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I 's so critical to give musical expression to what is around us, to create m~aning out of w .,.at can appe cllaotic.
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AABRL'S T RALL\\: B oo K RE \'IE\V C 0 N F E R E N C E Announcing a major new series on of monthly forums at Melbourne's WAR & TERRORISM liveliest venue for talk and ideas. POST SEPTEMBER 11 ABR saturday 18 May, 1.30·6pm WEDNESDAY FORUMS Stanway Al phaLecture Theatre at fortyfivedownstairs 160 The Av enue, Parkville in association with THE MIETTA FOUNDATION Speakers: 45 Flind ers Lane, Melbourne Dr Gordon Preece Dr Philip Mackinnon 6 for 6.30 p. m. - Wednesday, June 5 011 the Sennon on the on Arms Control & SHAPING ART: Mount & Sept 11 Chemical Weapom The Role of the Arts Bureaucracy Bp Thomas Frame Brigadier !retired! Jean Battersby and Terry Cutler 011 ~r & Peace Today David Noble Chair: Michael Shmith on the Geneva Convention Ridley College for the Laws of~r Bookings essential. Contact Readings: 9347 6633 University of Melbourne ...m.ctr.:~..;oas by ....______, Subscribe nm\! $63.50 for ten issues (incl. GST) -,....-- cost: $25 cone: $12.50 Phone: (03) 9429 6700 E-mail: abr(a \ icnet.net.au Also a\ ailable at se lect bookstores and nen sa gents 15 May h: 03 9207 4800 ~ )> Os: '> C Cl EUREKA STREE I s: )> =~ NZz m c O S:"" OJ"' m C ;
V> "")> COMMENT z 4 Frank fa ckson The writing on the wall 0 I 5 Frank Brennan Dear Minister ""m 0 r- 0 Cl -< SNAPSHOT 8 Gathering theologian s, English missal pipped at the post, a post-colonial launch, and nicking sermons.
THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C 9 Peter Browne Democracy? 10 Brian Walters The risk-taker 11 E-mystery Publisher Andrew Hamilton 51 Margaret Rice Editor Morag Fra se r 14 Philip Harvey In a word Assistant editor Kate M anton 14 Isabel Amaral-Guterres East Timor COVER STORY Graphic des igner Siobhan Jackson General manager M ark Dowell 16 Th e player Marketing Kirsty Grant Morag Fraser interviews Genevieve Advertising representative Ken Hea d COLUMNS Lacey, virtuoso recorder player and Subscription manager Wendy Marl owe Editorial, production and administration 7 Ca pital Letter musical entrepreneur. assistants Juli ette Hughes, Paul Fyfe 51, Tack Waterford Age shall not wither Geraldine Batt ersby, Ben Hider, Susa nnah Bu ckley, Kate Hird, Mrs Irene Hunter 11 Summa Th eo logiae Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg Andrew Hamilton Culture and abuse BOOKS O'Kelly 51, Perth: Dea n Moore, Sydney: 3 7 The short I ist Edmund Ca mpion & Gerard Windsor, 12 Archimedes Q ueensland: Peter Pi erce Tim Thwaites Private practices Revi ews of Storykeepers; The Problem United Kingdom Denis Minns O P of Evil in the Western Tradition; jesuit Editorial Board Peter L' Estrange 51, 27 By th e Way Body Symbolism in the Bible; So Vast Andrew Bu llen 51, Andrew Hamilton 51 Brian Matthews Summed up Peter Steele 51, Bill Uren 51 the Prison and From the Country: Patrons Eureka Street gra tefully 46 Watching Brief An A nthology. ackn ow ledges th e support of [uliette Hughes Strings attached C. and A. Ca rt er; th e tru stees of th e estate 38 Th e unlikely leader of Miss M . Condon; W .P. & M .W . Gurry Peter Mares reviews Greg Barton's Eureka Street magazine, 15SN 1036- 1758, Abdurrahman W a hid: Muslim Austra lia Post Print Post approved FEATURES pp3491 81/00314, is published ten times a Dem ocrat, Indonesian President and year by Eureka Street Magazine Pl y Ltd, 19 Potential haza rd s No Regrets: Reflections of a 300 Victori a Street Ri chmond VI C 3 121 Bill Uren rehearses the stem-cell Presidential Spokesman by PO Box 553, Ri chmond VI C 3 121 Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 debate. Wimar Witoelar. email: eureka@ jespub.jes uit.org. au 22 Complacency rul es, OK? 40 Read ing th e pattern http:/ / www ,eurekastreet.com.au/ Res ponsibility for editori al content is Economic reform is incomplete Kate Llewellyn reviews Christopher accepted by Andrew Hamilton 51, unless unemployment is solved, Kremmer's The Carpet Wars. 300 Victori a Street, Ri chmond argues Ian Henderson. Printed by Doran Print ing 42 Verse and converse 46 Industri al Drive, Braeside VIC 3195. 24 Bearing w itness Philip Harvey reviews Peter Porter's © j es uit Publications 2002 tackles the writer's job. latest-Max Unsolicited manuscripts w ill be returned Kim Mahood is Missing. only if accompanied by a stamped, 28 Th e red shoebox se lf-a ddressed envelope. Requests for permi ss ion to reprint materi al from th e Trevor Ha y reads the sign s in China magazine should be addressed in writing and Australia. FLASH IN THE PAN to th e editor. 33 Uncommon law 44 Reviews of the films Novocaine; This month : Moira Rayner finds the Star Chamber Kandahar; The Son's Room; The Cover des ign by Siobhan Jackson alive and well in WA. Monster's Ball and Panic Room. Cover photograph and photograph p1 7 of Genevi eve Lacey by Eli za beth O' Donnell 35 Woomera file Graphics pp8, 10, 13, 19, 21,22-23, What really happened on Good Friday? 24-26, 33, 43 by Siobhan jackson SPEC IFIC LEVITY Ca rtoon p9 by Dean M oore fohn Chesterman and Sally Clol The writing on the wall Frank Jackson argues that another rev iew of universities won't so lve the basic problem of underfunding. R UPERT M uRDOCH said it first. Then John Policy Research put the shortfall resulting from not Schubert said it. N ow Ian Macfarlane is saying it. Our using average weekly earnings to adjust university universities are in serious trouble and this is bad news grants at $500 million a year, in 2001 dollars. for the future of this country. Our universities need a The minister has announced a review of the way lot m ore m on ey. our universities are funded. He has also said that he We are used to hearing lobby groups calling for would like to see m ore concentration of funding for m ore money and understandably treat such calls with research and has talked of the importance of Australia's caution . Of course the Australian Vice-Chancellors' having one or two universities that figure among the Committee and the National Train- best in the world. Unless there is more money in the ing and Education Union will think system , the only way this can happen is by robbing The rea son universities our universities are under-funded. But Peter to pay Paul. And if there arc to be one or two, when a m edia m agnate, the president the smart m oney is on the one or two coming from are in trouble is that of the Business Council of Australia the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the Federal Reserve Bank Gover- and the Australian National University. It will be their funds have nor all say the sam e thing, we must interesting to hear the reactions of the rest of the worry. system, the paren ts who are planning to send their remained roughly the This is why the government's children to, say, the University of Western Australia refusal to respond positively-the min- or Charles Sturt University, the premiers of Queens- same at a time when ister Brendan N elson has effectively land and South Australia, and politicians whose said there will be no more m oney for electorate include universities outside the one or two. unavoidable costs, universities in the budget-is so puz- The review the minister is heralding must find zling. The government likes to claim some way of increasing the funds available to our especially salary costs, that the funding for universities has universities. That way we can con centrate our remained the sam e in real terms over research eff orts- but please in m ore than one or two have risen sharply. the last five or so years (sometimes, universities, Australia is a vast country-without it says that it has actually gone up). damaging the rest of the system. • Give or take the odd quibble, this is true but misses the point. H as the funding for Frank Jackson was Director of th e Institute of hospitals, parliament or defence rem ained roughly the Advanced Studies at the Australian N ational Univer sam e in real terms over the last five years? Of course sity from 1998 to 2001. He is currently Professor of not; in each case there has been a large increase in Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences. real terms. There are m any reasons for these increases, som e of which are local to hospitals, parliament and Coming events defence, but there is one reason that applies across In June, Eu reka Street beg in s a new joint venture with the board. Average weekly earnings have risen sharply Reader's Feast Bookstore, co-sponsoring a se ri es of in real terms over the last five years-at well over conversa tions with writers and public figures. double the cost adjustment factor the government has Join us on Wednesda y 5 June to hea r Fay Weldon discuss been applying to university grants. And you cannot her recent writin g- fic ti on and non-fiction- in Th e run a good hospital, parliament, army or university Bu lgari Connection and Auto Oa Fay. without paying good people-and good people cost. And on Thursday 13 June, Don Watson, hi storian, author The reason universities are in trouble is that their and speechwr iter to Paul Keating, wi ll dis uss his account funds have remained roughly the sam e at a time when of the Keating years. Hi s book is Recollections of a unavoidable costs, especially salary costs, have risen Bleeding H eart. sharply. In his address on 'The Higher Education Financing Debate' to the National Press Club in time: 6.30prn place: Reader's Feast Bookstore, downstai rs, co rner of Bourke and Swa nston Streets, Melbourne October last year, Professor Bruce Chapman of the cost: $5 bookings: (03 ) 9662 4699 Australian N ational University's Centre for Economic 4 EUREKA STR EET • M AY 2002 COMMENT:2 Dear Minister Frank Brennan was in the Woomera Detention Centre on Good Friday. Afterwards, he wrote to the Immigration Minister in these terms. I WAS CONDUCTING a church service for Good Friday adamant that she would not attempt escape on the in the Oscar compound when the 'break-out, break-in' Friday evening, but she had wanted to exercise her occurred. I then spent the next couple of hours in com- rights and show the protesters and the media that pany with Christians and Sabean Mendeans from there were women and young children being held other compounds who were unable to return to their behind razor wire. The little boy carries bruises on accommodation. his left knee and right ankle from the baton blow he N o doubt, there will be many reviews and received last Friday. Children whose parents had no complaints about the actions of all the various actors interest in escaping were hit by tear gas and witnessed on either side of the fence that night. I am prepared to scenes of extraordinary violence. assume and to state publicly that all authorities, In such a situation, ACM is expected to apply including Australasian Correctional Management all force necessary to detain those intent on escape (ACML the Department of Immigration and Multi- while respecting the rights and cultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA), the Austral- dignity of those, including children, ian Protective Service (APS) and the South Australian who are patiently awaiting migra- The detention regime police, were acting as well as they could and in good tion decisions from DIMIA officers faith. Throughout the week I was impressed by the in Canberra. at Woomera is no professionalism and commitment of the senior ACM This is an impossible task. and DIMIA management. But no matter what the pro- Let me highlight some of the longer, if it ever was, fessionalism and commitment of senior management, structural problems that are insuper- I think the regime at Woomera is fraught with ongoing able-no matter what the training designed primarily problems that are insuperable and that are wreaking and cultural sensitivity of ACM staff. havoc not only on detainees but also on those charged These problems are further exacer- to facilitate the with the supervision of their detention and processing. bated by your remarks about the I spent two hours with men, women and children South Australian police. processing of who had come from church and who were unable to At times such as last Friday night, return to their accommodation and unable to find the Woomera Immigration Reception migration claims and sanctuary in an alternative compound, because they and Processing Centre (IRPC) is like a were threatened by another detainee disturbed by their Commonwealth privatised prison. In the removal or religious practices. That detainee was finally appre- the past the Commonwealth has not hended by half a dozen ACM officers in full riot gear, been in the business of running deportation of people backed by a water-cannon truck that had been moved prisons. The detainees, including the into position. Meanwhile, two other detainees were children, are entitled to a range of from Australia. on the roof threatening to harm themselves, exacer- services that in Australia are usually bating a situation of mass hysteria. Children in my provided only by state governments Last Friday night, it vicinity were highly traumatised. One child reman- and not by the Commonwealth. You strated with his mother, saying he should attack an will recall the Commonwealth stand- had all the hallmarks ACM officer because that is the only way that you off with Sir Job Bjelke-Petersen in get a visa! 1978 over the management of the of a prison. Yesterday I learnt that these churchgoers had Aboriginal reserves in Cape York. In suffered the same fate as other detainees, having their the end, Prime Minister Fraser was stymied because clothing and property strewn about by ACM officers the Commonwealth was unable to deliver the basic presumably searching for contraband, and being held community services such as police, health, education, in the compound mess overnight with no possibility local government and child protection. An institution of sleep. I understand one five-year-old child was such as the Woomera IRPC cannot be conducted with abandoned in one compound that night, as the mother due regard for the rights and dignity of detainees unless and other siblings had escaped. Yesterday, I met a there is co-ordinated service delivery by Common- m other with her seven-year-old son. She had been wealth and state officials. Having imputed political VOLUME 1 2 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 5 motivations to the South Australian police and their advice or assistance except for the assurance that they superiors when APS was caught flat-footed, you have will be released from detention when they can be jeopardised the prospect of non-partisan co-operation taken to another country. Meanwhile, in detention in the deli very of welfare and security services to in Woomera they are completely isolated and unable detainees in a remote part of South Australia. to help their families. Over some days, I assisted them The detention regime at Woomera is no longer, in the preparation of their letter to yo u, part of which if it ever was, designed primarily to facilitate the reads as follows: processing of migration claims and the removal or Arc we to presume (given the present situation in deportation of people from Australia. Last Friday Palestine and the predicament of stateless Palestinians night, it had all the hallmarks of a prison. The treat elsewhere seeking a place to live) that we arc ro stay in ment of all detainees since then, with the withdrawal Australian detention without a court order or review of privileges and the punitive and for the term of our natural lives? Can you give us any indiscriminate soiling of clothes and indication when we might he allowed to go free? Even My three hours in th e other possessions, highlights the criminals have the right to know. Please help us. We problem. In an ordinary prison, you arc desperate to leave Woomcra. Each of us has family detention centre on can institute a regime of rewards and members living in the Gaza Strip where the situation is punishments. At Woomera, you presently very dangerous. We want to he released quickly the evening of Good cannot: people's eligibility for a visa so we C<1!1 help our families, especially our children, who and the length of their detention is arc living in war conditions at this time. While your Friday convin ced me completely unrelated to their good or government keeps us locked up and tells us there is no bad behaviour in detention. But the bad solution for us, our children are at risk. Let us go free so that it was time to pul behaviour of a minority of detainees is we can perform our duties as parents. sure to test the patience and judgment th e message to you of ACM officers, especially at times of During this past week, I have come to appreciate great tension and sleep more the enormous strain under which ACM staff and very plainly despite its deprivation. your own officers are working at Woomera. Your policy has now resulted in tear gas and batons being public unpopularit y YuARE NOW RUNNING a detention used, even if it be unwittingly, on children as young centre with a remnant caseload of as five years. The 'state' being their protector and their and despite yo ur detainees who understandably are warder, this is now properly classified as institutional getting more restless. Last year, there child abuse. Your policy is also resulting in oppres governm ent's were up to 1500 detainees in sive work conditions for staff. The legal federal frame Woomera. Numbers are now closer work for maintaining law and order and for delivering immunity to moral to 300. As you have rightly pointed basic services in the centre is as flimsy as the security out, all but one of those who escaped fences that were breached on Good Friday. As the outrage: ' Minis t e 1 ~ this and have not returned to detention detention population at Woomera declines, the mix were people who had already been of disaffected 'rejec tees' and patient a ppl ican ts is no place for kids.' rejected as refugees. Because of the awaiting a decision becomes more volatile. And your post-September 11 situation, you recent comments regarding the South Australian have an increasing caseload of rejected applicants who police will not improve federal-state relations about remain in indeterminate detention because you the delivery of services, especially when your policy cannot m ove them to any other country and you is resulting in proven child abuse. The discrimina cannot send them home. Of course these people will tion suffered by the 50 or more Sa bean Mendeans will get restless and take any opportunity to escape. And increase unchecked. of course they will becom e more of a disciplinary My three hours in the detention centre on the problem in your detention centre. They have nothing evening of Good Friday convinced me that it was time to lose and nothing to gain. And, as I have written to put the message to you very plainly despite its previously, there are good grounds for thinking that public unpopularity and despite your government's their detention without judicial warrant or super immunity to moral outrage: 'Minister, this is no place vision is unconstitutional. It is worth noting that the for kids.' When children end up in the sterile zone unreturned escapees are in no way representative of against the razor wire with tear gas and batons around the large remaining Afghan and Iraqi caseload, almost them in Australia, it is time for all parties, including half of whom are yet to receive a primary decision the Commonwealth government, to stop blaming after m ore than seven months detention. others and to effect policy changes so that it can never I had several m eetings this past week with the happen again. • three Palestinians who have now written to you again. In the last m onth, they have becom e more restless Frank Brennan SJ is a lawyer, social justice advocate because each of them has family, including children, and Associate Director of Uniya, the Jesuit Social in the Gaza Strip. Your officials can offer them no Justice Centre. 6 EUREKA STR EET • MAY 2002 Jack Waterford Age shall not wither will go through the roof. (Though it could: that generation is W '""" COMOCA VOLUME 12 N UMB ER 4 • EU REKA STREET 7 sider's prayers at Mass, and was followed when we died, if we were lucky, our in 1986 by a similar consultation on the immortality would be in another such full Order of Mass. tale.' One can only hope. Each stage of the revision process began with a widespread consultation that reached every bishop in the English Gather speaking world, and was followed by them in fresh drafts of texts composed or revised in the light of the consultation responses. The United Faculty of Theology (UFT) is When discrete sections of the new Eng trying to become more united. It wishes lish translation were ready, they were Sincere to establish an alumni association. But then submitted to each bishops' confer flattery because its mind has long been fixed on ence for voting. Eight such segments were less temporal matters, it currently lacks prepared for voting in this manner. After Members of the clergy were horrified a database of students who went through voting on the final segment, and with the recently to hear that an Episcopalian prior to 1992. It is also bemused by the work of translation now complete, each minister in Michigan had been suspended mobility of its graduates-have theology conference then took a final vote on the for plagiarism. Having discovered other degree must travel, it seems. finished work. Every English-speaking ministers' sermons on a paid website, he So now, like other organisations with conference gave the new translation its reproduced them without acknowledg less creditable intentions, it is trying to approval and, as required by church law, ment in his parish bulletin. tie its alumni down-or up, as the case submitted the text to the Roman Con The criminalisation of clerical plagia may be. If you would like to be part of gregation for its confirmation. rism overturns honoured practice. The the proposed UFT Alumni Association, It is this confirmation which has now vast collections of sermons that were and/or if you are a UFT graduate who has been withheld, with the approval of the published in the 19th century were not a recently changed your address, ring (03) Australian Catholic Bishops' Confer monument to vanity but were for use in 9347 5700, fax (03) 9347 0146 or email ence-unrecognised, along with all the the pulpit by other preachers of inferior [email protected] with the relevant other bishops' conferences, in the Roman talent. details. You are also encouraged to letter withholding confirmation-count 'Plagiarism', derived from the Greek encourage your fellows-in the nicest ing for nought. word for kidnapping, seems too purposive possible spirit. a word for the ministerial misdemeanour of coveting and taking other men's or women's sermons. We are reminded less of the mugging of Joseph than of Adam's seduction to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Traditionally, Protestant ministers On were less afraid of the charge of plagia Lost in the edge rism than of Pelagianism-relying on translation good works rather than on God's grace. Melbourne's Monash University is (In Catholic circles, where this was often Hot on the heels of the promulgation of launching a centre for post-colonial seen as a theoretical sin but as a practical the third Latin edition of the Roman writing in late May. Nice timing-just virtue, preachers walked more boldly.) Missal came the announcement on Holy as Australia negotiates its way in and out Pelagianism was named after Pelagius, a Thursday that the Congregation for of relationships with our Pacific neigh fourth-century lay preacher from the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the bours (mustn't call them dependencies, let British isles. He was rehabilitated early Sacraments has withheld its approval of alone colonies) post-Tampa. Plenty of last century by English scholars who the new English translation of the exist raw material in that little exercise. recognised in him the English national ing Missal. This is disturbing news. The The centre's staff, including Chandani virtues of self-reliance, moral earnestness process of preparing the new English Lokuge, Clive Probyn and Robin Gerster, and pragmatism. His rehabilitation was edition was begun in 1982 at the behest bridge academic and writerly worlds in interrupted when other scholars pointed of the board of bishops who govern the their own work. The centre's raison out that he probably came from Ireland. body known as the International Com d'etre is aptly captured by the quotation Be that as it may, the new practice of mission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), on its prospectus, from Salman Rushdie's clerical plagiarism would certainly have which was established after Vatican II to Fury: 'The imaginary tale ... This was appealed to early Jesuit theologians who prepare translations into the vernacular what we brought with us on the journey tried to resolve the conflict between divine of the new liturgical texts and rituals. across oceans, beyond frontiers, through grace and human freedom. How better The first stage in the revision process was life: our little storehouse of anecdote and simultaneously to display trust in the a consultation of all the world's English what-happened-next, our private once beneficent God of the internet, and deci speaking bishops' conferences on the pre- upon-a-time. We were our stories, and sive initiative in appropriating His gifts? 8 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 THE TRAFFIC Heading the government team is George Senator Brandis' Queen's Counsel, taking Democracy? Brandis from Queensland, a com bative over during th e routin e parts of th e former barrister who was appointed to the examination of the witness. Making up the AT THE SENATE Senate when Warwick Parer resigned two trio is former farm manager and insurance years ago. Although he hasn't made much consultant Alan Ferguson, a long-serving I T's MIDWAY THROUGH the morning of the of a national impact during his short parlia senator whose contributions to the inquiry fourth day of the Senate inquiry into the mentary career, Senator Brandis appears to are less frequent but equally focused- it's children overboard affair, and facing each be a shrewd and effective tactician. N o his job, it seems, to challenge every sympa other across the timber-panelled, high doubt his forensic skills have served him thetic reference to the boat people from the ceilinged committee room are represen well in the upper reaches of the Queensland Labor and Democrat members. tatives of two very different cultures within Liberal Party, where power and influence For the non-government parties, John Australia's body politic. revolve around two personality-based Faulkner is the most seasoned committee On one side of the room sits Rear factions locked in permanent battle. room cross-examiner, and the Hansard Admiral Geoffrey Smith, Maritime Com When h e's not questioning Admiral transcripts reveal several long, effective mander of Australia, an impassive and Smith, Senator Brandis is often absent from passages of examination during the earlier attentive witness, answering questions from the committee room. Returning, he pauses days' hearings. Today, though, it's the Sen ator Andrew Bartlett. Behind the to gaze around the room, throws himself Democrats' Andrew Bartlett- a less lively admiral, also dressed entirely in white, are into his chair and sighs deeply. Then, performer- who takes up much of the two male naval officers, and a female officer swivelling to and fro, he adopts an air of morning, with Jacinta Collins squeezing in whose job seems to be to run errands, quickly amused detachment which suggests that a few questions of clarification. and discreetly, for her colleagues. On the his opponents' questions are tiresome and Although it seems to be running to plan, other side of the room is a distracted, misguided. Questioning witnesses, Brandis the government's strategy took a little time sh ifting population of committee mem can be aggressive-especially if he's inter to set up. Paul Calvert, Alan Ferguson and bers. The inquiry chair, Peter Cook, is rupted during questioning-and impatient Marise Payne, a party moderate, were the having an animated conversation with the with qualified responses. government's original appointees to the committee's secretary, Brenton Holmes. Next to Senator Brandis is Brett Mason, committee. But in late February all three The three Liberal members are in a noisy also a Queenslander, a former barrister and stood aside to allow Brandis, Mason and huddle. Senator John Faulkner is in the a relative newcomer to the Senate. Elected Bill Heffernan to take their places. Not long corridor (closer to the action, admittedly, at the 1998 election, Senator Mason is after, Heffernan had to be dumped, and than Senator Shane Murphy, who has been functioning a bit like a junior counsel to Ferguson was back. Then, in mid-March, detained in China). Of all the members, only Jacinta Collins, a Labor senator from Victoria, is listening to Senator Bartlett and A~ '{~S LOOKS L IK~ n -tEY'R£ AT Admiral Smith. IHE .:Rtorous Rccot..LcCTtONS"STM-E One reason the government senators 1 can afford to miss important parts of Of 1Hf 6-RIE\/lt\16- PROC6SS. Admiral Smith's testimony is that their strategy on the committee seems very simple-to bury the single sequence of events at the centre of the inquiry in a fog of detail from 11 other incidents involving naval vessels and asylum seekers. At earlier sittings they have laboriously led witnesses through ships' signals and witness state ments in an attempt to build up a picture of hostile, violent 'boat people' clashing with the Australian Navy. The subtext is not subtle: even if the children weren' t thrown overboard on 7 October, it says, these other incidents show that asylum seekers were in the business of moral blackmail. The govern ment strategy has already proved effective in moulding media coverage of the hearings, so later in the morning they'll do it all again with Admiral Smith . VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 9 the government moved to widen the inquiry is simply the basic thing, the minimum beyond the 'children overboard' incident to The risk-taker thing to continue working as societies in a include 'operational procedures observed globalised world. I say this with force and by the Royal Australian Navy and by A KIDNAI' I'I NC lilT) I lOME: with anguish because I feel that we cannot relevant Commonwealth agencies to ensure waste any more time. the safety of asylum seekers ... ' The pretext I FIRST MET HER in Canberra. She was about was a series of questions posed by the former 40 years old, with long hair and a gentle Ten months after the conference, in the Australian diplomat, Tony Kevin, which manner. Her English had a soft Spanish early hours of the m orning, I switched on appeared to link the navy to the deaths of accent. Ingrid Betancourt, the Green the radio- hoping, I confess, to get a cricket 353 asylum seekers when a vessel sank 80 presidential candidate in Colombia, was score. I tuned to the BBC. In my comfort kilometres south of Java last October. The one of the most inspiring speakers at the able suburban bedroom, I heard a radio bcha viour of the navy was being q ucstioned, 2001 Global Greens conference, which had voice whisper from across the world that a and on that basis the committee agreed to representatives from over 70 nations. Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid the change. But the effect was to allow the But it wasn't just that she was an Betancourt, had been kidnapped. I did not government members to bring in other inspiring speaker. Here was someone who go ba ck to sleep. seaborne encounters conducted under the was living what she preached. The leader of At 3pm on Saturday, 23 February 2002, post-Tampa policy. the 'Green Oxygen Party' in Colombia, she Betancourt was travelling south from Bogota As hearings continue in late April and has been her country's most prominent early May-after Eureka Street goes to voice for a negotiated settlem ent as the press- the other committee members will only solution to the armed conflict. She be attempting to swing the inquiry back to was a well-known critic of both the govern foc us on what happened in the upper levels ment and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the public service and inside ministers' of Colombia (FARC), and of the corruption offices to stop the real story coming out and drug-dealing that riddles both of them. during the election campaign. She stood for peace, social justice, the Whether the committee has the power environment, and grassroots democracy. to compel the former defence minister, Peter She received numerous death threats, Reith, or any ministerial staffers to appear and had taken the step of removing her is a question that has been debated, from children, Melanie and Lorenzo, from their respective offices, by the clerks of the Colombia altogether. Day by day she faced two houses of parliament, Ian Harris from her own mortality. It gave her words a the Reps and the feisty Harry Evans from crystal clarity. the Senate. Harris advises the committee At the conference you could have heard that neither former ministers nor ministe a pin drop when Ingrid Betancourt spoke: rial staff can be compelled to appear; Evans, in a combative rejoinder, says more or less If the grca t people of his tory defeated the opposite. But even if the committee adversity, if those who changed the course accepts Evans' advice, it doesn't seem likely of events did so although they were pre that they'll push the point if the missing dicted to fail, if it is true that faith moves with her campaign director, Clara Rojas, a witnesses decline to co-operate. mountains and that David conquered photographer from the French magazine There's one helpful exception, however. Goliath, then our fight should be victorious. Marie Claire, and two other campaign According to evidence to the committee, To defend the right to live, today as in the officials. Reith's former military adviser, Mike past, implies heroism., temper and courage. She was trying to reach the town of San Scrafton, initiated a conversa tion about the Let us not deceive ourselves. To be Green Vicente del Caguan, which had recently affair with Brigadier Mike Silverstone in in this millennium, we have to take on the elected a Green mayor. The town was in an February this year- after he'd moved across uniform of the new samurai, to defend our area where the FARC were active. The from a ministerial to a public-service values, our principles, our ideals, above government had just broken off dialogue position. The content and significance of everything, even above our own life, with the FARC. The townspeople, who had that conversation, in which Scrafton is because without those values, without supported the Greens, were now danger alleged to have queried Silverstone's those principles, without those ideals, life ously exposed given that the government account of events, is clearly som ething he becomes a condemnation. was now washing its hands of the area. can be compelled to discuss with the We should understand the essence of what Betancourt had promised to stand by the committee. weare outlining to the world. The salvation people of San Vicente 'for good or for ill'. In the meantime, Senators Brandis and of the planet, the right to live, is nothing Only by going there personally, thereby Mason continue working their way through else than a fight for values. These values exposing herself to risk, could she make the reports, to increasingly frequent inter are ones that we human beings all share, good her pledge and call on national and jections from the Labor members. As the regardless of the colour of our skin or of the international authorities to protect these hostility intensifies to the point where Peter name that we give to our God. And because civilians. Cook 'names' Senator Brandis, the navy they are essential values, they are not The government denied her air trans contingent watches impassively. negotiable. To outline a new economic port to San Vicente. On an isolated spot on -Peter Browne order, a new social pact, is not a utopia. It the road, the vehicle she was using was 10 EUREKA STREET • M AY 2002 stopped by armed men from the FARC. Betancourt was ordered into another car. Clara Rojas, her campaign director, was 1 a e placed in a separate car. The remaining three were driven to a remote location and released several hours later. They walked for a time before being picked up by a truck, which took them to Florencia. Later, FARC representatives said that Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas were alive and in good health, but would not be freed until200 FARC prisoners held by the Culture and abuse government were released. The government rejected their demand. FARC currently holds over 800 hostages. A N OLD JESUIT FRIEND had a simple historical explanation for what he saw as International reaction was swift. Green the Catholic preoccupation with sin. Morbidity began with St Paul, h e thought, groups around the world lit 'candles for and St Augustine hammered the nail into the coffin. freedom' . Betancourt's kidnapping was His diagnosis would strike most theologians as a bit too simple, but it does denounced by UN Secretary-General Kofi represent a popular view of the matter. If Augustine is remembered, it is for Annan, the European Union, French going on for pages about the boyish theft of a few pears and for tearing strips off President Jacqu es Chirac, and Green himself for adolescent sexual experimentation. His account of sin emphasises federations of the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia. The powerful Workers Party its evil and awfulness, its decisive separating from God, and our lack of free in Brazil has also called for her immediate dom to live virtuously. release. No wonder that later writers preferred to focus less on sinfulness than on Delegations seeking Betancourt's free sinful actions, which could be repented of and forgiven. Or that spiritual writers dom have been sent to Colombia from the have recently stressed the goodness of human beings, and seen sin as immaturity European parliament and from the Green or incompleteness. In this perspective, which also reflects popular cultural parties of Peru, Mexico and Brazil. attitudes, sinners need encouragement rather than forgiveness or transformation. In Melbourne, a radio program was But now Augustine seems less outdated. For culture has returned to sin, devoted to Ingrid Betancourt's plight. Rep and has placed it within the church-in abuse of power, and particularly in resentatives of the FARC in Australia sexual abuse of children. contacted those involved after the program Augustine's reflection on his early years provided him with a language and insisted that sympathy for her was calibrated to human evil. His rhetoric does not seem excessive when measured misplaced. She was, they claimed, a right wing reactionary. against the abuse of power and trust and the suffocation of any hunger for the Betancourt remains a candidate in the transcendent entailed in clerical sexual abuse. His psychological analysis of the Colombian presidential election on 26 May twisting knots of human motivation, and of the darkness and lack of freedom this year. But she is not free to speak, travel that mark the human condition, also illuminates the contrast between the or campaign, or to share her dream of peace, insouciance of human actions and their horrific effects. It shows as trivial an ecological wisdom and democracy for her analysis that sees sins simply as single events that can be repented of and set war-torn land. Her fate remains uncertain. right. We have learned that, for the abused, an act of abuse is not a single event, -Brian Walters but one that roots and metastasises in the human spirit to cause lasting damage. Augustine's scorn for a simple reliance on self-help and his insistence that effective healing is a surprising gift also matches the experience of those scarred E-mystery by abuse of power, whether they are children sexu ally abused by ministers of the church or asylum seekers administratively abused by ministers of the IT'S IN THE EMA IL government. But if Augustine's account of sin is seriou s enough to articulate the hurt E oM THE DEPTHS of the national capital comes an extraordinary story with elements and despair of those affected by abuse, it may also offer a better way to relate to from two seemingly unrelated worlds, the abusers than the simple exclusions and rejections that our culture dictates. In centuries-old Catholic Church and the 21st Augustine's framework, lack of inner freedom and the need for healing are century world of e-reality. universal. So are gift and grace. We are not to demonise abusers, because we Paul Collins was first alerted that things share what seem s demonic in them. And like u s, they are always in play, always were awry when his old friend Bishop Pat pursued by God's love which is ultimately more powerful than sin. Power rang to ask if he was feeling all right, Augustine could look unflinchingly at sin becau se h e had com e to clearly alluding to his mental state. experience his humanity and goodness as a gift. For the church to deal with Collins is a well-known broadcaster and abuse, it may be that no less radical a conversion will suffice. • controversial resigned priest. He has fronted ABC documentaries about the environment Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne. VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 11 and has advocated reforms to the church. In 1997 he published Papal Power, calling for a radical assessment of power structures in Rome. The book provoked the ire of the Roman Curia, more particularly the Con grega tion for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). archimedes In March 2001, after pressure from the CDF (led by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger) and in a move designed to take the heat off the head of his congrega tion, Collins resigned from active ministry as a member of his Private practices order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. He has, however, remained as busy and as controversial as ever. In his new role as a layman who knows the Catholic Church A BOUT TWO-THIRDS OF THE MONEY provided worldwide for research now com es intimately, he is often called on by the from private sources. In the year 2000, for instance, the world's largest pharma media to discuss the church and is in demand ceutical company, Pfizer Warner Lambert, spent some A$9 billion on R&D, as a speaker. about twice the amount provided by the Australian government. While many Last year he was approached by a small group, Australian Reforming Catholics, who would view such commercialisation of research as unquestionably good and a were organising a conference for this com wise non-use of taxpayers' m oney, Archimedes is not entirely convinced. ing October. Various em ails were sent back Apart from placing a much heavier emphasis on short-term applied projects, and forth between Barbara Campbell, one at the expense of longer-term 'blue-sky' science, the privatisation of science of the main organisers, and Collins. and medicine raises questions about the control of information. Private inves Collins had switched from a small, local tors seek to maximise the return on their investment. In the case of research email server to Telstra's BigPond in the they do this by owning intellectual property-the results of the studies they middle of last year, but because he was still have financed. They restrict access to the information or charge for its usc receiving emails at the old address he had hence patents, royalties and licence agreements. In the past, the regulation of maintained his connection to his old server, intellectual property was mostly restricted to consumer products such as cars a relationship he still hadn't got around to and televisions, and even drugs and medical equipment. But as the reach of the severing. private sector extends further into the world of scien ce, things are becoming At Christmas 200 1 Collins and Camp bell were engaged in an email dialogue more complicated. abou t the upcoming conference. Campbell In the US, once you have worked out the DNA sequence of a gene, you can sent Collins an email to his old server, own the rights to all uses of the information, effectively patenting the gene. which he never received. N early a third of the US m edical laboratories that were testing for the easily 'Within about an hour-and-a-half one treatable and common genetic disease of iron overload known as haemo had been sent back to her, from a different chromatosis have now stopped doing so. The gene involved in the test has been email address, from someone purporting to patented, and the company that owns the rights can force the testing laboratories be me,' said Collins. to pay royalties. The email declined the invitation to Science magazine has just published the gene sequence of rice, a crop upon participate in the conference. But it said which about half the world's population depends. The important backup data more: of the DNA sequences from which the gene sequence has been drawn have not I have what I suspect will be some very been made public at the same time, however, because they are the property of surprising news for you. The weekend the Swiss company Syngenta which undertook the work of unravelling them. before last I spent in retreat at the usual Without access to su ch DNA sequences much genetic research which could be place. During this time I had somewhat of done to improve rice crops will not be possible. As this goes to press, the com a revelation and now strongly feel that pany is deciding how it will make its information available. I need to renew my vows and make amends In another instance of privatised information, agroch emical company with those whom I have offended in the Aventis is taking the UK government to court to prevent it from releasing infor .Church. To this end I have made my first real confession for some time now and mation about the environmental safety of a herbicide. Aventis says the data, have written to the CDF recanting all of which it collected to show the safety of its chemical, is commercially sensitive. those id eas that were contentious ... In effect, the company is arguing that the public should trust it and the author iti es to which it has shown the data to make the right decision on safety. Bad enough that an email originally Archimedes suspects these few examples are the tip of a very large privately intended for him had been intercepted and owned iceberg. Whether or not it will sink out of public reach altogether depends then responded to by an impersonator. Bad became farcical when another email was on how well we negotiate and regulate access. • also sent that afternoon by the same person, Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer. cl aiming that Collins was now married 12 EURE KA STREET • M AY 2002 with three children. Both were signed high enough standard. For a complaint of person, the more likely it is that they could 'P. Collins'-an appellation Paul Collins this nature, which sh e described as a be a target,' Uidam said. never uses. 'level 1', she said it would be reasonable to But it seems too much of a coincidence The story-that Paul Collins had done a expect the internet service provider to that a random hacker anywhere in the world radical about-face-spread like wildfire. contact the complainant within 24 hours, would get into Paul Collins' email system 'It was at this point that people who at least to acknowledge the complaint. and then produce such an elaborate email knew m e started to smell a rat. But by now However, Garner added that this type response. Is it possible Campbell sent the the rumour was popping up everywhere of complaint is very rare. The most com email to the wrong address and the recipient that I had knuckled under and was submit mon complaints are about inaccurate replied as a joke? ting to Rome. It was when Bishop Power billing, followed by poor customer service, Collins believes that a prank and an heard it that he rang to check that I hadn't incident involving a packet lost my marbles,' said Collins. sniffer are both very unlikely, The whole incident could be dismissed and it is easy to see why. 'The as a bad joke, except that Collins, under language used is the rhetoric of standably, finds the implications of the a conservative Catholic. It diversion of the original email addressed to would be quite hard to mimic if him very disturbing. 'The fact that some you didn't have some under one had been able to penetrate my email standing of it,' he observed. In correspondence was bad enough. But this addition, the bogus emails was compounded by the fact that emails Password:******* revealed too much personal were now being sent out in my name.' knowledge of Collins and his Collins attempted to contact his small recent public dialogues simply service provider but by that time they had to be a joking response to a stray gone out of business, so he contacted Telstra email that lobbed his way. to get help, because the address of the bogus It was Paul Wallbank of PC emails was a Telstra one. He reports that a including difficulty getting through, Rescue, a small business IT consultant and man there was able to tell him that the slowness in changing email addresses and a regular commentator for ABC radio, who bogus email seemed to come from Queens slow internet site download speeds. had the most likely- and the scariest land. But whatever the case, he was advised 'The type of complaint you're referring explanation. to send an email to [email protected], to we'd log under privacy issues. Privacy He said it sounded as though someone alerting them to the problem. issues make up only 1.3 per cent of our has discovered Paul Collins' email pass 'I sent an email on 28 December 2001, complaints and only a small proportion of word. Every internet user has an internet letting them know that fraudulent emails those would involve the sort of case you've password. Our computer programs are often had been sent out in my name, but I've described,' she said. designed so that the password dials up never received a reply,' he said. Peter Coroneos, a spokesman for the automatically and we don't even realise A spokesman for BigPond, Stuart Gray, Internet Industry Association, agreed that we've got one. It is very easy for a hacker to admitted to Eureka Street that the delay in even though possible, this type of incident access a password and they can do so from dealing with the email wouldn't surprise is not widespread. 'And from the consum their own computers. him as the relevant department has a er's point of view, spam [unsolicited com Misappropriation of passwords is a backlog of queries to respond to. 'Telstra is mercial mail] is a much bigger problem.' problem that tends to be played down by aware of the situation and has put steps in Glenn Uidam, a security/network the internet industry, Wallbank said. 'Some place to manage it,' he said. consultant with the computer network people have internet passwords that are Collins also contacted his local police. consultants IT +E, explained that even just too obvious, leaving themselves They said pursuing the matter would be though the incident is unusual, it could extremely vulnerable to someone who complicated if it involved dealing with happen to anybody using email. When the wants to "steal" it and once someone has another state, so Collins did not take it any incident was described to Uidam he had a your internet password, if they have your further. He also contacted the office of the plausible explanation-it could be the work email address it's very easy to access your Telecommunications Industry Ombuds of a 'packet sniffer'. As emails are sent from email files and tamper with them.' man, who told him that the complaint had one computer to another, they pass through To add insult to injury, because it's the nothing to do with them. several routers, or 'hops' as they are known victim's email system that has been 'In fact, the person dealing with my in the industry. An email message that has tampered with, the mischief is charged to inquiry was positively rude,' Collins said. gone across continents might have gone the victim's account. When Eureka Street contacted Kerryn through 15, while one between offices in One of the worst cases Wallbank knows Garner, the Ombudsman's media liaison the same city might have gone through ten. of involves an internet stalker who read all officer, the response was much more oblig A packet sniffer is able to intercept any his victim's emails, sent bogu s emails from ing. (Maybe the media has more clout than one of these routers, 'listening', down her computer to her friends and colleagues a mere individual.) Garner said that, with loading and redirecting messages that attract and contacted her email service provider to enough information, the Ombudsman could his or her attention. Usually, the purpose is change her password-leaving her locked pass a complaint on to the police. In addition, fraud for comm ercial gain, but there are no out of her own email service. she said that the slowness of BigPond's limits to what might attract a hacker's He said it causes a common problem for response to the complaint does not meet a attention. 'The higher the profile of the businesses. Ex-employees who know their VOLUME 1 2 N UMBER 4 EU REKA STRE ET 13 old workplace's password can sign in and soothing. Especially marvellous too when then spend up over their old business' inter we consider that they can only be contem East Timor net accounts. 'We know of one custom er plated. Entities that cannot be exploited who had to deal with a $4000 bill logged up and about which there is no full-s top. More 1-{1:( ONCILI/\TION by an ex-employee and the police wouldn 't than a few have gone dotty in the effort, of AN D JUSTIC[ touch it,' Wall ba nk said. course, though dotty in this sense does not He aclcl ecl that the police are oft en not mean seeing stars before one's eyes, but S OMETIMES AN ow infected wound needs in tcrestecl in dealing with these cases comes from a Scots word meaning unbal to be reopened and looked at, cleaned and because they have a poor grasp of their anced. It is easier to imagine ourselves out treated, so that it might fin ally heal properly. implications and of computers generally. there in space than inhere where we actually In East Timor we need to rem ember for a 'A determined hacker can work through live and suffer. little while, open up the wounds, so that thousands of password possibilities very It was a group of Greek philosophers they can be healed and we can m ove on, quickly and if they start off by taking an called atomists who painted a pointillist carrying the scars but not the infecti on. educated guess, they can get there very picture of the universe as long ago as when It is painful and often stressful to quickly indeed. It's been well-demonstrated ever, but though they m aintained that all remember a horrendous pa st. For som e that if someone goes into an organisa tion cl ots were created equal, they did not see people, it may seem better to leave th e past knowing the na mes of the staff, their that some cl ots have m ore gravity than untou ched. But the past does not go away spouses, their children and their clogs, other clots. This dot-matrix theory of m atter and, if untrea ted, may ea t away at these they've go t a good chance of cracking 95 cl cpenclecl on the idea that the smallest people and maybe even destroy them. per cent of its passwords,' h e said. particles in the universe are unbreakable Remembering is not easy, but forgetting His advice was to change the password, and unchangeable, a confidence that we may be impossible, as some of our people som ething Paul Collins said he will do cannot share with them, sadly. Atom s shift have said. immecliately-'If only someone had given about in m assive order, ready to be split I have been privileged to com e into me this advice-and earlier!' without a thought. The C alifo rnian contact with a range of urvi. vors, victi ms Meanwhile, Collins says he has not computerates have rewritten the addresses from 1974 un till999, am ong them widows, recanted his position and will continue his of the world, in the process rewriting Sellar orphans, former political prisoners, and critique of church pra ctices-no matter and Yeatman's oracular conclusion (in 1066 women who had been raped. Many of them w hat extraordinary obstacl es are placed in and All That) that ' Am.erica was thus clearly claim that it is better just to forget and go on his way. -Margaret Rice top nation, and History came to a .' Not, because it is too painful to dig up the past. though, that that could ever be the end of it. Others want to know the why, where, who The dot as m onument to minimalism and how . Why were their loved ones killed? In a word would m ean nothing to the artists of the Where are their bodies? Who ordered the Balgo Hills, the Western Desert and other killing? How did it happen ? Did they leave ON Ti lE DOT parts of this continent. Tentative study of any m essages? Is there any in fo rmation Australian Indigenous m ythic expression about the way they were executed? C oMPUTER NERDS are instantly recognis has revised our definition of 'dot' entirely, Those who have experienced s uch able for their clog's- breakfast English, yet dot being, it would seem , the foundation of atrocities have found a range of emotional they prove again the sense of that cardinal the creative act and the activity of creation and psychological survival tactics. Some rule-never use a longe r word when a shorter itself. In Cape York, the dot means the chose to forget; others-like the widows one does the job. 'Period com period ch effect of light on clear water, necessary and their fa milies with whom I spoke and you', or 'full-stop com full-s top eh -you' means for new life. Warlpiri painters usc kept regular con tact-were clear that on] y sim ply won 't stand against 'clot'. Sweet, the dot for walking and movement, each by rem embering could they be helped to cu te, sharp, short and arguably the word colour significant of dreaming stories and recover. Most wanted to learn every detail with the greatest resurgen t u sage, 'clot' ritual. The potency of these m arkings, both about what happened and who was respon en joys an elliptical history. singularly and in som etimes superabundant sible for the disappearance or death of their Shakespea re would have known it as a plurality, speaks the language of the group husbands, parents, siblings, friends and word for lump, clot, boil or other blemish, and eludes outside definition. But even colleagues. They wanted to bring these but not as the roundish mark made with a fringe observers of this art, not party to its people to justice and so be able to begin to pen, a meaning that enters the language in restricted information, sense the represen put the past behind them. 'We don 't seek the 18th century. N o-one ever told Shake tation of William Blake's grain of sand, a revenge but justice,' they said, 'and the speare to cl ot his i.'s . It was his contem n ew world coming out of cerem onial perpetra tors have to be responsiblcfor their porary, Galileo, who altered forever our culture, its point of departure right where acts.' They want reconciliation, but recon sense of largeness. T he star charts of the we stand. - Philip Harvey ciliation with justice. 17th century initiated the perspective that One ca nnot com e to justice until the we are a cl ot in the universe, rather than its St Jo hn's Cottage (Sorrento) truth comes out. One cannot come to recon bounteous centre. Or, just a clot, as som e A place fo r rest, relaxation, ciliation through bypassing ju stice- we rem ark dolefully. reconcili ati on, and renewa l. learned that fr om El Sa lvador. Then in Learning our place in the schem e of Dail y refl exology/ massage. Rwanda we learned that one cannot begin things m ight have been hard, but for m any Ph . Daryl and An gela McKinl ay to inquire into the truth of what happened today the view each night of a million for a brochure on (03) 5984 0024 until the m ourning is fi nished. And m ourn Earths in adj acent galaxies can be strangely ing does not end until the bodies are properly 14 EUREKA STREET • M AY 2002 buried and the spirits of the dead are able to truth, the commission will have powers to communities within the area to which the rest at peace. Now in East Timor we have order people to give evidence before it. refugees would return to welcome them back passed an initial time of mourning, though + Community Recon ciliation. The com at transit centres. I also had responsibility the mourning naturally continues. Some mission is based on the principle that for facilitating communication for families refugees need to bring home the bodies of genuine reconciliation requires knowledge divided between East and West Timor. their dead to the traditional places. Some of the truth. Then comes justice, with Reception is an integral part of healing. need to come home and visit the graves of individuals accepting responsibility for their People first need to feel welcome and feel their ancestors. But as the time for actions. People who committed less serious connected to the people and society in which mourning is passing, in the calm that crimes during 1999 and before this can they live. This is a universal need, and is follows, it becom es more approach the commission recognised in the Commission for Recep possible to learn what really and ask that these acts be tion, Truth and Reconciliation in East happened. Then a judgm ent dealt with by the commis Timor. It also offers a challenge to Austral must be made on the basis sion. A panel of local lead ians- both at a policy level (fo r example in of the facts- the truth as ers, chaired by the Regional policies relating to detention centres) and far as it can be established Commissioner, will call at an individual level (in the way we provide and decisions about recon together a meeting of the care ). If people do not feel welcome, they ciliation can be made m ore perpetrator, victims and become isolated, alienated, feel they cannot thoroughly. local community m embers. participate. They fe el powerless and the The East Ti morese Com They will discuss the wounds do not heal. In the long run, society mission for Reception, Truth crimes, and propose an benefits if people feel welcom e. and Reconciliation has been agreement whereby the For centuries, local people have crossed established for this very perpetrator could do com back and forth over the border between East purpose. It is an independ munity work, make a and West Timor. Borders are often created ent na tionalins ti tu tion that repayment or public apol by politics, fear, hostility and ignorance. will inquire into human Isa bel Amarai-Guterres ogy or undertake other acts Borders can exclude and deny. While the rights violations committed on all sides of reconciliation. These may include tradi East and West Timor border is officially between April1974 and October 1999, and tional ways of resolution. If this process is recognised by East Timor and Indonesia facilitate community reconciliation for completed, the District Court will make an and is protected by PKF (the UN Peace those who committed less serious offences. order that those acts cannot be prosecuted Keeping Force) on the east side and TNI (t he A commission was initially proposed by in the future. Indonesian military) on the west side, the CNRT (National Council of Resistance for + Report and Recommendations. At the commission is working to di sm antle the East Timor), which is now dissolved. end of this work, the commission will borders created in people's hearts and minds, CNRT's proposal was then developed by a produce a report to the government that borders that create division am ong them. committee comprising representative will function as an important historical I came to Australia as a refugee, even groups. This committee travelled to all the record of the extent, causes and accounting though officially I was taken in under a districts to listen to public opinion. Since of human-rights violations. It will also special humanitarian program . I didn't know then, the regulation that established the indicate to the government the legal and anyone when I cam e here. I was welcomed commission has become law in East Timor. institutional reforms needed to safeguard into the homes of Australian people, to Seven National Commissioners, two human rights in the future and to promote their tables and ultimately into their lives. women and five m en, have been nominated reconciliation. These form er strangers are now my best and elected. We come from different fields The commission will n ot be able to friends and adopted families. I was trained of work and from different groupings in the deal, through its community reconcilia as a nurse in Australia. It was often very country. There are two priests, one Protes tion process, with serious crimes such as difficult for me, as English was my fourth tant, the other Catholic. There is a former killings, rape or the organising of violence. language, and I appreciate the support of pro-independence political prisoner and a However, it may hear testimonies or receive friends who h elped me. Now I am back in former pro-autonomy political prisoner. The statements from victims, perpetrators and East Timor to offer my expertise from what oth er three members are a lawyer, a witnesses in relation to serious crimes I've learned here in Australia and to help businesswoman and a nurse (me). We were through its truth-telling function. Evidence my fellow countrywom en and m en in need sworn in on 21 January 2002, and started of serious crimes that arises during the as we rebuild our country. work formally in February. We have a two commission's work will be referred to the -Isabel Amaral-Guterres year mandate that can be extended for a courts. further six months. The commission has the word 'recep This month's contributors: Peter Browne The commission has three main tion' in its title. This is because the com works in the Institute for Social Research at functions: mission offers East Timorese w ho have Swinburne University; Brian Walters is a + Truth Telling. It will seek the truth returned from West Timor or who are still barrister and conservation activist; Margaret regarding human-rights violations that there an orderly and peaceful way of being Rice is a freelance journalist; Philip Harvey occurred in East Timor between 25 April received back into their communities. is a poet and librarian at the Joint Theologi 1974 and October 1999, and undertake My specific portfolio on the commis cal Library, Melbourne; Isabel Amaral special investigations and historical sion is to handle matters relating to Guterres is a m ember of the Commission research, as well as a nationwide statement reception. My previous work (with the for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in taking process. To assist in establishing the Jesuit Refugee Service) was to prepare East Timor. VOLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 15 INTERVIEW MORAG FRA SER Genevieve Lacey is one of Australia's outstanding performers, a virtuoso recorder player and a formidable musician. Lately she has also taken up the artistic directorship of the Melbourne Autumn Music Festival, a venerable institution that has its roots in the 20th-century modernist revival and celebration of early music. More iconoclast than institution herself, Lacey is an adventurous choice as artistic director: this will not be a festival that genuflects before tradition. The player Lacey spoke to Eureka Street during the final weeks of preparation for a fortn ight of music that will include viols, voices, computer-generated installations, and the music of contemporary composers. I :r WASN'T HARD to find the right house. there is nothing in the way of what emotional therapy: there is something Even over the traffic noise and a percus- you've got to say and the sound that pours much more fundamental, more technical, sion accompaniment from the builders out. It takes the same breath that it does more professional going on here. Lacey next door, the sound of the recorder- to speak.' embodies sound, and quite deliberately. warm and elemental-arced its way on Lacey is clearly no stranger to such Watching her perform is like watching a to the street. questions. Playing the recorder and dancer giving physical extension to Genevieve Lacey is leading, for a time, living, mostly, in Australia- it's not the sound. It's not mannerism-there are no a double life. She is both musician and standard career progression for an ambi- extraneous moves-but there certainly is director of a large festival. But on this tious virtuoso instrumentalist. But her embodiment. Her whole form becomes Friday morning she was home practis- answers are so assured, not practised but the sounding board. Again, she h as ing- the indispensable routine. As we frank and articulate, that you realise she analysed the process. walked through the music room has thought long about, and had to 'A singer would be conscious of trying I couldn't help but notice the array of justify, the choice she has made. to use the resonances in the whole body recorders, from delicate blond tubes to 'There must have been a part of m e and I think it's similar.' dark old giants, laid in ranks on a cloth that always knew, because I have played The embodied style marks Lacey out the way oiled tools are spread out by a the recorder since I was very little. from many of her peers, and makes her meticulous carpenter. I played other instruments as well- I was playing distinctive. But being distinctive The recorder is an unusual instrument quite a serious pianist at school and went in the world of early music performance of choice for a serious musician. But it through the conservatorium as an oboist. is not the way to win easy acceptance. sits so naturally under Lacey's skittering, But those instruments always frustrated She plays at the outer edges of conven- disciplined fingers that you figure there me. The piano drove me crazy- this huge tion. And knows it. As we talk, there is a must be reason behind her choice. Reason piece of furniture sitting in front of m e pondered determination behind h er or instinct. Has it to do with the elemen- that I was hitting. It didn't work. And the replies. tal quality, that sound that evokes myths oboe used to drive m e crazy because of 'You are unusual, aren't you,' I ask, about the origins of music, wind as it that reed, always getting in the way. 'in this commitment to embodiment in blows across reeds? I thought, why do I need to go through your music?' That elemental quality is part of it, that? ' 'Yes, I am a bit unusual. ' she says. But more: 'It's the simplicity of The recorder passes one other test: it 'Have you always been like that?' it. That fact that the recorder is a pipe, has always been the instrument that 'Yes, I think I probably have. But just a simple pipe. I love the sound it Genevieve Lacey has picked up when I think it's probably getting stronger. makes but I also love the physical feeling she's been distressed, when she's 'really I don't really know where it comes from.' of playing it because it is so unmediated. had something that I needed to play out 'Has it got you into trouble over the There are no keys, there are no reeds, of me'. But forget any notion of music as years?' 16 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 'Oh yes. I guess I play in an extreme sort of way so people either think it's amazing or they absolutely hate it. There is rarely any middle ground. I have just learned that that's the way it is-which is not always very easy. I have had strong resistance, particularly within this world of academic early music.' I ask what the 'world of academic early music' thinks she is about. 'They som etimes think that I am being arrogant and disrespectful. In this world there is the very strong belief that as a musician you should be the vessel through which the music speaks, and the music is represented by the composer and that great can of worms called " the com poser' intentions", w hich is a signifier for truth and God basically. 'So if I get in the way of that, if they are aware of the fact I, Genevieve Lacey, happen to be in the room, happen to be playing, and am of this time and this place, and have ideas and a body, then that can be quite disturbing. So yes, I've copped a lot of flak and a lot of question s because what I do, for some people and on som e level, is quite disturbing.' Disturb on, I think. There is a place for musicians who 'disturb' just as there is a place for musicians who confirm what has gone before, musicians who soothe. But Lacey is not looking for reassur ance. This is familiar territory for her the intellectual battleground, as it were, of her art. She will go on disturbing because, as she says, 'I can't not.' It's an individual imperative, not a prescription for other musicians: 'I am not saying that others have to do what I do at all. It's a question of integrity. So, as long as I feel, when I am listening, that the musicians playing are speaking as themselves, what ever that m eans, then that is amazing, that's what m atters.' Behind this very determined musician there is a line of teachers, as she is the first to acknowledge. It is a familiar story, though not a universal one in these days when music is the exception rather than the rule in school curricula. Lacey began, as so many musicians have, in a convent, at Loreto in Ballarat, with teachers she calls formative. And then at university: 'I had a fantastic teacher, Ruth Wilkin son, who was just the most nurturing, enabling person.' That is the theme- challenging, takes you to a real instrument- or yes, it ideas take flesh. It's a brave program (the enabling teachers. 'I think that's been my is seen as something that is fairly disem word needs to be rescued from Sir greatest strength. I have been surrounded bodied, an instrument that is high, clear Humphrey), including as it does many by the kind of people who have said, and pretty, and can be very precise. grand staples of early music, the sounds whoever you are, that's okay. That's such Which intrigues me and which is my of Seville's golden age, a 400th-anniver a gift. It means you can take the kinds of constant battle I guess.' sary celebration of the work of William risks that I am taking because you know The battle is to do, again, with the Lawes, plenty of Bach, Buxtehude, John that someone will catch you.' issue of embodiment. And with music Bolton's re-imagined medieval passion Later, in the ritual move for Austral politics: 'Certainly within the world of play and sopran o Merlyn Quaife in ian instrumentalists, Lacey went to early music, the whole reconstruction sequences of 20th-century song. And, of Europe, but not to one of the predictable and renewal of interest in early music in course, Genevieve Lacey, on recorder, schools for a recorder player (the oboe and the 20th century has been predicated a with harpsichordist and chamber organist its pesky reed were by now past history). lot on ideas of music as an objective, Linda Kent in a recital of baroque and She sought out recorder virtuoso, Dan academic pursuit, and that's something new music called, somewhat disingenu Laurin, in Denmark. Why him? that I am deeply uncomfortable with. ously, 'Breathless'. 'Because he's a really extraordinary I read; I believe that it is enlightening and Why would a young virtuoso instru character. He plays in a very idiosyncratic illuminating to do a lot of research in mentalist with a concert schedule personal way. That's why I chose him to early music. But I don't think it stops looming (Lacey goes on the road with the teach me rather than going to a more there. To me that is background. When Australian Chamber Orchestra immedi conventional school or place. He and I are you play, what you do becomes a synthe ately after the festival) take on a job as different in what we are trying to do but sis of all those things. It is about sound, artistic director? What does it mean at he was very good at getting me to inten and to me sound is the essential thing.' this stage in her career? sify what I was on about.' For Lacey, early music fits with her 'It means a lot of things. Certainly Different in what way? passion for the unmediated voice. 'I love high stress levels-it's an enormous 'The reason that I went to him was a great deal of the repertoire that we call challenge to try to hold my own space, because the first time I heard him play early music- love the sound if it. But my own practice time, and get through I was just completely seduced by the that's too simple. My taste in music my work for the festival. But it also sound he made. It was the most basically steers clear of the 19th century m eans that I can help to create, nurture unbelievably warm, expressive sound, a and the latter part of the 18th and some and sustain a project that's much bigger than me and my little recorders. 'To me what is important is trying 'It 's the simplicity of it. That fact that the recorder is to create a community. For all those a pipe, just a simple pipe. I lo ve the sound it makes people who do very specialised, incred ibly risky freelance things, it means but I also love the physical feeling of playing it because it is creating a space and a place where they so unmediated. There are no keys, there are no reeds, there feel acknowledged. I have the greatest respect for what they do and will create is nothing in the way of what you've got to say and the the environment in which people can sound that pours out. It takes the same breath that it hear it. To achieve that I am prepared to answer a lot of phone calls and read a lot does to speak.' of emails.' And the last word: 'It is so critical to sound that could wrap itself around you. of the early 20th century. There is give some sort of expression, musical I had never heard a recorder player trying something about that middle period-its expression, to what is around us, to create to do that before. And that was what I had overblownness-that I can't really get a meaning out of what can appear chaotic. been trying to do.' handle on. Certainly if I am sitting in the So critical- for all of us. If I can support Sound. It's the recurring motif in middle of an orchestra playing, it is com other people, use an institution like this Lacey's talk. You might expect it from a pletely intoxicating. But as a listener I am festival to do that, and enable them to cellist, a pursuit of luscious sound. But much more attracted to things that are create that meaning, then-that's from a recorder player? The general more intimate, more eloquent in quite a amazing.' • feeling, or at least the popular prejudice, spare sort of way. A single voice, speaking about the recorder is that it is an appren with eloquence and utter conviction, can Morag Fraser is editor of Eureka Street. tice instrument, just a head pipe that will be devastating. It can get right inside you The Melbourne Autumn Music Festival runs yield under a certain display of finger and shift something-can really from Friday 2.6 April through Sunday 5 May pyrotechnics and good breath control, but break your heart.' in a range of inner-Melbourne venues. basically that's it. Telephone bookings: (03) 9685 5111. Lacey has been here before, many LEM ELBOURNE Autumn Music Festi times. 'Yes, the recorder is either seen as val will give many people the chance to Genevieve Lacey's most recent recordings are an educational tool-something that listen to (and watch) Genevieve Lacey's on the ABC Classics label. 18 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 E ,,SOR Ac.N TROUNSON, R DUecto' of the MonRSh and Bracks seem to be convinced-surely we should Institute of Reproduction and Development, is develop those embryos that are best suited to the Australia's leading proponent of human embryonic research and cures in question? stem-cell research. This research will involve dissect That Trounson and Savulescu should have ing and destroying at the blastocyst stage some of the advocated this further argument at this point in the 60,000 embryos that have been proliferated surplus debate may seem more than a little surprising. Indeed, to IVF needs in laboratories around Australia. it beggars belief that a scientist of Trounson's inter Professor Trounson has been an advocate of national reputation has only belatedly come to realise destructive experimentation on human embryos for that the current methods of culturing stem cells from over 20 years. First, it was in the cause of improving surplus embryos and the existing embryonic stem the comparatively low success rates of IVF . Then it cell lines-some of which he was responsible for was to test the toxicity of certain drugs on the human developing from donated surplus human embryos in embryo. This time, it is in the hope that the stem Singapore-are unsuitable for use in experiments cells cultured subsequent to the dissecting of the involving projected cures for human diseases. This is embryo may then be directed to repair traumatised because they have been grown on mouse tissue, and cells and cure diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, there is therefore a risk of transmitting animal viruses motor neurone disease, diabetes, spinal injuries and to humans. One would have thought that a primer on heart failure. xenotransplantation might have indicated this long One of the virtues of Professor Trounson's ago. But it is perhaps an index of how much stem-cell arguments is that he does not shirk the logic of his research is still in its swaddling clothes that it is this conclusions. The present debate has raged over the that has been hailed by Trounson as a reason for morality of using only those embryos that are surplus renouncing his former view that the existing 78 to IVF needs. However, Professor Trounson and embryonic stem-celllines were sufficient for research ethicis t Julian Savulescu were reported in The needs. Australian on 27 March as further advocating that However, this is not the only reason that stem there should be no ban or moratorium on what is cell lines derived by using human embryos surplus to euphemistically called 'therapeutic cloning', that is, IVF needs are likely to be unsuitable. In the first creating cloned embryos out of the body cells of a instance these embryos have become 'surplus' to IVF patient and donated enucleated eggs and then dissect n eeds precisely because they are 'second best'. ing these customised embryos to generate the stem Precisely because of some irregularity in their texture, cells specific to the patient. shape, or the way in which they have divided, they Trounson and Savulescu are being quite consist were not the embryos of choice when the IVF special ent in suggesting that 'therapeutic' cloning is part and ist came to select the first three or four embryos for parcel of the central argument for destructive embry implantation in the maternal uterus. For similar onic stem-cell research. After all, if we do not cavil at reasons they are not likely to be first choice for destroying embryos surplus to IVF needs, which are embryonic stem-cell research. Further, they have been in many ways unsuitable for stem-cell research and frozen and stored, some for an extended period, and its projected benefits, why should we cavil at creating they will need to be thawed before being dissected and then destroying cloned embryos which are all of which are compromising experiences. Finally manifestly much more adapted to realising the desired and most importantly, there is the immunological cures? If these cures are the only ethical object at barrier to be surmounted. These are donated embryos, issue-development-blinkered Premiers Carr, Beattie and as such are of a different genetic type to the likely VOLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 19 recipients of the cells and tissues generated from the or less genetically identical with the donor of the stem cells to cure disease. original body cell. There have been solemn assertions Stem cells from cloned embryos, on the other and breast-beatings by all manner of scientists who, hand, will not suffer from this genetic difference and even though they support in principle the destruc immunological rejection. They will be 'customised', tion of embryos, both surplus and cloned, for stem and are not in any sense 'second best'. Admittedly, as cell research to cure disease, say that this reproductive the experience with Dolly the sheep shows, it may be cloning is not an option. While I do not presume to difficult to generate these cloned embryos. But since question their sincerity, may I suggest once again that clinical applications even using the immediately avail we should examine the logic of the argum ent. If we able surplus embryos are likely to be a decade away, can destroy embryos to cure disease in an existing time at least is on their side once we have agreed in human person, why can't we not only create cloned principle that destructive experimentation on embryos but then also allow them to develop to embryos is justifi ed in the cause of curing disease. 'replace' a human person who has been killed by that It will be better, then, as Trounson and Savulescu same disease? Admittedly, replacement will not bring would argue, from the point of view of efficiency and the loved one back, but it would definitely be a more likely scientific success, to use the cloned, custom or less genetically identical good 'second best'. Ask ised embryos adapted to the purposes of stem -cell any parents who have lost a deeply loved only child, research than the undifferentiated 'second be t' and whose subsequent efforts to conceive have proved surplus embryos we presently have stored in our IVF fruitless. If curing disease is all that matters, why do laboratories. If we accept the one (destroying surplus we cavil at reproductive cloning? embryos), then it is only a matter of time and logic Does anyone really doubt, then, that, if in the before we accept the other (creating and destroying first instance we permit surplus em bryos to be cloned embryos) . destroyed in the cause of stem-cell research to cure But perhaps we should press Professors Trounson disease, it will be anything more than a matter of time and Savulescu a little further. Professor Trounson at before we are cloning embryos for the same purpose? least is on record as rejecting 'human reproductive And then, if we are cloning embryos, does anyone cloning', that is, the developing by natural m aternal really doubt that it is anything m ore than a matter of support of a cloned embryo into a human person m ore time before one of these cloned human embryos is allowed to develop into a fully-fledged human person? We have seen surrogacy condoned on altruistic CATHOLI C HEA LTH AUSTRA L IA grounds. Why does anyone think altruistic cloning is any less likely-not now, not even in ten years (the NATIONAL CONFERENCE scientific problem s associated with cloning and s tem -cell research are immense), but FAITH-BASED ORGANISATIONS: ultimately? NAMING THE DIFFERENCE W ARE FACED, THEN, with the Rubicon in ethical Sheraton on the Park Hotel, Sydney • 3- 5 June 2002 discernment. On the one hand we have the logic of Id entifyin g the et hi ca l, theological and soc ial issues the Trounson-Savulescu program: destructive exper un iq ue to Catho li c health and age care will be the focu s imentation on human embryos surplus to IVF needs, of Catho lic Health Australia's national conference to be leading to destructive experimentation on cloned held in Sydney from 3-5 Jun e th is year. embryos (' therapeutic cloning'), leading to the cloning of human persons ('reproductive cloning'). The ethical Keynot e presenter is Janette Gray RSM , se ni or le ctu rer in Systematic Th eo logy from the Unive rsity of Notre Dame trump card in this utilitarian program is the possible Au stral ia. Twenty presenters will co ntribute to the cure of som e human diseases some ten to 20 years two and a half day pro gram . hence (a n estimate by Professor Bob Williamson, Director of the Murdoch Institute). The associated Registration brochures available on li ne at www.cha .org.au benefits are scientific prestige and very considerable fi nancial gains-for those who have invested heavily Co ntact: Judith Ryan in an Australian licence for destructive embryonic E: jud ithr@c ha.org.au stem-cell research. There are also potential financial P: 02 6239 7633 gains for som e state governm ents. The Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, for example, has recently com missioned a new $77.5 million Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland. It could be a white elephant if embryo experimentation is not CATIIO I IC IILALII-I permitted; it could easily become an also-ran in the AU 20 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 for this type of research (see The Australian, 1 April proper environment, we h ave denied them the 2002, pl9). opportunity to develop into m ature m embers of the On the other hand, we have the program espoused human race, and we have frozen, thawed and com most recently by the majority of church leaders and a m odified them in a variety of ways. N ow we are number of prominent scientists, ethicists and com proposing to m ake 'a virtue out of necessity' by munity leaders. They point to our common humanity arbitrarily selecting some of them to experiment on with the embryos stored in IVF laboratories. We were to their destruction, and this for uncertain ends and all embryos once, however small and vulnerable. They distant goals for which alternative non-destructive say that we should respect the embryo because it is protocols with adult stem cells are already being nascent and developing human life. The embryo is developed. valued both for what it is and what it will becom e. This is not redeeming the situation or making a An embryo does not become any less an embryo by a virtue out of necessity. Rather, it is adding insult to m ere stroke of a pen. It does not change its nature or injury. Instead of exposing them to this final indignity its potential by being denominated by som e scientist or state premier as 'surplus', or 'des tined for destructive experimentation', as opposed to 'selected for implantation'. This does not transform it into 'laboratory mate rial' in contrast to its implanted sibling. It possesses might we not redeem our own humanity by allowing the same intrinsic capacity to becom e a human per them to succumb unviolated? We once had the com son and should be respected as such. It is not only the mon decency to walk away from the potentially actual possession of certain features (in this case, the valuable m edical and scientific results of Nazi exper morally significant characteristics of personhood) that iments on concentration camp prisoners. Shall we entitle a human subject to respect. Morality is also have the common humanity to do the same today, about respecting capacities. That is why we accord and argue for legislation to ensure that the obscenity special respect to children. Our m oral obliga tions re of 60,000 human embryos in storage does not recur? gard not m erely present actualities but also future Or shall we cross the ethical Rubicon and pursue the actualities, and therefore present potentialities-in path that leads inevitably to the cloning of fully this case the potentiality of these human embryos. fl edged human beings in the not very distant future? Nor should the fact that we have 60,000 embryos Let no-one be led astray by the asseverations of languishing in storage distract us from this fact. scientis ts and state premiers. Just think of Alan Rather it should invite us to question the motivation Trounson 's recent change of heart on the adequacy of of those who have been responsible for bringing about existing cultures and stem-cell lines. Once one has this situation. To suggest, then, that we can 'redeem' crossed the Rubicon, Rome, paradoxically, is the only this situation by destroying the 'surplus' embryos in possible journey's end. • the cause of stem-cell research and curing disease is highly dubious. We have connived at the prolifera Bill Uren SJ is Hospital Ethicist at the Mater Hospital, tion of these embryos, we have deprived them of their South Brisbane. He could be in school if his community wasn't impoverished Ca riras Ausrralia helps some of rh e mosr margin ali sed communiries around rhe globe by address ing rh e iss ues of poverry. Through long rerm developmem programs we enable peo pl e ro rake grea rer conrrol of rh eir li ves. By remember ing Cariras Ausrra li a in yo ur Will, you are makin g a precious gifr rhar brin gs lasrin g chan ge. Please call 1800 024 413 for more information. www.cari tas.org.au Caritas Australia The Catholic Agency for Overseas Aid and Development V OLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 21 THE NAT ION:l IAN HENDERSON Complacency rules, OK? W e haven't solved unemployment, we've merely swept it under the carpet. T CNTY "'""AGO, hall a million 1ob ~ m ent- because that is what a shortfall His package of unemployment-lowering seekers out of work represented a between supply and dem and of two measures would include: high rates of national crisis. Yet, when John Howard million jobs actually represents: high economic growth maintained for long and Kim Beazley fought out the 2001 unemployment. periods of time and th e avoidance of federal election, there were more than 660,000 unem ployed people unsuccess fully looking for work. And a total of around two million people said they wanted a job-or even more paid hours of work-but were unable to find it. Yet neither La bar nor the Coalition were worried enough to put policies to reduce the number out of work on the election campaign agenda. Unemployment is a high priority for voters: N ewspoll has consistently fo und Oddly enough, it is professional eco recessions; madera te ra tes of aggregate voters rating unemployment among the nomists who are still leading the campaign wage inflation; and policies to improve top three issues they say government for further steps towards fixing the jobs the efficiency of the labour market, such should do something about. But politi CflSlS. as labour-market programs to aid the cians are able, with apparent impunity, Jeff Borland, professor of economics unemployed in their preparation for and to ignore it. at the University of M elbourne-and search for work. Labor listed jobs as one of its key one of Australia's most expert analysts Borland's solution would be widely campaign issues, but failed to set itself of the labour market-warned recently though not universally-accepted among even the modest target of driving the that the problem of unemployment is economists. Part of the reason why we unemployment rate down from its not about to go away (s ee 'Unemploy continue to live with an unacceptably current seven per cent figure to five per ment' in Reshaping Australia's Econo high level of unemployment is that there cent-a target Beazley had set himself at my, John Nieuwenhuysen, Peter Lloyd is a lack of unanimity, and that some the 1998 federal poll. Howard went no and Margaret Mead, Cambridge Uni 'solutions' are little more than the expres further than to promise unspecifi ed versity Press, 2001). And that was when sion of anti-union prejudice. benefits to the labour market from his the official jobless figure was a little Addressing a conference at the Aus government's plans for further labour over six per cent. tralian National University in September market liberalisation. But more worrying, Borland added, is 2001-a month before the federal elec It is difficult to avoid the conclusion the popular perception that there are no tion was called- Treasury secretary Ken that, despite a decade of virtually uninter solutions to the problem, because that Henry went very close to getting the story rupted economic growth, the length of perception is incorrect. Borland wrote: right. Recalling the provocative com the jobless queue remains a national dis ments of his predecessor Ted Evans in grace-but that no-one in authority finds The main diffic ulty in dealing with unem October 1993 that 'in one sense, we can that too distressing. Complacency rules? ployment is not that we do not know what choose the level of unemployment which Well, it does and it does not. to do in order to reduce unemployment, we are willing to bear', Henry noted that If Howard's and Beazley's evident but it is extremely difficult to implement in the intervening eight years, the unem priorities late last year were any guide, policies-such as maintaining high rates ployment rate had fallen from around politicians are under no public pressure of output growth-over a sustained period 11 per cent to about seven per cent. to do anything serious to ease the social of time. This is the real challenge for 'A seven per cent unemployment rate and economic cost of high unemploy- policy-makers. provides no grounds for complacency ... 22 EURE KA STREET MAY 2002 but it is a substantial improvement on is particularly unattractive. Sadly, some imposed by tax and social security 11 per cent,' Henry said. people attribute this material success arrangements. (Ted Evans, 'The Shann His own comments would have been almost entirely to their own ability and Memorial Lecture', University of West more telling had he turned that sentence work. They don't give enough recog ern Australia, 25 September 2001) on its head. How would it have sounded nition to the ever-present factor of luck. Evans argued that Australia's eco if the federal government's top economic They give the impression that those with nomic performance during the 1990s was policy adviser, nine weeks before polling less just haven't worked hard enough. A 'about as good as it gets', and that it owed day, had said this: 'A seven per cent recognition of the degree to which sheer much to a wide range of policy actions: unemployment rate is a substantial luck has helped the materially success tariff reform, fiscal policy reform (fiscal improvement on eleven per cent, but it ful might get rid of that smugness and consolidation in times of growth), provides no grounds for complacency'? induce a little sense of humility.' improvements in the conduct of mone For that message would have pointed There was more, in much the same tary policy, and, of course, labour-market unequivocally to what, it can be argued, vein. But Vanstone's message was clear: reform. is one of the main (if not the main) stum some people find it difficult to take Fine. But it is the contention here that bling blocks to policy action to solve the advantage of the opportunities made the result of all that reform is no less nor major crisis in our society: complacency. available by a growing economy. more than sustained economic growth Australians have become used to living Three months later, Tony Abbott was valuable, but hardly any comfort to the with high unemployment, and are willing to canvass-offering at least tacit 660,000-2,000,000 (take your pick) unconvinced the current situation is approval for the idea being on the policy currently wanting paid work. Until those agenda-the suggestion put forward by in public life find a way to deliver jobs to five prominent Australian economists those now out of employment, the just after the 1998 federal election, that economic policy reform task will have one way out of unemployment for some been only partly completed. • people was to overhaul the welfare system. Their idea (which gained the overnight Ian Henderson is economics correspond support of Abbott, until it was rejected ent for the ABC. by the prime minister) was to ease the financial disincentives associated with moving from social security to paid work; to reduce the high 'effective marginal tax National Forum severe enough to worry rates' on withdrawal from social security about, to demand that that result from the interaction of the tax uvatica n II: policy-makers make getting the system and the highly targeted welfare number of jobless down their top system; to make paid work more attrac Unfinished business" ~ priority. tive for those on the brink of deciding Co-sponsored by Catalyst for Renewal Inc. whether or not to take up a job. and Aquinas Academy .l. ALK OF 'CRISIS' can be cheap and Since then, Abbott-still Howard's Remembering the 40th anniversary of the misleading. But that description is indeed Employment Minister-has returned to beginning of Vatican 11-an opportunity to justified when it comes to unemploy union-bashing and to other pursuits that support and encourage each other and ment. And the fact that political leaders are marginal for anyone interested in prayerfully seek out the questions, were able to avoid making detailed boosting employment and easing the possibilities and challenges for the Catholic promises to deal with that issue during unemployment burden, while continu Church today. last year's federal election campaign is a ing to express genuine concern for the symptom of the very crisis they are disadvantaged. St Joseph's College failing to address fully. Last September-just a week before Hunters Hill, NSW, It is not as though, in unguarded John Howard called the 2001 election July 12, 13 1.?..14, 2002 moments, some-even from the Coali Ted Evans, five months into his retire tion side-are completely insensitive to ment from the Treasury secretaryship, Keynote Speakers: the problem. In an unreported speech in foreshadowed a slowing of the pace of Fr Joseph Komonchak, international Adelaide in April 2001, Amanda Van economic growth in the medium term, authority on the Council from Catholi c stone opened her heart in public to the as population growth continues to slow. University, Washington DC, and Mr John people who are still falling through the That projected future, Evans said, Wilkins, Editor ofThe Tablet, plus more than welfare safety net. 'We want to make sure demanded further liberalisation of the twenty Australian Catholic leaders. that in Australia's new-found prosperity, labour market to ensure that whatever those with less are not left behind,' she increasingly limited additions to labour Reservations essential. said. With others in the Howard govern supply were available were directed to the m ent proudly trumpeting the merits of most productive uses. It also, he said, Contact Patricia on 02 9247 4651 individuals doing things for themselves, warranted more effort to reduce the dis Email :aq u inasa @tpg.com .au Vanstone said, 'The smugness of success incentives to work that are currently VOLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 23 ESSAY -/ ~ --~ - ~ - ...,.. -- .... "'-. ~ " • ... r 7 ... Bearing witness What does the writer, from the privacy of her room, have to say to the publi c at large about matters of national import? Pl e nty. Kim Mahood demonstrated as much when she addressed a capacity crowd at the 2002 Adela ide Writers' Festival. W HEN I WAS A C HILD AT BOARDING SCHOOL I became aware of the gulf between the city and th e bush. Each side held all sorts of derogatory assumptions about the other. The city was a stinking, crowded, polluted hotbed of ill-informed left-wing intellectuals, politicians and conservation ists. It was a place of crim e, corruption and distrust, where neighbours didn't spea k to one another and you couldn't let your kids play in the streets. City people were swayed by the fickle winds of m edia opinion, out of touch with practical realities and addicted to m aterial excess and soft living. The country, on the other hand, was an intellectual desert full of bigots, racists and rednecks who bulldozed the last existing stands of ancient forest through pure bloody- mindedness. If they no longer organised hunting parties to shoot down Aborigines, they still thought it was a good idea. The m acho ideals of manhood ruled suprem e, shored up by alcohol and violence. Country people were ill-inform ed, unsophisticated, attached to a rom anticised notion of rugged individualism and resistant to change and new ideas. There was an additional elem ent in the urban view of the country. At a certain point it ceased to be the country and becam e the Outback, a mythical zone of spiritual possibilitie and m arvellous landscape. It harboured primordial secrets, and it cast a curious grace on all those who lived in it or passed through it. 24 EU REKA STRE ET • M AY 2002 It took me a long time to shed the attitudes of my own childhood. I discovered that I loved cities, the bigger the better. I even enjoyed the company of left -wing intellectuals. My own attitudes and values were challenged continually, and while I did not abandon them I modified them radically. And yet there was something missing in the assessment my city fri ends made of the country. There was little understanding of a dignity, an integrity, a stoic perseverance that seemed to me admirable even when it was attached to opinions I no longer shared. And there was a romanticism, a sentimentality in relation to the landscape and the Aborigines, which also sat uncomfo rtably, and which had nothing to do with the reality of what I remembered. As long as I stay away from the country I grew up in, I can manage these contradictions. When I come back to it I feel like an impos ter. The people of the world to which I once belonged treat me as if I am one of them, assume that I understand the intricacies and difficulties of their lives as no outsider can. And of course I do . I am sucked back into the world which shaped me, with its harsh imperatives, its black humour and subtle understandings. It reclaims me, and the divisions no longer exist outside me but are inside, laying equal claim on my allegiances. L MOVE cxcm"' fmm m y book Cmft fo, o Dry for traces of mineral wealth. Small deposits of alluvial Lake provides a context for the place from which gold were found, and a brief and unsuccessful gold I have chosen to bear witness. I want to try to speak rush occurred in the early 1930s. In the 1960s m y across the divide, as someone who has lived for a long family took up a pastoral lease over the area and time with a foot in both camps, and has acquired a established a cattle station. Around 1980, the property complex set of loyalties along the way. I still have was bought as a going concern by the Aboriginal very strong connections to rural and outback Central Land Council, deeded back to the Aboriginal Australia. Three generations of my family live on a owners and run as a cattle station, usually employing cattle station in Central Queensland, and I spend a a white m anager. A rich gold mine was also discov good deal of time in Central Australia and the Tanami ered, providing royalty paym ents to the handful of region . Warlpiri people with continuing traditional links to I don't write as an apologist for the culture I grew the country. When I returned to the country in 1992, up in, which was involved in one way or another with history had overtaken the place in which I had grown the pastoral industry. It has many flaws, plenty of up. The central issues of race and land and law had which I absorbed and took for granted well into my become visible in a way which does not occur with adult life. On the other hand, it always seem ed to m e such focus in other parts of the country. I could no that it was represented and interpreted simplistically, longer t ake for granted my right to return, an irony of loaded with stereotypes and positive and negative which I was perfectly aware. mythologies. Much of the literature about it was It is country that is still located in the mytholo anecdotal, humorous or romanticised. The canvas on gised zone. It is coded into our sense of identity in which the stories are inscribed is in itself fabulous multiple w ays, yet most Australians will never go to a hard, miraculous landscape which lends itself to places like this. One of the prevailing ironies in Aus mythologising. tralia is that although many of the most pressing I wanted to present a more complex picture, cultural issues we face are to do with land, m ost of us which acknowledged the particular ways in which the live in cities. Opinion s are frequently based on land has influenced and shaped the people, but at the received ideas, stereotypes and projections, unmedi sam e time showed people struggling with the ordinary ated by first-hand experience. difficulties that occur between human beings. Up close the simplifications don't hold. D ecent So I've chosen to bear witness for a particular people behave decently even in difficult circum piece of country in a remote part of Australia, and for stances. Cultures in crisis throw up predators of all the lives it has shaped, both past and present. The kinds, and exploitative behaviour is not culture place and its story encapsulate many issues facing specific. Ordinary people do the best they can in the Australians today. circumstances. The country I'm speaking about was originally I'm fully aware that to venture into the terrain the home of small nomadic groups of Warlpiri people, of white and Aboriginal relationships to country is to at the north-w est ern extent of their traditional step into a minefield located somewhere between the country. It was surveyed in 1900 by a geologist whose high moral ground and the siege mentality, and that brief was to fill in the gaps on the m ap, and to explore one risks drawing fire from both sides. V OLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EU REKA STR EET 25 When I returned to the country in which I had reanimating their country, brushmark by brushmark, grown up I didn't know what I would find or how I empowering the ancestors, keeping the country would feel about it. So I attempted to write as clearly strong. The country they paint is so thoroughly and honestly as I could, without concealing my own internalised it can be expressed in a series of shared ambivalence and discomfort. It is here that perhaps symbols which simultaneously represent place, I can bear witness for Australians who are not ancestral events and daily activities. convinced by the simplifications of either the high Taking people out to hunt or get firewood or just moral ground or the siege mentality, and who are to visit country, paying attention to the incremental prepared to excavate the layers of their own shifts in my own perception, the notion grew discomfort, baggage and prejudices in order to on me that consciousness might exist exter get at what feels like a truth. nally as well as internally, that when a place Writing allows for this sort of excavation. becomes so thoroughly m apped into the Every writer knows the process of worrying psyche, to visit that place might be like encoun away at something until suddenly you find yourself tering the structures of one's own mind as a physical in a place you didn't expect to be, with words on the reality, to participate literally in shared ancestral psy page you didn't know you had in you. chological events. This satisfies me much more than And they are the words that matter, because you the conventional interpretations of spirituality, which have pulled them out of something bigger than your come laden with the trappings of Western thought. self. That same jolt of recognition the writer feels is It gives a different, more pragmatic way of also felt by the reader. These are the words understanding the chaos wrought by white settle which can have an effect. ment. We blindly settled in the consciousness of a people, thinking it was only geography, and we are W ICH BRINGS ME to the notion of the writer's being remade by it. responsibility to bear witness for others. I doubt that The country where I grew up is stronger than the many books get written from that motive alone. To people. I suspect that for some white Australians, who feel passionately enough about something to put in have lived a long time close to the land, there are the hard years of work a good book requires generally contours and hollows in the mind which have come m eans there's something you need to sort out for your to resemble the shapes of the country they inhabit. It self, some recalcitrant obsession that fuels the need is an inarticulate place, lacking the symbolic language to write this particular story. Certainly I wrote first necessary to describe it. And meanwhile the ances and foremost to clarify something for myself, although tral consciousness forces its way into the fissures and I was aware that the material I was exploring straddled flaws of white consciousness, and is slowly finding some of the big issues of the time. its way along the faultlines out to the urban fringes. A book written as a polemic, to prove a point, This is what we are dealing with today. It's a painful often undermines itself with its own stridency. In my and uncomfortable process, and there is no way back view, the writers' job is to approach their material from it. It makes us resentful, ingratiating, uneasy, with curiosity and trepidation, with as much nerve apologetic, angry, sentimental and hypocritical. It has and honesty as they can muster, and to stay the dis created a gap between the public conversation and tance. So I have tried to write about what it is like on the private conversation which leaves us in a curiously the ground, out where the faultline is impossible to divided state. This may be the most volatile faultlinc ignore, and where the faultlines in your own nature we straddle. arc as difficult to negotiate as the cultural ones. I think the writer's job is to open up the com I am curious, for instance, to explore the ways in plexities, the particularities, the stories that slide which Aboriginal culture has had an impact on white between the stereotypes, to create an imaginative Australia. Evidence of the impact of white on black space in which the perspective can suddenly shift and is clear. The reverse is much more subtle, but equally reveal different possibilities. profound. This is the voice I seek in my own writing. I write Because I grew up with Aboriginal people around as an ordinary individual who feels responsible me all the time it is impossible for me to romanticise towards the country I live in and love. I lack the the culture. Up close it is confronting, uncmnforta certainties of an activist and the intellectual discipline ble and full of contradictions. It is also dynamic, of a historian, or the quick-wittedness for public remarkable and resilient. debate. What I do have is a passion for the precise and My own observations over the years, and partic subtle nature of language, its capacity to open spaces ularly my exposure to pre-contact people who spent in which the unsayable can make itself heard. If this their early years in the bush and didn't meet whites reaches a few people, makes them pause and recon until they were in their teens, has led me to wonder sider, think a little more deeply, then writing can whether the country itself is a form of consciousness. achieve something. • Watching the old painters at work day after day, it is apparent that while painting they are revisiting and Kim Mahood is the author of Craft for a Dry Lake. 26 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 Summed up W.TA M ONTH n's been fm the economy. In the elegaot six economists-her students in the most literal sense. They argot of the financial commentators, the economy's 'going were arguing vigorously in rasping whispers, managing the gangbusters'. It's 'steaming'. There's some danger that it might difficult feat of sounding in the one sibilant moment both even be overheating. By and large, those descriptions remind aggressive and reverential. me of the motor of my old Landcruiser, but I know that these 'We can have confidence in her,' said one, nodding towards are technical terms for outcomes (there are no 'results', no The Economy, 'because though her implications are inexact, 'consequences'-just outcomes) that only economists under we know her from experience and introspection.' stand and about which they make invariably wrong predictions. 'Be buggered,' said another, resorting to what I assum e was But given all this economic hyperbole, I eagerly accepted a technical jargon, 'if we understand her by introspection, she commission to interview The Economy for Eureka Street. can't be accessible to empirical study.' I don't know what I expected. Last year, I interviewed The 'By paying attention only to her most significant deter Dollar. It was on its deathbed at the time-one of its character minants, we can know her fully and precisely,' said a third, istic postures-and n ot particularly forthcoming. On the unable to keep a lascivious undertone from his voice. strength of that encounter, I vainly attempted a serious discus Shouldering aside these arguing acolytes, I asked The sion with The Market. But he turned out to be a rampaging, Economy if she minded being talked about as if she were not philistine m egalomaniac, drunk on a cocktail of testosterone present. She replied, 'I am never present and always present. and rescue remedy. So when it came to The Economy, anything I was there at genesis, in the story of Adam Smith and Eve. seem ed possible-perhaps I would meet a sort of financial Before The Market was, I am . There is no such thing as society, vampire, a fiscal Dracula? there is only me. There are no nations, only economies. I am But-on the contrary. The Economy was a shock. She was, all economies and no economy. I am, on the same day and in to begin with, rather stunning. She had a beautiful set of num different places, both m eltdown and rock solid, I am going bers which I will not be so sexist, or in the language of another gangbusters and I am sluggish-' age, so ungallant, to enumerate, but you can take it from me 'And steaming? Overhea ting?' I asked, anxious to impress that these numbers described arcs, undulations and enfoldments with m y technical knowledge. But she had turned away to considerably more interesting than the statistical normal curve. consider a peach proffered by one of the acolytes. And I realised that I should have foreseen this. The Economy I saw that the peach was called Fine Tuning. is, after all, on everyone's lips, which means that everyone's lips must be on her. It dawned on me that a female interviewer I NCONCLUSIVE THOUGH THE interview was, it profoundly in my position would see before her not the seductive siren influenced me. I was much taken with the idea that there is I was viewing but an Adonis, a male miracle of proportion and only the economy and nothing else. How simplifying. How neat. allurement. The Economy, you see, is all things to all men and I realised this made me a supporter of the Republic of the all women. The Economy is an androgyne, a chameleon, Economy of Australia, that I lived in the Economy of Little assuming this or that guise according to need. This is one of River in the Economy of Victoria, that I barracked for the the reasons why, incidentally, she so fascinates politicians, Economy of St Kilda. The latter insight alone was worth all the whose efforts to be multi-faced, to be all things to all people, rest, cauterising as it did the pain, anxiety, defeat and despair are puny by comparison but no less determined for all that. that were part of following the actual St Kilda football team For the interview, I travelled to her house-a mansion in a much more complex proposition. This, I saw, was the great the country, architecturally neoclassical at first glance but gift of the economists and politicians. Once you understand revealing on closer scrutiny modernist tendencies. On the front you are an economic unit living in an economy not a society, it gate, ornately inscribed like a scroll, were the words In the long takes all the angst out of being human; it takes the human out run we are all dead. of being human. When I was ushered in to her presence, I found her reclin Shylock, a canny oeconomist of Venice, asked, 'If you prick ing-or perhaps draped would be the mot fuste-on a long couch us, do we not bleed?' Well, no mate-not in an economy. The with a ballast of cushions wherever the lines of her body threat best you can hope for is a sanguinary outcome. • ened to press too harshly on the upholstery. And I saw that this chaise longue was called Soft Landing. Around her were five or Brian Matthews is a writer and academic. VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 27 Part 2 of the quest for a device to think with, in which the author empties the contents of a shoebox, discerns a curiously postmodern sort of map and follows its signs and portents from Australia to China and back again. T "" A >TORY oe WNG AGO, ., J.R.R. Tolkion once and they may even come with a dire warning. They said of the famous little adventure he titled, alter are also sometimes handled carelessly, trifled with, natively, 'Th ere and Back Again'. Tolkien also and even laughed at. But these fragments have the reminded us that the language and letters of long ago power to take you back 30 years, if only you can were quite different from ours of today, and so it is remember a certain trick of the Old Ones, in which that the Old Ones do not comprehend the baffling you read for structure and meaning, an antique device tongue of postmodernism, especially in its written in widespread use before the N ew Ones came and form, which contains a preponderance of symbols for taught us to look beyond the crudity of meaning into that which is eclectic, ephemeral, iconic, incoherent, the interrogation of alterity. disposable, collectable or suitable for publication in a Personally, I have taken to keeping fragments in modern university handbook. shoeboxes. I can't quite bring myself to call these So it is too that the potent relics of an epic fragm ents anything postmodern, since they seem to struggle of long ago and far away, of China's Cultural be trying to tell me something, but maybe the hobbits Revolution, have been set adrift from their times can help out with the word 'mathom', denoting (decontextualised) and have begun to wash up in the anything you have no immediate use for but are op shop of contemporary popular culture and fashion, reluctant to throw away. I have kept my most recent where they are seized upon by gleeful collectors, who mathoms in a red shoebox which I now discover may prize them for their strangely fashionable dagginess, be construed in a certain fashion, not as 'a random or by those who go in for interactive art, disposable swirl of empty signals' or an 'evacuation of authen simulacra and urban anthropology. They may turn up ticity' as I read in my dictionary of literary terms, but in a place like the Museum of Modern Oddities, now as a sort of Thror's map, in Tolkien's tale, helping itself vanished from its suitably ephemeral home in us to find the way through fabled lands and back an old hardware shop in Johnston Street in Colling again. wood, Melbourne. They may appear suddenly, out of First, from a newspaper article about ephemeral nowhere, at the tip or in a garage sale, or, like the street art, there is a picture of the Republic Tower, Monkey's Paw, they may be passed on reluctantly by corner of Queen and La Trobe streets in Melbourne, someone who has a healthy respect for their power, in February this year, adorned with a giant image 28 EU REKA STREET • M AY 2002 called Trigger Happy, a work by the Chinese the dictatorship of the proletariat and the overthrow Australian artist Guo Jian. The image, from an of the privileged classes. N ow it's a nifty decal for a exhibition called 'Mama's Tripping', depicts a heavily T-shirt, like the Nike tick or the hemp leaf. lipsticked woman in People's Liberation Army uniform holding a microphone with a number of Sweet is puzzled about why Maoist and Soviet leering, laughing Chinese soldiers in the background. iconography appears 'cute' while the paraphernalia of In the box I also find the catalogue for this exhibi Nazism gets an altogether different reaction. H e tion, with an introduction by Nicholas Jose and notes observes that collectors of Nazi m emorabilia have to of an interview with the artist conducted by Linda 'skulk' around on the internet, while Soviet m emo Jaivin of Eat Me and Rock 'n' Roll Babes from Outer rabilia can be found at fl ea markets everywhere, and Space fam e. The Canberra Contemporary Art Space, puts this down to the fact that Nazi images rely in September- October 2000, exhibited Guo Jian 's heavily on hatred. I don't personally think the hatred works, including Wet Dream, Double Happiness, New business is that simple. Hate is a many-splendoured Long March, and a series, from which the Melbourne thing, to borrow Han Suyin's felicitous piece is taken, in which one of the revolutionary phrase. ballets of Jiang Qing (Madame Mao), The Red Detach ment of Women, is the principal motif. As Nicholas INTHE SHOEBOX is a postcard from my visit to Paris Jose puts it in his introduction : last year, a postcard of Sacre Coeur, returned to me by a friend for a souvenir. (A number of my friends have It's a collage m ethod that allows him to draw in an the disconcerting habit of returning my postcards.) eclectic crowd of figures and tokens. Too much is not I have written on the back: enough. Visual elements from Chinese fo lklore and religion, Communist political culture and the newly June 4, Falungong demo here. I wonder if they're mak burgeoning commercial culture are reworked in lurid, ing some link between the anniversary of Tiananmen manic travesty. Images that were used to sell a society massacre and The Paris Commune which became to its people are revealed for the mindfucking drugs such a model of people power in the early Cultural they are. Revolution and then attacked as ultra-leftism etc.? This is w here the Communards were massacred, Then there is this item, from one of the Sunday before the cathedral was built. I seem to remember magazines, about a restaurant called Mao's, in Bruns Marx or Engels saying something very striking, very wick Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne: moving about the unbelievable violence. Mao's feels like a location for a Jim Jarmusch movie. I have since found the reference-Marx's 1871 pam Designed by Six Degrees, it's hip but dreamy, buzzing phlet, The Civil War in France. He was apparently but gritty. Matt Morrow's propagandist mural of Mao stunned by the ferocity with which the bourgeois Zedong dominates the entrance, then gives way to the republicans crushed the proletariat in a bloodbath in 'wallpaper'-large-scale Tony Knox photographs of 1848, and then again in 18 71: Hunan province (the restaurant's specialty cuisine) .. . Well-wrought specialities include the rice-flour It was the first time that the bourgeoisie showed to pancakes and fish with red basil. w hat insane cruelties of revenge it will be goaded the moment the proletariat dares to take its stand against I have frequented a few of these places myself, in the bourgeoisie as a separate class with its own inter Melbourne, Canberra, Singapore, and even China. It ests and demands, And yet it was only child's play seems now, in the town of Yangshuo, there is a twin compared with the frenzy of the bourgeoisie in 18 71. restaurant called Mickey and Minnie Mao's. Perhaps it is owned by Rex Hunt. Then I find a photograph I Say what you like about Madame Mao's revolu took in Canton (Guangzhou) last year, in which Mao's tionary modern operas and ballets, The Red Lantern face appears on a porcelain plate, sitting on a rug in a and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy at least m ade street stall among lacquer boxes, cloisonne vases, the business of who was fighting who much clearer three-coloured Tang horses, fat-bellied laughing than the musical Les Miserables, judging by the Buddhas and cans of Sprite. number of people who think the latter is about the Another newspaper article, this one by Matthew French Revolution. And the necessity to identify hero Sweet in The Weekend Australian two years ago, and villain with class imprint, of m embership of reminds m e that he said som ething interesting about proletariat and bourgeoisie, was crystal clear to Soviet and Chinese paraphernalia: audiences, regardless of their lack of sophistication in matters of Marxism-Leninism . As incomprehen It's a demonstration of how thoroughly postmodern sible as it may seem to us in Australia today, the ism has evacuated m eaning from some of the world's Cultural Revolution was about manipulation of the most powerful totalitarian symbols. The hammer and m asses by a political elite, in order to harness the sickle, for example, once stood for the inviolable power of fear and hatred of a cultural elite, and cultural solidarity of industrial and agricultural workers, for outsiders, in the interests of a political faction. VOL UME 12 N UMBER 4 • EU REKA STREET 29 Maoist mythology and the Nazi variety have an As it happens, my little red shoebox of post aesthetic of hate in common, but the Nazi mytho m odern Cultural Revolution bits and pieces contains logy derives its primary symbolism not from class but half a dozen or so articles about Australia and the from the timeless romance of blood and race, located treatment of 'illegals', shock-jock attacks on pinko in a heroic tale of origin. The Chinese proletarian intellectuals, Herald Sun phone polls, George W. myth is by no m eans free from matters of blood and Bush, the Axis of Evil, and Senator Bill Heffernan. race, but its emphasis on historical materialism and What do these foolish things have in common? I am class struggle may well look quaint by comparison, thinking of my own revolutionary modern operas, in an unrealised dream, or fairy tale perhaps, of some which, in keeping with the true spirit of the Cultural thing preposterously 'real' to do with workers, soldiers Revolution, protagonists and settings are modernised, and peasants. Is the postmodern representation of characterisation simplified and themes strengthened. Chinese Cultural Revolution mythology just a kind The first is called 'Asylum Seekers My Arse' and of grown-up, half-cynical, half-bored way of looking portrays ordinary decent Australians showing com at this strenuous Marxist-Leninist attempt at meaning? passion and generosity for true refugees who haven't As the Canadian literary theorist Northrop Frye made it here yet by hating the phoneys, whom we once put it, the revolutionary is essentially a 'bad can easily recognise by their ratbag supporters critic' who mistakes a 'myth of freedom' for a 'histor (chardonnay-swilling, chattering class, elite maggots) ically realisable goal'. If that's the case, the Cultural and the fact that they are here in the first place instead Revolution was no place for revolutionaries. The 1949 of being in a queue, or dead. The title for a second is Communist victory may well be seen as both a myth eluding me ('Transaction Costs' doesn't quite do it of freedom and a historically realised goal, and perhaps for me) but it's inspired by the example of social the idealistic are always bad critics to some extent, commentators like John Stone and Wolfgang Kasper but the mythology of the Cultural Revolution called who have drawn attention to the differences between for a different sort of critic. It was, as the Marxist racial prejudice and cultural incompatibility and literary theorist Terry Eagleton has said of myth in helped us to distinguish clearly between good positive general, a 'device to think with', enabling people to contempt for rotten, despicable, backward, sub-human see how they should act in order to be mistaken for cultures and its polar opposite- nasty, negative, revolutionaries. Such people were actually quite good un-Australian racism. critics, who saw-early-that the way to demonstrate The picture above is an example of the aesthetic one's revolutionary status in real life was to demon of hatred shining through, in a scene from the very strate fervent hatred of class enemies in a way that popular revolutionary modern ballet, The White mimicked what was happening on stage in the haired Girl, in which an indomitable peasant girl revolutionary modern theatre. triumphs over adversity and exile during the Anti Basically the trick was to demonstrate that you Japanese War. In this close-up from the filmed version were a bona fide member of the revolutionary class, of the ballet, the heroine shows the burning hatred by identifying so strongly with those on stage who she feels for the wicked landlord and his flunkey who were suffering outrageous injustice at the hands of murdered her father and took her into slavery, from the class enemy that you were moved to inflict out which she escaped to live by her wits in the wild, her rageous injustice on real class enemies, who could hair turning white from privation until at last she is easily be identified by the fact that they were hated reclaimed by the People's Liberation Army, who show by a phoney revolutionary. You could learn to perform her how to put hatred and the desire for revenge to this manoeuvre very economically, by watching five good use in the struggle for Liberation. This was operas, two ballets and a symphony. They did not have perhaps the best-loved of the revolutionary modern talkback radio in those days. Chinese theatre and is still occasionally shown abroad, 30 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 as it was a few years ago in M elbourne. Among I am a sucker for meaning. What they saw was survivors of the Cultural Revolution you will often the immediate irony of a god-like figure reduced to hear the tale that a portrait of the heroine, furtively commercial object; and what I saw, as an integral part cut from a magazine extolling the 'model' works, was of the irony, was the preservation of the essential idea often secreted in the wallets of young m en. They just of Mao. This was not just the usual souvenir repro loved her when she got mad. And they were also wild duction, with image unrelated to medium (like about her costume, although the part they liked best pictures of the British royal family stamped incon is not featured in this shot. Not only did the heroine gruously on tea towels and other domestic items survive the ordeal of the Anti-Japanese and Civil Wars unlikely to figure large in their daily lives), but a but the more private longings of young men survived reproduction of meaning: Mao still giving us a light, the Cultural Revolution, it seems. As a colleague said Mao the red sun in our pockets, if not in our hearts, to me recently when I told her this during a conference and ready to break into a bar or two of The East is on modern Chinese culture, 'Aren't people wonderful?' Red at the flick of a thumb-the neatest, coolest and In other works-modern revolutionary Beijing most ironic thing I've seen since White Elephant operas such as On the Docl VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 31 containing a selection of the works-not to mention So I have added to my collection an article by bizarre karaoke versions, in which, for example, Shaun Carney in The A ge, 23 February 2002, 'The languorous women warriors of the PLA (which these Sinking of an Honourable Man', in which I have high days freely encourages heavy make-up and casually lighted the striking introduction: 'In Howard's Liberal arranged tunics, it seems) moon about beneath lush Party, the idea that asylum seekers deserve to have palms, in a manner reminiscent more of Rodgers and the truth told about them seems utterly alien-' That's Hammerstein than Jiang Qing. Red Detachment of it. Carney has hit the nail on the hea d. That's the Women meets South Pacific. The lyrics, 'Forward meaning of everything in the red shoebox. These are along a path crimson with the blood of martyrs', seem not postmodern 'evacuations' at all. Neither the a little out of keeping with the rather more Cultural Revolution nor contemporary Australian accommodating looks on the faces of the wornen. politics is about truth, or even the perception of All of this, and further observations in late 200 l truth- it is about who deserves to have the truth told (including many hours spent in a Cultural Revolu about them. It's only an arrogant minority who just tion collectables store in Singapore, and in bookstores don't get it- un-Australian wankers, losers, poofters, and music shops in Canton) makes me wonder if the ivory-tower academics, Howard-haters and raghcad works will have contemporary meaning only if we lovers. They don't deserve to have the truth told about think of them either as something to do with the them either. It's the masses, the silent m ajority who history of theatre or in some vaguely postmodern silently express themselves on talkback radio, and sense as 'classics' of nostalgia, ephemera, part of a are silently m onitored by Rehame, who count. This collage like the works of Guo Jian. Will they continue land is our land, th is land is made for you and me to be converted into curious fragments of their era but not them, and from Tony Abbott to Sam and made 'collectable' like posters and advertise N ewman, Peter Reith, Bill Heffernan and Alan ments, in order to salvage contemporary artistic Jones, we are rich with voices of the people who significance and diversion from the remains of are not afraid to be heard, who stand ready to defy impossibly crude ideology or impossibly bourgeois academic authorities who would oppose complex politics? the brilliant new radical conservative proletarian Australian operas. B ACK IN AusTRA LIA, back in my shoebox, I continue As I put my things back in their box, I rediscover to accumulate evidence of impossibly crude politics, Nicholas Jose's catalogue notes for the Guo Jian works of a fart that has been turned into an opera, as the and I notice something else I just didn't get before: Chinese say. The fart of unauthorised arrival has been Guo )ian re-stages Australia as a theme park, a turned into the opera of border protection. As pleasure resort with a sky of Australian blue where I watched a performance of this at Woomera Stadium anything goes, where people arc perpetually high, on television this Easter, I was confronted not only where excess turns beauty into ugliness and ugliness by the image of razor wire, but by the image of Balzac's into endless play. 'razor of justice', that protects the sleep of the rich from the sleeplessness of the poor. In this country, Guo Jian's setting for the myth of freedom is not Ruddock's Razor protects the sleep of the ordinary, China at all, but Australia. • decent, fair-minded Australian from the leeplessness of the ungra teful, insolent, and barbaric asylum Trevor Hay is a Melbourne academic, author and Port seekers. Adelaide supporter. 32 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 THE LAW MOIRA RAYNER Uncommon law Proposed new laws in Western Australia revive some of the iniquities of the Star Chamber. L An '" 2001, a VOLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 33 on keeping the peace. It quickly developed into a very wrote, in 'The N ew Star Chamber', his 1904 essay special court. on the rights of workers to organise: 'It began by inter By 1529 the Star Chamber court was seen as fering, through the king himself, with the adminis performing necessary and valuable work in punish tration of the law by the regularly con stituted ing powerful off enders who could not be reached by courts. It began w eak. It grew strong by silent and the ordinary courts of law. Its procedure was quick gradual encroachment. ' and simple: proceedings were begun by written infor The original Star Chamber was abolished by mation, which bypassed the need to persuade a grand parliament in 1641, but its infamy lives on. It had an jury that an offence might have been committed. It original, worthy purpose, but its conveniently speedy could enforce written answers, inflict torture and and informal process, and its confusion of judicial and other punishments. It was very efficient. executive power, was the recipe for abuse. It was used But over time its efficiency cam e to be oppres to terrorise and intimidate opponents of the sive. Its jurisdiction sprawled to include censorship powerful, without the restraint of law. used to punish 'seditious libel' (or dissent)-and fundraising (fines were paid direct to the king) . It was A MODERN REPRESENTATIVE democracy m oderates also used to persecute unpopular religionists. Ordinary the use of power. In 21st-century Australia it is citizens were encouraged to bypass the common-law understood that a 'fair' trial requires a formal investi courts by using it as well. It was so seductively simple. gation process in which one may decline to self There were no witnesses. All evidence was produced incriminate or participate without fearless, competent in writing and read out. The proceedings were inquis legal representation. It is also a basic principle that itorial. There was no jury and none of the procedural judges are not like other government officials. Elected inhibitions of common-law courts. The Star Chamber parliamentarians make laws; the 'executive' could initiate a coercive process on the basis of ministers and public servants, as well as the police rumour; and it could force people to incriminate them administer them, and judges make sure they do it selves or, reversing the burden of proof, to establish properly. The Australian constitution explicitly their innocence or else be punished. It even sum separates the judicial function from the other two, as moned juries before it for having produced verdicts even the WA constitution does, and there is (since disagreeable to the government. As Edgar Lee Master Joh Bjelke-Petersen's day) at least a basic political understanding that the roles must not be conflated. lil t' Law and order cannot be preserved at the cost of the rule of law . . WA's 'organised crime' bill breaks down the ~~.-.:;;~~~ .,.ludon~i111< BFND I GO..t•~• .fo,.l proper distinction between the administrators of "I think it's rubbish that big [church] numbers justice, and the investigators putting together a prosecution case. It sets up an unusual and- on the mean success ... You don't know what success face of it-unnecessary, powerful, unreviewable secret in ministry means un til the Lord Jesus investigation office veneered with 'judiciality', but returns. Only then do you know ... to whom without any guarantee that its powers would not be He will say 'well done good and fa ithful misused. servant'." Is the bill necessary? fust before Easter an ex-bikie Canon Dr Peter Adam, quietly confessed to the car-bombing and turned new Principal of Ridley Theological College super-grass on the Gypsy Jokers. The bill was not dropped. There are, after all, many other bikie gangs "What right have [Christians] to condemn the and much 'organised crime' to be eradicated. State of Israel when our own intolerance and A parliamentary committee has recommended cruelty made its creation necessary in the changes to the bill. While they ponder, politicians first pl ace?" would do well to remember their history. Paul Richardson, Assistant Bishop of Newcastle UK, The need for a strong central court directly inspired on Religion, Peace and the Middle East by the king, which could administer justice without respect of persons, was so great that the constitutional danger of establishing an autocratic judicial commit The Melbourne Anglican tee untrammelled by the ordinary rules of law, passed 1998 winner of the Gutenberg Award fo r notice at the time it was established. It was not until Excellence in Religious Communication much later that the nation came to look upon the Star Mention this ad for a free sample copy of TMA Chamber as the special engine of royal tyranny and to Phone: (03) 9653 4221 loathe its name. -Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 • or email: [email protected] Moira Rayner is a barrister and a freelance writer. 34 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 THE NA T\ON: 2 JOHN C HESTERMAN & SALLY CLOKE Woomera file Th ere are disc repancies betwee n the political and media hype and the testimony of protesters w ho were eyewitnesses to the incidents at W oomera. EVERY so OFTEN a government policy decide who comes to this country'). In the hordes will descend (this is a well-worn strikes a significant minority of the light of the legitimate questions raised fear that used to be argued in relation to population as so abhorrent that ballot- by Indigenous people over prior exertions Indo-Chinese refugees in the 1970s, and can box tolerance-that is, tolerance until the of Australian sovereignty, one could anyone seriously say that Australia is worse next opportunity to cast a vote-seems easily theorise about why now-ten years off as a result of accepting these refugees manifestly inadequate. Australia's after the Mabo decision-people might into Australian society?). involvement in the Vietnam War was one wish for sovereignty to be vigorously Supporters of the hardline stance such policy, and the hardline government reasserted, but that is another issue. argue that in a democracy like ours, (and opposition) stance on asylum One factor, however, tends to unify governments are entitled to pursue seekers promises to be another genera- those who, from a wide range of political policies with which a majority of people tionally defining issue. positions, support the hardline stance: a agree. Given the central place played by Indeed, this seems to be one of those fundamental inability to imagine the issue in the last federal election, few issues when parents are confronted with themselves in the position of those could argue that the asylum-seeker the question: what will you tell your seeking asylum. This made Easter, in a policies do not have majority support. children that you did in response to the 'do unto others' sense, seem like the right The 'majority rules' argument is convinc- manda tory detention of (illegally time to be making the trip to Woomera. ing when we are talking about workplace arriving) asylum seekers? The inability of hardliners to imagine reform, or about overhauling the health It was that question that drove my themselves as asylum seekers manifests system, re-ordering educational priori- partner and me to take our three young itself in a number of self-serving myths ties, or even drastically changing the children to Woomera at Easter, and that attempt to render noble the ignoble. taxation system. But it falls down when despite the adverse reactions of many to The asylum seekers are queue- jumpers we are talking about the most basic of the protests, I am glad that we did it. (where are the queues in Iraq and Afghan- human rights, the right of refugees to be There are a variety of reasons why istan?). They aren't refugees if they can free from persecution. Even if most many people support the government's afford to pay people-smugglers (who, in people want the government to override mandatory detention policy. Some fear the asylum seekers' position, would not this human right, that hardly makes it that terrorists may lurk among the scrounge whatever money they could acceptable. The 'tyranny of the majority' refugees, though on all reasonable find to pay to remove themselves and should on occasion be held at bay. As accounts that is unlikely. Some fear the their families from persecution?). Most James Madison, one of the authors of the economic impact of unskilled immi- of the 'boat people' are just illegal immi- American Constitution, wrote in 1787, grants, though many asylum seekers are grants and are not real refugees (are not oftentimes in conflicts 'the public good skilled, and in any case there exist the vast majority-above 70 per cent, is disregarded' and 'measures are too strong economic arguments about the even in conservative estimates, some often decided, not according to the rules benefits of increased immigration. from the Immigration department itself- of justice and the rights of the minor Some, more generally, simply want to destined to be deemed refugees ?). party, but by the superior force of an exert Australia's sovereignty ('we will Australia can't be seen as 'a soft touch' or interested and overbearing m ajority'. VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 35 That is why we have jurisprudential concepts such as due process and the separation of powers, doctrines that seem W MERA, Gooo FRtDAY. Riot police condemn it, taking Christ's words that increasingly to be under threat in Australia. line up across the road; a group of we should 'render unto Caesar' to mean Taking these thoughts to Woomera, mounted police ride towards our camp obeying the laws of the land even when I was struck by the general agreem ent site. In the gathering darkness, a refugee we believe they're unjust. among those present about the need to woman hides inside a tent, surrounded Yet when Jesus saw that money protest non-violently over the treatment by a human shield of protesters-in their lenders had set up shop in God's temple of those people behind the perimeter turn encircled by a dozen or so more police. to exploit those who came to worship, fence. Certainly there were some mem We had marched to the fence to wave he had no hesitation in throwing over bers of the more than 1000 campers who and shout our support to the detainees; their tables. Is it such a big leap from this were driven by the thrill of a possible to pushing over fences that should not confrontation with police, and this be therel opportunity presented itself on Good A radical suggestion? Perhaps, and I'm Friday, when up to 50 detainees (with certainly no radical, and nor were most absurd ease, it must be said) managed to of my fellow protesters. One of the flee the detention centre and come into government's most malignant achieve the camp. ments is the 'demonisation of dissent' But those protesters who itched for anyone who disagrees with their policies violent confrontation were in a tiny is by definition a ratbag. There were minority. The typical protesters were our many people at Woomcra on their first neighbours, Michael and Sue, who were protest, ordinary people of all ages, back in their 50s and had driven up from grounds and beliefs driven by anger and Melbourne with their 13-year-old son. suddenly, unbelievably they are among us, frustration at the way our 'boundless plains They did not seek a violent confronta 'detainees' no more. Unprepared, protest to share' had shrunk to a few hundred tion with police, and nor did they want leaders argue over what should happen square metres of desert behind razor wire. to help the detainees break out of the next. Get Ruddock out here? Call the UN? Not that most-or probably even centre (something that most of us Chartering a helicopter is one of the more many-people at the protest were moti thought would probably not be in their fanciful-or desperate-suggestions. Ten vated by formal religious beliefs of any long-term interests). Michael and Sue, sion and uncertainties swirl through the flavour, although I did meet one or two like us, simply wanted to make a political camp lil 36 EU REKA STREET • MAY 2002 [HEsHoRrliS] Storykeepers, Marion H alliga n (ed.). Duffy & which the fu nction of the nose is for snorting and getting angry · Snellgrove, 2001. ISBN 1 876 63 110 4, RRP $25 to a Zimbabwean illustration of the wedge-shaped Spirit hovering storY keepers This book fascinates, pleases, enlightens, and it over the heads of the Apostles, the book is a lively and well sent me scurrying to read other books. Marion informed presentation of biblical imagery. -A.H. Halligan organised 18 authors to make a literary response to a deceased Australian writer who So Vast the Prison, Assia D jcbar, trans. Betsy inspired them or to books of the past which had Wing. Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002. ISBN 1 876 a significant impact on them. The Batavia, the 63138 4, RRP $20.95 Bounty and Bligh's open-boat epic to Timor, So Vast the Prison is a slow, unstoppable explo Truganini's Tasmania, are contemplated with sion of Arab feminism. After so much silence, flair and intensity, as are writers as disparate as this communication comes as a shock. Djebar Mrs Aeneas Gunn, Barbara Baynton and Kenneth Slessor. has the self-conscious power of the politically Tom Griffiths honours the splendid Flying Fox and Drifting and socially aware, and the voiceless power of Sand (1938) by Francis Ratcliffe, a scientist and pioneer of the the ancient rhythms of life-always remember Australian conservation movement. Rodney Hall winningly bewails ing the generations of women behind her. the enigma that Joseph Furphy's unique masterpiece Such is Life The main character, Isma, is Algerian, and (1903) has been largely shunned. Henry Reynolds discusses G.W. through her the author presents an Arab and a European perspective Rusden and his History of Australia (1883). Beverley Farmer reacts simultaneously, seeing every shade of culture from within and movingly to Katharine Susannah Prichard's Coonardoo (1929). without, until the unfamiliar seems merely forgotten. Djebar explores Brian Matthews intrigues by juxtaposing Henry Lawson and Pauline the history of Algeria, in particular the widespread loss of the Berber Hanson. Storykeepers may help inform scholars and readers that a language, French colonisation and independence's bloodshed. great hunk of our best literature was penned in the SO years before Human emotions are described so honestly that the reader World War II, yet most readers ignore it. -John Sendy feels exposed. Djebar writes as a woman, specifically and unapologetically, but also freely as a human subject, not an object, The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition: defined by herself. Her protagonist, Ism a, becomes a filmmaker and From the Book of Job to Modern Genetics, Joseph takes on the responsibility of subjecthood, the 'unflinching gaze' of F. Kelly. Michael Glazier/The Liturgical Press, one who interprets reality. 2002. ISBN Q 814 65 104 6, RRP $43.95 So Vast the Prison moves from mountains to prison cells, from Any theological textbook whose last chapter tiny, stifling houses to the soaring freedom of the sky. Amy Tan bears an epigraph from theX-Files has something comes to mind, so does Naguib Mahfouz. This book demands an going for it. Joseph Kelly does not make much of intense intellectual engagement, while speaking directly to the this popular cultural reference, but in his survey heart, like poetry. -Susannah Buckley of the Western treatment of evil, he trawls beyond the usual shallows of philosophical and From the Country: An Anthology, T.R. Garnett, theological analysis. He recognises the impor- George Seddon (ed.), original illustrations by tance of literary works for the formation of cultural attitudes, and J.S. T urner. Bloomings Books, 2001. ISBN 1 876 COl NTRY includes these within his treatment. His survey is objective and 47332 0, RRP $29.95 discursive, and will be excellent for undergraduate students. In the 1980s and 1990s many gardeners, conser But surveys have their limitations. They give a map of the area, vationists and lovers of elegant writing keenly but insight into the nature of evil usually follows passionate awaited T.R. Garnett's weekly column in The involvement. The educational rhetoric of summaries and outlines Age. Always substantial, the articles combined is useful, but ultimately does not touch the sources of our curiosity. good sense, suggestions, criticisms of attitudes -Andrew Hamilton SJ and responsible authorities, with a healthy sense I - of humour. Gardening, botanical information Body Symbolism in the Bible, Silvia Schroer and environmental discussion were peppered with history, and Thom as Staubli. Michael Glazier/Liturgical philosophy, anecdotes and poems, never lobbed in like a poor Press, 2001. ISBN 0 814 65954 3, RRP $99.95 return to the wicket but deftly placed over the bails of advice, Learned studies of animals and other details of amplification and entertainment. Former editor, Creighton Burns, the biblical stories flourished luxuriantly in the once remarked that each week the best writing in The Age was 19th century. My favourite was an exhaustive mostly in Garnett's column. study of the camel in the Bible, which contained George Seddon, well-known academic and writer on land a mass of pictures, considerably more text than scape, architecture and environmental concerns, stylishly intro I wanted to read, and was clearly the fruit of duces this anthology of Garnett's writing. J.S. Turner was Professor someone's lifelong fascination. of Botany at the University of Melbourne for 35 years, and his score Body Symbolism in the Bible recalls these of countryside illustrations contribute much to the book's appeal. works, but its preoccupation with bodily symbolism is character Garnett was Headmaster of Geelong Grammar (1961-73) and creator istic of even earlier Christian scholars, less interested in nature of the popular Garden of St Erth near Blackwood. All three, through than in hidden meanings. It displays a characteristically modern their teaching, articles, books and activities, have played notable anthropological perspective, liveliness in the writing, and the great parts in broadening public perceptions of our natural world and advantages that rich colour reproductions bring to the contemporary the need for its protection. This splendid book is yet another book. From its schematic Hebrew illustration of the body-in credit to them. - J.S. VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 37 BOOKS: 1 PETER MARES The unlikely leader Abdurrahman Wahid: Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President, Greg Barton. UNSW Press, 2002. JSil N 0 868 40405 5, RRP $39.95 No Regrets: Reflections of a Presidential Spokesman, Wimar Witoelar. Equin ox Publishing, 2002. ISBN 9 799 58984 3, RRP $22.25 (distributed in Australia by N usantara Indon es ia bookshop, info @nusantara .com .a u) I :r wouLD BE AN understatement to It is an engaging narrative, rich in say that Abdurrahman Wahidgot bad detail but not overwhelmed by it, press as Indonesian president. The with a handy glossary for readers initial flush of media optimism and unfamiliarwithindonesian terms and enthusiasm following his election in acronyms. October 1999 quickly subsided and Barton begins by putting within months he was under attack Abdurrahman Wahid in context. We for a multi tude of sins. Abdurrahman, are given a lively account of his child- or Gus Our as he is universally hood, including early evidence of his known, was accused of being unpre- tendency to be 'reckless and impul- dictable, ambiguous and impetuous. sive', twice breaking his arm by falling He was scolded for travelling abroad out of trees. We also learn about the too much and for n eglecting the death of Abdurrahman's father in a domestic economy. The adjectives car accident. Abdurrahman, just 12 'frail' and 'blind' were almost always years old, sat on the road beside his attached to his name, implying that inert father for three hours before he was unfit for office, and there were help arrived. His father died the next even suggestions that he was of day in hospital. From that moment unsound mind. Finally, Gus Our was on, as the first-born son, he carried implicated in two corruption scan- the hopes and ambitions of his family, dals. There was never any suggestion which were nurtured by the strong that he lined his own pockets or influence of his mother, Solichah. diverted money to his family, and he Both Abdurrahman's grandfathers wasclearedofanywrongdoinginthe were respected kiai (religious eyes of the law. Nevertheless, in July Abdurrahman Wahid checks the time on the talking watch given to scholars) who played key roles in the 2001, Indonesia's supreme parliament him by Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is at his side 1926 founding of Nahdlatul Ulama, dismissed Gus Our, and installed (Presidential Archive) . the main organisation of traditional- Megawati Sukarnoputri in his place. such as the post of parliamentary speaker, ist Islam in Indonesia. Both men were also Looking back at the media coverage, it is but as he says in his prologue, it is 'gener- active in the nationalist movement chal- easy to view those 20 months as a chaotic ally unwise to underestimate' the man. lenging Dutch colonial rule. His father, and directionless interlude in Indonesian Barton's interest in Gus Our's life and Wahid Hasyim, had followed in their foot- politics, where the great momentum for thoughts grew out of his doctoral research steps, studying at religious boarding schools democratic change after the fall of Suharto into liberal Islam and developed into a deep (pesantren) in East Java and becoming a was squandered. These two books offer an affection for both Abdurrahman and his prominent nationalist at a young age. After alternativeview.TheyportrayAbdurrahman immediate family. For this Barton will no independence, Sukarno appointed Wahid Wahid as an enthusiastic, energetic and doubt be criticised. His account of Gus Hasyim as Minister for Religious Affairs. principledreformerwho met resistance from Our's presidency is a sympathetic one, and Growing up in this deeply religious entrenched interests at every turn; a liberal- some will accuse him of being too close to family did not limit Abdurrahman Wahid's minded democrat who was actively his subject. In Indonesia, the book is intellectual horizons. In fact, the intensely undermined by military hardliners, corrupt marketed as 'the authorised biography of political nature of his upbringing meant business figures and opportunistic Abdurrahman Wahid', but it is far from that Gus Our was exposed to a range of parliamentarians. hagiography and to dismiss Barton's work ideas from a very young age. One frequent Australian academic Greg Barton began because he is a close friend of the family visitor to his father's house in Japanese- work on his biography long before Gus Our would be to miss the point. It was because occupied Jakarta was 'a strange man dressed took office-and like most observers he of Barton's closeness to the family that he in dark peasant garb' whom Abdurrahman never believed that Gus Our could become was able to be by Abdurrahman Wahid's was instructed to call'Uncle Hussein'. Only president, even after Gus Our had made side 'throughout his political campaign after years later did he realise that the mysterious clear his determination to win the position. the fall of Suharto and throughout his presi- visitor was Communist leader Tan Malaka. Barton expected him to emerge from the dency', putting him in a unique position to His father, Wahid Hasyim, saw no contra- political serum with a consolation prize, give 'a view from the inside'. diction between leading the largest Islamic 38 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 organisation in the country and maintaining Islam more open to Western rationality. human-rights abuse in East Timor, forced open dialogue and cordial relations with There was a view that Muslim societies had suspected war criminal General Wiranto secular political actors from all walks of been easily conquered by European powers from his job as military commander and life. Indeed, he no doubt saw it as essential because they had closed themselves off to engaged separatist forces in Aceh and Papua to the nationalist project. It is not surpris Western thought in science and technology. in dialogue. He appointed a crusading and ing then that the young Abdurrahman was It endorsed a more modern approach to incorruptible lawyer, Baharuddin Lopa, to encouraged to debate ideas and issues and education, and so Muhammadiyah, like pursue Suharto-era cronies as attorney to read widely in his father's extensive Nahdlatul Ulama, is closely associated in general. Sino-Indonesians were once again library. As a teenager, he was not only well Indonesia with the development of educa free to hold public festivities to celebrate versed in classical Islamic texts, but also tional institutions. Today, however, the the lunar new year. For Wimar Witoelar, it grappled with the post-war writing of Arab key distinction between the modernists was Indonesia's Prague Spring, 'almost two thinkers who can be seen as the intellectual and the traditionalists is that the former years of very heady-clean air, fresh air forebears of contemporary extremist take a more literal approach to the key followed by return to a stuffy and malodor movements. He read Aristotle, Plato, Marx religious texts, the Qur'an and the Sunnah. ous reality' (pl60). and Lenin and devoured both great European For traditionalists, 'unless something is The problem is that for every tick against novels and contemporary pulp fiction in expressly proscribed in the Qur'an and the Gus Dur's presidency there is also a cross. binges of late-night reading. Abdurrahman Sunnah then it is permissible' as long as it His openness and willingness to speak to the was also an inveterate cinema-goer, an does not contradict the key principles and media sowed confusion rather than clarity. enthusiast of the traditional Javanese values laid down in those texts. For intel Gus Dur's penchant for jokes and ambiguity shadow-puppet theatre, wayang kulit, and lectuals from a modernist background, had served him well as a critic of the dictator a passionate football fan (even acting as a however, 'if something is not referred to in Suharto, but as president it made him appear special commentator on na tiona! television the Qur'an or the Sunnah, then it should be careless, inconsistent and vague. Despite in later life). regarded with caution' (p67). Hence the his undoubted support for minority rights As a young man, Abdurrahman Wahid modernists would be critical of practices he was incapable of stopping religious and would often make personal pilgrimages to such as ziarah, which suggest an ability to ethnic bloodshed in Maluku or Kalimantan. the tombs of Islamic scholars to spend a communicate with the dead and the exist His efforts to promote dialogue with seces whole night praying beside their graves. ence of spiritual entities beyond God alone. sionist forces brought little tangible progress This practice of ziarah is usually conducted Traditionalists, on the other hand, remain towards a lasting settlement. He failed to in the hope of gaining particular insight or more open to pre-Islamic belief systems secure the prosecution of big fish from the guidance. It is a popular and accepted and more tolerant of a variety of Suharto era and in fact delayed investiga practice in traditional Islam, which is "'{ i{ T forms of religious expression. tions into key cronies like textile tycoon strongly influenced by Sufism (Islamic Marimu tu Sinivasan and logging boss mysticism), but would be frowned upon by V V JTH HIS BROAD worldview and eclectic Prajogo Pangestu. As Barton notes, the modernist Muslims. Indonesia's modernists passions, Gus Dur is the leading repre president justified this decision by arguing are grouped in Muhammadiyah, and their sentative of a liberal and tolerant Islam in that they were so central to the economy most prominent representative is Amien Indonesia. When he was installed as presi that their prosecution would stymie eco Rais, the speaker of Indonesia's supreme dent of the Republic, there were great hopes nomic recovery-but the public impression parliament, and a man instrumental both that he could instil his guiding principles in was that certain business figures had the in Abdurrahman Wahid's rise to power and the political life of the nation, building a sympathetic ear of the president. in his downfall. The distinction between system of government that was account Of course, not all of this was Gus Dur's the modernists and the traditionalists is able, transparent and just. Why then did he fault. His pursuit of cronies and human central to an understanding of Gus Dur fail so spectacularly? Or did he? Wimar rights abusers faltered when attorney (and indeed of Indonesia). Generally, it can Witoelar, in No Regrets: Reflections of a general Baharuddin Lopa died of a heart be said that modernist Islam is a largely Presidential Spokesman, argues that Gus attack. Influential military commanders urban phenomenon in Indonesia, while the Dur's achievements have been overlooked, actively resisted his gentler approach in traditionalists have their base in rural areas. and his mistakes magnified. The Indone Papua and Aceh, and stuck to their estab The followers of modernism tend to be sian media was never so free as under his lished dirty war tactics (for example, by educated, while the traditionalists are often leadership. No other Indonesian president providing support to the extremist Laskar peasant farmers. Islamic modernism was ever so accessible or so tolerant of Jihad militia which helped to foment emerged in the second half of the 19th critics. Abdurrahman Wahid pushed ahead violence in Maluku ). While many observers century as an attempt to make traditional with special tribunals to prosecute say 'everything went wrong because of Gus Imprints Booksellers- Adelaide's leading independent bookshop committed to justice, equity, peace, reconciliation ... Imprints an a ctive contributor to the culture. BOOKSELLERS 107 Hindley St, Adelaide ph. 8231 4454 fax 8410 1025 email [email protected] www.imprints.com.au VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 39 Dur', Wimar Witoelar counters that they above all others to stay in office and push dency: inflated expectations; formidable went wrong 'despite Gus Dur' (pl61). through reforms? opponents; weak civil society; a politi No Regrets is a lively and entertaining Barton is more open in acknowledging cally charged press; a lack of political account of Wimar Witoelar's ten months as Abdurrahman Wahid's contribution to his capital; a divided reform movement; Gus Dur's presidential spokesman. It is a own downfall. He points, for example, to opposition from conservative Islamicists; rapidly produced book, rich in anecdote and the president's refusal to accept his blind the lack of a democratic constitution; a humour. It identifies the forces that gathered ness, and his constant search for a cure, belligerent state apparatus; a dysfunc to oust Gus Dur as corrupt politicians, which encouraged him to make some tional legal system; an antagonistic generals and police officers who were threat otherwise unnecessary overseas trips. He military; and corrupt state organs in ened by his reform agenda. Much given to admits that Gus Dur's management style partnership with organised crime. metaphor, Wimar describes Gus Dur as 'a was 'at best erratic and unconventional and Any president would face enormous spearhead without a spear'. He had the top at worst seriously wanting' (p373) and that difficulty surmounting such hurdles and job in the country, but lacked any real he often failed to explain what he was Megawati Sukarnoputri may offer power. He could not rely on the moribund doing. In some ways, he argues that Gus Indonesia a more stable administration bureaucracy or the corrupt judiciary. His Dur was prisoner to his formative political simply by choosing not to tackle the political base in East Java, heartland of experiences as democratic activist during jumps that are too high. She may stumble Nahdlatul Ulama, was too small to be an the New Order: less often, but she will not be propell ed engine of national change. The coalition by the same idealism, or s trive for the As he had learned to do under Soeharto, that brought Gus Dur to office was an same reformist goals. Abdurrahman Abdurrahman, now president himself, opportunistic alliance primarily motivated Wahid, meanwhile, will go down in dodged and weaved; his behaviour and state by the desire to keep Megawati out. Most of history as a remarkable man and a flawed ments were driven more by the ad hoc its members soon turned against him. leader. • demands of tactical manoeuvring for short At times Wimar's tone becomes defen term survival than by strategic planning sive, particularly when he writes about the Peter Mares is a journalist with Radio Aus for the long term. (p292) media. He expresses surprise that the media tralia and Radio National. He is currently a preferred the dirty sniff of political scandal Barton identifies a dozen problems that visiting researcher at Swinburne University's to worthy announcements about bilateral plagued Abdurrahman Wahid's presi- Institute for Social Research. business deals struck during a presidential visit to Thailand, and he is obviously disap pointed that Jakarta's liberal intellectuals, like poet and editor Goenawan Mohamad, BOOKS:2 failed to rally round the president in his KATE LL EWE LLYN hour of need. However, No Regrets fails adequately to explain Abdurrahman Wahid's many spec tacular lapses in judgment. For example, in justifying Gus Dur's refusal to submit to Reading the pattern questioning by a parliamentary committee, Wimar takes the moral high ground, arguing The Ca rpet Wars, Christopher Krcmmcr, that this would have been 'an irresponsible Harper oll ins, 2002. ISBN 0732268567, RRI' $35 act of the president who is charged with upholding the constitution and the integrity ASTONISHJNG to be writing a The short history of each country is of his office' (pl07). But if he was so con book on m odern Afghanistan and its neigh particularly interesting, helpful and hard to cerned about protecting the honour of the bours before September 11. What would find elsewhere. Whenever the Western presidency, why did Gus Dur agree to a you feel when the World Trade Center towers world shines a torch on a Third World secret meeting with Tommy Suharto? This went down and you knew that your book, country it means trouble afoot and so it has meeting took place after the former dicta tor's almost complete, would be changed forever? been for each of the places described favourite son had been convicted of a real Christopher Kremmer has written a Pakistan, Kashmir, Iraq, Iran, Uzbekistan, estate scam (although before he had become series of essays based on his time in bazaars, and so on. Central to the book is the way a fugitive from justice). Gus Dur maintains souks and teahouses, his friendships with Muslims are humanised. The consequence that he resisted Tommy's entreaties to cut a carpet-sellers and his reportage on the is that our ignorance and fear can't be main deal for clemency, and insisted that he must cultural and political life of Afghanistan tained. Christopher Kremmer says his aim do his time in jail, butnomeetingcouldhave and its regional neighbours. was 'to write something enduring about the been more likely to compromise his office. It Eachessayiscleverlywovenintothewhole genius and tragedy of the Muslim situation tarnished Gus Dur' s personal reputation and and yet is a discrete thing in itself, showing today .. . It's a literary portrait of Islamic gave the impression of a presidency that was the life of the people, the writer's friends, societies in crisis.' open to offers from the highest bidder. warlords, soldiers, the role of the Taliban, the If you like carpets (and who doesn't?) Similarly, why did Abdurrahman Wahid mujahedin, the United Nations, America, and this book lets you in on the trader's secrets repeatedly make rude public comments every Tom, Dick and Harry who has a vested the way carpets are judged by the true about his 'friend' vice-president Megawati interest in bleeding Afghanistan and the experts. For instance, silk is not all that Sukarnoputri, whose support he needed surrm.mding countries dry. wonderful, one trader friend tells the author. 40 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 It's a bit overrated compared with wool-a wage. Before, there was little chance of to buy a hijab and go out-peace and ano secret that few know. There's a wonderful consumers knowing how carpets had been nymity at last! description of Khyber Bazaar, where carpets made, and children as young as six have This is a book about men and that means are treated to falsify their value: been hand-knotting carpets from dawn to an important silence about the role of dusk in hazardous crowded conditions women. There is no way that Christopher One man wielding a flamethrower was and they still are. It is the smallness of Kremmer could approach Muslim women, scorching Maimana and Senna kilims to their hands and the cheapn ess of their and one of the wonders and riches of the remove the small, loose fibres which betray Ia bour that so endears them to the book is the way he made friends with cheap, new production. After firing, the manufacturers. Muslim men. Yet I hankered to know. The kilims were loaded in to an industrial wife of the author is mentioned, size tumble dryer to remove the once, living in Delhi, and that is all charred odour. After that, they were we hear. Other Muslim friends' carried to several concrete vats, wives are mentioned but the veil is where they were doused in a solution firmly drawn and we are kept out. A of acetic acid which bleached new convention of journalism has been rugs, softening their vivid colours that the author seems almost and producing a silky sheen. After invisible and while Christopher soaking in this lye for forty-eight Kremmer is an authoritative and hours, the rugs were dumped on a experienced Australian journalist, concrete area where two men sham I would at times have liked less of pooed and rinsed them, pushing off the polite self-effacement. For the suds with long-handled squeegees example, on one rare occasion we and buckets of water. They were are told of his exhaustion, his lips then hung out over the compound's covered in sores and a furious rage brick walls to dry for a day or two, or that overcomes him. H e decides he left baking in the sun for a month or needs a holiday. The holiday proves more, a process known as 'sun wash to be one from hell and if he didn't ing', which further faded them. end up with more sores it Slumped over the walls were prema One of the most remarkable characters in Kremmer's cava lcade: is just a miracle. turely aged Baluchi, Kashan and Ahmad Sha h Massoud, Tajik 'warlord' but also a potential leader of Afghanistan- once. Massoud, known as th e 'Lion of Panjshir', Afghan rugs. Magentas had mellowed BOOK IS FULL of important was assassinated two days before September 11. to plum, browns to wheatish tan, implications for Australia about their pile remaining dark at the roots, refugee policy. On page 184: like a bottle blonde's hair. The whole I was gripped by this book, intrigued and process-scorching, shaking, washing and happy as I read, feeling that I was learning a Over a faltering telephone connection from drying-cost a dollar a metre and, by lot about things I knew almost nothing Attock, Rasoul [Kremmer's friend] had told weakening the carpet's fibre, shortened its about yet am interested in. For instance, me harrowing tales of cousins killed or life. But it steeply increased the price a when I was 30, a friend of mine had an affair tortured and conveyed his anxiety over his gullible buyer might pay. with a man who worked in Kabul on mother and sisters,left behind [in Afghani agricultural projects for the UN. She came stan] with no male relative to protect them. To think of the way my heart was in my home with a blue silk burka that we all His brothers Yaqub and Yusuf were also in mouth when I put my best carpet in the tried on. Shocking. Shocking. Shocking, we Pakistan but they had been shocked to find bath to clean it! Other ways of ageing carpets girls agreed. But now I am not so sure. Safe that the Taliban's long arm could grab include burial, scraping on rocks to make and invisible inside this tent-like garment them even there. A cousin, captured and holes and rubbing with iron filings, dirt or many women have been quoted as saying tortured by the student army, had revealed coffee grounds. All this for the West's desire that they feel secure and indeed it is they their whereabouts, and Taliban sympa for antique carpets as there simply aren't who watch the world of men, invisible and thisers and plain clothes Pakistani police, enough to go around. The run-off from the inscrutable themselves all the while in this who they suspected of being from Inter washeries creates pollution on a grand scale shell of silk. As a result, some of them are Services Intelligence, began harassing them and shows just another way the West unwilling to abandon the veil. In Afghani as part of a campaign to cleanse Peshawar unintentionally harms even when it thinks stan these women-called 'shuttlecocks' of anti-Taliban elements. itself benevolent. by some Westerners-have continued to On the matter of child labour the au thor wear the garment, even though the Taliban The author goes to meet Rasoul: says that weaving can deform children and is largely defeated. It may well be that they can stunt them intellectually if the work are not convinced of the beneficence of the At the house, I was ushered into a courtyard goes on too long. In New Internationalist new regime or the uneasy peace. However, where I removed my shoes in the Muslim magazine, I saw an advertisement for a any woman who has travelled in a place manner and was shown through a curtained Rugmark scheme for manufacturers in where the women are veiled will recognise doorway into a sparse, spotless room, empty India, Nepal and Pakistan who agree not to the relief from the staring, staring which except for carpets and bolsters, a typical employ children under 14 and to pay seems to wear the body away, as water Afghan reception parlour. A wall calendar salaries that at least match the minimum wears away stone. When you finally decide reminded the occupants that 'The heart VOLUME 12 NUMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 41 retains its scars longer than most parts of been worse. There were so many refugees, is breaking out all over, uncomfortably so, the body'. and so few countries willing to take them. and the poet himself seems the liveliest if Soon the curtains parted and Rasoul bustled Desperate Afghans and Iraqis were ri sking not the youngest person still standing. Even in, smiling and apologising for the subterfuge. their live and life's savings on hazardous the elegy that names this collection plays 'We have to be lightly careful,' he sa id, sea journeys organised by 'people smug delightedly with the mysterious disappear peeling off his jacket and shades. 'Who glers'. The black joke among the belea ance of the cat Maximus: 'Should stars knows how long we will have to stay? I was guered staff of the UN High Commissioner know Max is missing, would they guess I washing some clothes the other day ... and for Refugees was that in order to prove a How little he must miss them where he is? ' I hca rd some shooting from outside. Would wcll-foun clccl fear of persecution, an Afghan The half-rhyme of 'guess' with 'is' names you believe that sound made me home needed to be dead already. the territory we have entered. sick? Our mother and sisters are in Maza r. If there is an elegiac strain, it is a mourn Some Pashtuns arc sti II keeping Hazaras If anyone is in any doubt about many of fulness we have heard often in Porter, the safe, but the security is really only good for these people's need tO be given asylum, The still-not-knowing although we know so Pa hnms living there. There was much Carpet Wars is likely to convince them, much. He asks 'is this love- I This incon killing in the early clays. The governor has although recent experience uggests that clusiveness which orbits us, I A spacious changed since then; its quieter, but you certain set hearts will not be convinced. Swiftian teleology I Of hacks being turned, never know.' There are many reasons to buy this book and clscwheres to be at?', having just not least of them the very beautiful cover asserted 'Love is the inward journey of the Kremmcr is then introduced to Rasoul's designed by Katie Mitchell and the carpet soul' ('A Lido for Lunaticks') He has some half brother, Yaqub, who had been fighting designs all th rough the text. fca rsom e things to say about fame, in poems the Taliban. This is a book about many wars and yet like 'Tasso's Oak', still taking a reality it is also a book of subtlety. • check as he ululates 'Rejoice that of their After a lunch ... we discussed the possibi l number, one was recognised.' The philo ity of the brothers finding asylum in a th i rei Kate Llewellyn is a poet. Her most recent sophic urge is native to this poet, to the country. But the timing could hardly have book is Sofala and Other Poems. degree that he can turn a proposition into an intense emotion or wreak Romantic havoc on a cliche. Small wonder a favourite BOOKS:3 poet is Robert Browning. Commenting on his career in 'Streets ide PHI LIP HARVEY Poppies', is Porter braggi ng or lamenting? After fifty years of writing poetry I lust still for what is natural. My vernacular was always bookish; Verse and somehow I missed the ri ght Americans, I couldn't meld the Hi gh and Low even my jokes as pired to footnotes- converse but I am open to Wordsworthian signs. Max is Missing, Peter Porter. Pi cador, 2001 . He knows more than be's letting on . It ' 'ilN 0 BO -+ H69H 'i, RRI' $23 is plain from this poetry that Porter has spent a lifetime studying ' naturalness'; the language is confident, chiding, /C HAO""""d" I of "''Y pmom ', 0< in the h<" it y of ' 1y 42 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 have been studiously avoided. He much foundation, even a mighty fortress, on which this collection they pop up in what he prefers the comfort zones of English metre to build his verbal towers. And he will drive amiably defines as Lichtcnbcrgcrs: 'E pur and tone. And in this collection we find this activity to the max if he can. He may sc muove, since all the instruments agree.' plenty more on the Porter complex of protest 'I can visit churches only for the One clever betrayal of the Porter quandary, belonging, a major strand throughout his ... in a long line of betrayals, is 'Th e oeuvre that brings to mind the door with the .. Unconscious finds Consciousness .. . ·.• ' .. . . permanent brass plate on ocean liners: .. . : . irrelevant.' Hardly the expression of a PORTER. In the sonnet 'Streamers', he . . .. centred personality, but then Porter is an writes: • .... expert rhetorician. Physically and temperamentally, Peter To get away, to make your fortune, to '· Porter's poetry speaks from the city of lose your virginity, . curates and queens but, like clockwork, you hold one end of a coloured streamer psychologically he always winds up back in as R.M.S. Otranw snaps the paper ' the city of popes and cacsars. N evertheless, symmetry his uneasy acceptance of high politics and of country, identity and all your loved , the cruelties of existence only reminds us .. -- ..._ _. ephemera. . that, for Porter, the most important busi Art,' but then tell us more than most church ness of life is really maintenance of a civil The repair work continues in paper form, attendcrs about the Monophysites and conversation, a common respect for poems about Sydney prickly pear, Brisbane Ncstorians who would have it that 'our mystery. In one of the most conventional picnics. And in the same poem, a tantalis hearts, unreconciled, / Will hold our minds and indulgent poems here offered, 'Magica ing meaning to his Italian romance: to ransom.' He praises a musician who Sympathia', he virtually reverences the life believes 'Up Calvary my harpsichord must of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (not to forget Then the creeks once known to you as climb.' For every doctrine there is a heresy. his brother, George). The last two verses spider defences Claim and counterclaim can sound equally say more than a little about Porter' 'late' on the school's Cross Country Run, plausible, and often plausibility is all Porter, reflections on his own life, here in the become the babble or any of us, have to work with. Such Wales of the mind: of a Tuscan stream, torrente to Serchio's atmospheres arc pumped into his poems 0 Sympathetic Magic, dry tenses. until they arc fit to burst. Restless, or is that Shy fortresses and weirs! restive, energies arc contained in these 0 Forests Green and Stygic, An alternate land of summer's lease, poems, form straining to hold things in. An The wit of Passing Stairs' Italy as a replacement Australia. You don't opening line like 'The age demands that we have to travel as far and there are more invent the wheel' presages a massive move Lord Herbert gave his castle galleries. through time and space. Up to Cromwell's men, Porter's ventures into worlds of belief Relief from these heightened states He held himself a vassal continue and beliefs, frequently someone comes in his one-liners. Porter's penchant Only to song and pen. else's, are his constant ourcc of copy. for the pcrvcrb, or reconverted aphorism, • The desire to believe what he cannot in all has been there ever since he uttered the Philip Harvey is a poet and librarian at the honesty b elieve, gives Porter a sure hard saying 'Once bitten, twice bitten.' In Joint Theological Library, Melbourne. Study your Masters in Theology or Religious Education online • Master of Arts (Theological Studies) • Master of Religious Education • Master of Educational Leadership The Australian Catholic University offers Masters courses that specialise in Theology and Religious Education on the Internet through www.acuweb.com.au with 24 hrs x 7 days a week support. The tuition fees are $750 (Australian dollars) per unit or subject. Australian students living in Australia can study at the discounted cost of AUD$635 per unit or subject. Other courses also available in Education, Nursing and Management "The university is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and is funded by the Australian Government l'owered n ext ~ed VOLUME 1 2 N UMBER 4 • EU REKA STR EET 43 dropped into the top of shot, but instead I came away wishing the director well on his next project. -Siobhan Jackson Veiled mean ing Kandahar, dir. M ohscn Makhmalbaf. Kandahar won a good number of awards last year, including the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes, but is only available on one screen in Melbourne: more power, then, to the Lumiere for showing it. The story, loosely based on fact, is of a young woman, Nafas, whose fa mily has fl ed Afghanistan a decade or so ago and settled in Canada. A sister has had to be left behind, because she lost both her legs to a landmine. Now, at the end of the 20th century, Nafas has discovered that her sister, who is living in the T aliban stronghold of Kandahar, intends to kill herself at the eclipse of the sun. She decides to go there in time to save her. Nafas is played by N elofer Pazira, who escaped Najibullah's regime in 1989, walk ing for ten days to get to Pakistan. In 1998 Pazira tried unsuccessfully to reach a friend under similar circumstances. In the film Nafas/Pazira experiences the depths to which Afghan society had plummeted in the waning da ys of the 20th century. At the Iranian border, homesick Afghans are tutored in the avoidance of landmines which are diabolically hidden under fluffy toys to kill children; women arc warned to wear the burka in order not to attract the atten tion of the Taliban compliance patrols. Yet the burka does not protect against intrusion: the Taliban squads are often accompanied by women whose job is to dentist's surgery. Before long we discover look under the burka's much-vaunted Temporary fi lling Frank has a grubby, problem brother and a protection and betray their own kind. We weakness for pouty patients with a penchant see one woman arrested for carrying a book Novocaine, dir. David Atkins. If the for the painkiller Novocaine. And quicker under her burka; another for carrying a American Dream came up and introduced than you can say 'please spit in here', Frank's musical instrument. Nafas is always throw itself to you at a party, I guarantee you'd be got troubles backed right up to his wisdom ing hers back whenever she gets a chance, knocked out by its dental hygiene. Coming teeth. and such is Makhmalbaf's craft that you are from a family of teeth men, David Atkins Atkins plays merry with all sorts of nervous until she resumes it. Her face, (whose father and two brothers are all genres in Novocaine. There are elements of amazingly beautiful, shows a stony courage dentists) knows more than m ost when it noir, thriller, love tryst, spoof and plain old that goes beyond acting. Most of the film is comes to putting your best smile forward. cops-and-robbers, but none of the plays at improvised and most of the actors are He also knows how to twist shiny white genre- twisting quite works. When it needs am ateur, but there is no awkwardness at perfection into dark savage irony-almost. to be m oody it is too light and when it needs all. The faces of the people haunt you; there Frank (Steve Martin, above) is a success to be sexy it is just a bit wan. Novocaine has are faces that could be Irish among them, ful dentist. He runs a lucrative practice, a certain rickety charm, but it never set and the eyes haunt like those of the young drives a beautiful Citroen, lives in a big tles into a satisfying rhythm. Little if girl on the National Geographic cover that house with clean surfaces and dates the anything surprises, and what you don't everyone remembers. D esperation is whitest smile in California (J ean, played by predict falls flat. everywhere, but the film is saying life Laura Dcrn). Too perfect by half. But don 't I wanted to be delighted by this daggy must be worth som ething, for people to worry, there is more than just floss in this little film, particularly when the boom cling to it so. 44 EUREKA STREET • MAY 2002 And the terrible raped land itself, under without consequences. The Son 's Room is praise. As it is, the impact of the characters Makhmalbaf's harsh , brillia ntly lit a beautiful, truthful film about family and created by Thornton and Berry dominates cinematography, is almost a character in mortality- take your kids to see it. your emotions as you leave the cinema. the story. You come out asking yourself -Brett Evans -Gordon Lewis how anyone or anything could ever live here again, smashed, barren and inconti nently mined as it is; and this was all before Star vehicle Ti c shtick the Americans bombed it all over again. Kandahar is worth seeing for many reasons, The Monster's Ball, dir. Marc Forster. The Panic Room, dir. David Fincher. Something not the least to understand why som eone late Ivan Hutchinson once leant across to about Jodie Foster bothers me. I think it's a brave and still believing in hope would risk me at a preview and commented that Halle combination of her mouth and neck-they everything to get away from the place. Berry had 'great screen presence'-the film work like a water diviner's sticks, twitch - Juliette Hughes was TheFlintstones! Some years later, Berry ing in unison when they want your atten has won the Academy Award for Best tion. Is it greedy to want more for my $12 Actress for her role as Leticia in Monster's than what most people can do after a night Bitter-sweet Ball. I have seen all the performances that sleeping on a lumpy pillow? Fortunately for earned nomination for Best Actress and Panic Room, Foster's particular tic style of The Son 's Room, dir. Nanni Moretti. Berry's performance makes Spacek, Kidman acting actually suited the role of recently Nanni Moretti is one of Italy's best-loved and co. look like hacks. divorced mother, Meg Altman, well enough. filmmakers. Like Woody Allen, he writes, Monster's Ball is potentially an awkward But lots of things about this film did not directs and stars in his own pictures, but movie that could have been an unsuitable work. OneofPanicRoom's biggest problems unlike the overly prolific New Yorker, vehicle for her talents. The plot is depend was the eponymous room. The 'panic room' Moretti only makes a film when h e has ent on a coincidence at which even Thomas is an impenetrable room, filled with security something to say. Hardy might have baulked and it involves a cameras and speaker systems and other Usually Moretti has something satirical personal redemption that should strain handy items in case of a 'home invasion' to say about the state of Italian society (he credulity. Yet the film succeeds to awesome (that means a break-in for those of us who is one of Berlusconi's sharpest critics), but effect. don't think a burglar necessarily consti for this film he has chosen to explore a Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) and his boy, tutes an army). Once inside you can't be personal story: the grief that comes with Sonny (Heath Ledger), are correctional got. All of you who think this makes for a the death of a child. officers in a penitentiary in Georgia, where hole in the plot of a cat-and-mouse-style When the teenage Andreas (Giuseppe electrocution is still the penalty for murder thriller give yourselves a pat on the back. Sanfelice) dies suddenly in an accident, his in the first degree. Of course, Fincher tries to create tension by bourgeois family cracks up. In the lead-up Leticia's husband, Musgrove (Sean throwing in the odd twist, but his efforts all to this event, Moretti studiously avoids Combs), has been on dea th row for years, feel like desperate attempts to make the developing any sense of impending doom. but now the appeal process has run out and situation even vaguely worrying. The death, which occurs offscreen, just he is to be electrocuted. Under the super Besides the room itself, the film is happens; it could have been any member of vision of Hank, the scheduled execution is lumbered with three villains (Jared Leto, this close-knit family. carefully planned and goes ahead without Dwight Yoakam and Forest Whitaker) who Unable to cope with other people's hitch. Leticia has long since ceased to care are written with such little depth you problems, the father, Giovanni (Moretti), about her husband, but shortly after his couldn't dip even your little finger in them. abandons his work as a psychoanalyst. The death, both she and Hank are independ They are given some funny lines, and for a boy's mother, Paola (Laura Morante), begins ently overtaken by personal tragedies, one moment you think the film might change to drift away from what was a loving of which brings them together. for the better, but there's no commitment marriage. Andreas' sister, Irene (Jasmine Thanks to inspired performances by to the comedy and it just ebbs away. Trinca), is suspended from her basketball Thornton and Berry, somehow that shaky Panic Room was shot by two cinem a team after provoking an on-court brawl. plot works. A major factor in its success is tographers (Darius Khondji was replaced by Moretti handles su ch details with the willingness of director Marc Forster to Conrad Hall, because of artistic differences economy and restraint, and just as it allow them to remain flawed characters, a with Fincher) wh o have real skill, but becomes unbearable he introduces som e rare concession in the simplistic world of ultimately are too clever by half. For those thing from Andreas' past that nudges these American filmmaking. familiar with Fincher's previous films Seven damaged people a little closer towards being Oddly, although racism pervades the and Fight Club, the camera's almost inces healed. He shows us the three of them on a movie, it receives little recognition in the sant exploration of tiny and seemingly beach walking towards the sea that claimed ultimate relationship between Hank and inaccessible spaces will be nothing new. their loved one, and though still separate Leticia. They are presented simply as two I enjoyed its unnerving qualities in his both physically and emotionally-they are emotionally wounded individuals for whom earlier films, but in Panic Room it just linked now by a skerrick of hope. the need for mutual support is everything. added a layer of alienation that made you By the time he or sh e is old enough to There is little room for anyone else. care less, literally. When the camera seem vote, the average teenager will see a million N ormally, the supporting performance of ingly travels through the handle of the cinematic deaths, but from Tom and ferry Peter Boyle as Hank's contemptible father coffeepot (courtesy of clever computer to next week's blockbuster they're all and Heath Ledger's sensitive portrayal of imaging) you just think 'none of it's real, no depressingly the sam e: they are death s his loving son, would have warranted special need to panic'. -Siobhan Jackson VOLUME 12 N UMBER 4 • EUREKA STREET 45 Strings attached G UITAHREAM,NG HAS i" own wmd' ,;, guitRL Thm '" dirty grind of the Stones, the symphonic towering grandeur of even air-guitar competitions for the more accomplished and Cream, the cunning artifice of Jimmy Page and, king of them obsessive dreamers. Just as there is no more avid fan of golf all, the demon-god eagle-scream of Hendrix's white Strat at than the 13-handicapper, so too can the decent guitar hobbyist Woodstock as he strafed the feedback through amps too simple also develop a powerful addiction. Guitar shops exist as much and primitive for today's schoolboys and gave young America for the fantasists as the professional practitioners, and they the sounds of death in Vietnam. know their market. The gleaming Stratocasters hang there The other, related, program that the ABC is showing until promising, promising. The shop owners have their limits- the early June is Walk On By, a history of popular song. It has been list of forbidden riffs, with 'Smoke on the Water' and 'Stairway given the prime slot of 7.30pm Sundays and I hope it can hold to Heaven' at the topi the notice saying 'Ask for Assistance' it. It will be a boon to secondary-school music history curricula: next to the rack of glistening acoustic Matons. But they do allow I shouldn't be surprised if there's a run on the tapes. That said, the punters, particularly the middle-aged ones, to touch, oh yes. it is sometimes annoying: too many talking heads and not Because they know that much of their clientele lives on dreams, enough music. When Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra and Billie and dreams can become whims at the flash of a Visa card that Holiday get cut off in the middle of rare footage so that some has been plumped full by a work history in which guitar-playing turtle-necked wanker can pontificate about them, the urge to didn't figure. use the remote with extreme prejudice is strong. I suppose that The ABC is stoking the fires of this m adness with The there are licensing issues that apply if a performance is given Guitar Show, which began in mid-April. It is on very late every in full. Walk On By certainly makes you yearn for the full Thursday night (11.20pm) for 13 weeks. This is cruelty to adults, versioni let's hope there's a director's cut on the way and many a protesting 14-year-old will be dragged into the that consists of the performances without the puffery. lounge room to program the VCR in the coming weeks as desperate dads prod at unresponsive remotes. This show knows A LL us COLU MNISTS AND Grub Street scribblers can start what to do: show us guitars, lots of them , being hugged, worrying again, because Media Watch is back, with David Marr discussed, fiddled with, even played. in the driver's seat, and he's already shown it to be a heavy And that's the pros, folksi they are obsessed too, just like vehicle. He began by squashing a particularly greasy and nasty their audience. Steve Howe of Yes owns 110 of them, Richie bug: the tendency of some commentators to distort the facts Sambora owns 120. And whereas the percussionist in John and even (shock horror, as if we didn't know it) make up Williams' rock band owns over 100 instruments, the difference elaborate little scenarios, pretending to know celebrities, between him and a guitarist is that he plays them all. Guitar particularly if they're titled. Having reduced one of these tragics need to gloat over their beloveds, keeping a small harem pathetic liars to roadkill, Marr turned the wheel on Channel of playing-type instruments and a large convent of chaste Nine for massaging the news concerning the Packers, on the beauties that fuel their lusts for the ones in their anns. Sydney Morning Herald for inventing a reporter, 'Chris Aurora', But what a strange and worthy object of desire it is, the to masquerade as a bona fide correspondent when they were guitar-descended from angel-harps to become the great Proteus running agency pieces from overseas, and on Channel 7 for of music, more diverse in its expression, styles and applica pretending that a taped interview with a correspondent at Guan tions than any other instrument besides the human voice, which tanamo was live. It seems that sub-editors can breathe easy it can mimic. unless they are newsworthily stupid, like the one who persisted Think of it, the grave inimitable serenity of Segovia playing in referring to the Queen Mother as Elizabeth I, which was about Bachi the precise prance of John Williams' fingers in Albeniz as accurate as some commentators' attempts in past weeks to and Schubert. The guitar is completely authentic in jazz as well: smear her as being soft on Nazis in 1938. No, I think in Marr's think of Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt, Al Di Meola. It is the hands, the honest and the only slightly ungrammatical can feel mainstay of people-music: blues, folk, country, bluegrass, safe. But as for being stupid, or wrong, well, I suppose I feel flamenco. And rock, ah rock. The country twang of Jimmy about as safe as anyone else . . . • Rogers that, channelled through black blues into the pelvic throb of Elvis, becam e the rich, clean thump of the Beatles, the Juliette Hughes is a freelance reviewer. 46 EUREKA STREET • M AY 2002 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 103, May 2002 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1. Carried away on cloud nine? ( 11) 10. Scope in the m enu for some lamb Italian chef liked to be included. (5) 11. Will topless swimmer chant w hile plunging in? (9) 12. English village where one is required to mind baton change in the game. (9) 13. Where water was changed into wine and left everyone amazed by the watercourse. (5) 14. One should keep one's silver at home-out of respect. (6) 16. It's time to bury communist theory, in short, in favour of a better means of communication? (8) 18. Taken aback, girl of the month sided somehow with different group. (8) 20. In Rome, possibly, the disheartened looked for a sign moving in the heavens. (6) 22. Up and ready to attend funeral? (5) 24. Disinclined to rant about clue taken, at first, to be difficult. (9) 26. Unexpectedly, verger, born back in France, remains always fresh and vital. (9) 27. Not grand but soft? (5) 28. I make a raid, sort of, on poetry books for verses to quote Solution to Crossword no. 102, April 2002 against my enemies. (11) DOWN 2. For the ceremony, Deb or friend got up and dressed. (5) 3. Tonight, lose time and gain nought (nil) for a start. (7) 4. Being sharp, Tony worked with irrational number. (6) 5. A thinking cow? (8) 6. 'Ere! Rake it up for the audience or you'll have a painful organ. (7) 7. Cakes, sweets, glucose, for example, should be avoided when on a diet! (13) 8. Climb to the summit using a clean pin, perhaps as a piton? (8) 9. Silver log, possibly, given to me as share of indiscriminately formed collec tion. (13) 15 . You're labouring under a misapprehension, Ken. A mist, swirling, cannot be used as an excuse! (8) 17. In stormy weather, can pier veer in the wind? We need a respite from such punishing conditions ... (8) 19 .... which gave Ned a fright and evened the score? (7) 21. He runs away and races headless ape, it seems. (7) 22. Surfaces suitable for jets. (6) 25. Set a lure, we hear, so that the tide of growth may diminish. (5) ------~ This subscription is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill in your own contact details, left) D New D Renewa l D Gift IMrs/Miss/Ms/Mr First Name 1\ Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mr First Name tu Length of subscription: ~Su~r=na=m~e======~ W D O ne year (1 0 iss ues for ~ $63, $54 concession fo r \Street No. Street Name Street Name U.. pensioners, students and unemployed. Inc. GST. ) I- D Two years (2 0 iss ues for $1 15, $98 concession. In c. GST. ) ICity fTown/Su burb State Postcode II CityfTown/Suburb State Postcode ID overseas rates on application: tel +673 9427 73 77 ~~C~a~7,=me~)~el~ep7ho~n=e~N=o.======~F~~.m=a~,~======~~~Lr_a~-;m_e_)_ele-p-ho-n-e-N o-._------F~-·m_a_'l ____~ CI email: subs@j espub.jesuit.org.au Send to: Payment Details D Visa D Ba nkcard D Mastercard 0 Eureka Street Subscription D II;nclose a r :~d~~~yna~e ;:j:sf~: I I I I II I I I II.- -,-1 -,-1 --rl--,11 I I I I Rep ly Pa id 553 . . Publications .------,ICard holders name I Ri chmond VIC 3121 D Please debit my credit card for 11 :$~ ___j l[s;~~======Ex;~d,rt.===j· ~ (No postage stamp req uired if L ·1 S1gnature Expirf date I posted in Austra li a. ) D Please send me direct debit forms (D 0 Mailing list: I would li ke to remove my name from the mai ling list when it is used for outside advertising. EUREKA STREE56 ok offer Abdurrahman Wahid Muslim Democrat, Indonesian President No Regrets By Gre g Barton Reflections of a Presidential Spokesman A man as volatile and many-faceted as Abdurrahman Wahid- the man By Wimar Witoelar best known simply as Gus Our- will be the subject of any number of future studies. But here and now are two contrasting, outstanding and lively accounts. One is by Greg Barton, an Australian scholar intimate both with Indonesia and with Abdurrahman Wahid, the man who became its fourth president. The other is by Wimar Witoelar, the Indonesian media star who for ten months was Gus Our's Chief Presidential Spokesman. The two books approach Wahid from radically different perspectives. Barton is a careful, sympathetic but critical observer of Indonesia's UNSW first democratically elected president. Witoelar is a candid and witty insider whose PRESS ten months as Wahid's spokesman yield a vivid account of a tumultuous political period. Together, the two books will give Australian readers an essential grasp of a rare man, and of a controversial, rich period in the politics of our near neighbour. Thanks to University of N ew South Wales Press and Equinox Publishing, Eureka Street has ten copies of £(\UJNQX each book to give away in this double offer. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and ~ send it to: Eureka Street May 2002 Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121. New scholarship Walking through Fire for the new world by Nawal El Saadawi Learn to teach and serve the Church of the future- in a commun ity that values pas This powe rful autobiography of sionate debate. original an amazing wom an will shock and research. and vital ministries. in spire you. Egyptian writer Nawal Our rigorous programs El Saadawi has been imprisoned, wi ll prepare you to be an exiled and threate ned with death agent of change, in word and deed. for her writings on Arab women. Master of Arts (GTU This is her story of a life spent in Common MA) resistance and of her passion for Licentiate in Sacred justice, fr om her wo rk as Theology a doct or, to her marriage s, Doctor of Sacred defiance of the Gove rnment, impriso nment Theology and exile, co ntinuing th e sto ry begun in her childhood memoir Daughter of Isis. JES U IT SC HOOL 'what a hero is Nawal El Saadawi' - Doris Lessing OF THEOLOGY at Berkeley Nawal El Saadawi, and her husband and a member of t he translator She rif Hetata will be guests of the Graduate Theological Union Sydney Writers' Festival, 27 May - 1 June. 1735 LeRoy Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 1-876756-31-4 $34.95 (800) 824-0122 (51 0) 549-5000 Spinifex Press titles are available Fax (51 0) 841-8536 at all good bookstores or tPINIFEX PRESS E-mai l: [email protected] www.spinifexpress.com.au www.jstb.edu ISSN 1 036-1758 0 4 9 771 0 36 175017