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1) Th e Kakapo parrot is found in New Zea land. 2) Lichenostomus melanop s, or Yellow tufted honeyeater. NB: Victoria's official bird emblem is th e helmeted honeyeater, Lichenostomus melanops cassidix. 20) Bru ce Armstrong is better know for his huge 'chainsaw' sculp 3) Dog Monday. tures of animals, such as his huge eaglehawk Bunjil w hi ch over 4) M ari anne Faithful!. looks th e Docklands, M elbourn e. 5) Bridge (th e World Tea m O lympiad). 21) The Golden Sec tion . 6) (i) M ichae l and Patrick Ca nn y. 22) (i) Th e remains are those of Lord Nelson (1758-1805); (ii ) Michae l Ca nny. (ii ) th e ca rdinal was Ca rdinal Wolsey (1473 - 1530); and (iii) 19 (M ichae l) and 22 (Patri ck). (iii) th e artist was Giovann i da M aian o. (iv) John Hines was shot and kil led. 23) Edouard M anet (1832-83) and th e offe nding pain ting was hi s 7) Lazza ro Spallanza ni, in Italy 1765. reclining nude fi gure O lympia (1863). 8) 250 mil es or around 402.33 600 kilometres . 24) If 1+2+ ... +2 n is prime, th en 2n (1+2+ ... +2 n) is perfect. The 9) (i) M onaco-population per sq km- 16,35 0. quote is from Euclid's Elements, IX.36, 300BC (ex tra poin t) . (ii) Mongoli a-population per sq km- 1.8. 25) Robert Record e (c. 1510- 155 8) in hi s treatise Th e whetstone of (iii) Botswa na with 33 .6 dea ths per thousand. witte (London, 1557). (iv) Andorra w ith average life ex pec tancy of 83.5 years. 26) A Balmer edge is a kin d of feature in th e spectra of a ce lestia l 10) (i) Narsil. objec t w hi ch occurs at a specifi c wavelength or ra nge of wave (ii ) The Prancing Pon y, Bree in Th e Fellowship of the Ring. length s. This fea ture is commonl y use d to diag nose th e nature (iii) Anduril, th e Flame of the W es t. of th e surface of th e Sun and other stars, but has never before (iv) A propheti c drea m of his broth er Faramir, in which he was been seen in vi sible light from black holes . told to 'Seek fo r the Sword th at was broken'. 27) Th e Au stralian Security Intell ige nce O rga nisation. 11 ) Pemulwuy was th e leader of a band of about 100 wa rriors who 28) (i) Easil y recogni sa ble or distinguishable; consp icuous. Thi s waged a guerrilla war on the Europea n colony of New South word so unds very interes ting, and is all the more remark able Wales between 179 0 and 1802. because it is etymologica lly unrelated to the similar-sounding 12) Wreck Bay. On th e south coas t of New South Wales, Wreck and sy nonymous conspicuous (Latin con, an intensive, and Bay lands were returned in 1987. specere, to look). Kenspeckl e is mostly use d in Scotland and 13) Jan Carstenz, a Dutch sea farer, described armed confli ct with northern En gland. Abori gin es on th e northern coas t of Australi a in 1623 . (ii) Study or composition lasti ng late into the night. 14) Noboru Wata ya. Th e name is given both to the hero's ca t and (iii) To despise; to make li ght of; to disparage mockingly. hi s brother-in-law, in a cru cial plot twist. Rel ated to vile and vil ifica tion, vilipend is a word th at dispar 15) Art's scree n name is 'trepan' and hi s law yer's name is 'junta'. agement, slander or criticism, but w ith a fairly light to ne. 16) Aunt Saba refuses to consider a divorce beca use of th e inevita 29) In Th e Hitchhiker's Guide to the Ga laxy, by the late lamented ble drop in her social statu s that it would ca use . Douglas Adams, th e mea ning of life is 42, w hi le in the 'rea l li fe' 17) (i) Gustave Flaubert. of theoretica l phys ics, string theory w as va lidated w hen all the (ii) Th e Bac h Ca ntata is lch hatte vie/ Bekummernis. potentiall y anomalous equations were shown to be ca pable of 18) The key's name is 'promise'. reso lution to th e number 496. 19) Th e Wiener Kun st im Hause (Viennese Art at Home) group. She 30) They all won th e 2004 Walkl ey awa rd s in their va ri ous fi elds of first ex hibited her ceramic art at th e 1900 Pari s Exhi bition. journalism.
The winners are:
Rh onda Lewis, Mt Eli za, VIC; Tyler Saxton, Mill Park, VIC; Pat Pil grim & Co, Randwick, NSW. <)> 0 !: ' > ~() EUREKA STREE Iz> c t::! !: ~ g:: o ;
Out of our depth
I N ouR jANUARY '""'' we wwtc facetiously about tsunamis. When we went to press before Christmas the comment was mildly funny. By the time you received Eureka Street in late December, it was in deplorable taste. A small but emblematic instance of the difference made by one wave that turned life into death, struggle into defeat, and ordinary states of mind into unimaginable grief. To speak decently of the tsunami continues to be difficult. Not merely because it is hard to find words that fit, but because when we speak of it, we say more Im ages of Melboume mourners by Mathias Heng about ourselves than of the event. The tsunami measures our words and our hearts. the less-publicised needs of others who make a claim Sometimes they are found wanting. Calculations on us were handled in this way, we would indeed be of how the tsunami and reconstruction might affect a fortunate society. the stock market, for example, of its effect on vari Among the questionable words spoken about ous Islamic groups, and of how aid might be tailored the tsunami were comments about God's part in it. to Australia's strategic interests say more of what has When we mention God and the tsunami in the one been washed away in the writer's heart than on the breath, either to assert or to deny God's providence, shore. Exclusive grief for Australian victims and exclu we are touching the most profound meaning of the sive adulation of Australians who did what common event. In doing so, we may say something illuminat humanity required of them also disclose smallness of ing about God; we shall certainly reveal ourselves and soul and not the greatness of the disaster. our capacity to touch depths. To throw God into con Sometimes, though, proper things are said versation in order to stir controversy, to use massive more often in human lives and gestures than through human suffering as a pawn in theoretical debate to words. Images of people who have lost everything, entrench or remove God from the board, or to use the themselves lost in grief, caring for others, clawing tsunami as an improving story to encourage virtuous their way back to life, speak deeply to us. living, would convict us of shallowness and frivolity. Among Australians, as elsewhere in the world, That is why the most prudent religious leaders generosity and compassion have also found silent recommended that we first focus on those whose words. At the most basic level many have simply lives were destroyed by the tsunami, and only later allowed the tsunami to enter their imagination, muse about God's stake in it. Their advice was perhaps enjoying the beach with their families while sensible because, when we respond to human grieving compassionately with those for whom the suffering, practical generosity has precedence over sea became an enemy. Some have put their gifts theoretical reflection. It intimated also that we can and their wealth unnoticed at the service of those speak of the deep meaning of the tsunami only after affected by the tsunami. Helpful words have been we have allowed its uncontrollable destruction into modest: they tell stories, like that of the medical our mind and heart, and embraced its victims in student who, spared by the waves, offered her skills compassion and in solidarity. In the m eantime, we to help identify those taken. may find stumbling and forgettable words to console In Australia, too, the Government has spoken one another. But deep words can come only from powerfully through large gestures. Mr Howard and hearts and minds exposed to the depths. • Mr Downer, in particular, have responded with exemplary leadership, generosity and sensitivity. If Andrew Hamilton SJ is Eureka Street's publisher.
4 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 Or in many of the other things that the Misnamed test correct use of the term 'fundamentalist' implies. Nor do most other Catholics. I have just read the review in the Jarm Secondly, I assure her that nowadays ary- February 2005 edition of the book I justify my belief that induced abortion Kisch in Australia. is wrong without reference to my church's I was somewhat surprised to read two teachings. references in that article to the 'diction' I believe that abortion is wrong for the Eureka Street welcomes letters from our readers. test, formerly administered by Austral same reason that the average non-religious Short letters are more likely to be published, and all ia's immigration authorities. It should, believer believes that murder is wrong. We letters rn ay be edited. Letters mu st be signed, and of course, be the dictation test. It's not belong to a society of human beings, and shou ld incl ude a contact phone number and th e clear whether the test has been incor we believe that one human being does writer's name and address. rectly named in the book, misdescribed not have the right to kill another except Send to: eureka @jespub. jes uit.org.au or by the reviewer or is simply a typographi in self-defence. (Different people will PO Box 553 , Ri chmond VIC 3121 cal error. In any event, it's unfortunate have different ideas of what self-defence that this notorious and arbitrary means means.) Certainly no human being has of excluding potential immigrants from the right to kill an innocent fellow landing in Australia has been erroneously human. This belief carne from a religious named in this way. source but is accepted now as a fundamen I T's ASTOUNmNG how d;snacted one I'm not sure whether there is any cor tal value by most human societies. becomes when surfing the web. Recently rective action you can take at this point; Bergin mentions rape and other abom in search of a traditional hot cross bun but I thought it was worth drawing to inations, but if we deplore the practice in recipe, a new tangent led me to a parallel your attention as an unhappy slip of the some societies of punishing the innocent universe-an article from 2003 entitled pen in such a fine journal. victim, the woman who has been raped, 'Hot cross banned: councils decree buns how can we condone the punishing of the could be "offensive" to non-Christians'. Christopher Fogarty innocent product of a rape? Intrigue inspired the next search for via em ail The suggestion that abortions do not a history of the 'offender'. Like most Thanl
MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 5 A new award for young writers Eureka Street is delighted to announce the inaugural Margaret Dooley Young Writers' Award One of the distinguishing features of Eureka Street is its encouragement of reasoned ethical argument based on humane values. These arguments ideally address people who own religious belief, and those whose view of the world is secular. To reflect ethically on public issues is a demanding di scipl ine. The Margaret Dooley Award is offered in order to support the development of young writers who will carry on the contribution of Eureka Street in th is field. Margaret and Brendan Dooley have longstanding connections to the Jesuits and Xavier Co llege. Margaret always appreciated the val ue of communication and education for young peo ple, based on spiritual and personal values. She graduated from Sacre Coeur College in 1950, commenced nursing at St Vin cent's Ho spital and, with Brendan, raise d four ch ildren. Margaret died in 2004. Th e Dooley family are pleased to sup port this initiative .
The annual award of $2000 is open to any writer, previously published or unpublished, under th e age of 40. Entrants must submit two previous ly unpublished articles that offer: ethical reflection directed to a non-specialist aud ience on any serious topic, appeal to humane values, such as those that are found within , but are not exclusive to, the best of the Christian tradition , clear argument and elegant expression, and a generosity and courtesy of spirit animating forceful argument. One article should be of no more than 800 words. The seco nd shou ld be of no more than 2000 words. They may take up the same, or different, topics .
Entries are to be submitted by 5pm Friday, 29 July 2005, to : Margaret Dooley Young Writers' Award , Eureka Street, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121.
The award will be made only if the judges believe that the best entry is of sufficient quality. The winn er will be published in the September issue of Eureka Street. For more information and an application form please go to www.eurekastreet.com.au
d Re.laxw1th-Go - and - Minister "Violence is like Vegemite. It's in to Yourself everyone's cupboard - and the taste for it is quite often handed down from generation to generation." joel Dean e, speechwriter for Premier Steve Bracks
SAT Sabbatical Program "It is important to empower indigenous • Rest Sel f-cont ai ned, free and tl ex ible mod ules arc Christians to go back to their own Time • Be Nurtured specifically designed to ass ist indi viduals peoples in culturally appropriate ways, • Be Free to i me grate th eology, spirituali ty, human because ... they are the only ones who to .. . clel·clopment and ministry wi th th ei r will be able to take the imperialist face • Play liYed expe ri ence. • Pray Four-month a nd "i ine- mont h programs away from evangelisation:' • Share New Ideas SAT • Sc hool of Applied T heology Bishop Hwa Yung speaking at the recent Graduate T heologica l Union CMS Summer Conference 2400 ~idge Road • I3crkelcy C A 94709 1-800-831-0555 • 5 10-652- 165 1 Mention this ad for a free sample copy of 7MA email sa tgtu \!• aol.com Phone: (03) 9653 4221 website www.sal!-,>1u.org or email: [email protected]
6 EURE KA STREET MARCH 2005 ca The Right stuff
T.,OLD HRM is now cnthely h•ck in ch.,ge of the L•bm once criticised them. They in turn have done the dirty work Party. Not just Kim Beazley but the NSW Right. And Brian on his behalf, as, earlier, they did for Bob Hawke, because, Bourke. And Joe Ludwig. The right-wing factions-after a year like Hawke, Beazley has no capacity for confrontation, for the or two of destabilisation at both state and federal levels- have butchery that is sometimes necessary. Nor any capacity for found some sense of purpose, and even some reasons for unity. carrying a debate in his own caucus, his own shadow ministry, Not because they have any agenda for what they might do with or, earlier, in Cabinet. In public he can mount a debate this power, or even, heaven help us, of winning real power, competently, and seem to lose it gracefully enough, but there's but because they like to be in control. With their man. Their significance in the fact that after 25 years in representative way of doing things and of resolving things in the back rooms. politics, all but three on the front bench, he is remembered Of dispensing favours and pre-selections, and of punishing only for the gracefulness of two concession speeches after he enemies. The whole Mark Latham nightmare is over. We are had lost elections. In those 25 years he has never won an elected back to normal, and, if normality means being with Labor's position if there was a candidate standing against him. greatest ever loser, so be it. There's no one better around. A decent person who has never once run a political risk The Latham nightmare was not of his losing the election, to help a person or a group or an issue in need, unless they though that was very careless of him. He had been given unu were Labor mates in trouble with the law, or right-wing mates sual leeway. Few had trusted his judgment, or his personal or in trouble with the party, or issues which affected the power political instincts, and everyone knew his weaknesses, though base of his backers. A man incapable of finding a phrase by for a whole 13 months he had maintained a self-discipline that which he could support refugees in desperate search of a many who knew him well had believed impossible. He had haven from hells he understood well, but who could, on prag been a gamble, and the gamble failed. Not only that, but after matic grounds, turn his back on them. A man whose closest the election he had begun to deteriorate, and then to evapo friends and confidantes in federal politics are Wayne Swan and rate. Beazley supporters had been manoeuvring against him Stephen Smith, who represent, to many old Labor members, for months but not in a way so as to make his demise seem the moral and intellectual vacuum that the party has become. an assassination. It was necessary that Latham step over the And who now, as they have always done, are looking for ways cliff himself, or at least come to realise that he was standing in to confuse Labor as a brand name, and to make it reflect what the air. His own maladroitness, and the incompetence of his ever fad or prejudice comes back from the focus groups. The deputy leader, as well, perhaps, as his illness made the termi same focus groups whose ideas have already been put on the nal stages easy and the transition undramatic. Beazley wanted rails by the far more effective politicking of the to be drafted. A few pests openly cocked their ears for the call; professionals behind John Howard. they were soon disabused of the idea that standing in the way of a restoration could give them a future. SOME ISSUES, including international relations, The parallels with John Howard's situation when, in 1995, Beazley is in the same orbit as the Prime Minister, simultane the leadership of the Liberal Party was restored to him by draft, ously unable to find saleable points of distinction and, from the might seem obvious. But Howard had waited in the shadows, opposition leadership, unable to match Howard for authority or even to occasionally (and usually very disloyally) parading his prestige. No points of difference on Iraq, on the war against ter superior leadership credentials because he had an agenda for ror, on US- Australia relations, on the treatment of American government. The Liberals had flirted with new generations prisoners, or even on relations with Indonesia and south-east and new ideas and it had got them nothing. Howard had expe Asia. Incapable even of making effective jibes at the preten rience. He was predictable. Safe. Reliable. Stable. Consistent. sions of Alexander Downer. Incapable of making appropriate Known to the voters and-even if a radical-not the sort of political criticism of the treatment of people in Australia's person whose discourse excited fear or frightened the horses. concentration camps or of giving Labor any profile on human Kim Beazley is something else. Affable and well-liked, and rights. With nothing to say on health care, or higher education, on both sides of politics. Respected. But not a man with a driv or welfare policies, or Aboriginal affairs. But a view that the ing idea. Or with ideals. Not a man who can turn a phrase, or party ought to be seen as more comfortable with Australia's persuade anyone to change his mind. Ever. He's always been a prosperity and ahead in the auction for doling out more tax son of the factions, particularly a favourite son of Brian Bourke cuts. Beazley, one must think, can lead Labor only over a cliff. • and with close links to Sussex Street in NSW. He has never opposed anything that his factional bosses have wanted, never Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of The Canberra Times.
MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 7 They simply caught the same train, morning and evening, and many had done so for more than ten, 15 and even 20 years. They always gathered in the sa1ne carriage-number seven-and, in the absence of newspapers, books and walkmans, it seemed that familiarity had bred friendship. Suriya invited me to join them on the 24th-'that's when we really celebrate'- And so it was that I made the trip to Colombo just to take the train home again. Back up to par Once more I arrived early at the station, GOLF IN KABUL but no chance for a seat this time. I was given a roll of streamers and conscripted into helping with the decorations' Some M OHAMMAD AFZAL ABDUL was of the passengers had knocked off work becoming impatient. Grabbing t he early and were making sure that carriage nearest driving iron, he grounded t he number seven was properly decked out to club, took a looping swing and spanked Joy and sorrow encourage a festive spirit. By the time the the ball off the tee. The ball shaped an train departed, there were streamers and obedient fade and landed safely, a short in Sri Lanka tinsel hanging from the luggage racks, wedge from the pin. Point proven, he balloons being palmed around and even returned the club and continued the THE 5.22 a mini Christmas tree, with star atop, verbal coaching as we completed the for perched on one fellow's head. malities. After the inevitable butchering THE OLD SAYING GOES, joy Then the carols started. Buddhists that followed-a mixture of carve and and sorrow are two faces of the one coin. and Christians alike raucously bellowed slice-Abdulled the playing group down Well, the coin certainly flipped quickly fay to the World above the rattle of the the first on a scenic excursion around for us here in Sri Lanka. The lead-up to train. The singing continued throughout Kabul's premier golfing attraction. Christmas was full of the usual sales and the journey with a mix of Sinhala and Situated in a dusty basin in the celebrations and there was obviously no English carols. Like elsewhere, memory outer environs of Kabul, the golf course hint of the disaster that would cast such of the words usually faltered after a verse has recently reclaimed its identity, hav a pall over the island during the weeks and a chorus, but as one petered out a new ing for many years been subject to the that followed. one was quickly begun. Nobody minded frequent imposition of war and ideol In order to enter the Christmas spirit, repeats and 0 Come All Ye Faithful ogy. Originally constructed during the I decided to catch the 5.22pm train from proved a favourite. reign of the country's patriarch, King Colombo to Negombo on Christmas Eve. As sunset approached, candles were Zahir Shah, then relocated after his The week before Christmas I was in produced, passed around and lit. And that dethronement by his cousin Moham Colombo and caught the 5.22 home. I was was how I left them when I got off at my m ed Daud, the course now abuts the early arriving at the station and managed station. Singing and celebrating the joy Qargha Dam. Thankfully, the dam to get a seat, a rare privilege in most public of the season and their fellowship with does not feature as a monstrous water transport here. As the carriage filled, the each other. hazard; however, it remains a popular passengers greeted each other warmly and I haven't caught the 5.22 since and spot for picnicking on the Jumma reli joked playfully with one another. Those haven't heard how the tsunami affected gious holiday and a glorious vantage standing claimed the right to load those my fellow Christmas travellers. Since we point for a curious gallery. who managed to get a seat with shopping live on the protected side of the island, The course was effectively abandoned bags, umbrellas and other paraphernalia. there will likely be no loss of life among during the Russian occupation and And those sitting happily accepted their them although all will know people who descent into civil war and was outlawed role as cloakroom managers. I suggested to have died. The extent of the destruction by the religious police of the Taliban. the man sitting next to me that he could and death has deeply affected us all. With specific edicts banning kite-flying open a shop if he collected any more bags. New Year's Eve was a national day and pigeon-fancying, golf could only be His reply was quick- he was not much of of mourning and, as is the custom in Sri considered an affront to the air above. a salesman but he was prepared to offer me Lanka, white flags flew from public build Nonetheless, in a city increasingly savvy the black one for a fair price' This sort of ings, houses and cars, signalling the peo to Western tastes, the golf course has good-natured banter reflected the tone of ple's grief. I didn't see the 5.22 as it passed proven a magnet for visiting expatri most of the conversations. our place but I fancy there were white ates and a continuing labour of love for I had presumed that the passengers all flags fluttering also from the windows of Abdul, the crack club professional. worked in the same office. No, my bag carriage number seven. From a cursory gla nee, the course is seller neighbour, Suriya, informed me. -Mick Sexton only distinguishable by the fluorescent
8 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 fla gs planted in the jet-black 'greens'. Rolled with a mixture of sand and sump oil, the greens offer little variability, instead giving generous value for spec archimedes ulative putts. The fairways, a delight for rock fanciers, offer unpredictable lies and next to no reward for a gun barrel-straight drive. The absence of even Spicks and specks a blade of grass invalidates the need for a groundskeeper, but permits judicious use of the fairway tee and other conces sions from the hackers' manual. Hazards S e> MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 9 b the wa Plus c;a change T ns nME CAST HAR, " I b 10 EUREKA STRE ET MARCH 2005 summa theologiae Violence transformed Just get it done. Just do the minimum. Just be happy 'I,wAvES OE CENERosnv hom individuals, govemments and coc where you are. porations in response to victims of the recent tsunami bring to light a real strength in modern culture. We have high standards of compassion. But to be just is also to be fair. Certainly you would hope that devastation on such a scale and the plight of the survivors would move us, but the full-hearted response should not be It is a choice that expands our m issed. Of course, our generosity suffers from the usual human limitations lives, the lives of others, and hypocrisy: ou r focu s is selective and our motivation mixed. Yet to my mind, the significance of the response was captured in a television interview God's presence in the world. with a New South Wales surgeon working in Aceh in the first few days of the It motivates you to relief effort. He felt com pelled to help, he said, because of the 'inalienable dignity of every human person'. a life of service. The response to the tsunami bears out the argu ment of cultural theorist Rene Girard that modern culture has a 'concern for victims' to a degree with no Our Master of Divinity program precedent in h istory. The values that consciously shape modernity-equality and mutual respect among them- move us to seek out and care for those who gives you the sturdy are victims. This concern for victims obviously has its roots in the Christian theological and practical command to love of neighbour but it finds a much wider application today than it has previously. 'Our world did not invent compassion,' says Girard, 'but it has foundation for ministry universalised it.' in the church. The modern concern for victims also has a dark side, according to phi losopher Charles Taylor. Paradoxically, it has the capacity to mutate into the Join seekers from the world over logic of both terrorism and the violent response to terrorism. When concern for victims is such a cultural value, we can come to see ourselves as victims to explore contemporary and therefore pure, and the other as victimiser, deserving of punishment and theological questions. vengeance. As Taylor puts it, we believe that 'our cause is good, so we can fight, inflict a violence that is righteous: a holy violence' ('Notes on the Sources of Violence', in Beyond Violence, ed. James Heft [Fordham, 2004], p36). The result Just start with www.wjst.edu is obvious in terrorist struggles today and even in the violent response to ter rorism: each side claiming the status of victim and the right to mete out pun ishment as the spiral of death-dealing violence escalates. The commemoration of Jesus' death in Holy Week offers a vision and pat tern of action that transform violence. It does not provide a general political remedy for terrorist conflicts but offers insight into the spiral of violence and the means of turning it inside out. With h is words from the cross in Luke's WESTON JESUI T narrative-'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing' SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY (23.34)-Jesus renounces the will to wreak vengeance on his executioners. His Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard Square) forgiveness of them acknowledges their flawed humanity, a humanity that he shares, and that finds its meaning in the God whom he knows is bent over the r -617-492-rg6o world in love. N o simple solutions are provided for complex political problems, [email protected] but the crucial concern shifts from revenge to healing. • James McEvoy teaches at Catholic Theological College, Adelaide. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 11 Jnniversary Hugh Dillon The arc of European reconciliation Both the Dresden firestorm and the Holocaust were products of the insidious tendency in wartime for the previously unthinkable to become routine. 0 TH< N>CHT of 13 fcbm"y 1945, 805 RAF Lancaster bomber crews set out on what was, apparently, just another raid on a German city. For the loss of nine aircraft, Bomber Command dropped approximately 2600 tonnes of high explo sive and incendiary bombs into the centre of Dresden, creating the firestorm that devastated it. The numbers of people killed are still disputed but the best evidence suggests that 25-35,000 died (only slightly fewer than at Nagasaki under the second atomic bomb). About 35 square kilometres of the city were completely destroyed and many more badly damaged. The raid left us one of the most famous and powerful photographic images of the war. From high on the roof of the Town Hall, a blackened statue of a woman, her arms spread, appears ready to embrace in pity the skeletal remains of gutted build All images of Dresden courtesy of AP/AAP ings which run for block after block. It is a view of Sodom and Gomorrah after the Jews of Europe. Yet in less than two years The new theory was that if armaments cataclysm. One of the Lancaster pilots who genocide had become a major, if highly factories could not be hit, their employees had looked down in awe at the blazing city secret, war aim of his. And when the RAF could be killed or bombed out of home, was Frank Smith, whose son Alan, nearly went to war in September 1939, it was reducing the efficiency of the economy 60 years later, would play a significant role ordered to confine its air raids to offshore and the desire of workers to continue the in Dresden's resurrection. naval targets because of the possibility of war. A new fire-breathing commander, Although it is crucial to emphasise causing civilian casualties if land targets, Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, was here that I reject any suggestion of moral even of a military nature, were attacked. placed in charge of Bomber Command. equivalence between the Allies' destruc While, in the light of what we know hap Harris had fought as a fighter pilot tion of Dresden and the Nazis' genocidal pened afterwards, this punctiliousness during World War I and had become a true campaign against the Jews, both were prod seems almost laughable, British policy believer in the superiority of strategic air ucts of the insidious tendency in wartime at that time was one of strict compli power over massed infantry tactics. He was for the previously unthinkable to become ance with international law as it then convinced that Germany could be defeated routine or even desirable. On 3 September stood. Growing casualties forced Bomber from the air given sufficient numbers of 1939, when Neville Chamberlain declared Command to fly at night to avoid enemy bombers and a no-holds-barred approach war on Germany in support of Poland, prac fighters. The Germans then inconven to bombing cities. He was contemptuous tically no one in either Britain or Germany iently turned off the lights in their cities, of any other approach and, late in the war, had heard of Auschwitz. Most Europeans making targets hard to find. Gradually, was almost removed from his post for his knew Dresden only as an architectural along with many aircrew, the law became resistance to orders requiring him to give marvel, 'Florence on the Elbe'. That both a casualty of war. priority to bombing oil and transport tar Auschwitz and Dresden would become On 14 February 1942, the British gets rather than cities. His ferocious and and remain icons of the utmost horror was Government made the fatal decision to callous approach to the deaths of German simply inconceivable in London and Berlin abandon its policy of solely striking mili civilians was demonstrated most graphi that early autumn day. tary targets and ordered Bomber Command cally after the devastation of Dresden Even as he started a war he blamed on to attack 'the morale of the enemy civil resulted at last in Churchill reviewing them, Hitler had no plans to murder the population', i.e. to bombard German cities. the policy of area-bombing. 'I would not 12 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 regard the whole of the remaining cities of the air. Survival was little consolation. had piloted one of the Lancaster bombers Germany as worth the bones of one British The German writer W. G. Sebald relates on 13 February 1945. The Duke of Kent, grenadier,' he protested. 'The feeling over the story of a woman, bombed out of home President of the Dresden Trust, which Dresden could easily be explained by any and deranged with grief, carrying her dead was formed to raise funds in Britain for psychiatrist. It is connected with German child around in a suitcase for several days. the orb and cross, was among the guests bands and Dresden shepherdesses ... ' Auschwitz necessarily stands as a of honour. Coventry, which lost its own monument to unfathomable guilt medieval cathedral and more than a Nazi, German, human-and loss. While thousand of its people in the blitz of a survivor recently stated that if he 1940, contributed about A$1. 3 million, met Dr Mengele (the camp doctor and a gesture of solidarity with the Germans mass murderer) he would forgive him, who had contributed to the rebuilding Auschwitz defies reconciliation. It is of Coventry Cathedral in the 1950s. proper that it signifies the unforgivable, Among thousands of British contribu the irreconcilable. tors to the reconciliation project was the Dresden, however, can tell us another Queen herself. story. Canon Paul Oestreicher was the Frederick Taylor, author of a respected son of a refugee German Jewish father. study of the Dresden raid, observes that He is the former director of the Centre for 'the politics of remembrance in Dresden are International Reconciliation at Coventry complex, complex as memory itself'. Anti Cathedral. Despite his commitment to the war feeling is strong in the city but for the reconciliation of Britain and Germany, he radical right in Saxony and other parts of has an unblinking vision. Reconciliation Germany, Dresden is a rallying point: they is costly. 'The Germans brought it on claim to represent the German victims of the war and deeply resent the emphasis on the Holocaust and Germany's crimes. For them David Irving's proven lies about the Holocaust and the Dresden raid remain both Under Harris's control, Bomber gospel truth and powerful Command relentlessly attacked sources of propaganda. German cities most nights of the Such people and war. Dresden is the most famous of attitudes may, para his victims, but it was also one of the doxically, serve a useful last. By 12 February 1945, it was one purpose by reminding of a very few German cities that had other Germans and not been heavily damaged by air raids. Europeans of what Nazis While Dresden is famous for its firestorm, them selves,' he told the Financial Times look and sound like, and how it came Hamburg suffered one even worse in July (UK) in 1995. 'They started the bloody about that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered 1943, in which about 42,000 people died. war. The anniversary of the bombing of and how Dresden and most of the rest of So delighted was Harris with the results of Dresden is, among other things, supposed the cities of Germany were left in ruins the Hamburg raid that he sought to emu to teach us to avoid another Dresden ... by 1945. It is heartening to observe that late it for the rest of the war. Five hundred History creates symbols. Dresden is a German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer thousand German civilians are estimated symbol for all the cities which had been has threatened 'consequences' for the to have been killed in air raids. bombed during the war.' 'treacherous views' of neo-Nazi MPs who For Harris, the victims under the It is now, however, emblematically more recently protested against the Auschwitz bombs were simply statistics. One dark striking and complex than this alone. On anniversary commemoration in the night during World War II, an English 22 June 2004, with the interesting number Saxon parliament. police officer waved down his speeding of 30,000 people watching, a 15-year Immediately after the bombing car. 'The way you're travelling, sir, you'll program to rebuild the Frauenkirche, the in 1945, before the worst was known kill someone,' he scolded Harris. 'Young largest Lutheran church in Europe, and, in Britain, The Guardian newspaper man,' came the reply, 'I kill thousands until February 1945, one of its baroque expressed the hope that Dresden was not of people every night! ' In Dresden, these gems, reached its climax with the careful badly damaged ' because it belongs to the thousa nds burned, were boiled to death in placement of a golden orb and cross, more whole of Europe'. Perhaps it now does, fountains and water tanks, crushed, vapor than five metres high and weighing more and to the world, but in a different and ised or disintegrated by high explosives or than a tonne, on its spire. better way. • suffocated as the tempest reached 1000° The cross was forged by a Coventry centigrade and oxygen was sucked out of silversmith, Alan Smith, whose father Hugh Dillon is a Sydney magistrate. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 13 till' pat ilic Kirsty Ruddock The case for reconci Iiation Is Australia's intervention m the Solomon Islands healing the wounds of the tension? IT>S ""TO eA 14 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 and 6124 charges laid, in a country of property damage, and none involving during conflicts there. The victim had 400,000 people. There are now more than weapons. Sentencing laws are based on been involved in the murder of the boy's 60 serious trials awaiting hearing before the theory of punishment and deterrence. father. Despite being bright, the boy has the High Court, mostly for murder. They do not reflect the belief in Australia not been to school in the past two years In planning the intervention, the that jail should be used only as a last resort due to the economic circumstances of his Australian Government in conjunction where other alternative options have failed family since his father's murder. with the Solomon Islands Government or are inappropriate. Hundreds of smaller Is the answer to the outburst of a 15- determined that the existing justice sys matters have already come before the year-old at the death of his own father to tem could deal with the large increase in courts in the Solomon Islands and received sentence him at the age of 17 to life impris criminal charges. Investigators charged often quite lengthy sentences. Because of onment? That sentence is mandatory if he is found guilty of murder in the Solomon Islands. Is he a menace to society or simply someone who is a victim of the tension and its problems who also needs healing and reconciliation? He has already been denied bail and, despite his age, will probably spend at least a year awaiting trial in an adult prison. Would it not have been better to try to reconcile this matter and make him accountable to his community for the people with offences under existing crimi the lack of alternative sentencing proce assaults, perhaps through doing service to nal legislation. Australia provided staff dures, it is not unusual for a first offender the community and its rebuilding efforts, through funding additional magistrates, to go to jail for a significant period, for and to concentrate on his future? prosecutors and defence counsel. AusAID offences that would not result in a prison Some members of the community, provided funding, some $45 million per sentence in Australia. including the Solomon Islands Christian annum, to ensure the existing legal sys While the legal system allows for the Association, wanted to deal with crimes tem could cope with the influx of cases. relatively easy arrest of those alleged to have committed during the tension by reconcil Other than what was already committed committed crimes, it does not take into ing with the offenders. Women's groups, to existing peace-building efforts through account the circumstances that surround including the Reconciliation and Peace the National Peace Council, no additional the crimes and their causes, or the fact Committee, formed by the Federation funding was given for alternative dispute that many of these crimes are of Women, Family Support Centre and mechanisms such as customary law to unique to the tension. Women for Peace, also supported recon assist villages in resolving disputes. ciliation and peace efforts. They believed The intervening forces restored law A MONG THOSE ARRESTED by RAMSI that to jail people for less serious crimes and order by using the existing criminal and still on remand in Rove Prison is a 17- would not help to heal the wounds and dif law that is based on English criminal year-old boy who was originally charged ferences in Solomon Islands society. They law. The Solomon Islands Government in July 2004 with assault occasioning recognised that villages had traditional chose not to use a specialised tribunal or actual bodily harm. The charge was ways to resolve disputes, and they wanted a reconciliation commission to deal with later changed to murder after the death to strengthen them to incorporate aspects crimes committed during the tension. of the victim. Prior to the incident, the of the South African or East Timorese The existing criminal justice system boy was a normal 15-year-old attending processes of reconciliation. allows only for mediation of minor crimes school on the Weathercoast whose world East Timor has created a Commission and disputes, such as common assault or was shattered by the death of his father for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in M A RCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 15 as road works that are desperately needed? If these options were not successful in reaching adequate solutions and agree ment between the parties, then recourse might still be found under criminal law. Most reconciliation is occurring out side the formal lega l structures through the churches. In June 2004, a conference, 'The Winds of Change, from Tension to Transformation', was held in Honiara by East Timor. The purpose is to investigate Moral Re-Armament. Representatives human-rights violations committed on from around the world came to share their all sides between 1974 and 1999 and facili damage to a leaf hut. The boys destroyed experiences and help 'rebuild personal and tate community reconciliation. Unlike the the leaf hut of a family that had recently public integrity and ethnic harmony in South African model, the commission does resettled in their village. The family had the Solomon Islands'. South Africans who not provide amnesty to those who come lived there prior to the tension but had attended told their own powerful stories before it. However, it does work together fled during the conflict, as they were of how they had developed friendships with the formal justice system and is from a different province, Malaita, that with those who had killed their relatives. designed to assist that system by address was involved in fighting at that time with But these systems arc dependent on the ing a large number of less serious crimes those from Guadalcanal around Honiara. strength of the non-government sector that might otherwise burden the courts. In early 2004, they returned to the and their efforts. The RAMSI interven In particular, the commission is designed village but also refused to provide any tion has not sought to capitalise on these to deal with lesser crimes such as looting reconciliatory offerings to the village efforts and continue to build them in any and burning. A panel of commissioners to promote their peaceful reintegration widespread way. mediates between victims and perpetra back into their society. A fight developed Locking people up for less serious tors to reach agreements that are to be car between a m ember of the resettling crimes does not seem the best answer ried out by the perpetrators. The District family and the boys. As a result of the to the problems in the olomon Islands. Court is then responsible for enforcing dispute, the boys destroyed the fa mily's The causes of the tension are complex such reconciliation agreements. Serious hut. I sought the assistance of their chief and deep-seated. Sentencing people to jail crimes continue to be heard in to respond to the charge, who luckily was for minor crimes committed during that the criminal justice system. also a trained National Peace Council time will not aid in healing the wounds mediator. He organised a reconciliation and building a stronger society. As a A CCORDING TO RECENT reports in meeting and involved the whole vil result, many are becoming disenchanted the commission's update, there have lage in a discussion to reach a peaceful and marginalised. Without adequate been many community meetings to agreement which involved a traditional structures to promote reconciliation, it is deal with the actions of former militia exchange of gifts to indicate that all was unlikely to occur through existing court members. For example, the January forgiven on both sides. It was difficult to structures except in lim ited cases. Courts 2004 update gave details of hearings convince the court, however, that this by their nature are conservative and focus involving 20 deponents who gave was the best option, as the magistrate on punishment to deter future problems. testimony at a hearing concerned with was reluctant to allow these boys to The sentencing of people to jail, often with their activities as militia members in 'escape' punishment. In fact, the magis harsh sentences, is generating a breeding Caikasa, Maubara, the birthplace of the trate indicated this kind of intimidation ground for future discontent. Currently notorious Besi Merah Putih militia. The was the very cause of the tension and there are no organised rehabilitation pro update noted: 'The CAVR's Liquica team the boys must be accountable for their grams within the jail system. The fa milies facilitated the public m eeting which saw actions. Despite this, he finally accepted of those being punished are also suffering a high community turnout and level of the chief's reconciliation efforts and dis greatly because their main breadwin involvement. After Caikasa eld ers had missed the charges, and it was all smiles ner is lost and the economic situation is sanctified the proceedings with rituals from the boys, and the villagers, including still difficult, with high unemployment according to local tradition the partici the victims, who were present in court. rates. The law-and -order approach serves pants were allowed the opportunity to As many of the offences committed Australia's short-term interests, but with apologise for their actions, promise never during the tension were less serious crimes, out reconciliation it is unlikely to bring to involve themselves in such actions including assault, brandishing weapons in continued peace to the Solomon Islands in again, and were once more received by public, intimidation, theft and demand the long term or security to our forces who their community.' ing money with menace, much could be are serving there. • One case with which I was involved achieved by promoting reconciliation as a showed the benefits of reconciliation preliminary approach. What better way to Kirsty Ruddock is a lawyer who worked in comparison to a traditional legal make police officers or other ex-militants in the Public Solicitor's Office in Honiara outcome. Four boys from Guadaleanal reconcile with their communities than during 2004. All images by Kirsty were charged with trespass and criminal involving them in rebuilding efforts such Ruddock. 16 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 verse Random thoughts -Yang Weizhen (1296-1370) my west neighbour cried over a sudden family death last night and my east neighbour is upset by a dismissal from the officialdom today one does not know what's going to happen tomorrow so how can you let your glass of wine run dry? Mountains deep and shallow -Yang Ji (1326-1378) chinaberry flowers wet with a soft drizzle loquat ripe on every tree in a southerly i go for a slow walk and do not remember the mountains deep and shallow orioles keeping me company all the way home Fishing song -Zhang Zhihe (730-782) white egrets are flying in front of the xisai mountain where waters flow with peach flowers and fat mandarin fish in a black bamboo hat and a green straw cape one does not want to go home against the slanting wind and rain Moon like a hook -Li Yu (ca. 937-978) wordless, i climb up to the west balcony the moon like a hook a clear autumn locked up in the deep lonely courtyard of wutong trees unscissorable and un-sort-out-able is what one feels when saying farewell a heart of sorrow -All poems translated into English by Ouyang Yo (1955- {Continued on Page 47) Frank Brennan Australia's judicial isolation Over the last year a major chasm has opened between decisions of Australia's High Court and those of the UK House of Lords and the US Supreme Court regarding issues of national security such as the long-term mandatory detention of stateless asylum seekers. A WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, he has concluded that 'there is not much Their lordships were unimpressed Justice Michael Kirby was in the national that the courts can do about it'. Just a few with the UK government's attempt to capital receiving an honorary doctorate. hours earlier on the other side of the globe, exclude the courts from any role by Before his university audience, he recited unknown to those in the Canberra gradu distinguishing between democratic a litany of Australia's shortcomings in ation hall, the House of Lords delivered institutions and the courts. The most sen human rights. He said: its opinion in a case which was a damning ior law lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, condemnation of the Blair Government's said, 'The Attorney-General is fully Jn the past year more than ha If a m iII ion encroachment of civil liberties in the entitled to insist on t he proper limits Bri ti sh assisted migrants (w ho enj oyed name of national secu rity post-September of judicial authority, but be is wrong to com mon nationality when they ca me 11. While the Australian courts were stigm atise judicial decision making as to Australia in the 1960s and 1970s) powerless to order the release of children in some way undemocratic.' Meanwhile were revealed as vulnerable to ministe from behind the razor wire, the law lords Australia's Attorney-General, Philip rial deportation. If such laws arc va lid, by a majority of eight to one were striking Ruddock, had made an art of such stigma the co urts must uphold them. Earlier, clown a law which permitted the UK gov tisation while Minister for Immigration. the High Court un animously upheld a ernment to keep suspected international Though the UK decision was shaped law providing for detention of children terrorists in detention. While Kirby sees by a consideration of the interplay behind razor wire in remote parts of himself as a lone voice on the High Court between the European Convention on this co ntinent. That law is uncha nged of Australia, he would have been at home Human Rights and Westminster's legis although parliament was thrice told that among the majority of eight in the House lation, Lord Hoffmann was insistent: 'I it is contrary to the internati onal law of of Lords. would not like anyone to think that we human rights. While the majority of Australia's High are concerned with some special doctrine Court authorised the long-term nunda of European law. Freedom from arbitrary There were many other decisions of the tory detention of a stateless Palestinian arrest and detention is a quintessentially High Court during the past year in which British liberty, enjoyed the court was divided on matters of deep by the inhabitants of this principle ... (including) the right under fed country when most of the eral law to hold a stateless person in deten population of Europe could tion indefinitely, despite the lack of any ... THEIR COLLEAGUES IN be thrown into prison at cou rt order to punish him for any offence. THE HOUSE OF LORDS SAID the whim of their rulers.' He had to concede that the The li st goes on. Of course many SUCH DETENTION COULD judges would have been Au tralians, perhaps most, do not care. But NOT EVEN BE IMPOSED ON powerless to intervene for me, I confess that it makes depressing SUSPECTED INTERNATIONAL in this case prior to the read ing. Most judges of our tradition passage of the UK Human per-haps most lawyers- like to think TERRORISTS. Rights Act 1998 which that in Australia we arc always working rendered parliament's towards just laws and court decisions that attempts to suspend uphold fundamental human rights. Alas, habeas corpus or to intro- in many things in the law, we seem to asylum seeker who was no security threat duce m andatory detention for persons not fall short. And there is not much that the to the community, their colleagues in the convicted of criminal offences subject to courts ca n do about it. House of Lords said such detention could judicial review. Though there is nothing novel in not even be imposed on suspected inter Over the last year, a major chasm Kirby's protest against our national national terrorists. The lords followed the has opened between the decisions of shortcomings in the protection of human lead of the US Supreme Court which h ad Australia's High Court, which has no bill rights, his note of despair is new. He now already struck clown mandatory deten of rights against which to assess national sits on a court whose decisions make tion of convicted foreigners who h ad security legislation, and the UK House of 'depressing reading' for at least one of its served their prison terms and who could Lords and the US Supreme Court, which members. And what is more disturbing, not be deported. do have bills of rights agai nst which they 1!l EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 can scrutinise parliament's overreach. We know who they are and have already their claims were disputed in the courts. Post-September 11, Australia's judicial assessed that they do not constitute a dan What was the need for ongoing detention isolation is now a problem. In the past, ger to the Australian community ... in remote places like Woomera, Curtin, the shortfall in scrutiny of the excesses of Port Hedland and Baxter, once the executive government could be corrected Nobody is forced to remain in detention. Government knew that parents and their in part by a Senate which the govern Detainees can choose to leave detention children were neither a health or security ment did not controL That corrective will by leaving Australia. They can go wher risk? What was the need or justification disappear in July. There was a time when ever they wish to any country where they for mandatory detention of failed asylum Australian governments could also be have, or can obtain, the right to enter, and seekers where there was no immediate reined in by the decisions and observations we will do our best to facilitate that. prospect of their safe return to of international tribunals and UN bodies. Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan? But that corrective has also disappeared, This particular Ruddock rendition with the Howard Government preferring came from his 2001 address to the synod A FTER THE FIRST GuLF WAR, there Bush-style unilateralism. For example, of his own Anglican Church. It was his was a recurring problem with a trickle in the case of the Bakhtiyari family who preferred statement which was then of Palestinians arriving in Australia had spent more than two years in de ten packaged as part of a departmental infor on boats, with no way of returning to tion, the UN Human Rights Committee mation kit and sent to those sensitive the Gaza Strip. Especially problematic found: 'Whatever justification there may Christians upset at the have been for an initial detention for the sight of children behind purposes of ascertaining identity and razor wire. In hindsight, other issues, the State party has not, in we now know that this the Committee's view, demonstrated political explanation that their detention was justified for such for the detention was an extended period.' The committee con dictated in part by con cluded that the continuation of immigra stitutional doubts about tion detention for Mrs Bakhtiyari and her mandatory detention in children for such a length of time, without light of the High Court's appropriate justification, was arbitrary and 1992 decision about the contrary to the International Covenant on detention of Cambodian Civil and Political Rights. boat people. The High The Australian Government simply Court, as then consti- disregarded the decision as the opin tuted, wanted to ensure that there were were those Palestinians who had lived ion of a group of foreign do-gooders some limits on the power of government for years in Kuwait. Given Saddam imbued with human-rights rhetoric mandatorily to detain asylum seek Hussein's support for the Palestinian and no appreciation of the unique ers who had not been convicted of any cause, many of these people had to leave problems Australia confronted in the criminal offence. Ruddock was anxious Kuwait and they were technically state post-September 11 world. In so far as to clarify that detention was designed and less. No nation on earth was obliged to the Howard Government had provided finely tailored to assist with the process take them and Israel was not willing to the Australian public with an explana ing of asylum claims by persons arriving let them go to the Gaza Strip. Some of tion for prolonged mandatory detention in Australia without a visa, and to assist these Palestinians arrived in Australia of asylum seekers, Mr Ruddock when with the removal of those persons who without visas, without passports, with Minister for Immigration never tired of no longer had claims pending or who no out nationality and with nowhere to putting the case in these terms: longer had authorisation to remain in go. Once rejected as refugees, they then Australia. He justified the discrimina applied to the Government to be removed Detention is not punitive nor meant as tion of treatment between those persons from Australia. But there was no country a deterrent. But it is essential that unau with and without visas by arguing that willing to accept them. Were they to thorised arrivals are not allowed to enter government had already had the oppor spend the rest of their lives in deten the community until we are able to estab tunity to scrutinise those persons with tion? Was there any realistic prospect lish their identity and that they do not visas before they arrived in Australia. that they would ever be released? Their constitute a security and health risk. But government anxious for the security situation highlighted the inaccuracy in and well-being of the Australian commu Ruddock's particularistic explanation for Detention ensures that they are available nity was entitled to keep those persons the rationale of the broadly framed man for processing any claims to remain in without visas segregated from the com datory detention rule. These Palestinians Australia and that importantly they are munity until there was the opportunity were no longer awaiting the process of a available for quick removal should they to determine whether they posed a threat claim. They had no real prospect of being have no right to remain. to the community. This explanation removed. Government had more than was starting to wear thin when families The situation for people who overstay enough time to assess any health or secu including children were kept in deten their visa is fundamentally different. rity risks to the Australian community. tion for years rather than months while So why keep them locked up? MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 19 In 1992, the High Court had no need It is only a country without a ny bill of not all, of the physical features and admin to consider the situation of stateless rights which could countenance such an istrative arrangements commonly found in persons with nowhere to go when the outcom e. prisons, it is easy to eq uate confinement in court was ruling on the detention of the Justices in the majority were happy such a place with punish mcnt. Cambodian boat people. With a change in to loosen the constitutional constraints the composition of the High Court and on mandatory detention imposed by the But quoting the Oxford academic H. with a change in the political environ executive with approval from parliament L. A. Hart, Justice Hayne thought he ment post-September 11, the Government without any need for judicial supervision. succeeded in demonstrating that such was emboldened to submit to the High Justice Callina n surmised: 'It may be the detention was not really lega l punish ourt in November 2003 that the law case that detention for the purpose of pre ment. He explained away the risk that permitting detention until a person was venting aliens from entering the general an individual would spend the rest of his removed from Australia or until they community, working, or otherwise enjoy life in prison without ever having been were granted a visa could entail deten ing the benefits that Australian citizens convicted of a criminal offence and with tion without end. The Commonwealth enjoy is constitutionally acceptable.' He no term of imprisonment having been Solicitor General submitted that the was prepared to give government carte imposed by a court: legislative provision required detention blanche: It is essential to confront the contention 'until' a visa was issued or ' until' they It may be that legislation for detention to that, because the time at which detention could be removed. He told the court: deter entry by persons without any valid will end cannot be predicted, its indefinite Now of cmu c 'until ' can involve a long claims to entry either as a punishment or duration (even, so it is said, for the life of the wait. It can involve something continu a deterrent would be permissible, bearing detainee) is or will become punitive. The ing forever. We arc all familiar with the in mind that a penalty imposed as a deter answer to that is simple but must be made. ex pression 'until hell freezes over'. That rent or as a disciplinary is a use of the word 'until' meaning, in measure is not always to effect, forever, because it refers to an be regarded as pun ish event which will never occur. ment imposablc only by a court. Deterrence may be When some commentators expressed an end in itself unrelated shock at this description in the media to a criminal sa nction or a overnight, the Solicitor General returned punishment. to court the next day and explained: Justice Hayne, who The point of that exa mple, of course, is brought Justice Hayden merely to illustrate that the word 'until' along with him, could ca n be used and is frequently used to accept endle s detention describe something which may not have of a stateless person who a termination point. There arc, of course, had come without a visa many love songs, with which Your because he viewed the segregation of If that is the result, it comes about because Honours may or may not be familiar, such a person from the community as a the non-citizen came to or remained in in which the person singing the song legitimate government objective within this country without permission. proclaims that his love for a person will the con stitutional power of parliament. co ntinue until a list of events which are Parliament h ad power to authorise the Don't come to Australia without obviously never goi ng to occur. executive to exclude unauthorised arriv permission. You might end up in prison By a slender majority of four to three, als from the Australian community ' by for life! Chief Justice Gleeson was one of the High Court bought the argument. prevention of entry, by removal from three dissenting judges in the case. The The majority of judges were convinced Australia, and by segregation from the dissenting judges found this outcome an that the parliament had power to m ake community by detention in the mean extraordinary proposition. Gleeson saw a law mandating detention of unauthor time'. Hayne was adamant that such the case as a straightforward exercise in ised arrivals, without the need for a court long-term segregation was not punitive. statutory interpretation: 'The Act does not order or periodic court review, not only Having considered that government in terms provide for a person to be kept in to assist with the processing of claims action to prevent a person reaching administrative detention permanently, or and with the pending removal of persons Australia would be viewed as punitive indefinitely.' He drew a simple distinction: but also to keep them segregated from 'only in the most general sense', he held A scheme of mandatory detention, the Australian community. It is only that 'segregating those who make land operating regardless of the personal lawmakers and judges from an island fall, without permission to do so, is not characteristics of the detainee, when the nation continent without land borders readily seen as bearing a substantially detention is for a li mited purpose, and of who could realistically implement a different character'. He did concede: finite duration, is one thing. It may take proposal for mandatory detention for all Because Immigration Detention Centres on a different aspect when the detention is unauthorised arrivals for the entirety are places of confinement havi ng many, if indefi nite, and possibly fo r life. of their stay within a community. 20 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 He went on to conclude: Court itself in 1992. When mandatory terrorists who could not be removed to detention was first introduced, neither another country and other suspected ter The Act does not say what is to happen parliament nor the High Court envis rorists who could be removed or who were if, t hrough no fa ult of his own or of the aged instances in which persons would UK citizens remaining in the community authorities, (a person who arrived without be kept in detention for life. It was always was determinative. a visa) cannot be removed. It does not, assumed that persons who had come with Post-September 11, the UK Parliament in its terms, dea l with that possibilit y. out permission could end their detention pa ssed the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and The possibility that a person, regardless by simply signing on the bottom line, Security Act 2001 . Suspected interna of personal circumstances, rega rdless requesting removal back home. In the 2004 tional terrorists living in the UK and who of whether he or she is a danger to the decision, the High Court majority pointed were not UK citizens could be rounded community, and regardless of whether out several times that the he or she might abscond, can be subjected High Court judges in 1992 to indefinite, and perhaps permanent, did not even advert to such ad ministrative detention is not one to be a possibility. True, back UNLIKE THE AUSTRALIAN dealt w ith by implication. then they did not, and HIGH CouRT, THE HousE OF The Chief Justice said that there was neither did parliament. a choice between treating the detention By applying tried and LORDS IS NOW EQUIPPED WITH as suspended or as indefinite. Given the tested canons of statutory I A STRONG C ONSTITUTIONAL legislative silence, Gleeson thought that construction, the High ARMOURY IN THE HUMAN he could have resort to a fundamental Court could have avoided RIGHTS AcT 1988. principle of interpretation that the courts the depriva tion of liberty do not impute a legislative intent to abro until hell freezes over. gate human rights and freedoms unless It is one thing to justify such an intention is clearly manifes ted by short-term detention of unambiguous langu age. someone because it was 'their own fault' up and deported. Those who were UK Where the three dissenting judges that they came without permission. It is citizens could be taken into long- term fou nd ambiguity, Justice McHugh, like another to purport to justify detention for detention only if they were charged with the other members of the majority, could life because through no fault of their own, and convicted of offences. There were find only clarity of language, tragedy of there is nowhere else for them to go. some suspected international terrorists circumstance and ambiguity of moral In Australia, the difference in treat who could not be removed to other coun propriety being visited upon parliament ment of asylum seekers entering the tries because they faced the risk of torture and not upon the courts. None of the Chief country without visas and those entering or cruel and inhuman treatment on their Justice's close reasoning helped Justice with visas counts for nothing in deter return. Parliament legislated to allow McHugh, who conceded that the situa mining the validity of legislation. Asylum open-ended detention of these persons tion of the applicant was 'tragic'. Even if seekers who arrive with a tourist visa or in Belmarsh Prison without charge. They it be impossible to remove a person from business visa are not taken into deten could apply to a Special Immigration Australia, McHugh would permit parlia tion to assist with the processing of their Appeals Commission for bait appealing ment to authorise government to keep a claim. Neither are they taken into deten against the government's certification person in detention for the term of his tion if their claim is rejected and there is of them as suspected international ter natural life for the purpose of prevent no prospect of removing them to another rorists. Not even the ava ilability of this ing entry into Australia or 'rem aining place. There is no coherent ra tionale for bail procedure could save the legisla in the Australian community'. McHugh the difference of treatment once you tion. The Hou se of Lords maintained its could fi nd no constitutional restraint on know the identity of the unauthorised traditional approach that detention was parliament legislating for the detention arrival and know that they are neither a permissible 'only for such time as was of unlawful non-citizens 'even when their health or security risk. reasonably necessary for the process of deportation is not achievable' because The High Court's lack of armoury deportation to be carried out'. If there detention even for life would be 'reasona given the absence of a bill of rights, was no reasonable prospect of deportation bly regarded as effectuating the purpose' of and its laxity in the use of its limited in the near future, the detention preventing such persons from entering or armoury, are highlighted by a study of the could not be justified. rem aining in the Australian community. House of Lords decision. While the High The tragedy of this High Court decision Court has been powerless to curtail the U NLIKE THE AUSTRALIAN High is not just that there is no constitutional long- term detention of children who are Court, the House of Lords is now constraint on such paranoid and overreach asylum seekers and the detention for life equipped with a strong constitutional ing legislation by parliament; also the court of stateless asylum seekers, the House of armoury in the Human Rights Act is lax in its interpretation of the meaning Lords has been able to spike government's 1998. This gives domestic effect to the and application of such legislation, prefer attempts to detain suspected interna European Convention of Human Rights ring the view that the legislation covers all tional terrorists without charge. In the which extends the fundamental human cases of unauthorised arrivals, including United Kingdom the difference in treat right to liberty and secu rity of person not cases that were unforeseen by the High ment between suspected international only to citizens but to all persons in the MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 2 1 jurisdiction. Article 5 of the European came to long-term detention of a person It was no answer for the government Convention specifies the cases in which already in the UK they had little sympathy to claim that the foreigners in detention persons can be deprived of their liberty. for the government's reliance 'on the old could choose to leave the UK at any time. The state can detain a person 'against established rule that a sovereign state may The government had submitted that their whom action is being taken with a view control the entry of aliens into its territory prison has only three walls. The detainees to deportation'. Lord Hope of Craighead and their expulsion from it'- The lords could leave on request. Lord Nicholls said: said: 'The article 5 right to liberty is reaffirmed that habeas corpus protection But this freedom is more theoretical than a fundamental right which belongs to is not restricted only to British subjects real. This is demonstrated by the continu everyone who happens to be in this coun- because, 'Every person in the jurisdiction ing presence in Bclmarsh of most of those enjoys equal protection detained. They prefer to stay in prison rather of our laws.' The lords than face the prospect of ill treatment in any insisted that any deroga 'THE DUTY OF THE COURTS IS country willing to admit them. tion of rights otherwise TO CHECK THAT LEGISLATION guaranteed under the Not even Michael Kirby could match AND MINISTERIAL DECISIONS European Convention and Lord Hoffmann's declaration: 'The real international instruments threat to the life of the nation, in the DO NOT OVERLOOK THE such as the Convention on sense of a people living in accordance with HUMAN RIGHTS OF PERSONS the Elimination of Racial its traditional laws and political va lues, ADVERSELY AFFECTED.' Discrimination must 'go comes not from terrorism but from laws -LORD NICHOLLS no further than is strictly such as these. That is the true measure of required by the exigencies of what terrorism may achieve.' the situation'. Furthermore, Baroness Hale of Richmond proclaimed: the instrument of deroga- 'Belmarsh is not the British Guantanamo try, irrespective of his or her nationality tion did not excuse the government from Bay.' She made a declaration which is now or citizenship.' Lord Bingham promptly the prohibition of discriminating 'on unthinkable in Australian superior courts: put paid to any attempt to extend the grounds of nationality or immigration It is not for the executive to decide who power to detain to long-term detention status'. On this basis, the House of Lords should be locked up for any length of time, even of a suspected international terror quashed the government's derogation let alone indefinitely. Only the courts ist, let alone of a peace-loving, stateless order and declared that the law which per ca n do that and, except as a preliminary Palestinian who was not suspected of mitted long-term detention of suspected step before trial, onl y after the grounds being a threat to anybody. He said: international terrorists was incompatible for detaining so meone have been proved. with the European Convention. There is no warrant for the long-term or Executive detention is the antithesis of the In reaching this conclusion, the lords i ndeA n ite detention of a non- UK national ri ght to liberty and security of person. referred to many parliamentary reports whom the Home Secretary wishes to and reports of the UN Commission on Back in 1992, the High Court, like remove. Such a person may be detained Human Rights as well as the Committee their colleagues in the UK, were prepared only during the process of deportation. on the International Convention on to place limits on executive and legisla Otherwise, the Convention is breached the Elimination of all Forms of Racial tive power, asserting that only courts and the Convention rights of the detainee Discrimination (CERD). Though such could exercise judicial power which arc violated. reports arc not lcga lly binding, the lords included the authorised detention of a Under the Human Rights Act, the UK were still happy to quote them, noting person for life. We have wandered far from government is able to derogate from the that the findings were 'inimical to the our jurisprudential roots in this age of rights set out in the European Convention submission that a state may lawfully national isolationism with our judges and when there is a public emergency threat discriminate against foreign nationals the voters showing such great deference ening the life of the nation. The law lords by detaining them but not nationals to politicians who tell us how we need to were happy to pay deference to govern presenting the same threat in time of segregate unvisaed persons from the com ment in the making of such a derogation, public emergency'. munity even if they not be a security risk. noting that the Home Secretary had The lords went out of their way to pay Our judges are now cultivating a barren referred to secret evidence that the law due deference to the government, noting judicial field asking only if detention is lords were not invited to examine. The 'the heavy burden, resting on the elected for a purpose authorised by parliament. lords were prepared to give the govern government and not the judiciary, to This field is far removed from the English ment the benefit of the doubt, trusting protect the security of this country and law lords' garden of guaranteed their security assessments, despite what all who live here'. But parliament has European rights and freedoms. Lord Hoffmann described as 'the wide charged the courts with their responsibil spread scepticism which has attached to ity as well. According to Lord Nicholls I N THE PAST YEAR, the US Supreme intelligence assessments since the fiasco of Birkenhead, 'The duty of the courts is Court has also flexed its muscle against over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction'. to check that legislation and ministerial government wanting to detain individuals But the lords were insistent that they still decisions do not overlook the human at home and abroad without court super had their role to play as judges. When it rights of persons adversely affected.' vision. The cases, including the claim by 22 EU REKA ST REET MARCH 2005 Australia's own David Hicks, have related their constitution's due process clause It is only an isolated judiciary with a to very different legal questions than applies to all persons in the US, including depleted armoury for the defence of human the Australian and UK cases discussed aliens, whether their presence 'is law rights that can resign itself to possible life here. But the judicial rhetoric of the US ful, unlawful, temporary or permanent'. time detention of a stateless person with Supreme Court is resonant with much of Justice Callinan noted with some relief the observations of Justice Callinan: what has been said by the House of Lords that the US decision could be disregarded This country has no greater obliga tion and by Michael Kirby. It finds no reso 'because of the absence of the complication to receive stateless persons who ca nnot nance in the judgments of the majority of a constitutional provision in Australia establish thei r entitlement to the status of of Australia's High Court who think they such as the Fifth Amendment'. Callinan refugee, than others who arc not stateless are now bound to defer to government also preferred the views of the dissenting ... Whether statelessness ca lls for a differ and to parliament on basic human rights, judges in the US decision because their ent trea tment, as it may well do for practi despite the risks of unchecked execu judgm ents contained 'more orthodox cal and humanitarian reasons, is a matter tive power at this time of national and expressions of constitutional principle for the legislature and not for the courts. international uncertainty. The key swing and practical reality'- It is troubling that Nor should the ap pellant be accord ed any voter on the US court, Justice Sandra Day a Palestinian asylum seeker could legally special advantages because be has man O'Connor, recently acknowledged that be kept in lifetime detention in Australia aged illegally to penetrate the borders of 'history and common sense teach us that without judicial intervention. Offsetting this country over those who have sought an unchecked system of detention car 'practical reality' and 'the complication of to, but have been stopped before they ries the potential to become a means for a constitutional provision' ought to bear could do so. oppression and abuse of others'. Because greater fruit for individual liberty. Justice the US constitution includes the bill of Hayne, who was the only other m ember of Perhaps the only cure for Justice rights, there is a need for the US court the High Court majority who wrote a sub Kirby's depression is a bill of rights to strike an appropriate constitutional stantive judgment, saw no need to refer to which would force our judges to take up balance between individual rights and the 2001 US decision though he did refer the slack in a post-September 11 world in national security. The present Australian which the Government High Court has been able to excuse will control the Senate, itself from any such balancing exercise, while thumbing its nose interpreting Australian statutes as valid at international conven implementation of the Executive's will to tions and determina place national security at such a premium tions. But that would that persons (including children) who require popular support constitute no security risk could be held for such a constitutional in long-term, non-reviewable detention. or legislative initiative, In the US, O'Connor observed, 'Striking putting Australia once the proper constitutional balance here is more in touch with other of great importance to the nation dur jurisdictions including ing this period of ongoing combat. But the UK fron"l whom we it is equally vital that our calculus not to a dissenting judgment of Judge Learned are now removed by a vast judicial chasm. give short shrift to the values that this Hand from 1953: At this time any informed Canberra country holds dear ... It is during our most observer knows that we will be waiting Think what one may of a statute .. . when challenging and uncertain moments that until hell freezes over. Meanwhile the passed by a society which professes to put our nation's commitment to due process majority of voters, the major political its faith in fr eedom, a court has no warrant is most severely tested; and it is in those parties, and the majority of High Court for refusing to enforce it. If that society times that we must preserve our commit judges have no qualms about a stateless chooses to flinch when its principles are m ent at home to the principles for which Palestinian spending his life in deten put to the test, the courts are not set up to we fight abroad.' tion in the Australian desert. After all, give it derring- do . When our High Court came to review he came here without permission and it the lawfulness of indeterminate detention For their part the dissenting judges is not really punishment. In his journey for harmless stateless Palestinians, they in the High Court thought the 2001 US from the ben ch to the academy, Dr Kirby distinguished a 2001 US Supreme Court decision helpful. Kirby thought it 'highly has put us on notice: 'Law alone is not decision in which the judges had placed relevant to the decision in this case', urg enough. Justice is the precious alchemy limits on the indeterminate detention ing 'the approach that we should take is of Australian law.' From July, the of foreigners who had actually been con precisely the sam e'. Justice Gummow alchemy will be in even shorter supply victed of serious offences in the US and thought it useful to follow the approach in isolated Australia. • who could not be removed from the US of the majority in the US decision who on the completion of their prison terms. affirmed that there runs through immi Fr Frank Brennan SJ, a Fellow at the Justice McHugh acknowledged that the gration law 'the distinction between an Jesuit Institute, Boston College, was indefinite detention of an alien in the US alien who has effected an entry into (the awarded the St Thomas More Society's would be problematic but that was because country) and one who has never entered'. Award for 2004. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 23 loss Gillian Bouras The comforting word In extremis, we seek what we know, or something very close to it. 1 THIS EuROPEAN Then it is my turn. I AUTUMN, the whole fam am not Greek, not Ortho ily is steeped in sadness, , dox, not Catholic. I am that wrapped in mourning, for TGflNCl. mysterious thing, a Protes my Greek daughter-in-law tant. I was also raised Non has very recently been conformist, a concept with delivered of a stillborn which your average Greek girl. Our hopes for a new has a great deal of trouble, generation fade and drift for 97 per cent of the popu with the falling leaves, lation of Greece is Ortho and we all have to find our dox. All I can do is bring own means of managing a willing ear, books and unexpected grief. My two magazines of a distracting bachelor sons do not know nature, and the mandatory what to say or do; neither Greek goodies: the dried does their father. Having figs and the sesame seed babies is easy stuff, you and honey pastelli sent by can almost hear them a worried father-in-law. thinking. Women manage Katerina's mother is it all the time, don't they? single-mindedly devout. Niko, my second Katerina herself is prepared son, serves in the Greek to be eclectic: she writes a Special Forces, but is cur note to God and pins it on rently halfway through the prayer board during our a three-year posting in visit to Ulm Minster, and Germany, at the NATO does not look askance at the base near Pfullendorf, in many statues; she fasts and Baden-Wurttemberg. At then makes the trip to the this crucial time, both he Orthodox Church so that and Katerina are separated she can take communion. from the language, the And she takes me to the culture, and the traditions local Catholic Church of St that are so much a part of Jacob in Pfullendorf, where them. The nearest Greek she has come quite often, Orthodox Church is over Grea t Mart yr St Katherine, courtesy of th e Creek Orthodox Archdiocese of Western she says, since losing her an hour's drive away. Australi a, http://home. iprimus.com.au/xenos/kath erine. html baby. We both light candles, Women of the senior at which point I hear my generation do what such grandmothers clank and women always try to do; we move heaven and earth to be there. moan as they turn in their graves. But I got used to those sounds Katerina's m other flies in from central Greece and brings the long ago, having married into Greek Orthodoxy at the age of 23. reassurance of familiarity with her. The priest from the home Orthodox worshippers can often take quite some time town has been on the phone and has sent a phylacto with to work their way along the iconostasis and around their mother, a talisman to keep Katerina safe, to let her know that churches, venerating the icons on stands and on the walls, so she is being guarded and protected, that a whole community, for Katerina there is a layer of ritual missing, for here there are both spiritual and material, is thinking of her. And Mama also no icons to kiss and revere. And she does draw the line at hon brings her a little token from the Monastery of St Catherine ouring statues. But she gains other layers as I explain about the (Aghia Ekaterini) , all the way from the Sinai Desert. stoup of holy water, and as the unfamiliar sound of a mighty 24 EU REKA STREET MARCH 2005 organ thunders and peals around us, while for me the layers Presbyterian churches of my youth seem positively lavish . I just keep on accumulating. cannot believe there is no stained glass, but all the windows Like so many European churches, St Jacob's is in a fair are clear except for two that bear the same small but stern way to overwhelm me. But I delight in it, too. All that pink portrait etched in black and grey. Heroic Luther. Here I stand; and-white baroque-edging-into-rococo richness: the cherubs I can do no other. His cry echoes down the centuries. But hero tumbling about in gold-encrusted puffs of cloud or standing though he was, he still had four women burned as witches. tiptoe on gaudy pedestals, or else appearing to fly through the Katerina has never been in such a building before, and incense-laden air, arrows at the ready, the trumpeting angels, while an invisible orga nist practises a simple hymn tune she the pierced hearts with the drops of ruby blood forever falling, paces slowly up and down the short aisle. Apart from the look the statues of Our Lady, each one framed by a nimbus of glit of m ystification on her fa ce, there is very little to see or think tering stars, and the contrasting ones of Our Lord su ffering so about: plain wooden pews, a large wooden cross, no decora starkly and so patiently. Then there are the Bible stories and tion whatsoever. We do not linger. Out in the street, I imme the allegories, not to mention the elaborate memorials to the diately have a question to answer. What are you supposed to dead of local families: it would take me a week at least to read do wh en you go in! I see her point: no holy water, no candles, this church's narrative and even then much of it would rem ain no icons, no statues. Ah. Well, the idea is that you sit quietly elusive, locked in the foreign language of a different denomina in your pew and pray. Nothing for m al: just a little tall< with tion, a denomination which has often seem ed so far removed God, really. The mystified expression does not clear. from me as to be a completely different religion. And I am not surprised. My ancestry is lost in the mists of time and in those of a northern clime, but the more recent fo rebears were definitely K ATERINA HAS JUST HAD a brief experience of religious products of the English and Scottish Reformation. Their lives culture shock of the kind I had, all those years ago, only in were both dour and hard, and it seems to m e that they had reverse. She has had a momentary glimpse of a world she very little compensation in the way of spectacle and beauty in hardly knew existed. But I have been as baffled as she is now, church; there can have been little sense of entering a different for it has always seem ed to me that Orthodox churches arc world, a privilege that the Catholics and the Orthodox have theatres in which a long-hallowed play unfolds before an always had. In the kirks a certain skill in woodcarving was enthralled audience, the members of which take very little often evident, and in recognition of the Auld Alliance between part in the performance. Sermons or homilies, if any, seem France and Scotland, a blue fleur-de-lis carpet was usually a to be a brief afterthought. The other consideration, and I try fea ture. But in som e churches even organ music was forbidden. to explain it to Katerin a, is that N onconformity has no filters And whereas old Catholic churches were all decorated swirls or m ediators; all the protective layers are stripped away. Of and Orthodox churches all form al curves, heavily symbolic course my grandmothers k new this, and understood the Non straight lines were the thing in Nonconform ist buildings. conformist emphasis on individual responsibility, accepting I stand in St Jacob's and ponder these m atters and many as immutable truth the notion that the business of life was others. My grandmothers never left Australia, but I try to directly between them and God. They were less clear, I think, imagine them standing here beside m e. I also try to imagine about the way in wh ich any religion has the potentiality to be their conditioned reactions; it isn't hard to do. Mutterings a means of social control. about graven images would have been one of them . Fulmina Coming from different cultures, Katerina and I approach tions against the Catholic Church in general and the Pope in the world from our own angles and directions. And when it particular would have been another. Then there would have comes to religious practice, we occupy contrasting spaces. been the m andatory criticism of the Church's wealth, gained Hers is a visual one, dom inated by images, prescribed rituals, through the exploitation of a groaning peasantry. My mother, colour and light; m ine is much more aural, for the sermon is irreverent spirit that she often was, would undoubtedly have the m ain focus, still, of Nonconform ist services. This, surely, commented on the amount of dusting such a place requires, was one of Luther's greatest contributions, that of the democ while going on to m arvel at the organ pipes, the woodwork, the racy of the word: he translated the Bible into Germ an, giving sculpture, the general richness. his humbler countrymen not only the chance to read Holy Katerina is interested in German churches as works of art, Writ, but also the tools of thought. Reading the Bible gave too, fo r art is her area of expertise. But it never occurs to her them at least a chance of understanding the sermons. to rem ark on the extravagance of the spectacle, for Orthodox Although I have experienced m any form s of loss, includ churches are often very splendid: the worshipper enters to a ing this latest one of the tiny person who would have been blaze of light from both massed tapers and huge artificially my first grandchild, I have never suffered Katerina's specific lit chandelier, above which Christ the Pantocrator presides anguish. If I had been her then, I know I would not have gone to in glory, looking down from a blue heaven sprinkled with St Jacob's or to the distant Orthodox church for solace. I would gold and silver stars. The iconostasis is intricately carved, have gone to sit in a wooden pew in the Lutheran chapel for, in and decorated with m ore gold and silver, the saints gaze extrem is, we seek what we know, or something very close to steadfastly from the walls, and light glints off every surface. it. As Katerina needs the visions and the light, what would I do During another outing we happen upon the Lutheran without the comfort and the reassurance of the word ? • chapel. Somewhat unexpectedly, the door gives under our touch, and we enter an unadorned lobby; leaving this space Gillian Bouras is a freelance writer whose books are published we enter a rectangular hall that m akes the very modest by Penguin Australia. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 25 the world:1 Anthony Ham A farewell to arms? The road towards a Spain free from ETA violence remains one fraught with peril. S AN SOBAmAN " NOT tho 'o" of The first underground cells of ETA democracy, for it was ETA which, on 20 city in which you expect to discover were founded in 1952 at the height of December 1973, assassinated Admiral dark secrets. Once the resort of choice the Spanish dictator General Francisco Carrero Blanco, Franco's ruthless and for Europe's 19th-century aristocracy and Franco's repression of the Basque Coun charismatic right-hand man and chosen strung out along a perfect arc of Spain's try (Euskadi). After the end of the Span successor. northern coastline, this most elegant of ish Civil War, in 1939, more than 20,000 Following Franco's death on 20 cities stands as an enduring symbol of Basques were imprisoned in concentra N ovember 1975, it was widely assumed Europe's belle epoque. tion camps, and 21,780 were executed that with the advent of a democratic And yet even its mayor, Od6n Elorza, by Franco. Standing alongside San Spain, ETA would have no reason to admits that San Sebastian possesses 'a Sebastian's graceful curve of sand, the continue its campaign of violence. Far treacherous beauty'. Playa de la Concha was a prison where reaching autonomy was granted to the Barely three years ago, San Sebastian's the sound of Franco's soldiers executing Basque Country in 1979, including its old town was the militant heartland of Basque prisoners could be heard almost own parliament, police force, education the Basque terrorist group ETA (Euskadi every day until 1947. system and powers of tax collection. Ta Akatasuna-Basque Homeland and The founders of ETA considered them But ETA and its supporters had, in the Liberty). Its narrow lanes-the so-called selves to be intellectuals. They wanted meantime, watched as the transitional Comanche Territory-were sinister independence, but their primary goal was Spanish government continued its policy recesses of violent nationalism which the publication of an underground journal of repression in the Basque Country. seemed entirely out of place in modern and the promotion of the outlawed Basque ETA decided that i ndcpcndence alone Europe. Bloodied footprints left behind by language, Euskera. would truly liberate the Basque people perpetrators of political crimes led into After m eeting in 1967 for only the fifth and that the only means to achieve this ETA bars where no police dared follow. time, ETA published The Official Ideol was through violence. Now, a street called Juan de Bilbao is ogy of ETA, which committed its foot Indeed it would become a paradox of the last remaining bastion of those danger soldiers to an independent Ba squeland Spanish democracy that ETA killed just ous days. A sign in a window announces: to be achieved through 'revolutionary 38 people under Franco's dictatorship, 'Tourist! You are not in Spain, nor in nationalism'. The old guard of leaders was but would go on to kill 779 (including France. You are in Basque Country. Wel ousted. It would be the first of many splits 118 in 1980) under a democracy within come.' Painted on a wall a few doors away, within ETA, each one signalling a shift which the Basque Country enjoys far next to the Belfast Irish Pub, is the ETA towards a younger leadership more com greater powers of autonomy than any symbol, a serpent coiled around a hatchet. mitted to violence than distinguished by other region of Europe. Every time Just across the laneway is the Herria any ideological sophistication. ETA killed, the Spanish government Bar-part of a network of tabernas across On 7 June 1968, a Spanish paramili responded in kind, even during the 1980s the Basque Country whose profits, pros tary civil guardsman, Jose Pardines, through the use of shadowy death squads ecutors have claimed, directly finance stopped a car near San Sebastian. Inside with tacit government backing. ETA operations-with pictures of ETA the car were Txabi Etxebarrieta, the new In a 1982 interview with the French prisoners above the bar and a jar promi ETA leader, and a colleague. The two men Le Monde newspaper, an ETA spokes nently placed for collections to help 'the shot Pardines. It was the first ETA killing. man said simply: 'Even if [Spain] were to cause'- The street is still off-limits to Txabi would soon be killed in revenge by convert itself into a model of democracy, Basque police. Franco's security forces. The cycle of tit it won't change things as far as we are However, although 'Cora ETA!' ('Long for-tat killings, which would last more concerned. We are not, nor have we been, Live ETA!') graffiti is still evident through than three decades, had begun. nor shall we ever be Spaniards.' out the Basque Country, particularly along Nonetheless, m the early 1970s After decades of sustained violence, rural roads and in the old town of the ETA was widely viewed as a hero of the tide finally began to turn against ETA Basque political capital of Vitoria, ETA's the underground resistance movement in the 1990s. France, which had hitherto territory is shrinking. In the streets sur against Franco, just one of many groups turned a blind eye to ETA terrorists oper rounding Juan de Bilbao and throughout battling the repression of the dictator's ating on its soil, began to take the ETA Spain it is being whispered that, after half a fascist rule. ETA was even credited threat seriously. In 1992, the entire ETA century, ETA's time has forever passed. with precipitating Spain's transition to leadership was arrested in France. 26 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 A new, younger ETA leadership parties, thereby draining ETA of popular However, a day before ETA's statement emerged which would, despite a 1998 support. A recent poll suggested that 0.6 was published, the Spanish Prime Minister, unilateral ceasefire, continue ETA's cam per cent of Basques identify themselves Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, told Social paign of violence. However, the numbers with ETA. ist Party representatives in San Sebastian killed by ETA- 14 in 2001, five in 2002 ETA's demise has been predicted many that he might talk with Batasuna- banned and three in 2003-were a far cry from its times before and no-one in Spain expects under the Law of Political Parties in bloody 'successes' of the 1980s. In 2002, that they have heard the last of it. Gorka 2002-if it was 'brave enough to renounce the Spanish Parliament outlawed Herri Espiau, a spokesman for Elkarri, a Basque and condemn ETA violence'. Batasuna, the political wing of ETA which NGO which favours dialogue with ETA, The Public Administrations Minister, had consistently received about 15 per cent warns: 'They may lie low for a year or Jordi Sevilla, similarly left the door open of the Basque popular vote, thereby deny two, but I am sure ETA will return while to the possibility of talks, stating: 'Things ing ETA its last remnants of democratic the political problem remains unsolved. are moving quickly ... but we await only legitimacy. Failed bombing attempts in The weaker they are, the stronger they one letter from ETA, the one that tells us December 2003 and February 2004 fed must show themselves.' where and when they will lay down arms the suspicion that ETA had lost the art of Spain's senior anti-terrorism adviser, and abandon terrorism.' killing and was reeling under the weight Fernando Reinares, has similarly warned: Until there is a renunciation of vio of mass arrests (185 in 2002 alone). 'ETA is in its terminal phase. We know lence, no Spanish government can accede On 27 September 2004, ETA released that terminal phases often produce rival to ETA's bid to return to the centre of a video in which it denied that it was ries and fragmentation that can lead to political life. And yet, fears rem ain that if experiencing difficulties and promised pectacular attacks-' ETA's latest offer is spurned, as in 1998, a that 'the conflict' would continue until As if on cue, ETA carried out a younger ETA leadership may emerge from the Basque Country was given the right series of high-profile attacks aero s within the ranks of disaffected Basque to choose between independence and Spain in December during the national youth. ETA's history suggests that a remaining part of Spain. constitution holiday, a fiesta which resumption of violence would soon follow. Less than a week later, ETA's claims com1nemorates Spain's return to Amid the overtures for peace, ETA's were looking decidedly hollow when its democracy in 1978 . statement warned that it remained active leadership was arrested during a joint and claimed responsibility for 23 attacks French-Spanish police operation. SUCH ATTACKS NOTWITHSTANDING, in (but no deaths) since September. How The Spanish government of Prime mid-January ETA, in its first conciliatory ever, it denied involvement in the bomb Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero gesture for seven years, announced that scare in December at Madrid's Santiago described the arrests as the 'decapitation' it was willing to enter into negotiations Bernabeu soccer stadium. Further, two of ETA. In so doing, the government with the Spanish government over the days after ETA's declaration, a car bomb pointed to the fact that ETA's structure future status of the Basque Country. exploded in Getxo, an affluent town is, unlike al Qaeda's disparate cells, In a statement published by the north of Bilbao, injuring a policeman, compartmentalised and hierarchical and Basque-language Gara newspaper leading some to believe that there may therefore highly susceptible to leader which ETA routinely calls to warn of already be a split within ETA, with more ship vacuums. impending terrorist attacks-ETA said it militant members keen to carry on the Perhaps the clearest indication of was prepared to support proposals made armed struggle. ETA's decline, however, came in a letter in November by its banned political There is also widespread concern that published on 2 November in the Diario wing, Batasuna. so far apart are the positions of ETA and de Noticias newspaper in the Spanish Batasuna's proposal had demanded the Spanish government-ETA wants province of Navarra. The letter, signed 'exclusively political and democratic' independence, which the government by six senior, imprisoned ETA leaders, talks with the Spanish government to will not countenance-that ETA could stated: 'Things have never been so bad 'take the conflict off the streets and on to merely use the truce as a cover to regroup . . . You can't carry on an armed fight the negotiating table'. The centrepiece of and rearm itself as it did in 1998. through warnings and by uttering threats the proposal was for a referendum in the The potential obstacles such as these that are never fulfilled ... In current cir Basque Country so that Basques could ensure that the road towards a Spain free cumstances the armed struggle that we decide whether they wished to remain a from ETA violence remains one fraught carry out today is no longer any use. We're part of Spain. with peril. slowly burning to death.' In its communique, ETA argued that it However, 18 months after the last Deprived of its former French safe was 'essential that the whole society has ETA killing-the longest period since haven, with its leaders and most of its a chance to participate in such a process' the 1960s-such attacks increasingly rank-a nd-file members behind bars and and called for talks with the Spanish gov provide evidence of weakness rather than devoid of a coherent strategy, the last ernment on 'demilitarising the conflict'. strength. In the midst of a war on terror indigenous terrorist group left in Europe In response, Spain's Defence Minister, which can seem unwinnable, this is no is suffering an unprecedented crisis. Per Jose Bono, told reporters that the govern small victory. • haps most significantly, ETA's program ment 'cannot talk to someone with a gun for self-determination has been largely in his hand ... Nobody sensible can sit Anthony Ham is a freelance writer living adopted by moderate Basque nationalist down with these people.' in Madrid. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 27 politics Troy Bramston Beginning of the end Warning signs for the Whitlam Government were there in 1974, with an aili ng economy, a politica l storm in the Senate, sliding popularity and a scandal unfolding in secret. T H, N£WLY R 28 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 Democratic Labor Party Senator Vince Gair as Ambassador to increase in unemployment by fighting inflation rigorously. There Ireland-known as the 'Gair affair'-prompted the opposition was no strong leadership in Cabinet by either the Treasurer, under Billy Snedden to commence deferring the government's Frank Crean, or Whitlam, over economic policy. Ministers eager supply bills. That decision ultimately doomed the government. to implement long-held visionary policy reforms were shadowed Whitlam had hoped to win Gair's seat and thus control of by the flagging economy that urged caution and gradualism. the Senate. With supply denied, Whitlam secured a double dis D espite painting a 'grim' picture of the country facing solution election in May, but failed to win a Senate majority. 'an inflationary crisis' in July, Crean was unable to convince Despite winning a second term-albeit with the loss of seats Cabinet to adopt Treasury's proposals in full. Although Whit the government languished in the polls for much of the year. lam expressed initial support for Treasury's general strategy Indeed, the Morgan Gallup Poll had rarely shown the govern on inflation and expendi- ment ahead of the opposition since mid-1973. ture, and also tax increases, After the frantic early days of the Whitlam Government he too faced opposition in in 1972, when it made 40 major decisions in 14 days, and the Cabinet. Some, such as the The government rapid workload of 1973 which included 823 formal submissions Aboriginal Affairs Min and 221 new acts of legislation, the cabinet business of 1974 was ister, wanted more than equally gruelling. However, while there were fewer submissions a 100 per cent increase in struggled to reconcile to consider, Cabinet made almost twice as many decisions. In portfolio expenditure, even 1974 there were 626 submissions and 1264 decisions. though not all money allo the implementation The latest papers show a similar cabinet style to that of cated in the previous year previous years, which was ultimately detrimental to the govern had been spent. ment's effectiveness. With all ministers in Cabinet, management Cabinet did agree on a of policies with the was difficult and decision-making laboured. Ministers who lost strategy to reduce inflation in Cabinet could return to caucus and try to overturn decisions. by limiting migration, rais deteriorating economic As the government was determined to implement its 'man ing some taxes and reduc date' at almost any cost, it struggled to reconcile the implemen ing some expenditure. Even tation of policies with the deteriorating economic environment. Whitlam's promised child environment. Concerns expressed by Treasury over funding, or questions of care and pre-school policy implementation raised by ministers were given short shrift. was delayed until 1975-76. The 1974 cabinet papers show the government determined But none of these measures to introduce a bold and imaginative policy agenda. Funding was enough to repair the economy. Ministers remained too for hospitals, community health centres, sewerage treatment, wedded to their policy ideals. and other local and regional initiatives feature prominently. The government believed it was still the driving force of The milestone Medibank legislation was passed at the historic the market, and was sceptical about encouraging private-sector August joint sitting, along with important electoral reforms. investment. Treasury was scathing of the government's eco The Trade Practices Act came into force, the Family Law Bill nomic policy, arguing that it would promote 'a vicious cycle of was drafted, and legislation was passed establishing the Law spiralling inflation and depressed employment and activity'. Reform Commission. A new national anthem was chosen, 18- It would not be until Bill Hayden's one and only budget year-olds voted for the first time, and the National Parks and as Treasurer, in 1975, that the government's economic strat Wildlife Service was set up. Significant advances were made in egy would be placed on a sound footing. It is worth noting Aboriginal health, housing and education, and also in Aborigi that by mid-1975 Hayden argued that 'fiscal expenditures' nal representation and land rights. needed to be 'pruned heavily'. The government's policy A highlight of the cabinet papers is the response to proposals 'seem too grand in scale for the present Cyclone Tracy handled by Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns, circumstances', he argued. while Whitlam was on a European sojourn. After visiting Darwin, Cairns submitted to Cabinet proposals providing BYTHE TIME OF THE AuGUST BUDGET, Treasury's views immediate relief and future plans to meet Darwin's had been largely ignored, and Crean was reduced to theatrics, needs. It was Cairns at his best. arguing that the proposed 32 per cent increase in expenditure over the previous year was 'economically irresponsible' and T HE ISSUE THAT WAS DISCUSSED most often in Cabinet in would lead to 'the worst of all worlds'. Expenditure had already 1974 was the economy. Rapidly rising unemployment and infla increased by 20 per cent in 1973-74-the largest rise in two tion, in addition to increasing oil prices abroad, falling com decades. Crean's warnings fell on deaf ears. modity prices at home, and a worrying balance of payments, With Whitlam unimpressed by Treasury's arguments, his presented the government with a plethora of economic prob own department eventually emerged as the guardian of the gov lems. Ministers, caucus members, the union movement and the ernment's economic strategy, preparing detailed submissions public service had differing ideas as to how to fix the economy. and briefing notes. Almost always, a Crean submission was The wage demands prompted Treasury to propose fighting 'noted ... without accepting its conclusions'. By December, he inflation by reducing government expenditure, increasing taxes had been replaced by Jim Cairns as Treasurer. and other monetary measures. However, many wanted to tackle The economic battles remain seared in Whitlam's mem unemployment first, and were not prepared to countenance an ory. He later recalled in his memoirs his 'great failures' in not MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 29 persuading the unions to moderate their wage demands in light its professional view, Treasury was not enamoured with the of his government's improved community services, and in not Labor Government and had recently been ignored over budget persuading the public of the benefits of government-funded policy formulation. services over those privately funded. Treasury Secretary Frederick Wheeler believed that the For all of Whitlam's achievements in reforming the ALP loan was through 'dubious channels'. It was widely regarded and presiding over a visionary government, the economic legacy in the department as 'highly suspect' to use Khernlani's com remains a sore point. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Whit pany; an official made a 'note for file' expressing 'doubts about lam's successor as party leader understood this. Hayden said his the legality' of the loan and believed it was 'unsound and most vital task 'was to re-establish public trust in [Labor's] abil imprudent'. It was suggested that it might even be an elabo ity to manage the economy soberly'. rate 'sting' operation or 'a confidence trick of elaborate propor With the economy in trouble, a political storm in the Senate, tions'. Despite others in the Attorney-General's department and sliding popularity, another scandal was unfolding in secret. and at the Reserve Bank also expressing concern, the advice In mid-December, Whitlam, Cairns, Minerals and Energy Min was ignored. ister Rex Connor, and Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, agreed On the night of 13 December, an Executive Council meet to seck a loan of $4 billion through unconventional sources to ing held at The Lodge with Whitlam, Murphy, Cairns and eon fund national resource projects. However, it was done in secret; nor-though not Governor-General John Kerr- authorised the the Loan Council and the states were bypassed, and loan deal. Kerr signed off in Sydney on 14 December. With nei Treasury had no role. ther Kerr nor Executive Council vice-president Frank Stewart present, some argue the meeting was illegal and the authority T E GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTED to borrow $4 billion from invalid. Arab investors through a Pakistani money broker named Keen to cover his tracks, Wheeler told his department to Tirath Khemlani. The subsequent furore over the loan ensure that the files concerning the loan were 'right' and in attempt fuelled the opposition's drive towards parliamentary 'apple-pie order'. deadlock, and eventually led to the dismissal of the govern It soon became clear that Khemlani could not secure a ment. Although largely unknown in 1974, by mid-1975 the loan deal. With Khemlani wanting a further Executive Coun loans affair had begun to engulf the government and propel it cil endorsement to negotiate a different deal, Treasury stepped towards dismissal. in, and at a ministerial meeting on 21 December, the deal was The recently released off. However, Connor told Khemlani to proceed. The opposition cabinet papers also include now had its game plan. several records and docu As the scandal over the loan-raising attempts unfolded in ments from Treasury about 1975, Whitlam was forced to dismiss Cairns and Connor after The subsequent the loans affair. While they misled parliament. The opposition continued to delay now officially available supply bills. furore over the loan for the first time, many of While documenting the historic achievements of the Whit attempt fuelled the these records were leaked lam era, the cabinet papers of 1972-74 also illustrate underlying as the events unfolded, or factors in the government's slide in the polls and its eventual opposition's drive revealed in later books and defeat. These include: Cabinet's ineffective style, the sharp newspaper investigations. disagreements among ministers, and the poisonous relationship towards parliamentary Nevertheless, they make with the public service. deadlock, and eventually fascinating reading. But most revealingly, the papers illuminate the struggle of a In September, Cairns reformist government trying to implement an ambitious mandate led to the dismissal and Connor had investi in a worsening economic climate. The real tragedy of the Whit gated borrowing money lam years is that the warning signs were there, albeit ignored. of the government. from sources in the Middle They are now but distant voices in historical documents. East, but did not use Treas- Now all that is left are the cabinet papers for the final year: ury. Around this time, 1975. These may reveal new information about Malcolm Fras Cairns and Connor were er's tactics, Kerr's ambush, and Whitlam's final, fateful days and introduced to Khemlani by Minister for Labor and Immigra hours as prime minister. tion Clyde Cameron. Discussions commenced, and if Khern With the 1975 dismissal approaching its 30th anniversary lani could source the funds and negotiate a loan, he would this November, and summoning in its wake all the associated earn himself a nice US$100 million commission. But the loan Whitlam nostalgia, it would be a mistake to breathe a sigh of source was to be secret and Treasury would not be involved. relief at the end of the year. The 1975 papers, to be released on In November, Connor's department authorised Khemlani to 1 January 2006, may well tell the final secrets of the historic investigate a loan. Whitlam years. • There were several meetings to discuss the proposed loan involving officials and ministers, including Whitlam, Troy Bramston is co-editor of The Hawke Government: A criti through early December. Treasury frantically tried to scuttle cal retrospective (Pluto Press, 2003), works for a Labor Senator, the arrangement and mounted strong arguments against using and holds a master's degree in politics and international rela Khemlani and brokering a deal of this nature. While expressing tions from UNSW. 30 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 community Louise Clarke March for Brosnan A,A 'usuc ncuRC, F"hn John prisons and juvenile justice centres to called recently to let the workers know Brosnan was hard to ignore. Throughout begin building these relationships. that, despite all the trouble, he was now his life he worked tirelessly for social Brosnan Centre workers devise an happily married with three children and justice, providing support for those in individual 'exit' plan for young offenders, was running a successful small business. prison. Next month, the Brosnan Centre which includes assistance with accommo 'Apparently,' says Coghlan, 'if you were celebrates his life and work. dation, vocational training and employ ever going to give up on a young person, Working as the Pentridge Prison chap ment, drug, alcohol and mental health it would have been him. But the workers lain for 30 years, Father Brosnan was problems. The workers ensure that the didn't give up. They persisted and persisted acutely aware of the need to support young young person has the necessary paper and took him as far as they could-' offenders upon their release from prison. work for Centrelink, Medicare, and a bank The Brosnan Centre's work extends 'There are three things needed by people account. Upon release, the centre provides beyond providing direct assistance to upon their release,' he often said, 'a place basic material needs such as clothing, food, young offenders. Following in the footsteps to live that is decent, a job that they can transport tickets and telephone cards. of Father Brosnan, the centre undertakes a handle and friendship, and the hardest to The centre directly assists young broad advocacy role. The staff give talks provide is friendship.' people to find information about to schools, community and parish groups The Jesuit Order had already responded suitable employment arrangements and service clubs to try to promote aware to these needs by setting up the Four Flats including supported employment ness of the work the centre does, and to try program in Hawthorn in 1977. Four Flats schemes, courses and jobs. Supported to change the public perception of young was a small halfway house for young men accommodation for releasees is avail offenders. In keeping with the Jesuit Social released from prison and juvenile justice able at two houses. The house in Carlton Services purpose to build a more just and centres. Following Father Brosnan's retire accommodates up to four young people. inclusive society, the Brosnan Centre also ment from Pentridge in 1985, funds were Perry House, in Reservoir, is a purpose advocates for broader social change. raised to extend the Four Flats program built house designed for young people This was the ethos of social inclusion and establish the Brosnan Centre, which with an intellectual disability. From this behind Father Brosnan's work. His open opened in 1987. At present 25 staff (mostly supported accommodation, young people ness, warmth and generosity were legen youth and social workers) continue to sup move on to transitional housing, where dary. 'Even the young people who didn't port young offenders aged 17-25. they are accommodated until they are have experience of him helping them, loved The centre targets those who are at most able to obtain their own public housing. him/ says Coghlan. 'He was a great man, risk of reoffending upon release. These Quantifying the success of agencies and a real character.' young people often come from families such as the Brosnan Centre is difficult. Next month, to celebrate Father Bro where there is a history of abuse, violence, The greatest measure of success is the snan's life and work, the Brosnan Centre's or family break-down where their parents period of time the young people are able to patron, Garry Lyon (former Melbourne have been unable to take care of them. stay out of the criminal justice system. If Football Club captain), will launch 'March Many have spent much of their youth in they can start to break the release-offence for Brosnan' month at the Brosnan Centre. institutions, or moving between foster incarceration cycle, then that is success. March for Brosnan events homes. In other cases, their offences have 'They may not reoffend at all,' says Cogh Picnic in the Park: A fundraising pic led them to be rejected by their families. lan. The centre frequently receives 'good nic in the park will be held on Sunday, 20 'These young people are one of the news' stories from former young offenders. March, at 12.30pm at Pentridge Village most needy groups. One of the most fragile Mike was a young offender who'd been Estate in the Father Brosnan Community and vulnerable,' says Brosnan Centre man in prison and hadn't had contact with his Park, Coburg. ager Peter Coghlan. 'To the public they family for a number of years. He and his Getting Schools on Board: Brosnan may look and act tough, but what's under case worker worked through Mike's fam Centre staff will give talks to schools the surface? That's all a sign of being vul ily issues with the aim of re-establishing about the centre, and are seeking support nerable or fragile ... Social justice is about contact. Just prior to Christmas, Mike through donations (funds raised by 'uni really putting your neck on the line for decided to try to reunite with his family. form-free days'), or by collecting materials people who need you.' Last week, his mother rang the centre to (hairbrushes, shaving cream, deodorants) The key to the Brosnan Centre's suc let everyone know that everything was to make hygiene kits for young people. cess is establishing a trusting relationship working out well. For further information, donations or between the young people and the work Jason was involved with the centre 20 volunteering, please contact the Brosnan ers at the centre. The centre pioneered the years ago. He'd come from a horrific back Centre on 03 9387 1233. • practice of prerelease engagement with ground, and had been in and out of youth young offenders-workers regularly visit training centres and prisons for years. He Louise Clarke is a freelance writer. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 31 ll or ( Peter Davis What Iies beneath Two weeks before the tsunami, Peter Davis was in Jaffna to observe the clearing of landmines. In the aftermath of the devastating waves, he reports on the landmine-clearing strategy that must continue in order for the war-torn region of Sri Lanka to prosper. L WATCH M>NHUAn>Nc in •ction a news service of the Sri Lankan Tamil The bureaucracy of mine-clearing is is to observe a carefully orchestrated and population, Professor V. Nithyanantham itself something of a minefield. The UN highly trained group effort. Teams of clear of the Department of Economics at Jaffna Mine Action Program began operations ers clad in heavy protective clothing pains University referred to the Boxing Day dis in Sri Lanka in 1999. Renewed fighting takingly scrutinise each millimetre of soil aster as 'Tsunami II' and suggested that between the government and the LTTE with high-tech mine detectors. Once 'Tsunami I' was the widespread destruc interrupted activities in 2000. Follow they have located a signal (a high-pitched tion of infrastructure caused during the ing the ceasefire in 2002, the program sq ueal that sounds like the peacocks that height of the military conflict. resumed. Today there arc ten mine clear roam the Sri Lankan jungles) they switch Although much rebuilding of the ance groups operating in Sri Lanka. One to low-tech tools-a rake, a trowel, or even war-torn region is evident (including the group exists within the army. Others are a twig- to gently remove the soil. Then, new Jaffna library that opened to signifi run by various NGOs from Denmark, with gloved but steady hands, they remove cant fanfare only a year ago), the ground Japan, Britain, Norway, Switzerland and the mine, hold it with one hand and defuse remains cluttered with bombed and burnt the United States. Horner is familiar it with the other. A coloured marker is structures. But it is what lies beneath the with all these groups. Based in Jaffna, he inserted where the mine was. Tape link ground that provides the greatest inhibi works alongside the Tamil Rehabilitation ing the markers reveals the extent and tion to progress. Office out of the District Mine Action the pattern of a particular minefield. In An estimated one million landmines Office set up within the local govern many parts of northern Sri Lanka, the litter the regions of northern and east ment office. All mine-clearance activity ern Sri Lanka. Most were laid in the comes under the jurisdiction of the Sri mid-1990s by both the Sri Lankan Army Lankan Ministry of Refugees, Rehabili and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam tation and Resettlement. (LTTE). Apart from the obvious personal Mine-clearing techniques vary aero s trauma of loss of limbs, deafness, blind the groups. Some usc heavy crushing ness and disfigurement, there is the machinery that scrapes away tonnes of added problem of diminished household topsoil. Others use trained detector dogs, income, since many of the landmine but most use metal detectors and rakes. victims are farmers who can no longer Sri Lanka is one of the 47 countries in the work their land. world that is not a signatory to the 1997 Clearing the mines may look excruci Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition atingly slow, but significant progress in of Landmines. (Other nations that have the areas around Jaffna has already been refused to sign include the US, Russia made. 'It helps that we have had good co and China.) The NGOs involved in mine operation from the Sri Lankan Army,' said clearance therefore have to balance their tape extends for hundreds of metres in Tim Horner, Mine Action Adviser with comm itment to a humanitarian cause several directions, across farmland, close the United Nations Development Pro with the realpolitik of the envi- to schools and through villages. gram. 'They have handed over thousands ronment in which they operate. 'If all the correct procedures are fol of maps revealing the exact mine loca lowed, ]mine-clearing] is not as dangerous tions.' Contrary to early media reports, R EMOVING AND DEFUSING the mines as it seems,' said Marc Farino, a co-ordi the tsunami did not dislodge thousands is only part of the progra m. Consider nator and trainer with Fondation Suisse of mines from their known locations. able effort goes into educating communi de Deminage (FSD), one of the organisa 'Fortunately many of the coastal areas ties about the risks of Ia ndmines. Staff tions receiving AusAID support. 'It takes had already been cleared of mines,' from the District Mine Action Office in us 15 days to train a deminer and we are Horner said. 'However, the tsunami did Jaffna visit villages and schools to pro very strict about quality assurance.' destroy a number of the markers indicat mote landmine awareness. Children are The Jaffna region of Sri Lanka was dev ing areas that have been cleared. This can encouraged to act out plays in which a astated by war long before the tsunami hit be quickly rectified, as we have all the villager encounters a m ine among the the coast. In an interview with TamilNet, GPS positions.' crops, while teachers receive curriculum 31 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 materials and posters to help students recognise landmines and take evasive action. 'The number of accidents can be significantly reduced if people are aware of the dangers/ said S. C. S. Chitham baranathan, co-ordinator of the Family Rehabilitation Centre in Jaffna. 'It will take a long time before all the mines can be cleared from our region. But the more aware people are, the safer it will be for them to return to their land.' One of the problems facing returnees is that about 20 per cent of the land around Jaffna is still regarded as a high-security zone by the army. This land, belonging to an estimated 17,000 families, remains heavily mined and cordoned off with razor wire. Refugees who are able to return are entitled to a small amount of compensa tion from the government (about A$200) as well as some soft loans to help them resettle, but this allowance can be a long time coming. In Jaffna I encountered a peaceful but determined demonstration of returnees. They had gathered outside the district government office to protest that, six months after returning, they had still not received their resettlement allowance. In the days before the tsunami, the lin gering media story was about the grenade attack in Colombo that killed two people at the pre-Christmas concert given by the Indian singer and Bollywood superstar Sharukh Khan. The attack was the culmi nation of demonstrations from fundamen talist Buddhist groups who wanted the concert banned because it clashed with the one-year anniversary of the death of Soma Thera, an influential and conserva tive monk who publicly evangelised for a 'return to pure Buddhism'. Such tensions, which simmer just beneath the surface of Sri Lankan democ racy, were swept from the front pages by the tsunami. As the emergency relief phase slowly moves into the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase, old tensions are bound to resurface. As long as the cease fire holds, the mine-clearers can continue to defuse the devices that mar the physical landscape. Defusing tensions in the politi cal landscape may not be so easy. • Peter Davis is a Melbourne writer and photographer and a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. Pictures © Peter Davis Susan Dirgham in Damascus Melhim.' He had captured my year-old with the promise of chocolate. husband's heart. From then on, Fouad said Melhim got the chocolate and most of the photos or memories returned directly to continue their chat. I have now are of Melhim and We had little difficulty finding Mel Fouad: the two of them chat him whenever we went to the museum, ting together; Fouad fitting on but for a brief period, father and son va n Mclhim's shoulders his first ished. Melhim's father had been trans school bag, a green and gold one, ferred to the toilets at the souq near the and a new blue smock-the uni Omayyad Mosque, another environment sex uniform for prep kids. Seeing Mel him indeed for a young boy to make himself excited to receive these gifts reminded me at home in: aggressive spruikers, hawk of a photo we have of my son, schoolbag ers selling socks and the I ike, and crowds W HRH Noncm Mdhim in ' on his back and hair brushed back wet for looking for bargains, crowds that a child sunny corner of the Military Museum his first day at school, grinning broadly. could get lost, jostled and bruised in, all in Damascus. His rakish posture caught It was on that second visit that we under a rusty iron roof, stretching half a my attention: he was sitting askew on a learnt that Melhim kept his dad company kilometre or so towards the mosque, with child's red plastic chair, one leg dangling at the museum. His father, who welcomed light let in by the scattered holes of (reput over one side, the other stretched out us kindly but shyly, cleaned the museum edly) French machine-gun fire. straight. If he'd been ten years older you toilets. He kept incense burning in the Father and son returned, but we never might have expected a cigarette in one entrance to the toilets and offered water saw the little red chair and scales again. hand. Although clearly absorbed in his to weary visitors. Without them, Melhim was more likely own thoughts, he had placed in front of Being a child who was in the area to wander. On one sum mer afternoon, his cat some bathroom scales to attract every day, Melhim was well known to we found him sitting alone on the roof of the wandering tourists and a few liras. the artisans and shopkeepers in the craft the toilets. From a small courtyard hid I loved the look, so I dug in my handbag market next to the museum. On one trip den from the view of the family groups for my camera, wanting to capture it. But to see him, we had to backtrack as we had sauntering past his little corner, Mel of course it was lost a soon as I gestured walked past him; he had been sitting on a him had climbed a workman's ladder that I wished to take his photo. Immedi stool with an elderly artisan leaning over to the roof, to sit and survey the world. ately, he stood to one side of his chair in him fitting a leather band onto his wrist. I doubt if he could sec much more than a military position, stiffly erect, arms at And he must have been a little like a the tops of the eucalypts beyond the walls his side, now acting more like the child mascot to the soldiers in the museum. It of the museum and the silhouettes of he was. Not totally happy with that shot, I was the young soldiers relaxing near him, cranes beside the skeleton of an asked him to return to his chair, and I took rifles casually slung over their shoulders, emerging five-star hotel. a photo of him sitting, anything but non who had first assured us, smiling, that chalant now. He looked intently up into Melhim would be there the following U NABLE TO COMMUNI CATE With the camera lens at me. Friday, or any other day, if we wanted to Melhim in Arabic, I was usually a step or That was the beginning of our periodic return to give him his photos. two back from the action with my cam trips back to the museum to see Melhim. Fouad told me how, on one of his era ready, content to record the delight he The second visit really determined our visits, a high-ranking officer had called and Fouad found in each other's company. commitment to stay in touch with him to Melhim. Gesturing to the officer, Mel But once Fouad visited Mclhim alone and although we went merely to give him the him let him know that he was busy, and was asked, 'Where is the lady?' Perhaps I photos I had taken. turned back to give his attention to the had a bigger role than I had imagined. Or Holding his pictures at arm's length, conversation he was having with Fouad. was my camera the attraction? On the Mclhim exclaimed to himself, 'Oh Officers are not used to being ignored. next visit, while Fouad was chatting with Melhim. Naughty Melhim. Naughty Melhim's officer had to entice the five- Melhim's father, I stood aside and waited. 34 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 Normally happy to feel invisible, relax came to farewell him, not knowing home, my cat is curled up on my lap and and contemplate the scene around me, when we would see him again. That clay the photographs taken that day are in I was surprised to notice that Melhim he must have put some thought into a front of me. was intently gazing up at me in a quizzi backdrop for the photos he knew I would One shows Melhim standing on the cal and affectionate way. My meeting his want to take of him. He led Fouad past tank, arms stretched up, palms out, as gaze didn't disarm him, so I did my best the local lads, the young soldiers loll if he is a general placating an applaud to catch his look and return it. ing around in the sun, into an area that ing crowd. The only picture that I didn't In Damascus-in another culture, would normally require a ticket from take myself is of Melhim still on the tank another workplace and surrounded the ticket office at the other end of the and of me standing beside it. I'm looking by an alien language-! worked hard museum. As one of their duties was to impatiently at the camera behind my sun just to be, just to cope. I had a nervous check for tickets, the soldiers called glasses, while Melhim looks at me, with tic in my fingers. I would find myself out something to Fouad, but Melhim, one hand resting on my head as if he feels rubbing my right thumb and my second as if he were their commanding officer, I need a pat, and the other held up high finger together as I walked home after pointed out that Fouad was with him, like a policeman at a busy intersection; he a long day. My interaction with peo and walked on, hand in hand with seems to be telling the world to stand still ple was often studied; I felt stilted. But Fouad, down the path, through dappled for a moment while he cares for me! And like Melhim, most Damascenes were light and unkempt garden, towards an there is another of him crouched between so in the moment, I don't think they ancient tank and airplane, and a giant the legs of the green soldier, giving us the noticed as long as I maintained their green fibreglass statue of a soldier. cutest smile. He looks very neat, dressed wann eye contact. As I write this, a long way from in a blue and white T-shirt with the word At the end of the summer, Melhim Damascus now, back in our suburban 'Baseball' emblazoned across the middle was to return to his village near the Jor of it, matching shorts and a pair danian border to rejoin his mother and of plastic slippers. two younger brothers, so he could begin school. The day before his departure we I AM CONSCIOUS of the green tidiness of the world outside my door, and of the mostly empty streets as people lead their lives inside. Melhim is now in the dustier landscape of his mother's village, perhaps with the smell of jasmine in the air. He must have recently celebrated the end of Eid with his family; uncles would have given him modest packets of money and his mother would have cooked some special treats. It's more than six months since we first saw the boy with the laid-back look in the Military Museum. From being a subject for a tourist photo, Melhim has been weaving a special thread through our lives. I hope we can stay in contact with him. I would like to smile into his eyes again and to give him picture books to look at perhaps while he is in a tree or on a rooftop. But I do fear for his future, and wonder what impact decisions made a long way from his sunny corner in the museum will have on his life. • Susan Dirgham is an ESL teacher from Melbourne who has been teaching Eng lish at the British Coun cil in Damascus since September 2003. All images Susan Dirgham M ARCH 2005 EU REKA STR EET 35 I ic lion Mary Manning The third Great Bang .. • • jVowev YaweY ? I HAV>N'T otcmw WHAT I will do in my next life •!though Mex was a fun guy when he was in one piece and I am the people who organise these things have been sending me angry that no-one at BOOM (the Business of Offshore and reminders about it for the past two years. No-one can be in a Onshore Mines) seems to know how it happened, or if they life for more than 30 years-that has been the rule for a very do they're not telling people like us. I'd like to know what he's long time, at lea t since the second Great Bang. Some of the been reborn as but no-one ever knows that. reminders they send sound more like threats: 'decide for your So I have a couple of options. I can reapply for my current self by the end of the month or we'll decide for you.' If that hap life and hope they will accept m e, I can choose something pens, their decision will probably involve getting me out of the else like growing or I can do nothing and be sent away as an way, making me an outposter. outposter. That last option would be a real ga mble. If they I can choose one of the general life categories such as mak sent me to the same place I'd be with Indic for another life ing, thinking, growing or helping, or one of their specific sub but I mightn't like her any more once I'd been implanted with categories like growing vegetables or making furniture. I'd like outposter workware and undergone my personality change. to be a thinker, as that's what I'm doing now, but few people Or she mightn't like me. Then there's the distance. I've heard get to do the same job two lives in a row. of outposters being sent as far away as stockholm or newcas I work as a helper to an LOP- that's a Learner of the tle and although it's hard to get any real information out of Past, whose job is to find out what life used to be like. He in them, their mumblings don't make outposting sound fun. turn reports to the Keeper of Essential Historical Knowledge Working as helper to an LOP is an unusual sort of life (KEHK) who decides how much of this information to share as there aren't m any LOPs to work for. It is thought that too with the rest of the world and how much to store as bundles of much information about the past could make people discon memoryfibre in some crypt. tented with their beautiful present lives. There's even talk I could, of course, choose a life as an outposter as my about deleting LOPs altogether now they've started digging friend Indie wants to do. She says she'd rather go to jabiru and up the ruins of europe and usa and finding some quite strange sit on a rock than spend another working life in a shoe factory. things that I've learnt about in my job. She says she deserves a rest after all the hard jobs she's done. 'I've made up my mind,' Indie says, pulling up her sleeve. 'You must be mad. It's just a cop-out.' What I really mean I look at the thin red line from wrist to elbow. 'You must is that I'll miss her. We've had fun together in this life. have needed a lot of ware.' 'I can do useful things like making baskets out of reeds or 'Just preparatory stuff. They said it is probably my helping people should I happen to see any. How could you call 12th life so there's a lot of file to be deleted before they can it a cop-out? ' install outpost.' 'You'll be lonely,' I say. 'When?' 'But I'll be safe. Not like Mex. One minute he's working 'Tomorrow. Can you come with me while they do it? Then as a helper at BOOM, next minute he's blown to bits by a few I'll be in jabiru. They said I can go there as my genetic pattern wires that suddenly turn themselves into a bomb.' shows special affinity.' 36 EU REKA STR EET MARCH 2005 They probably say this to anyone who expresses a prefer Most of what I know about god is that he was some sort ence for jabiru. Its bad reputation goes back into prehistory; of guru whose words changed the world. If he had that much some kind of sickness curse used to fall on all who went there. power, maybe his name would have the same effect. I also But Indie's entitled to make her decision about her next life know he started his life humbly enough at graceland and his just as I am. More to the point, as I should seriously followers moved out from there in electronic waves converting think about doing. thousands every day, persuading them to wear godrobes made of white leather and plucking at ancient instruments known N EXT DAY WHILE WE ARE WALKING to the implant place, as geeters which were similar to our modern guantanos. Most she tells me that the problem with being a maker is that you of the other knowledge about god was lost in the second Great don't have any control of things. Even making shoes could be Bang, the one that did europe in. Thinkers working on the dangerous. If the demand for shoes dropped they might change ruins keep finding out godthings but no one's really working their molecules and turn into pineapples or carry bags or what on them with any enthusiasm. Thinkers are not ever else was in short supply. Indie keeps inventing new rea taken very seriously these days. sons for becoming an outposter as if she is trying to persuade herself it is the right decision. I N MY RESEARCH with the LOP I read about the lobster crawl I wander around and read all the messages while she has effect which you may have heard about. A thinker from an her implants. 'Are you nearly 30?' the men and women in the ancient time-she was described as a philosopher-theorised pictures ask, pointing at me with huge accusing fingers. 'Have that the scratching of a lobster's claws on the lonely floor of you decided yet?' a silent sea is enough to set up vibrations that can set off vol 'No and no,' I say to the solemn man in one picture, and, canoes in places as distant as nova scotia. We don't have a 'by god, you don't look as if you ever have much fun,' to the category for philosophers as we don't use big words like that serious woman in another. now, so they have been absorbed into the general category of They don't answer although I speak in a normal sort of thinker. Anyway, since the second Great Bang actual thinking tone and am quite close to one of the little pink ears stuck up has been generally discouraged. The bang was caused by too in the corner where the walls join the ceiling. All walls have much thinking, some were heard to say. It was caused by too ears in these places. much god, said others. Others again suggested 'much' should When Indie comes out, I ask her how she feels but the new have been translated as 'many', but I find that a very difficult languageware in her implants has worked fast and I can't make concept to grasp, no matter how hard I think. much of her gabble-gabble and blah-blah talk. She keeps pull So I've decided to do my own experiment and to do it ing at my arm as if she wants me to go somewhere with her. quickly as I have little of this life left. My plan is to drop the But I won't be able to carry emotions like love into my new god word into my conversation regularly, just as I did with life and I don't want to go to jabiru. I'll take my chances here. thrall. I will say it with different emphases and with different If you are receiving this in another time or place, maybe by people, my intention being to make it known and used again. way of a spacereader or elbowguide, you might wonder at that Maybe I can even get people to follow some of its practices if word 'god' I have said once or twice. I've just been trying it out, I have time to find out more of them. I must work fast if I am really. You see, I am one of the few people who knows the word, to spread the word and let it ripple out and grow to the force as it was forgotten several hundred lifetimes ago along with all needed to set off a volcano. the occupations in the god category. I learned about godthings Now I don't have to think about Indie any more I will when I was helping the LOP research the god phenomenon. He think about graceland as I feel sure grace has something to told me god had held this planet in thrall for more than 2000 do with god. Graceland was in usa, of course, but it seems to years so it must have been a very powerful word. have something in common with the ruins of europe they I like the way the LOP says 'thrall', which is a new word keep excavating. The pictures show people in white robes with to me, and I practise it as I walk home from work. 'Thrall, rays of light around their heads that I think might be the thing thrall, thrall,' I say to the bus driver, and he says, 'You mad called grace. No one's really put all these ideas together as or something?' Then I see him practising the word as he they are so abstract and people got out of the habit of abstract checks the passengers' tokens, putting his tongue up against thought after the second Great Bang. his teeth then making an 'o' shape with his lips. His tongue I must get out of this habit of starting important words makes the '1' sound at the end of the word but you can't see with big letters. I've picked it up from my god research but it that from looking at his mouth. Soon the passengers are say looks so archaic. I'm attracted by the way it adds emphasis, ing it to each other-a chorus of 'thrall, thrall, thrall' has though-a Great Bang looks somehow greater than a great filled the bus, drifted out the windows and been taken up by bang. I would ask Indie what she thinks if she wasn't sitting passing pedestrians. on a rock in jabiru watching for something. I know now that Now I hear thrall all the time, frequently when people I won't see her again but that's OK. Everyone's friends disap mean something quite different. 'What a thrall,' they say pear into their new lives, as has always been the case. The LOP about an exciting new film. Or, 'Take care you don't thrall on told me there was once a big word called ephemeral that seems the step.' connected with that process. It's got nothing to do with grace All this has given me an idea. If thrall has this effect, I as far as I can tell. wonder, what about the god word? Maybe I can spread this in Another fascinating thing about the relics they have been the same way. digging up from ancient europe is all the pictures of babies MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 37 painted on bits of walls. Some still have remnants of golden seems innocuous enough to those who make the rules, and grace on their heads shaped like ra ys or solid plates. We have there is nothing forbidding hobbies. no pictures of babies in our culture because we have no babies. 'By god,' I said, 'I love your hat. And the word is god, not There is no room for more people when everyone translates into dog. It's an ancient concept but a powerful one in its time, I have a new life every 30 years in a sort of complete crossover rather discovered. Connected with the graceland site in some way.' than a rebirth. What would be the purpose of birth, babyhood or 'I like it. Easy to say. Can you do it? Is it a noun or a verb ?' childhood now that the world is finally in balance and harmony, 'Either. Would you like to come with me and have some roles are allocated for all, and there is endless choice god? My friend Indie has gone to jabiru and I have no one to god except for those who fail to m ake a decision? with at the moment.' 'Shall we walk or catch a god? ' I HAVE ANOTHER FRIEND now that Indie is in jabiru. I meet He is called Palli, the name of some old country that dis him outside my room one morning and decide it is time to appeared in the first Great Bang. I tell him about my work that start my experiment of reintroducing the god word into the has taught me all these things and he tells me that when he language. 'By god, you look like a friend,' I say. He does look isn't. being a muzo he is a maker of aeroscreens, those huge fr iendly, sort of huff-puffy in a snap-around-your-feet sort things that hang over cities and tell people everything they of way, like one of those little dogs some people choose as need to know. companions if they feel lonely in one of their lives. We laugh a lot as we walk to the god, trying out the word 'Dog' Do you mean "by dog"'' he asks. 'You dyslexic or in all sorts of ways. 'Mind out for that god,' as a truck bears something?' He wears a strange sort of hat with two points down on us. Or, 'What is the price of that god in the window?' at the back, each of which ends with a little m etal bell. I rec 'How god is this?' I shout to the world when we stop for ognise it as the mark of a newly formed group who call them a rest on a park bench. 'I have a new friend, a new god, a god selves the muzos and have pledged them selves to construct god,' I say, and we roll around laughing on the grass in the park and play musical instruments like the ones found in the euro while solemn garden makers watch. pean ruins. This way of delving into prehistory is not really We say the word over and over in the park and watch encouraged but neither is it forbidden. People designated as the garden makers form it with their mouths, shaping their makers can choose to make whatever they wish within certain mouths godwise, a rounding of the lips, a clicking upwards parameters that I do not have time to include here. Enough to of the tongue to conclude. We watch them move back to say that in theory they concern the integrity of the individual, their planting and watering while mouthing this new word, the group and the community as a whole, so music probably saying it to them selves, then to each other, then shouting it to passers-by who repeat the cycle of silent mouthing, speaking, shouting. We return to Palli's room and do a #alltheworld doodletext to cover people too remote to hear the word from their neighbours. 1 1)0~'1 KNOW Palli, with his access to the workings fR~NK, 50Mt;I-\ON of the giant information screens, puts up \1' D067N'\ SA.'{ a message that says 'god, god, god, god', the words starting tiny and gaining in ''5Pt;f\\D'' 10 ME:.( size until they fill the screen where they vibrate, glitter, beckon, demand atten tion. I make the logo, a shapely version of the symbol I've seen on those fragments of ancient walls, just a couple of crossed lines, a design so simple that it will be noticed and remembered. 0 My experiment proves successful. The word spreads around the world, rip pling outwards in ever-widening circles. That takes two days. Then there arc seven days of fighting between groups who define the word differently, and three weeks of gathering up all the things needed for the third Great Bang. I am right. It is a very powerful word. • Mary Manning is a Melbourne writer and teacher of professional writing at CAE. 18 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 1n An ecumenical spirit Fresh Words and Deeds: The McCaughey Papers, Peter Matheson & Christiaan Mostert (eds). David Lovell, 2004. ISB N l 863 55106 9, RRP $25 .. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. T mUNES EVO., about my eadiw memmy of Davis other modes of criticism and discourse are at work through McCaughey. They are the refrain to 'Long-Legged Fly', a poem by out this book. W. B. Yeats, and were recited by McCaughey to the motley group The strongest force that enlivens this collection is its of hairy students who attended his Sunday poetry evenings in ecumenical spirit. Ecumenism is the first premise of many The Lodge, when he was Master of Ormond College in the Uni of these papers, and all the others can be read with ecumen versity of Melbourne. Yeats makes several surprise appearances ism as a main motive. 'The Formation of the Basis of Union' in this book, indicating two particular strands of continuity in and his other addresses on the foundation of the Uniting McCaughey's thought, his trust in the Irish poetic inheritance, Church in Australia are crucial documents for our under and his skill at bringing the past to bear on the future. standing of Australian church history and justify purchase of Wherever we meet McCaughey in these papers, his voice this book in their own right. McCaughey makes it plain why is confident, measured, considered. His argument is presented the Bible, that book of little books, is an open text for open in a characteristically inclusive manner, each essential idea minds. Church union is not a ponderous pursuit of doctrinal left open for our reflection. There is nothing forced, but he differences but a reclamation and canvassing of is regularly forceful. The direction of each piece-whether strengths and common directions. lecture, article, sermon, or eulogy-is handled with seeming ease, though the scale of the material he controls is some T HE suBTITLE is a misnomer. Some McCaughey Papers, times grand and multifarious. His rare digressions are ever surely. To be true to its claim, The M cCaughey Papers must vital to the context. Fearless in support of his own assertions, be a sizeable editorial challenge; other volumes in the set McCaughey still keeps asking questions. Assertion very often would contain his many writings on society, government, leads to 'an overwhelming question', not so often the other way literature, history, and education. Here we have just some of around. He is not in doubt about what he says, but allows us his important writings on religion, though glimpses into his to keep uncertainty as well as certainty in our own minds. other interests are evident. For example, McCaughey draws He respects his reader. The editors praise his 'unyielding rig our attention over again to the values that make for more our' and 'lightness of touch'. Other pleasing features of the complete individuals, a more imaginative and responsible McCaughey style are a soundness of purpose, a defiant clarity, society. He rebukes the managerial mentality, reminding and an elevating irony. us that vocation is central to personhood and that a healthy McCaughey's writings are intended for public speech. The society does not flourish by pure self-interest. Literary con content is never self-indulgent or trivialising. They are mod sciousness meets Christian conscience when he recommends els of logical argument, leavened by a disarming sensitivity Macintyre's saying that 'it is in the narrative order of a single towards his listeners. 'This leads to the third and last obser life that virtue is perceived'. vation with which I shall weary you,' he says, after a lengthy Davis McCaughey was a quintessential figure in the paper of closely reasoned lucidity. In discussing Alasdair Mac formation of the Joint Theological Library, a vital national Intyre's After Virtue he warns, 'Macintyre must not be held and international resource. Right into his late eighties, responsible for my use or abuse of his thought.' McCaughey could still be seen ascending the spiral staircase The editors draw attention to 'the effortless transition into the library. As a member of staff who makes mental notes into poetry or literature' in McCaughey's theological writing. of borrowers' reading habits, I observed that McCaughey not This is his practised art, but also displays his intuitive cham only took out the latest critical works, but also copies of titles pioning of literary criticism in theology and biblical studies, that he had donated to the library himself 30 years earlier. He a movement that gained speed mid-century and today is a embodies the view that it is not just the books you read that minimum requirement. He knows that 'Christianity has form and define your character; more importantly, it is the been a great literary event'. Literary critical readings of the books that you reread. • Bible, literature as a means to theological understanding, the written heritage as key to the scriptural heritage-these and Philip Harvey is a Melbourne librarian and poet. M ARCH 2005 EU RE KA STREET 39 books:2 Ben Fraser Tracking a reign of terror In the Shadow of Swords: On the trail of terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia, Sally Neighbour. HarperColl ins, 2004. I SBN 0 732 28010 9, $29.95 JIHADIST BELIEF in mati to spread this new teaching through the syahid, espousing victory through death, establishment of 'Jemmah Islamiyah', presents an uncomfortable and troubling or 'Islamic Communities'. Under the contest for would-be adversaries. Facing Suharto regime, which had already bru an enemy swelling in number, unflinch tally suppressed the Communist Party, ing in their ideological cause and unper Bashir and Sungkar were imprisoned on turbed by even the direst of terrorist acts, a charge of subversion, following their nations have reacted forcefully to threats repeated denunciations of the ruling at home and abroad. However, confronted power and apparent plans to wage war with a vanishing battlefield, where oppo against the government and remaining nents have instead becom e surreptitious 'unbelievers'. After serving a three-year targets, there is little to suggest that prison term, during which time Amnesty victory is at hand, despite intermittent International labelled them 'prisoners of succe ses. As Sally Neighbour laments conscience', the now celebrated leaders in In the Shadow of Swords, 'And none fled to the relative safety of Malaysia of these separate defeats will quench the to avoid rearrest. From here, Bashir and deadly conviction of those who wage ter Sungkar would engineer the JI opera ror in the name of Islam, or extinguish tion, slowly abandoning t he more pros the dark and powerful ideas that nourish elytising influence of their Darul Islam that conviction.' movem ent and instilling a discipline and Neighbour, a veteran reporter and resolve within JI m embers that would foreign correspondent with the ABC, fre later manifest itself in bloody action. quently returns to thi affirmation-'in From their home in exile, Bashir the name of Islam'-in tracking the fanati- and Sungkar carefully nurtured the cal rise of the Jemmah Islamiya h (JI ) movement throughout the JI network, luring new recruits through Islamic boarding Indonesian archipelago and beyond. For many of JI's acolytes, schools and study groups. Through this process, JI iden it is religious teaching through madrasses and halaqahs, which tified a devoted and skilful cadre of leaders who would dictate belief systems and the notion of a pure Islamic state. For serve as recruiters, trainers and technical experts in others, particularly the more senior religious zealots, it is the JI' forthcoming reign of terror. corruption of Islamic culture by Western imperiali ts which fortifies their radical convictions. Though their anger is tapped N EIGHBOUR's EX HAUSTIVE INVE STIGATIONS reveal the from a range of sources, their brand of jihad is declared and warming relations between JI and the Afghan mujahadeen delivered through the trinity of 'faith, brotherhood and mili and, later, the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorist network, which tary strength'. sought sanctuary within the sympathetic fundamentalist Through scrupulous research and use of intelligence regime. Initially, the rise of jihad against the occupying sources, Neighbour presents a detailed criminal map, begin Soviet army provided an ideal opportunity for JI to dispatch ning and ending with the invidious cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. eager young recruits for military training inside Afghani Descended from a large merchant family, Bashir grew up dur stan to complement their religious scholarship. It was dur ing the Sukarno era, a period marked by strong nationalistic ing this time that a young and idealistic Osama Bin Laden fervour following the fall of Dutch sovereignty. Latching on made his first appearance in the Pakistan frontier town of to a new doctrine seeking to modernise the Islamic faith and Peshawar offering finance, expertise and solidarity. With his strengthen the fundamental truths of the Koran against dan reverent presence and credibility as a mujahadeen fighter, gerous Western ideals, Ba shir soon becam e a prominent fi g Osama earned enormous respect within JI and helped fuel ure in the Islamic youth movem ent. N ewly acquainted with anti-Western sentiment among Muslim populations around Abdullah Sungkar, a like-minded revivalist, the pair began the world. 40 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 Though the story frequently shifts between the Indone anti-terrorist forces responded in kind, making a number sian archipelago, the front lines of Afghanistan and later to of high-level arrests and preventing a number of potentially the heartland of suburban Australia, there is little discord in devastating attacks. the narrative. N eighbour explores the motivations and mach Of the Bali bombing itself, Neighbour gives a clini inations of the terrorist organisations with great depth and cal description of the meticulous planning undertaken clarity, most notably through her profile of the JI leadership: by the suicide operative. Rather than sensationalising the Bashir, the callous signatory to JI's crimes; Muklas, the pious horrific aftermath, she skilfully allows the reader to find ideologue; and Amrozi, the childhood degenerate whose plas the right emotional response in the cold indifference tered smile would crystallise much of the hatred felt by vic of the perpetrators. tims of the Bali bombing. Like Amrozi, many of JI's followers were enticed into the movement from a position of hopeless L EAUTHOR BRIEFLY IMPOSES her voice in the final ness or distraction: Arnasan, the devout but naive trigger chapter, The Fortress of Faith, attempting to situate the global m an for the Bali operation; Jack Roche, the burly Yorkshire 'test' now facing the Muslim and Western worlds. While these m an who turned to JI for companionship and solace; and Dr polemics are far too broad for Neighbour to address here, it is Azhari, a well-educated and prosperous academic who would clear her inkling is far from optimistic. be trained as an expert JI bomb maker. The chapters on JI's Fundamentally, In the Shadow of Swords is a confronting activities in Australia are particularly illuminating given the expose of the JI movement and a valuable reminder of Austral original scope for terrorist activities inside Australia and the ia's implication and necessary involvement in the anti-terror apparent failings of Australian intelligence networks. ist cause. But its afterthoughts are compelling. As Neighbour Though both ingenious and audacious in its plan contemplates, in the shadow of Bali: 'Amid the shock and out ning, JI was reliant on a steady stream of finance from al rage and urge for revenge, there was a desperate need to under Qaeda, expert training in the guerrilla camps of Afghani stand-what was this "ravine of hate"? And how on earth had stan and the Philippines and a steady stream of foot soldiers we found ourselves on the other side?' • willing to undertake the Bai'at rite confirming their path of allegiance. However, as JI began to step up its militancy, Ben Fraser works with Australian Volunteers International. SE.~, 1 TOLD YClU! NOBoD'{ rm/115 A.N AN&RV_, Ve.!GEFUL MOB CARR.l/lt\1& A foLAR &ARD€~ LlGHT/ M.poP<. MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 41 hook'> .. Peter Stanley Lost in the detail Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You, John Hamilton. Macmillan, 2004. ISB I 405 03624 9, RRP $30 I WAS ue AT T H E N EK tho othoc d'y-no, Hamilton's task has been made much material over the length of a book: really, I was. I'm on Ga llipoli with a film easier by the existence of books by his John Hamilton gives us detail but loses crew, working on a documentary about the predecessors, notably my colleague at the control of the bigger story. campaign. And of course we did a scene Australian War Memorial, Peter Burness, Looking beyond Hamilton's book, we at the Nek in which I paced out the 15 whose 1996 book The Charge at the Nel< might ask why journalists are apparently yards that the light horsemen got before also tells you about this event but at a impelled to write great fat books of mili they fell to Turkish machine-gun bullets. third of the length. H amilton acknowl tary historyz Freed from the subeditor's Gallipoli in December is no picnic. But the edges that he has used Burness's citations tyranny, are they like boys in a sweet crew-actually just Paul and to find more, but what he shop, stuffing them selves? John Hamilton Jaem s, who combine a passion says doesn't substantially has decided that the best thing he can do ate mastery of the arts of sound add to our understanding of is to tell us absolutely everything; to and fi lm recording with being what went w rong at the Nek. quote anything relevant (a nd much that is funny and reflective blokes Indeed, he has often lazily not)-every letter, diar y entry, order and beat the cold and the wind quoted great chunks of other document he can fi nd-at length. It's not. with non-stop repartee, an easy writers' words: this isn't He's not telling a story, he's showing us he professionalism and a willing writing, it's assemblage. can copy stuff out. ness to just keep batting on. Of course the great stories Sadly, the eff ect is to bore and alien So we were up at the Nek of any group-and the Nek ate: the charge itself does not begin until and it ra ined as well as being is one of ours-deserve to about page 286. Long before then we windy and cold. But suddenly )IHN HAMILTON be retold as often as we can weary of his detailed, fact-laden, slab we stopped larking about and stand. We may get different quoting narrative. Hamilton has been became very solemn, as if we recognised insights out of these various renditions inspired by visiting Gallipoli to find out without having it pointed out that thi one day, perhaps, someone might fi nd about it, but he hasn't exerted the disci was a place where the ground beneath some purpose in the charge-but it's not pline to work out how to tell the story us was as full of Australian bones as a a story that should be told just the once. so his readers might be as inspired and fruitca ke is of dried fruit. We'd seen a few But if they are to engage u s they need to be informed. cemeteries and battlefi elds by then, but written to meet readers' needs and not just I'm interested in getting a new angle the N ek was still something special. authors' urge to gather and inform. Sadly, on the details of the charge: in the seven John Hamilton's similar feeling for the Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You throws minute delay between the end of the charge at the Nek can't be fa ulted. Like away its chance to inform us in bombardment and the fi rst wave going all of us who know even a little about a thicket of detail. over, and why-and so on. But what the charge-whether by having caught Jaem s most wanted to know is the most Peter Weir's film Gallipoli on TV again, H AM ILTON's BOOK raises several important question: w hy the men w ho or h aving visited the little cemetery on intriguing points about the way military charged at the N ek were able to do what Gallipoli itself-the event demands a history is being published in Australia they did- to climb out of a trench and passionate response. Who ca n think of today. It's clear that it's being written run towards certain death. The answer the brave, hopeless, useless attack and not just by its stalwarts-experts like to that question, if it can be fo und at all, not fee l outraged, mournful or just pissed Mark Johnston, Ross McMullin or Phil li es in who these men were and in the off that something like this should have Bradley-but also by journalists whose society they came from . For all that Jo hn happened? main interest in past battles is to tell sto Hamilton tells us about where these men Ham ilton, a Walkley Award -winning ries. It seems that publishers are choosing lived and what they did for a crust and so jou rnalist, encountered the story on a journalists who know nothing over histo on, sadly he doesn't get within cooee of visit to Gallipoli and resolved to write a rians who know their subjects. answering that vital question. • book about it. The result, its title taken Journalists are, we suppose, more skil from the last words of one of the 234 ful at telling the stories which are rightly Peter Stanley is principal historian at Austra lians killed in the charge, is a at the heart of good popular writing about the Australian War Memorial. His own whopping 365 pages. It must be the long the past. But is that so? Journalists skilful Gallipoli book, Quinn's Post, Anzac. est book devoted to one of the shortest at turning out a thousand words of copy Gallipoli, comes out in April, and will events in Australian history. on dem and m ay not be able to control be murdered in reviews by journalists. 42 EUREKA STREET MAR H 2005 books:4 Jane Mayo Carolan The shores of the past The Enduring Rip: A History of QueenscliHe, Barry Hill. MUP, 2004. I SBN 0 522 85119 3, R RP $49.95 Secretary. The 183 citizens were publi display the connection between property, cans, boatmen, carters, shipping agents, person and public appearances. 'James a handful of fishermen and 26 Chinamen fraternised widely and did not want for who lived out on the spit of Swan Bay. The money, Jack drank with the fishermen council set to with a welter of civic duties at the Esplanade, and did not have to buy that included the appointment of an himself a drink. He was a wanted man. Inspector of Nuisances, Dogs and This Tattooed on his back was a map showing tles. Hill notes that they were pleased the location of Benito's Treasure, thought with their choice of Constable Henry to have been deposited somewhere on the Goodenough and that the age of the by edge of Swan Bay by a Spanish buccaneer. L ONGBHORE THE mEA of Sea law was now upon the town. Possibly not If you were lucky Jack might lift his shirt Change, thousands of Victorians fled such a felicitous choice, as other histori to show you the whereabouts of treasure. city life for recreation, respite and new ans have identified Goodenough as a paid Baillieu was lucky, it was said, because ventures in Queenscliffe. This long informer and double agent at Eureka. Jack had done that for him. For how else awaited history, commissioned by the There are some wonderful asides. did the Queens cliff Baillieus keep them borough of Queenscliffe, at the treach Hill's recasting of the role of escaped con selves in money, if not by James keeping erous promontory of Port Phillip Bay, vict William Buckley and his depiction on the right side of Jack? ' For Hill this wry covers the residents of the town of of a fading, melancholic Alfred Deakin legend catches something of the Queenscliff and the hamlet of Point are fascinating. In a photograph Deakin psychology of the place. Lonsdale. The Rip-the stretch of water appears rather chirpy as he bathes in his between the heads of the bay where neck-to-knees. Hill writes: 'The beach SADLY MANY OF THE nostalgic and evoc the combinations and concentrations resort was a congregation, a social scene, ative photographs included are marred by of winds and tides make sea passages the open-air habitat of what the most the quality of reproduction. There are unpredictable-is deployed as both the fashionable people called "congenial gems of writing in the finely constructed background and foreground for the vicis society" where you not only had to be dialogue boxes-the stand-alone pieces situdes of settlement . Queenscliffe is a dressed, but dressed accordingly.' There inserted within each chapter. They form rich topic. Barry Hill covers Aboriginal are no comparable vignettes of women, a timely expose as controversial progress possession and tragic dispossession, who are described by Hill as being 'in is redefining the borough's quaint attrac shipwrecks, escaped convicts, armed and out of the woodwork'. The most con tions. The proposed rebuilding of the forts, grand buildings and the strug spicuous were those who ran small hotels town's picturesque but run-down har gle to secure and maintain an unusual and managed homely guesthouses that bour, the conversion of the Ozone Hotel municipality. employed armies of female domestics into apartments, the subdivision of the With historical imagination Hill the bedrock of the borough in the 1920s: barracks into a multimillion-dollar brings the past to life. For him, nei housing development and the projected At the heart of the guesthouse experience ther the pursuit of health nor pleasure housing estate at the entrance of the was the evening meal and all the activi provides the key to what was uniquely borough herald irrevocable changes. An ties that flowed from its congregation. The attractive about the locale. 'Queenscliff investigation by Hill into the vagaries and cooking was plain and plentiful: plain as in was a Queen of Watering Places because seasonality of Queenscliffe's tourist trade fresh fish, good roasts, fresh vegetables and her beauty contained the thrilling pros over the last century could have placed steaming puddings, the kind of food the pect of danger,' Hill writes. His dramatic these new ventures in a wider context. wives on holiday would have cooked for and compelling accounts of the work of He writes with sentiment and it lyrically their husbands and children on good days. the lifeboat crews, the pilot service and unfolds. For all lovers of this 'Queen of the fishermen are highlights. Surpris Two local identities, James Bail Watering Places', Th e Enduring Rip is a ingly, the study of municipal endeavour lieu and Jack Kerosino, are intertwined richly rewarding story. • is not centrally placed but subtly woven when 'a tramp hobnobs with a toff'. The throughout. In 1863 the borough was toffs frequented the ostentatious hotels. Jane Mayo Carolan, a Melbourne-based proclaimed when half the population The Ozone, built by the Baillieus, pub historian, has enjoyed more than 50 sum successfully petitioned the Colonial lished a weekly guest list. It was proud to mers watering in Queenscliffe. M ARCH 2005 EU REK A STREET 43 books: i Denis Tracey Forgiving and forgetting Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific, Gavan Daws. Scribe, 2004. ISBN 1 920 76912 9, RRP $39.95 SOME WAYS Prisoners of the 1 The Australians, on the PRISONERS 1940s: 'Japa nese are cross Japanese is similar to another American other hand, seem to have OF THE eyed; their bomb-a imers ca n't classic, Studs Tcrkel's The Good War. maintained a real solidarity, JAPANESE see straight'; 'They won't fight In both books ordinary m en tell stories and this, along with Gal POW s of W orld W ar U in th e Pacifi c in the rain, you know.' It was about their World War II experiences, lipoli, has become one of the inconceivable that they could but where Th e Good War often makes most powerful and moving beat us in a war. And then, you smile, Daws's book will m ake manifestations of the way at Singapore, the unthinkable you cry: we see ourselves. happened and the rules- either But this is to oversimplify ours or theirs-didn't apply. They took four more officers .. . They beat the complex social orders The fact that these even ts them for hours- beat them to dea th. They that arose in captivity. Men happened within living threw the bodies in a swill pit behind the quickly lea rned that their m emory leads to the biggest Japa nese latrines. Next morning ... one of chances of survival were question of all: h ow have we the guards was walking around in a pair of stronger if they formed small groups all moved on so easily? The Japanese British suede shoes. families almost. The ideal number seems moved on straightaway; no explanation Gavan Daws is a n Australian histo to have been four. Beyond this family, and no apology; just a persistent refusal rian who lives in Hawaii, and this book affi nity might extend, in diminishing to acknowledge that a nything unto is written primarily for American read degrees, to larger units based on a horne ward occurred. Some years ago, when ers. While it includes material about town, a military unit and eventually a the Japane c economic miracle was British, Au tralian and Dutch POWs nationality. Other alliances developed. at its height, there was a story- prob (as well as the thousands of Asians who The Australians and Americans both ably apocryphal-of a Japanese leader were enslaved by the Japanese during disliked the British. And of course every who apparently said, immediately after World War II), most of its voices are one hated the Japanese. the war, 'We'll just have to do it the American. But as t he Japanese treated Many writers-Prima Levi, for exam slow way.' all their captives with indiscriminate ple-have explored the m oral dilem But we Westerners have moved on brutalit y, this is of small consequence. mas that prisoners in wartime face, and too. Many Australians w ho grew up dur Prisoners of the Japanese raises a lot Daws includes som e awful examples. ing the 195 0s and '60s heard their fat hers of questions. Why did Allied submarines The POWs stole ruthlessly from one and uncles hinting at the dreadful things sink Japanese ships which they k new, another; food, medicine, equipment and they had seen and heard at the Pacific War or should have known, were carrying clothes (one m an had his trousers torn and declaring that they would never buy POWs? (This leads to the almost unbear off while he squatted in the latrine). Most Japanese products. During the 1970s and able fact that 'of all POWs who died in officers made sure they lived '80s there was occasional protest when the Pacific war, one in three were killed better than their men did. Japanese developers bought up Australian on the water by friendly fire'.) But the beachfronts. But these days references to most fascinating issue is the way men of SOME QUESTIONS CONTINUE to worry the Japanese atrocities arc seen by many different nationalities behaved. us. First, why did the Japanese behave to be in poor taste. The British tried hardest to preserve so badly? One answer cites bushido, The reason that m ost of us in the West discipline and the distinctions of rank. the ancient Japanese warrior code that have been so willing to forgive and forget The Dutch (who usually had much m ore made capture a disgrace. Daws is scepti probably involves pragmatism and our old tropical experience) tended to be m ore cal: 'Bushido ... meant whatever officers friend, economic rationalism. But some compliant. They survived in far greater wanted it to mean.' He thinks that the people remain uneasy. This excellent numbers. The Americans included the main factor was m ore basic: 'They were book will reinforce that unease. And a most ruthless traders and were m ore different races ... each seeing the other good thing too, I think. • competitive with one another. Alone of as unspeakably alien and repulsive.' the nationalities, they killed each other, It is true that 60 years ago most Denis Tracey lives in Melbourne, where especially on the hell-ships that were Westerners felt superior to Asians. My he teaches and writes about philan taking them to Japan towards the end mother, born in 1912, recalled the derisive thropy and social investment. In lighter of the war. stories told in Melbourne during the early moments he studies theology. 44 EU REKA STREET M ARCH 2005 thshort list After the Fireworks: A life of David Ba llantyne, Classical literature: A concise history, Richard Bryan Reid. Auckland University Press, 2004. Rutherford. Blackwell, 2005. l SBN 0 631 23133 1, ISBN 1 869 40327 4, RRP $49.95 RRP $56.95 Bryan Reid mounts a case for the re-evalua Those who write concise histories of a tion of David Ballantyne's contribution to the millennium deserve sympathy. Scholars, like literature of New Zealand. Ballantyne is best Richard Rutherford, who carry off the task remembered for his first novel The Cunning with elegance and clarity merit admiration. hams, a grim and undoubtedly Marxist view His history of classical literature provides of the experiences of NZ's battler class. The concise and clear summaries of its main fig biography tracks the slow burn of Ballantyne's ures and movements. Rutherford's judgments literary career-contrasted with his journalis are judicious and not quirky, and the index tic success-which failed to grant him entry to the pantheon of enables easy reference. NZ fiction. Reid, a lifelong friend and fan, reveals the author as a The challenge in such literary histories is to group different writ complex man whose battles with self-doubt and alcoholism were ers and movements in an illuminating way. Rutherford arranges commensurate with the state of his flagging literary career. them under a mixture of genre and theme: his chapter headings As a teenager unsatisfied with the state of writing in NZ, include drama, rhetoric, history, thinkers, believers, and literature Ballantyne looked to the US for stylistic inspiration and found and power. These categories are generally helpful. Their limitation it in the proletarian writing of James T. Farrell. The two men is that they place literary works outside the broader political, social corresponded, were committed socialists and shared a strong and cultural contexts which influence their composition. dislike for their inherited Catholicism. Categories always reflect the cultural standpoint of contempo Reid's genuine affection for his subject is immediately rary scholarship. This does not always serve the past well. Ruther perceptible; his personal anecdotes bring a degree of warmth to ford's distinction between thinkers and believers does not catch an otherwise unsentimental, crisp and journalistic text. Though the religious impulse of much classical philosophy. Nor does it he employs the slightly frustrating indulgence of referring to allow Augustine's distinctive account of the relationship between himself in third person, his work is solidly researched and draws philosophy and faith to be given full weight. Nor do his exquisite on reviews, literary criticism and an impressive list of sources. sermons, so influential on later culture, count as literature. After the Fireworks is a sympathetic testament to a talented - Andrew Hamilton but somewhat tragic New Zealander. - Luke O'Callaghan ~- In the Shadow In the shadow of 'Just Wars': Violence, politics of tlust Wars' and humanitarian action, Fabrice Weissman ~Polities .net When faiths collide, Martin E. Marty. Blackwell, (ed.). C. Hurst and Co, 2004. ISBN 1 850 65737 8, 2005. I SBN 1 405 11223 9, RRP $57.95 -·""""" RRP $54.50 When people speak of strangers, they often The possibilities for humanitarian action resort to slogans. 'Only marry your own', the are always changing. Humanitarian organi 'White Australia Policy'. It is also common to sations responding to crises since Septem compare the most prejudicial account of stran ber 11, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, gers' habits with an idealised version of your now face a major challenge: the perception of own. So, after September 11, helpful books on humanitarian organisations as being a part of Islam came on to the market, giving implacably the occupying forces. negative answers to such questions as: 'Does In the shadow of 'Just Wars,' is a Medecins Islam respect human rights and women?' 'Does the West really Sans Frontieres publication. Eleven crises are analysed, followed by have nothing to fear from Islam?' thematic discussions on the major issues affecting humanitarian Martin Marty, a veteran Protestant historian who records this aid. Two central themes emerge: the so-called 'just wars' and the kind of material, also offers the fruit of many years' teaching and human consequences, and the international responses to recent reflection on religious pluralism. His writing is well-argued and crises stemming from a 'right to intervene' and the 'war on evil'. clear. Throughout the book, he insists on the importance of com MSF works in over 80 countries, many of which are in conflict plexity. Simple slogans do not do justice to religious difference. situations. It is little wonder then that this independent medical Furthermore, they lead to murderous actions by individuals and humanitarian organisation saw the need to reflect on the dilem nations. Marty bases his reflection on the concept of the stranger, mas and the limits of the work they do. This book is a reflection and the variety of ways in which they are treated. I found particu on practice. Its contributors-field workers, academics and jour larly thought-provoking his account of the secularist practice of nalists-are well informed. tolerance. This is often grounded in the belief that religion is pri The chapter on Iraq, written at the start of the war, analy vate, and that it will disappear as Western enlightenment spreads. ses the civil-military relationship, the cost of this on independ It is now evident that the claim of religion is enduring, and that ent humanitarian action, and challenges the notion of occupying most believers do not accept that religion is a private affair. forces offering humanitarian assistance. Marty argues for public engagement with, and between, reli This is an excellent resource, and many of the issues raised gions. His ideal is one of hospitality, coming to understand others will be applicable to the post-tsunami humanitarian response in on their own terms, making room for them in the heart. Aceh and Sri Lanka. - Andrew Hamilton - Michele M. Gierck MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 45 op('t 1 John Carmody Rare fruit T Acw' "so M'LY TRAcw,, ' com Like many a jaded opera-goer of latent comic edy is never just a comedy. Tragedy may today, Meycrhold was weary of 19th skills: the ba s, be life as it commonly is, after acquiring century melodrama and sentimental Arend Baumann, some artistic polish; comedy offers a new rom ances and he revelled in the gro for example, as look at existence. As the great and influ tesque for its capacity to achieve a the blowsy and Elizabeth Whitehouse ential Russian theatrical director Vsevo deeper effect on audiences. t yrannical but as Fata Morgana. Ph oto : lod Mcyerhold said, 'I know for a fact that 'The basis of the grotesque,' he t w in k 1 e _ t 0 e d Branco ai ca what is said in jest is oft en more serious wrote, 'is the artist's constant desire Lady-Cook. With her highl y i maginative than what is said seriously.' to switch the spectator from the plane costume (Tania Noginova) and lighting Docs this paradox have any reso he has just reached to another which is (Mark Howctt) designers she confec ted nance fo r contemporary Australia where totally unforeseen,' and further, 'In its an operatic dish that is ra re in Sydney. there seem s so little to joke about? What search for the supernatural, the grotesque The piquant irony is t hat her success can we think- really think-about Ser synthesises opposites, creates a picture of would not have been possible without the gei Prokofiev's dazzlingly grotesque and the incredible, and invites the spectator ascendancy which Mcycrh old dem anded witt y, but astutely judged, opera The Love to solve the riddle of the inscrutable.' And and achieved for the theatrical director. for Three Oranges, which in January had if one person epitomised that supremely There is a lot of nonsense talked in its inaugu ral Australian season as the during the Sydney season, it was William this country about the perniciousness of firs t brilliant fruit of Opera Australia's Ferguson, who, as Truffaldino, was a cor 'directors' opera' and the damage that it new music director, Richard Hickox? uscating amalga m of acrobat, dancer and does to some im agined 'authentic purity' Its local premiere? More than 80 Chaplinesque clown. of the operatic art form. Yet, until ncar years after its initial season in Chicago? So Meycrhold showed Russia and the end of the 18th centu ry operatic Clearl y, it's not merely in politics that then the world what the theatre can do, playbills announced the librettists' we arc so conservative and cautiou s! by his willingness to usc every possible operas, not the composers'. Consider how long it took fo r Meyer device to achieve his aesthetic and spirit Even acknowledging the composer's hold 's revolutionary approach to thea ual tra nsformations. 'Unless the theatre pre-eminence, a piece cannot become a tre- its philosophy and its praxis-to shouts as lustily as the streets, it won't satisfying stage experience without the have any sign ificant in flucnce here. attract an audience for love nor money.' director's imagination and discipline. Well after World War II, nearly SO years Prokofi ev responded wonderfully She needs an enthusiastic colleague in after Meyerhold's seminal work, we to this galva nising philosophy: h is the conductor, and that is precisely what were still enduring the turgid 19th score is dazzling, witty and constantly Richard Hickox was. He and his orches century manner, as filtered, diluted inventive. He can parody Wagner just tra relished their m anifo ld expressive, and exported by London; almost all of as well as traditional operatic conven colouristic and energetic opportunities. the changes which have vitalised our tions. His deft writing for the wind So, in consequence, did we. approach to theatre in the last SO year and brass instruments is scintillating The magic of The Love for Three arc reflections of Meyerhold's thinking. or self-regardingly lugubrious, often Oranges works on us constantly and He was crucial, too, in the genesis at the least expected moments, and wonderfully. While experiencing it, we of The Love for Three Oranges. In 1914, heard in context- the justly fa mous look into the distorting mirror, which for just that year, under the pseudonym March is a constant but Meyerhold sought, and see a greater of Dr Dapertutto (or Dr Everywhere, shrewdly varied delight. truth than a literal reflection can give. from a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann ), he And as we leave the theatre we can produced an intellectually polychrome L E STAGE rs NO LESS abuzz with thank Prokofiev, a great team and a for magazine which he called The Love for activity than the pit, but in this pro once benevolent fate which, in H ickox, Three Oranges. Its first number included duction director Franccsca Zambcllo has given us a fi ner replacement for the a Russian translation of Carlo Cozzi's daringly threw much of her action into ill-treated Simone Young than we had play of that title, and Prokofiev took the auditorium. Clearl y, he has a great any right to expect or deserve. • a copy with him when he went to the gift to encourage her large cast to give of United States for his fi rst concert to ur in their best, and they responded enthusi John Carmody is a Sydney medical the summer of 1918. astically, revealing impressive but often scientist and opera and music critic. 46 [UREKA STREET MARCH 2005 poetrv Missing my friend -Meng Haoran (ca. 690-ca. 740) the mountain light suddenly gone in the west the pond moon gradually rises in the east my hair let down, i enjoy the evening cool relaxing in the open space with an open door a lotus wind issues fragrant airs and the bamboo drips clear-sounding dews i'm about to get my qin out and play it but realize my closest friend is not here to listen thus i miss you my friend and wish we could meet in a midnight dream Cold night -Jie Xisi (1274-1344) sparse stars frozen in a frosty sky over the thin forest wet by a flowing moonlight i stay awake in an empty hall listening to an occasional leaf fall Drinking alone with the moon -Li Bai (70I-762) a pot of liquor amidst flowers i drink alone without friends i invite the moon, cup in hand there are three of u s, with my shadow but the moon little knows how to drink and the shadow just follows me about their presence so temporary i shall seek pleasure when the spring comes as i sing the moon is pacing up and down and as i dance my shadow swishes around awake, we have fun together drunken, we go our separate ways we forget ourselves so much in our mutual enjoyment we can only hope to meet again in a far milky way heaven - All poems translated into English by Ouyang Yu {1955- M ARCH 2005 EU REKA STR EET 4 7 that the film is most interesting. Dar indeed highly effective in the film. The ius, the Persian leader, has Osa ma bin performances (by Jude Law, Clive Owen, Laden's pointed bea rd and full frontal Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts) arc stare. Why? Coincidence? Alexander's uniformly strong, and the dialogue is lash 1n the pan bisexuality (ignored in Rossen's film) is dynamic, muscular and often spectacu here alternately mawkish and witlessly larly obscene. Nevertheless, it would be a violent. Christopher Plummer as Aristo mistake to think of this fi lm as a staged tle gives us a tutorial on virtuous manly play, since its central formal and thematic affection so we can cope when Alexander concern is nothing other than the image hugs his smudgy-eyed Hephaistion (did itself-and cinema is nothing if not the Macedonian men wear kohl?) but why world of images in themselves. arc we subjected to a knife-wielding quasi The film (w hich is in no sense a rape scene when Alexander beds Roxana? romance) offers us a condensation of Which focus group was that directed to? betrayal, infidelity and emotional brutal The credits have transliterated Greek ity that turns, precisely, on the dialectic behind them. Oliver Stone is Greek? The of intimacy and separation inherent in Macedonian warriors sound like IRA vet the image as such. The fil m begins with, erans or leftovers from Braveheart. Why? and turns on, love at first sight- w hich is Can't America do war? And why let Freud nothing but love of the image, like Nar in? Some of the script could seam effort cissus at the pool in love with the image lessly into a bad Woody Allen movie so he cannot touch, and cannot recognise as anxious is Stone to explain Alexander's himself. Each of its characters lives and psyche. Oh for the dynamic understate works in the world of the image: Roberts ment of a Norse saga! Or an actor with is a photographer, Portman a stripper, Peter O'Toole's range so we might see Owen a dermatologist (beauty is only both bloodlust and remorse embodied, skin deep, after all), and Law an aspir- not merely gestured at, talked into being Not so great or got up with red filters. Some good things: Angelina Jolie Alexander, dir. Oliver Stone. When the has a wild time as Alexander's snakey director himself has conducted the post mum, Olympias, though you do wonder mortem and declared the body not just why she bothers. Val Kilmer is a lusty dead but mutilated, what's left for a mere Philip but he is killed off too early and reviewer? To question Oliver Stone's flashbacked in too late. The epic bat judgment? Tempting-though not about tle at Guagemcla makes sense, courtesy this film. bird's-cyc cameras (if you like that sort Audiences clearly agree with him. On of thing), and Anthon y Hopkins keeps a the night I went, the suburban multiplex manful straight face as he goes through had the beached atmosphere of Apoca the motions as fill-in-the-gaps narrator lypse Now, complete with bad music Ptolemy. It's entertaining watching a piped out of Limbo. Of the audience of great actor milk the pauses to preserve five, one left after half an hour. himself from ignominy. Hopkins is now Yes, Alexander is a dud. Fifty years on old enough to have memory lapses, so the from Robert Rossen's Alexander the Great pity is that this was cinema, not stage. On (with Richard Burton, Fredric March and stage he might have been prompted by the ing novelist who steals the lives around Claire Bloom), Oliver Stone has learned gods into Shakespeare: 'The expense of him for his words, his images. Indeed nothing from the earlier director's mis spirit in a waste of shame ... ' they are all drawn to, and by, images that takes. Some he simply repeats, even while - Morag Fraser arc unreachable-the coarsely seductive he squanders money enough to rebuild woman on the other sid e of the computer Babylon. The script is as bad, the direc screen (who turns out to be a man); the tion and casting worse. Burton could han Elusive images stripper who peels herself bare at your dle rhetoric, but even he couldn't do much command, but is untouchable; the lover with the likes of 'It's a lovely thing to live Closer, dir. Mike Nichols. Like much who demands to know all the details of with courage and die leaving behind an of his previous work, veteran director his lover's infidelity, to see the (ob)sccnc everlasting renown'. Colin Farrell repeats Mike Nichols's latest film, Closer, is an before his eyes; the gap between desire tho e lines (and many wor e ones) with adaptation (in this case of a stage play by and love, separation and intimacy. all the elan of George W. Bush. Patrick Marbcr). Superficially, it seems to The emblematic scene of the fi I m Perhaps it is as an index to 21st-cen betray its stage origins in its emphasis on takes place at an exhibition of photographs tury pathologies and informed ignorance dialogue and performance-which are taken by Roberts's character. The four 48 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 leads circulate among massively blown-up knowing that Miles's redemption won't be a regular basis-every day for the past 23 photographs of each other, talking, seduc the automated, drive-thru kind. He's not years, in fact. Admirably pious his attend ing, betraying each other, in search of that going to be handed a sexy 20-something ance may be, but with Frankie's very elusive closeness on offer in the images and live happily ever after. particular personality, it's enough to drive around them. This, of course, is the irony Paul Giamatti, following his success the local priest to curt religious explana of all images, of all cinema, which reveals as Harvey Pekar in American Splen tions and creative expletives. itself to you like a lover (like the close-up dor, proves once again that he plays the Whatever the demons are that Frankie on the screen before you ), but remains flawed man flawlessly. It's a performance harbours, they haunt him in a place that untouchable, distant, pure intimacy and where you forget that somebody's acting. no one can reach, not even God. A pain pure separation all at once. One can get Likewise, Thomas Haden Church's Jack, ful estrangement from his daughter and a closer, but never close enough. whose womanising, egomaniacal journey hard-bitten life have drained him, or at -Allan James Thomas is a stark contrast to Miles's. Virginia least subdued his desire to risk any part of Madsen and Sandra Oh, playing the two his head or heart. women who entangle themselves in the When Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Midlife crises men's small adventures, prove that you Swank) speedbags her way into Frankie's don't have to be a teenager to be sexy gym, he is forced to reassess everything. Sideways, dir. Alexander Payne. It would or a man to do some serious damage to Maggie needs to box, and she needs some be easy to write off a film about two self another man. And Payne's direction is one to believe. She needs Frankie. And indulgent, middle-class men on a wine cinematic without being flashy, providing tour as, well, self-indulgent and middle a buffet of information in every cut. class. But that would only serve the two And of course there is the wine. Yes, per cent of cinemagoers who have no soul. Miles is a snob, but only in the sense that For everyone else, it is a tale of true-to everyone's a snob on the subject of their life men undergoing true-to-life crises. passion. His witty discussions of the Sideways allows you to feel their quiet vino, and how it informs his life, mean desperation in your guts. you don't need to be a buff to understand. Miles (Paul Giamatti), unpublished It's an authority that is true of everyone. author and high school English teacher, We each have our obsession, and in one takes actor buddy Jack (Thomas Haden perfect moment towards the end of this Church) on a road trip punctuated by Cal film, Sideways, if nothing else, will tell ifornia vineyards and restaurants. In a few you something about that. days Jack is getting married. This is their -Zane Lovitt last hurrah. At least, that's how it starts. Miles is a depressed divorcee who can't get his work published. Jack is a duplici Love hurts tous husband-to-be who can't keep it in his pants. As Jack and Miles move through Million Dollar Baby, dir. Clint Eastwood. with the daily church routine not provid California landscapes to the sounds of Movies that use sport, and more par ing any answers for Frankie, he needs her. chinking wine glasses, getting their ticularly boxing, as a metaphor for a life Million Dollar Baby is in turns respective hearts and noses broken, they of struggle are nothing new, but in the inspiring and devastating. And in the bond and unbond with a subtle charm. hands of a master they can weave sublime hands of your regular Hollywood tale The 'loser' varietal of American cin emotion and physical reality into a kind teller, it might have been a dog. But East ema is drawing big crowds right now, as of visceral poetry. And at his best, Clint wood has grace aplenty. He turns boxing the Western world comes to terms with Eastwood is nothing short of a masterly into familial love and understands how how, in the face of globalisation, we each filmmaker. He has done for boxing what brutal both can be. have the total potency of an ant in a snow The Unforgiven (arguably his finest direc The performances are all flawless. storm. Regrettably, many of these stories torial effort) did for the western. That is, Eastwood works with an unnerving rely on the redemptive power of love change the way we imagine a cultural slowness. And while this may be noth in the context of the fairy tale-blonde standard, without abandoning its funda ing new for him, it still surprises. Swank supermodels fall for these middle-aged mental structures. draws Maggie hard and giddy, turning losers and, lo and behold, they're losers Frankie (Clint Eastwood) has a spe white trash into breathing reality. And no more. But in Alexander Payne's films cial gift for patching up fighters. He can Morgan Freeman, the film's narrator, and (Election and About Schmidt) the charac stop the bleeding and keep a fighter in the Frankie's only friend, transforms voice ters are, refreshingly, subject to a whole ring. And he has one rule for his boxers over into a rich soundscape. lot more reality. (and himself)-always protect yourself. Million Dollar Baby is not about Combined hilarity and beauty is In the ring it works as a physical tactic, boxing or a woman's right to be in the Payne's specialty, so when Miles is con but out of the ring it throws something ring. It is a love story. A brutal, honest, fronted by the sight of two fat people of a shadow over Frankie's life. A shadow devastating love story. having sex, you can settle into your seat he tries to shake by attending church on -Siobhan Jackson MARCH 2005 EUREKA STREET 49 1ng Must grumble E NGUSH CAN ., AS TONAL as Canton.,co think of the women, given that so many of their rape victims are liars, and perfect fourth drop in 'Mum', as in 'Mu-um!' If you fi nd perfect so many of the murderers are female. I know I've banged this fourths hard to visualise (no, that can't be right, can it, except drum before, but while I'm having a good old grumble I may for those wankers who claim that they can Sec Music Without as well reiterate something: I think it needs to be said again, Hallucinogenic Assistance, so perhaps it should be 'auralise') and again, that government statistics throughout the world, then auralise, visualise or just call to mind the start of that old no matter where you live, show that a woman is so much less song Born Free, add a baritone whinge, and you've got my son likely than a man to be a murderer or a sexual abuser that remonstrating with me about the telly. the preponderance of feminine villains in these very prolific 'Mu-um!' he said the other day when I was arguing with the programs argues a weird and sick imbalance in their tclly. 'You certainly do know how to ruin a night's viewing.' way of looking at the world. 'But it's so bloody predictable! These scripts have more flags than the Olympics. Talk about telegraphing punches ... ' A ND NOW FOR MY CURRENT PET HATE, apart from loud 'What's a telegraph, anyway?' ads, the mystifying success of the repulsive Mr Trump and the 'Something obsolete these benighted days, like subversive worrying prospect of another series of Big Brother: satire and social justice and old-growth forests and ... ' '-And just like that ... ' It's the soap-epiphany. Carrie 'Aw Mu-um!' Bradshaw in Sex and the City used to say it all the time: 'And It can't be easy for him; he puts up with quite a bit of my just like that, Miranda realised ... ' Now we have Desperate grumbling. But there is much to grumble about at the moment. Housewives, and the narrator is conveniently dead by her own What a god-awful lot of vapid crap is on offer for our viewing hand and therefore omniscient. And she says it too: 'And just displeasure right now. There are no nights now when I am like that ... yada yada yada.' Her tone is as bright and bland as incommunicado. the street the housewives inhabit; in the bubble world of such Remember bygone days when we had Fawlty Towers, or caca as this, there are no consequences in the afterlife, no even Buffy? When Four Corners was edgy and dangerous and regrets, no whiff of what might have driven her to her death. politicians trembled, as they damn well should? And even Like SatC, DR is wildly popular, but unlike the former, it's not though you had to stay up late or tape things like Six Feet saying anything new. I always used to feel about SatC that it Under and The Sopranos, they were still there. After Nine's was somehow a flawed Good Thing in a world that contained recent extraordinary attempt to axe the second half of The burkahs, snuff porn and clitoridectomy. Because, despite the West Wing (as if they hadn't punished its fans enough by show's later dullnesses and compromises, Carrie and her three scheduling it ncar midnight) you could be forgiven for think friends were free agents (perhaps Huxley would have called ing that there is a concerted attack on any remnants of good them freemartins) thriving in the vaunted free market of New television. Luckily there was an outraged response from view York. In the beginning they were living large, experimenting ers and so they have reinstated it and, curiously, called Episode with the kind of fuck'em-and-forget'em behaviour that used 13 the Series Premiere. Because, you see, when you say that to be typically male. By the sixth season they were all tamed a 22-episode program is finished at Episode 12 you have to in steady relationships, Samantha in particular seeming to be find some way of making it look as though there is method in punished with breast cancer for being a complete ho. It was the madness. But the programming geniuses haven't finished annoying and crude and very, very shallow, yet it was watch cutting old growth: they think to increase their nightly news able. DR, for me, isn't. I just can't stand the plastic, misogynis ratings with the young by sacking Jim Waley. Have these clever tic, right-wing bourgeoiseness of it. It's as nourishing as one of strategists forgotten that baby boomers have the numbers and those Krispy Kreme doughnuts that are being fo isted on us; as the money as well as the education (acquired when it was free) relevant to my life as any other gated community of liposucked to appreciate quality in their entertainment and an element and Botoxed stars and their stooges. It's the kind of America that of trust and familiarity in the newsreader? The ABC is just has 'non-service-model' unionism; that thinks Michael Moore as bad. Getting rid of George Negus forsooth, and firing dar is a killjoy; that Dubya is any kind of leader; that conscience ling old Kevin Heinze for God's sake. The MBAs are empire is something you leave at the threshold of your workplace. building, one must suppose. But it's our ABC too, you know. So here's a bright new thought: let's turn the damn thing So what do we have on offer in 2005? Well. There is Lost off. Give the MBAs something to grumble about. • (awful, loud, dull and predictable) and the many Law and Order, CSI, SVUs and their ilk. They all seem to be terrified of Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. 50 EUREKA STREET MARCH 2005 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM puzzled Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 13 1, March 2005 Across 1. Could instrument be said to be visionary? Certainly not short-sighted. (9) 10. Like a romantic poet of a former age, noted for his use of irony therein. (7) 11. Such chill, possibly, is nice, says leader. (7) 12. Pinch dupe about plate, for example, that is not broken. (9) 13. Poor Pete went east to find the wigwam. (5) 14. Cricket team without the Spanish opener would be equally balanced ... (4) 15 .... and possibly from the Caribbean. (4, 6) 17. Member of 15-across may make such shots with quick downward looks. (3-7) 20. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant on the Exchange? (4) 22. Queensland holiday resort with no love for South Australia. (5) 23. Skilled craftsman shows me painting provided I choose each reproduction to start with. (9) 25. Bestow honour, perhaps, on peer with previous points. (7) 26. Trick trial could take place on 7-down. What a match! (7) 27. Distinguished politicians from the USA? (9) Down 2. Some rotten nuisance causes boredom. (5) 3. Remarkable! See pace of the runaway. (7) Solution to Crossword no. 130, Jan-Feb 2005 4. Because of surprising CID hint, an allied fighter was discovered in Burma. (7) 5. Australian captain, including Ian initially, is giving indication about the field-placing, perhaps. (8) 6. I swear off aggressiveness, after coming to rue jab, unfortunately, that I gave someone. (6) 7. The MCG, for instance. (7,6) 8. Mysterious centre-gate? By no means! Fielding position on the far leg side. (4, 3, 6) 9. Estimate the number of donkeys running south. (6) 16. Well-washed striking implement, or well-presented to the oncoming ball? (5, 3) 17. Linger longerz No! Change another letter for the batsman. (6) 18. Most proximate and perhaps most dear. (7) 19. When he coaxes his young patients, medical specialist uses sweets. (7) 21. Equivalence of meaning in some par I type or write. (6) 24. Go for a six over this. 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We were ove rwhelmed by the scale of death and loss, brought together in compassion, inspired by the courage and dedication of survivors and volunteers, and heartened by the generosity of our fellow human beings. The tragedy is now distant. But the need of people in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and elsewhere for shelter, food and the resources to start their lives again remains great. And those affected feel wounds of the spirit all the more strongly as the physical effects of the wave recede. Many agencies have opened appeals, including Jesuit Refugee Service Australia and the Jesuit Mission, to work with the communiti es affected by the Tsu nami. Tax-deductible donations can be made to them. Cheques made out to 'Jesuit Refugee Service' can be ma il ed to JRS Australia, Tsunami Appeal, PO Box 522, Kings Cross, NSW 1340. For other forms of donation, ri ng 02 9356 3021. Cheques made out to 'Jesuit Mission' can be mai led to Jesuit Mission, Tsunami Appeal, PO Box 193, North Sydney, NSW 2059. Telephone 02 9955 8585. The Catholic agency Caritas is also extensively involved in Ace h. Cheq ues may be sent to Caritas Australia, Tsunami Appeal, GPO Box 9830, in your capital city. 1800 024 413 or www.ca ritas.org.au Austcare provides relief in Sri Lanka and Aceh . Visit www.austcare.org.au or ca ll 1300 66 6672 or donate at any branch of St George Bank or Bank SA. THE INSTITUTE of RELIGIOUS FORMATION AT CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNION, CHICAGO Those in charge of formation must be very familiar with the ON THE JOURNEY path of seeking God ' to accompany others esigned fo r fo rmation directors and others who prepare women and men on this journey... But Dfor life and mi ssion in the church, the In stitute of Religious Formation above all th ey will challenges participants to a spirituali ty that adapts to the needs of our complex disclose the beauty of global vill age. The In stitute features a coll aborati ve learn ing environment guided follo wing Christ and by the excellence of Catholic Theological Uni on's renowned fac ul ty and other leading experts, and an emphasis on issues specific to formation in the 21 st th e value of the century. Drawing parti cipants from around the world, thi s outstanding program is charism by which this enhanced by theological refl ecti on and weekly scripture and spirituali ty courses. is accomplished. V ITA CONSECRATA. 1996 CONTACT: Sr. Barbara Doherty, SP Director Ph: 773 .256.425 6 Fx: 773.667. 1250 Emai l: [email protected] Web: WWW.CTU.EOU/ RELIGIOUS FO RM ATION .IITM