Vol. 1 No. 9 November 1991 $4.00 Queensland's flying high Thinking about justice for the next century what shape will we be in? See p.29. Volume 1 Number 9 !ET November 199 1 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology
CoNTENTS
4 23 COMMENT QUIXOTE 6 24 LETTERS THE PEOPLE NOBODY WANTS Damien Simonis reports on the Harkis, 7 France's unwanted legacy of the Algerian THE WITHERING OF THE HEATH war of independence. Peter Pierce takes the long view at Caulfield racecourse . 27 OBITUARY 8 Avery Dulles SJ pays tribute to French WORLD REPORT theologian Henri de Lubac SJ . Damien Simonis (p .S) and Liz Jackson (p.9) talk to Czechs and Russians about life after 28 the revolution. WHEN IS A RUIN REALLY A RUIN1 Mark Coleridge takes issue with Gerard 10 Windsor. DEMOCRACY ON THE BOIL Queensland may have something to teach 29 the southern states, concludes Margaret PAST IMPERFECT, Simons. FUTURE INDEFINITE Social justice for the next century. 15 ARCHIMEDES 36 BOOKS AND ARTS 16 Jack Waterford reviews Fred Hollow's CAPITAL LETTER autobiography; M.J. Crennan on Allister Sparks' and Rian Malan's views of South Cover design by John va n Loon; 17 Africa (p.39); Bmce Williams looks at the cartoons pp.6 and 45 THE EMPERORS WITHOUT CLOTHES work of Chamber Made Opera (p.42) . by Dean Moore; China's people are not fooled by their photOgraphs pp.5, 31, 33 and 35 by Andrew Stark. leaders, argues Paul Rule. 38 SPIRIT 19 Poem by Patrick O'Donoghue. Eureka Street magazine CUTTING ROOM Jesuit Publications 44 PO Box 553 20 Richmond VTC 3 12 1 FLASH IN THE PAN Tel (03) 427 73 11 THE STONES ARE LAUGHING Reviews of the films The Field, Ba ck Fa x (03) 428 4450 Israeli peace activist Amos Oz tells Michael draft, Life is Sweet and Thelma and McGirr that the desert is the great equaliser. Louise. EUREKA StREEt COMMENT Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Editor Morag Fraser Production Editor Political hope Ray Cassin Design Consultant John van Loon Production Assistant Paul Fyfe SJ A T THE MELBOURNE WRITERS' FESTIVAL in September, a yow1g man in the front row stood up at the end of one session and, Contributing Editors waving his arms with some passion, challenged the speaker: Perth: Janette Gray RSM 'You argue impressively, but somehow you leave m e with no Adelaide: Frances Browne IBVM hope.' The panel had been discussing the issue 'Who's Left? ', Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor from their various political perspectives. The young man was Brisbane: Ian Howells SJ questioning the last speaker, Robert Manne, editor of Quadrant, Darwin: Margaret Palmer who had indeed argued in1pressively, whether or not you agreed with his analysis of the necessary courses of social and politi European correspondent: Damien Simonis cal action in a postcommunist world. His questioner was US correspondent: Michael Harter SJ insistent: 'I understand what you are saying but what hope do you leave me with?' Manne remarked that it was not his Editorial Board business to bring him hope. 'I'm here to make you think/ he Peter L'Estrange SJ (chair), declared. Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey, The young man came back at him with his demand Madeline Duckett RSM, Tom Duggan, strengthened. Yes he understood that it was crucial to think Trevor Hales, David Hawke FSC, clearly about political issues, but to sustain the effort he needed Christine Martin, Kevin McDonald, also to have hope. He needed to believe that the hard work of Joan Nowotny IBVM , Lyn Nossal, thinking and making judgements and choices would somehow Ruth Pendavingh, be worth the effort. Manne wouldn't play the prophet for him. Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ Instea d, he made a virtue of restraint: he wasn't there to preach. Business Manager: Louise Metres But I don't think the young man was a follower, a disciple Acco unts Manager: Bernadette Bacash looking for a demagogue. He was poised on the line that sepa rates commitment from apathy and cynicism. And he wanted Patrons to be given some sense that the difficult task of shaping a just Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges the society was not going to be a futile enterprise. support of C. L. Adami; the trustees of the estate After all the afternoon's talk of political theory-some of of Miss M. Condon; D.M. Cullity; it convincing, some of it banal and self-regarding, as is the way F.G. Gargan; W.P. Gurry;). F. O'Brien; at writers' gatherings-what lingered in the stuffy, packed au A.F. Molyneux; V.J. Peters; ditorium was not a sense of the vitality of political discourse Anon.; the Roch e famil y; Anon .; but the vehemence of his need: 'Give me hope.' and Sir Donald and Lady Trescowthick. We art> not in dire physical straits in Australia. Even in a recession no one need fear cold or famine. In Moscow and in EurelVictoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121. Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by of integrity in Australian public life. And he wanted some spur Michael Kell y, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond. to action: not to get him up on the barricades, but to persuade Printed by Doran Printing, him that politics in Australia isn't a rigged game, or, if it is, 4 Commercial Road, Highett, VIC 3 190. then that there is at least some possibility of cleaning it up, of © Jesuit Publica tions 1991 owning it and making it work for the benefit of all. Political scepticism is strong in Australia and always has The ed itor welcomes letters and unsolicited manu been. Its negative face is cynicism, its positive face a hardy scripts, including poetry and fiction. Manuscripts wil l disinclination to be conned or whipped into the kinds of en be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self thusiasm that slide over into totalitarian allegiance. But addressed envelope. Requests for permission to reprint sometimes, in our suspicious caution, we sell ourselves short. material fro m the magaz in e should be addressed in We treat our politics as a gam e. Even the Fairfax press has called writing to: The editor, Eureka Street magazin e, it a game-'the greatest game of all'-in an advertisment fea PO Box 553, Richmond, VIC 3121. turing one of its senior political writers. That is more a com-
4 EUREKA STREET • NOVEMBER 199 1 menton the dangerously insular nature of the Canberra of passive apprehension where they were 'as water in press gallery than a summary of our national attitude, the cupped hands' of the powers that be. but the two do sometimes ride in tandem. So, some Emerald cool we may be times, it is salutary to listen to a different voice. As water in cupped hands Buried on page 9 or 10 of most of the national dai But oh that we might be lies came the news that Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi had As splinters of glass won the Nobel Peace Prize. Aung San Suu Kyi is the In cupped hands. legitimately elected leader of 'The quintessential revo- Burma. She remains in politi Photo: Andrew Stark lution is that of the spirit, born cal detention. Her political of an intellectual conviction of language comes from a rhetori a need to change in those cally more formal and ornate mental attitudes and values culture. But perhaps the young that shape the course of a na man at the Writers' Festival tion's development. A revolu could translate. What follows is tion that aims merely at from one of her essays, written changing official policies and in honour of her father, Aung institutions with a view to an San, the architect of modern improvement in material con Burma, who was assassinated ditions has little chance of in 1947 when she was genuine success. Without a /fl two years old. revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the in r UBLIC DISSATISFACTION with iquities of the old order would economic hardship has been continue to be operative. seen as the chief cause of the 'Saints, it has been said, are movement for democracy in the sinners who go on trying. Burma, sparked off by the stu So free men are the oppressed dent demonstrations of 1988. It who go on trying and who, in is true that years of incoherent the process, make themselves policies, inept official m eas fit to bear the responsibilities ures, burgeoning inflation and and to uphold the disciplines falling real incomes had turned which will maintain a free so the country into an economic ciety. A people who will build shambles. a nation in which strong, dem 'But it was more than the ocratic institutions are firmly difficulties of eking out a bare established as a guarantee ly acceptable standard of living against state-induced power that had eroded the patience of must first liberate their minds a traditionally good-natured, from apathy and fear. quiescent people-it was also 'Nehru, who considered the humiliation of a way of life the instillation of courage into disfigured by corruption and the people of India as one of fear. The students were pro Mahatma Gandhi's greatest testing not just against the achievements, was a political death of their comrades but modernist, but as he assessed against the denial of their right the needs for a 20th century to life by a totalitarian regime movement for independence, which deprived the present of he found himself looking back meaningfulness and held out no to the philosophy of ancient hope for the future. India: "The greatest gift for an 'Some of the students' keenest supporters were individual or a nation ... was fearlessness, not merely businessmen who had developed the skills and the con bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind." tacts necessary not only to survive but to prosper within 'Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more pre the system. But their affluence offered them no genuine cious is the courage acquired through endeavour, grace sense of security or fulfilment, and they could not but that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let see that if they and their fellow citizens were to achieve fear dictate one's action, courage that could be described a worthwile existence, an accountable administration as "grace under pressure"' • was at least a necessary if not a sufficient condition. The people of Burma had wearied of a precarious state -Morag Fraser
V OLUME l NUMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 5 L ETTERS
Australian 'aid' I urel a \tree/ v.l'lcomL·~ ll'tter~ year the Australi an ambassador to the from 1ts l'l'.lder'>. Short lcttl'r'> .lrl' Philippines expressed support fo r the misfires mote l1kLh to hl' puhl!-.hcJ, and all use of the Citizens' Armed Forces lcttll''- 111.1) he cdlto.:d L~ttl'rs llHI'-t Geographical Units (C AFGUs) which hl' -.1gnl'd, 6 EUREKA STREET • N OVEMBER 199 1 SPORTING LIFE PETER PIERCE how many women graduate or study theology each year but there are many many more than men. Most of the The withering of The Heath women are married with children, sometimes they also have a job, sometimes they have other educa A TTHE TURNSTILES, a grizzled des merang Bar for an ale. The urgency tional backgrounds. perate made a case for taking his shil eases for a time, and the excitement of Equally, I don't know how many lelagh into the course. Inside, he the walk to the stand, past the con do pastoral majors or minors. I majored quickly became inconspicuous among struction site, via the tote or book in systematic theology and minored the rich, currying to their temporary makers, is allowed to build. in scripture. The classes were ful l of members' quarters, and the lumpen The first race was won by a Sydney women, with one or two men in each. bourgeoisie, sporting bar-room tans jockey, MickDittman, on a neat, quick I didn't choose liberation theology or and Desert Storm tee-shirts. This was filly called Catchfire. But this did not feminist theology. It seem ed to me Caulfield, October 12, and for the presage the usual depressing recent that in ord er to understand the church 111 th running of the Caulfield Guin pattern of interstate riders' domination I lcwe I hould come to terms with its eas and the Toorak Handicap, it was of the Caulfield Carnival. Although hard core. Other women did too, an unseasonably glorious day. Jim Cassidy won the 'time honoured' though I couldn't come at canon law. For more than a decade Caulfield, Toorak Handicap-for every race a I began my letter as I did because most beautiful of Melbourne tracks, cliche and a sponsor's name-on that was the way I did my academic has been a disaster for those who mar Comrade, and Brian York the Guineas study, totally integrated with my daily ket it, whether as employees of the on Chortle, that most elegant and life. So, I think, did my fellow stu VATC, or radio stations. Since the accomplished of Melbourne jockeys, dents. Study time cut oui'Of a busy life demise ofBert Bryant, race-callers have Darren Gauci, rode a treble. He steered was too precious not to be made max ceased to be outraged spokesmen for the massively framed Umatilla, which imum use of, so subjects that could hapless punters and have become carried 60kg and thrashed its field. In. not be integrated with our personali mouthpieces for 'the industry'. From the day's prettiest ride he threaded ties and relationships were exchanged them you'll hear little about the with through on the longshot Cushion, a for subjects that gave greater mean ering of The Heath, or how Caulfield filly of much promise. ing, depth, hope, insight and challenge. h as suffered regularly from dire Before Gauci topped off his work, I find going to Mass difficult at present, weather during its Spring Camival, the Guineas had done its routine worst not because it's a long time since I've from the decline in status of the once for Caulfield. The wi1mer, Chortle, heard a homily which is interesting, peerless Caulfield Cup, from the bi brought no outstanding form to the intelligent and spiritually enlivening, zarre outcomes of so many recent re race and as it faltered near the line, but because I have to give whispered newals of the course's classic race, the offered no promise of better deeds. answers that Rahner and Lonergan Caulfield Guineas, and from a grand The literary tip, Naturalism, could would be proud of to questions from a stand rebuilding program that is still a not nm it down. Again the Guineas three-year-old about why the bread is year away from completion. looked a jinx race, in which the best special. But on October 12 the track was performed three-year-olds either fail It is unfair of Windsor to bemoan fast, Glorious Day-trained by Rick to front or to fl atter. And again the state of the church. I find it abso Hore-Lacy-ran a decent fourth in the Caulfield proved to be the track at lutely miraculous that the Holy Spirit Guineas, the amenities in the new which Hayes-trained horses perform has caused a pressure-cooker full of Rupert Clarke stand were excellent worst. The stable could not manage a sound theology to fill the homes and and its rear aspect an art-deco triumph. place-getter. The momentum which hearts of our children. As a child, I Tucked away below is the estimable Colin Hayes gave to his son is palpa would rather have had my Rahner Racing Museum, better visited on bly slackening. integrated into mum's personality in quieter days. For those keyed to fast After the Guineas there was still a her response to pussy cats covered in lane reminiscence, there were shields greatweight-for-agerace, the Caulfield playdough, than given as an examin that listed the Caulfield Cup winners, Stakes, to come. Saturnine trainer Bart able text by a teacher I disliked, or in together with the names of monarchs, Cummings had warned that Shaftes a stuffy church by a priest I couldn't governors-general, prime ministers, bury A venue was 'bucking his brand see-especially if the boy under the wars involving Australians and 'sun off' and Gauci rode him to prove it, by pew in front was dressed as Batman. dry events and achievements'. One breaking two minutes and comfort I wonder what the outcome of this could learn that in 1920, when the ably defeating the champions Super situation will be. In order for the Western Australian Eurythmic [sic] Impose and Sydeston. The crowd rose horrific problems of human suffering won the Cup, a pot cost fivepence. At along the length of the straight as in the world to be dealt with, we need, Caulfield it's now $1.85, and there is Shaftesbury Avenue beat off its chal individually, to 'turn back', as a world the choice of Laurent-Perrier. lengers with authority. Here was rac population. That surely is the direction Much abides at Caulfield from ing; this was the race, the horse, the of the effect of sound theology in hearts bygone racedays. This is the most jockey of the Spring. • of the women in pews. amiable track at which to stroll round Christina Rye Laming the stables and the saddling paddock, Peter Pierce lectures in Australian Ashburton, Vic. and drift back and forth to the Boo- studies at Monash University. V OLUME 1 N UMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 7 W ORLD R EPO RT 1 DAMIEN SIMONIS 1 I T" TWO nm S 8 EUREKA STREET • NOVEMBER 1991 WORLD R EPORT 2 Lrz JACKSON Who should 'scape whipping? One effect of the failed Soviet coup has been a sharp increase in the population density on the moral high ground. But preaching is only easy from a distance, as Liz Jackson discovered when she prepared a program in Moscow for Radio National's Background Briefing. WHAT' s BEEN INTERESTING about the reaction to the But do you retain your party m em bership! program has been the response to a particular part- an No, not now. But again I did it too late. My husband left interview with a former highly-placed bureaucrat, the Communist Party two years ago. I haven't followed Natalia Yakovleva, who was editor in chief of the North him because I knew that if I followed him I'd have to American department at the Novosti Press Agency. quit my job, the same day. And that is why I retained Like everyone else at Novosti, Natalia was sacked my Party membership card. within days of the coup. What I suppose has surprised me is the extent of sympathy she has evoked, even So when did you resign! though she herself admits to cowardice and claims that During the coup. she does not respect herself .The deputy mayor of Mos cow, Sergei Stankievitch had said after the coup: 'This has sorted out for us who is with us, who is against us.' But it is not quite as simple as that. I guess listeners to N ovoSTI PR ESS AGENCY EMPLOY S, or used to employ, the program felt like m e, when I spoke with Natalia: upwards of three thousand people. It puts out those would I have done anything different? booklets and journals like Soviet Life, or Mikhail Gor bachev's Address to the 42nd Congress, that you see in Jackson: What's changed in Novosti Press agency since places like the Soviet embassy, the ones that put the the coup! best gloss on life in the Soviet Union. They did, of cour e, Yakovleva: Well we have had enormous changes-! change with glasnost, became more critical, but the coup think drastic changes. Our agency was nationalised. Our caught them out. president was sacked by Mr Yeltsin, first by his decreei Novosti sat on the fence and the workers are paying and then Mr Gorbachev issued a decree concerning the the price. I spoke to their new boss, Andrei Vinnigra decision of Mr Yeltsin. Now we have a new president. dov, who will decide who gets re-employed. He is very young-35. Vinnigradov: It is a paradoxical situati on. I don't want What sort of personnel changes have happened! I m ean to talk about anybody in particular. I know many good have people lost their iobs already! people am ong the agency's journalists who feel free here We are all sacked. Ah, you know, I welcome all this, in the building and outsidei but there are others who and all the changes. I was a dissident in my heart, though feel free only when they leave the building. Here, for not in my life. And this was one of my weaknesses I some reason, they feel obliged to obey some absurd in would say. Because I saw, for quite a long time, that we struction in which they themselves do not believe. You are going not in the right direction, but I hadn't enough can't play two roles. You ca n't be a bureaucrat here and courage to say this openly. And, you know, I was in the a free person on the street. That is precisely what we privileged class. I had all these privileges before because will need to overcome. I am in a high position for quite a timebeing. And now I have lost all the privileges and m y life Jackson: I know that you don't want to name any has becom e much more difficult, I would say. I m ean in nam es, and I wouldn't asl< you to, but are you saying the material sense. But I would prefer not to eat sausage, of those people who were able to live in that paradox, not to have a lot of nice things, but to have the freedom able, on the one hand, to go down to the barricades, of expressioni and at least some future fo r my children. but, on the other hand, in their official work, to put out So many years we've had this terrible life here, material that did not condemn the coup,-are you without any opportunity to say what we think. And this saying that those are people for whom there is no place double life really is terrible for people who conducted here, now! it. And I have to tell you that I conducted a double life . Alas, yes. My friends would tell you that I am frank and sincere, but on the surface I was a very true Communist. That is Liz Jackson is an ABC producer and presenter. Bacl< the tragedy, my tragedy too. That is why I started weep ground Briefing is broadcast on Radio National at 9. l0am ing. I don't respect myself. on Sundays and on Tuesdays at 7.45pm. • V oLUME 1 N u MBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 9 Still Mr 70 Per Cent in the polls: Queensland Premier Wayn e Goss. Democracy on the boil In 1986 Margaret Simons went to Brisbane as correspondent for The Age. Sh e covered the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption, and during the concluding months of the inquiry was a consultant to the commissioner, Mr Tony Fitzgerald QC. Sh e returned to Queensland for Eureka Street, to report on the new shape of the state's politics. W ,N I e»T QUHN,CAND in July 1989, m•ny marginals, there is little room for self-righteousness people were debating whether Queensland was differ about democratic principle. Venal public policy, fa vo urs ent from the rest of the country, or whether its less for mates, legislation made on the run and persecution desirable characteristics were subtropical symptoms of of critics? Look at the federal govemment's handling of a common Australian disease. media policy, or the airline dispute. And look at West Queenslanders, especially National Party politi ern Australia. Parliament abused and largely irrelevant? cians, inclined to the latter view. The then Premier, Where is it not? Bribes to public figures? Defamation Mike Ahern, cl aimed that the only difference between laws do not perm.it public speculation. Supine media, his government and those 'down south' was that the aroused only by shallow sensa tion ? Those outside the National Party had set up a proper inquiry and was journalistic profession are better qualified to judge than tackling corruption. But Ahern was a drowning man, l am . clutching at a straw. It did him no good: he went under Perhaps Queensland was the butt of so m any and the government followed soon after. southern jokes precisely because it was an exaggerated In these debates, I tended to argue that Queensland refl ection of the country's vices. Laughter is easier than was not all that different. Queensland does have an self-examination. The Westminster system is a delica te exceptionally bmtal European history, hav ing been a plant at the best of times, and can easily be used as a convict colony for the convict colony. But that is only screen for undemocratic practices. Transplanted into one chapter of a larger story common to us all. these foreign soils, it has developed an interesting an The gerrymander? Many states have had them, and, tipodean pathology which is hardly surprising, consid given the way governments of all complexions play the ering the circumstances in which it grew. 10 EUREKA STREET • NovEMBE.R 199 1 Some things have not ------changed in Queensland. Returning to Queensland more than two years after on the community. The rec There are all sorts of tensions the release of the Fitzgerald report, however, I find that ommendations in this report things have changed. This time I was stmck not so much are aimed at allowing penna between the independent by the similarities, but by the ways in which Queensland nent institutions and systems is becoming different. to work properly.' coznmissions and the One of the doughtiest subversives in Queensland The Fitzgerald approach is the conservationist, Dr Aila Keto, who fought the was widely criticised, most government. Only son1e of National Party government for many years. Describing notably by the investigative two years of Labor mle, she says: 'Initially there was an journalists Bob Bottom and them are healthy tensions. enormous change. Under the previous government there Brian Toohey, each of whom was this enormous feeling of oppression. You would be was disappointed that Fitz But public attitudes have told your phones were tapped, or you would be followed gerald had not made more of his and you would feel paranoid. All that has gone. The opportunity to make findings altered. Queenslanders burea ucracy is more open to consultation, and against individuals-which there is no feeling of oppression.' could then be quoted, under express horror and privilege, by journalists. The indignation at practices B uT KETO AND OTHER members of community groups report was compared unfa say that along with the increased openness has come an vourably with that of inquiries that, in the south, extraordinary sensitivity to criticism. Keto says: 'They such as the Costigan royal defintely need to develop a more mature attitude to commission, which had named are greeted with consultation, and what it entails.' N evertheless, names, sometimes publicly and although opinion polls show that some issues, such as sometimes in secret volumes a cynical shrug of homosexual law reform, have cost Labor dearly, the that were lea ked. Premier is still Mr 70 Per Cent; the Goss gloss shows Instead, in a section titled the shoulder. little sign of tarnishing. 'Guilt and Innocence', Fitzger Journali ts say the Goss government's news ald declined to cast stones, say- management teclmiques are as bad as those of its pred ing: 'Where misconduct is institutionalised, guilt and ecessor, and that ministers are less accessible. Being innocence are not a matter of black and white. There abused in parliamentary cafeterias by ministers and their are infinite shades of grey. Some people have been merely press secretaries has become a commonplace hazard for incompetent, or the victims of inertia ... the shadows reporters who are out of favour. Ironically, one of the fall differently depending on one's point of view.' The media management techniques Fitzgerald Photo co urt ~>y of The 1\ gc. criticised in his report- politicians leaking ~ a report to selected journalists before its official relea e, in return for subtle fa vours-happened to Fitzgerald himself when he submitted his later report into logging on Fraser Island. The Fitzgerald report has become the touchstone of political reform up north. Whole parliamentary debates are conduct ed in terms of which party is closest to what is referred to, without irony, as the 'Fitz gerald spirit'. Perhaps this reverence is itself anti-democratic and unhealthy, but so far it has been the driving fo rce behind liberal reform . Almost before he had set pen to paper, Fitzgerald had been assured by all parties that his report's recommendations would be implemented. Yet Fitzgerald decided not to make prescriptive recommendations. In a chapter of the report titled 'Progressive Social Change', he said: 'The [Fitzgerald] commission is an appointed body, not an elected one. It is an adjunct to the demo cratic process, not a replacement for it. It is not infallible or omniscient ... the com mission has no mandate to impose opinions Goodbye to all that: Sir fob Biell V oLUME 1 N uMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 11 main object of the report, Fitzgerald said, was 'to bring C)C, with a budget of $17 million and a staff of about about improved structures and sy tcms. The past mis 250, including seconded police, has an even more diffi deeds of individuals arc of less concern, except as a ba cult job than its sister bodies. As well as being responsi sis for !earning for the future.' ble for continuing investigations into misconduct, it Fitzgerald recommended the setting up of two receives complaints from the public, is responsible for independent commissions, the Criminal Justice Com witness protection and for the tribunal that adjudicates mission [C)Cj and the Electoral and Administrative on allegations against police. It also reviews the laws on Review Commission [EARCL each of which would be prostitution, drugs and gambling. answerable to an all-party parliamentary committee. A Any criticism of the CJC should be tempered with large part of the analysis of how Queensland is emerging a recognition of the enormous difficulties of each of these from it s crisis consists of an analysis of how tasks- together with the realisation that such criticism these bodies arc going about their work. plays into the hands of the corrupt. Yet today some of the CJCs sternest detractors are former Fitzgerald L E CRIMI NA L juSTI CE CoMMISSIO N was always going commission staff members. They claim that the chair to attract the most antagonism, since it is responsible, man of the C)C, Sir Max Bingham, failed to capitalise among many other things, for continuing the Fitzgerald on the momentum built up by the Fitzgerald inquiry. inquiry's investigations into corruption. By appointing former coll eagues from the National In fact, it has come under insidious attack. The CJC Crime Authority to top positions, they say, Bingham is unpopular with the government- partly because of imported a new culture and new methods. There was a the natural antagonism of governments to powcrfuC low tolerance for the Queensland way of doing things, independent bodies, partly because the C)C has made however successful. some errors, but also because it is about to release a 'It was almost as though they thought we hadn't report on the abuse of parliamentary expense accounts, done badly for Queenslanders, but now they were going including those of some Labor members. to show us how it was done/ one former Fitzgerald staff The CJC released a report saying that the number member said. These people believe many opportunities of police assaults on civilians was increasing. The report were lost, and that momentum is only now being re received front-page treatment in the Friday newspapers. gained. Predictably, for those used to police manipulation of the On the plus side, the CJC has an active investigation media, the following Sunday a story appeared in the local record, much of it in cooperation with other police forces. press, saying that the chairman of the C)C, Sir Max Bingham claims the commission has tracked down Bingham, had 'got off' receiving a fine for 'about 20 or 30 big crooks'. And Bingham claims to have driving on a Tasmanian licence. The in learnt from his experience at the NCA. For example, he EARC brought in a cident to which the storie referred was believes other states could adopt the Queensland legis systen1 of one vote one six months old. Bingham was within his lation that makes the paxliamentary committee to which legal rights, and had not received prefer- the C)C answers subject tO the same legal obligations value for local ential treatment. Nevertheless, the story of confidentiality as the CJC itself-meaning MPs can was remorselessly beaten up, and was go to jail if information is leaked. Both Bingham and the government. By doing damaging. C)C staff believe the story was head of the C)C parliamentary committee, Mr Peter pushed not only by police but by senior Beattie, agree that this provision has meant the com so, it rocked the government ministers. If the staff are mittee is kept fully informed about C)C activities. right, it is to the Goss government's There arc moves to hive off parts of the CJC's foundations of the level lasting shame. functions. Bingham favors placing the Misconduct Tri Thank heavens for the ABC, which bunal under the aegis of the new Public Service Man of governn1ent most on the 7.30 Report ran a critical analysis agement Committee. Others argue for even more radical of the way the story had been handled. changes: for the law-reform function to be returned to Queenslanders identify After that program went to air, the ABC the Law Reform Commission, for example. There arc was not in vi ted to a news conference held risks in such approaches. Smaller bodies are more easily as their own, and put by the Police Minister the next clay. attacked. Although the Law Reform Commission, which Finally, after Bingham called his own has been worthy but incffccmat is itself due for a reform an end to networks of news conference to rebut the attacks, process conducted by the EARC, the history of such which he said were 'calculated and de commissions is that they have difficulty getting their power and 1nateship liberate' attempts tO undermine the CJC's recommendations implemented. As well, part of Fitz credibility, the government belatedly gerald's aim in setting up such a large body was to allow throughout the state. issued a statement supporting him. the reform process to be integrated and planned. Frag All of this is not to say that the C)C mentation puts these aims at risk. is without fault. How could it be? The comparable bod There is almost"too much public confidence in the ies federally and in NSW- the National Crime Author CJC. One poll bowed that 77 per cent of the population ity and the Independent ommission against had heard of the CJC , and that when its purpose was Corruption-have both had their problems. And the explained, 82 per cent supported its aims and its con- 12 EUREKA STREET • NovE MI\ CR 1991 Other states could learn from Queensland legislation: Criminal Ju stice Commission chairman Sir Max Bingham tinued independence. And, unlike its bodgic predeces Queensland, this was far outshadowed by the review of sors, the Police Complaints Tribunal and the police in local govemmcnt electoral boundaries, some of which ternal investigations bureau, the CJ has been swamped made the parliamentary gerrymander look good. In with complaints-2900 since its inception. Given that Kingaroy, for example, some electors had a vote worth the CJC must investigate every complaint, this is very 2 7 times that of citizens in neighbouring wards. much a mixed blessing. EARC received a staggering 3140 submissions on Nevertheless, the importance of this huge vote of local government bou ndaries, compared to only 268 on public confidence cannot be underestimated, since in the state government guidelines. The figures arc a so the long term it is public opinion that will ensure the bering reminder of the extent to which Queensland, survival or otherwise of the CJC, just as public opinion unlike every other state, is a collection of regions. That ensured the survival of the Fitzgerald inquiry is one of the few fundamental differences between it in more hectic days. and other states. EARC brought in a system of one vote one value for local govcmment. By doing so, it rocked Ju sT DOWN THE ROAD from Queensland's Parliament the foundations of the level of government most House, in a modern glass skyscraper, is the quietest yet Quccnslandcrs identify as their own, and put an end to most dramatic evidence that Queensland is changing. networks of power and matcship throughout the state. It is the reading room maintained by the Electoral and EARC reviews begin with the re lease of issue papers Administrative Review Commission. EARC is much to promote debate. There follow several periods during smaller than the CJC. It has a budget of only $3.9 mil which the public can make submissions, all of which lion and a staff of just 35. Yet its job is perhaps more are published. Once EARC releases its report, the par fundamental. Its responsibilities concem the checks and liamentary committee can hold further public hearings balances on power that lie at the heart of the state's and take further submissions, before making its own abused democracy. recommendations to parliament. All these issue papers, In the reading room, any member of the public can, submissions and reports arc sent to every public library without identifying themselves or giving any explana and court house in Queensland. tion, and using state-of-the-art computer technology, The chairman of EARC, former Australian govern access virtually all the documents held by the commis ment solicitor Tom Sherman, claims that EARC's sion- including those embarrassing to it. The reading processes mean that Queensland has developed public room is a radical institution, symbolising the extraor participation in policy making to a greater extent than dinarily open and public means by which EARC con anywhere else in the country. He is probably right. ducts its reviews. I am not aware of any statutory body The Government's openness to this approach is yet in Australia that has anything to compare with it. to be tested. A batch of EARC reports awaits the new EARC got off to a fiery start with its review of the session of Parliament. Some of the proposals will test state electoral system [see panel on next page]. Inside Continued page 15 V OLUME 1 N UM BER 9 • EUREKA STREET 13 THE VOTERS MARGARET SIMONS Setting the bounds W E THE FITZGERALD REPORT was released on 3 July and equal suffrage'. Burdekin urged Goss not to imple 1989, the main surpri se was a recommendation that ment the EARC scheme. His letter was passed on to Queensland's notorious gerrymander be reviewed. It was Sherman, who responded by saying that Burdekin's a sensation, not least because the recommendation conclusions 'are wrong, have no authority to support meant that Fitzgerald had stretched his terms of refer them, are not firmly based in any proper inquiry, and ence to the limit. involve an impermissible intrusion into Queensland In the hoopla that fo llowed, many overlooked the affairs. ' fact that Fitzgerald had not specified that the zonal ys Under the machinery set up by Fitzgerald, EARC's tem be done away with, nor had he recommended a report went to an all-party parliamentary committee for system of one vote-one value. Many simply assumed review. It was anathema to the majority of Labor that these things would follow from the independent members, who had suffered under decades of gerry review, which was to be conducted by the new Electoral mander. The committee slammed EARC's research and and Administrative Review Commission. But things did presuppositions, pointing out that although remoteness not turn out like that. Instead of coming down in favor may disadvantage electors, so did poverty, language of one vote-one value, EARC recommended a system of difficulties and the like. weighting for Queensland's most remote electorates. Yet the parliamentary committee recommended Why did Queensland have to be different? Why did the adoption of EARC's recommendations. The rea it not merely adopt the methods already established soning behind this move is almost as interesting as the federally and in the other states? The chairman of EARC, recommendations themselves. Three weeks after the a former Australian government solicitor, Tom Sher release of his report, Tony Fitzgerald had made his last man, claims that the review was the first in Australia direct intervention in the public affairs of Queensland. to examine the fundamental principles underlying suf The then Premier, Mike Ahern, had announced the frage. As such, it may have implications for other sys holding of a referendum to extend the term of hi gov tems in Australia-the more so since there is no question ernment so the electoral review could take place before that, however controversial its reconunendations, EARC the election. Perhaps by accident-though probably conducted a thorough, fair, and open review. not- the suggestion that the referendum wa Fitzger Since Australia has no bill of rights, and no consti ald's idea crept irlto public debate. tutional guarantees of equal suffrage, the commission It was an impression Fitzgerald felt bound to cor had to look overseas for basic p1inciples. The EARC gave rect. On 21 July, he called the three party leaders to his weight to Canadian experience, because it was a ma chambers. They came out with a joint media release, ture Westminster system operating in a jurisdiction with stating that the referendum had not been his idea. More large remote areas. Canadian court decisions suggested importantly, the three men publicly pledged that re that deviations from one vote-one value could be justi gardless of the referendum result, EARC's recommen fied if they contributed to better government. dations on the electoral system would be implemented. EARC concluded that although equal suffrage was The parliamentary committee concluded that po an important civil and political right, remoteness dis litically, if not legally, the leaders had delega ted to EARC advantaged citizens in terms of their effective access to the law making powers of Parliament. In an agonised elected representatives. So under the EARC system now chapter entitled 'What Is To Be Done', and quoting in place, one vote-one value applies, with a variation of sources as diverse as Locke and Garran on the sover 10 per cent allowed in the population size of most eignty of Parliament, the committee report concluded electorates. But electorates bigger than 100,000 square that it was 'honour bound' to accept the recommenda kilometres can include 'notional'- i.e. non-existent tions. voters, who may number up to a figure equal to two per Queenslanders may wonder whether Fitzgerald cent of the area of the electorate in square kilometres. would have agreed, given his report's emphasis on The formula will have little practical effect, probably restoring the proper role of Parliament, and limiting the applying to only five of the 89 Legislative Assembly seats powers of non-elected people and bodies. Such restora and perhaps creating one more seat. tion was, after all, one of the reasons he had EARC's The principle has been enormously controversial. recommendations subject to review by a parliamentary In correspondence with the Queensland government, committee. He clearly anticipated that there would be the federal Human Rights Commissioner, Brian Bur times when the two disagreed. dekin, claimed that EARC's recommendation was in The chairman of the parliamentary committee, consistent with Australia's obligations under the Matt Foley, still disagrees with what EARC did. 'But,' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, he says, 'the difference between this and the gerryman- which specified that elections should be by 'universal der is the difference between good and evil.' • 14 EUREKA STREET • N ovEMH ER 199 1 From page 13 the complexion of the Goss govermnent in an area where it has made no promises. T he recommendations include a Peaceful Assembly Act, which would make Queens land the first state in Australia to specifically provide a Integrity and calculus righ t of peaceful assembly. EARC also recommended the setting up of a speakers' corner in central Brisbane. The days of the right-to-march demonstrations seem W MEAS URE AREAS in term s of squares. But how are far away. In a report on the judicial review of adminis we to measure areas that have curved sides ? Archimedes trative decisions, EARC recommended that the scope devoted much thought to this. Inside a parabola, for ex of statutory judicial review be wider, simpler and cheaper ample, he drew a series of rectangles, getting sm aller than elsewhere in Australia, and that public servants be and smaller, with a series of similarly smaller triangles required by law to give written reasons for their decisions on top of each smaller rectangle. The area under the when an aggrieved person asks them to do so. parabola could thus be approximated as the sum of all Freedom-of-information legislation has also been these little areas. In the same way, Archim edes meas recommended, and here again EARC has departed from ured the value of n by inscribing a polygon with many normal Australian practice by abandoning the appeal sides inside and outside a circle. He never said that a process through tribunals and courts and appointing an circle was a polygon with an infinite number of sides, Information Commissioner, similar to the New Zea but he headed in that direction. He certainly formulat land and Canadian systems. This will make Fol cheap ed a mathematics with tendencies to infinite smallness. er to use, but there are concerns about whether the The Greeks usually avoided infinity in their math commissioner, appointed by Cabinet on address by Par ematics. Infinity is a rather imprecise notion, and pre liament, will be sufficiently independent. cision was what the Greeks were after. But Archimedes There is also a proposal for a 'parliamentary coun did invent what he called the 'method of exhaustion' sel', an independent statutory officer who, as well as and mathematical formulae that look remarkably like drafting bills, would have wide powers to scrutinise modern geometric series. In his efforts to 'square the them for adherence to basic legislative principles, such spiral' he took his method to the most exhausting of all as whether there are sufficient guidelines fo r the exercise limits, infinity. In doing so, he anticipated, if not dis of bureaucratic discretions, whether the government is covered, the modern method known as calculus. pushing through by regulation m easures that should be The discovery of the calculus is a vexed issue in dealt with in legislation, and whether laws show respect the history of mathematics. There is much evidence that for the traditions of Aborigines and Torres Isaac Newton came upon the formulation of infinite Strait Islanders. mathematical series and the calculus in 1665-66. He did not publish his discovery widely, however, and S OMETHI NGS HAvE OT CHANG ED in Queensland. There Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, perhaps assisted by are all sorts of tensions between the independent com correspondence from Newton to Oldenburg, printed his missions and the government. Only some of them are version of the calculus in the Acta Eruditorum in 1684. healthy tensions. But public attitudes have altered. A number of articles were then published claiming that Queenslanders express horror and indignation at prac Newton had in fact discovered the calculus prior to tices that, in the south, are greeted with a cynical shrug Leibniz. These articles were written by Newton himself, of the shoulder. Sherman says: 'I think Queenslanders though published under the nam es of his friends! are a very proud people, and the Fitzgerald inquiry and Leibniz appealed to the Royal Society to settle the what it revealed shamed them . Now there is a very puerile argument. This was an unfortunate tactic, for strong feeling that the body politic should be fixed up. ' Newton was the president of the society at the time. It may be that, as Queensland struggles out of its Appointing his partisans to a committee of inquiry, darkest hour, it is blazing a path for the rest of us. • N ewton wrote their report him self and had the society publish it, accusing Leibniz of stealing his own ideas. Margaret Simons is a freelance journalist who lives in He went further, even writing an anonymous review of South Australia. She writes regularly for Eurek a Street. this report in the soci ety's journal. He deleted all refer ences to Leibniz's method from later editions of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and is said to have rejoiced, after Leibniz's death, in 'breaking Su6scri6e ana get 20 pe r cent Leibniz's heart'. off tfre news-stana A great mathematician, Mr Newton, but not always a very nice man. A pity he didn't give some credit to price. Archimedes. Why is it so difficult fo r us to imagine that the greats of the past could possibly be our equal, or worthy of our respect and reverence? • See form inside 6acl(cover -John Honner SJ V oLUM E l N u MB ER 9 • EUREKA STREET 15 It's only dry under the u1nbrella C auw Tiffi Lm 16 EUREKA STREET • NovEMBE R 199 1 Photo: Michael Coyne THE REGION The two great 20th century Chinese revolutions, of 1911 and 1945- 9, were both in essence military struggles won by the stronger military leader. Th e next Chinese revolution, however, might m ark the end of that tradition. Tha t bloodless revolution might be very close indeed. The emperors without clothes C WNA WATCHeRS coo< ""c' w•TH '""to tht old tion results in Hong Kong, while superficially indica days of sparse information and clear ideological stanc tive of confidence, may be read in the opposite sense. es. Our task has become more, not less, exacting in Are they such bad Marxists as to believe that the funda recent years, and one suspects that this feeling is shared mental economic and social changes they have wrought by the old men in Beijing. They must make decisions for more than a decade will not generate ideological and about their vast and diverse country while divested of political change? theoretical certainties, a stable world and reliable local Reports from all areas and all levels in China suggest support. that outside Beijing the writ of the central government Trevor Hay (E urel V oLUM E 1 N u M BER 9 • EUREKA STREET 17 preference list of China's top middle-school graduates. cess of China should be attributed to cultural factors Another case of ill-judged and counter-productive an entrepreneurial tradition, peasant shrewdness, the actions has been the tougher religious policy. The Bureau exigencies of survival-or to a more enlightenecllea cler of Religious Affairs is thought to have become too sym ship, or to the sheer size of the internal market, is de pathetic to its charges, and a harder line emanating from batable; but there is no doubt that the fundamentals are the United Front department has taken its place. The sound. Long- term problems remain to be solved: popu reaction to the appointment of Gong Pinmei, the prel lation growth out of control-despite the savagery of ate Rome recognises as Bishop of Shanghai as a cardi the one-child policy-environmental devastation, and nal- or rather to the Vatican's announcement that it China's relations with Japan. Most Chinese, however, had occurred in secret some time ago-seems to have seem to regard their prosperity as having been achieved been to impose petty restrictions on outside visitors. despite, rather than because of, the Chinese Commu These will not slow the growing regularisa tion of bish nist Party. With Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore as ops not appointed by Rome, nor the rapprochement of ever-present, if idealised, models of Chinese prosperity, 'patriotic' ancl 'traclitional' Catholics, a distinction that combined with a more open society, pressure in any case means little in practice in many areas. Those for change will continue. most likely to be adversely affected are hardliners with in the Patriotic Association. L E MA IN QUESTION REMAININ G is one of timing. Will As for Australian relations with China, the criticism there be another Tiananmen, either an ethnic one as clirectecl towards Senator Chris Schact's parliamentary Trevor Hay suggests, or an urban workers' movement human rights delegation again illustrates the Chinese much more like Marx's vision than was the actual Chi government's isolation from reality. Despite some mis nese communist revolution? (Recent waves of strikes guided early criticism of the personnel of the delega have been little noted in the Western press.) Or will the tion, there was never any possibility that such a students try again, having done their preparatory work well-informed and experienced group would have been with the army, as in 1911 1 party to a whitewash. The apparently startled and ex- The key to the succession to the old men lies with cessive reaction to its measured the Peopl e's Liberation Army. Despite recent specula criticisms would indicate either tion, the 84-year-old President, Yang Shangkun, seems Reports fron1 all areas and a blunder on the part of the Chi unlikely to follow Deng Xiaoping, and if he did he would nese government or a very subtle be an interim leader in the fullest sense of the term. But all levels in China suggest ga me being played by some in would the PLA accept one of the middle generation, and ternal critics. Chinese are used to on what terms? It is here that there is an analogy with that outside Beijing the a mirror reading of their own the Soviet Union, where the army's reluctance to sup press: the best way to communi port the August coup was decisive, just as the dea l done writ of the central cate unpalatable ideas is often to with the PLA in June 1989 was decisive in what engineer their detailed refutation. amounted to a coup in China. But would the PLA go government is By its own measure of suc the same way in 1992 or 1993? cess-the pace of economic re It should not surprise us to conclude that the fate increasingly ignored ... construction and growth- the of modernisation, democracy and prosperity in China Chinese gerontocracy's post might in the end depend on the army. Apart from its An historian is reminded Tiananmen policies have hardly size, China is in other respects a Third World country, been on target. Growth in gross an Afro-Asian nation. The two great 20th century Chi of the classic symptoms of national product has slowed, the nese revolutions, of 19 11 and 1945-9, were both in deficits of the state enterprises essence military struggles won by the stronger military dynastic decay: revolt, increased (doubling in the first lea der. The next Chinese revolution, however, might half of 1990 over the previous mark the end of that tradition, with the army retrea ting dissent, contempt for the year ), unemploym ent has in to a supporting professional role. That bloodless revolu old regime and loss of creased, and taxation revenue has tion might be very close indeed. • been half what had been estimat- faith in its mandate, eel. There are signs of an im Paul Rule is a China specialist who lectures in religious provement in 199 1 but many studies at La Trobe University. He is the author of Mao corruption at the centre. Chinese are questioning the pol- Zedong (UQP, 1984.) icies themselves . Like the Soviet Union, China has suffered from the deficiencies of an untenable dual system: a private sector subject to the vagaries of a volatile world econo Trevor Hay (see 'China, Red and Ethnic', in the my, and a state sector run as competitive fiefcloms by October issue of Eurelw* Str eet) has won the 199 1 unaccountable political elites. Braille Book of the Year Award for Tartar City It would be misleading to compare the Chinese and Woman: Scenes from the life of Wang Hsin-ping, the Soviet economies. Whether the comparative sue- former citizen of China. (MUP) 18 EUREKA STREET • N ovEMBER 199 1 Keep it clean many leadership roles in the church. Yet what the sisters decided, he sa id, 1n 1747 an upward-striving 15 year would affect large numbers of low old in Virginia named George Wash paid wom en w orkers. - NaUonal ington laboriously copied out maxims Catholic Report er, June 7, 199 1. from a new translation of the French Jesuits' Rules of Civility and Decent Virtue in fiction Parallel lives Behaviour (1595 ). Some of the more decorous tips transcribed included the Jane Austen is in a crucial way- along For those interested in ge tting to the following: 'Put not off yo ur Clothes in with Cobbett and the Ja cobins- thc bottom of the Jesuit murder in El the presence of others, nor go out of last grea t representative of the classi Salvador on 16 November 1989, the yo ur Chamber half Drest.' 'Bedew no cal tradition of the vi rtues. It has proved recent momentous history of the USSR man's face with Spittle by approach easy for later ge nerations not to under offers, not a distraction, but new pos ing too near him when you Speak'. stand her importance as a moralist sibilities. No one can now credibly One particular maxim joined preci beca use she is after all a novelist. And claim that US support for the right sion to deli cacy: 'Kill no Vermin as to them she has often appea red as not wing military in El Salvador is neces Fleas, li ce, ti cks, etc in the Sight of merely 'onl y' a writer of fiction, but a sary to block a Soviet takeover in Others; if you See any filth or thick writer of fiction concerned with a ve ry Central America. Pumping up the Spittle put yourfoot Dexterously upon restricted social world. What they have Salvadoran armed forces with mili it; if it be upon the loths of yo ur not observed and what the juxtaposi tary aid makes it clearer than ever that Companions Put if off privately, and if tion of her insights with Cobbett and we are merely supporting one part of it be upon yo ur own Cloths return the Jacobins ought to teach us to ob the Salvadoran population against Thanks to him who puts it off.' serve is that both in her own time and another. When the 'crack' Black Berets America, Se ptember 7, 1991. afterward the I ife of the vi rtues is who murdered Latvians and Lithua necessaril y afforded a very restrictive nians finally went scuttling home from cultural and social space. In most of the Baltics, the world cheered. One 100-year wait the public and most of the private difference between those Black Berets world the classical and medieval vir and El Salvador's 'crack' Atlacatl Bat US Catholic hospitals have been tues arc replaced by the meagre sub tali on, whose troops murdered the accused by labour organisers of trying stitutes whi ch modern morality af Jesuits, is that the Atlacatl Battalion to discourage employees fro m joining fords . Of course, when I say that Jane was trained by US Marines. These are unions. The Queen of the Valley Hos Austen is in a crucial way the last 'our' Black Beret .- America, Sep pital in Napa, Califo rnia, faces charg representative of the classical tradi tember 14, 1991. es before the US National Labor Rela tion, I do not mean to deny that she tions Board of 'interfering with, re hasany dcscendants. Kipling, in a short straining and coercing' employees story now seldom read, with a good during a union mcmbershipcLri ve. The deal of insight made one of his char .. . Ameri ca does not appear by any board has also ordered St John's Has acters say that she was the mother means as particularly fresh or un pi tal in Springfield, Illinois, to post he might better have said the gra nd touched. She appears with all the notices pledging not to 'i nterroga tc' or mother- of Henry James.- Alasdai r weakness and weariness of modern 'threaten' pro- union employees. And Macintyre, After VirlLi e ch.lo. England, or any other Western power. in Buffalo, New York, nurses at Mercy In her politics she has bro ken up ex Hospital voted to set up a local branch actl y as England has broken up, into a of the Communica ti ons Workers of A fiendish game bewildering opportunism and insin America- but only after the adminis It is rumoured that cricket bega n in cerity. In this matter of war and the tration had suggested that pro-unjon the Benedictine mona steri es of 13th national attitude towards war, her re nurses should work somewhere else, century England, as a religious exer semblance to England is even more because unions 'promote hostility'. cise. The church, in this allego ri cal manifest and melancholy. It may be To counter union-busting, church ga me, was represented by two bats said with rough accuracy that there and union officials have turned to men (vi car and curate), while the forc are thxee stages in the life of a strong congrega tions of religious sisters, who es of evil were represented by Lucifer people. First it is a small power, and control 95 per cent of America 's Cath (the bowler) and his lOdisciplcs, whose fights small powers. Then it is a great olic hospitals. Monsignor George names I have forgotten. The aim of the power, and fights great powers. Then Hjggins, a church spokesman on labour Dev il was to bowl a ball (the human it i a great power, and fight small issues, made the appeal in several soul) down through the ga tes of hell powers, but pretends that they are peeches marking the lOOth anniver (the wickets). The aim of the church great powers, in order to rekindle the sary of Rerum Novarum, the encycli wa to hit the soul away fro m the ashe of its ancient emotion and van cal of Pope Leo XIll that endorsed ga tes of hell, but not in such a way that ity. After that, the next step is to Ia bour unions. In an interview, Higgins it was caught on the rebound by one of become a small power itself.-G.K. said the question of religious women the devils fi elding for Lucifer.- Gil es Chesterton, 'The Fallacy of the Young and union busting was a sensitive one Pickford, St Mark 's Review, Autumn Nation', in Heretics, published 1905. because women had been deprived of 1991. V O LUM E 1 N UMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 19 I NTERVIEW :t,~,. M M G '~~*' ICHA_E,~ C IRR The stoneS"'Jre laughing - . "' • .. ' \ :e .. ,_ • .. . .· . . - -\·: ..... \ ·- :...... - ":- Whatever 'side' they take, outsiders tend to see the Arab-Isra eli conflict in terms of stark contrasts. But fro m the inside it looks very different, as Michael McGirr fo und when he spoke to the Israeli novelist and peace activist, Amos Oz. McGirr: I' ve heard you say that Isra elis are passionate a passionate matter. People read books sometimes in about literature. Why is thaU order to pick an issue with a fictitious character in the Oz: There is a tradition in Israel which is very different novel. from the English-language tradition. There is an expec tation among Jews that writers do not write fiction, but You don 't claim divine inspiwtion yet it's part of your that they have some gospel, that they be the heirs of the life that every morning you walk out into the desert prophets. In fact, there is actually no Hebrew word for not far from where you live. You 've described the desert 'fiction' and it's not a word I like. In our bookshops you as the cradle of monotheism. will find ections marked 'narrative prose'. Not that the Yes. If you compare the desert to northerly landscapes contemporary writers can always deliver a gospel, but where paganism thrives-perhaps to this very clay-you the expectation is there. I think some Slavonic countries can understand why. These shady, misty varied land share the same tradition; in Russia, for example, where scapes that change with light and wea ther and season poets read their poetry in huge auditoriums. Possibl y in and climate; and where there is fo rest and mountain Latin America as well. The expectation is that writers and bush and hill and river. Those beget the faith in a not just tell a story but show the way. The cultural ex variety of deities: clemons, goblins, you name it. Where pectation is there in the genes of the Jewish people, all as the desert is always the same. Summer and winter, the way back to the Bibl e, I believe. spring and autumn it's the same desert. There is this monotoneity: magnificent, magnaminous monotonei Is this an expectation that puts pressure on you per ty. Which makes you unmistakeably aware of the fact sonally! that there is one unmistakeable presence all over the It does, because most of the time I cannot deliver. I don't place. Now what you ca ll this presence is, of course, a hear any voices from high above and all I can do, in a matter of your conviction or your belief. But it's one political essay, is to use my common sense and my log presence. ic, and hopefull y my integrity. Not any divine inspira tion. But the strain there is enormous because those who No doubt you know that the desert looms large in the arc disappointed with what you have to say or to suggest Australian imagination. But the white Australian turn very furious at you. Israelis read books for rage, not imagination is also stereotypically secular, almost for enjoyment, you know. Reading books is not an en defining itself against the emptiness of the desert. te:tainment business in Israel. It's not, as it is in the There is a bit of that in the attitude of the Israeli early English-language tradition, a subtle entertainment. It's pioneers at the beginning of Zionism : when they want- 20 EUREKA STREET • N ovEMilER 199 1 of lie, seeks if not truth, then at least a glimpse of it. Another striking feature of the bool< is the presence, in the life of all sorts of people, of political people, of art. You draw attention to paintings on the walls of the In telligence Office and a sick woman reading poetry. What is the role of art in these lives ! If I had tO answer this in one word, I'd say it's a comfort. A comforting impact in an immensely tormented soci ety with a very traumatic past and a very painful present and a very uncertain future. Art is a great comfort for many Israelis. Different forms of art. Not all of it great art. Jewish creativity is ultimately the outcome of in credible suffering and of a tormented mind. Jews arc forever asking themselves, 'What's wrong with us ?' It's a terrible fact because, having been persecuted and dis criminated against for thousands of years, after a while one stops asking what's wrong with my oppressor and starts asking himself or herself 'What's wrong with me? ' It's a terrible state of mind. It happens to every victim. Hence the persistent soul-searching. ed, so to speak, to conquer the desert, to civilise the You've become identified with a piece of political ad desert. This is pretty much the equivalent of your vice which is to 'mal< e peace, not love'. Could you ex national ethos. It is changing now. Many people prefer plain this! to keep at least parts of the desert intact as a source of In the Christian tradition and vocabulary, love and inspiration. Let some of the desert be preserved as no compassion and forgiveness and brotherhood arc syn man's-land where you can roam and lose yourself and onymous. Not in the Jewish tradition. The opposite of knock things back into proportion. You know, you war is not love, the opposite of war is peace. The wander in the desert in the early morning for half an Christian concept of universal love differs a great dea l hour or an hour, and you go back home for your coffee from the Jewish concept, which regards love as a very and turn on the radio and hear this or that politician private and intimate feeling which could only be be saying 'forever' or 'for the rest of eternity'. You know stowed upon those to whom you relate intimately. the stones out there are laughing. Family and friends. Universal love is by definition, to me as a Jew, bound to be vety thin, very abstract, ve1y In To Know A Woman, you have spol< en about the impersonal. Whereas love prevails in the Christian mind search for truth of the principal character, Yael, and and tradition, in the Jewish tradition the key notion is have described his life's option as m eta political and, in justice, not love. I think in Jewish scripture you will the some breath, theological. Could you shed a little find the word 'justice' in various forms as often as you light on what you m ean! will find 'love' in Christian scriptures. This is one of This man expects forever an illumination, an epiphany. the theological differences between our two religions. He retires in middle age from a career as a master spy On the other hand, there is the intense, family-like and uses his professional, intellectual equipment not in intimacy within parts of Judaism. The sense that eve pursuit of happiness but in pursuit of knowledge. He ryone is everybody else's family. And of course, the has great care for detail, a sharp eye for detail. He uses family business of inflicting guilt on one another. We this in order to discern a pattern in everything, hoping Jews have, indeed, invented guilt. The Christians have that something will reveal itself to him. I would call spread it all over the world but the Jews invented it. this theological rather than social or political. In almost When I say guilt, I do not necessarily imply the guilt of a comical way, he looks at the wall paper in some God sin, nor any kind of original sin. I think some of us Jews forsaken hotel somewhere and hopes a pattern, a some are champions at suffering the agonies of guilt without thing, will emerge. first enjoying the delights of sin. Whatever this something is is not for me to say. The book does not end with a theological conclusion. In your estimation, the supreme value, greater than It's not a Jewish or a Christian or a Muslim book. But it political ju stice or national interest is life itself. This is terminates with some sort of a deep expectation for the only value for which you have said you personally something to reveal itself. A pattern or reason behind would go bacl V oLUME 1 N u MBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 21 times. On the battlefields and elsewhere. I hate death I find it difficult to think of a role for Christianity as a immensely and the thought of people inilicting dea th whole. But there is a particular responsibility for Chris on other people is a thought I just cannot take. I value tian Europe. I think C hristian Europe is the past and cherish life, even unhappy life, even miserable life. oppressor of both Jews and Arabs, in two different ways. But not at all costs. If anybody tried to turn me into a The Arabs have been victimised by European colonial slave, I'd fight. But I cherish life because the only alter ism and exploitation. The Jews have been persecuted native to life is death. As simple as that. Death I hate. and partly destroyed by Christian Europe. Now it would Life m eans compromise. There is something in me still have been an ideal world if two victims of the same raging about the fact that I've been compromising and oppressor had developed a gut solidarity. This is how it I'm advocating a compromise. I have become political always happens in the plays of Bertolt Brecht. But in ly an uncompromising advocate of compromise. real life the worst animosities are sometimes those be The conflict between Arab and Israeli is not a wild tween the victims of the same oppressor, looking at each west film with good guys and bad guys, not in the least. other and seeing an image of their past tormentor in the If anything it is a tragedy, a clash between justice and other victim. It's like the relationship between two justice. Between one very strong cause and another very children oppressed by the same horrendous parent. strong ca use. Now, tragedies can be resolved in one of Christian Europe has the same specific responsi two ways. There is a Shakespearean resolution to trag bility to help create the necessary provisions for a Mid edy in which the stage is covered with dead bodies and East peace. For instance, to initiate a Marshall Plan in justice hovers high above. There is also a Chekhov res order to resettle both Palestinian refugees and Jewish olution. At the end of a Chekhov tragedy everybody is refugees pouring into Israel from countries where life bitter and disillusioned and shattered, but alive. And I isn't bearable for them. Now, if Australia wished to want a Chekhov resolution for any conflict. contribute to such a Marshall Plan that would be really This goes against the nucleus of my education and something for both Jews and Arabs. • perhaps against my own genes. There is this perpetual Jewish aching for the absolute-absolute justice, etc. Michael McGirr SJ is a student at Jesuit Theological Many of m y characters believe in something I do not. College, Parkvill e, Vi ctoria. He is a regular contributor Absolutes. Absolute love or whatever. They believe in to Eurelw Street. perfect peace. They believe in everlasting happiness, which I think is a kitschy notion. They believe passion ately and, I hope, convincingly in religious or political ideas which I resent wholeheartedly as a person. So there is a certain civil war going on within myself and it's Invitation this that provides the need to tell stories with a certain distance and perspective and detachment. Jesuit Publications Speaking of that detachment, one thing I picl 22 EUREKA STREET • Nov EMB ER 199 1 Thy neighbour's watch L DOOR"" R>NGS e•die< than I usu•lly wish to in a few cheap shots about Neighbourhood Watchers hear it on a Saturday morning. Perched on my doorstep being busybodies whose chief delight lies in knowing is an immaculately attired, carefully coiffured woman their neighbours' business. My visitor pouts and departs. of indeterminate age, who announces that she is my Having just inveighed against people spying on their Neighbourhood Watch representative. 'Oh,' I reply, neighbours, I proceed to the kitchen window to see how forbearing to add 'that's nice'. This is less out of a reluc she will be received by my neighbours. They all are tance to say something silly-politeness frequently leads happy to become Watchers, and green-and-white stick me to say silly things-than because it is difficult to say ers go up on doors all round the block of flats. My door anything at this hour of the m orning. I blink as my vis is conspicuously bare. I see my visitor standing on the itor stares disdainfully at my dishevelled state. Unnec doorstep of Mrs Chodorowski, who is a kind of concierge essarily she inquires: 'I'm sorry, did I get you out of bed?' for the block. They glance back towards my flat disap I explain that I like to get up when the sun is warm, provingly, and I know that the Watchers will probably about one or two in the afternoon. It is a simple state spend much of their time watching me. Mrs Chodor ment of fact but she seems to think I have made some owski is 65-ish, six-foot-five-ish, and an exponent of the sort of feeble joke, and titters appreciatively. Politeness martial arts. She would terrify most prowlers even makes people do that, too. Then she wrinkles her nose without the Neighbourhood Watch. She intimidates me as the fr esh morning air loses the battle against the nox eve1ytime she asks about the weeds in my garden and I ious odours emanating from my airless fl at. have to say 'They're doing very well, thank you.' This is fortunate, because at last she explains the Oppressed by the fac t that I have become suspect purpose of her visit. Waving an adhesive label with by declaring my intention not to be suspicious, and not 'Neighbourhood Watch' printed on it, she asks if I will relishing an encounter with Mrs Chodorowski, I decide take it. I agree to do this, as it seems to be the quickest it is a good time to take a walk. So I wander down to the way of removing her from my doorstep. I do not tell her shops, doing my best not to loiter or look suspicious. that I have no intention of affixing this label to my door, The sun is shining, the cops I pass on the street do not to the wall around the overgrown garden planted by the arrest me, and I am accosted only by the Salvation Army previous tenant, or to any other part of my abode. officer who rattles a tin in the local pubs on Friday nights. Politeness still rules. Then she explains that receipt of a He is still on duty the morning after, a fine testimony shiny new Neighbourhood Watch sticker is normally to the virtues of sobriety. I fumble in my pocket for loose considered an occasion for the recipient to make a change and drop it into his tin. He beams an assurance donation. See where all this civility has got you, I tell that Jesus loves me. Still trying to sort out the morning's myself as I stumble back into the flat, groping for my experiences, I mumble 'The weeds are doing very well, wallet. My eyes are still t1y ing to focus and I ca1mot thank you' and keep walking. find it. Instead I scoop up some pseudo-gold coins and Paranoia abates. I sit in the milk bar by the super clink them into her outstretched hand, noticing that market, spread the morning paper in front of me and she is peering over my shoulder into the darker recesses spill coffee over it. After a while I enter the supennar of the flat. Perhaps she also works for the health ket and narrowly escape having my picture taken as department, and is trying to locate the source of the shopper of the week. I return home an d see Mrs Chod noxious odours. Either that, or you just can't keep a good orowski weeding her garden. I do not return her stare. Neighbourhood Watcher from watching whatever there The rest of the day passes without incident until I switch is to watch. on the television for the evening news bulletin . There I decide that there are times when one should just is an item about a state convention of Neighbourhood should say a firm 'N o, thank you ' when offered Watchers. On the screen is a vast auditorium, fi lled with unwanted wall stickers, and that I must do something Mrs Chodorowskis. Several are interviewed and they to regain my self-respect. So I hand the shiny new sticker say they are just doing the best they can for their back along with the pseudo-gold coins, saying that she neighbours. A police superintendent looks on benignly. can keep the money as a pledge of my good faith, but Paranoia returns. I switch off the television and take that I do not want to be a Neighbourhood Watcher. She a book from the shelf. It is Crime and Punishment. I looks hurt and asks why. I explain that if I see any of my decide this is a bad choice and return it to the shelf. I neighbours being burgled or assaulted I will do what I flick through Don Quixote, wondering whether my can to prevent these acts, and then call out the con di stinguished ancestor ever became a target for the stabulary. This I would do anyway, and I do not need to Neighbourhood Watch. attend meetings of the professionally suspicious to learn But the Don is silent. Dark night. Nothing. • the elem ents of neighbourliness. I have now woken up and am at my indignantly rhetorical worst, so I throw Ray Cassin is production editor of Eurelw Street. V o LUME 1 N uMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 23 THE VI DAM! EN A cMO 24 EUREKA STREET • N OVEMBER 1991 ,'ORLD cated in the previous three years were double or more. On July 17 the Minister for Social Affairs and Integration, Jean-Louis Bianco, announced ---...... __,_ 25 measures to help the Harkis, including cre ation of ' 100 to 200 jobs' through agreements j 1 with local government; more scholarships and better access to education; improvements in .J housing for those still 'in transit' and incen tives to move elsewhere; and debt aid for fam ilies who bought homes in the cheap housing .I I belts that grew up around the old 'camps' . Bianco said that 'this community has almost been forgotten ... the French must know that the Harkis are French like the rest ... ' The sa me 1obody minister observed two weeks later that the problem was thus effectively wrapped up, for the measures 'should be sufficient for the inte gration of those who really want it'. After all, ;-- -- only about 10,000 Harkis were in any real dif 'Jorth African market. The French have always been ficulties. fer to go there rather than have it come to them. Salah Bouaziz, like most Harki spokes- men, judged the measures well short of what is sacres of Harkis by the newly independent Algerian needed. Worse, they erved only to 'fool public opin authorities. An estimated 150,000 died in the two years ion', making it appear all that is necessary was being after Evian. Bouaziz cites a letter from an Algerian done. 'People hear this and say it's those Arabs asking teacher who, in spite of what he has read of the Harkis' for more money again ... ' He is especially suspicious of troubles in France, would like to join them: 'My father any plans to establish follow-up did not have the chance to save himself. He was mur groups and monitors. 'Whenever they dered on 3 1 August 1962 ... Here, we still live in appoint a monitor or social worker, In the same way the fear ... ' Enclosed was a copy of his father's do you think they ever employ a recruitment record. Harki?' The press reacted cautiously, Americans have but tended to view the pronounce EOR YEARS, H ARKJS IN FRANCE, isolated and afraid of a ments a yet another exercise in their problems with forced return to Algeria, kept quiet. Says Bouaziz, 'eve plugging holes before the dam bursts. rything was Oui, man capitaine'. Their children and Said Serge Boulbes: 'At best, it is in Vietnam, grandchildren are not o amenable. They are convinced sufficient.' that their virtual separation from wider French society In 1986 France's General France, 30 years on, is motivated partly by a desire to keep the dark side of Administration Inspectorate investi their history mute. To Algiers, they were traitors and ga ted the National Office for Social, has not succeeded in now do not exist. For Paris, in a hurry to extricate itself Educational and Cultural Action from the vice of colonial war, they were a complication (ONASEC), an agency which, among resolving the best ignored. Some members of the army, disturbed by other things, was supposed to aid the their government's capacity to simply drop the Harkis Harki community. The inspectorate's problem s of the into the too-hard basket, helped them cross to France in report accused ONASEC of seeking Algerian war. spite of directives aimed at stemming such 'repatria permanent clients, and said its main tion'. Le Monde recently quoted a secret note dated 25 purpose appeared to be 'the mainte- May 1962 stipulating that 'auxiliaries arriving in the nance of a particularly advantageous material situation metropolis outside [the limits of] the general repatria for its own employees'. ONASEC has now been wound tion plan will be sent back to Algeria ... ' up, but the inquiry revealed that three billion francs 'The nation has a debt [to those] who so coura destined for the Harkis ended up elsewhere. geously served France,' declared Edith Cresson, the A committee formed by the previous prime minis prime minister, in the wake of the violent incidents of ter, Michel Rocard, had already presented a 30-point plan June. Soon afterwards 100 million fra ncs ($22 million) for resolving the issue, but the government chose to originally destined for projects for the Harl<.i community, ignore most of its recommendations and adopted Bian but cut in post-Gulf war budget tightening, was restored. co's m easures instead. The Rocard committee had Few Harkis got carried away, though, a the sums allo- stressed giving due recognition for the services of V O LUME 1 N UM BER 9 • EUREKA STREET 25 Algerian combatants, and measures to prevent discrim tives have been given to understand that their presence ination against their children. The last attempt to deal is not required. Although even some younger Harkis with the question came with similar proposals in August are attracted, Bouaziz says they are knowingly hoping 1989, after violent incidents in the Harki community. to turn FN support to their advantage. Serge Boulbes As early as 1975, Harkis were protesting against believes the opposite, fearing the Front is manipulating their living conditions and exclusion from the wider the Harkis for its own ends. Police in fact suspect that community. A statue at a crossroads in the midst of the an extreme right agitator was behind the shooting of a Narbonne housing estate is covered with graffiti: 'Thirty policeman during one of this summer's years of contempt.' Their malaise seems an almost clashes with Harkis. contradictory combination of tired frustration and a desperate determination to achieve change. At a regional B ouLBES FEELS ONE of the Harkis' greatest difficulties meeting in late August, young Harkis mapped out plans is the vagueness of their demands, particularly at a local to elect national leaders and to hammer out an alter level, where individual grievances vary widely. Moreo native list of demands to that of the Rocard-inspired ver, special aid, schools, debt relief and the rest of the commission. 'measures' suggested or demanded do little more, in his The uniqueness of the Harkis' situation is not short view, than accentuate what makes the Harkis different; of unexpected twists. As racism increases and migration, it confirms their dependence and isolation. For him, the especially that of the beurs, becomes a target of grow problem goes deeper than job programs. 'In the same ing intolerance, the Harkis have discovered a surprise way the Americans have their problems with Vietnam, supporter- Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front (FN). France, 30 years on, has not succeeded in resolving the Salah Bouaziz admits that the extreme right FN's problems of the Algerian war.' backing has been greeted positively by some Harkis. The biggest task is to ensure the full story of the That a party is simply talking about them, he says, is Harkis finds its due place, passing into 'the collective enough to convince older Harkis to throw in their lot consciousness' much as has the Resistance. He sees the with the Front. The ge neral sentiment is far from national lay education system as 'the m elting pot' favourable- at some marches in Paris, FN representa- through which this process can take place. After 30 years the Harkis remain caught between two flags, accepted neither by Algeria nor by France. For Boulbes, once real recognition-'the most difficult objective because the least palpable'- is achieved, when the Harkis have fi nally 'come home', their other problems will be no greater than those affecting the rest of the French popu Licensed real estate agents lation. ' At the moment, many (Harkis] miss out. I don't & auctioneers & property managers say all, but more than in there t of the French nation.' Salah Bouaziz says that if the government really had the political will to act, it could solve the problem 'in one fell swoop'. He would like to see some pressure We may not be the biggest exerted on employers to take on Harkis. He also wants the appointment of an ombudsman to monitor cases of but we aim to be the best discrimination. Not for himself and his generation, for whom he feels it is probably too late, but for his young children. 'I am afraid for them, if this continues ... We are the American Indians of France.' He and other par ents of the second generation are pushing their children hard to do well at school, to equip themselves with every Connell Bongiorno advantage they can. He speaks calmly, but cannot hide his bitterness. Bouaziz admits there is a contradiction between the Harkis' profound desire to integrate, to be fully accepted, and a competing instinct that recoils from the price they would have to pay. Becoming fully absorbed 247 Glenferrie Road within the French community would mean a total eras Armadale VIC 3143 ing of their background, and of the memory of what their fathers and grandfathers did- those proud men who still Office; (03) 509 3400 wear the medals won in combat. 'We are the shame of Fax (03): 500 0814 France.' • Damien Simonis is Eurelw Street's European corre spondent. 26 EUREKA STREET • N OVEM BER l991 OBITUARY er, was relieved to find that the only WITH Rahnn, Lone< Lgan, Murray""", von Balthasar, Chenu sentence in the encyclical referring and Congar, Henri de Lubac stood to the supernatural reproduced what among the giants of the great theo he himself had said in an article logical revival that culminated in published two years before. Vatican II (1962- 65). His dea th on Seeking to defl ect accusations 4 September this year leaves Yves aga inst the Society of Jesus in Congar OP, ill and in hospital, as the France, which was being accused of only surviving member of that bril promoting a supposedl y modernistic liant pleiade. 'new theology', the Jesuit general, Born in 1896, de Lubac entered John-Baptist Janssens, removed de the Society of Jesus in 1913 but was Lubac and several colleagues from called up for service in the French their teaching positions and required army in World War I, during which them to submit their writings to a he was severely wounded. After the special process of censorship. war he again studied for the Jesuit Because of the restrictions placed on priesthood, under excell ent masters, his research, in this period de Lubac and gained an enthusiasm for Tho turned towards the study of non mas Aquinas, interpreted along the Christian religions. He published lines suggested by Blonde!, Rous three books on Buddhism, which selot and Man~ cha l. Without any interested him as an example of re specialized training or doctoral ligion without God. degree he was assigned to teach the By his own admission, de Lubac ology in the Catholic faculty at Lyo ns, where he taught, was not a systematic thinker, yet his work possesses a with some interruptions, from 1929 to 1961. There, and remarkable inner coherence. As his fri end and disciple in his occasional courses at the neighbouring Jesuit the Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out, de Lubac's earl y ologa te in Fourviere, de Lubac began to forge new direc work, Catholicisme, is programmatic for his entire ca tions in theology and comparative religion. reer. The va rious chapters are like limbs that would lat De Lubac's first book, Catholicisme ( 1938), was er grow in different directions from the sa me trunk. The intended to emphasise the unitive power of Catholic title of this youthful work expresses an overarching in Christianity and its capacity to transcend all human tuition: to be Catholic, for de Lubac, meant to exclude divisions. Developing his interest in the fathers of the nothing, to be complete and comprehensive. He saw church, in 1940 he and his friend Jean Danielou SJ be God's creative and redemptive plan as including gan publication of Sources chretiennes, a remarkable / all humanity and, indeed, the entire cosmos. collection of patristic texts and translations that by now includes more than 300 volumes. During the Nazi L IBERAL' AND ' CONSE RVATIVE' are terms ill-suited to occupation of France, he became co-editor of a series of describe theologians such as de Lubac. If such terminol Cahiers du Temoignage chretien. In these papers and in ogy must be used, one would have to say that he em his lectures, de Lubac strove to exhibit the incompati braced both alternatives. He was liberal because he bility between Christianity and the antisemitism that opposed any narrowing of the Catholic tradition, even the Nazis were seeking to disseminate among French at the hand of the disciples of StThomas. He sought to Catholics. On several occasions his fri ends had to spirit rehabilitate marginal thinkers, such as Origen, Pico della him away into hiding to prevent him from being cap Mirandola and Bl onde!, in whom he found kindred tured and executed by the Gestapo, as happened to his spirits. He reached out to the atheist Proudhon, and friend and colleague, Yves de Montcheuil SJ. sought to build bridges to Am ida Buddhism. De Lubac's most famous work, Sumaturel (1 946 ), The suffering of his long years of adversity, maintains that the debate between the Baianists and including two world wars and decades of grea t tension the scholastics in the 17th century rested on misinter in the church, are still bearing fruit. In the last few years, pretations of both Augustine and Aquinas. Each party as his earthly life drew to a close, his disciples and ad to the debate, he maintained, was operating with phil mirers became more numerous and influential. De osophical and juridical categories foreign to ancient Lubac's creative reappropriation of the ancient tradition theology. Contemporary neoscholastics, especially in has earned him a place of honour in a generation of the southern France and Rome, took offence at this charge ological giants. -Avery Dulles SJ • and interceded with the Holy See for a condemnation of de Lubac's views. When Pope Pius XII published the This obituary first appeared in America magazine. Avery encyclical Hum ani Generis in 1950, many believed that Dulles SJ is McGinley professor of religion and science it did condemn de Lubac's position. De Lubac, howev- at Fordham University, New York. V OLUME 1 N UMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 27 DEBATE MARK COLERIDGE When is a ruin really a ruin? I HAPPEN TO BE one of Patnc k A further element of the transition is the move to a O'Farrell's hyphenated priests (priest style of theology attuned more directly to human expe biblical scholar) and I'm just ba ck in rience. The move is not without its ambiguities, but it the country aft er some fairly bruis came because the Catholic system of doctrine and mor ing intellectual work among the al s, for all its wonderful internal coherence, at times ruins of Rome. No sooner was I safely left people's lives untouched at points where they badly back in the shadows of St Patri ck's needed touching. Hence childhood memories of my than I struck Gerard Windsor, in m other complaining of sermons full of 'a ll that theolog chorus with O'Farrell, lam enting the ical stuff'. Postconciliar slogans pointed to the need to ruin of Catholic intellectual life in fuse theology and life, doctrine and li fe etc. Theology ~~== Australia (Eureka Stree t. , September was to become more evange lical; the gap between the 1991(. N ot quite the zestful and ology and preaching was to be bridged. If the T rinity enthusing note I had looked for on Sunday preaching is as poor as Windsor suggests, then my return. the task has barely begun. Mind you, I think it's a fin e Recent decades have also seen the demise of the thing that people like O'Farrell and Windsor raise such theologian as hero. The years before the Second Vatica n questions in the public fo rum, and in a way that is fr ee Council saw the work of heroic perfo rmers like Chenu, of the ideological ca nt that ca n beset di scussions of th is de Lubac, Conga r, Rahncr, vo n Balthasar. Now all except kind. And although I agree wholeheartedly that 'the Conga r arc dead, and no new heroes have risen in their matter needs m ore sustained and less impressionisti c place. What has happened is that more and more scholars discussion', I found many of Windsor's impressions in all sorts of pl aces arc doing less and less. What is true bracing and unexceptio nabl e. My quibble with him is of scholars is also true of scholarl y institutio ns. It is not not so much about the data he has ga thered, but about just the tra ditio na ll y stro ng centres of theological the interpretation of that data. learning that now dominate, but important work is being The key to Windsor's interpretation is the meta done in unlikely places and by people once thought of phor ca ptured in his title: 'The N ew Zealand Travell er as unlikely theologians: lay people, wom en. Sketches the Ruins of St Patri ck's'. A puzz ling note of One thing the demise of the theologian as hero lost glory sounds thro ugh the Windsor lament, as though means is a loss of visibility at the point of theological the mighty intellectual edifi ces of medieval Christen production. In other days excellence was more visi bl e dom, built by Australian Catholi cs in their own land as a few great individuals elaborated their grea t systems. (a nyone for gothic revival? ), had been allowed to fa ll into It is less visible these days when more arc doing less: ruin in recent decades. Whatever about Europe, that was team work is less striking to the eye than the spectacular never the scenario here: Christendom and its mighty solo. Perhaps theology needs to find new fo rms of visi intellectual edifices did not ge t much of a run Down bility. Under. That's why I was hard put to expl ain the sim It is certain that a key clem ent of the tra nsition is mering nostalgia of the piece. the m ove of theology from a seminary context tO a T he question is, what arc we really looking at ' A university context. Monas h University, fo r example, has ruin, as Windsor suggests, or an unfinished building? A established a centre for the study of reli gion and theol ruin and an unfinished building ca n look much the sa me, ogy, and the Austra lian Catholic University is in the just as the pangs of birth and the pangs of dea th can feel throes of establishing its theologica l component. The much the same. It is important to know the difference. effect of these moves may not show itself immedia tely, We are clearly at a point of transition: the only but in the long term they will mean a sea change for the questi on is, what kind of transition I For one thing, we doing of theology in Australia. And it is such moves are moving fro m a theological curriculum geared to that leave me enthused by the unexpected theological seminary education to a broader curriculum geared more ferment I find here on m y return. to the study of theology for its own sake. Within this All of which suggests that what Windsor was process of fragm entation and rearrangem ent, old stars sketching, and what I have sketched fro m a different like philosophy have been downgraded- to our impov angle, is not so much the ruins of St Patrick's, as a erishment, I suspect- and new stars like history and building splendid in plan and prospect but as yet un th e behav ioural sciences are in the ascendant, to our finished. Windsor's lament has laid another chunk of grea t enrichment. This process of revising the theologi bluestone, to which I add my own modest gargoyle. • cal curriculum is ti ed to large questions of the nature and purpose of theological study, and it is by no m eans Mark Coleridge lectures in biblical studies at Catholi c com pletc. Theological College, Clayton, Vi ctoria. 28 EUREKA STREET • NovE MB ER 199 1 CHURCH AND STATE Past imperfect, future indefinite How do we talk about justice for the next century? Pope fohn Paul's encyclical Centesimus Annus tries to address this ques tion, and has in turn prompted reflection on the tradition of Catholic social teaching from which it stem s. In the articles that follow, US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan looks at the relation between Catholic teaching and the changing shape of western society; Frank Fletcher MSC and Brad Taylor look at the implications of this teaching for the NSW Industrial Relations Bill; and Bruce Duncan CSsR reviews Michael Hogan's edition of the Australian bishops' social justice statements. L oo<>NG M CK AT Po''' Lw XIII's Ruum Novorum, "becomes clca< how yw' d" tance Western society has moved in the period separating that encyclical from Centesimus Annus. At the close of the 19th century there was a seemingly unreconcilable conflict between the doctrines of laissez-faire capitalism on the one hand, and some mode of collectivism on the other. Economics was the only issue-war, for example, had evidently become obsolescent. In this atmosphere the church set forth what can be seen as a sensible middle ground where most industrial democracies would eventually settle. By middle ground I do not mean splitting the difference. Rather, Leo XIII, while asserting the rights of private prop- V oLUM E 1 N uMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 29 erty, even so set fort h a radical doctrine of workers' rights tute's resident theologian' and of the encyclical itself. that extended to a 'just wage', and most especially, the 'Unfortunately, his years in Rome have not sharpened 'natural human right' to form private associations, in Karol Wojtyla's pen,' Cox wrote. 'He succeeds in being cluding trade unions. Many proposed measures, the pretentious, provincial and pedestrian at the same time. limitation of working hours, special treatment for 'He credits his predecessor Leo XIII with exerting children and women, Sunday rest and such, seem rou "far-reaching influence" on the birth of social security, tine at thi s remove. But they were hardly such at the pensions and health insurance. But don't the labor un time. Still , the important event was the extension of ions and citizens' movements that, like Al Smith, could the concept of rights to the marketplace. Labour, it was probably not even pronounce the word 'encyclical' decreed, was not a commodity. properly get a little credit tool Did Franklin Delano As John Paul II puts it, Rerum Nov arum pointed the Roosevelt read Rerum Novarum? ... Do we need som e way to reforms under which 'society and the state ... one who is carried around on a palanquin by Swiss both assume responsibility, especially for protecting the Guards to tell us this? The conservative theologians who worker fr om the nightmare of unemployment.' Re complain that liberals too often borrow their ideas from sponsibility, that is, for a general level of well-being that the secular realm must be wincing in embarrassment we have learned to call the welfare state. It is notable, about the derivative quality of this ho-hum document. then, that the present Pope goes on to a sharp exchange But let us be more generous. What is exhausted is not with this 'so-called welfare state': the Pope but the social encyclical genre itself, with its improbable claims to universal validity and its conse In recent years the ra nge of such intervention has quent temptation to resort to bland truisms. My hope is vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type that Centesimus Annus marks not only the lOOth of state, the so-called 'welfare state'. This has hap anniversary of papal social teaching but the pened in some countries in order to respond better end of that chapter in Christian history.' to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the hu P.OFE SS OR Cox HA S A POINT about the medium. man person. However, excesses and abuses, espe Encyclicals have the quality of an imperial decree. cially in recent years, have provoked very harsh Americans do not instantly take to such modes of ad criticisms of the welfare state, dubbed the 'social dress, although he should be careful about patronising assistance state'. Malfunctions and defects in the Al Smith. There is not the least evidence that Smith social assistance state are the result of an inade had difficulty pronouncing the word. We have it on the quate understanding of the tasks proper to the state. authority of a not-inconsiderable theologia n, Reinhold Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be Niebuhr, that when tllis subj ect arose during the 1928 respected: a community of a higher order should presidential ca mpaign, Smith simply asked: 'Will not interfere in the internal life of a community of someone tell me what the hell a papal encyclical is? ' a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions [Al Smith was Democratic governor of New York and ... By intervening directly and depriving society of the first Catholic to contest the US presidency- eel .] its responsibility, the social assistance state leads Format apart, there continues to be a real problem to a loss of human energies and an inordinate in of English translation. Thus the new encyclical observes: crease of public agencies, which are dominated 'Rerum Novarum criticises two social and economic more by burea ucratic ways of thinking than by systems: socialism and liberalism .' Three decades ago, concern for serving their clients, and which are in Beyond the Melting Pot, referring to Rerum Novarum accompanied by an enom1ous increase in spending. and the message of Catholic social teaching, I wrote: 'Catholic spokesmen have used the term "liberal" to Michael Novak, professor of religion and public policy refer to laissez-faire economics of the Manchester school, at the America n Enterprise Institute, responded with and have generously denounced same.' The result, we grea t enthusiasm in an article in the Washington Post. continued, had been total confusion among the Catho Pope John Paul, he wrote, had offered 'the papacy's lic laity, who had to assume that in denouncing 'liber strongest language ever about limitations on state pow alism' Rome was anathematising Roosevelt's New Deal. er ... no neo liberal or neoconservative ever made the And here again we have the same usage. Misusage. No case more profoundly and with so resounding wonder Harvey Cox got mad. a ring of truth.' That being said, Centesimus Annus could turn out to be as seminal a statement as its predecessor. Rerum How's THAT? The Pope a con servative in the Novarum concentrated on issues of the workplace, as Burkean mode? This suggestion did not escape the no did social policy in the Urlited States in the years that tice of Harvey Cox, of the Harvard Divinity School. fo llowed. Labour, declared the Clayton Antitrust Act of Indeed, it provoked him to something like anger, which 1914, is not a 'comm odity'. Workers, declared the Fair is not at all like him. Writing in Newsday shortly after, Labor Standards Act of 1938, must be paid a minimum Professor Cox was dismissive equally of the 'trium wage. Minorities, declared the Civi l Rights Act of 1964, phalist' commentary by 'the American Enterprise Insti- could not be discriminated against in employm ent. 30 EUREKA STREET • N O VE M BER 199 1 These may seem routine matters today. They were erage, 37 per cent more likely to have been on welfare Photos: a ll taken anything but when the issues first arose. The disloca in the 1970s than their predecessors in the 1960s. If we in Sydney by tions associated with industrialisation were absolutely assume that this same increase will show up for the Andrew Stark baffling when they first appeared. What was unemploy whole of the 18 years (0-17), then we can project rates ment? Why did it happen? Who was responsible? An for children born as late as 1980. Thi gives us a white era of fierce doctrinal argument preceded the era in rate of 22 per cent, and a black rate of 83 per cent. which a consensus of sorts was reached. There is no This surely raises the issue of social justice, if, that sense in which unemployment is a problem of the past; is, it can be shown that such destitution in childhood but we know how to measure it, and within limits we is, in the main, a debilitating event. Not for each indi know what to do about it. It is not the problem vidual, but generally speaking for a class of individuals. of our age. Lawrence Mead of New York University believes this to be so. In The New Dependency Politics he writes: 'The B uT A NEW ISSUE HAS ARISEN: the growing number of inequalities that stem from the workplace are now triv children born to single parents and dependent during ial in comparison to those stemming from family struc childhood on 'the social assistance state'. In America in ture. What matters for success is not whether your 1965, I published data suggesting that we might be father was rich or poor but whether you had a moving into an era in which destitution in childhood, father at all.' relatively independent of economic forces, would be our principal social problem. I think it important that this N ow THIS wo uLD APPEAR to be a new social condi proposition arose during research on the 'earlier' prob tion. Thirty per cent of US children are paupers before lems of unemployment, wages, working hours, etc. In attaining their majority. Not a pretty word, but not a brief, the US Department of Labor had come upon indi pretty condition. That is what it means to be 'on wel cations that the connection between child wellare and fare ': no income of your own and virtually no posses the workplace was brea king up. Earlier, when unem sions. This rise in dependency has been paralleled by a ployment had dropped, new welfare cases dropped. But rise in extramarital births. For 1988 the overall ratio was no longer: dependency was seemingly an independent 26 per cent, which breaks down into 17.8 per cent for variable, possibly out of control. white births and 63.5 per cent from nonwhite. There We now know that of children born in the years are now health districts in New York City where more 1967-69, 22 per cent were dependent on wellare before than 80 percent of live births are extramarital. There reaching age 18. This breaks down to 16 per cent for has also been a rise in a social behaviour. By the 1980s it white children; 72 per cent for black children. The data was common to hear of 'children having children'. In tell us that children under the age of eight were, on av- the 1990s we begin to hear of children murdering chi!- VOLUME 1 N UMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 31 dren, as firearms have moved into urban neighbourhoods observing an industrial society all around them, could and down the age scale. not conceive that society had changed to the extent that This year, in a preface to the final report of the institutions needed to change as well. Thorstein Veblen National Commission on Children, its chairman, Sen called it 'culture lag'. . ator John D. Rockefeller rv, wrote: 'Too many of today's If Veblen has a successor today, in stature as in style, children and adolescents will reach adulthood un it is James Coleman, of the University of Chicago, who healthy, illiterate, unemployable, lacking moral direc traces our present situation back to the emergence of tion and a vision of a secure future. This is a personal the corporation in medieval Europe and its gradual dis tragedy for the young people involved and a staggering placement of kinship structures. 'The central fact about loss for the nation as a whole. We must begin today to the modern corporation,' Colman writes, 'is that it is place children and their families at the top of the na not an outgrowth of the family, but constitutes an tional agenda .. . alternative institutional structure, independent of the 'Many young people believe they have little to lose family and little by little drawing power and strength by dropping out of school, having a baby as an unmar away from it.' He notes that only about 20 per cent of ried teenager, using and selling dangerous drugs, and 19th century American households were without chil committing crimes. When they lack a sense of hope and dren under 18; this proportion is now something like 65 the opportunity to get a good job, support a family and per cent. Thus, raising children is now carried out with become a part of mainstream adult society, teenagers the incomes of a minority of adults, and child welfare are frequently not motivated to avoid dangerous or self becomes a minority interest. destructive behaviours. These youth can see few com Before the transformation of society represented by pelling reasons to avoid or delay activities that provide the rise of the corporation 'the family was the central immediate gratification. Unfortunately, their actions institution of society on which all others were built, often make their expectations a self-fulfilling and children were part of that centre, an immediate prophecy.' economic asset and an investment for the future. Now that the transformation is largely complete, the family N oTE THE SHlFr IN TERMS. We are not talking about is a peripheral institution and children an economic unemploym ent here. We are talking of children who burden on that periphery.' come of age 'unemployable'. We are not talking of the When I wrote m y America article in 1965, I blameless victims of impersonal market forces. We are assumed that this new social condition would be ad talking of adolescents 'lacking moral direction'. We are dressed by public policy. That article began: 'The United not talking of the need for social security programs; we States is very possibly on the verge of adopting a national are talking of the youth who have no 'vision of a secure policy directed to the quality and stability of American future'- family life.' In this I was quite wrong. We did nothing of In February this year, some months before the the sort. The evidence was rejected as inconclusive or National Commission report appeared, the Senate worse. It is still rejected in the sense that orthodox Democratic caucus had approved a legislative program opinion rejects the notion that there is any- titled Strengthening America: The Democratic Agen thing qualitatively different about the present. da. A section on children included this passage: 'Chil dren now make up the largest proportion of poor persons ENTE R PoPE JoHN PAuL, asserting that what we have in the United States. There is no equivalent in our his been doing is precisely the problem. We have been cre tory to such a number or such a proportion. All this is ating the 'social assistance state', which has led to 'a new. This circumstance did not exist during the era of loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of the New Deal, a half century ago. It did not exist during public agencies.' Not to mention 'an enormous increase the era of the Great Society, a quarter century ago.' in spending.' Well, now. However, before the document was sent to the What we have here is a considerable role reversal. printer, a 'error' was spotted by the committee staff. The A century ago, addressing the social question of that text that read: 'This circumstance did not exist during time, the church called for more intervention by the the era of the New Deal, a half century ago. It did not state. Now it appears to be saying that state interven exist during the era of the Great Society, a quarter cen tion has to some extent created or at least worsened the tury ago,' was changed to read: "This circumstance was social problems of the present age. This is high irony. not as recognized during the era of the New Deal, a half The intriguing aspect of this, of course, is that the papal century ago, nor during the era of the Great Society, a pronouncement has American fingerprints all over it. It quarter century ago' (emphasis added). would be well for those involved to come forward, and As I had written that passage, I asked about the it would help if Rome let it be understood that to do so change. It became transparently clear that those re is not only acceptable but necessary. sponsible simply thought they were correcting a mis How sol Because the argument must proceed from take. This is becoming the liberal orthodoxy: that there evidence. There are natural law elements in the encyc is nothing new. It is not, come to think, so very differ lical. We are told to distinguish between the society and ent fro m the views of those in the 19th century who, on the state; fair enough. We are reminded again of subsid- 32 EUREKA STREET • NOVEMBER 1991 iarity, which again has doctrinal sources. (Not least the ecclesial sanction of Edmund Burke!) But this is a mat Industrial justice: ter for social science as well, and we have a right to hear the complete argument. Further, we need to learn from these American shattering the symbols Catholics whether they think something new is going on. This may just be a fixation of mine, but I cannot puzzle my way out of it. If there is a new social circum B EC AU SE O F T HE LIM IT S of state ju risdiction, the stance, then there is no contradiction between the two Greiner government's Industrial Relations Bill does not encyclicals. have wide practical import. But its symbolic impor The industrial econom y that Rerum Novarum tance- for all Australians, and not just the people of describes continues, but the enormous dislocations of NSW- is clea r. The bill ushers in a fundamental change the past have been overcome. The question is whether in the industrial relations system, and the union fear some general theory will come along that can tease out that it may inspire future federal legislation. The real the sources of welfare dependency and get this problem aim of such legislation, they believe, can only be to erode back down to an acceptable level, as Keynes did with the strength and achievements of the union movement, unemployment. • through reducing the number of workers protected by union m embership. The government, fo r its part, por trays union opposition to the bill as a self-interested fight to hold on to positions of power, and to wages and work Daniel Patrick Moynihan is Dem ocratic senator for New practices that hamper economic recovery. York and former US ambassador to the United Nations. Similar legislation in New Zealand has drastically This article first appeared in Am erica magazine, Sep diminished the role of unions and of the award wages tember 1991 . system in that country. When the legislation was intro- Photo: Andrew Stark V OLUME 1 N UMBER 9 • EUREKA STREET 33 duced, the New Zealand Catholic bishops strongly con awards will relate to an industry, enterprise agreements demned it in the name of the church's social teaching. will relate to an individual employer or even an indi This year marks the centenary of that teaching as set vidual workplace, and will have precedence over any fo rth in Pope Leo )QII's encyclical Rerum Novarum, awards or former industrial agreements. Both awards which endorsed the right of workers to form unions. It and enterprise agreements are subject to a set of mini is appropriate, therefore, that pastors and theologians mum conditions. And once entered into, neither can be should contribute to the debate on the N SW bill. changed except by the mutual consent of both parties As Pope John Paul makes clear in his own encycli (sections lll-12 and section 125 ), or in lim- ca l Centesimus Annus, the church's social teaching ited circumstances (sections 201 -202) . prescribes no particular model for the economy, for such matters can only be judged 'within the framework of A BROADER CO NCEPTION of the public interest would different historical situations'. Thus, the tradition of allow an industrial relations body the power to oversee teaching that includes Rerum Novarum and Centes all industrial agreements, to ensure that they did not imus Annus has affirmed the worth of markets and lead to conditions that may be socially disruptive. For private property- while insisting that they must func example, enterprise agreements can result in people who tion in accord with the common good. Where they do do the sam e work, but are in different workplaces, not, the state has a duty to intervene in the interests of receiving different wages. If this happens because of justice. Si milarly, this teaching defends the right of incentive payments for higher productivity, or because workers to associate, but does not require compulsory of profit-sharing schemes, the wage differences need not unionism. It proclaims a right to work, but leaves open be unjust. But if such differences merely refl ect the rel the question of whether or not some work practices may ative bargaining power of workers in different work prevent opportunities fo r increased employm ent. The places, then the wage-fixing procedure offers no right to strike is endorsed when other means of obtaining mechanism to prevent exploitation of the weak. Com a just settlement in an industrial dispute have fa iled or mentators assume that this will be the effect of the are not available. Industrial Relations Bill . In Catholic social teaching, So the church does not claim to know how the in considerations of human solidarity and a concern for dustrial relations system in NSW ought to function. But the poor are vital elements of the public interest. Thus, it does claim that those who make decisions in con while industry has to become more efficient, the bill crete situations-and in a democracy this sometimes should be amended to strengthen the powers of the mean all of us- should do so by consideration of the commission and the court to prevent the weakest from common good, or as it is usually called in Australia, the the community carrying an undue burden. • public interest. It is from this point of view that the Greiner government's bill needs to be Frank Fletcher MSC and Brad Taylor work at the MSC scrutinised. Justice and Welfare Office, Erskineville, NSW. u N DER THE PRO VISIONS OF T HE 13 1LL 1 the Industrial Commission and the Industrial Court would, in all but Rescuing the texts a few circumstances (sections 201 -2), have restricted powers to oversee and alter industrial agreements. Sec Ju stice Now! Social Justice Statements of the Austral ia n Catholic Bishops 1940- 1966, edited by Michael tion 345 states that 'in the exercise of its functions the Hogan. Department of Government and Public Ad commission must take into account the public inter ministration, University of Sydn ey, 1990. RR P $20.00 est'. But the bill refl ects a very limited concept of the public interest, seeing it as primarily a matter of eco nomic considerations, without social, environmental and cultural aspects (sections 3, 19, 24[ 2] and 345). 'IESOC IAL JU ST IC E STATEMENTS of the Australian Further, the limited role envisaged for the commission Catholic bishops have long needed to be collected and would be reduced even further if enterprise agreem ents made available to contemporary rea ders, as the original become the norm for many workplaces. pamphlets are now almost unprocurable. So Michael The bill provides for three types of industrial Hogan has performed a great service in editing them, agreements. Form er industrial agreem ents denotes all reviving a project which lapsed in the late 1970s for lack existing arrangements; they cannot be changed or end of funds. As well as the 1962 Statem ent on the Second eel except by mutual consent of the parties involved Vatican Council and the 1966 The Moral Code, in a (section 147) . Thus, if changes are desired the parties useful appendix Hogan has added the 1943 ecumenical have to go into the new system. Awards are to be made Twenty-Point Program , the 1951 ecumenical A Call to by the commission, whereas the third category, enter the People of Australia and the 1955 Catholic bishops' prise agreem ents, will simply be registered by the com Pastoral Letter on the Menace of Communism . The only mission. Our comment focuses on these. other document which would have been useful is Eris The commission will not consider enterprise O'Brien's alternative Sydney statement of 1940, The agreements in relation to the public interest. While Catholic's Duty in Australian Social Reform. 34 EUREKA STREET • N OVEM BER 199 1 Photo: Andrew Stark Hogan offers a neat one-page intro duction to each of the statements, set ting the context, outlining the main ideas in them and giving an evaluation. In his general'Introduction', Hogan brings out well the centrality of B.A. Santamaria's thought within the church at the time. Santamaria is perhaps bes t known today for his role in the Catholic Social Stud ies Movement and the National Civic Council, but as Hogan rightly notes, that was only one aspect of Santamaria's activity. Hogan considers that the social Justice statements give a more enduring legacy to Santamar ia 's thought. sharp polemical style in debate, and elu cidating the log R EREADING THE STATEMENTS TODAY, I cannot help ic and force of his politics which generated a reaction feeling how distant from Australian social realities was even from within the Church and his former Catholic the ideology behind some of them, especially the early Action colleagues. How are we to explain the con£lict ones. It was a worldview which owed much to tradi in the Church between committed anti-communist tionalist Catholic social thought, particularly coming Catholic intellectuals of immense goodwill and sincer from the English distributists and the French literary ity/ When will the Sydney side of the dispute be ade revival at the turn of the century. Yet it was a powerful quately told? What were the basic intellectual issues critique of capitalist society, especially for its emphasis involved, especially fro m the point of view of on making every worker an owner of productive prop church-state theory and of Catholic Action I erty, and was solidly endorsed by the Catholic bishops of those days. SANTAMARIA IS WELL-K OWN for his OUtStanding mind, The statements also remind us of the many sides his breadth of reading, his prodigious workload and his to Santamaria's political and social thinking. Following genuine piety. Moreover, he is not unsclf-critical, as his the trauma of the Split in the Catholic Action move writings show. One can only speculate what his contri ments and the Labor Party in the 1950s, a careful and bution might have been had he not been propelled into objective appraisal of Santamaria's role and thinking has political activity so early, and especially if he had stud been hard to find. Too often his thinking has been triv ied economics seriously. ialised by opponents in polemical disputes. Hogan Given his life-long commitment to the church, it reminds us that Santamaria has been a major political is a personal tragedy for him that he feels so alienated thinker on the Australian scene for more than 50 years, from much of the Catholic community today. For the with significant influence on the shaping of the Aus church, too, it is a great loss that he is not widely re tralian Catholic community, and to a lesser ex tent on vered as 'the grand old warrior' of Catholic social thought Australian politics as a whole. The picture of Santamaria and activity. Indeed, one of the unhappy consequences as the anti-communist campaigner of Movement da ys of the Split was to create a hiatus in the tradition of must be set within the intellectual framework of the Catholic social thinking, so that many of the later gen proposals summarised in these Statements with their eration grew up knowing little of the social activism of radical vision of an alternative agrarian-based society. their parents. Hogan's collection of the Social Justice It is not irrelevant that Santamaria's first love was for Statements will help overcome that hiatus by making the National Catholic Rural Movement, of which he them available to other generations. remained secretary till 1960. Some good contributions to the history of this pe The future biographer of Santamaria faces a daunt riod have been made, particularly by Santamaria him ing task. Santamaria's intense political activity and self with Against the Tide and Daniel Mannix. Gerard writing covers a half-century, during which time his Henderson's Mr Santamaria and the Bishops also of thinking developed and changed greatly. He has been fered much new material from a critical perspective. the focus of some of Australia's most acute political And Robert Murray's The Split remains a standard work. conflict, and can still arouse quite passionate loyalty or But the definitive biography remains to be written. opposition. Many people can testify to his devotion to Perhaps Hogan's collection will be the stimulus for his family, his personal charm and his commitment to someone to take up the task. • his views about building a more just world, a commit ment which has undoubtedly cost him greatly. Taking him more seriously as a thinker would involve explor Bruce Duncan CSsR teaches at the Yarra Theological ing the origins of his thinking, explaining his sometimes Union, Box Hill, Victoria. V OLUME 1 N UM BER 9 • EUREKA STREET 35 B OOKS JACK W ATERFORD Fred • /J ~ Ill focus" Fred Hollows: an autobiography with Peter Corri s. john Kerr, Richmond, Victoria, 1991. I'>BN 0 9.'iHHH004 () 4 1\1\1' S29.9.'i T "'"' '"" I Mn F 36 EUREKA STREET • N ovEMBER 1991 started and 13 by the time it finished. yarner in the class of his great mate cal students he is training, feminist Fred was not a popular fi gure with Frank Hardy, the man who first twist film -makers, old comms and prison many state and federal health bureau ed his arm to look at Aboriginal health ers, mates of 100 causes. crats ortheir political masters. He was condi tions, and his ordinary delivery, After the grind of the trachoma very critical of what he saw: appalling u nabated for minsters of the Crown, program was over, Fred continued to living conditions, inadequate and nuns or society ladies, would be fu ll of harry politicians and push Aboriginal poorly organised m edical services scatological metaphor and simile: ca uses. He had a celebrated confro nta which not even very competent and 'This condition is as rare as rocking tion with one Minister for Aboriginal dedicated people in the fi eld could horse shit'; 'There we were, bouncing Affairs, whom he very publicly called bend to much use, and a failure to up and down like peas in a referee's a 'dissembler', and the then Prime consult and involve Aborigines in whistle'; that 'stands out like piss Minister, Malcolm Fraser, had to service design and delivery. He was holes in the snow'. He is not a bad intervene to make peace. Increasingly 'political': what was a mere eye doctor chess player- ! taught him how to Fred fell out of sy mpathy with an doing ranging over the fi eld of Abo play like a gentleman and Fred later emerging Aboriginal bureaucracy ri ginal administration 1 H is use of described what he'd learned: 'None of which he sa w as failing to ge t to the Aboriginal liaison officers was 'em issues or to adapt to change. He is barrassing': someofthe people he hired st il l revered fo r his work, were activists in their communities At one stage, an MP on a parlia bu t treated with some ca u- and antipathetic to state administra m entary investigation of Abo ti on. tions. Joh Bjelke Petersen threw the riginal health was briefed by tea m out of Queensland during an health department officials to A LONG T II C WAY, he also became a electi on campaign, claiming that the cross-exam ine Fred about not little more civilised. He married Cabi, NTEHP was stirring up Aborigines sticking to his brief. The ques one of the true heroines of NTEHP against the National Party. tioning went like this: days, who even now would recogni se Our trachom a program teams MP: Professor Hollows, you are and put a name to thousands of Abo worked weeks on end without brea ks, an eye doctor, aren't you? rigines from all states of Australia. He travelling hundreds of miles, packing Fred: Yes. had fi ve children, the last two twins, delica te equipment and seei ng hun MP: N ow, I understand that who have bro ught out his gentleness dreds of people, packing up and mak there aren't many ocular com and his patience, and eradicated much ing camp then shifting on again. We plica tions of leprosy? of the personal 2brasiveness. He re becam e a little like Hells Angels, Fred: There are som e, but they jected an Ord er of Austra lia, com incessantly quarrelling with each are far fro m the most signifi menting with some asperity that 'N ow other but utterly united cant problem s of leprosy. is not the time for people to be getting against the world. MP: Well what are you, an eye accolades fo r progress in Aborigina l doctor, going around talking health.' E\ED' s PERSONALI1)' dominated all. He all the time about the amount At the sam e time, however, he was often bullying, abusive and unfair ofleprosy you have seen among became involved in more internati on to us, but simultaneously inordinate Aborigines? al public health work, going to Nepal, ly generous. I have yet to meet another Fred: Well, I am a doctor, and I to Burma and most recently Eritrea, doctor so easy-going with patients, so recognise leprosy when I see it. providing servi ces directly but also able to communicate with an old And I think I can say that I have helping to train doctors, advising on woman or to settle a screaming one shaken hands with m ore lepers ways of establishing services, and year-old who did not care to have its in Australia than any other helping lobby to get resources. He has eyelids everted. Once the Ioupe - a doctor. also becom e a scourge of the interna small magnifier like a watchmaker's tional public health club, which all aid- was on, Fred's attention was 100 too often holds expensive conferences per cent on the patient. He was a this bullshit about " touch move" . We with fl ash fac ili ties only hundreds of marv ellous teacher, not least of fellow win by superi or strategy not by taking metres from direct evidence of the ophthalmologists- many his seni or advantage of temporary insanity'. He problem s they are supposedly ad who, in years of comfortable city prac smoked Erin more Flake through a pipe dressin g. tice had simply never seen the sort of that fitted snugly on to a worn -down Hi s autobi ography prov ides sa m pathology we were encountering all couple of teeth. He was a fa natical ples of Hollows wirh the whip out: in the time. An urban ophthalmologist runner, even out in the desert, but his Egypt, at a pa latial reception organ can spend a year without seeing a wheezing and puff ing was enough to ised by the World Health Orga nisa blind person, and that one he or she is put one off it for life. tion's World Blindness Program, he unlikely to be able to do much for; on At home he was a careful and pa go t up and remarked 'Isn't it great som e occasions we saw as many as 20 tient carpenter, w ith a marvellous [that we get this opportuni ty to sec[ in a day, som e of whom could be made workshop, until the dust and hi s can the real pro blems of Egypt. We've just to see again by surgery, and many of cer made him stop. He makes a fi ne been to a village where most of the whom could at least have chronic damper, and enj oys the company of kids have trachoma and many of them pain ameliorated. the poets; hi s house is ever full of are certain to be blinded by it. T here's When not irascible, Fred was a Aborigines in transit, overseas medi - a total absence of even rudim entary