henry deaths would be to assume an Indigenous is clear. Regarding violent deaths Wind· Reynolds points out in Whitewash, population, at the moment of settlement, schuttle demands evidence that might although in hi bibliography Windschut of 300,000 or less, a kind of figure most convince a court of law. Regarding the tle cites nine works by Brian Plomley, scholars abandoned 20 or 30 years ago. impact of introduced disease his eviden he does not cite by far the most impor One final point on death tolls. In tiary standard slip. As James Boyce points tant Tasmanian dictionary, Plomley's A recent days a conservative scholar, who out, in Fabrication he produces only one Word List of the Ta smanian Aboriginal is known for his scrupulousness, piece of evidence for the impact of disease Language or any other dictionary of the H .A. Willis, has published the result of his prior to 1829, a conversation recorded by 20th century. In Plomley's Word List, own survey of just those sources Winds James Bonwick. while there are no entries under 'land', chuttle claims to have consulted in order The impact of imported disease after the there are no fewer than 23 entries under to arrive at his list of 11 8 deaths. On the transportation of the Aborigines to Flinders 'country', the word Aborigines nor basis of these sources Willis arrives at a Island is not controversial. However the rel mally use when speaking about their fi gure of 188 violent Aboriginal deaths ative importance, before that time, of deaths own or others' land. In Plomley' Word between 1803 and 1834 and of another through shooting, malnutrition through the List, three entries refer to 'my coun 145 deaths which were 'rumoured' or loss of access to traditional hunting grounds, try'; six have meanings connected to which he regards as 'doubtful'. and lack of immunity to new diseases, is far the question 'Where is your country?' OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 25 Reynolds also quotes the words of mind, that they are a brave and patriotic separate Aboriginal attacks on British a translated Tasmanian Aboriginal people', who had 'considered themselves settlers occurred in the space of a fort song. 'When I returned to my country, as engaged in a justifiable war against the night in November 1827. What is this if I went hunting but did not catch invaders of their country'. And here is not the evidence of a warz When Governor any gan1e.' George Augustus Robinson, who knew Arthur was given his commission, he was the Tasmanians better than any British instructed 'to oppose force by force and to 0 NE OF THE CONTRIBUTORS tO White settler: 'Patriotism is a distinguishing trait repel such aggressions in the same manner, wash, Ian McFarlane, has provided me of the Aboriginal character.' Windschuttle as if they proceeded from subjects of an with additional evidence concerning the provides no evidence from a contempo accredited state'. Windschuttle does not Tasmanian Aboriginal attachment to rary who shared his strange view about mention this instruction. Why? their lands. George Augustus Robinson the lack of Aboriginal connection to land. The British Governor in Van Diemen's was questioned by the Executive Council Recently in Launceston Windschuttle lik Land, then, received instructions, if neces on February 23 1831. He told the Council ened Aboriginal attacks on British settlers sary, to fight a war. The British settlers in that the Aborigines were 'divided into to 'modern-day junkies raiding service sta the second half of the 1820s believed they various tribes under chiefs occupying tions for money'. At the end of the fierce were involved in a war, 'and that of the various districts'. In Robinson's diary, Black War of the 1820s, Governor Arthur most atrocious kind', as one of them put Weep in Silence, which Windschuttle spoke, rather, of this 'noble-minded race'. it. The Aborigines, at this time, mounted claims to have read carefully, Robinson Who ought we to believez scores of attacks against the British settlers. was informed about the reason for a clash Windschuttle not only doubts And yet because he wants to denigrate between two tribes. 'They [the Tarkiner] Aboriginal attachment to land and the Aborigines as criminals rather than state that they and the Tommyginny have Aboriginal patriotism, he even doubts as patriots, Windschuttle, almost alone been at amity and at war alternately for the idea that they were involved in a war among historians, believes that a long period; that on this occasion the against the settlers. In order to maintain there was no Black War. Tommyginny came to them on a visit this he idiosyncratically restricts the con and brought with them a quantity of red cept of war to organised attacks on enemy W NDSCHUTTLE THINKS that Henry ochre which they refused, which was troops. By his definition terrorist attacks Reynolds' characterisation of Aborigines, the ground of the quarrel ... '. In order to on soft targets could not be regarded as as involved in guerilla warfare, is nothing induce the Aborigines to go to Flinders war. He also ignores altogether the scores more than the Che Guevara romanticism Island Robinson guaranteed that 'as far of occasions on which the British settlers of an erstwhile 1960s radical. Once more as practicable they were ... to occasion and officials spoke of the 'war' in which this is nonsensical. As Henry Reynolds ally visit their native districts'. He also they at least knew they were involved shows, a key authority on the subject, recorded the grief of one of the Aborigi between 1824 and 1831. The Indigenous Walter Laqueur, regards guerilla warfare nes he was transporting to Flinders as one of the most ancient forms of Island: ' ... When we were off Swan military encounter. And, as he also Island Manalargenna the chief shows, on several occasions dur gave evident signs of strong emo ing the 1820s, both the Aboriginal tion. Here opposite to this island bands and the British roving parties was his country ... '. On the crucial were referred to by contemporaries as question-of the lack of evidence guerilla armies. There is nothing concerning Aboriginal attachment anachronistic about the idea of guerilla to land-Windschuttle's argument warfare in Tasmania in the 1820s. collapses at this point. It is really because he has no It also collapses, I believe, on grasp of early Tasmanian society that the question of whether, during Windschuttle is unable to understand the 1820s, Aborigines were in fact what caused the 1820s war. As Jam es behaving like criminals or defending Boyce shows in Whitewash, because their traditional lands and hunt Windschuttle does not know some ing grounds. As Henry Reynolds thing as elementary as the difference points out, the British settlers with between land ownership and land the closest connection to the Indig occupation, he thinks that by 1823 enous Tasmanians all commented 'G.A. Robinson w ith a group of Van Diemen 's Land natives', 1835, only a little over three per cent of the explicitly on their patriotism. Here by Benjamin Duterrau, 1767- 1861, Al lport Library and Museum Tasmanian land was occupied at the is Roderick O'Connor, the Com of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania. time the Black War began. It is true missioner of Lands: 'They were that in 1823 only three per cent or so as tenacious of their hunting grounds as Tasmanians have left no accounts of how of the land was owned. But by that time settlers of their farms.' Here is William exactly they conceptualised what was probably four or five times that amount Darling, superintendent of Aboriginal taking place at this time. Yet, as Shayne of land was occupied, by those who held settlements for two and a half years: Breen points out in Whitewash, in the annual leases, so-called tickets of occupa '[It] must be obvious to every candid north-central districts of Tasmania nine tion, or who simply grazed their flocks 26 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 on Crown lands. Extraordinarily enough, almost exclusively from the time when As Dirk Moses argues in the conclusion of both these forms of land occupation Aboriginal society had already almost to Whitewash, the way Keith Windschuttle Windschuttle is altogether unaware. altogether broken down. Windschuttle responds to criticism will reveal a great Much of Tasmania is mountainous or either hasnotread, or ignores, theevidenceof deal about whether Fabrication is merely wilderness. By the time the war began a the French explorers who give a a failed effort at historical revisionism sizeable proportion of the valuable central very different view. or the first instalment of an authentic plain of Tasmania was occupied by British Australian historical denialism with regard ettlers' grazing stock. These were also A CCORDING TO James Boyce, the to the dispossession of the Aborigines. the most important traditional Aboriginal least sympathetic of the early French For my part I am not optimistic. In hunting grounds. As almost all historians visitors to Van Diemen's Land was Peron. Whitewash Cathie Clement tells the before Windschuttle understood, this is Yet he wrote that the family life he had story of how, on noticing an error Sir the basic cause of the War, not a 'quasi observed among the Indigenous people had William Deane had made concerning a Marxist' explanation, as Windschuttle touched him deeply. Moreover, as Peron massacre of Aborigines at Mistake Creek preposterously claims. makes clear, the efforts of the French to (Sir William placed the incident in the Again because he has no understand have sexual relations with the Aboriginal 1930s; in fact it took place in 1915), ing of the reality of life in early Tasmania, women were strongly rebuffed. In fact it Windschuttle believes that most British seems almost certain that Windschuttle has hunting activity ceased after 1811, when not read Peron's account of the Baudin visit. Yet in that very month the Governor in fact, as James Boyce shows, for several For if he had, why does he confuse the dates issued an order to the settlers warning decades the settlers went on a veritable of the publication of the volumes for the hunting spree, allowing Van Diemen's years when the expedition took place? them against taking Aboriginal life. Land to become a major exporter of kan There is, however, a far more serious garoo skins and other furs. As Boyce point here. In an account which is sup Windschuttle went on the attack. One of notes sardonically, if Windschuttle had posedly sympathetic to the plight of the people who bore witness to the mas read the early Van Diemen's Land news Aboriginal women, why does Windschuttle sacre was an Aboriginal woman, Peggy papers, beyond the indexed references to omit from his account of the reason for Patrick. As Peggy speaks not standard Aborigines, he might have noticed that in violent clashes the considerable evidence English but a local Kriol, when she was December 1819 the Hobart Town Gazette concerning British settler abduction interviewed she spoke not of the loss editorialised against the practice of the of Aboriginal women, clearly one of the of her grandmother and grandfather grazers of animals who 'employ almost all most important of the grievances of the but of 'mum mother and father and their time in hunting, losing sight of their Tasmanian Aborigines? two brother, two sister'. Windschuttle flocks for days together'. Because Windschuttle has not fol thought at first that Peggy Patrick was And if, indeed, Windschuttle under lowed contemporary scholarly debate, referring to the killing of her mother stood early Tasmanian society he would he repeats Plomley's early view that and father, not to her grandmother and not, most egregiously of all, have assumed, Tasmanian Aborigines could not light grandfather. He mocked her mercilessly as he does, that orders issued by the early fire, without realising that, on the basis on that account. How could she argue Governors, in this case against the wan of later argument and evidence, Plomley her mother was alive in 1915, and so on? ton killing of Aborigines, were almost subsequently changed his mind. And Windschuttle has been informed since automatically obeyed. On this question because Windschuttle lacks understand then, on very many occasions, of his Windschuttle is caught in a hopeless ing of the historical context, without the error. He has refused to apologise. He has contradiction. According to him in June support of any evidence he claims that the even repeated his mistake. 1813 not a single killing of an Aborigine Aborigines went 'naked' in winter even In Whitewash a statement of Peggy had occurred in Van Diemen's Land for in the mountain regions, presumably Patrick's appears. She concludes by five years. Yet in that very month the because, as the most primitive people on saying that in talking openly about what Governor issued an order to the settlers earth, they had been unable to work out had happened to her family she had hoped warning them against taking Aboriginal that animal furs might protect them from that 'black and white can be friend when life. What is the explanation for this appar the cold. As James Boyce points out, in the we look at true thing together'. After her ent gubernatorial slander of the settlers? 18th century 'naked' normally implied the recent experience, she says, 'Look like The most distressing feature of Wind lack of cover of the genitals. James Cook, nothing change'. For my part I hope that schuttle's Fabrication is its vilification for example, wrote of Van Diemen's Land this is not the case. Anyhow whether of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Some is that 'the females wore kangaroo skins tied things have or have not changed almost comical-like his suggestion over their shoulders and round their waist' whether there will ever be a history which that the Aboriginal survival over 35,000 which 'did not cover those parts which Indigenous and non-Indigenous Austral years or so was mainly a matter of good most nations conceal'. As Boyce rightly ians might share-is what the debate luck. Some is not amusing. Windschuttle says, the idea of a people existing in such between Keith Windschuttle and myself accuses the Tasmanian Aboriginal men a climate for tens of thousands of years is finally about. • of treating their women brutally, by sell without working out that they might wear ing them into prostitution. The evidence kangaroo skins is, to put the matter chari Rob ert Manne is Professor of Politics at about mistreatment of women comes tably, too ridiculous for words. LaTrobe University. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 27 Dewi Anggraeni In contrast to previous government apathy Indonesia's academics respond to a militant minority I WA> BORN, RA'"o •nd educated in majority of Muslims, because it would in 2001 , various Muslim thinkers and Indonesia. I still live between Australia have been regarded as targeting the weak. activists gathered together, this time and Indonesia, so I often forget that what It would be too difficult to prove anything at Teater Utan Kayu-a cultural centre I can see in Indonesia's social and political against members of the army, and even fo unded by author, poet and senior jour landscape is not necessarily visible to harder to get a conviction. It seems that nalist Goenawan Mohamad. The meet most Australians. behind the government's lack of action ing was moderated by Goenawan, and a When Australians think of Islam in were inertia and denial. strategy for action was adopted. farin gan Islam Liberal, or Liberal Islam Network, was launched. A web site was set up, moderated by Luthfi Assyaukanie, author and lecturer at Paramadina University. The website quickly expanded. Media syndication was established. Columns and articles discuss ing Islamic teachings began to appear Indonesia, they now think of Amrozi, the It's not clear whether the resulting outside Muslim-related publications. A Bali bomber who can't stop smiling; Abu compla cency contributed to the Bali wide-circulation newspaper group, Jawa Bakar Ba'ashir, who may or may not be the bombing. The attack certainly jolted the Pas, which also has regional newspapers, spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah; and Indonesian government out of its denial. now sets aside regular space for activists of terrorism. Who could blame them? They also have to face the fact that for the Network. Popular radio stations have I can't blame Australians for being many Australians, Amrozi has become set up chat shows, where day-to-day needs cynical, or at best confused, when told the face of the Indonesian Muslim. and problems of Muslims are discussed on that the majority of Indonesia's Muslims However, it would be wrong to assume air. Clerics with extensive understanding arc moderate and peace-loving. Moreo that all moderate Muslims have been una of Islam are invited as guest comperes to ver until the October bomb attack, the ware of the presence of Islamic militants. answer questions from listeners, on topics Indonesian government continued to For years Muslim intellectuals have been ranging from inter-religious marriages to maintain that there were no terrorists unhappy about the way the militants are the correct attire for a particular event for in Indonesia. Political analysts prior to using the name of Islam to perpetrate very Muslims. In answering questions about the attacks were saying that the govern un-Islamic acts. They have been writing col religious interpretation, the clerics often ment was reluctant to take tough action umns in newspapers and speaking at confer make distinctions between the universal against the hard-line Muslims for fear of ences, emphasising that violent jihad and Islamic teachings and the temporal and a backlash from the wider Muslim com hatred are not a part of the real cultural aspects of Islam which have been munity, whose support they could not teachings of Islam. open to interpretation for centuries. They afford to lose. There is some truth in all remind people that the latter have been of the above. SPEAKERS REPRESENT different debated among clerics themselves, with Indonesia does have Amrozi, Abu Islamic organisations. Many are people out them being less Islamic for doing so. Bakar Ba'ashir and Jemaah Islamiah. with no clear political affiliations. This The Liberal Islam Network works across Violence has been employed as a political is an advantage as most Indonesians do and transcends existing organisations. means by some militant Muslims. And not readily accept what politicians say at It challenges the literal and scriptural the majority of Indonesia's Muslims are face value. Yet intellectual language has interpretations of Islam, and seeks to moderate and peace-loving. its own limitations. It does not reach the separate the temporal and cultural aspects There were reasons for the govern grassroots level, while political language, from the universal truth of Islam. ment's reluctance to act against militant being 'sexier', is more easily understood. In its activity not only does the Network Muslim groups suspected as being behind In 1997, Nurcholish Madjid, a respected find itself in confrontation with radical a number of violent incidents. The most Muslim intellectual and scholar-founder Islamic movements such as Laskar fihad important was that Indonesian society of Paramadina Foundation, which also (Holy War Soldiers) and Front Pembela then believed that while many of the runs Paramadina University in Indonesia Islam (Defenders of Islam Front), it also t rrorist acts were committed by mili -raised the idea of a network of Muslim incurs the wrath of conservative clerics tant Muslims, they were also aided, even liberal thinkers. Several attempts were from more established organisations, such manipulated, by elements of the army for made to realise this ambition. as the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Indonesian their own purposes. Seeing the govern Following the Christmas Eve bomb Ulema Council). ment crack down on militant Muslims ing of several churches in 2000, the need Ulil Abshar Abdalla, chairman of might well invoke the sympathy of the to create a network became urgent. Early Indonesia's Research and Development of 28 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 Human Resources Institute and one of the but Luthfi Assyaukanie believes most prolific writers and active speakers that this inquiring attitude is a of the Network, last year incurred a death healthy phenomenon. fa twa from some clerics of the Indonesian People who support the Liberal Ulema Council. Ulil offended the ulemas Islam Network, endeavour to open AABRusT RA L IAN B o o K R EV I EW with his trenchant and fearless criticism the minds of Muslims who may of the conservative practices in the coun otherwise be influenced by mili try's Islamic communities, which Ulil tant groups. It seems they may be October highlights believes blur the distinction between the wi.Jming as most Indonesians do not feel comfortable with anything universal teachings and the scriptural Chris Wallace-Crabbe aspects of Islam. extreme. The majority of Muslims on Patrick McCaughey The fatwa generated a great deal of in Indonesia do not want Islamic controversy, while Ulil soldiered on, sharia instituted. They believe in unrepentant. Islamic values, but do not want Dennis Altman on Howard's War 'I'm lucky, in that I was brought up in to live under an Islamic state. In an era where people were beginning to be the 1999 election, the first demo Isobel Crombie on Max Dupain critical of what they were taught, so now cratic election in Indonesia since when I am supposedly condenmed by 1955, all the Musli.Jn parties who Spring Reading these ulemas, I receive so much support supported Islamic from left, right and centre, even from some sharia were defeated. 'If we did not have a review devoted to our ulemas at the Indonesian Ulema Council literature, we would risk not having a literature itself. I know I have nothing to fear/ said A MONG THE WIDER Mus at all. ABR is an essential part of our literary Ulil when asked about the fatwa. lim community there is an ecology - not just a magazine but an ideal.' There is continuing opposition from increasing tendency to reject Delia Falconer conservative and radical groups, who accuse the concept of the violent jihad. Those who practice it are gener the Network of being funded by the West or Subscribe now! $67.00 for ten issues (incl. GST) worse still, by the United States (which is ally regarded as irresponsible. Ph: (03) 9429 6700 or E-mail: abr(a vicnet.net.au increasingly seen as opposed to Islam). They However, this is not enough to Also available at select bookstores and newsagents also say that the Network is too elitist to prevent horrific events such as ever reach the general population. the Bali bombing from recurring, as the underground. To flush them out requires a The Network activists deny this. They attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in carefully considered strategy. are, they expla.i.I1, Muslims who have been August 2003 proves. The endeavours of people involved brought up in the local Islamic traditions During an ABC Foreign Correspondent in the Liberal Islam Network, which is and culture, who practice Islam and absorb interview, the Head of the Team of Inves expanding internationally, deserve sup Islan1ic values without having to transplant tigation into the Bali Bombing, (Police) port. At present, the powerful nations are Arabic culture into their lives, unless, of General I Made Mangku Pastika, postulates focused on eliminating problems by mili course, they are of Arabic background. What that there are three layers of terrorists who tary might. This makes the tasks of liberal they have integrated into their lives are the were involved in the Bali bombing. There Muslims very difficult. tmiversal and absolute teachings of Islam, are the foot soldiers, who were made to The militant groups base their recruit which can be implemented in any host believe that they were launched on a fast ing technique on showing their candidates culture. Indonesian people from different track to heaven. The middle-level opera how the United States and its allies indis regions are generally proud of their own local tives, such as Amrozi, Imam Samudra criminately killed and tortured Muslims mores, so the idea that they can be practicing and Ali Gufron alias Mukhlas, who have in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how Muslims Muslims while reta.i.Iling their regional iden a deep hatred toward the United States for living in Western countries are victimised tities should offer reassurance. what they believe are that country's mas just for being Muslim. If the West contin The reach of the Network activists has sacres of Muslims around the world. Then ues to fight terrorism by causing further also extended to rural and younger Mus there are those ii1 the highest echelon, who killing, it will only serve to further the lims. They have been invited to pesantrens have power in mind, who want to create a arguments of militant leaders. (Islamic boarding schools) for discussions pan-Islamic state. There is no doubt that Indonesia's with the clerics and students. And in these While this may sound like a thumbnail security and intelligence agencies need discussions, as in those with university stu sketch of a complex situation, it offers a smartening up. But this should be accom dents, the Network activists are at ease with clear structure. It tells of the existence of panied by a serious study of the Indonesian the language of the Qur'an and well versed in radical Muslims who do not hesitate to use social and political situation on the part of its interpretations. Theirs is not a language violence to fight for political gain, who also Western nations, particularly Australia. of slogans, which is important in promoting have enough persuasive power to recruit There needs to be a window to the world understanding rather than merely encourag middle-level operatives and foot soldiers. behind Amrozi's face. • ing people to follow. Such people may be a minority, but they Disagreements arise as to what is meant remain a dangerous and aggressive one. Dewi Anggraeni's book, Who Did Tllis to by the temporal and cultural aspects of Islam, What's more, such groups are mostly Our Bali! will be published later this year. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 29 ('SSJ\: l Tony Kevin Sunken diplomacy Former se nior diplomat Tony Kevin exammes the damage to For this government, Australia's safest course is to adhere firmly to Ameri Austra lian foreign policy can power- the big rich nation that is 'most like us'. So since 2001 , Australia has moved steadily closer to the fearful, uncomprehending and casually cruel I REnRED moM my fmme< pmfo. kept a cordial but prudent distance from national security state that the United sion, as an Australian diplomat and Bush's Washington. States has become. For both countries, it foreign policy analyst, in 1998 after 30 The causes of the attack on the is a sad trend. years' service. My final postings were as Twin Towers had nothing to do with For most of my 30 years in t he Depart Ambassador to Poland, Czech Republic Australia; they lay in decades of troubled ment of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and Slovakia (1991-94) and to Cambodia American engagem ent with intractable I worked in areas where I did not feel ( 1994-97). Middle Eastern problem s. The attack did confronted by moral choices. DFAT's In those years I was proud to represent not jeopardise Australian national secu working culture was always 'can-do', Australia. Now I am a contrarian writer. rity, or the personal security of individual anti- intellectual, sardonic, uncomfort The present government's international Australians. John Howard achieved this able with higher ideals. security settings are damaging both to himself, by plunging Australia voluntar The seem ingly permanent Cold War Australia's security and to the personal ily into a global security ca uldron where meant there were always abuses and security of ordinary Australians. They we had no need to be. After our govern atrocities on both sides to be pragmati have undermined Australia's interna m ent's military partnership in the US cally balanced. Whatever we were doing tional reputation, and misled public led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, wrong, it could plausibly be argued understanding on these m atters. The Australia is now tied firmly to George that the other side was probably doing government's deliberate cruelty towards Bush's unilateral interventionism. Our something worse. Greene's The Quiet asylum seekers who arrive by boat-at security professionals now worry, along American had little impact on me when I the border protection stage, in detention, side their American counterparts, about first read it. I am far more impressed now and finally in the limbo of Temporary 'homeland security'. Six years ago this by what it says about the gross imbalance Protection Visas-shames Australia's would have been inconceivable. Now it of power in the world, and the frightening conscience. is real. self-righteousness and m oral blindness of Australia's national direction and Contrast Australia's situation with American power. tone have changed radically since 1996. Canada's or N ew Zealand's. Both main I felt then that Australia was an The former bipartisan foreign policy tain good international citizen credentials autonomous global actor, that we had consensus that suited Australian inter that Australia has lost. New Zealand, free choices, and that I was part of my ests, subtly balancing Australia between without sacrificing essential bilateral country's professional resources to help the US alliance and the Asian region, no interests, keeps a safe distance from make those ch oices better ones. In Poland 1991- 94, where taking visit ing YIPs to Auschwitz was a regular duty, The Prime Minister, who sees himself as a realist, is my Panglossian complacency was shaken driven by visceral fears. as I watched the Milosevic regime's unchecked hideous cruelties towards Croats and Muslims. I was reminded by a longer exists. We have security and trade Washington. A perceived decency and Deputy Secretary-who has done well in agendas, but we no longer have a real modesty in N ew Zealand's interna his career since then-that 'these issues engagement agenda towards our region. tional profile protects New Zealanders. lie outside Australia's area of primary Since 2001, Australia has become Yes, som e N ew Zealanders died with concern'. I did not think he was right, umbilically attached to the present Australians in the 2002 Bali bombing. But but I obediently set my conscience Washington administration. It is a sad the major targets there were Australians, aside. accident that the Howard and Bush the first collateral casualties of Howard's administrations coincide. With any other national security policies. JULY 1997 wAs crunch time: the US president, Howard's unbalanced for The Prime Minister, who sees himself improbable co-prime minister regime in eign policy tendencies would have been as a realist, is driven by visceral fears. Cambodia set up by t he UN peacemak contained. With any other Australian Outside the English-speaking Western ers in 1993 finally fell apart. Civil war prime minister, Australia would have democracies, he sees a threatening world. between royalists and post-communists 30 EUREKA STREET O CTOBER 2003 loomed again, and the West and the expression, to try to apply the job skills is finally about ordinary people, and Association of South East Asian Nations of a former diplomat to contributing to whether their lives are valued. Policies (ASEAN) were again preparing to choose informed debate about Australia's role in are only means: people, whatever their the royalist side. the world. nationality, are the ends. Australia had been quite complicit in I have moved away from 'foreign Things are improving. The harm a cynical Cold War endgame that inflicted policy realism'- A value-free and expedi that bad foreign policy can cause is now a cruel13-year insurgent war (1979-1991) ency-based foreign policy cannot be right. better understood. There is an informed on the Cambodian people. After Soviet However complex the issue, Australia's and credible contrarian foreign policy backed Vietnam liberated Cambodia starting point must be respect for all voice. For example, former DFAT officers from the monstrous Khmer Rouge regime human life. Good ends cannot justify evil like Dick Woolcott, Richard Butler and in 1978, the West and its ally of conven ience China isolated and tried to destroy the new Cambodian state, using a Khmer However complex the issue, Australia's starting point Rouge royalist insurgency as their main must be respect for all human life. military vehicle. The 50 cent anti-per sonnel landmine was the Khmer Rouge's means, and might does not make right. Bruce Haigh have become trenchant weapon of choice. Today, tens of thou Australians do not have a 'manifest critics. Much of what I was struggling to sands of amputees and bereaved families destiny'. If we are not decent at home and convey about the morally bankrupt and in Cambodia still pay, with their pain and abroad, we will not survive. We must help reckless style of governance that now grief and damaged lives, for this cynical defend the rules-based international order prevails in Australia is better appreciated realpolitik war. based on the UN that we helped to create after the exposure of the Tampa cruelties It became supremely important to me after World War II. To become an Ameri and the 'children overboard' photographs after July 1997 to tell the world what I can vassal or mercenary, indifferent to the fraud. thought was the truth about Cambodia. sufferings of others in this interdependent Thoughtful commentators and former At 54, I found courage to speak. In my last world, dishonours our nation's history and DFAT colleagues know, as I do, that there three months as ambassador, I used all my values and will not secure our children's will be much foreign policy repair work personal credibility to lobby vigorously for future. after the present government. Australia governments to negotiate with Hun Sen, As a multicultural democracy, we will have to 're-balance', re-engaging with as Cambodia's best chance for peace must practice the values we proclaim-in damaged or ignored relationships with and stability. I succeeded, but at our conduct abroad, and in how we treat the UN, with countries in our region, a personal cost. people coming under our country's duty and with China, continental Europe, and of care, including boat people. Here is the Russia. We won't abandon the ANZUS 0 VER THE PAST five years I have writ only link I see between refugee policy and treaty, but we will need to regain healthy ten from an independent viewpoint on the terrorism issue. Refugees are not ter distance between our country and the a succession of foreign-policy-related rorists-but how we treat refugees will United States. Because Australia's world issues, such as Australian diplomacy in affect how the world will treat us. cannot only be about raw power: we must East Timor in 1999, 'border protection' There is a vicious stupidity about the return to being part of an international and the suspicious sinking of SIEV X, and present policy mix that diminishes us all order of nations. Australia's ill-judged participation in the and makes us less safe. On terrorism, we We will rediscover Australians' genu invasion of Iraq. lead with our chins-every time. It can ine empathy with our neighbours. We will I found that it is acceptable to express only be a matter of time before we take stop fearing them. And we will rebuild mildly contrarian views, but seriously to serious casualties in Iraq where we still our country's tarnished moral credibility. challenge conventional assumptions have 1000-odd Australian Defence Force Confronting painful truths about events to write too far outside the accepted people serving. such as the sinking of SIEV X will be a frame-is confronting and disturbing to For most of my working life, large part of that challenge. • mainstream readers. Writing and aca I was more interested in 'policy' demic opportunities, initially promising, than 'administration'. Now I real Tony Kevin is a Canberra writer tended to dry up as my policy critique ise that government and former diplomat. sharpened. I don't think I became especially radical. Rather I am trying to apply tra ditional Australian values of decency and fairness. It is the arrogance and thoughtless cruelty of present Australian national security policies that drove me to speak out. It has been liberating, intellectually and philosophically, to shake off habitual DFAT constraints on my thinking and --- OCTOBER 2003 EU REK A STREET 31 Chris W allace-Crabbe Language so lovely Al ter :-,hak e ~p e an•: \n \ntholog) John Cross \L·dl. 0:\lonl Unr\LTSit\ i'r Lss.l\)(Jl,JsJI'- ()I') lti() 47J 1 JUU ~~ - ~ 'h The Oxfnrd Bonk of Aphnri'm' iohnl.rus' L'd' Oxtunl Unl\~rsJty l'•css, l l) ~ reissued 1\)IJ.~. Ish ()It> 2s0 4 ')(, I I', :--N 'h l HN Gnoss >S A MAN of lcaming, flai' and onocgy. Ho did a actually kept a Shakespeare journal. This gentleman was at least remarkable job as editor of the Times Literary Supplement in the the sympathetic opposite of silly Frederick the Great, who com '70s, and is always worth our attention. Oxford University Press plained that in German theatres 'you will find the abominable has recently presented or re-presented him in two of his hats: he plays of Shakespeare being presented, and audiences in transports pulls the strings behind two widely differing anthologies. of joy listening to these ridiculous farces, which are worthy of the The more original and, surely, more arresting of these is savages of Canada.' his celebration or many-headed critique of Shakespeare: the No tall monarchs were such neo-classical barbarians: Catherine Don Bradman of Western literature. All manner of writings the Great, we are told, translated The Merry Wives of Windsor are assembled here, woven together with Gross's own obser into Russian. And now, in an age when we desperately need vations. These contents range from Borge's wonderful story Maynard Keynes to be reborn, it is nice to have his sound in which God finishes up saying to the poet, 'like me, you are comment that 'We were just in a financial position to afford everything and nothing', to Cole Porter's 'Brush Up Your Shakespeare at the moment when he presented himself!' Shakespeare'; from Zbigniew Herbert's 'Elegy of Fortinbras' Once, in Washington, making my way to the airport I back to sturdy Ben Johnson. listened to the African-American taxi-driver explaining why it As this will suggest, the book is a feast with a great many kinds has to be the case that Bacon wrote the Bard's plays; confus of dish, with cooks of many schools. There are novelists, critics, ingly, he went on to point out how clear Bacon's style was, and poets, diarists, satirists and an 18th-century Swiss weaver, who how richly dense Shakespeare's. There are no Baconians here, nor yet the Marlovian thesis of Mike Rubbo, but there is a charming essay by Leslie Stephen demonstrating how W.S . wrote Bacon's works. Again, some kinds of postmodern thinking have sought to dematerialise the man from Stratford, turning him into a series of textual traces and historical sites. This anthology does much to maintain his solidity, as does Brian Vickers' recent study of the writing processes, Shakespeare, Co Relax Author. If we are to be deconstructive, we might say that Wlt~~~d we have all eaten Shakespeare, turning him into our selves Mintster and even, miraculously, into our DNA. to Yourself Gross has devised many pigeonholes or categories in which to locate his riches. We pass through 'Worlds Else where' and 'Echoes', 'Tales of' and 'Tales from'. Along the way we may delight in Emily Dickinson, Fielding, Sartre, crazed Ruskin and ever-gentle Max Beerbohm. We can think of omissions, no doubt, over and above all SAT Sabbatical Program the critical classics which were deliberately excluded: I do like that moment when Tolstoy told Chekhov that • Res t Sl'lf-conlained, free and ll cx ibl c modules arc his plays were 'even worse' than Shakespeare's. And yes, Ti me • Be Nu rtu red speci fi ca ll y designed to assist indi,·idual s • Be Free to integrate th colog), -; piritualit\ human I miss the Falstaffian Harold Bloom, along with Thom to ... dc1c lopm cnl and minis try with their • Play Gunn's fierce poem, 'A Mirror for Poets'. lived experi ence. Of course, the business is all about language, and the • Pray Four-month and Nine- month proJ!rc.1 ms • Share New Idea s richness of it. As Lawrence writes in one of his lively SXI' • School o f' ,\ pplied Theology pieces of doggerel, 'How boring, how small Shakespeare's G raduate T heological Lnion people are! / Yet the language so lovely! like the dyes 2-tOO Ridge Road • Berkeley C .\ 9-t709 1-800-831-0555 . 5 10-652- 1651 from gas-tar.' Certainly there is nothing boring in After email salgtu 32 EU REKA STREET OCTOBER 2001 The Aphorisms are easier pickings, plainly, even if they were laborious fossicking for Gross himself. We ramble here among the usual suspects. There are plenty of jots or tittles delivered by those epigrammatical Frenchmen and Germans, verse from calmative Montaign e down to that Karl Kraus of whom it was written, 'When the age died by its own hand, h e was that hand': he who must have loved La Rochefoucauld's 'We all have strength enough to endure the troubles of others.' N othing h ere is more concise than clever Nietzsche's 'N o victor believes in chance', nor anything m ore platitudinous than Conrad's 'In plucking the fruit of m emory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom.' But Conrad was always a plodding writer in English. The Rochefoucauld reminds me, though the editor would not have known this, of Evan Jones's comico-plangent quatrain: Life feels mainly too like stone, two things feel like froth: Sleeping with the light on kindness when one's all alone and good luck to you both. It makes good sense to organise your sun. Resignation is a leading actor in aphorism s, it goes almost You switch it on and wait to be a star. without saying. There are just the quip and the dead. Among the extroverts, Oscar Wilde is refulgently here, of Truth is content with such a sweet eclipse course, along with Dr Johnson, much Hazlitt and the two Samuel Butlers. Beckett misses out entirely, as does Clive James; our Arrived at naturally. Light equips contemporaries are scarce and could, no doubt, have been Your birthright's quark, your m em ory's pulsar, expensive: a reflection that lies like a dead weight on the heart of every anthologist. An inside moon would be a dreamer's pun. Women are few-such is the tradition of wit-and Anita Laos entirely absent, but George Eliot does come up with the dwindled observation that 'A different taste in jokes is a great strain on the And we are for the dark. The dark is for affections.' Blood oath it is! In truth, a great many of the aphorists sound as though they sweated too hard to come up with their The race re-run in Helios's car. punchlines. One relaxes pleasurably when that old crosspatch A light bulb's still on sentry duty, one Dostoevsky offers us the notion that 'The formula "two and two m akes five " is not without its attractions', when Stevie Smith More squaddy of the all-enlisting sun. notes that sin keeps us nasty, or when some obscure Japanese poet writes, The darkness fails to tell us who we are. To map a lake you have to skim its shore. In a policeman's arms The lost child points Towards the sweet-shop. The sun, the Aten of what is, may seem Some of these examples are maxims, precepts, quips, prov The D evil's emissary. Monks awake erbs and epigrams. The borders between such little provinces lie in dense bush, with the result that they are not easily deter Are only drones, but dream s point every way. mined. We readers are here to be improved, but always to be entertained. Do oracles convince or just explain away? As is right and proper, Thomas Hardy wins the gloom prize Turn out the light for credulousness' sake with 'The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.' I And leave it on that Lucifer may dream. have gone on brooding personally about Princess Bibesco's claim -Peter Porter that endurance may be only a form of indecision, but have kept a careful distance from Kraus's explosive remark that 'Some women are not beautiful- they only look as though they are.' Just possibly, this was the case with Cleopatra. • Chris Wallace-Crabbe is a poet, essayist and art critic. He is a Profes sor Emeritus in the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 33 negating their traditions and beliefs. But it does m ean letting go of the ego and the need for individual ownership. There is a delicious contradiction in the fact that the monks asked me to take photographs of the mandala; their celebra tion of impermanence. The photograph is a fixed, permanent image of a moment. The monks readily agree that they enj oy having the photographic reminder of their work. They are, after all, human. I observed a powerful expression of this humanity at the ceremony after they tossed the sand into the ocean. It was an encounter between an Aboriginal artist from Western Australia and one of the monks. Her greeting was to touch the monk's chin gently. The m onk clasped her hand and returned her look. In so doing he had let go of the tenet that monks must not touch wom en. The exchanged gaze between these artists represents a mon1ent that is a w rn I w" ' child in Engl•nd we dedicate many hours each day to putting triumph of humanity. It was significant used to play a particular game in the the sand into small fluted steel tubes. They that this encounter happened at Port winter. Without gloves we would crush tap those tubes with a metal rod to release Melbourne Pier, a place of disembarkation snow and ice into our hands and lob it at a the sand, grain by coloured grain, into the for so many people forced by tyrannical set target. When we became too numbed exact spot. The melodic tapping of m etal regimes to let go of the place to which they with cold to continue we rushed into the on m etal offers meditative accompani once belonged and to embrace new worlds. classroom, clutched the large hot radiator ment as the patterns form. It can take four Belonging drives a lot of human pipes and yelled 'Last one to let go is a monks six hours a day for 20 days to com activity. While the Tibetan monks see coward'. We tried desperately to conceal plete the pattern. When their construction themselves as belonging to a monastery our inability to maintain a lengthy grip. is finished, they consecrate it and then, and to a strong cultural tradition, the Eventually of course we did let go, just with great ceremony, scoop it up and toss essence of their belonging lies beyond a before the pain of looming blisters overrode it into the ocean. physical place and history. It lies within the pleasure of tingling heat. 'It's all about letting go and return the very life force to which we all belong As we get older we learn that letting go ing to the earth that which comes from and is mirrored in their mandala. is often desirable. And it is far from cow the earth,' one monk told m e. 'This is a We need these saffron-robed artists ardly. In fact, letting go can demand vast celebration of imperrnanence. It's not a to remind us that letting go is far from resources of self-awareness and courage. cause for regret but an invitation to live cowardly. Letting go is often about abdicating own in the present, to embrace change and find ership. It is an affirmation that certain security.' Peter Davis is a Melbourne writer, photogra things contain their own life, independent These monks know about imperma pher and a lecturer at Deakin University. of our desires and anxieties. We learn too nence and secu- that letting go means acknowledging and rity. I have been honouring the past in order that we can to Dharamsala n1ove on. where they live The Tibetan monks that I photographed in exile. The in Melbourne in 1996 were engaged in a Tibetans there symbolic ritual that is all about letting go . are struggling They came from the Namgyal monastery to reclaim that • in the north Indian town of Dharamsala which they have where the Tibetans in exile have es tab lost. So does lished a new homeland. It's the same mon this mean they astery to which the Dalai Lama belongs. are unable to let Their Melbourne stopover was part of a go? It's not as global tour to spread messages of peace and simple as that. reconciliation. They do this by construct Letting go for ing a magnificent Kalchakra Mandala out these monks of coloured sand. Over several weeks they does not mean 34 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 books:2 Lia Kent Heavy hand Empire Lite: Nation-building in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, M ichacl lgnat tdf. Vi ntage, 2003. I'll'~ 0099-1- S'i4W, RRP $22.95 N ATWN-sunmNG '' ' h•ught Ignatieff exposes the million- His craftsmen are not trained. There is and m essy business. Michael Ignatieff dollar enterprise that nation-building a danger the bridge will turn out like knows that well. As a journalist he has has become. Now the cure of choice for the nearby Criva Cuprija, a little bridge reported from war zones since 1993 and ethnic civil war and state failure, the over a tributary of the N eretva that has is the author of several books, Blood nation-building 'caravan' has moved from been restored to become a Disney-like and Belonging, The Warrior 's Honor Cambodia to Angola, to Sarajevo, to Pristina, version of what an old bridge should and Virtual War, on the nature of ethnic to Dili, to East Timor and then on to look like. Despite the physical link, conflict and intervention. Ignatieff 's latest Afghanistan. The caravan's most recent reconciliation hasn't actually occurred. offering, Empire Lite, is a series of essays settling place, Iraq, is People continue to live exploring the new global empire that is too recent to feature completely separate lives nation-building: the imposition of 'order' in Ignatieff's study. MICHAEL IGNATIEFF and the bridge will come that follows humanitarian intervention Wherever the caravan to provide a 'substitute' for in the 'failed' states of Bosnia, Kosovo settles it creates an reconciliation. and Afghanistan. Ignatieff m anages to instant boom town, Yet Ignatieff 's view avoid the didactic and self-righteous but this boom eventu of nation-building is not style that characterises journalistic writ ally goes bust. NATION-BUILDING 1n BOSNIA , KOSOVO, a wholly cynical one. In ing on this topic-the tirade against land The bridge across AFGHANISTAN bringing his attention cruisers and expensive hotels. He is more the river N eretva in back to the real nation interested in exploring the paradoxes and the town of Mostar, in builders-the people of contradictions in nation-building than in south-western Bosnia, Afghanistan, Bosnia and outright condemnation. has come to symbolise Kosovo-he finds hope. Ignatieff does not shy away from nam the tragic absurdity of The real nation-build ing things. The language of nation-building the nation-building ers include the Afghani hides the reality of imperialism in Bosnia, enterprise. The bridge refugees returning to Kosovo and Afghanistan. To describe was built in 1566 to Kabul in their brightly nation-building as an exercise in 'humani link the m osques and coloured Pakistani tarian intervention' by the 'international markets from one trucks and the women community' is a fiction that obscures the side of the city to the teachers who secretly fact that none of it would have happened other and was a struc- taught girls during the without United States military power. ture of exceptional beauty, crafted from Taliban years and have now established Far from being m otivated by humanitari white stone. It became famous in Tito's open-air schools for girls, most having anism, the nation-building exercises in Yugoslavia, bringing tour buses from their first-ever reading lesson. Ignatieff Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan are all over southern Europe in the 1960s also finds he can believe in the Afghani exercises in imperialism, interventions and 1970s. In 1992-93 violence between brick-maker who has once again begun crafted to suit American objectives. They Muslim and Croat militias destroyed the making bricks in downtown Kabul in the are imperial because theirforemost purpose bridge: an artillery unit from the Croatian midst of desolate ruins. N o-one bothered is to create order in border zones essential side of the city brought it down. Ten years making bricks after the militia fi ghting to the great powers. And while nominal later the reconstruction of this historic in 1992. There was no point because the power may return to the local capital, bridge has become a metaphor for recon shelling might start again. When asked the real power remains in Washington, ciliation, for building a link from the past why he has started his business again, London and Paris. For Ignatieff the 'Empire to the future, for assisting former enemie the brick-maker replies, 'We have a Lite' is 'hegemonywithoutcolonies, a global to reconcile. But it turns out that every government now. People need hou es.' sphere of influence without the burden of body (the Europeans, the Turks, the locals) The brick-maker does not embrace direct administration'. With its rhetoric is more interested in the bridge's symbolic the Americans with open arms, but of democracy and humanitarian need, value than in rebuilding it properly. The perhaps knows he needs them . It is an nation-building is the kind of empire you bridge must be rebuilt immediately, yet uneasy and pragmatic co-existence. get in the human rights era. the engineer has not finished his studies. Ignatieff acknowledge that som etimes OCTOBER 2003 EU REKA STREET 35 states do fail and that there is a role for the international community to assist in reconstruction. But he sees how difficult it is to exercise a genuine act of solidarity in these circumstances. The principles of imperial power verse and self-determination are not easy to reconcile. The empire wants quick results, at the lowest possible cost. This means an early exit. Nation-building and reconciliation are long-term processes. Phrases such as 'capacity building' and 'empowerm ent of local communities' sit uneasily beside the fixation of nation-builders with political timetables. For Ignatieff the task of the nation-builder should be to keep an With blinds pulled down area free of external aggression and internal civil war, and to support local political authorities to take over We're in six/eight and if this keeps on going political rule. The 'Empire Lite' fails on both counts. we'll soon be rocking in three-quarter time It neither provides a stable long-term security guar antee nor creates the conditions under which local thank God the blinds are down ... we're slowing ... leadership may take over. relief! The postillion's horn is blowing, I found m any echoes of the UN's nation-building venture in East Timor in Ignatieff's descriptions. While the horses are straining for the climb. not an exercise in American imperial objectives in the same way as these case studies, East Timor offered My score is in my lap. A field of grain an unsurpassed opportunity for nation-building 'from scratch'. However, the impossibly short time frame would poison thought, a tree corrupt a m etre imposed on the transition process was designed to if something's good, then serve it up again, suit the needs of the international community more than those of the East Timorese. Consultation and save paper, let the future take the strain participation of the 'East Timorese people' in decision manuscripts are neat, but minds are neater. m aking was often rushed and piecemeal, confined to the Dili-based leadership. While all attention was turned to political self-determination, the World Bank called Music has bridges, proper network roads, the shots on economic policy, wielding enormous power in the determination of funding priorities waterways which don't need locks and levels and promotion of a market economy based around it bears its own anticipatory loads, privatisation and a limited role for state regulation. N ation-building created a fine veneer of democracy The Natural Order hands it down its codes and human rights which only too soon has begun to saints appear-a bar beyond, they're devils. unravel. But the caravan has moved on. Lying somewhere on the boundary of politics and moral philosophy, the strength of Ignatieff's writing God rested on the seventh day-why rest ? lies in the moral questions raised rather than answers I'm like a fish inventing where it lives. provided. Does the role of the West in nation-build ing tell us more about ourselves than about the Life outside's a sort of palimpsest places that we take up as causes? What is the role of of good and evil nurtured at the breast outsiders in the healing and nation-building process? Ultimately, Empire Lite is itself a 'lite' read, a broad needy, you become the need that gives. sketch rather than a rigorous study of nation-building in particular situations. There is much left untouched or m erely alluded to, such as an exploration of the role And so I keep the blinds drawn, lock away of nations like the United States in contributing to the milk and honey of a proffered Canaan unrest and state failure in those states now undergoing nation-building. After the most recent 'humanitarian to travel to the concertland of play, intervention' in Iraq and as the caravan rolls in again, and in the coach, by halflight, night or day, one can't help but feel Ignatieff lets the nation-builders off a little too easily. • create the only world I can be sane in. - Peter Porter Lia Kent was a human rights officer with the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor and is completing a Masters in International Law. 36 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 G ,L CouRnMANCHL WALKS p•st made particularly bad colonists, didn't Highway' from Mombasa to Entebbe, me a couple of times as I'm sitting in the they? They caused the enmity between using truckers for vectors as malaria uses lobby of the Windsor, but I don't recognise the Hutus and the Tutsis by favouring the mosquitoes. And thereby hangs an irony: him- there is no author photo in the back latter, didn't they? many educated Africans believe that AIDS of his multi-award-winning novel A Sun The French were just as bad, he says. is spread through mosquitoes, and so they day at the Pool in Kigali. In the end he The French embassy was evacuated just figure they may as well enjoy their sex sees me chatting with a girl whose T-shirt before the massacres, and they left their unsafe. logo proclaims her links to the Melbourne Tutsi employees to the machetes of the You cannot understand Africa with Writers' Festival and he approaches. His In terahamwe. You have to understand, out understanding their attitude to sexi English is excellent, and with the kind he says, that in this very small world, there is an enormous amount of screw of French-Canadian accent that sounds this microcosm e, those who worked ing around, he says, adding that African hip. Gauloises and cognac. This is his at that time in Rwanda- he shakes his culture separates sex and feelings. Every first novel but he has been a journalist for head. They sent the worst, most inept thing is related to poverty, he says, and many years. We're both earl y, but he is fl y diplomats there, their worst international leans forward a little to say that if the ing out to Spain in two hours and needs to 'experts' and accountants and supervisors, Hutus had been rich and organised like get things over with. who would come for three weeks and live the Germans they would have built gas What is real and what is fiction in your in the best hotel. A driver comes in the chambers. And the daughter of poverty is novel? I ask. Clearly we don't need to do morning to take them to the air-condi deadly ignorance. the ritual conversational dance of what tioned office and brings them back in the But there is too much ignorance in the does 'real' m ean, yacla yada. He smiles, a afternoon. In this disorganised, derelict rich countries too. Courtemanche's novel little tiredly. Everyone must ask him that, society, says Courtemanche, a little boss sees the link between sex and death that but each questioner needs an individual becom es a huge, crude boss, and is devoid is so much more obvious in Rwanda. The answer. He says it's a fair question and of even the faintest perception that when Canadian journalist who accused him that the R wan clan political background, the Rwandans address him as 'chef' they of writing a Mills and Boon for m en and the sequence of public events, the facts are laughing at him. obj ected to his 'sexualising' of events has about the killings and cruelties and the There is a small silence. The women, missed the elephant in the living room. way they were carried out are all real. The I say. The women in Africa are just meat. His anger at the West's apathy in 1994 mom ent a village or region was liberated Why are they treated so horribly? Most is palpable, and the resonances with the from the grip of the Interahamwe, the African m en don't want to talk about it, Nazi Holocaust are clear: those who murderous Hutu militias, the new govern he said. Traditional matrimonial law in defend the inaction of the UN's represent m ent would interview the survivors while Rwanda dictates that if a husband dies the ative in Rwanda by saying that they were the m emories were fresh . wife doesn't inherit if his family doesn't under orders not to act have forgotten the There is no way to re-create genocide, want her to. She is oft en obliged to marry lessons of Nuremberg. He is fierce about but I wanted to work through the people his brother or uncle, and if she refuses, she Australia's treatment of refugees and I've known, trying to imagine how they and her kids are thrown out. So she'll go to Aborigines. lived and cli ecl, he said. I tell him that some Kigali, but if she finds work in a kitchen or And as he leaves he signs my copy of of his details are terriblei I can't get them a hotel, the pay is too low to support them, the book with a gracious message. • out of my mind. They really happened, he so the only way to survive is by occasional says. Those details are not the product of prostitution. It's one of the ways AIDS is Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. my imagination. What was it about the spread, he says. Belgians, I ask. He looks at me. I try to Courtemanche worked in Rwanda to A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, by Gil explain: the book has some instances of educate about AIDS, which has spread Courtemanche, is published by Text Belgians behaving very badly. And they with lethal efficiency clown the 'AIDS Publishing, 2003. Photo: Darren James. OCTOBER 2003 EU REKA STREET 37 INAucmT, TH< omA Dead Man Wall 38 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 200 l IJ(Iol -; ' Alana Harris Rich harvest Gnming Good Catholic Girl~: Education and Conn:nt Life in Australia Clm~tltH: fnmtngh.tm Jack. MclbmtrnL Unt\cr~itv l'n:ss, 20(U. 1'-il'.; () '122 ( ;(h~ 3, RRI' s.~-l.lJ'i W,L, ' w" READme Chd"ine investigates both inter Australian Catholic iden Trimingham Jack's fa scinating personal nalisation and rejection of tities. This is despite the account of the education young girls have Catholicism 's traditional tantalising possibilities within a Catholic boarding school run by constructions of feminin presented within the text. the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I ity. There is an imme These reservations found a hymn refrain echoing throughout diacy and potency in this aside, the affectionate yet the text that I associate with m y own, dialogue between 'the old sometimes ambivalent m ore recent education under this sam e and the new' as the women account of Kerever Park religious order: 'bind, bind, closer-the recount their affirmation, makes for an interest old and the new ... ' interpretation or rejection ing study in the changes, The hymn celebrates the childhood of of perspectives established continuities and multiple Saint Madeline Sophie Barat, the French during childhood. They allegiances encountered founder of the order in 1779. It exhorts 'her do so as adults within in personal histories children' in countries and centuries far a radically new social and indeed within the removed from post-revolutionary France context and against the history of modern to acquire the 'stamp' of her blessed char backdrop of the changes Australian Catholicism. acter. The Society's continuing and self to Catholicism that fol- In its exploration of the conscious aspirations to imprint on its lowed the Second Vatican Council. 'bind' between the past and the present, students the characteristics of a 'Child of Trimingham Jack uses the interviews and the durability of these old school ties, the Sacred Heart'-and more broadly the to explore the complex interactions Trimingham Jack's book encourages the m ark of a good Catholic 'lady'-provide between conformity and challenge to reader to summon up rnem ories, and in the contours fo r Trimingham Jack's his the school's social and spiritual order. my case m elodies, from our own past tory of Kerever Park, the boarding school Her history of Kerever Park resembles a school experiences. she attended as a child in the Southern number of recently published Australian Highlands of New South Wales. The book Catholic m emoirs in its movem ent Alana Harris is the recrprent of the explores the formative role of such a Cath between reminiscence and reappraisal, N ewman College Archbishop Mannix olic education in shaping the self-under which is sure to resonate with readers Travelling Scholarship and the Rae and standing of Catholic girls in the 1940s from similar backgrounds. Edith Bennett Travelling Scholarship. and 1950s. It examines the function of As a commentary on education and She is presently undertaking a DPhil the school's physical setting, daily ritu convent life in Australia, Growing Good in Modern History at Wadham College, als, educational practices and religious Catholic Girls provides a detailed and University of Oxford. symbols in producing 'Catholic wives engaging history of one such school, and m others in accordance with the mid som e of its past pupils and teachers. Its dle-class model of the time'. discussion of the interactions between Trimingham Jack has interviewed 14 Catholicism and gender identity will July-August Book Offer Winners: ex-students and religious sisters at the contribute to the expanding academic H. L. Abbott, Yo rkeys Knob, QLD; school. The results are interwoven in the exploration of this issue. However, V. Holmes, Reid , ACT; 0 . Abrahams, book with her own reflections and some it does not draw upon the growing archival material. The book's strengths historiography of Australian Southbank, VIC; J. Bra dley, Higgins, are the intriguing way these female Catholicism now available, which ACT; J. Clutterbuck, Lyneham, ACT; voices have been placed in the foreground would place the book within a larger M. Coombs, Weston Creek, ACT; and the interplay between their past and context. Other important related issues J. Dobinson, North Balwyn, VIC; present lives and ideas. These rich sources are left relatively unexplored, such M. Fitzgerald, Wellington Point, QLD; would have benefited from being placed as class, nationality and race, femi in context within the women's broader nist discussions surrounding the body, G. Kemp, Bayswater, VIC; P. Hill, life experiences and other formative and recen t explorations of religious W arragul ,VIC. influences. Trimingham Jack carefu lly spirituality all equally as constitutive of O CTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 39 Paul Tankard ~ High hopes catholic i nstituteol,ydnP) for th eo logy and min is try Hope: new philosophies for change, Mary Zournaz1. Pluto Press, 2002. I SB'i 11-lMOiJ .. HJlJ , IUU' $2lJ .lJ'i Two Summer Schools Five Days: January l'f- 20, 200'f (wee kend excluded) New in 200'+: lntroducin~ Islam T"coLUCTWN of conm,.,;on,, from Michael Taussig: 'Hope is against loosely organised around the subject of the evidence ... it comes out in spite Patrick). Mcinerny sse, LSAI (Rome) hope, is between Sydney-based freelance of what went before' or 'Life is not a Theo/M (Me/b) Columban Centre for philosophy writer, Mary Zournazi, matter of one initiative after another.' Christian-Muslim Relations. and oth er contemporary philosophical Or Alphonso Lingis' observation that Pauline Rae, smsm BA Dip Ed(Syd) writers whom she adrnires. Most of these 'a lot of intellectual activity, at least in MA(Rel Stud) Fordham NY Columban people are academics, based in Europe, the 20th century Western cultural orbit, Centre for Christian-muslim Relations the US and Australia . The best-known correlates lack of hope with being smart, Muslim specialist guest lecturers. are probably psychoanalytic thinker or ... with profundity.' Or Ghassan Hage's The knowledge you will gain of the Julia Kristeva and Gayatri Spivak, th e rather un-P.C. thought that 'racism ... faith and practice of your Musl im translator of Derrida. provides [migrants] with a good reason to Zournazi is to be congratulated for hate people they already hate for a "bad" neighbour will help break down having tracked down so many important reason' or that 'There is a priestly element stereotypes and enable better professional critical thinkers (although in the intellectual disposition'- understanding, friendship and all on the B-list rather than the A-list) Indeecl, the priestly status of these cooperation between Christians and and to have done so despite, as she contemporary intellectuals is manifest Muslims in Australia at this critical asserts, being the daughter of migrants in the book by liturgical reiteration of junction in world history. to Australia and not having 'lived out their various dogmas (the gift, the body, [her parents'] dream of success in the the other) or authorities (Nietzsche, A popular course repeated: new country'. To have been able to spend Freud, Marx, Walter Benjamin), in the Environmental Ethics: three years travelling around the globe avoidance of systematic argument, and interviewing her favourite ph ilosophers in Mary Zournazi's role as disciple and A Christian and Australian sounds pretty successful to m e. mediator. Also noticeable is the total perspective The interviews are not conventionally failure to consider more traditional Dr Neil Brown STD philosophical. Take sentences and part religion-still a potent influ ence and an Sandra Menteith Bpharm BTh sentences like 'What if hope was like important site of hope-in other than dismissive terms. This course is designed to help another human "sense"-like some kind of anatomical part of us, not physically The trouble is (and I don't know if it is students integrate environmental but allegorically? Hope as a sense that this style of book or this style of philoso concerns within their Christian value is visceral and ever-present, much like phy) that the speakers are only thinking system. the kaleidoscopic experience of a fair'. intermittently. They talk their way These (in this case, Zournazi's) words, towards some new or interesting or Either course may be credited like a great deal of the book, need to plausible idea, then drift off again. It's towards a Bachelor's or be read with a certain lack of attention, all rather vague, repetitive and hard to Master's de~ree or undertaken otherwise you're stuck wondering what fo llow. on an audit basis. an allegorical part of your anatomy could You sense Zournazi's interviewees be like, or h ow th e 'experience of a fa ir' trying to help her out. All of them make Re~istration and Payment by can be ever-present. There is certainly interesting and thoughtful points, but 12 December 2003 something m eant here, but it's hard to they seem to work as much against h er discern what. questioning as with it. 'Is that what you're All enquiries and bookin~s: But if you can bring yourself to getting at?' she asks Taussig; 'I wasn't,' he Catholic Institute of Sydney read that way, there are interesting replies, but h e's happy to talk about it. A 99 Albert Road, Strathneld, 2135 I 02 9752 9500 f 02 97'f6 6022 and valuable things to be found. It lot of the time, she and the interviewees e [email protected] is tempting to write them all out as don't seem to know exactly what each www.cis.cat hoi ic.ed u.a u aphorisms, and to then dispense with other means, but they arc determined not the book altogether. Take these apen;:us to let that stop them from talking. 40 EUR EK A STREET OCTOBER 2003 Many of the participants seem the micro-level and shapeless at the macro The discussions frequently bring anxious that the discourses in which they level for the general reader. I suspect that up the daily issues, the environment, professionally engage be able to address Hope's main readership will be students of multiculturalism, and the world the sorts of topics that are usually the the various people interviewed. situation after the terrorist attacks on province of humanist discourse-more In the first conversation, Alphonso New York and Washington. But useful approachable but, according to the Lingis quotes Nietzsche's remark, 'it is insights come in isolated phrases, postmodern mind-set, discredited. For bad taste to formulate rational arguments rather than in the whole. Unless you most people, postmodern in polite society', and then count the mere possibility of having a thought seems to offer comments, 'most of what philosophical conversation as a positive nothing more profound than we say is nonsense.' I've thing, which of course it is. However, it a bottomless scepticism, never thought of a book of requires postmodernists to be talking out of which hope (much philosophy needing to be not only to each other. less faith or charity) seems polite, and feel that readers I found H ope difficult to read, or at unlikely to emerge. Hope, of a book about hope are least to read with attention, and in the if it is to be real, must entitled to expect more. end, slightly depressing. Useful hope be usable and practical, sfor Much of the conversa is not, I think, going to come from and not simply 'fun and maryzournazi ..... tional effort seems aimed this direction. It's all very well for intellectually stimulating', at redefining hope. In the postmodernism to proclaim the failure as Taussig describes the second-last interview, of the Enlightenment, but the failure of subject. Brian Massumi concedes, postmodernists to conceive a future is The book needed 'rationally, there really one of the sure signs that unless things tighter editing (and far isn't much room for hope', change, between them and the devotees better indexing)i Zournazi . - which may explain both of brute power who seem to be on the should have used an editor why the interviewees ascendant, there may not be one. • to massage the transcripts emphasise that they want into a more publishable form, and sought to discuss the present rather than the clarification from the interviewees. There's future, and why the conversations aren't Paul Tankard is a Lecturer in English at too much bum£. particular! y ra tiona!. Of course, one the University of Otago, Dunedin, New It's not a heavy read, but it's too vague at hopes in the present, but for the future. Zealand. WESTON jESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Evan Cuthbert • Master of Divinity • 1999 Ju ly 1999 Love ought to show itself in deeds , I Di rector, Ignacio I ' May1999 Volu nteer Program, COII!pletes is on more than in words. .. : Boston College D directing the church's Campus Ministry - St. Ignatius of Loyola mission eo Office. 1996 children; Cradlllltes Enrols at Social Justice with Master of Divinity w.ton Jesuit School Forum. from Weston Jesuit 1993 elf Theology. ,.. YCIIIIh ...... lp School of Theo1Gf1o ...... ,... ~·~ ...... chilli ...... ,..,...... , ...... ENTER on please contact: Office of Admissiont' W, n Jesuit SchooLofTheology Place • Cambridge, Mass achus etts 02138 -3495 USA· Telepbeft (617) 492-1960 • Fax (617) 492-5833 [email protected] • www.wj st. edu • F INANCIAl A I D IS AVAIL A 8 L E OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 41 John Carmody Through a glass, darkly Opera Au<>tralia\ Lulu whether he's Lulu's father or an old pimp. distorting images, angulated above the He opens a big, soiled cardboard carton action. We see everything twice, though from which he draws a little girl, wearing what we actually sec depends on where the kind of saucy red dress in which we we're sitting; more than twice, really, will soon see the 'adult' Lulu, knowingly because at scene changes this vast mirror twisting the strands of her blonde wig. is lowered and we then see the orchestra, One could almost feel the chill of a the conductor (Simone Young, flaunting a shudder pass through the entire audience. sexy Lulu-like dress), even the prompter. 'The sweet innocent,' the Trainer says, It's all very Brechtian, a reflection of 'My greatest treasure.' It is the complexity Wedekind's hostility to the social realists of this central character that has eluded of his time. many of the Australian critics who have Phillips's third great success is the written about this production. The ques excellence he has achieved in his singers' Emma Matthews (Lulu), Barry Mora (Schigolch) and tion, surely, is-as the American scholar, acting. Whether these roles are small Pi:ir Lindskog (Aiwa) in Lulu. Photo: Jeff Busby. Carl Richard Mueller wrote in the Intro (John Bolton-Wood and Jamie Allen, in duction to his translation of the plays particular) or more important-notably 'Who is Lulu? What is she? Lulu is all Barry Mora (Schigolch), Conal Coad (the things and something different to every S&M Animal Trainer and the Athlete), man. She is fact, she is myth; she is corpo Par Lindskog (Alwa) and especially John MEN and life-affirming real, she is idea; she is realist, she is ideal.' Pringle as Schon/Jack, in the performance women' are, to quote the prologue, the In telescoping the two plays, Berg sought of his career-they are superbly played. poles of Alban Berg's opera, Lulu and to reflect the lifecycle of this polychrome Only Catherine Carby, as Geschwitz, the Frank Wedekind's two plays-Earth Spirit character by a second part which is the hapless lesbian aristocrat with her futile and Pandora's Box-which are its textual mirror image of the first: the three love for Lulu, is less convincingly focused. base. Berg saw a private Viennese perform husbands whom she blls, inadvertently And at the heart of it all, Emma ance of the just-published Pandora 's Box in or deliberately, all return as clients of Lulu Matthews as Lulu. She is not vocally ideal 1905, 23 years before he began work on the the prostitute, in sordid decline after her in Melbourne; her voice was not powerful opera. Like the author before him, Berg was previous luxurious ascendancy. The third enough to bestride the orchestra and was concerned to reflect the fundamental con of them, played by the singer who was Dr over-stretched in her top register. The tradictions and absurdities of the human Schon, (ironically, as she said, the only man smaller, more congenial Sydney Opera condition. Is this all nature or nurture? Is she ever loved), is Jack the Ripper and he Theatre posed few such problems. As sex a creative or a destructive force? murders her. an actress she is brilliant: lithe, poised, Hence the male-female contrast with Berg brilliantly turns this plot back on sinuous in her unremitting eroticism and, which play and opera confront us in the itself with an orchestral interlude which eventually, touchingly desperate. person of the Animal Trainer. He accuses is a musical palindrorne (though it is not Presiding over the superb venture, the us of being like animals brought up on a obvious without detailed study of the mirror of the composer's own genius, is bland vegetable diet, our spirits sapped. score). At this point the composer asked Young herself. Her precisely assured con This piece, he promises, will show us real for a brief film, also palindromic, which ducting bringing both conviction and radi wild animals; and he presents us with Lulu. unfolds and recapitulates Lulu's life. Sev ance to Berg's immensely complex musical That reveals the first stroke of genius in eral critics were upset that Phillips did not thought and structures and sometimes Simon Phillips's new production for Opera employ this device, yet all three European achieving what sounds (especially from Australia, which opened in Melbourne productions which I have seen also dis brass and lower strings) like resigned sigh in April and which Sydney will see in pensed with it-with an imaginative pro ing. That wry but thoughtful emotion is, October. The Animal Trainer calls an duction to complement Berg's music, it is perhaps, how we should leave the theatre, assistant to bring on 'our snake' and out unnecessary. Which part of her life, then, pondering the overlap of life and art, the comes sleazy and wheezy Schigolch (a sort is 'real'-who is the real Lulu, who are the contradictions of Lulu and ourselves. of Beckett-Patrick White shambles) push real associates, the real us? ing a supermarket trolley hung with old Hence Phillips's second and pervasive John Carmody is a Sydney medical plastic bags. We never know, in the opera, coup: his use of a huge reflector, producing scientist and opera and music critic. 42 EUREKA STREET O CTOBER 20CB the . short I 1st About face: Asian Accounts of Australia, extraordinary'. Reading Susanna de Vries' collection of stories Alison Broinowski. Scribe Publications, 2003. about great Australian women, I understood what the judge ISBN 090H0ll962, RRP $30.00 meant. The women in de Vries' book are notable for their extraor Diplomatic Deceits: Government, Media and dinariness, and their courage. As for the visiting judge, she put her East Timor, Rodncy Tiffcn. UNSW Press, 200 l. appointment down to an incredible amount of hard work. ISBN OH6840S7lX, RRP $27.9S The problem with stories that are intended to be inspir Asian-Australian relationships have always ing is that they float somewhere far above the ordinariness been a critical issuei they are either a source of that I can relate to. When de Vries describes the depression of promise or fear. Louisa Lawson, or the desperation of Miles Franklin as she suf In About Face, Broinowski, a former Aus fers a heart attack alone in her Carlton house, it is without tralian diplomat, has written a book that looks at these relation tangibility. The moments of greatness are so luminous that ships from an Asian perspective. Broinowski charts the historical they obscure the depth of humanity that is shown through events that have impacted on Australian relations with Asia, from failure and despair, doubt and struggle. Through the glorification the gold rush troubles of the Victorian era to the Bali bombings. of success, these stories lose the capacity to move. However, not only does Broinowski examine national agendas, she -Emily Millane deals with the cultural results of East m eeting West. This is an illuminating process in itself. The Conclave: A sometimes secret and occa Broinowski argues two fascinating contentions. First, that sionally bloody history of papal elections, Asian nations themselves are subject to the same racial virus that Michael Walsh. Canterbury Prcss, 2003. affects us in Australia and that this is a reaction to the 'white supe !'iBN I 8S3ll 497 9, RRI' $33.9S riority' of the colonial period. Asian leaders use this fear of others One might be forgiven for thinking that a to their own electoral advantage, much like John Howard. Second, history of papal elections would be a rather that part of the cause of the Bali bombings was Indonesian resent weighty and densely written volume filled with ment of foreign tourists on their soil. She claims that the offensive meticulous detail, much of it frankly dull. Not ness of Australian tourists to Muslim sensibilities, combined with so Michael Walsh's hugely entertaining survey, the wider deterioration of Indonesian-Australian relations from which ranges over nearly two thousand years in the East Timor crisis, created a groundswell of ill will that made 180 pages. I like anecdotes in my history, and the Bali bombings possible. there is no shortage of them here-and far from detracting from the Broinowski writes fascinatingly about contrasting Indonesian subject matter they allow a brief glimpse into the way some fig and Australian perceptions of the East Timor ures from the past viewed the world. Some of the anecdotes record crisis. Rodney Tiffen's Diplomatic Deceits the downright bizarre, such as the extraordinary conduct of Pope puts that crisis into a broader historical context, Stephen Vl (or VII, depending on how you count the Stephens) covering Australian political considerations in who arranged for the exhumation of the body of his recent and dis the period from the Indonesian annexation of liked predecessor Formosus. The body was dressed in papal robes, the former Portuguese colony to East Timor's installed on a throne before an assembly of bishops and accused of eventual independence. various misdemeanours. Stephen got his comeuppance, however, Diplomatic Deceits, through no fault of being strangled while imprisoned in a m onastery. History does not Tiffen's, suffers from being written before the relate whether one of the monks was responsible for the deed. bombings in Bali. An analysis of this event Other anecdotes reveal a world both foreign and familiar. The would have added another dimension to the punishment and shaming to which the antipopes were subjected book, h owever Tiffen provides valuable insights into our gov seem s crude and inhuman-Gregory VIII, created pope by Emperor ernment's acquiescence to the invasion and occupation of East Henry V in 1118 and then abandoned a few years later, was ceremo Timor. Diplomatic Deceits highlights the constant tension nially paraded through the streets of Rome sitting backwards on a between pragmatic and principled policy-making on East Timor. camel while antipope John XVI was obliged only to sit backwards Tiffen argues that principle would have been the better option for on an ass, though he also endured mutilation for his troubles. But maintaining Australian credibility. Diplomatic Deceits is a quick surely our own cultures have generated m ore subtle but equally but valuable read. devastating methods for the humiliation of those around us. -Godfrey Moase This is a history of papal elections-or, more accurately, of papal su ccession-so the m aterial on policies and personalities The Complete Book of Great Australian is necessarily brief. Walsh includes enough to show the influence Women-Thirty-Six women who changed the one pope's policies could play over the selection of a successor, course of Australia, Susanna de Vries. Harper particularly if those policies offended a secular ruler. But in a way, Collins, 2003. l'illN 07.1227H04X, RRP $3S.OO the very brevity of the book is its great strength, for Walsh man A senior female judge recently delivered ages to convey a palpable sense of the emergence of the present a speech at Melbourne University called from the past, and a superb 'afterword' sets the stage, so to speak, 'Women's Experiences in the Courtroom'. for the conclave which will elect the next pope. When asked what it takes to becom e a judge, And no, the papacy of John Paul I was not the shortest on she reflected that the women she knew on record. the bench possessed 'an elem ent of the -Tom Riemer sr OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 43 each other and taking drugs. way of us accepting his fi nal triumph. N ot Joaquin Phoenix plays supply clerk that I want the fi lm to become a m oral Ray Elwood, a petty crim forced into the ity play- but to pass off what is mainl y a army as an alternative to jail, who makes cynical exercise in formula film-making flash in the pa the most of his position to sell off army as some sort of political critique seems a supplies to the black market. He drives a little hypocritical. brand new BMW, and has a ni ce sideline -Allan James Thomas Amora lity play cooking Turkish morphine into smack and selling it on to the MP who controls the base heroin trade. But wh en Elwood Swell seas Buffalo Soldiers, dir. Gregor Jordan. decides to date the daughter of the new Gregor Jordan's new film, Buffalo Sol base sergeant just to irritate him, in Finding Nemo, dirs. Andrew Stanton and diers, isn't actually that new at all. It was between trying to sell two truckloads Lee Unkrich. N ext to m y computer is a completed in 2001 , in between making of weapons to an illegal arms dealer and glass of apple juice with a plastic fi sh sit Two Hands and Ned Kelly, and sold to shagging his commanding officer's wife, ting in the bottom of it. There is a straw Miramax the day before the September 11 his cosy life starts to unravel. sticking out of his tail. It's N em o. M y terrorist attacks. The reason we haven't The film looks pretty, but there are daughters chose cereal they don't like seen it until now is that it was seen as narrative threads left hanging everywhere just to get the toy straw fro m the packet. being too critical of the American mili and the happy ending just seems arbitrary The marketing madness that has accom tary for a post-September 11 world (read: and gratuitous. In fact, the 'critique' the panied this fi lm is a little overwhelming America), out of sync with the 'spirit of premise of the film implies is no more but don 't let it put you off. Finding Nemo the times'. Even now it's copping flak than skin deep. In reality it's just a stand is an absolute delight. from som e critics in the States for its sup ard Hollywood product: hero gets in deep Marlin wants his family to have an posed anti-Americanism. It's set on a US water, but com es out on top and gets unimpeded view of the open ocean-what military base in West Germany in 1989, the girl, Anna Paquin in this case. The proud clown-fish-father-to-be wouldn't? just as the Berlin Wall is about to fall. fa ct that Elwood is a drug-dealing, arms A dazzling vista of blue fo r his wife and With no real enem y to fight, and no real selling thief who sees the death of his umpteen soon-to-be- hatched little tackers purpose for being there but sy mbolism, colleagues as little more than an opportu to stretch their fins in. But like any prop the grunts fill their time stealing, fighting nity to profit isn't supposed to get in the erty with dazzling views it costs- big time. Or should I say big teeth. Sadly for Marlin there arc clearly hungry property devel opers at sea as on land and before you can say flake and minimum chips, Marli n is a single father of one. Finding Nemo is about lots of 'real' stuff. Single par enthood, anxiety, love, fear, trust, growing up, loss, shark self-help groups and fish tank hygiene. The delightful com bination of emoti on, neurotic humour and whimsy allows both adults and children to giggle thcmsel ves in to a medical condition. The writers and animators at Pixar combine sentiment with wit and charm, and their voice actors (Albert Brooks, Ellen DcGeneres, Barry Humphries, Willem Dafoe and Geoffrey Rush to name but a few) under stand the mix with hilarious clarity. If you have children, take them; if you don't, take yourself. -Siobhan Jackson 44 EU REKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 Chilled out Morvern Collar, dir. Lynne Ram sey. Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) lives in a near-empty fl at somewhere in Scotland. The only two things that take up any space are her boyfriend's dead body and a computer that blinks occasional messages. Morvern works in a supermarket, wears a walkman and has baths with her best friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott). N ot much of any note happens in her life-her body just m oves through space in time to the sounds fro m her walkman, uncon nected and melancholic. Even stepping over the body of her boyfriend jammed awkwardly in the kitchen doorway forces only momentary change in her gait. Morvern Collar takes you confidently to a place of devastating calm and its off hand morbidity is surprisingly moving, but in the end m y mind was searching for something m ore, something full of comment and commitment. Infl uenced by Claire Denis' extraordi nary film Beau Travail, Ram sey has not employed any snappy Hollywood story telling rhythms to push this fi lm along. Like Travail, Collar is slow and difficult wondering because those two tempting you to stay tuned with the prom hadn't seen anything less serious ise of something more than cheap thrills. than The Pianist for years and I Travail pays off with one of cinema's wondered whether Pirates of the m ost breathtaking final moments that Caribbean was going to turn out to retrospectively info rms your entire expe be really about cool harsh stylish rience of the fi lm-Collar never m akes pirate-people who pirated because that leap, and as a result left me fl at. of the m eaningless lightness of Ironically, one of the film's problems is pirate stuff. But no, it hooted from Sam antha Morton's glorious performance the start- m ostly but not com as Callar-it is better than the film can pletely because of Johnny Depp. cope with. Morton fi lls every fram e with a You don't usually get the divine physicality that is at once uncomfo rtably Depp in Disney, but this is after all the vile mutineer Barbossa, and a whole crew visceral but retains stillness and pinpoint studio's first M-rated fi lm. There is a lot of of motleys dressed with some care for the emotional accuracy. fighting and a few stock corpses and skel look of 18th-century hygiene. Verbin There are som e wonderful scenes in etons. My sister lean ed over at one stage ski's dental prosthetists must have had a Morvern Collar, which m ake it more and said, 'He's being Keith Richards!' And ball-all those brilliant Hollywood smiles than worth the price of admission, not to she was right: the n ext day he was on to cover up with snaggle-green peggles. mention a hypnotic soundtrack that will MTV admitting that he had used the Old The make-up people excelled them selves keep you firmly in your seats. Indestructible as his model for Captain with lots of dirty fi ngernails and a welter -Siobhan Jackson (that should really be Cap'n) Jack Sparrow, of warts, wens and wotten corpses. the roving pirate marooned by mutineers. There is a lot of ar mateyin' and avas It's a great characterisation, hilarious and tin' and belayin' and parlayin'. Lots of Captains outrageous sexy-even when playing it gold-toothed leaping from bowsprits and climbing up and kohl-eyed-wasted, Depp is magnetic. the sides of ships with a knife in the teeth. Pirates of the Caribbean, dir. Gore There is someone for all the family: Lots of pirate gold, and a pirate curse and Verbinski. It began with the phone call Orlando Bloom for the young la ses who did I m ention a prattling parrot that poops fr om the tres chic London dwellers. love Legolas in The Lord of the Rings; on a redcoat? Go and laugh. And yes, they 'We liked it. It was a good laugh,' said Keira Knightley, all pouts and attitude for walk the plank. the cool temperate ones. That got m e the lads to perve on; Geoffrey Rush as the -Juliette Hughes OCTOBER 2003 EUREKA STREET 45 watching brief A generation lost in space 'I,MOmE eHONE h"' given"'' "'if we we 46 EUREKA STREET OCTOBER 2003 D evised by Joan Nowotny IBVM puzzled ELneka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 117, October 2003 ACROSS 1. She could be a warrior on the river with a green parrot. (6) 4. Let someone know that the bill is bizarre. (8) 9. Firstly, Peter, in good time, arrives to stand guard over these gates? (6) 10. The place to be on a winter's day, but watch out for freckles, perhaps. (2,3,3) 12. Turning away a green mixed gin. (8) 13. Invent mascara, for instance. (4,2) 15. Tom and his double can beat it. (4) 16. Be sold cheaply in order to get money to attend concert featuring 19-across, maybe. (2,3) ,4) 19. Violetta has transformed a trait Val, a courtesan manifested! (2,8) 20. Actually unaffected! (4) 23. Donkey is one loved by St Francis in this place. (6) 25 . A chief in charge? It's absolutely chaotic. (8) 27. Boy who cleans the chimney could win it at the races. (3,5) 28. Swaggers to gam e located between streets- going both ways. (6) 29. Pasty mixed with plum, mostly, is sometimes eaten by this monotreme. (8) 30. Entry given on admission. (6) DOWN 1. A very quiet 'praise' speech caused everyone to clap. (7) 2. Therefore produced a last sure outcome. (2, 1,6) 3. Monk made offering for old boy who died. (6) 5. Impossible to put up with such humbug! (4) 6. Molten rock thrown up round man in a sort of earthquake. (8) 7. Publication for children. (5) 8. Needed on camp site, it holds down the canvas, according to Margaret. (4,3) 11. Eulogies possibly come in a round of speeches. (7) 14. Satisfied with the matter dealt with in discussion, for example. (7) 17. Casually use phone on first offer of hospitality. (4,5) 18. Originate method of erecting high road. (8) 19. Sprang from seat to put up plea, perhaps. (5 ,2) 21. John ate them in the desert; it was the place for a saint to rise up. (7) 22. Aphrodisiac, possibly? It has core of desire. (6) 24. Portrait of St Catherine here, in tones of russet brown, reportedly. (5) 26. French boyfriend- he's handsome! (4) This subscription is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill in your own contact details, left) 0 New 0 Renewal D Gift IMrs/ Miss/Ms/Mr First Name IIMrs/Miss/Ms/Mr First Name Length of subsc ription: ~Su=rn=am=e======~~Su=rn=am=e======~ 0 One yea r (10 iss ues for $70, $60 concess ion for IStreet No. Street Name II Street No. Street Name pensioners, students and unemployed. Inc. CST.) ~======~ 0 Two years (20 iss ues for $125, $1 10 concess ion. Inc. 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Bamboo Palace Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos by Christopher Kremmer With a novelist's eye for detail and character, author of The Carpet Wars Christopher Kremmer journeys through Laos and beyond to unearth the truth about the fate of the Lao royal family, deposed in the wake of the Vietnam War. Part travelogue and part mystery, Bamboo Palace is ultimately a story of human endurance. Thanks to Harper Collins, Eureka Street has ten copie of Bamboo Palace to give away. Ju st put your nam e and address on the back of an envelope and send to: Eureka Street October Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121. See page 39 for winners of the July- August Book Offer. =: HarperCollinsPu blishers Caritas Australia works in partnership with marginalised communities throughout the world and within Austra li a to alleviate poverty and inequality. Regardless of race, gender or creed, Caritas Australia is committed to promoting human dignity and helping the most disadvantaged members of our global family realise a better future. 111; . . To make a bequest or to donate, please call 1800 014 41 3 www.caritas.org.au D ~~!!S-~!!~