A new award for young writers Eureka Street is delighted to announce the inaugural Margaret Dooley Young Writers' Award

One of the di These arguments ideally address peo pl e who own religious be li ef, and those whose view of the world is secu lar. To reflect ethical ly on public issues is a demanding discipline. h•s field. Margaret and Brendan Dooley have longstanding connection s to the Jesuits and Xavier Co llege . Margaret always appreciated the value of commun ication and education for young people, based on spiritual and personal val ues. She graduated from Sacre Coeur College in 1950, com menced nursing at St Vin ce nt's Hospital and, with Brendan, raised four chil dren. Margaret died in 2004. The Dooley family are pleased to support th is initiative. previously published or unpublished, under the age of 40. Entrants must submit two previously unpublished articles that offer: ethical reflection directed to a non-specialist audience on any serious to pic, appeal to humane values, such as those that are found within, but are not exclusive to, the best of the Christian trad ition , clear argument and elegant expression, and a generosity and courtesy of spirit animating forceful argument. One article shou ld be of no more than 800 words. The second shoul d be of no more than 2000 words. They may take up the sa me, or different, topics.

Entries are to be submitted by 5pm Friday, 29 July 2005, to : Margaret Dooley Young Writers' Award, Eureka Street, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121.

The award wil l be made only if the judge s believe that the best entry is of sufficient quality. The winner will be publi shed in the September issue of Eureka Street. For more information and an app li cation form please go to www.eurekastreet.com.au

Encountering the Image: Paintings and their Poems Professor Peter Steele SJ

Many modern poems are prompted by works of art. Professor Peter Steele of the Un ive rsity of Melbourne is completing his second book of poems of this kind.

He will speak on ways in which four modern poets have responded to paintings in their own work.

Date W ednesday 4th May

Time S. ISpm - 6.15pm

Venue StMary's College and Newman College Academic Centre 887 Swanston Street, Parkville

Enter via the gate south of Newman College Chapel

Parking Available in Swanston Street or in the University for $4. enter via Tin Alley. Academic Centre Outreach Program Further information Fi ona Sal isbu ry e fi [email protected] p 03 9342 1614 Os:<> '> V:Cl EUREKA STREE I z> c!:::! s:~ ~0 .,...,;o-, s:C COMMENT ?< ~ Nn 4 Andrew Hamilton A radical faith O)> o-n 5 Liz Curran The human side of poverty ln ~ ;o ,V> -4 I COLUMNS rn >;o -4 7 Summa theologiae V> Andrew Hamilton Cultural consolidation > 36 Brac ing for th e five-rin g circus z 8 Archimedes 0 Jerem y Clarke visits Beijing -4 Tim Thwaites Of life and death I and finds a city busily preparing 8 9 Capital letter itself to host the 2008 Olympics. 5 [) Ja cl

IN PRINT THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C 6 Anthony Ham Population time bomb 38 Fascinating and disturbing mysteri es 7 Steve Game Beyond the screen of sight Rosamund Dalziell reviews Haunted Earth, by Peter Read. 39 The quintesse ntial storytell er FEATURES Christopher Gleeson finds much 12 Getting rea l in Ulster to admire in Maryanne Confoy's Hugh Dillon examines the barriers to peace in Morris We t: Literary Maverick. Northern Ireland. 40 Governments bearing moral gifts

Edi tor Marce lle Mogg 15 Rancour in th e rank and file Andrew Hamilton reflects on Marion Assistant editor Robert Hefn er Nick Way looks at the reasons behind poor Maddox's God under Howard: Graphic designers Maggie Power, j anneke morale among Victoria's biggest union. The Rise of the Religious Right in Storteboom Australian Politics. Director Christopher Gleeson 51 18 Morning in East Timor Bu si ness manager Mark Dowell Morag Fra ser discovers its heart. 43 Th e best that money ca n buy Marketing/ advertising mana ger Camille Collins Sally Young's The Persuaders: In side Subscriptions Deni se Ca mpbell 20 Th e imposs ible dream li ves on Editoria l, production and administration Anthony Ham reacquaints himself with the Hidden Machine of Political assis tants Geraldine Ba tt ersby, Lee Beasley Advertising is an important book for film editor Siobhan Jackson Spain's most famous novel, Don Quixote. Poetry editor Phi lip Harvey those interested in political and social j es uit editorial board Andrew Ham ilton Sl, 22 The power of th e word change, says Peter Yewers. Greg Baum, Virginia Bourke, jane Mayo Gillian Bouras fi nds Ulm Minster a testament 44 Brilliant buddies Ca rolan, Christopher Gleeson Sl, to our eternal longing for understanding. M arcell e Mogg, j ack Waterford Ralph Elliott reviews Gustav Born's new Patrons Eureka Street gratefully acknowledges 24 Torn between art and activism edition of Max Born's The Born-Einstein th e support of C. and A. Ca rter; th e Tim Bonyhady remembers Judith Wright. trustees of th e estate of Miss M . Condon; Letters 1916-1955: Friendship, Politics W.P. & M.W. Gurry 26 just neighbours and Ph ysics in Uncertain Times. Madeleine Byrne explores the boundaries, Eureka Street magazine, ISS N 1036- 1758, 47 The shortli st Austra lia Pos t Print Pos t approved pp349181/ both geographical and moral, between Reviews of the books Speaking for 00314, is published ten times a year by Australia and Timor-Leste. Australia: Parliamentary speeches Eureka Stree t Magazi ne Pt y Ltd, 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond VIC 3121 29 Advancing Australi a fa ir that shaped our nation; Direct action PO Box 553, Ri chmond VIC 3121 Tim Martyn says young Australians and democracy today; Scraps of Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fa x: 03 9428 4450 have become wary of the political hard Heaven and Lazy Man in China. email : eureka®jespub.jes uit .org.au http://www.eureka stree t.com.a u/ sell pitched by the major parties. Responsibility for editorial content is acce pted 30 Not beating about th e bush by Andrew Hamilton Sl, THEATRE 300 Victoria St reet, Ri chmond Alison Aprhys reports on the Australian Bush Printed by Doran Printing Heritage Fund's work to secure important 46 Bad eggs 46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3195. areas of biodiverse bush for the future. Robert Hefner reviews Hannie Rayson's © jes uit Publications 2005 Two Brothers. Unsoli cited manu sc ript s will not be returned. 32 Hit and myth Please do nol se nd original photographs or ar t Bridget Jones could have taken a few work unless requested. Reques ts for perm iss ion to reprint material from th e magazine should lessons from Elizabeth Bennet, in the FLASH IN THE PAN be addressed in writing to th e editor. opinion of Leah De Forest. 48 Reviews of the fi lms Bad Education, This month 34 Th e known world Young Adam, Look at Me and Robots. Cover: Illustration by Lu cille Hughes, Anna Griffiths argues that Grace Cossington celebrating th e 400th anni versa ry of the first Smith captures the genius loci of her publication of Don Quixote. Story p20. PUZZLED Cover des ign: Maggie Power environment as finely as any painter of the Cartoons: Dea n Moore p18 and p28 grand sublime vista. 51 Joan Nowotny Cryptic crossword c< mnwnt Andrew Hamilton A radical faith

D ATH BRmGs us ALL b"k to wth. So Pope found many new gestures: he was the first pope John Paul II has died and has left his responsibili­ to preach in a Lutheran church, the first pope in ties to others. Christians believe that the God who recorded memory to visit a synagogue, the first pope loved him as Karol has now welcomed him to share to enter a mosque, and almost certainly the first Christ's life. For them nothing that the Pope did is pope to kiss the Qur'an. more important than his adamantine faith in this But what he did at Assisi was different because it Good News. They will find an adequate response to was uncontrolled. There the Pope was seen as one of his death in prayer and gratitude. many religious leaders. They were invited to pray in Fallen human beings, however, look for the epi­ their own way in Catholic churches of the city. The sight thets, sound bites, places and events that sum up a of the Pope in Assisi to pray as one Christian among life and a papacy. Some search in Poland. I find it in other Christians, as one theist among other theists, Assisi, the town to which in 1986 the Pope invited disturbed many Christians both within and without leaders of the world's religions to join him in praying the Catholic Church. Its consequences are vast and for world peace. have yet to be articulated. But he was unperturbed. As more generally with Pope John Paul II, what he He chose the town of Assisi deliberately. He did in Assisi was more important than what he said. wished to associate the event with St Francis of Assisi, He was a master of the symbolic gesture. We need to on whose life he often reflected. Francis had gone think only of his practice of kissing the earth as he unarmed to the Muslim king in Syria at a time when arrived in each land he visited, and of his meeting the dominant form of Christian contact with Islam was at the point of a sword. The life and simplicity of Francis, too, appealed beyond Catholic and Christian boundaries to people of many faiths and none. But Francis also embodied the way in which the Pope believed that he himself was ca lled to engage with the world. At a time when the Church was widely regarded as out of touch both with the Gospel and with peoples' lives, Francis offered a way of recon­ nection that was wild and beyond rational planning. He offered poverty-selling everything, poor living, celebration of God's creation, and encouragement in popular language to live the Gospel. Francis' gesture was new and unpredictable-a circuit-breaker. It was a model for the meeting at Assisi. But as described by the Pope, Francis' radical gesture comes out of a radical faith. At its heart was a deep following of Jesus Christ and acceptance of his path of suffering. It also rested on solidarity with the Catholic Church and the Pope. His gesture was a gift to the Church, where it could be radical and powerful in its effects. Joh n Paul II during his Australian tour of 1986 participating Underlying John Paul's invitation to Assisi was in the sc hool of th e air. Photo: John Casamento. the same radical commitment to share the passion of Christ, to live within the Church, and to reach con­ with his would-be assassin. The gestures spoke more fidently out beyond the predictable and safe. Their powerfully than any explanation could. welding together marked his whole papacy. The gesture at Assisi gave shape to two major For John Pau l, the popes are the ones providen­ emphases of the Second Vatican Council. The coun­ tially appointed to make such gestures. For others, cil committed the Catholic Church to share the the Spirit breathes in the Church more eclectically. desire of ordinary human beings for peace and a But, one would hope, no less radically. decent life, and to reach out affectionately to the members of other churches and religions. John Paul II Andrew Hamilton sr is the publisher of Eureka Street.

4 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 comment:2

her circumstances, only becoming exasperated when she was up against strong he said, 'This is so u nfair. How can the external forces. Her attributes are like so system fa il this wom an so badly? How many that one sees in West Heidelberg, but ca n she be expected to cope, to assist the over time people's resilience is worn down . A s M ANY

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 5 Union commissioner Frits Bolkestein A green paper released by the European the month's similarly advocates compulsory integra­ Commission in March was more blunt: tion of immigrants and a huge reduction 'Never in history has there been economic traffic in immigration numbers, warning the growth without population growth .' Dutch that their culture is under threat. Claude Bebear, head of a French gov­ According to Bolkestein, 'The most com­ ernment-commissioned stud y of equality mon first name registered at birth these of opportunity in the French labour mar­ Population days is Mohammed. This, they say, is the ket, argues that Europe must urgently find Europe-to-be.' Such is the world of percep­ more people to work and pay taxes and hold time bomb tions driving the immigration debate in down the average age of the continent's much of Europe, instilling the fear among population. He warns that 'if Europe wants EUROPE'S IMMIGRATION CONUNDRUM citizens that immigration represents a fun­ to keep its place in the world, it needs a damental threat to the existence of Europe younger population, and that means more as they know it. immigration'- This view is echoed by I T" Tm QmsnoN th>t h•unts Emo· The second problem with the argmnent Claude Moraes, a Labour member of the pean politicians: how to tell their anxious that immigration threatens the future European Parliament: 'What a number of citizens that without massive immigration, of Europe is that, in a purely economic politicians have done is to pretend that the European way of life is under threat. sense, it could not be more wrong. Indeed, migration is a population problem when The issue has reached critical levels if Europe's cultural survival is calculated this document says that it is one impor­ at the sa me time as, across the continent, in terms of standard of living, large-scale tant solution among many.' the clamour among governments to dem­ immigration is one of the few avenues open Most analysts agree that immigration onstrate their populist anti-immigration to governments keen to keep their coun­ alone will be insufficient to maintain pre­ credentials has become dangerously main­ tries prosperous. vailing standards of living. Europe's birth stream . Europe's pride in its multicultural According to recent studies commis­ rate has been declining since 1965, and in diversity has been tra nsformed into a fear sioned by the European Parliament and 1975 the fertility rate fell below the popula­ for the future, a demand that the numbers the OECD, Europe's ageing population, tion replacement level of two child ren per of immigrants be reduced in order to ensure increased life expectancy and plummet­ fertile woman. The EU average now stands the cultural survival of Europe. ing birth rate ensures that, by 2010, its at 1.29 births per fertile woman. Ireland, There are two fundamental flaws with workforce will begin to shrink. Indeed, if the EU's best performer in this regard, pro­ the current populist approach. The first is current trends continue, over the next 30 duces just 1.98 children per fertile woman. that Europe's belief in its own tolerance­ years there will be 14-20 million fewer Even if current levels of immigration are one of the cultural norms that immigrants Europeans of working age, a phenomenon maintained, and taking into account the are expected to adopt-is in danger of that will cause a fall in GOP of seven per recent addition of ten new member states, becoming a myth. cent and result in pension and health-care the European Union will have fewer citi­ In this respect, the brutal murder of bills increasing by eight per cent of GOP. zens in 2050 than it does now, and most of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in The proportion of the population over the them will be much older. Amsterdam on 2 November proved some­ age of 65 will rise to more than 50 per cent Despite the weight of evidence, how­ thing of a catalyst, giving licence to the of European citizens. ever, politicians are not telling their citi­ voices of intolerance and prompting gov­ The potential consequences are dra­ zens that if they do not start having more ernments to respond in kind. In Holland, matic. Without immigration, Italy's popula­ children-and perhaps even if they do­ long rega rded as a model of generous Euro­ tion will decline by one-third by 2050. The the countries of the EU will need to col­ pean multiculturalism, the patina of toler­ Bank of Spain has estimated that 350,000 lectively accept an average of 6.1 million ance is all but disappearing, with Muslim immigrants are required every year in order immigrants a year from 201 5 to 2040 sim­ immigrants-Van Gogh was killed by a to save Spain's tax-financed pension system ply to maintain the current ratio of three Muslim extremist-increasingly alienated from bankruptcy within 20 years. working-age adults for each retiree. They from mainstream Dutch society by a cli­ Even as governments across Europe seek also have not been told that if this doesn't mate of fear and suspicion. The catchcry short-term electoral gain through anti­ happen, people will have to work longer, 'Holland is full' has become the defining immigration populism, a host of studies by possibly into their 70s, and that govern­ issue in debates over immigration. those same governments reveal that immi­ ment welfare benefits- pensions, health­ According to Edwin Bakker, of the grants are essential to economic growth. care subsidies and m aternity leave- will Netherlands Institute of International Rela­ In the UK, the Home Office has found have to be drastically reduced. tions, 'Islam is the most hated word in the that immigrants contribute ten per cent Instead, what they are being told is that country at this point.' Rita Verdonk, the more to public funds than they take out. In increasing the number of immigrants by country's minister for immigration, has Spain, the spending power of immigrants the required levels will ensure that, by announced that would-be residents must increased employment by 27 per cent 2050, 40 per cent of the EU's population first pass an integration exam before being between 1999 and 2002 and foreign work­ will be recent immigrants or the offspring granted permission to stay permanently, ers-net contributors to the Spanish of immigrants. and that immigration numbers are to be welfare system-generate twice the tax That would indeed remake European slashed. The influential former European revenue that they consume. identity, but it would also ensure the long-

6 EUREKA STR EET MAY 2005 term prosperity that has become an essen­ summ · tial pillar of that same European identity. In the meantime, m any politicians theologiaE prefer to look the other way in their desire to preserve an idea of immutable cul­ tura l and national identity. By doing so, they ignore the fact that only by becom ­ ing more multicultural can the Eu rope, in which all its citizens believe, survive. Cultural consolidation Beyond the screen of sight

JAMES GLEESON RE TROS PECTI VE I T" AHA" Y ACCm,NT tho< b

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 7 The Agony in the Garden (1948) is another early gem. It addresses 'the agony of accepting how little we know of our­ archimedes' selves and the conflict brought about ··i by the restrictions of a cruel world'. A conglomeration of machinery is operat­ ing in an overgrown Eden. Paired faces, Of life and death proximate and estranged, are embedded into the overall structure. It is a com­ plex vision seething with the malevolent A s HUMANS, WE SHM TO LOve puttmg thmgs mto boxO', wning them mto energy of the furnace and the jungle. categories-black and white, horses and zebras, living and dead. But biology isn't like In 1957 Gleeson took a lengthy sab­ that. It's a continuum. batical, working as an art critic, curator One of the simplest images of life is that of a cell dividing. One minute, there is and lecturer, and also travelling. In his a living cell; the next, it has split into two. But where is the original cell. Is it dead? spare time he experimented with collage Or is it still alive in its offspring? In fact, what are the points of the beginning and end and pen-and-ink, producing only an occa­ of life? Life is a cyclical process. All of us had ancestors. Some of us have or will have sional painting. By the time he returned children. So when did our lives begin? And when will they end? Do we, in some way, to full-time painting in 1983, Gleeson live on in our offspring? was almost 70. Following the trail of his As far as Archimedes knows, there is no good scientific answer to these ques­ work, we have come to appreciate his love tions. He knows of no foolproof scientific definition, for instance, of what constitutes of literature, the word games in his titles, living and non-living. Quite the reverse. Science, in the form of technology, seems his promiscuous attention to all forms of these days to be muddying the water. life. What awaits is still a shock It all used to be so simple. A person was dead if they stopped breathing or their The new canvases are physically heartbeat ceased. Then came life support systems which could take over the job of imposing. Over three metres wide, pumping the blood and the lungs. Was a person dependent on life support living or with a height nudging two metres, they dead? If you switched off a respirator, were you killing someone, committing murder? envelop the viewer. Like the forms they Respirators are integral to the process of organ donation, as kidneys and lungs and liv­ present emerging from chaos, the paint­ ers need to be kept alive with oxygenated blood while awaiting transplantation from ings have also ventured from the obscure donor to recipient. And so the legal concept of brain death came into being- the idea well of birth and rebirth into the bright that a person was legally dead if they were on life support, but their brain was medical­ world of our gaze. Watery blues grapple ly determined by doctors to be incapable ever of controlling independent existence. with bleached whites, an ambiva lent red Science is about to complicate things further. There are now researchers trying haze accompanies bald patches of black, to assemble simple fo rms of life by combining (dead) off-the-shelf chemicals. These arrays of yellow recur. Until this point, life forms would be separate from the environment in which they existed, and able to Gleeson's work has concerned itself support some form of chemical reaction to maintain and reproduce themselves. If we with structure. Now he leaps into an could produce such entities, would we have made life? elemental realm. A growing body of researchers into the process of ageing now look at death as an Gleeson's mature paintings descend engineering problem-a barrier that they will eventually overcome. As they find out like a flock. One striking example is The Arrival of Implacable Gifts (1985). Its sea­ more about the causes of ageing and death, they are becoming more and more confi­ shore and the sky are a tangle of muddy dent that it might be possible for an individual to live forever. white, virtually interchangeable. The All of which brings us to where we started. When does life begin and end? These enmeshed obj ects are part of what sur­ are significant questions which stir the very depths of our humanity. The point at rounds and yet distinct. Are they treas­ which a new human life begins, for instance, is central to any discussion of the ethics ure or debris? Gleeson himself makes an of abortion and stem cell research. Those who believe humanity begins at conception appearance, a bemused onlooker with an have a completely different view from those who think that humanity implies the avuncular demeanour. existence of some sort of organised nervous system. Beyond the Screen of Sight manages The sad, sorry and protracted battle over the fate of Florida woman Terri Schiavo, to capture all the horror and beauty, revolved around the point at which human life ends. The resolution of this question mystery and history that lives in James so stirred some segments of American society that their representatives in Congress Gleeson's work. It is a provoker of tried to assert control over the courts, whose independence from such action is sup­ subsequent reflection and a fitting tribute posedly guaranteed in their Constitution. to Gleeson's persistent curiosity and the What has become clear to Archimedes is that science offers little assistance in longevity of his creative vision. the determination of the points at which life begins and ends, so important to our con­ cept of our own humanity. These are legal, social, ethical and, yes, religious decisions. This m onth 's contributors: Anthony Life itself flows on. Ham is Eureka Street's roving corre­ spondent. Steve Gome is a freelance Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer. writer and actor.

8 EUREKA STR EET MAY 2005 capital What crisis? letter

T.P O PULAT

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 9 by thew Portuguese invasion

I SUHOSE THAT, m evolutwn's danng scnpt, the milhpede reason that either it or the inhabitants understand. As an eater ha a role, but intense scrutiny has failed to reveal it to me, and of mulchy matter, it finds no nourishment u nder domestic it's not as if I've lacked opportunity for research, because our roofs and, along with hundreds of its mates, having invaded a house has been the Hindenburg Line to wave after wave of this house, it quickly dies in corners and under couches and mats. many-footed army. But this is precisely why, as a domestic pest, the old Before Christmas, with a few millipede scouts and guer­ Ommatoiulus is hard to combat. Its superior numbers are mit­ rillas appearing on the verandah, I called in my mate Les, of iga ted by confusions, ill direction and vague individualism in Southern Flinders Pest Control (SFPC)-not to be confused the ranks (in sharp contrast, for example, to antsb its physical with Ron Scholar, sole proprietor of the splendidly named presence is diminished by the tendentious nature of its claim Academic Pest Control, who, when we lived in Little River, to a place in the evolutionary parade. When m illipedes come would regularly rid our eaves of swarming bees. He would, no multi-legging their way under your doors and through hitherto doubt, have obliterated academic pests too, if we'd reported unknown gaps in your castle's defences, they don't know why them in any numbers. Anyway, Les of SFPC came straighta­ they're there. way, laid down a heavy artillery ba rrage, and the enemy sub­ Likewise, potential predators become puzzled by the mil­ sided, patiently planning a m ajor assault in cooler weather. lipede's apparent irreleva nce, its palpable consciousness of It will not have escaped your notice that I'm refer­ its own irrelevance, and lose heart. European flies, developed ring here to Ommatoiulus m oreletii, the Portuguese mil­ specifically to attack and extinguish Ommatoiulus in South lipede, which, inspired no doubt by compatriots Vasco Australia, disappeared completely after their release and were da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan and Bartolomeu Dias, never heard of again. Rhabditis necromena, a parasitical nem a­ made the lon g journey from its native shores to Western tode, has had some success against millipedes but takes years to Au stralia in the 1980s and quickly colonised most of the m ake an impact, as if undecided how to act. Obviously neither other states. Whether it actually has a thousand legs m ay the European fly nor Rhabditis could cope with a prey so appar­ be still in doubt, but it is unquestionably well endowed ently uninformed about its place in the mysterious game of in the matter of limbs, forelegs, hindlegs, 'pins' and gen­ Nature. Natura naturans was the medieval phrase for this ga m e: eral undercarriage support. Thus equipped, Ommatoiulus 'nature naturing'. The secret of Ommatoiulus is: it achieves a sort of gliding motion, like a Georgian dancer. refuses to nature. Remember the Georgian dancers? The women wore hooped dresses that just touched the floor and completely E tHAPS MILLIPEDES HAVE come to recognise their ances­ concealed their fe et. They would cross the stage taking rapid, tors' immigration from Portugal as a terrible mistake and, short, unseen steps. To the onlooker, they appeared to be on consumed with atavism, are trying to return home. But all h idden wheels. Many of them, when their dancing careers the evidence suggests a simpler explanation: millipedes don't ended, were employed by the BBC as Daleks in Dr Who-the know what they are for. They are evolution's senior moment. Daleks, of course, being noteworthy not only for their obses­ This is good news for creationists. They should study sive desire to EXTERMINATE but also for sliding across the Ommatoiulus moreletii and, above all, seek to find other species often visibly shuddering set as if on a cushion of air. that, like Ommotoiulus, seem to have slipped below the evolu­ Dr Who first hit the television screen in 1963. Two years tionary radar. If successful in this quest, they would gradually later, a m ate of mine gathered together all his resources­ build a case against the logic of evolution and for the idea of a well, he sold his battered FJ H olden and did a runner on the God playing with toys he has only recently returned his atten­ previous month's rent-and sought acting fame in London. tion to after being so thoroughly pissed off by the erratic behav­ Within a few weeks he wrote to tell u s of his stunning iour, just a few thousand years ago, of Adam and Eve. breakthrough- a job with BBC drama. The role, it turned Meanwhile, I fight on: with sprays, slippery surfaces, out, was as a Dalek, but still it was a start. He left the BBC thick towels across doors. I will fight them on the verandah, I only because he felt that an acting career in which he never will fight them in the kitchen, I will fight them on the patio charged urgently up or swept splendidly down a staircase was and in the toilets. I will never surrender. perhaps too monoch romatic. But I digress. LOOK OUT! Here they come again .. . Ommatoiulus moreletii has a smooth black cylindrical • body and proliferates in compost, leaf litter and mulch, where, Brian Matthews is a writer who also holds professorial helping- but only helping, note-to break down organic mat­ positions at Victoria University, Melbourne, and Flinders ter, it makes a thin and, in my view, highly contestable claim University, South Australia. He lives in the Clare Valley, to be part of the great scheme of things. It enters houses for no South Australia.

1 0 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 Robert Drummond

verse Riding the bycycle

Nothing stirred except mosquitoes, and in the midst of a three largactil night, they bit the mind hard.

There was cold sand The abyss troubling his bed and on this beach his feet tightly tapped for Peter Booth to Radio Loopy, At midday in the bar his every hiccup, his every nit I sit and sip and suck rummaged the air- ice from a long glass. he dreamt of discovering In the bar on Foxtel a vast continent where rain storms a baby boomer rock star between sea and sky singing about cold rain were like the strings of a harp. and snow I the way His very gift was to remain invisible it falls. Hear the cry whilst riding a Malvern Star bike, from narrow streets - one of two priceless possessions; aussie au ssie aussie ! and he rode around upon it Walking outside into wind wearing platform shoes, people stand and walk

along roads beyond mapped margins and talk. The sky where the thrust of muscles reminded him is riddled with turbulent that nightmares were no longer required. clouds I so I walk back

In wide paddocks were rocks to the bar with the wind shaped like cows and sheep imitating hay bales, inside of me. People sit and hills so pointed he always looked up here and stand and talk

to crimson smears and squirts and watch other people of yellow I and past fencing wire and ochre land sit and stand and talk he pedalled into prehistoric light inside the plasma screen.

upon two circles of silver, I decide to leave and nothing (not even dread) to go walking again stirred, except to the art gallery

wild orange daisies, to find relief and to like crazy bees swimming stare at the black painting in the October wind. for quite some time.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 11 the \\o!ld:l Hugh Dillon Getting real • Ulster

Real peace is likely to come to Northern Ireland on ly when a new generation sets aside the long-dead icons of 1916 and 1922

0 e

12 EUREKA ST REET MAY 2005 c ~ ::l E <( ~ c <(

Victor Griffin, the distinguished ex-Dean of St Patrick's Partition-and all that it brought in suffering-was prob­ (Church of Ireland) Cathedral, Dublin, makes the case that ably inevitable once the link was m ade between Irishness and Irish Protestants made strategic errors, first, in opposing Catholicism . De Valera, the Catholic clergy and the Vatican so Home Rule ('Home Rule is Rome Rule') and, second, when keenly pursued the goal of a 'Catholic state for a Catholic peo­ some form of Irish independence became inevitable, in ple' that, in the republic, to be Irish and Catholic were virtually demanding partition . synonymous notwithstanding the long history of nationalism among many Irish Protestants. The reactionary combination L£TITLE OF Griffin's book comes from Jonathon Swift's of nationalism, Catholicism and Gaelic romanticism was a aphorism, concerning Ireland: 'We have just enough religion sharp rejoinder to centuries of Protestant ascendancy. It was, to m ake us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.' nevertheless, Ireland's misfortune to be liberated not by Irish Despite this, in Griffin's view: equivalents of Mandela and Tutu but by violent revolutionaries imbued with prim itive, tribal notions of religion and culture, Irish Protestants, it now seems, would have fa red much bet· utterly illiberal and authoritarian in outlook. tcr in a united Ireland . There, as a significa nt minority with In 1920, ten per cent of the population of what shortly increased numerical strength and in fl uence and the support of afterwards becam e the Irish Free State were Protestant. By liberal Catholics and others, they would have presented a seri­ 1990, only three per cent of Irish citizens identifie d them selves ous challenge to t he dominance of t he Roman Catholic Church as Protestant. A sort of ethnic cleansing had taken place. The in political affairs, thereby giving a lead to many liberal Roman Catholic Church, by allying it elf so closely with De Va lera Catholics and others who were unhappy with the Roma n Cath­ and the nationalist politicians who sought Home Rule and olic ethos of the state and who wished fo r a more pluralist, toler­ then full independence from Britain, bears great responsibil­ ant and open society. As an integral part, and fully supportive of ity for dividing rather than uniting the Irish people. This is t he state, Irish Protestantism would have received more respect rem embered in the North. a nd favourable attention from the Irish people as a whole than at In different ways, some dram atic, some virtually unno­ present is enjoyed by the northern Protestants among the people ticed, progress towards unity in Ireland seem s to be coming, of the United Kingdom, for many of whom , perhaps a majority, like it or not. The bank robbery before Christmas has cau sed t hey are an enigm a and emba rrassment. The UK would shed the British and Irish governments to stop tolerating IRA few tears at the departure of Northern Ireland. criminality and to place pressure on Sinn Fein to disband

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 13 the IRA. Perhaps even more important, has been the overwhelming support among nationalists for the McCartney sisters whose brother, a lifelong republican, was murdered by IRA men in full view of 70 people in a Belfast pub. For the IRA to kill a Protestant is one thing, but for them to sadistically murder one of their own led to a powerful revolt in the nationalist community, leading Gerry Adams to declare, 'I am not letting this issue go until those who have sullied the republican cause are made to account for their action.' Sinn Fein's electoral support has not collapsed, but its credibility within its own community is now under question. Whether real peace can be brought to Northern Ireland by politicians like Adams and Paisley and parties like Sinn Fein and the DUP is highly dubious. They are forever manoeuvring within the 'peace process', string­ ing it out to gain an advantage, never wishing to see it end because, as they perceive the world, when it does there will be a winner and a loser. Neither can face the prospect of 'losing', but neither wants to return to the abyss of sectarian conflict, if only because each community has now grown Still you hear the call. so used to the contingent sort of 'peace' that the current settlement has brought that it would revolt against leaders who reignited a shooting war. You still believe Sinn Fein, at its party conference in February this year, published a 1t 1s your purpose. discussion paper, grandiosely described by Adams as a 'roadmap', on Irish unification. It said all the right things about 'the unity of the people of To enrich the lives of others, to Ireland' and 'national reconciliation'. Nestled away on the party's website, serve God, still. however, is its online shop where m emorabilia glorifying dead IRA volun­ teers is advertised. Elsewhere on the website we find banal genuflections to the sainted rebel James Connolly, the party's inspiration. The discussion Sometimes stillness can speak. paper declares that it is the duty of democrats to persuade unionists to join in reunification of Ireland. Does Sinn Fein seriously think it is Your sabbatical is a time the party to do that? to reflect and renew, 'IE Goon FRIDAY AGREEMENT means that the old war between Britain to pause and then and Ireland is over. At some time in the future, northern Protestants may start refresh ed. come to view the south with far greater benignity, but the decades of belea­ guered tribalism, bolstered by memories of the Battle of the Somme, IRA atrocities, Catholic triumphalism in the south and English perfidy, will not Our Sabbatical Program will help easily be swept away or whited over. As Adams and the IRA apparently do not understand, but any outsider you explore contemporary can, they are the principal obstacles to peace and, ultimately, the reunifica­ theological questions with other tion of Ireland. The Protestants are too weak to do anything except retain their own patch, but they are strong enough to defend it, no matter how women and men religious from many guns the IRA holds or self-aggrandising books Gerry Adams pub­ the world over. lishes. The peace process cannot be driven by men of violence. Sinn Fein and the IRA cannot bring about peace and reconciliation- the precondi­ tions of reunification- much less reunification itself, because no unionist can trust them. Still seeking? www. wjst.edu A cold war is probably the best solution Adams, Paisley and their cohorts are capable of. Real peace is likely to come only when a new generation, which has grown up without seeing gunmen as their protec­ tors and heroes, replaces them and, respectfully but decisively, sets aside the long- dead icons of 1916 and 1922- Pearse, Connolly, Carson and • Co. (Where else in the democratic world are political leaders still mired WESTON JESUIT in the debates and ideologies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries?) SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Genuine peacemakers will bring about a paradigm shift, building not on religious difference and antique brands of nationalism but on a com­ Cambridge, Massachuserrs (Harvard Square) mon ground of economic development, liberal-democratic values and human rights. Th ir authenticity will be proven by an insistence that paramilitaries in both communities disband and disarm. adm i [email protected] Hugh Dillon is a Sydney magistrate with ancestral roots in Ulster.

14 EUREKA STR EET MAY 2005 unions Nick Way Rancour in the rank and file

Poor morale among organisers and shop delegates of the Victorian branch of the SDA is said to be seriously impairing the union's cc1pacity to service its members

E OM Tm MOMENT PCoalition would gain control of nepotism still afflict the unions. In the past, when the Senate after July 1 this year, he made his inten­ many employers acted as unions' recruiting officers tions very clear: industrial relations reform would and the closed shop was an accepted norm, it hardly be a high priority. The Workplace Relations Act, mattered. Today, they are exploited by employers and which former Employment and Workplace Relations used by employees as a reason for not joining. Minister Peter Reith ushered though the Senate after In this vein is the Victorian branch of the Shop, lengthy negotiations with the Democrats in 1996, Distributive &. Allied Employees Association (SDA). was always just a starting point for the Howard On paper, it is one of the strongest divisions of one of Government. For the Coalition, and its business sup­ the more powerful and successful unions in the coun­ porters, a freer labour market is an article of faith. try. It is Victoria's biggest union, with an estimated To say such legislation has made it difficult for 54,000 members spread across the main retailers. All­ unions to operate, even survive, would be an under­ embracing enterprise agreements with large retailers statement. For example, the 1996 Act made it harder that are relaxed about union involvement to recruit, especially in non-union workplaces. mean it has a growing membership. Changes to the Act now being proposed will make it even harder. PoLITICALLY, IT IS POWERFUL inside the state Labor At its core the legislation reflects a fundamen­ Party, where it boasts about eight per cent of delegates tally different mindsct about how the workplace to the state conference. One issue where the Victorian operates. For the Howard Government, most employ­ branch has been publicly-and successfully-active ers can be trusted; the Scrooges of the world are few has been to 'encourage' the Bracks and far between. Employers and individual employ­ Government to limit trading hours for ees can amicably negotiate mutually beneficial large retailers (more than 20 employees arrangements. Third parties, for which read unions, on a site or 100 across the group) on simply impede the process, not only to the detriment major public holidays, evidence of the of the employers but often employees. power it wields inside Labor. For unions, employees are best protected in a But the power of the collective, of collective agreement; if their thinking has progressed a democratic union marching as one, from the simplistic 'all bosses are bastards' rhetoric is not the story of the SDA. Instead, it of yesterday, they still believe that many employers is a union that still 'exists' to largely see employees as a cost, not an asset. Myriad annual nurture the ambitions and ideological reports that describe employees 'as ou r most valuable agendas of its officials, and, in this resource' is simply sophistry. particular instance, state secretary In such an industrial environment for unions, it Michael Donovan. Reflecting its is easy for organised labour to lay all its woes at the anti-communist past, it is a union that has always doorstep of the Howard Government. Falling union tressed unity. Loyalty is paramount. Organised tick­ numbers (in the private sector they represent less ets for elected office are the norm. It does not mean than one worker in five), faltering wage campaigns the union ignores the wishes of its members; it does in some industry sectors, and failure to prevent mean the union knows best what tho e wishes are. management exerting its prerogative over workplace Power flows down, not up. change without negotiating can be too easily attrib­ Going hand in glove with an authoritarian state of uted to the legislation and employers who have been mind is a union where real power predominantly lies emboldened by it. in the hands of men although more than 70 per cent Unions, however, have been far less willing of members are female. It reflects, in strong part, the to reflect on their own weaknesses. Industrial and union's strong Catholic roots: men lead, women follow.

MAY 2005 EU REKA STREET 15 Donovan, who became state secretary in 1996, is very much in But Marks and Cotter decided to withdraw their resigna­ t his tradition. tions, and in an open letter to fe llow councillors and members For much of the past nine years, Donovan's position has late last year wrote that they had legal advice saying they are been unchallenged. Today, however, that situation is changing. 'entitled to attend and participate in branch conference'. Their This is not to argue that he is about to lose his position; he letter said: 'To stop an election happening [more than two rem ains firmly entrenched. But there are a growing number of years ago] Michael did an agreement that meant we would be critics inside the union who arc making life harder for Donovan. able to stay on branch conference only for two more years. We (E mployers, the Labor Party and other unions are either uncon­ did not want to sign this agreement, but felt we had no choice. cerned or blithely ignorant of this state of affairs.) We had to sign a resignation dated two years into the future. The focus of the attack has centred on two former delegates 'We spoke to a lawyer who said we had the right to with­ to state council and branch conference-Kay Marks and Judy draw our nom ination at any stage up to 31 May 2004. When Cotter, a vice president of the branch-who are fighting to be we received this advice we both wrote to Michael, withdraw­ reinstated to these two governing bodies. (Branch conference ing our postdated resignations. When we turned up to state has 40 delegates and meets annually. State council has conference we were shocked and humiliated by t hings that about 20 delegates and meets every two months.) occurred to us. After many years of loyalty (they have been on state council and conference for more than 20 years), we felt A DEAL WAS DONE IN FEBRUARY 2002 between Marks and we were not shown courtesy or loyalty in return.' Legal action Cotter and Donovan and the federal secretary of the SDA, Joe is an option both women are considering. de Bruyn, for the two delegates to step down from office on 31 For his part, Donovan says Marks and Cotter 'resigned May last year. Their resignations were signed in February 2002 earlier this year fro m their positions on state council and but postdated to 31 May 2004. branch conference. Those resignations have been accepted so

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16 EUREK A STREET MAY 2005 state council has appointed people to fill the casual vacancies of how it helped women members was to run free self-defence according to the rules. They attended branch conference [in courses. Clarke says the courses, which cost the union only June] as observers.' He adds that the resignations 'were received $30,000 a year, were 'very empowering, very popu lar, espe­ here this year and we processed them . . . in cially in regional Victoria'. He adds: 'Violence aga inst women accordance with the law'. working late hours and domestic violence are issues for the female membership. The program said to members that this is M ARKS AND CoTTER WILL NOT comment beyond their your union working for you . So why stop the program?' written statement. That is left to Mark Clarke, an organiser But Clarke's biggest complaint focuses on how poor and training officer before Donovan showed him the door in morale among the organisers and shop delegates is 'seriously late 2002, who has become the unofficial spokesman for the impairing' the union's capacity to service its members. 'Take anti-Donovan forces inside and outside the union . He says the the case of Margaret Muscat, who was a union delegate at 'harsh way' Donovan has treated these two loyal servants of the Coles store at Williamstown. The company dropped an the union is symptomatic of the way he runs the union. allegation of harassment against her after an investigation. 'Donovan had his good points. He was hard-working. He But Donovan still removed her as a delegate in the workplace. was dedicated. But he has become paranoid about his position. Members are furious. They want her back, but Donovan will Any disagreement with staff, organisers or delegates is seen as not see them and explain his decision.' directly challenging his authority. Typically these people are When shop assistants at the store heard this story was forced to resign. If Michael suspects he hasn't got your total being written, several made the effort to ring and confirm loyalty he pushes to the outer.' Clarke's version of events. Says one: 'Muscat's a tremendous Supporting Clarke's contention is an employment con­ delegate. Even when she's not at work she comes in if there's tract in which loyalty to Donovan is a condition of the job. a problem. We don't understand why the union has got rid of It says, in part: 'The unity of the union is very important to her-and they won't tell us.' The shop assistant begs to remain ensure that the interests of the union members take priority. anonymous. 'It wouldn't be worth my job,' she says plaintively. Therefore loyalty to the elected secretary of the branch must She is not referring to any management threat. Rather, her fear be m aintained at all times.' lies with possible repercussions from the union. D onovan does not see anything wron g in such a loyalty Donovan says he will not discuss individual cases. clause. H e makes no distinction between expecting loyalty and demanding it. H e says: 'Part of the letter of offer makes K AYE WILLIAMS, A OFFICIAL for nearly SiX years, lost plain that loyalty to the branch secretary is part of their her job late last year after allegedly being een 'clapping' a job. That is something every single union secretary in delegate who had the temerity to criticise Donovan in a pub­ Australia would expect of their staff. And that's expected lic forum. A pay offer has been refused and she is considering of staff here.' her legal options. Former and current organisers and staff m embers say this Three years earlier, N atalie Lupton, who Clarke loyalty clause has nothing to do with protecting m embers and describes as an 'excellent organiser', was dismissed after everything to do with enhancing Donovan's authority. They 16 years of service. The dismissal allegedly resulted from speak of a culture of fear in the office, of people being afraid Coles Supermarkets threatening to ban Lupton from their to speak their minds. Says one current organiser: 'Staff are stores, and the loyalty demanded by Donovan was not recip­ scared. When we go out on the job we talk to our members rocated to this long-serving staff member. Her services about it and they say, "How can the union treat you like were terminated. This resulted in the SDA staff taking the this when its job is to protect employees?" There really is no extraordinary step of holding a stopwork meeting and call­ answer to that.' They also note how Donovan strictly controls ing in an official of the Australian Services Union (ASU) to divisional meetings, limiting questions to a few 'Dorothy address staff grievances. The stopwork meeting called on Dixers' from his supporters. the ASU to negotiate a grievance procedure for SDA staff, a Clarke cites other reasons why there is a growing anger at request Donovan has still not agreed to. Donovan inside the union. Some organisers arc on individual It reflects an attitude where attempts by officials contracts despite the fact they are anathem a to the union or employees to raise issues with Donovan are ignored. movement. Donovan denies they are general policy, saying Similar approaches to de Bruyn have received expressions these contracts are used only to replace people on maternity or of sympathy-but no action. According to Clarke, an office long-service leave. 'This is unlike the employers we deal with. that once prided itself on the stability of its staff now has a They just make their employees work harder,' he says. high turnover. Other factors cited by Clarke include shutting down a An office that should bubble with enthusiasm, ideas women's bureau in an organisation where more than 70 per and debate is more akin to that of a Dickensian employer. It cent of the members are female, and abolishing a counselling reflects a leadership more concerned with its own position, service for staff and members. To Donovan's critics, this was especially politically, than a vulnerable rank and file working an appalling decision. (This position has now been reinvented in one of the lowest-paid industries. To date, employers have as an equity officer, an ironical title in a union where women not exploited a union that must be vulnerable. Perhaps they are in the majority and m en wield the power.) are simply waiting until July 1. The SDA was the first union to have a women's officer, the position being established nearly 30 years ago. One example Nicholas Way is a senior writer with Business Review Weekly

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 17 ll ) Morag Fraser ..... Morning 1n• East Timor

Traces of Rome htlve become part of the S( Prwr~

b, l u ..., Hl ', D u, SATURDAY ' Aem. Tho his beret. 'Where did you go in '99?' 'To phones in the Canossian convent at Bal­ the mountains', he answers, smiling and Dogs and roosters sing the foreground ide have been ringing since dawn, but pointing to the tropical buttress that rises song. Nuns lilt in the background. The Rome is a faraway place. We dodge the behind the city. He might be telling me sky is clear but the dawn sound is watery inevitable house dogs and head out to about a weekend picnic-the East Timor­ as dozens of women and girls splash them ­ Tasitolu before the implacable sun rises ese smile is beguiling-but we both know selves clean. I fi ll my plastic bucket under any higher. he is not. the outside tap and extravagant scarlet It's hazy out on this flat wetland At Tasitolu, a plain cross stands ham­ and yellow Heliconia rostrata flowers wedged between sea and the guardian mered into the crumbling cem ent fore­ drop pollen in the water. Deprivation and hills. Cynics and old hands call Dili a court of the Pope's open house, its wh ite luxury live side by side here. swamp. Here, 8km to the west, on the wood reflecting light like bone or washed Mass is at 6.45am. The Tetun Mass road to Kupang, the merging of sea and coral. In the cool under the house the that is. If you want the Portuguese you shore has a benign logic. Birds flock here, goats wander. One milks. Others spring can stay longer in bed and walk down som e flying from as far away as Russia. nimbly up the steps to the balcony. We are at nine. 'Hardly anyone goes' we are The tang in the air is salt, not from frying the only creatures here. Four humans and told. Portuguese is the officially adopted palm oil or open city drains. The hope is a few dozen bibi- the Tetun seems the language in East Timor, the language of that this place of salt lakes and swaying gentler language for these delicate deft administration, of law, of education. In grasses will become a peace park and con­ creatures which have the freedom of the schools m any of the teachers can't speak servation area. island. At the other end of the bay we see Portuguese, let alone teach it. Every con­ In 1989, ten years before the independ­ one bearded fellow standing sentinel on versation we have turns eventually to ence referendum that bought (clearly) a rock just below Cape Fatucama's huge the language problem . Or avoids it. We East Timor's freedom, Pope John Paul statue of Christo Re. Indonesia's Presi­ learn to interpret the d ipl omatic eva­ II came here. Where the morning winds dent Suharto unveiled the huge statue in sions and side-turned smiles when we now blow, thousands upon thousands of 1988. Pope John Paul blessed it in 1989. ask questions. people once gathered. The Pope said Mass from the traditional house, or Uma, built for the occasion. The palm roof thatch is now home to opportunistic ferns (in East Timor even stones nurture orchids). The pink and white wash on the walls (a brea th of Portugal) brushes off on our fingers as we try to decipher the graffiti that now marks the steps leading up to the Pope's balcony. FATIN NE SANTO RESPEITO NIA TEMPAT (This is a holy place, respect it) ... The balcony is modest but elevated. A breath of the Vatican. But from here you can see clear across deserted lakes and plains to the mountains which were the only refuge in 1999, when the pro-Indonesia mili­ tias and military went on their murder­ ous ra mpage. At the Dili tais (weaving) market some days later a young man in cam ouflage gear sells me a rust-red shawl from Suai and boasts at the same time of being a freedom fi ghter. 'Fretilinl' I ask. 'Yes'. He points proudly to the badge on

I 8 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 The phones at Baucau have brought the news. At mass the priest (the Bishop is bu sy) begins his sermon with sentences that are, even to n1alae (foreigners) like us, recognisably about the death of the Pope. Many of the older women in the church are wearing black m antillas. In the courtyard outside they unfold the lace or tulle fro m careful creases and cover their heads, their arms, som times their whole form with them. The wall behind them is laced with orange-pink bougain­ villea and drops hundreds of metres to the ea below. But it is not the Pope that these women are mou rning. In every village between Dili and Bau­ cau we have seen bamboo stakes driven into the side of the road, black or white shreds of material fluttering from them. Black for adults. White for children. There have been many dengue deaths this season we are told. T he priest is a rhetorician and soon warms to his them e. The sermon, all remaining 35 minutes of it, is about new gov­ ernment proposals that would effectively secularise educa­ tion in schools. As we leave the church an English translation of the policy is pressed into our hands. 'Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport . . . a policy in favour of the neediest'. Vatican II language, but it soon blurs into the universal jargon of professional educators: 'mil­ lennium developments, rational­ izing, equality of opportunity'. The churchyard gossip becomes political, with governm ent and church criticised even-handedly. We read the policy and discuss it with The morning Journal Nacional gives its Baucau locals, with aid workers, with front page over to last night's 'Misa ba Amo Marist educators. But more memorable Papa iha Catedral'. Dr Mari Alkatiri, one­ are the children we saw near Xanana Gus­ time Fretilin leader and a Muslim, sits in mao's hometown of Manatuto, walking the front row. From Balide we can hear the in the dust to church in sparkling white singing well into evening. By morning the dresses and shirts. A First Communion? city is focused on the visit of Indonesian Or just the regular pride of people who president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. East Timor's future in Sunday best, Manatuto (top), have survived and want to thrive? We Boys in a ramshackle ute stake out the and ready for sc hool in Ossu (a bove). Th e Pope's never find out. But we do see the black­ presidential route with cruciform bamboo Uma, Tasitolu (above left), with friend ly loca ls. ened stumps of houses that line the road flagpoles. The Indonesian president stays in out of Manatuto. Even the vines and trees the hills at the home of East Timorese presi­ Morag Fraser was in East Timor with that now grow through their dirt floors dent, Xanana Gusmao. A few people kneel a Brigidine group investigating estab­ and ga ping window do not rescue them for at a shrine near the harbour and pray. For lished links between East Timorese and humanity. Yet. the Pope. For East Timor. For all of us? Australian schools.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 19 Anthony Ham The impossible lives on Spain is celebrating the 400th anniversary of its most famous novel, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote

In a village in La Mane h,1 1vhow name I cannot recall, there /i\ eel long ago a counll) gentleman .. .

This year, some 400 years after the first part of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha was first published in 1605, Cervantes' picaresque tale is once again enjoying a revival, thanks in part to the 400th anniversary celebrations taking place in Spain. Seemingly every bookshop across Spain is in danger of being overwhelmed by new editions of the work. Tourism in Castilla La Mancha-Spain's central plateau and the home of Don Quixote-is booming, with visitors seeking windmills at which to tilt. And the appearance on Spanish television of the fantasy lifestyles of Spanish celebrities is frequently inter­ spersed with more contemplative readings of Don Quixote, the In Don Quixole country, windmills of Campo de Ia Criptana, Casti lla La Mancha, Spain. Anthony Ham ultimate and most lovable fantasist of all. T he secret to Don Quixote's enduring appeal- it is at once popular with a mass readership yet has endured through the centuries as a seminal work in the canon of world litera­ T us nccms Don Quixote, a

20 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 This combination of wisdom and absurdity is indeed fi delity, and travels on the fa ithful if fa ltering and bony old central to Don Quixote's charm. At the same time, it is in nag Rocinante-who is capable of such adventure, such escap­ the storytelling, with all the power of the Arabian Nights, ism, such impossible dream s is what has ultimately m ade us that Cervantes' unequalled mastery of language truly resides. love the deluded knight for so long. Inspiration for the disastrous e capades which befa ll Don Indeed, the Spanish writer Cesar Antonio Molina claims Quixote undoubtedly came from Cervantes' own life-the that 'Q uixote is like our Bible, a secular bible. And like the writer was wanted fo r the murder of a royal architect, lost Bible it tells us a lot, how to behave, how to drea m, how to love, a left hand in battle in Italy, was imprisoned by corsairs in how to be just. More than a book of adventures it is a book of Algeria for five years, joined the Spanish Armada, ended wisdom. It shows us all our human defects in its mirror. And it up again in prison, this time in Spain, and died in poverty is written by a loser, about a loser, yet both of them illustrious.' in 1616 (the year after he completed his m asterpiece). Illan Stava ns, Professor of Latin America and Latino His creation, Don Quixote, begins life as the very ordi­ Culture at Amherst College in Massachusett and renowned nary Alonso Quijano. He i a true man of La Mancha, that Cervantes expert, similarly argues that the reason for the unending and desolate plateau in central Spain with its rolling knight's timeless resonance lies in the fa ct that he 'moves hills, scorching summers and bitterly cold winters spent in across history, presenting different m asks, and being appreci­ isolation. His journey commences in a village without name, ated-som etim es as a m adman, som etimes as an idealist. although ten Spanish academics recently completed a two­ He really transcends the circumstances into which he was year quest to follow the clues left by Cervantes and identified born, or created'. More mischievously, he wonders if we love the knight's starting point as the village of Villanueva de los Don Quixote simply because we 'adore the fact that the most Infantes, now home to 5839 inhabitants and a pretty town enduring of literary characters is a m adman'. square, 22Skm south of Madrid. Added to these qualities to which we are drawn is Don Obsessed by tall tales of chivalry, Senor Quijano Quixote's innate goodness, a characteristic hi ghlighted by Jan announces that he shall thereafter be considered a knight Morris, who says: with the title of Don Quixote, whereupon he begins his quest I accept his mad ness, but I bel ieve it to be the madness of a to right wrongs and rescue the oppressed from distress. Holy Fool. I am grateful for the delightful exa mples he gives us Among Cervantes' many achievements is his extraordinary of fa ncy's t rut h and rea lity's delusions. And most of all I love evocation of the landscape through which his knight travels. his kindness-Don Q uixote was never mean, never ungener­ With extraordinary skill and authenticity, Cervantes brings alive ous, a nd suffered fools gladly. the mundane signposts of 16th-century Spain, landmarks tak­ ing shape as characters in an irresistible marriage of travelling Thus it is that this seem ingly simple m an, armed with and storytelling, making Don Quixote perhaps the nothing more than a trusty lance and an ancient shield, first work of m agical realism. has, in the totality of his contradictions, come to represent a caricature of all who believe in m iracles and dream of the ~ DMILLS 1 WHICH STILL STAND sentinel above the plains impossible. He offers in equal measure hope and despair for of La Mancha, becom e 'monstrous giants' against whom battles those who would fight injustice but who fi nd the path to a must be fought in the name of honour. Roadside inns for weary better world confusing, as it is beset by obstacles of the m ind. travellers take on the character of enchanted castles. Flocks of He tilts at those who proudly possess pretensions to grandeu r sheep transmute into arm ies. Even the humble horse trough is and at once m ocks and celebrates the idea lists among us. Don mistaken by the lovable Don Quixote for a baptism al font. Quixote is a monument to absurdity, a hymn to the inspira­ The evocative and unrivalled brilliance of Cervantes' tion and futility of the romantic anti-hero. pen in painting a vivid visual im age, in transforming a real Indeed, Don Quixote is humankind contained within a landscape into a canvas for utterly believable flights of fa ncy, single character. Paul Donnelly, lecturer in Hispanic Studies is highlighted by the numerous fa ilures- from Orson Welles at Glasgow University, agrees: 'Cervantes is t be person who to Monty Python's Terry Gilliam - to faithfully recapture on has in my view the most complete and sympathetic under­ film the genius humanity of Don Quixote and the territory standing of human nature.' which he traverses. That it is the most widely read work of fiction in history That Cervantes' rendering of La Mancha was recognisable does not mean that it is an easy book to read. Martin Am is to the people who have inhabited the land since he described once dismissed it as unreadable. Juan Victoria, Professor of it is evident in the fact that, until recently, almost every inn Medieval Literatu re at Spain's National Open University, across central Spain posse sed a leather-bound copy of Don says that 'everyone has it on their bookshelves but not even a Quijote de la Mancha. At night, as travellers from all social minority get through it'. At more than 1000 pages, it is indeed strata gathered around a meal of m anchego cheese, wine and a daunting undertaking. the shepherd's staple of breadcrumbs with grapes, those fe w But as Spain celebrates 400 years of Don Quixote, the best who could read found the book pressed into their hands, urged piece of advice comes, som ewhat improbably, from a politician. to read to an eager audience, to offer entertainment to pass the Spain's Minister of Culture, Carmen Calvo, recently launched long La Mancha nights. the celebrations with the words: 'The most important tribute But that it should be an ordinary person like ourselves-he you can pay the book is to read it.' • bickers with Sancho as would an old married couple, dreams into existence Dulcinea to whom he swears undying love and Anthony Ham is a freelance writer living in Madrid.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 21 ('SS

T EtNHABnANTS m ULM •n de< Dou.u, Ulm on the As a child, Einstein was thought by some to be mentally Danube, the charming German city that straddles the border of retarded. In fact he was dyslexic, did not start speaking until Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg, have always been very proud he was three, and struggled with language right through pri­ of their minster, which was 500 years in the building: by 1890 mary school. His original doctoral dissertation was initially they could boast that the minster's spire was the highest in the rejected by the University of Zurich because it was too short, world. It so happens that there are steps inside that spire, and I but was passed after he added a vague and apparently rather have climbed all 768 of them. Twice. waffly sentence. In 1980 I thought the whole business was simply a testing It is now a hundred years since Einstein had his 'miracle climb; nearly 25 years later I soon began to wonder what happens year', during which he published three astounding papers, and so to people who collapse during the ascent. While panting up the radically changed the world's view of post-Newtonian physics. wind-tossed tower, I realised that I did not know the German And all this on his own time. Thus, 2005 has given rise to a spate word for help, and wondered whether a cry of au secours might of writing about the man, his work and his life. Even though I do. But a minute later, such considerations became purely aca­ know I am not alone, I am ashamed to admit that the famous demic, because by then I could not have got a phrase or word in equation E=mc2 baffled me for years; now, however, I know any language out: speech was a secondary consideration. While that Einstein maintained it simply answered the question he gargoyles leered from various levels and the town unrolled had asked himself when he was 16: What would it be lil

22 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 another beam of light: Shakespeare's sonnets are beautiful in From the time Rommel began his convalescence in only one language, but Einstein's equation is beautiful in all of Germany, the Gestapo had the family home under constant them. (Ah, but it has to be added that there are different sorts of surveillance. Then, on 14 October, two generals arrived and beauty, and that the consequences of the application of sonnet spoke to Rommel, accusing him of being a conspirator against and equation are surely in stark contrast.) Hitler. They gave him the choice, and the phial of poison: he Like most geniuse , Einstein could be difficult, but he could commit suicide or agree to stand trial for treason. He famously had God always in mind; he was also a pacifist chose the former, having spoken to his wife, whom he loved and an internationalist who worked constantly to help Jews greatly, and having shaken his 15-year-old son Manfred by the escaping from the Nazis and from the Soviets. Some 50 years hand. With quite staggering verbal economy, he said, I will be after Einstein's non-observant Jewish parents produced him, dead in twenty minutes. And he was. Hans and Sophie Scholl were born, although not in Ulm. Their Four days later, a state funeral took place in Ulm, during parents moved there not long after, however, so that Hans, which a huge crowd paid their respects to the late Field Marshal Sophie, and their three siblings grew up in an apartment on the in the belief that he had died as a result of his wounds. The hero minster square. I might not have been sure about the scene of image was carefully fostered: the doctors knew that Rommel General Mack's defeat, but there was no doubt about had taken poison, but put it about that he had died from a stroke, my view of the square. while Hitler, dishonest showman and evil hypocrite to the last, sent a wreath. Magris is unforgiving, asserting that the funeral 1:£ScHOLL FAMILY WAS NOT Jewish, but devoutly Christian was a sham, and that the tragedy of a man of honour had been in the best sense of the word, in that the parents actively stage-managed to become a lie. encouraged faith, intellectual freedom, a love of discussion, and Magris, great scholar and critic that he is, concentrates on a sen e of responsibility towards others. The Scholls were also ethics and semantics. It seems to me that Rommel concentrated patriotic Germans, and for a brief period both Hans and Sophie on his family, and also understood that the power of the word were involved in Hitler youth movements. Once having learned would be used against him in a rigged trial. The 'lie' enabled about Hitler's views on the subjects of eugenics, Rommel's adolescent son to keep on believing euthanasia, and what turned out to be the Final that his father was the hero and patriot that he Solution, however, they became committed to Shakespeare's sonnets surely was, entitled Rommel's wife to a pension drastic resistance action. The whole family read and her pride in her husband, and also saved 'forbidden' books as a matter of policy, and Hans are beautiful in only three people and the German public from the and Sophie, undergraduates at the University of one language, but degrading spectacle of court proceedings, which, Munich, were foundation members of a small like those of Hans and Sophie Scholl, could have non-violent resistance group known as the Einstein's equation is had only one ending. Magris does concede that White Rose. The choice of the name, which beautiful in all of them Rommel could never be accused of lacking still has great symbolic value, remains obscure, physical courage and so did not fear execution. but the rose is generally thought to be a Fast forward to George Orwell and Big symbol of secrecy, and a white one can stand for innocence. Brother and double-speak. And still faster forward, factoring in The members of the White Rose fought the Hitler regime spin along the way, to the invasion of Iraq, the whole dubious with words. They typed their flyers, mimeographed and then matter of reporting on WMD, and the atrocious treatment of distributed them; they painted slogans and graffiti on promi­ British expert Dr Kelly. Another suicide as a result of unbear­ nent walls. But on a fateful day in 1943, Hans and Sophie tipped able pressure, 60 years later, and not a very great distance from a whole load of pamphlets from a tall building; later, commenta­ Ulm minster. This death, however, was followed by a so-called tors remarked on the similarity between the drift of paper and inquiry: millions of words, and for what? the petals of a white rose. Events then proceeded inexorably: the ~ caretaker of the building informed the authorities, Han and I retrieved my breath somehow and made a slow but safe Sophie were speedily tried by the Nazi People's Court, and sum­ descent to the interior of the minster. Perhaps some things are marily sentenced to death by guillotine. seen and understood more clearly from a great height. Brother and sister met their deaths with outstanding cour­ C\.,._9 age. And with words. Sophie shouted defiantly at the judge as Months later, quite by chance, I happen to read a snippet in she and Hans were taken away. Her mother had already said to the English papers. Iraq again. It seems that the word suicide is her: You know, Sophie, Jesus. And Sophie had nodded in agree­ not acceptable to people such as Donald Rumsfeld, particularly ment. Claudio Magris, author of that mighty work Danube, not when the actual rate of this kind of death is rising among writes that the siblings knew that life is not the supreme value 'unlawful enemy combatants'. Such a trend causes questions . . . They went serenely to their deaths, without a tremor.. . to be asked by troublesome bodies like the misnamed United Magris is not as kind to Field Marshal Rommel, despite Nations. Words again. Just call suicide 'manipulative self-injuri­ believing him to have been a man of unassailable integ­ ous behaviour', and see how attitudes and statistics change. rity. The Desert Fox had been badly wounded on July 17, The slipperiness of language; the ambiguous power of the 1944. Three days later, Hitler narrowly escaped a botched word. Buildings arc safer. assassination attempt, and Rommel was alleged to have been involved in this plot, although such involvement has Gillian Bouras is a freelance writer whose books are published never been proved. by Penguin Australia.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 23 I It l[LJr( ' Tim Bonyhady Torn between art and activism

judith Wright was not just a much greater writer than most of the artist -activists who had preceded her, but also a much greater activist

/A RT' AND 'AC TN p•iNew South Wales country National Park in 1931. He was also at the forefront of combat­ town of Braidwood in Ma reb celebrated their connections. ing soil erosion-experimenting with a range of measures Its focus was the late Judith Wright, one of Australia's great to stop erosion gullies destroying his property Wallamumbi artist-activists. But for all her pursuit of environmental and outside Armidale in northern New South Wales. Aboriginal causes and belief in the importance of political Nature itself contributed to her activism- above all, the engagement, Wright did not think of herself as an activist phenomenon we now know as El Niiio, which was unusu­ for most of her life. It was neither part of her vocabulary nor ally intense in the early 1940s. When Wright returned to used as a term for her. Wallamumbi from Sydney early in 1942, New England was The reasons are historical. When 'activism' emerged as a drought-stricken. A year later, when she again went south, term in the early 1900s, it was used either to identify a brand 'fire and erosion were more obvious than ever', heightening of philosophy-a theory which assumed the objective reality Wright's 'conscience over the treatment of the land'. Late and active existence of everything- or to describe any form in 1944, she was in Brisbane when it was struck by one of of energetic action. It was only later, perhaps after World War Australia's worst series of dust storms. II, perhaps only in the 1960s, that it became a term for a form Little wonder that, when Wright began writing seriously of political activity, almost always on the left, dissenting, in 1942, dust became one of her key symbols and erosion one of the stuff of a fervent minority, starting, it seems, with union her recurrent subjects. Little wonder, too, that, 20 years later, activists and anti-war activists, and followed only later by she played a key role in establishing the Wildlife Preservation environmental activists, Aboriginal activists and even judi­ Society of Queensland and then served as its president. By 1970 cial activists. she was one of Australia's foremost environmental campaigners. The Coral Battleground, Wright's book about the cam­ With good reason, The Australian identified her as the person paign to stop mining of the Great Barrier Reef which occupied who had 'done more to arouse conservation anger in her from the mid-1960s until the early 1970s, fits this trajec­ Australia than any other'. tory. She records how the advocates of protection of the reef began by being dismissed as 'cranks' who were 'anti-progres­ H ER PURSUIT OF ART AND activism- the landscape a sive'. Before long they were known as 'vocal' and 'obdurate source of inspiration for her art, environmental protection protectionists', a label they wore with pride. Soon they were the focus of her activism-was far from new in Australia. known as 'conservationists'. 'Activist' was not used at all. The writer and artist Louisa Anne Meredith, who arrived Wright's one major use of it was in The Writer as Activist, from England in 1839, has strong claims to being Australia's a lecture delivered at the University of Western Australia in first environmental activist. In addition to writing about an 1988. While she discussed many writers in that lecture, her array of environmental issues with passion and persistence, prime subject was the early colonial poet Charles Harpur, Meredith also secured new environmental laws through her whom she celebrated because of his political writing. She husband Charles, a member of the Tasmanian parliament, lauded Harpur for wanting to inspire colonial New South and established Tasmania's first society for the protection of Wales 'on its course towards democratic freedom', his advocacy animals. of universal suffrage, social justice and equal rights to educa­ Wright may well have been a great campaigner without tion and opportunity. her status as 'the greatest [then]living poet of the Australian That lecture raises the question of whether the creation landscape', 'Australia's greatest woman poet', and even 'the of art- whether poetry or prose, painting or photography- can greatest woman poet since Sappho', but her literary identity be enough to make someone an activist. Is it sufficient to write helped. As she observed in The Coral Battleground, she had with political intent, with persistence and passion, even with the 'curiosity value', 'the special advantage of being a kind of ... intention of challenging attitudes and changing actionsz I think showpiece in the conservation movement'. ' News' had 'to that activism requires more direct social and political engage­ be made, and it was easier to make it with some figure well ment-which made Wright an activist where Harpur was not. known beyond the environmental movement itself'. She had some natural advantages. If she was 'born of Yet Wright's activism posed particular problems for her the conquerors', as she first put it in the early 1970s, she was because she was not just a much greater writer than most of also bred to be a conservationist. Her father Phillip was a life the artist-activists who had preceded her, but also a much member of Australia's first Wildlife Preservation Society, and greater activist. She, more than anyone before in Australia,

24 EU REKA STREET MAY 2005 perhaps more than anyone since, president of the Campaign to Save was torn between the two. While she Native Forests. wanted to do both, she often found she Many of Wright's friends could not. Day after day, week by week, believed that she was wasting her­ year after year, she had to decide which self. Australia's finest literary critic, would take precedence. Was it possible Dorothy Green, wrote to her in 1970 for her to campaign in the morning that she hated to read of Wright and write at night? Should she put her 'vanishing under the wild waves poetry before her politics? Should she of conservation'. A few years later, abandon poetry for politics? Wright's literary agent, Alex Shepherd, The possibility was there in 1970 implored her not to become a member when there was a by-election for the of the Hope Inquiry into the National Queensland state seat of Albert, tra­ Estate established by the Whitlam ditionally a safe Country Party seat. government. 'There are plenty of good Just a few months earlier, Premier horses, Clydesdales even, to do that/ Job Bjelke-Petersen had dismissed he declared. 'It isn't a job for a thor­ protection of the Great Barrier oughbred.' Patrick White added that Reef as an election issue. Albert there were 'enough Clydesdales, they offered the chance to prove him just have to be prodded into work'. wrong because it included the Gold Wright responded by advising Coast, where there was a very active White, who shared many of her envi­ branch of the Wildlife Preservation ronmental concerns, that he should Society. But when Wright's fellow remain a novelist instead of becom­ conservationists pressed her to stand, ing, as she was, 'too harassed and she declined, at least partly 'out of driven by the battle to concentrate on respect for her true vocation'. writing'. When they both spoke at one Even so, Wright had almost no Judith Wright in 1998. Photo: Dean McNicoll, rally, she warned White, 'Once you put time for poetry as an activist. 'I was courtesy Th e Ca nberra Tim es your foot on the flypaper you'll never quite unable to do much of my own shake it off.' Meanwhile Wright joined work/ she wrote of 1969 in The Coral Battlegwund. Through the Hope Inquiry and edited its report, which immediately 1970 she was, by her own account, 'a full-time conservationist'. resulted in new federal legislation creating the Australian In mid-1971 Brisbane's Sunday Mail reported that she had not Heritage Commission. She only curtailed her activism after written a poem for months. A year later she finally had a new turning 60 in 1975. Her birthday resolution was, as usual, to collection in manuscript but poems were still only occasionally find more time for writing and gardening, but finally she acted, 'squeezed' out of her. The reason was that, unlike many other as part of quitting Queensland for Braidwood in writers and artists, she was not just an intermittent activist who New South Wales. confined her political engagement to occasional high-profile performances, a figurehead for causes she supported. NEW LIFE DID NOT HELP Wright's poetry. Fourth ""{ i{ T Instead, she bore the grind of daily campaigning. Quarter, published in 1977, was one of her weakest collec­ tions. When the poet Robert Gray reviewed it for The Sydney V VRIGHT HERSELF BEGAN DWELLING on these costs late in Morning Herald, he recognised that her political poems had 1970. 'I am a writer and all I want to do is write/ she declared. 'a flat, complaining, nagging tone', and suggested that she 'You can't write a poem on the run.' In one interview after might have done better had she written 'full-blooded "crude" another, she emphasised her desire to abandon activism. 'I broadsides'. A year later, the Queensland academic Peter will be thankful when the end of my conservation work is in Abotomey declared that Wright, the conservationist, had sight/ she said. 'I'll be grateful when I'm no longer a conser­ become 'destructive' of Wright, the poet, bringing her 'to a vationist.' It was 'no fun', she wrote, being 'an office-bearer standstill'. in a small, voluntary, spare-time organisation' which had no Wright, however, was still a major writer. The Coral money to employ a secretary, let alone rent an adequate office. Battleground-first published in 1977 and reprinted in 'No Christmas holidays for us'' she exclaimed, overwhelmed 1997- is the best extended account of an Australian environ­ by how 'every night meant work'. mental campaign. The Cry jOT the Dead, her family history, is Wright, however, also believed that these were 'crunch' a great book. Written in lean prose without any histrionics, it years when political engagement was imperative. To begin is one of the most compelling accounts of the destructiveness with, she did not want to quit until the Great Barrier Reef of the pastoral frontier. was safe from drilling for oil. Before long, new environmental Wright dwelt on the significance of this writing at threats were also occupying her. In 1972 she declared that the annual conference of the Association for the Study of stopping the Concorde-because of its impact on the ozone Australian Literature in 1985, around the time she abandoned layer-would be her 'last effort'. A year later, as old-growth poetry altogether. Wright maintained that prose-includ­ woodchipping em erged as a major issue, she became national ing her own devoted to environmental and Aboriginal

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 25 ('Jst timor:.! Madeleine Byrne issues-was 'as important ... as poetry, and indeed indispensable to the writing of poetry itself'. It was time, sh e sug­ gested, to adopt 'a wider and less primly exclusivist approach to the study of Just neighbours Australian writing'. Wright's academic audience was deaf to this argument. Too many of them had based their own careers on the established hierarchy in which political 0 TH' DAY Timm-Le"e became inexperienced negotiators. The country writing was suspect-lucky to occupy a sovereign nation, the new government also needed an income. even a bottom rung on the literary lad­ signed a deal with Australia. The 2002 A Commonwealth parliamentary der, excluded from school and university Timor Sea Treaty resembled the earlier library research note puts it this way: 'Aus­ syllabuses, ignored in literary journals Indonesia-Australia treaty in place since tralia had refused to agree to a new seabed and histories. While the usual practice 1989, with one fundamental difference. boundary, and new talks on a final agree­ of the association was to publish the Whereas the earlier arrangement ment might have brought both immediate opening address at its conferences, it ignored Timorese interests, under the and future investment in exploration and failed to print Wright's paper. new agreement 90 per cent of the earnings production to a halt.' The Writer as Activist-her 1988 from the Joint Petroleum Development At stake for the Timorese was $8 bil­ lecture in Perth-was one of the many Area (JPDA) went to Timor- Leste, with the lion over two decades. 'With the East occasions when Wright returned to this remaining ten per cent going to Australia. Timor government having no other major argument, as she deplored how 'partisan 'It will give Ea st Timor an opportu­ source of revenue (except foreign aid)/ the and activist art' had no place in the nity to build itself into a truly success­ note continues, 'it was in no position to literary canon. She reminded her audi­ ful nation/ Foreign Minister Alexander stand on a point of principle.' ence that Charles Harpur had written Downer said at the time. While some inter­ Move forward to March 2005: officials that his poetry had 'never been a mere national law commentators lauded the from Timor-Leste and Australia meet to art with m e, but always the vehicle of deal as a good compromise; others are resolve what has become a bitter fight over earnest purpose, the audible expression 1nore circumspect. access to resources in the Timor Sea. How of the inmost impulses of my moral Geoffrey McKee, a chemical engineer did it come to this after the diplomatic being'. Harpur reinforced her argument with more than three decades of experi­ backslapping three years ago? The answer that writing 'was a seamless whole, not ence in the Australian oil and gas industry, depends on whom you talk to. to be divided into separate strands, the is one of them. The treaty will deprive the Pro-Timor-Leste advocates allege that one allowed to be true art', leaving the Timorese of a 'swathe of important ben­ Canberra's aggressive negotiating position activist 'other to be disregarded'. efits' especially down-stream infrastruc­ is denying the region's poorest nation the Before long, Wright was arguing ture development, he says. right to determine its economic future, that activism was at least as significant The Timor Sea's real prize was not the while the Commonwealth says it refuses as art, however one defined it. When joint development area, otherwise known to budge on what it claims is rightfully The Sydney Morning Herald's Richard as Timor Gap, but oil and gas fields on its Australia's. Glover interviewed her in the early fringes: especially, the Greater Sunrise. Two things that are clear through the 1990s, he asked again why she had not In August 2002, a Shell spokesman told conflict is the uncertain place of inter­ stuck to poetry. 'There are so few great the Joint Standing Committee on Trea­ national law in an era of growing bilat­ poets and so many activists/ he ven­ ties that the Greater Sunrise expected to eralism, alongside the need for greater tured. 'But there aren't/ she instructed return $30 billion in export revenues, with transparency in Australian foreign policy. him. 'I get poetry flooding my desk approximately $8 billion in taxes for the Coming only a few months after accu­ every day, m ost of it no good, but a two countries. sations of stand-over tactics by Canberra, really good activist ... ' Just a week before McKee says it could earn much more. the talks in March were quickly deemed she died in 2000, Wright was even more 'At that time the expected earnings were a success-by the host nation. 'I'll only extravagant in her deprecation of poetry, based on US$20 a barrel for crude, now it's say this/ said Foreign Minister Alexander if not her applause for activism. Having around US$50/ he says. 'The $3 billion Downer. 'I think we've made progress.' just taken part in Canberra's Walk for offered to East Timor by Australia is far A framework for an agreement had been Reconciliation, she declared: 'Anyone too low, if it is intended to settle a dispute 'nutted out', he said. This 'creative solution' can write poetry, but to be an activist is over a gas fi eld that could yield about $90 would delay boundary negotiations, in far m ore important.' billion in export revenues.' favour of revenue sharing. If Timor-Leste More on the $3 billion payment later, dropped its claim to a median line between Tim Bonyhady is director of the but let's return to our starting point. the two nations it could reportedly receive Australian Centre for Environmental One of the mysteries, among many, is $3 billion over three decades. Law at the Australian N ational why Timor-Leste signed the treaty with In February a senior Department of University. His books include the prize­ Australia three years ago. McKee sug­ Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) official winning The Colonial Earth. gests Timor-Leste was badly served by said the nature of the 'sovereignty offset'

26 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 was unclear, as was whether the pay­ Gillian Triggs, of the University of Mel­ Since the 1982 signing of the United ment would be in the form of aid. 'How bourne's Institute for Comparative and Nations Convention on Law of the Sea it is characterised, how it is paid and how International Law, endorses Australia's (UNCLOS) came into effect, around 80 per much it is will need to be worked out in position. 'The fact is that the co-ordinates cent of all disputes have enacted the prin­ our negotiations,' the official said. DFAT were impeccably and fa irly drawn out 32 ciple of equidistance where the two coun­ says the 'creative solution' offers fiscal cer­ years ago, ' she said in a January article. tries were separated by less than 400km, tainty, without jeopardising either coun­ 'So unless Australia also believes there is he says. More pointedly the International try's future legal claims. a dispute, there is really no dispute about Court of Justice's (ICJ) judgment in 1985 in A similar clause was included in those lines.' a dispute between Libya and Malta found the 1989 Indonesia-Australia Timor (More recently, Professor Triggs wrote that geophysical factors were 'completely Gap that allowed the two sides to set in an email that her central point is that immaterial' when deciding maritime bor­ aside the issue of the maritime bound­ 'both states have arguable legal positions ders. ary, while the exploitation of resources at international law and that joint manage­ For Jeff Smith, a Vancouver-based went ahead. This was carried over into ment of the resources is a sensible way to oceanographer and expert on international the 2002 treaty signed between Australia unlock the oil to the mutual benefit of East maritime law, the situation is simple: and Timor-Leste. Timor and Australia'.) 'The existing maritime boundaries are But what does this mean? The DFAT These co-ordinates followed inter­ not binding on East Timor.' None of the briefing includes this explanation, 'Our national law that determined Austral­ previous treaties signed by Indonesia and position is that [determ ining] the per­ ia's maritime boundary in terms of its Australia apply to Timor-Leste, he says, manent boundaries should be put off for continental shelf. From the early 1950s, and the nation has the right to negoti­ quite some time. At least until the Australia has argued that its maritime ate its own boundaries as it sees fit. 'It's resources have been exploited.' boundary follows its shelf that reached as simply a matter of international treaty far as the Timor Trough (at times only 9.3 law,' he says. 'Two parties contracting in 'IM CLARKE, of the Timor Sea Justice nautical miles from Timor-Leste's coast). a treaty situation cannot bind without the Campaign, argues that this is already hap­ East Timor's former colonial power, Por­ consent-generally expressed that is posi­ pening. The Laminaria/Corallina oil fields tugal, meanwhile, called for the establish­ tively declared at the time of the making are claimed by both nations, but Australia ment of a median line. Indonesia tried the of an agreement-of the third party state.' exploits about 150,000 barrels daily from same in the 1970s, with no success. The third party at the time of the 1989 this area. Some ask whether referring to a con­ Timor Gap Treaty, where Australia's for­ 'Every day that goes by, the Australian tinental shelf argument is a meaningful eign minister, Gareth Evans, famously government takes an average US$1 million way to determine maritime boundaries. clinked champagne glasses with his Indo­ contested royalties,' says Clarke. '[These] Charles Scheiner, a chemical engineer nesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, in an air­ gas fields will be depleted in the next few from the United States who has worked to plane above Timor Gap, was the occupied years, before any boundaries are set.' support Timor-Leste's political and human state of East Timor. In late March, Timor-Leste formally rights since 1991, dismisses the idea. 'East 'It's no more than the common law protested against Canberra's issuing Timor is on Australia's continental shelf,' principle,' Smith adds. 'If I agree to buy a licences over areas that it claims as its he says. 'If you look at geological history car from you, the sale is not binding on own. 'International law requires that going back tens of 1nillions of years, Timor third parties.' Thus any treaty Australia­ Australia exercise restraint in disputed has always been part of Australia's conti­ Indonesia treaty does not affect Timor­ maritime areas,' said Prime Minister Mari nental shelf. It doesn't make any sense.' Leste. 'It's a contract-albeit in treaty Alkatiri. If only it were that easy. There is Geoffrey McKee, meanwhile, says it terms- m ade in the absence of a little convergence in term s of how the law depends whether you are talking law or third party.' should be applied. Australia claims sole geology. In terms of international law, Aus­ sea bed jurisdiction in areas outside the tralia's continental shelf could end where W ERE THAT LEAVES Timor-Leste JPDA because of a treaty signed with Indo­ Australia says it does; but in a geological in 2005 is unclear. Two months before nesia more than three decades ago. sense, the issue is open for debate. Cit­ Timor-Leste's independence, Australia And yet notes fo r new exploration con­ ing the research of Dr Tim Charleton, an withdrew from the International Court of tracts for areas outside the jointly operated expert on tectonics of the Timor Trough, Justice's jurisdiction on maritime issues zone suggest that Canberra acknowledges McKee says that Australia's continental and the International Tribunal on the Law that these areas are contested. 'East Timor shelf extends beneath Timor-Leste. of the Sea-the two main arbitration bod­ has declared an exclusive economic zone Dr Clive Schofield spent 11 years at ies for resolving such issues, which leaves and continental shelf extending 200 nauti­ the University of Durham's International the country few options. cal miles from its baselines which include Boundaries Research Institute in the UK, Timor-Leste's chief negotiator, Jose this release area.' but has recently taken up a post at the Texeira, made no comment after the talks The note continues, with the justi­ University of Wollongong's Centre for in March. Yet the country's foreign minis­ fication, 'Australia has exercised exclu­ Maritime Policy. Recent developments ter, Dr Jose Ramos Horta, has previously sive sovereign rights over this area for an in international law, he says, have in any shown interest in the so-called creative extended period of time, and has notified case largely relegated the continental shelf solution. 'Without prejudicing either side East Timor that it will continue to do so.' argument to the past. over sovereignty claims, we should focus

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 27 on revenue and resource sharing,' he said said, 'continue to struggle against illit­ afternoon, as Endah began to bleed, the last year. eracy, poverty, preventable diseases and a couple scrambled for medical care.' They News of the revived talks between lack of basic services'. went to the nation's central hospital in Australia and Timor-Lcstc would be wel­ Particularly concerning to the politi­ the capital. 'One midwife was trying to comed by Woodside Petroleum and its cians were reports of preventable deaths care for five birthing mothers. No doc­ international partners, as its proposed resulting from food shortages and dengue tors were on duty.' Endah's baby, healthy development of the Timor Sea's largest gas fever outbreaks. 'An equitable sharing of before its birth, died soon afterwards. Of field-the Greater Sunrise-stalled when oil and gas reserves would enable Timor­ the five children born to office-mates dur­ both parties failed to reach an agreement Leste to provide better health care and ing Scheiner's first year, four babies died by the Christmas deadline. other essential services to its citizens,' within clays of being born. Tomas Freitas, from La'o Hamutuk they wrote. 'There's two issues,' he says. 'One (Walking Together), a Dili NCO that has While acknowledging Australia's gen­ is East Timor's legal entitlement to advised the government on petroleum law, erosity to East Timor following its inde­ resources within its territory that would is unconvincecl. 'We do not care how much pendence in 1999, the politicians said that be the same whether East Timor were rich money we're going to get from the Timor the US$2 billion Australia has received or poor. Then there's the moral question Sea,' he says. 'We will be proud if we can from the Laminaria/Corallina fields had [whether] Australia-a huge, rich coun­ tell our children and grandchildren that repaid the debt. Oxfam released a report try- wants to allow people to live in these the border between Timor-Leste and Aus­ last year that argued that Timor-Leste kinds of standards.' tralia is a median line, rather than a line to risked becoming a failed state if Timor Sea The Final Report to the Senate Foreign [Australia] ... If our leaders prefer money, resources were not shared more equitably. Affairs, Defence and Trade References rather than sovereignty, I think they will Charles Scheiner agrees, and then Committee reached the same conclusion lose their people in the future.' offers the following example. Soon after in 2002. It urged policymakers to help Yet money is a major concern for a the 1999 referendum Scheiner moved to Timor-Leste move on from its status as a nation where m any live on less than 55 Dili, where he worked at La'o Hamutuk. 'mendicant state'. cents a clay. An open letter signed by more Two colleagues of his were expecting a Timor-Leste's poverty, Charles Scheiner than a dozen US politicians and delivered child. 'By economic and education stand­ suggests, differs from the question of legal to the Australian prime minister in March ards, they're among the top ten per cent of boundaries. 'One is for governments to made this clear. Urging speed, the politi­ East Timor's population-' work out,' he says, 'the other is for people cians called for the establishment of a per­ Endah, originally from Indonesia, to work out in their own consciences.' manent maritime boundary and revenue moved to Dili after meeting her Timor­ from disputed oil and gas fields to be held esc husband at university. Scheiner later Madeleine Byrne is a Fellow at OzProspect, in trust. East Timor's citizens, the letter wrote in an article: 'At 4pm Sunday and former SBS and ABC journalist.

50 f~LL. ME., H ON LON& HAV£. YOU HAD IHE.S£. FE.E.L\t\1&5 OF NOT BE-lN b SUICIDAL..?

28 EURE KA STREET MAY 2005 yOUth Tim Martyn Advancing Australia fair

Young people have become increasingly wary of the hard sell, especially when pitched by the major political parties

surpluses has effectively rendered them advertising budget for the 2001 campaign. incapable of nation building. The policy Yet despite the increase, did we really learn horizon, already firmly fi xed within a more about their ideas for the nation? Victorian teenagers participatin g in the annual three-year election timetable, has been Young people have grown up with You th Week Parlia ment. AAP/Julian Smith. constrained further by an aversion to pub­ aggressive marketing campaigns. They lic investment. Young people are starting know advertising when they see it and have to fig ure out that in such an environment, become increasingly wary of the hard sell. the only way to work towards a better They're suspicious of the tricks, and alert to Australia is from the outside. the fi ne print. l H " '005 AUSTRAUA D AY •ddre,, Australia's mainstream political par­ Advertising m ay be an effective method the Governor-General identified a crisis ties have become increasingly divorced of selling a brand image, but at what cu rrently threatening democracy in this from the very concerns that once defined cost to the product itself? What does the country. No, it wasn't truth in government; them-and their membership. They have Coalition represent to Australia beyond nor did the interference of foreign powers become amorphous, private institutions keeping interest rates low (though they've get a look in. Rather, Australia must find with private agendas. People with passion­ subsequently been raised)? What does the new ways to get its young people engaged in ate positions and policy ideas no longer join Labor Party represent to voters now that the democratic process, or else. them . Into this void has stepped a succes­ we've entered the Beazley era (aga in)? At first glance, the Governor-General is sion of representatives motivated more by Shaped by their public-relations consult­ right. One only has to look at the declining the possession of power than what to do ants, the two major parties seem to offer numbers of young Australians joining polit­ once they possess it. voters little more than a choice between ical parties to discover that something is Instant democracy is at the heart of the Fruit Loops and Coco Pops-both saccha­ afoot. Yet this trend does not illustrate that problem . As the parties have become stead­ rine, hollow in the middle and of dubious younger generations are apathetic towards ily more focused on winning the next elec­ nutritional value. Australian democracy-far from it. tion, phone polling has replaced considered If only more Australians would become While I cannot profess to be the voice of debate or community consultation as the more engaged with what ort of country they young Australia, I can identify one reason preferred method for taking the communi­ would like their children and grandchildren for their retreat from the major parties: ty's pulse. Marginal increases or decreases to live in, instead of the houses they would as vehicles for change, the parties have in popularity, as expressed by a phone poll, like to live in. Perhaps then we would get lost sight of the big picture. The Australia set the policy course on which a government the democracy we want, not deserve. Project- who we are and where we are heads. Thus, policy development becomes Being an Australian citizen, young or going-has been all but abandoned over the something conducted with the needs of the old, demands more than merely barracking last decade and a half. party, rather than the nation, in mind. for a particular political party. Citizenship Australia's democratic process has It is therefore no surprise that when demands that we imagine what sort of entered a political era in which the aspi­ young people get politically active these Australia we want to create today, tomor­ rational voter is king; where it pays to be days, they are more likely to join a social row, next week, next month, next year, next acquisitive, not inquisitive. As a nation, organisation or environmental group, century and on into the future. It involves we're debt-laden but looking to own more, for it is there that they are able to engage giving voice to matters of community leaving the vast majority anxious about with the big issues. It is there that they concern, of working for change at the local house prices and interest rates. are able to sidestep factional infighting, level. In short, purposeful engagement in The youth voice, if it can be surmised, cynical politicking and deal-making Australia's democratic process demands is one largely unburdened by mortgages and and get straight to the point: that we think of ourselves as citizens before 2.4 kids. Rather than the next interest-rate imagining Australia. shareholders, mortgage owners, employees hike, younger Australians have their gaze or members of a party. That's our challenge fixed on bigger issues. What sort of country E uncs rs A BOU T communicating with as Australians. is Australia becoming? What is happening voters. At election time, communication to our environment? How can something is most important. The Coalition spent Tim Martyn is the policy and research morally wrong be economically right? a whopping $123 million on disseminat­ offi cer at the Ignatius Centre for Social The commitment by both major par­ ing 'political information' in its 2004 Policy and Research, Jesuit Social ties to maintaining continuous budget campaign- a 175 per cent increase on its Services.

MAY 2005 EUREK A STREET 29 environment Alison Aprhys Not beating about the bush

The Australian Bush Heritage Fund is quietly spcuring important areas of biocliverse bush to preserve and mandge for future generations

W RCAS WME PEOm can't see Phillip Adams. 'Why spend half a million time he wo,ked pdmadly to impmve the the wood for the trees, the Australian Bush on a landscape painting when, for a lot public reserve system in Victoria. In 1997 Heritage Fund (ABHF) glories in its vision less, you can help buy the landscape? And he was named Wild Environmentalist of to conserve Australia's rich biodiversity. save it from destruction 1' The broadcaster the Year and is currently a member of the CEO Doug Humann says the group's reckons that we should all get behind it World Conservation Union Commission slogan is, 'We don't beat about the bush, and then hang a photo (or painting) of the on National Parks and Protected Areas. we buy itl ' salvaged landscape on the wall. When he left school for university 'The ABHF is a national, independent, 'I hate to think how few of the land- and teaching, Humann volunteered with non-profit organisation committed to pre- scapes painted by Streeton, McCubbin and the Australian Conservation Foundation serving Australia's biodiversity by protect- the rest exist today, in recognisable form,' and the Victorian National Parks. After ing the bush, and is Australia's most widely he adds. 'Think about it. Bush Heritage graduating with honours in geography, he supported national organisation dedicated actually saves the bush, not just a dead taught for a decade at a Melbourne second- to protecting species and habitats through painter's impression of it, and that makes it ary school. He was working part-time the creation of reserves on private land,' as important as the National Gallery.' and house-husbanding full-time when an says Humann. It's a hell of a mouthful, but It's a leviathan task by any measure, opportunity came up with the Victorian then the ABHF is quite an organisation. and the man at the helm of this dynamic National Parks Association (VNPA) . Thirteen years on from when Dr Bob organisation combines a passion for the 'The VNPA is a lobby group for Brown founded the ABHF by going into bush with a stalwart level of profes- state-run parks and reserves and I was debt for $250,000 to buy two blocks near sionalism. their first paid director for seven years,' Liffey, in Tasmania, the much-vaunted Passionate about the bush since he he explains. Humann's role during that organisation now has an annual turnover was a child, Doug Humann has spent the time was centred mostly on advocacy, of more than $3 million, a highly skilled greater part of his life working towards its as the VNPA is Victoria's leading inde- staff of 15 and a multi-talented board of preservation. 'My family had a long history pendent member-based conservation unpaid directors. of going to the bush and camping,' organisation. During his time there, ABHF reserves are now protecting E he recalls. Humann helped the independent, non- some 345,680ha of Australia's conserva- profit, membership-based group to real- tion lands, which include examples of 131 ROM 1990-97 HuMANN was director ise its visions by facilitating strategic vegetation communities, 50 vegetation of Victoria's largest member-based nature campaigns and education programs and communities of conservation significance, conservation organisation, the Victorian developing policies-and through hands- 64 species of plants of conservation signifi- National Parks Association. During that on conservation work. cance and 43 species of birds or animals at risk. However, rather than simply make purchases, the ABHF adn1inisters an Doug Humann at left, CEO of the Austral ian Bush Heritage Fund. extensive land-management program that includes ecosystem restoration, feral animal and weed monitoring and control, fuel-reduction burning, maintenance of firebreaks, tracks, fencing, revegeta­ tion, flora and fauna surveys, native bird research, vegetation mapping, repairs and improvements to infrastructure, and main­ tenance of walking tracks and signage. The group is that it is effectively taking over from the state and federal governments in preserving large-scale natural heritage areas of Australia that might not otherwise be protected. 'The ABHF is a brilliant idea and is being brilliantly executed,' says patron

30 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 He was approached ea rly in 1997 ability to manage these properties as relationships with state governments to to apply for the newly created role as they should be.' deliver good conservation management executive officer of ABHF. The ABHF Humann says the ABHF currently has across different areas. had made the decision to assume a 18 reserves in five states, ranging from 'It's not about one part of society higher national and international profile small pockets of just four hectares to taking ultimate responsibility, it's and to broaden the scope of its work. one vast spread of more than 200,000ha, all about everyone taking a J0111t Recently relocated to Melbourne, it but all contain highly sensitive species responsibility,' he says. 'It's vital to attracts staff, volunteers and supporters and habitats. avoid the "u s and them" paradigm. who are genuinely motivated by 'Our newest property is the 344ha Therefore we work with other partners the organisation's aim s. Judith Eardley Reserve located in north­ when we can to share information and central Victoria from the foothills to knowledge to create better T EORGANISATION's WORK is vital, as the summit of Mt Kerang,' he says with naturallandscapes.' Australia has not only one of the most enthusiasm. The reserve was the result biologically diverse landscapes in the of a generous gift from the Judith Eardley H UMANN AGREES THAT other con­ world, but also, according to UN fig­ Save Wildlife Association and hosts an servation organisations provide va luable ures, one of the world's highest rates of array of threatened species that now work and are considered allies rather land clearing-comparable to the worst have a much brighter future. than competitors. 'We all need to work Asian, African, and South American 'These grassy woodlands arc one of collectively to ensure our different skills deforestation rates. the most threatened plant communities are used in the most effective manner,' 'Many important areas of native in Victoria, and home to an array of he says. vegetation and wildlife habitat are on woodland birds such as hooded robins, As well as the hands-on work, ABHF private land and are under threat from brown treecreepers, diamond firetails has established dialogue with many clearing or degradation, which is endan­ and black-chinned honeyeaters.' interested parties. During 2003, it gering the survival of Australia's unique As well as purchasing larger prop­ signed a memorandum of understanding native species,' says Humann. erties such as Ethabuka, a reserve of with the Indigenous Land Corporation ABHF's aims resonate with many 213,000ha on the northern edge of the to establish a framework for the two Australians. According to a recent Simpson Desert National Park in west­ groups to work together to conserve and annual report, it raised more than ern Queensland, ABHF also looks to enhance the natural environment and $5 .58 million through donations and acquiring smaller areas. indigenous heritage sites of significance bequests, an increase of 131 per cent on 'We have bought som e smaller-scale on ILC and ABHF properties. the previous year. reserves of less than 1000ha in strategic ABHF welcomes volunteers in the The number of donors increased by habitats,' says Humann. field and maintains a register for those 31 per cent on the previous yea~ and 'We seek to obtain areas with high interested in participating in events on more than 12,000 people have now sup­ conservation values that the government its reserves such as weed control, seed ported Bush Heritage. Its patrons include either can't or won't act on to preserve.' collection, revegetation and planting broadcaster Phillip Adams, musician However, the ABHF does relinquish projects. It is a not-for-profit organisation, Roger Woodward, country singer John some land. The Deal and Erith islands, and people can make a tax-deductible Williamson, designer Jenny Kee, peace in Bass Strait, which were both lease­ donation. There are also a number of activist Jo Vallentine and Dr Bob Brown. purchased, were later relinquished to the other ways to get involved. The Australian Greens' Senator for Tasmanian government to facilitate the All these years later, Bob Brown is as Tasmania who fo unded the ABHF in declaration of the Kent Group National ardent as ever about ABHF's mission: 1990, was its president from 1990-96 and Park, which manages these areas. These hundreds of thousands of a board member until 1997. 'It's a conundrum when you have a hectares across Australia are rich in So why is the ABHF so popular? private organisation acting in this way,' rare fauna and flora: frogs, orchids, ferns, 'Generally people are looking for alterna­ Humann agrees. But he believes that it's beetles, kangaroos and platypuses. Each tive and practical and efficient ways of the only way to achieve adequate nature reserve is part of a rapidly disappearing conserving biodiversity,' says Humann. conservation between private and public Australia which is under threat from land 'We feel that, in general, people have been organisations. clearing, urban sprawl, global warming discouraged with what the Government 'It's always a concern that we are and introduced pests and diseases, and is doing, and what we have demonstrated taking away responsibility from govern­ the ABHF properties are strongholds through mass media and word of mouth ment.' Humann admits, although he for the nation's wildlife, managed by a is that we can very radically affect out­ acknowledges that the government does remarkably lively and dedicated staff comes by buying back the bush. not have the resources and ability to do who obviously enjoy their work. 'We have a set of processes to be able to it all. 'The national conservation reserve identify, assess, then acquire, and people system still needs to be enhanced Alison Aprhys is a freelance writer and see that the land is ensured a long-term because if we were not active, then photojournalist whose last article for survival of the species. People respond important natural values would be lost. ' Eureka Street, 'Page Turner', appeared in to the practical aspects and there is con­ Humann stresses that the ABHF the October 2004 issue. For more infonna­ siderable respect for the organisation's seeks to build and maintain positive tion, visit wwwl.bushheritage.asn.au

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 31 feminism Leah De Forest Hit and myth

In many ways Elizabeth Bennet was a far more illuminating role model for the women of her time than her twittery descendant Bridget Jones

N "'M'" HARDm TOm thRn the pment. The P"' exhaust all of one's patience, then the tone of its delivery does. we invent freely, fossicking for the bits that make the right The films are the worst offenders here, and especially the last. stories. But the present is brimming with what Roland Barthes In The Edge of Reason we're not laughing with Bridget, but­ called the 'what-goes-without-saying'-the stuff that's so per­ loudly, with a hint of disgust-at her. No acting skill on Renee suasive, so important to our sense of ourselves, that we dare Zellweger's part could compensate for all the close-ups of not speak its name. Bridget's wobbly belly and double chin. If, at the end of the first I mention this on account of Bridget Jones, who gives me fi lm, we were prepared to believe that the stuffy (but loveable, the irrits. and powerful) Mark Darcy could like Bridget 'just as she is', by But her ancestor, Elizabeth Bennet, is another matter. I feel the end of the second film we're convinced that if he does love bad about it-Bridget is, after all, my contemporary-but I much her, it's in spite of who she is. prefer the begowned and beslippered Elizabeth to her twittery This troubles me, because I don't subscribe to the belief descendant. I understand Elizabeth; Bridget doesn't make sense. that a story is just a story-stories, especially ones with the It is, as Elizabeth would say, very vexing. Helen Fielding global reach of the Bridget Jones franchise, are powerful mes­ (who wrote the books and also has writing credits for both sages about who we are and ought to be. Advertisers know this, films) has acknowledged her debt to Jane Austen, so you'd or they wouldn't spend millions weaving their products into expect to find both heroines likeable. In many ways they're blockbusters. Of course, not everyone will identify with every cast from the same mould: Bridget and Elizabeth are single story (Finding Nemo made nearly as much money as both British women of marriageable age; they are middle-class, Bridget films put together), but Bridget certainly resonates, attractive, reasonably eligible. As Austen shone a light into whether you like her or not. the minds and manners of 19th-century England, Fielding Which brings us back to Miss Bennet. Elizabeth is not exposes, and caricatures, the lives of modern single women. without fault-she admits to flights of vanity and prejudice. But where Austen's light illuminates, Fielding's grates. And hers is not a modern woman's tale-spirited as she is, Bridget is a baffling display of barely amusing foolishness. her story boils down to her need for a husband. Yet she seems She ditzes her way between men, whining about being a 'single­ in other ways the epitome of progress: in an era when tri­ ton', fretting about being 'fat ' (at 60kg, I hardly think so), getting fling accomplishments, dependency and limited rights were her geography wrong and spilling things. Elizabeth is poise and the female lot, Elizabeth demands to be heard as a 'rational reason itself. She rarely complains, and keeps romantic con­ jecture to herself. Her tongue is as razor sharp as her deter­ mination not to be taken in by fools and worthless lovers. All of which raises the question: surely two centu­ ries after the pioneering feminists, we can do better than Bridget? Perhaps you are now thinking: oh, please; they're just stories. And there are those (many, going on the fact that Bridget [ones's Diary and The Edge of Reason both made it into the top ten at the Australian box office) who find Bridget funny and clever. Bridget's spin doctors declare her a 'heroine to singletons everywhere'; the Times Liter­ ary Supplement fell only a little short of declaring her the embodiment of her generation. She certainly does her best to send up the hopeless expectation that she will, by her early 30s, be happily married, wealthy, wildly successful on the career front, and ready to get 'spragged up' with her first child. In her modern way-such as when she tells a roomful of 'smug marrieds' that 30-year-old women remain single because they're covered in scales-she does share Elizabeth's subversive turn. But if Bridget's modern-girl self-deprecation doesn't

32 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 creature'. She is not the simpering specimen her mother has become, whiling away the hours with gossip and affected ill­ ness; nor is she the sneering, ambitious sort who flatters men in the hope of gaining advantage. Her body might feel the limi­ tations of the times, but her mind is free. Yet I wonder whether I would like her so much if she were my contemporary. Her misjudgment of the shameless Mr Wickham could be an unforgivable faux pas, and the 'con­ ceited sort of independence' her haughty acquaintances abhor might seem a pointless display, given we know she is going to marry Mr Darcy. The key, I think, is having access to just enough context to put Elizabeth into perspective. It is easy to skim the past, read a little of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vin­ dication of the Rights of Woman and see Elizabeth's rational manner as rebellion against the frippery of female life. The lot of the Misses Bennet is clear- they are dependent on men to survive. Without marriage, their situation would be des­ perate, so Elizabeth's level of resistance is just right, and the romantic myth Austen carves out of it lingers like something delicious on the tongue. Back in Austen's time, Wollstonecraft made a bold predic­ tion: 'Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man.' In other words, give women the right to vote, earn and think, and they'll be less foolish, more like blokes. In this light, the way that Fielding has updated Austen is reveal­ ing. While it's beyond our scope to speak of all women, the choice of Bridget as a heroine seems to prove Wollstonecraft more than a little wrong. Bridget is decidedly not like the men in her life, and she self-consciously yearns for Austen's roman­ tic blueprint. She seems, while enjoying her independence and having a reasonably sensible head on her shoulders (a fact over­ looked in the films), to need to defer to her hero (a wish ful­ filled when her Darcy rescues her, twice). And on top of that, if the films are to be believed, she has little or no dignity. She's stupid, fat, an object of ridicule. the hearts and minds of women. Bridget has therefore taken That Wollstonecraft's hopes for the future should be thus responsibility for the spirit of a system that was used to repress dashed is counter-intuitive, to say the least. Unless one flirts her ancestors-and this, in turn, allows us to laugh at her with the unthinkable (that women became the second sex because she's still, after all, just a silly woman. because they are the second sex), it's hard to see how such This theory puts Bridget into some perspective-annoying widespread social change-women now are independent, though she may be, she is, after all, as much a product of her strong, educated-can have produced such a confused charac­ time and place as Elizabeth is of hers. The myth remains, but ter. But getting back to Barthes, the hardest things to say are has a new anchor. If, as Harold Bloom writes in The Western those right in front of one's face. Putting a finger on Bridget's Canon, Austen 'understood that the function of convention condition is difficult because so many of us are still living it. was to liberate the will', then Fielding shows us that the func­ There is another factor, I think, that makes Bridget what tion of Bridget's will is to cocoon her romantic inheritance. she is-and I am going to borrow boldly from Michel Foucault Bridget makes us cringe because she resonates with what to try to show it. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault describes we know: that modern single women must battle to find a the entry of the soul into the penal process. Where once peo­ decent man, while apologising (in Bridget speak: 'Oops, sorry! ple were physically punished for a crime, modern justice takes Durr, silly Bridget!') for their fascination with such frivolous aim at the soul-placing social control inside the person. Per­ matters. It's hard to see this because it's in our faces all the haps Austen's romantic myth has taken a sim ilar route. Eliza­ tim e-in the popular press, on TV, at you r local pub around beth and Darcy's story is a powerful antidote to the reality of 3am . There is, however, always hope-there will be more women in Austen's era. It fosters a belief not only that one's reworkers of the myth, storytellers who will help us glimpse soul can be free from social limitation, but that this freedom the way things are, and could be. As the feminist Elizabeth can bring rewards within the system- nam ely, m arriage to a Cady Stanton said in 1888, 'The true wom an is as yet a dream wealthy m an . It plants the idea of change without seriously of the future.' She's also a dream of the here and now. underm ining the status quo. By the time we get to Bridget, circumstances have changed so much that the myth seem s Leah De Forest is a Canberra writer. Images used by useless. But it hasn't given up, just gone underground-into permission.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 33 0 NC o' Tm owcHTS of living in mml New South nature, and of nature Wales, between the Illawarra and the Southern Highlands, is the itself, are all here. possibility of an after-breakfast jaunt to Canberra, divided road Though some of her nearly all the way, only four traffic lights and park outside the paintings contain door when you arrive. people, even rush­ There is the oblique sunlight lying across the land, some­ ing, pushing crowds times a rising moon on the way home, and the seasonal changes of them in her early to note en route; fog on the escarpment, vineyards and elm-lined urban subjects, the driveways on the highlands and drought on the plains. empty house and the Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984) knew this land, so it farm corner indicate is appropriate that we follow her route. her chosen direction. Neither her pencil sketches of Church Cottage, Bowral These places are not (1911), nor a painting of the bare Monaro-Sunday morning: abandoned, however; cows at Lanyon (c. 1916)- defers to the picturesque, a quality there is already the you might expect of a privileged young woman dedicated to a sense that someone career as a painter in the second decade of the 20th century. has just left or is about Whereas her mostly male contemporaries would have to arrive in the room put pretty tea parties on her verandahs and mythologised the or come through a Top: Th e bridge in-curve, 1930. Monaro, Cossington Smith is intrigued by the way light comes gate and into the pad­ Above: Sunny morning: cows al Lanyon, c. 1916. Reprinted w ith permi ss ion of NGA. in through open doorways and slices through blocks of shadow. dock. Activity is not Her paddocks are dry, as they usually are, a single big tree far away. plonked in the centre of the canvas, its leafless and broken limbs Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition, cur­ providing little shade to three blocky, two-dimensional cows. rently at the National Gallery of Australia and touring until These works provide signposts rather than hints to the April 2006, is a thoroughly satisfying show on many levels. It way her long and prolific career would develop. 1he brilliant contains about 120 paintings (though some will not tour) so colour would arrive on her palette soon, but her preoccupation there is that good feeling that the effort of going is well worth­ with light, of the relationship between the private domain and while. The sub title retrospective is well chosen because the

34 EU REKA STREET M AY 2005 works range from 1908-1971, age 16 to age 79, and so provide a 'Form achieved with colour is what I always wanted to truly revealing insight into the development of the artist. They express,' the artist stated in her later life with a nod to Cezanne. encapsulate many of the significant movements in 20th-century The exhibition shows clearly how, after an early flirtation with painting, though under her brush they are not so much 'move­ tonal painting, this became the unifying factor in her paintings, ments' in the plural, like dodgem cars to be jumped on and whatever the subject. But as a committed post-impressionist off again, but more like a singular, individual journey along a her colour had to be handled in a particular way, to avoid what philosophical pathway. There are lots of drawings and sketch­ she called 'a dead look'- She used her brush to lay it in feathery books full of written notes as well as visual documentation; strokes, billowing arches or square slabs. most importantly, the paintings are all either very interesting or The bridge in-cmve (c. 1930) shows the incomplete Harbour brilliantly lovely or both. Bridge from below, towering rhythmically over rooftops, the It would be easy to see behind these paintings an independ­ brilliant blue of the sky applied in a mesh of pastel-like strokes ent urban sophisticate, but they in fact represent the life's work echoing the arches as well as the struts. of a woman who spent all her adulthood in the same house­ Her colour is frequently used more than descriptively but Cossington, in the comfortable Sydney suburb of Turramurra­ not to shock; for example viridian green, mauve, turquoise and who never married, who looked after her parents until they died orange which are more like lollies that nature. In Bulli Pier, and who was devoted to her family. South Coast (1931) it is hard to see where the sea meets the sky Loved and encouraged by her parents, she attended art because both are represented as waves of rolling unfamiliar school in Sydney, was taken with one of her sisters on an colour and complex brush work. extended trip to England, exhibited regularly and was provided Cossington Smith's paintings were developed from her with that object of the creative woman's desire, a room of her detailed sketches, not painted en plein air, and sometimes, as own in the form of a garden studio. Life in a garret on a diet of in the examples above, the coloured lines were simply trans­ paint scrapings was neither necessary nor desirable, lated into paint as it suited her, using it as a linear drawing and she had no need to paint for a living. medium. Thus they are actually enriched and enlivened by being one step removed from the subject. QUITE DIFFERENT WERE the circumstances of two of her The final room in the Canberra exhibition is filled with contemporaries, Jean Bellette and Stella Bowen, also subjects of the later paintings of her room and studio, where 'the sun­ recent retrospectives: all three studied art in the first decades of light did not come in in a definite way but was full of light'. the century and went to Europe to widen their horizons. Although large and filled with brilliant colour, particularly Bellette returned to Sydney where, with her husband, art yellow, reflected from the garden and captured in shimmer­ critic Paul Haefliger, she found herself in the centre of the city's ing, faceted strokes, they hark immediately back to that early art world. An out-of-town base in the remote old mining area at Bowral sketch. Hill End and her final decades as an expatriate artist in Majorca Her rooms are empty, and in such repetition they are eerie. ensured that fresh challenges and stimuli were constant. The French doors and wardrobes are open, clothes and covers Bowen was born a year after Cossington Smith but died in are left around as if someone has left, over and over again, in a her fifties. She did not return to Australia until the end of her hurry but not for good. life. Her career was pushed and pulled by intellectual and emo­ These interiors are more Matisse, decorative and unoccu­ tional highs, love, betrayal and financial hardship which made pied, than Bannard. He frequently placed a nude female figure painting a dire necessity, not a middle-class indulgence. Drusilla across his rumpled bed, whereas Cossington Smith allows Modjeska's book Stravinsky's Lunch is an absorbing study of her only one person in, her friend Enid, draped on a chaise, elegant and Cossington Smith's paths. and decorous in a spreading red dress and a big dark hat. Bellette and Cossington Smith, however, do have in com­ Grace Cossington Smith captures the genius loci of her mon the fact that their philosophies, formed early and followed close environment as significantly as any painter of the grand consistently, were inspired by Cezanne: the former's concerned sublime vista. Her small world is known and loved. The very cubism, classicism and figures in the landscape, and the latter's ordinariness and order of this life was, for her, its strength. Its colour and light as they express form. predictability, repetitiveness and security provided her with Grace's middle-class Anglo-Australian life on the upper a disciplined routine; in its stasis the familiar was also the North Shore revolved around the church, social visits, charity special and in its isolation there was 'the chance of finding work like selling flowers and knitting socks for the troops, gar­ [her]self'; what could be a glimpse taken in passing or totally dening, doing the house, staying with friends in the country, vis­ missed by one artist provided her with life long inspiration. iting the city by train and ferry accompanied by her sketchbook Form, colour and the time to express them were abundant. and pencils. Nearly all her landscape subjects could be reached by train from Turramurra; others, particularly as she got older, Anna Griffiths is an art consultant. were very close indeed, such as Things on an iron tray on the floor (c.1928). Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibition. Curator: This artist lived through two wars and a terrible depression. Deborah Hart, National Gallery of Australia until June 13; There is no social realism here, though, no cry to the heart. The Art Gallery of South Australia 29 July-9 October; Art Gallery painter's eye is interested in the massing of forms and the colour of New South Wales 29 October-IS Jan 2006; Queensland Art of shadows as she watches troops marching, attends a memorial Gallery 11 February-3D April 2006. The quotes above are taken service, imagines a dawn landing. from a recorded interview accompanying the exhibition.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 35 th<' \\oriel: Jeremy Clarke Bracing for the five rtng• ctrcus•

The Chinese people are conscious of the immense work involved 1n bringing a 'Nc>w Beijing' into being before the 'G redt Olympics'

games-a 2001 survey showed that 95 per cent of the city's population supported the bid- they are now conscious of the immense work that is involved in bringing this 'new Beijing' into being. A quick number crunch illustrates the size of the task confronting China's capital. According to fig ures supplied by the Information Office of the Beijing Municipal Government, as of June 2004 Beijing had 14.2 million registered residents, with an estimated further four million people comprising the floating, Eux" CmNA'' coNnANT-•nd in or migrant, population. The floating pre-Olympic Beijing especially so. There population refers to those who have come is a Chinese saying that richly encap­ from other cities looking for short-term sulates this society's rapid changes. It work and who have not procured official goes something like this: 'In the 1980s residency status. More often than not this everyone greeted each other by asking workforce is involved in the hard labour of " have you eaten yetl"; in the 1990s the the construction industry, with very low greeting was "have you got divorced rates of pay and tough living conditions. vehicles in Beijing, 1. 28 million of which yet?"; and in 2000 everyone asks each It is these more than 18 million are privately owned, and more than 65,000 other " have you connected to the inter­ people who are feeling the effects of of which are taxis. It has been reported that net yet?"' Soon the question could well the pre-Olympic development program in 2002 there were more than 16,500 traffic be 'have you got your Olympics tickets and who will also reap its benefits. A jams. This situation has been exacerbated yet?' Even though the Olympics are cornerstone of the improvement to the in recent years by the construction work three years away, it feels as though the city's infrastructure is the development on a further eight subway lines, including five-ring circus has already arrived. of large-scale intra-city transportation the already mentioned airport service and When Beijing's team proposed their services. These have been designed to services that go some way towards solving city as the 2008 host they built their deal with two issues- the increase in the long-standing problems of travelling bid around three themes: hosting a tourists and the present-day traffic jams. between the north of the city 'Green Olympics', a 'Hi-tech Olympics' One example is the new fast-speed and the southern suburbs. and 'the People's Olympics'. In order to 27km railway line planned between implement each of these themes the city Dongzhimen (in the city's inner north­ NORTH-WESTERN section of the planners are undertaking an ambitious east) and the Capital International Airport, city is home to many of the prestigious urban redevelopment program involving which itself will build a new terminal universities and to Haidian, Beijing's everything from building grand stadia to to handle an extra 17 million passengers technology district; the south has attractions printing a new series of English-language during the years before the Games. The such as the Temple of Heaven and various textbooks for primary-school children. It is half-hour ride in a taxi from airport to city, markets and speciality shopping districts. no surprise then that the motto for Beijing that can cost from 70-200 RMB (roughly The two older subway lines comprise is 'New Beijing, Great Olympics'. A$12-$33), will be reduced to a 15-minutc 95km of track and this will be increased The July 2001 announcement of train ride for substantially less, and with by roughly a further 150km, with rail Beijing's successful bid was celebrated with greater comfort. transport topping 300km of track by 2008. great joy in the streets, bars and restaurants Anything that also helps to alleviate the Improvements are also being made to the throughout the city. In recent times those nightmare that is the daily commute will existing services, with platform vending same venues are feeling the ramifications be welcomed by visitor and resident alike. machines and electronic ticketing systems of this success. On the whole, one senses Beijing traffic is regularly at a standstill being introduced. Once the new lines are that although the citizens of Beij ing arc during peak periods, in large part due to the built, bus interchanges enha nced and still proud and excited to be hosting the presence of more than two million registered expressways further improved, there is

16 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 no question that it will be much easier Olympic wrestling champions could also general acceptance of the efforts that to travel around the new Beijing. Aga in, well be identified in this process. Although must be exerted by all, as illustrated the numbers illustrate what a feat this repeated public announcements encourage by the improvements in the transport w ill be. Transport officials claim that passengers to let people alight first and system, that points to Beijing being able by the year of the 'great Olympics', the then allow others to board-and indeed to fulfil its goals of building a new city capacity of Beijing's buses and trolley the majority try to observe this rule- the and hosting a memorable Olympics. buses will reach 4. 5 billion pa ssengers peak-hour frenzy means that often the In many ways, however, the Olympics a year and that there will be 18, 000 sheer press of numbers pushing towards can be seen as a distraction fo r China's vehicles in operation. the door creates a m aul as intense as any leadership. Indeed, there are issues of As construction grinds its way Bledisloe encounter. According to 'the first fa r greater importance fa cing the world's most populous nation. For instance, on 3 December 2004 it was reported in The China Daily that last year saw the death of well over 41 50 coal miners from floods, fires, explosions and other disasters. The article further stated that China 'reported 80 per cent of the world's total coal m ining-related deaths, although it produced only 35 per cent of the world's coal'. Further, 'China has seen an annual average of about one million industrial accidents since 2001, according to the State Administra tion of Work Safety, with nearly 140,000 deaths each year'. Equally, issues of increasing economic disparities between the inland and coastal provinces, the size of the domestic rice and grain harvests, the rise in the incidence of HIV and AIDS, let alone ongoing tensions with Taiwan, all dem and the attention of through the areas of Dongdan and Xidan, law of the subways', as intricate as any China's leadership. For all Jacques Rogge's for instance, buses inch their way through quantum theory, it is more often than not enthusiasm, the Olympics are in many the clogged streets and commuters resign the stockier, grey-haired grandmother who ways but a sideshow. This would be true themselves to delays. Although people first pops out the other side of the mass of according to all and any rational criteria. understand that there will be long- term bodies. (The second law states that it is the Yet, even so, the sense of excitement gain from all the developments, this person carrying 20 bags who usually stands in Beijing as it remakes itself and the doesn't lessen the pain in the meantime. in the doorways, refu sing to move.) sense of national pride evoked by being Any Olympic records will have been made The journey can al o be an endurance the Olympic hosts means that reason possible by the stoic endurance of every event in itself. Strap -hanging on the bus, is not as much set aside as m atched by Citizen Wang. Beijing commuting cou ld commuters are joined together closer emotion. The more than 400 million indeed be one of the 2008 local events. than a stack of Beijing- duck pancakes, young people throughout China cannot Just as Sydney had beach volleyball, with variou s interlocking elbows, hips, wait to don their red, gold and white so too could the great Olympics have shoulders and groins m aking the ride supporters' uniforms and cheer on their 'Beijing buses'. Medals could be awarded home more like a game of Twister than champions-be it the 2004 gold-medal to both the commuters and the drivers. a period of postwork down time. The women's volleyball team, the flew-from ­ The drivers in particular could be judged concept of personal space is a Western afa r hurdle champion Liu Xiang or the according to a sliding scale of difficulty construct, with the mores of bus young boys and girls in the country's based on the number of jaywalking etiquette dem anding that, no m atter sporting academies daily diving and pedestrians they swerved to avoid and the how close the physical encounter, one tumbling their way towards a new Beijing number of meandering cyclists fo r whom keeps a show of outward passivity, a and a great Olympics. Only just over 1000 they had to brake. kind of Chan Buddhist-inspired sense of days to go! • Competitive commuting has also detachment. produced its own etiquette. Although For all the challenges and frustrations, Jeremy Clarke sr has recently returned it is good form to look as though one is however, outward expressions of tension from doctoral fieldwork in Beijing. He is queuing for the bus or subway train, one's are surprisingly low. As many locals undertaking a doctorate at the Au s t ra ~i a n real form is revealed in the speed and comment, there is simply no other way, National University in Canberra, research­ ease with which one boards the vehicle and whether one is patient or impatient, ing the contemporary history of the of choice. Getting a seat is on a par with the journey won't go any quicker. It is Catholic communities in China. Images: running 100 metres in under 10 seconds. this patience of the citizens and the Jeremy Clarke.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 37 1n pr1 Fascinating and disturbing mysteries

Haunted Earth l'l'tl'r 1\l';!LI. UNS\\ 1'1-:ss lll l l. 1~ . :-... 0 .Sn.S H'-26 7 1\ S \1 '\

EmREAD 's Haunted Eaah begins context of Indigenous dispossession. an insightful analysis of contemporary with the scholar in Gore Hill cemetery, Haunted Earth probes still more deeply spirituality. Rudolph Otto's famous settling down with a thermos of coffee into the spiritual dimensions of phrase describing religious experience for a nocturnal vigil. Read, an oral his­ attachment to place. as an encounter with the 'mysterium torian, chooses this Sydney graveyard, trem endum et fascinans', roughly trans­ in all its physicality of weed-entwined R AD'S HARVEST O F STORIES is rich lated as 'the disturbing yet fascinating marble and distant traffic noise, as the and many-layered. A farmer recalls visions mystery', has relevance for Read's oral point of departure for his investigation of 19th-century cottage-dwellers on her narratives. Several Australian studies of the 'enspiriting' of land. His book is property; an Anglican priest describes the are also pertinent, including Geoffrey based on interviews with a diversity exorcism of a country church defiled by Lilburne's A Sense of Place, Ferguson and of Australians: traditionally religious, Satanists; a Wiccan draws energy from the Chryssavgis's Th e Desert is Alive and N ew Agers and secularised, rural, urban, land for hea ling animals; Cape Barren Island work by Veronica Brady and David Tacey. Indigenous, descendants of European people express lives immersed in 'storied Christine Watson's Piercing the settlers, recent immigrants. He sees no country'; non-Indigenous Australians speak Ground, published after Haunted spirits at Gore Hill, but his meditation of localised hauntings by Aboriginal spirit Earth, importantly conveys the introduces a sensitive study of contem­ presences; Benedictines discuss belonging impact of Indigenous spirituality on a porary religious experience in relation to at the New Norcia monastery; non-Indigenous scholar's land in Australia. Indian Australians combine consciousness. Watson has This graveyard caper is sensational, Hindu and Australian rituals worked closely with one but passionate scholars do go to extremes. of death to secure the spiritual of Read's informants, the The biologist in my household rises at future of a deceased relative; gifted young scholar Minoru 4. 30am to record the dawn chorus of tiny Asian Australians m ake Hokari, whose recent death birds, and I know another who lowered choices about the observance gives poignancy to his views himself into unexplored limestone caves of traditional Taoist ceremo­ so caref ully considered in looking for blind crayfish. Yet these nies to acknowledge spirits Haunted Earth. projects arc deem ed more acceptable, and mark births. In Belonging, Read more rigorous, than an exploration of The informants in frequently il lustrated his spiritual experience. Haunted Earth are fo rtunate themes with examples from As scientist David Hay wrote in in having an interlocutor 1' I• H • .a•l poetry. Reflection on the Exploring Inner Space, a major British as skilled and respectful relationship between land study of religious experience in the as Read, whose m ajor con- and spiritual experience in 1970s, 'We ... confine ourselves to those tribution must include giving them the Haunted Earth leads him to reconsider parts of reality which are clear, distinct, confidence to speak and to allow publica­ the nature of poetry itself: 'I thought measurable and therefore examinable by tion of their narratives. The 1970s British once that the poetic and the supernatural the methods of empirical science.' Hay study found that of the many people who were two different conceptions of reality. notes a 'pressure to conform that is now had religious experience to report, few Now I suspect that they share t he same not simply a m atter of fitting one's deeper had dared to tell anyone. Hay notes 'the dimension.' With his interdisciplinary experience into a predetermined religious regular admission by our informants that approach, Read has moved into an experi­ mould, but to deny utterly its validity they will be thought tnad'. ential domain opened up by the European or its existence'. Spiritual experience in What I miss from Haunted Earth is Romantics. Minoru Hokari struggled with contemporary Australia verges on a sup­ a sense of Read's major 20th-century Aboriginal teaching that t he land knew pressed or even a shamed discourse. predecessors in the scholarly discussion him in advance. Baudelaire wrote: 'Nature Haunted Earth is the third in Peter of religious experience. When William is a temple where living pillars sometimes Read's trilogy of studies on Australians' James (brother of the novelist) lectured in release indistinct words; man passes there attachment to place. The first, Returning Edinburgh on The Varieties of Religious through forests of symbols that observe to Nothing, examined the experiences of Experience in 1901- 02, it would have sur­ him with intimate glances.' people who had lost their 'place'-home, prised him to know that a century later farm or suburban street. Belonging inves­ Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor Rosamund Dalziell is a visiting fellow tigated relationships between Indigenous would choose James as subject for t he in the Faculty of Arts at the Australian and non-Indigenous Australians in the same distinguished lecture series, off ering National University.

38 EUREKA ST RE ET MAY 2001 books:2 Christopher Gleeson The quintessential storyteller

Mnrrili West: Literar} Maverick, Maryanne Confoy. John Wdey &. Sons, 200:1. 1 ~11:--; I 740 . ~J lllJ I, IUU' S2l).l)~

I N '99' I HAD THE GOOD WRTUNE, in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy relating to the role of women in the life of during some sabbatical leave, to par­ tale. Confoy is skilful at unravelling this the Church and clerical celibacy, were all ticipate in a seminar entitled 'S tory multi-layered character for us. issues to preoccupy West and become the as Pedagogy', led by United Faculty of As someone who has enjoyed read­ focus of his writing and public speeches. Theology lecturer Denham Grierson. ing a good number of West's 32 novels, Though something of an outsider in the I can remember being struck by John who believes that his prose is of such Church, it was still family for West and Shea's words: 'We are the story that God stand-alone quality that one can often he saw himself as its 'loyal opposition'. tells. Our very lives are the words that return to savour it, I thoroughly enjoyed Confoy summarises this very succinctly: come from his mouth.' To view God as learning something about the man him­ 'West wrote his way through the questions a storyteller, to read Elie Wiesel's words self in Confoy's biography. Particularly life forced him to ask.' that 'God made man because he loves interesting is her treatment of the As broad as the sweep of global issues stories', to be reminded that we are all historical factors shaping West's life. As treated in West's writing is, there is much born into a community of stories and the eldest child who joined of his personal footprint storytellers, was to see the nobility of the the Christian Brothers' too. Given that he felt teaching vocation in a new light. Teachers juniorate at the age of 13, so much of an outsider are innate storytellers, and we learn who he was an outsider in his from an early age, Confoy we are through the stories we embrace as own family, he was bullied demonstrates that 'this our own. Our own story is sacred ground, at school, he resented his became his primary mode Caroline Jones once said, and telling it years in the cloister, and he of engaging with life, the connects us in a most profound way to replicated his own father's lens through which he per­ our hearers. habits by being an absen­ ceived the world, and the In her biography Morris West: tee father for his first wife reason for the adversarial Literary Maverick Maryanne Confoy and children. It was not stance which came so eas­ tells an interesting story 'of research until he discovered Europe ily to him, even in his close and disclosure' about one of our great and its culture that he relationships'. His writings, Australian storytellers. I am not sure first began to feel at home. therefore, are permeated that the term maverick, which often When his first marriage with the experience of points to the quirky and eccentric quali­ broke down, his inability the alien and the outsider, ties in a person, quite does Morris West to gain an annulment Morris West, 1965. AAP/AP/ CBS the struggles of characters justice. Nonconformist and unorthodox from the Church he loved with divided selves. Confoy he certainly was, but 'maverick' does meant he became an outsider in this con­ illustrates how these struggles mirror not really capture that passion and rich text too. Even when he enjoyed immense West's own personal conflicts as he kept independence of mind which avid read­ success as a novelist overseas, many asking and attempting to answer three key ers of his came to enjoy. Indeed, towards in the Australian literary community fundamentally religious questions: who the end of the book, Confoy refers to the continued to see him as an alien and were am I; why am I; where am I going? criticism by Morris's widow Joy that her somewhat envious of this expa- Confoy has done us a great service biography painted him as too distant, and triate's international acclaim. in writing of a complex and driven man did not convey his warmth and generosity who constantly confronted the 'defaced as a husband and close family man. While w EN ONE LOOKS at the various mosaic', as he put it, of his life. Through Confoy with all modesty accepts this as themes in Morris West's writing and their his writings the quintessential storyteller a valid criticism of her work, it is hardly deft treatment by Confoy, one notes a helped a myriad of readers to understand a substantial negative mark. Morris West certain presci nee in the global problems their own story. Confoy's fine biography was a most complex character. He wrote West targets-issues which continue to helps us to appreciate the irony that often about the divided self, he saw him­ trouble and challenge us today. The evils Morris West struggled hard to do the self as an outsider in most social contexts, of terrorism, the abuse of political power, same for himself. he was a man of many contrasts and con­ the malaise of centralism in the Church tradictions. After all, West would liken and its problems with a then ailing, albeit Ch ristopher Gleeson SJ is the director of himself to 'the man without a shadow' charismatic, Pope as leader, questions Jesuit Publications.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 39 I ooks·' Andrew Hamilton Governments bearing moral gifts

God under H1mard: fhe Hi~e of the Hdi.f.(ious IHght in Au,tralian Politics \l.tJL()!l Ma,J,Iox. \ lkn & Um' 1 1 J )(h l~li"J I 7 ~I I~:;(,">(, JUU' Sl'J.<)')

I N HeR EXCHLENT STUDY God unda Howard' the Ri

40 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 take an influential role in established churches, and seek to living it. For som e, this discovery led them to perceive a lack influence public policy. We also need to know what makes it pos­ in Austra lian society of bared moral va lues and of encourage­ sible for governments to m anipulate the agenda of such groups. ment to live well. We need to address these questions through conversa­ Many believe, too, that the m oral values, which they tion with the people them selves, and not simply by m aking espouse, are im portant not simply for their own lives, but assumptions about what they must be like. In Mannix's phrase, fo r a healthy and prosperous Australia. Australia would we must see them as 'people like u s'- This kind of inquiry lies be a better society if, fo r example, there were greater pro­ outside the scope of her book. But she offers a model for such tection of life at its beginnings and its end, less access to reflection when discussing the relationship between Howard pornography, and more support for m arriage as tradi­ and the Methodist Church in which he grew up. She notes the tionally understood. common theories that either derive Howard's political views from those of an Anglican Church to which he does not belong I T SEEMS A LITTLE CRUDE to describe people who have these or, on the basi of stray comments from Methodist spokesmen, attitudes as the religious right. Certainly, their moral attitudes that deduce them from the supposed conservative political are supported by religious beliefs. But in many cases they values of the Methodist Church. They fail to notice that the appear to be shaped by a moral reflection which precedes reli­ congregation to which John Howard belonged espoused quite gious belief, and which would survive even the loss of religious radical views on race and immigration. The tension between belief and its authorities. The complex relationship between his attitudes and those of his church provokes more fertile religious faith and m oral positions can plausibly be oversim­ questions than does the assumed harmony. plified by the use of the term Religiou s, becau e some church I cannot offer a general view on why people join religious traditions derive their moral positions from the Bible, and will groups or adopt strong moral positions. But those to whom I justify them by appeal to the Bible. Their adherents, however, have spoken say unsurprisingly that in their new beliefs they m ay differ from their leaders in deriving their moral views have fo und som ething precious. Their acknowledgm ent of God from a particular view of humanity that they fi nd confirmed off ered a broader meaning to their lives and some direction in in churches and in other religious bodies.

Cardi nal George Pel I and Prime Minister john Howard in August 2004, at the ann ouncement of the federal government's grant of $4 million to the pri va te Ca tholic University of Notre Dame to be establish ed in Sydney. Image: AAP/Sam Mooy

M AY 2005 EU REKA STREET 41 Nor does the word 'right' do justice to the views of new T he reason to be wary of governments bringing moral religious groups, which often adopt attitudes associated with gifts is that the symbolic gestures they offer will rarely the left, like the defence of asylum seekers and opposition add ress the root ills in Au stralian society, and often mask to the war in Iraq. The distinction between right and left t hem. They often substitute ideology and prejudice for is often based on attitudes to the maximisation of individ­ a realistic analysis of society and the development of an ual freedom. By this criterion churches and other religious effective and perhaps expensive policy to address its ills. groups may well be on the right. But it may be more helpful T he churches' self-interest also counsels caution. A merely to define the left by its ascription to communal values such symbolic defence of personal values can easily rebound on as equality of opportunity, participation, making the fruits those who associate themselves with government policies. of prosperity available to all, and structuring society in a In Spain, for example, the Catholic Church allowed itself to way that supports its weakest m embers. By these standards, be wooed by a conservative government. When the govern­ members of churches and Religious will be found ment fell, the Church shared its u npopularity, and has been both on the left and on the right. powerless to resist quite radical legislation on social and religious issues. W ATEVER OF THE CHARACTERISATION of people with For churches, the deepest and most difficult challenge is strong moral and political views, the key question posed by to persuade Australians to recognise that the welfare of Aus­ the shift to make personal values a matter for political action tralia demands policies and legislation on matters of persona I has to do with defining what kinds of action are proper. How and public morality. They need to make the case in public are people who believe that issues of personal morality such argument. This requires moving beyond arguments based on as abortion, euthanasia and marriage relationships are so ideology and on slogans, to analyse dispassionately the current important for a good and humane society that they ought to practices in Australian society and their effects, and to make be subject to regulation and legislation, to make their case? I the case that changes in policy would both benefit Australia find it difficult to argue that it is not proper, either for them and actually lead to real improvement. or for those opposing their views, to organise, to seek to have The third question posed to the churches is: what lies their views favourably represented in the media, to take direct at the heart of their ethic? Broadly speaking, there are two action, and to seek to influence politicians. Whether such accounts of what is central in Christian life. The first empha­ activities are wisely undertaken either by small groups or by sises the domestic sphere as the place of fidelity, with the result churches is another matter. that domestic relationship and their emphasis on personal Indeed the shift in the scope of politics raises as many honesty, faithful and controlled sexuality, and respectful child difficult questions for churches as it provides opportunities. raising, have the central place in their ethic. The family is the First, should they welcome, totally oppose, or be selective household of God. in their response to the new settlement? I believe that they The second account emphasises the following of Jesus in should cautiously welcome the inclusion of personal moral his mission to the excluded and the stranger. Kindness to stran­ issues such as abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research and gers, and particularly to those whose dignity is most assailed, pornography on the political agenda. But they should simulta­ will be paramount. Family will be regarded with some suspi­ neously insist that the question at issue in public debate is not cion, as it is in Mark's Gospel, because preoccupation with directly whether particular practices are morally justifiable, family so easily distracts from the universal and radical but whether regulation of them is necessary in a humane soci­ following of Jesus. ety. The churches should also reject strongly the m ove to pri­ These two emphases are held together with some ten­ vatise public moral issues such as war, the treatment of asylum sion in Scripture. The challenge to churches is to hold them seekers, and the regulation of capital and labour. They should together so that both domestic and public virtues are given insist that groups critical of governm ent policies should not be full weight. penalised, and oppose the tendency of governments to remove Finally, the opportunity for churches to influence public themselves from accountability on public moral issues. policy on issues of personal m orality must inevitably make Second, should the churches align them selves with gov­ them ask how they are to see other religious bodies. Starkly ernments that offer this new settlement? I believe that they put, the question that they face is this: is the greatest sin fac ­ should be highly suspicious of politicians' motives in this ing churches idolatry or atheism? Should Christians rejoice in area, and of what governments will take from and give to the number of converts to Christianity or theism in Austral­ churches. As Maddox points out, the goal of governments is ian society on the grounds that the cause of God is promoted? to secure agreement or acquiescence in an economic order This is to give priority to the struggle against atheism. Or based on com petitive individualism . It will wish to neu ­ should they carefully evaluate both their own and others' tralise opposition from churches and other groups, and to teaching and practices for their coherence with the teaching reward acquiescence. Thus, it will reward church leaders and death and resurrection of Christ? This is to give priority who either endorse government policies or undermine oppo­ to the struggle aga inst idolatry, which begins in the believer's sition within churches by aligning them selves with groups own heart and mind. If idolatry is a concern, then the rise of a critical of the churches' commitment to public morality. The piety that is com fortable with economic individualism must reward will take the form of symbolic gestures that enshrine trouble any church. conservative social values or of financial or legislative support for educational or other ventures. Andrew Hamilton SJ is the publisher of Eurel

42 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 books :.-1 Peter Yewers The best that money can buy

The Persuader~: Inside the Hidden Machine of Political Advertising, SJI Iy Young. Pluto l're~s, 200-1 . ISBN 1 X(i -1 O.B0-1 S, !WI' $)-l.tJ:J

F OR THOSE WH O WGough Whitlam abandoned as Strengthening Medicare as part of Germany permit political advertising Brylcreem and embraced a bevy of $500 million spent on advertising by with strict controls on spending and celebrities (remember Little Pattie? ) all Australian governments. (This fi gure timing. Only Taiwan, the United States who appeared in th at famous television does not include the estimated 4000 jour­ and Australia permit paid political commercial which Rupert Murdoch nalists working for the federal or state advertising with very few restrictions.

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 43 hook<;:S Ralph Elliott In Australia's case there is a three-day blackout in the electronic media which includes polling day. Such is the lack of regulation that Pauline Hanson is likely to remain the only campaign­ ing politician to be charged, convicted Brilliant buddies and jailed. Australia's major political parties The Born-Einstein Letters l'Jl6-l'155: Friendship, Politic' and llhysics in Uncertain Time' enjoy taxpayer funding, unlimited pri­ Max Born. Nc\\ cdllJ<>n hv <..u,LJ\ Horn. MacmilLl n, 200:'. I'd:r-. 1 40.i lJ44lJ(, 2 ,.,,,. S4lJ l)-, vate donations and no spending limits, a less regulated environm ent than even the US. Other countries have regulations to improve the quality and fairness of political campaigns. France does not permit presidential candidates to E TY HARS AGO, on 18 Ape;! 1955, by Born's one-time colleague Werner use the flag, the national anthem or Albert Einstein died; hence it is timely Heisenberg, the new edition is intro­ archival footage of opponents without to welcome this new edition of his corre­ duced by Gustav Born and features a their consent. By contrast, larrikin spondence with Max Born. Both men were lengthy new preface, by Diana Buchwald Australian advertising agencies have renowned physicists, both were awarded a and Kip S. Thorne, which emphasises pioneered the use of simulation and Nobel prize, both were born in Germany the valuable testimony of the letters to en hancement, portraying Bob Hawke of Jewish parents and forced into exile the development of m odern science as with Finocchio's nose, and a shocked by Hitler. They shared many interests, well as portraying the writers' views John Howard reading his bank balance including music, Einstein playing the on contemporary political and at the ATM. Such is the dominance of violin, Born the piano, when they both philosophical concerns. negative advertising in Australia that lived in Berlin many years ago. Although during the 1996 campaign Paul Keating they sometimes strongly disagreed on LETONE OF THE LETTERS is friendly appeared on television more for scientific as well as political issues, their throughout, although Einstein, long set­ the Coalition than for the ALP. amicable correspondence reveals a deep­ tled at Princeton University in the United rooted friendship that stretched across States, reacted rather vehemently when G IV EN THAT AUSTRALIA has the half a century. the Borns decided in 1953 to return to live world's worst practice in regard to politi­ The present book, edited by Born's son in Germany. After Hitler came to power cal advertising, there is much that can be Professor Gustav Born, of the William in 1933, Einstein had emigrated to the US improved. Young makes 18 recommenda­ Harvey Research Institute at London and never returned to Germany, while the tions for change that merit serious public University, follows the previous edition Born family had moved to Britain. After discussion. These include independent of 1971, itself a translation by Born's some years in Cambridge, Max Born was scrutiny of government advertising, the daughter Irene N ewton-John, mother of appointed Darwin's successor at the Uni­ reintroduction of campaign spending the popular singer Olivia Newton-John, versity of Edinburgh in Scotland. On his limits and more free time for political of the original German edition of 1969. retirement Max and Hedi decided to move parties based on their verified number The latter also contained several German to the picturesque German spa resort Bad of members-a salutary proposal given poems by Max Born's wife Hedwig, Pyrmont where they had spent some time that half the current membership of the generally known as Hedi. The transla­ as a young engaged couple many years Victorian ALP is reputed to be bogus. tion of these letters as well as Born's earlier. Einstein abhorred the idea, even In the PR State where policies are commentaries, many of them full of when advised of the pressing financial debated less, it has become more difficult technical scientific detail, was no mean reasons for the move from parsimonious to promote social justice and challenge achievement and deserves the highest Scotland to repentant Germany, where powerful interests. Sally Young's book praise. The 1971 edition also contained Born had been reinstated at Gottingen is therefore very important for those some fine photographs of Einstein, of on full salary as Professor Emeritus. For interested in political and social change. Max and H edi Born, and of the assembled Hedi the move to Pyrmont was especially At a time of rigorous targeting of dis­ members of the Fifth International Solvay welcome, as she had joined the Society of ability pensions and other benefits, the Congress of Physicists. This also figured Friends (Quakers) in 1938, whose German freewheeling use of taxpayers' money for on the dust jacket of the original German headquarters were located at that pleasant party and government advertising may be edition and is reproduced in miniature resort, not far from Gottingen where her an issue, like parliamentarians' superan­ on the jacket of the present book. The brother Rudi and his family still lived. nuation, whose time has come. two English editions also include the On scientific issues the two men also 1924 drawing of Einstein by Max Born's had their differences, especially on the Peter Yewers is a former Victorian public brother Wolfgang. subject of quantum m echanics, but even servant who is currently a researcher in In addition to the original foreword when their different views appeared in the philanthropic sector. by Bertrand Russell and the introduction print, as for example on the question

44 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 of determinism, their friendship was N ot surprisingly, the correspondence camps, only to be confronted by the not affected 'in the slightest degree'. As between two highly intelligent men equal horror of nuclear fission. As Born Born wrote in 1953: 'My feeling towards preserved in these pages reflects many was to write to Einstein in November you is that of a cheeky u rchin who can of the problem s and uncertainties of the 1953, 'The Americans have demon­ get away with certain liberties without first half of the 20th century. Born notes strated in Dresden, Hiroshima and offending you .' Nagasaki that in sheer speed of Both Max Born and his wife were extermination they surpass even deeply concerned for the safety and the Nazis.' welfare of other refugees, not least Among the fascinating and fellow scientists. Their letters often MAX BORN erudite disquisitions on relativity, read like a catalogue of well-known quantum mechanics, principles of n ames, including Nobel laureates, THlE optics and other such topics, there for the period of the two world are occasional references to the Born wars and the Nazi horror years in family, their children Irene, Gritli between, am ong them Niels Bohr, BORN - E~NSTE~N and Gu stav, especially in the letters James Franck, H. A. Lorentz, Max to Einstein from Hedi Born. In July Planck, and Erwin Schroedinger. LETTERS 1923 Einstein paid tribute to Hedi's One who gained notoriety of a dif­ 'contribution in physics, music, ferent sort was Klaus Fuchs, Born's '19'16-'1955 poetry and prose, as well as in cosy colleague in Edinburgh, a very quiet Friendship, Politics and Physics conviviality', and several years later man and a devoted communist in Uncertain Times she asked for his opinion on her who was later to pass atomic play A Child of America, to which secrets to the Soviet Union. he responded as 'a quite successful satire on the contemporary scene .. . B ORN SPEAKS OF 'the voluminous witty and amu sing throughout'. correspondence' he carried on, not Hedi Born was a gifted, sensitive, only with Einstein, but with many talented woman, at times decidedly people all over the world, on the headstrong, but thoroughly gener­ subject of help for exiled scientists. ous and lovable. She happened to Introduction by Werner Heisenberg Foreword by Bertrand Russett If Einstein seemed more reserved, New Preface by Diana Buchwald and Kip Thorne h ave been my father's sister. especially after the death of his second wife Ilse, 'who was more Professor Ralph Elliott was born attached to human beings than I', in Berlin, educated in Germany it was because he felt that he could and Scotland, served in the British not recommend mediocrities without the irreversible accumulation of ugly Army in World War II, and has taught sacrificing his own credit in the scien­ feelings of anger, revenge, and hatred English language and literature, mainly tific world. 'It is sad,' he wrote, 'that in Germany after World War I, with the medieval, in British and Australian one is forced to treat human beings like probability of major catastrophes result­ universities. He is currently honorary horses where it matters only that they ing therefrom, as indeed happened. librarian at the Humanities Research can run and pu ll, without regard to their Fortunately both he and Einstein escaped Centre, Australian National University, qualities as human beings.' the horrors of Nazi concentration Canberra.

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MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 45 on stage

H ANN" RAYWN'> mw nAY, Two Brothers, offers a bleak vision of a post- 9/11 Australia in which political expedi­ ency, packaged and pitched as national security, has triumphed over m oral decency and basic human rights. The eponymous brothers are James Garry McDonald, Caroline Brazier and Nicholas Eadie. Photo: Jeff Bu sby 'Eggs' Benedict (Ga rry McDonald) and Tom Benedict (Nicholas Eadie), both The plot is tightly structured in the in Canberra. I wouldn't be the only PM to members of a privileged class who were first act, which ends with a powerful make his own arrangements in Canberra.' educated at an exclusive Melbourne pri­ atmosphere of suspense engendered by 'You're bad ... you're bad all the way vate school. the device of a ringing m obile telephone through,' Fiona tells h im. But then Eggs But there the similarities end. Eggs (a prop used to humorous effect elsewhere takes her in his anns and says: 'Let me has become M inister for Home Security, in the play) . love you all the way through.' on the fas t track to becoming the next The second act careens towards farce, It's hard to hear a line like that uttered Prime Minister; Tom is holding down a which perhaps is the playwright's intent, by som eone with Garry McDonald's cre­ $60,000-a-year job as head of an Austral­ as the events it portrays so closely mir­ dentials as a comic actor without wanting ian aid agency. Remind you of anyone? ror those which actually surrounded the to giggle. What self-respecting woman Into the brothers' lives com es Hazem Tampa incident and the sinking of t he would fa ll for it? Especially after know­ AI Ayad (Rodney Afif), an Iraqi who is SIEV X in 2001, in which 353 asylum ing that her husband has been shagging the sole survivor of an Indonesian fish­ seekers drowned. his 'senior adviser', the aptly named Jamie ing boat that sank near Ashmore Reef on The inevitable showdown between Savage (played with cold precision by Christmas Day, killing 250 m en, women Eggs and Tom touches upon, but could Caroline Brazier). and children refugees, including Hazem 's have m ore fully explored, the hatred, But maybe that's apart of what Hannie wife and children. treachery, jealousy, lies and deceit that Rayson is trying to say in Two Brothers. In There's plenty of bad blood between can poison families. N o one is left undam­ a country where status and privilege and Eggs and Tom, and when Tom (who takes aged: Eggs's son Lachlan (Ben Lawson), a power politics in every sphere ultimately on Hazem 's case for legal asylum) slowly naval officer and would-be whistleblower, prevail over human decency, have we lost learns the truth about the boat's sink­ cannot in the end choose truth over our minds? Our hearts I ing, and his brother's (hence, the govern­ familial loyalty; Tom's son Harry (Ham­ Th is is a play about the real presence ment's) complicity in it, that blood begins ish Michael), a victim of his drug depend­ of evil in the world, and it is the deadly to boil. ency, becomes the unwitting trump ca rd harm wrought by that ev il that lingers, Two Brothers is a fast-paced play that in Eggs's final crushing hand over Tom. like the stench of bad eggs, long after shifts frequ ently through many scenes, Most pathetic of all is Eggs's wife the final curtain. Not the gags. They just due in great part to the highly effec­ Fiona (a difficult role played sympatheti­ make the message a little easier to take. tive revolving set created by designer cally by Diane Craig), who m akes a des­ Two Brothers, presented by Mel­ Stephen Curtis. perate but fa iled attempt to break away bourne Theatre Company and directed Hannie Rayson's satirical script is from her husband, realising that she has by Simon Phillips, plays in Melbourne at charged (and sometimes, perhaps, over­ never even been allowed by Eggs to grieve the Arts Centre Playhouse until 14 May, charged) with wit and verbal gags that for their son who died of a drug overdose. then tours to the Sydney Opera House provide comic relief from the play's dark 'I can't do this,' she says to Tom's from 19 May as part of Sydney Theatre themes. feisty partner Ange Sidoropoulous (Laura Company's 2005 season. T he production In addition to the nationally promi­ Lattuada), who tells her to leave Eggs then continues to Canberra, N ewcastle, nent names dropped into the dialogue, and come stay with them. 'I won't be the Frenchs Forest and Wollongong, with Melbourne theatre-goers on opening night Prime Minister's wife.' Tony Llewellyn-Jones as Eggs Benedict. heard local in-jokes that will presumably But in the play's m ost farcical scene, be adapted for Sydney audiences when the Eggs cajoles Fiona into staying by promis­ Rob ert Hefner is the assistant editor of play moves there later this m onth. ing: 'You can live in Kirribilli and I can live Eurelw Street.

46 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 the - 0 list Speaking for Austr;Jiia: Parliamcntaq speeches Scraps o( Heaven, Arnold Zablc. Text Puhli~hmg, that s h;~pcd our nation. Edited by Rod Kemp 2004. I~BN 1 877 OORH6 9, RRI' S29.9'i Speakin9. for and Manan Stanton. Allen & Unwin, 2004. Arnold Zable's novel cements his reputation Austra-lia. l~llN l 741 1-l·BO 2, RRI' $3'i as one of Melbourne's great storytellers. Set

Parliameruary speeches Most of the time Australian politics resem­ in Carlton in 1958, it is made up of the inter­ that .Jhapffl our natioa bles the Lilliputians arguing over whether it connecting stories of the immigrant fami­ is better to crack an egg at the big end or the lies who call the area home and are trying little end. Speaking for Australia, edited by to make a life for themselves in the goldene Liberal Senator Rod Kemp and Marian Stan­ m edineh (golden land) of Australia. ton, is a collection that records the more sig- The principal characters, Romek and nificant m oments. Zofia, are survivors of concentration camps, Speaking for Australia covers many of Australia's more dra­ and Zable describes their memories of coming together and their matic periods from Federation and the White Australia Policy to irreparable drifting apart with skill and subtlety. Their stories, the Bali bombings and the invasion of Iraq. The choice of speeches and those of others, do seem bleak. From the beer-swilling pool raises questions at times. For example, Amanda Vanstone illumi­ guard who is an 'ex-Mr Australia' to Romek, a poet with no means nates the stem -cell research debate by saying that 'the views ... to of expressing himself, lies the sense of unrealised potential, and this bill depend on just what it is that comes out of the freezer'. And the harshness of daily life stifling the dreams of those who wished you have to wonder why Kemp included Simon Crean's bland and to start anew. That said, the novel has many moments of humour diplomatic welcome speech to George W. Bush in 2003. I am sure and celebration, from a group of Yiddish actors who casually and that these two speeches shaped no one, let alone the nation. Speak­ affectionately insult one another to the stories of stylish Valerio's ing for Australia can be dry, but this probably says more about soccer prowess or teenagers rebelling by lying around listening recent Australian political history than anything else. That said, to jazz. there are examples of speech -making eloquence, such as Gough There is a tendency for Zable to over-explain a character's state Whitlam's post-dismissal speech: 'Well may we say "God Save the of mind. Sometimes gesture expresses a feeling with such preci­ Queen", because nothing will save the Governor-General.' sion that further explanation is not necessary- Romek's awkward By far the most sobering reading was Pauline Hanson's m aiden attempts at embracing Zofia are even more poignant before they are speech. I wonder how controversial the words 'Wake up, Aus­ described as a 'pas de deux between two anguished souls'. But this tralia, before it is too late ... ' would have been if uttered in 2005? is a minor complaint, and this is a thoughtful and well-rounded This collection is worth h aving, if only as a useful reference. story of the experience of migrants, one in which even the desper­ -Godfrey Moase ate find the will to continue. As the cabaret specialist Potashinski says, 'Why wander around like farts in a barrel? The old world is Direct action and democracy today, April gone. This is where we now belong, whether right or wrong.' Carter. BlaLkwcll Publishing, 200-l. I~B'- 0 7-l.S - Chloe Wilson 6236 9, RRI' S-,6_9.:; Diredadion I expected that this book would solely refl ect Lazy Man in China, Helene Chung Marun and democracy today Australia's experience in political life. I was J';md;lllUS, 200'\. !Sill'< I 74() 76128 6, IUU' $.b wrong. April Carter explores different coun- Lazy Man in China is told through a series tries' experiences in the presence or absence of letters by John Martin, the husband of of democracy. former ABC correspondent Helene Chung Carter's book addresses complex political Martin. The letters document John's dis­ issues that may benefit academics and stu­ dainful impressions of China in the early dents of politics as a valuable research text. 1980s and his slow adaptation to his new She thoroughly analyses some countries' journey towards democ­ life. Moving to China after his wife's post­ racy (sometimes involving direct action) and reveals how those in ing as a foreign correspondent, John's let­ power have responded to these actions. ters provide witty, irreverent and humorous insights which will The book is divided into chapters with subheadings, which resonate with any person who has ever felt a long way from allowed me to read sections that sounded interesting (a nd abandon home. The strength of Lazy Man in China is the personal obser­ them if they didn't hold my attention). I was interested in Cart­ vations of a pre-Tiananmen Square Beijing. John writes, 'Beijing er's recognition that technological developments have exposed is a fascinating and most exotic place in a repressive and sinister and aided those suffering under repressive regim es. For example, sort of way.' television coverage has raised the Western world's awareness of While an engaging historical read, Lazy Man in China is also globalisation issues, including child labour, poverty, the abuse of a bittersweet love story; the letters were collated after John's natural resources and the devastating repercussions of war. death in 1993. The love story serves as a framework for the larger It's disappointing that the book was published before the Iraqi socio-political story. However for any serious detail about politi­ election in which citizen s reasserted their identities as m embers cal change in an increasingly cosmopolitan Beijing, the reader of a democratic society through their right to vote, but overall, will have to look beyond this paperback. Lazy Man in China is a Carter's exploration of democracy and direct action in the world good read for those wanting an insight into the massive changes today is informative. happening in one of the world's most powerful countries. - Kathryn Page -Kate Stowell

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 47 Almodovar's treatment of clerical child present we gain insights into the crisis of sex abuse seems reduced to a lubricious Joe's unsettled life. Never does the film flash in the pan farce at times (though certainly not at try to explain the emotional state of its others) and makes very uncomfortable main character; it just drifts along with an watching. It would be easy to hate Bad unnerving lack of comment. While this is Education for this alone, but it defies a indeed one of the film's strengths, it is Truth upon simple analysis (or even a complex one) also a strange frustration. Mackenzie has because nothing is ever quite what it certainly embraced the Beat Generation's crushing truth seems to be. Each character's story extin­ love affair with the emotional drifter and guishes the truth of someone else's. It's worked it as a storytelling device as well Bad Education, dir. Pedro Almodovar. equally valid to interpret aspects of Th e as a character trait for his film's main Almodovar's narrative themes through a Visit as a romanticised backstory; wilful protagonist (a word that gives more hero female perspective tend to inhabit a more self-deceit; the inability of experience status to Joe than is fitting). optimistic, if chaotic, universe. However, to revisit innocence; and, of course, lies. But ultimately the film's lack of emo­ he deals almost exclusively with male/ Oddly, the lies and stories never obscure tional ruminating lends a certain moral male relationships in this movie. Bad the significance of people's actions-it's judgment of its own. The filmmaker fol­ Education's dark world is one of cruel when a character makes his move that lows this graceless drifter at the expense of exchanges subject to immutable laws­ you see him for what he is. most of the characters he bumps up against, money and advancement for youthful It spans the '50s, '60s and '70s with sig­ and it's nothing short of brutal. Deliberate, flesh. Love here is just a narcissistic pro­ nature fashions and zeitgeist, mocking the I'm sure, but I wonder to what end? jection, a delirium in which only the pow­ illusions of those decades as they pass. Just But even with faults and uncertainties, erful can afford to indulge. brilliant. A tip: don't miss the start. Young Adam is a film worth seeing-if Ignacio, a sensitive, talented ten-year­ - Lucille Hughes for no other reason than to remember that old, is a boarder at a Catholic school in Ewan McGregor really can act when not the Spain of the 1950s. Father Manalo, his encumbered with a light sabre. literature teacher, fawns on him and then Drifting along -Siobhan Jackson sexually abuses him. Twenty years later, Ignacio is a heroin-addicted drag queen Young Adam, dir. David Mackenzie. Joe on the skids who decides to blackmail (Ewan McGregor) is a drifter-sort of. Life in the grey zone Manalo (who certainly 'owes him'). His He's also a writer-but not quite. Nothing plans to make Manalo pay for his cos­ really moves him, and no one really Look at Me, dir. Agnes Jaoui. Loolz at Me metic surgery seem as pathetic and hope­ touches him. Despite this, Joe is far from is a film that emphasises the frustrating less as his dreams of getting clean. Yet a blank space; he is closer to a rain shower aspect of subtitles. Because it is both per­ the story he writes wields the power to in a world of cold unresolved morality, in formance-based and dialogue-driven, you set the wheels of fate (and the plot) turn­ which everyone gets soaked to the bone. spend half the time reading when all you ing. It is titled The Visit because it has a Based on Alexander Trocchi's '50s want to do is watch the actors. Then you fantasy denouement of the adult Ignacio Beat novel of the same name (co-adapted come out feeling like you missed some­ visiting the priest and confronting him. for the screen by Trocchi and Mackenzie), thing. But this is about the harshest thing Gael Garcia Bernal (Motorcycle Diaries, Young Adam faithfully follows the nihil­ you could say about Look at Me, which A mores Perras) has depth and range as istic vision of its author. Stepping on life surely means it's worth the effort. Juan, Ignacio's beautiful younger brother with an ambiguous, unresolved tread, it Lolita (Marilou Berry) is the daughter who steals his story and identity in order refuses to wrap up storylines and charac­ of Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a success­ to scam successful young film director ters, instead treating them with an off­ ful French writer, as obnoxious as he is Enrique into making it into a movie. hand emptiness which is in turns both famous. Lolita is the student of singing Enrique, who was Ignacio's best friend true and null. teacher Sylvia (Agnes Jaoui), who goes out (and first crush) at school, cynically allows Joe lives on a barge with Les (Peter of her way to help Lolita, hoping a con­ himself to be snowed into casting Juan in Mullen) and his wife Ella (Tilda Swinton), nection with Etienne will be useful to her the starring role as Ignacio. He soon sees working the canals between Glasgow and husband Pierre (Laurent Grevill), a strug­ though Juan's lies but is curious, and he Edinburgh. One afternoon Joe and Les gling novelist. desires Juan enough to let him move in pull a woman's body from the Clyde. And Lolita, overweight and lacking in con­ with him. Enrique can also drive a hard bar­ while this might seem a standard start for fidence, is convinced that the people in her gain. On yet another level, Enrique is very a thriller, Young Adam is far from a genre life like her only because of her father­ much Almodovar's alter ego, lampooning piece. There are court scenes and villains which is overwhelmingly the case. his own early directorial attempts. but not the ones British TV has taught us Lool< at Me has set the cult of image The Visit (the film-within-the-film) to recognise. The villain of this piece is firmly in its sights. Lolita is told every is a surreal high-camp pastiche with emptiness-cold, hard indifference. day by magazines and television-and, 'bells and smells' ecclesiastical styl­ Before long we suspect Jo e knows more most importantly, by her father-that ings very reminiscent of Pierre and about the floating corpse than he is letting she isn't pretty enough to be an actor, or a Gilles's homoerotic religious imagery. on. Moving between flashbacks and the singer, or a model, or loved.

48 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 Look at Me also explores the self-indul­ gence of the literary society and the day­ to-day shallowness of middle-class life, without ever lecturing its audience. The characters are artfully drawn and lovable, despite their pa ssive-aggressive manipula­ tions and blind prejudices (Etienne's nick­ name for his daughter is 'my big girl') . It is this attention to the subtle truths of human behaviour that makes you want to go away and learn French so as to experience its observations with more immediacy-with­ out the filter of subtitles. With an emphasis on performance, the camera is used to minimal effect. (You would, in fact, be forgiven for thinking you were watching well-writ­ ten, well-acted television .) Scenes from Young Adam (a bove) Writer- director Agnes Ja oui and Look at Me (left). isn't interested in dazzling you with cinem a-this is But all is not what it seem s under the about the people. As the bright lights of the big city. film pushes forward, over Fresh off the train from Rivet Town, a period of six months, we Rodney heads straight for the sparkling sense that these characters (and supposedly open to anyone) gates of do indeed exist outside the Bigweld's head office, only to find that fi lm, and that we are privy Bigweld has been ousted by sleazeball cor­ to just a few select moments porate operator Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), and from their lives. There isn't his maniacal scrap-metal-dealing mother, so much as a clever shot or Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent). Rodney is a cut to remind us that we're watching a and dad built him fro m the ground up, devastated- but all is not lost. Taken in by fi lm. The actors do all the work. literally, fo llowing an instruction sheet a motley crew of rusty old misfits, known It is sometimes diffi cult to be seduced in a box of pots, pans and metal plates. commonly as 'outmodes', Rodney discov­ by a story with a warts-and-a ll approach They lovingly upgrade him every year ers his true calling and finds himself a to its characters. Lolita's self-pity is unap­ with hand-me- down bits and bobs. And leader of the downtrodden (or more specifi­ pealing, her fa ther's self-centredness so he grows into a fine, upstanding young cally, unemployed tin cans, rust buckets, crude. But when so many fi lms depict robot, full of big dream s and pop rivets. rickety toaster ovens, fat-bottomed robotic individuals as morally bl ack or white, While the Copperbottom s have a lot aunts ... you get the idea). with a chasm of nothing in between, it of love they don't have much ready cash. And as rust follows rain, a Samson vs is refreshing to see one that revels in the One year Rodney's upgrade is a hand­ Goliath battle ensues. grey zone of ordinary people. m e- down fr om his cou sin-a girl cousin Robots creates a witty parallel world - Zane Lovitt (rem ember the old 'Don't worry, son, no that resembles a strange animated mix one will notice yo u're wearing a skirt' of Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. And with routine fr om childhood ?) And it is these sentiment aplenty (in its most charming Riveting and rollicking hilarious, 'true- life' titbits that really get-up, I hasten to add), it takes a well-oiled breathe life into the otherwise m echani­ look at familial love, honour, romance and Robots, dir. Chris Wedge. Ever thought cal protagonists of Robots. good old-fa shioned corporate greed. your left arm was just a tad outmoded, Rodney is an inventor. But to real­ All the voices are clone with an appro­ or that your right ear could do with a lit­ ise his dream of filling the world w ith priate degree of madness. Robin Williams tle reshaping? Perhaps you dream of an inventive wonder he must leave his par­ puts in a classic 'talk through wet cement' extreme makeover? 'Why be you when ents and go to Robot City. There lives his perfo rmance as Rodney's friend Fender, you can be NEW?' Well, it's easy: just get idol, the colossal and wonderful wizard and the likes of Stanley Tucci, Dianne yourself a ticket to Robot City, the great of invention (not to mention TV star­ Wiest, James Earl Jones and Drew Carey (to metropolis where everything old can be dom) Bigweld (Mel Brooks). Famous for mention but a few) lend their voices to even new again .. . for a price. his magnanimous catchcry 'See a need, out the mix. Starry-eyed Rodney Copperbottom fill a need', Bigweld is an old-fashioned Robots is good, sharp, witty fun. No (voiced by Ewan McGregor) lives in the industrialist, peddling promise and hope nuts and bolts about it! little hamlet of Rivet Town. His mum for a brave new world. - Siobhan Jackson

MAY 2005 EUREKA STREET 49 watching brief Lest we forget

/ Y usTuPm BOY . . .' 'Hah, once they had been arse-kicked into the fight, they One of my favourite lines in one of my favourite shows, Dad's talked like they were the only ones fighting the Nazi hordes,' I Army I love the theme song: say, thumping the arm of the chair. Who do you think that you're kidding, Mr Hitler, 'Oh God, she's channelling Churchill again,' says my If you think old England's done? beloved. 'Juliette, are you there? I want to talk to Juliette ... ' Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring-think of that reso­ 'Give her tea,' says our son, at this juncture. nant, baritone voice, delivered so often in tones of exasperation 'I'm adding a Tim Tam,' I hear my husband saying, through with some dithering dolt, usually Pike. Yet the sternness was re­ the red, white and blue mist. assuring somehow. After all, in the world they were fighting for, Episode 1 of As It Happened covers D-Day, the 'longest 'stupid boys' such as Pike were cared for instead of being steri­ day', 6 June 1944, when the Allies landed in Normandy at five lised or euthanised. Pompous as he was, Mainwaring embodied beaches code-named Utah, Gold, Juno, Sword and Omaha. the best of ordinary Brits: that sense of the ridiculous, asperity The documentary interviews soldiers from all sides including that wasn't mean-and matter-of-fact courage when required. German. But I have an account from Uncle George (he who was His decrepit bumblers were the Home Guard of Walmington­ rescued from Dunkirk carrying a piano accordion he'd bought in on-Sea. This remnant was the last line of defence against the a French bar, and had to chuck it into the sea as the little boat super-efficient Wehrmacht. If it went bad with the best of the was overloaded). He is still mystified about the cock-up that fighting men, they would make the last stand. (They would have led to the carnage of the American troops on Omaha beach as been Britain's Fretilin, I suppose.) they ran into a steady stream of Nazi bullets, turning the sea My dad was unable to fight in the war, unlike his brother into viscous red soup. In the meantime, only a short distance George. Dad had glasses as thick as prisms and a twisted away, British forces were landing without much trouble. He foot. He kept trying to enlist whenever things took a turn for said (it seemed to be a generally held impression among British the worse. 'Do you need me yet?' he'd ask. 'No, not yet, Mr soldiers) that the further away you were from the Yanks, the Hughes,' they'd reply. safer-because, even if their generals weren't flinging them Dad was working as an engineering inspector at Fairey's straight into the Nazi guns, they themselves were Aviation in Manchester by day, and worked the night roster as trigger-itchy; friendly fire was an ever-present danger. an air-raid warden. The industrial north of England was a prime target for the Nazis, so he saw plenty of enemy action without N OTHING CHANGES-ask the lads in Iraq. Uncle George's gaining any uniformed glory. He was one of that unsung army son is in the Regulars and saw action in Basra. We all hope he can who was prepared to fight them, as Churchill said in those dark stay far away from the Americans. Another SBS documentary, at days of mid-1940, 'on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the 8.30pm on Tuesday, 3 May-Cutting Edge: A Soldier's Heart­ fields and in the streets, in the hills'. looks at the problems that beset the ordinary US soldier caught Dad's and Uncle George's stories come back to me when up in hideous situations. A nervous over-reaction can lead to I consider the upcoming series on SBS As It Happened: tragedy, because soldiers who are constantly insecure become Germany's War. It's going to organise Saturday evenings at over-vigilant. This doesn't, unfortunately, mean that they notice 7.30 here at Emoh Ruo for some time to come because it lasts everything that they should, because anxiety cloaks reality. It for nine weeks through May and June. It covers the final two looks as though Iraq is a place where everyone can lose. years of the war, when the tide finally began to turn against Subsequent episodes of Germany's War show that the Nazis. It's one of the most compelling war documenta­ Americans weren't the only ones with bad judgment. Watching ries ever; the product of inspired collaboration between ZDF the 14 May episode, you'll be fascinated and angry. The terrible (the German TV channel), the American History Channel, blunder at Monte Cassino monastery was the fault of New Channel 4 and Russian TV. Zealand's General Sir Bernard Freyberg. He caused the deaths 'Bit of an antidote to Private Ryan, isn't it?' says my beloved. of the Benedictine monks and hundreds of Italian refugees, and I remember that movie: it was much less historically also gave the Nazis a huge military advantage as they dug into accurate than Dad's Army Churchill's 'fight them on the the ruins and killed many Allies, including Aussies, from their beaches' speech came four years earlier, at a time when the fine new vantage point. Americans hadn't felt moved to do anything yet; when their Clever men can be a lot more threatening than stupid boys. jury, so to speak, was still out on whether they would actually Lest we forget. enter the war on the side of the guy who seemed to be so sound on matters of race. Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer.

50 EUREKA STREET MAY 2005 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM

puzzled Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 133, May 2005

ACROSS

1. Distress call to join the pole dance? (6) 5. The trouble with the subject is its import. (6) 9. Heavenly being hovers over America reciting this joyfully. (7) 10. Conventional fi gure is above board. (6) 12. The Brontes, for example, visit the Blue Mountains for this view. (3, 5, 7) 13. Strikes occurring in Whitsuntide. (4) 14. Liable for adjustment, perhaps, Vita taped a different program . (10) 18. Left Raymond briefly in Germany for a start, possibly painting pictures. (10) 19. Oddly, gold utterly in oversupply. (4) 21. Sort of decision taken without thinking it through-not much time! (4, 2, 3, 6) 24. Wanders away from saintly beams of light? (6) 25. Frying pan poor, perhaps, but worth taking for a trial period. (2, 5) 26. Good looking? Rather! (6) 27. Legatees take initially what belongs to them. (6)

DOWN

2. Month when so-called adviser became the one who increased Solution to Crossword no. 132, April 2005 production. (9) 3. Blue flowers cut at the site of the oracle. (6) 4. Eye strayed out east! Was it last night? (9) 5. One of the nine sisters, she gazes meditatively. (5) 6. It may be rash; duty, however, requires us to keep holy this time of the ascent. (8) 7. Eastern lake can be uncanny. (5) 8. Pat's pet shot unexpectedly over the finishing line. (4, 3, 4) 11 . Extra big temporary shelter at headless 'Lion Inn' is noted for its showiness. (11) 15. Ten days after 6-down, write the price-breathlessly. (9) 16. The sick modify grumpiness. (3-6) 17. To be downright about decapitated animal is very high-handed. (8) 20. Give party on nature strip-don't consider boring old city! (6) 22. Speak arrant nonsense, perhaps. (5) 23. Exam at beginning of year makes one cantankerous. (5)

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