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Cryptic century In this month's Emel

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Dastgah Diary of a Headtrip By Mark Mordue

From a lightning storm in Calcutta to heroin addi cts in Tehran, fro m a dea d boy by a roadside in the Nepalese Himalaya to New York disappearing in a mist, Da stgah maps a one-year journey across the planet. Private refl ections, comic anecdotes, poetry, dreams and the radica l spirit of new journalism are all called upon as award-winning writer Mark Mordue weaves through questions of identity and love on the road, building a refined diary that walks the line between reporting on the world and getting lost in it.

Thanks to Allen & Unwin, Eureka Street has 15 copies of ) Dastgah to give away. Just put your nam e and add ress ~ ) on the back of an envelope and send it to: ) Eureka Street January- February 2002 ? Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond, ~ VIC, 3 12 1. (See page 8 for winners of the November 2001 book offer.) ALLEN&UNWIN <)> O:s: ' > CCl EUREKA STREE I3::)> ,._,z:~ zm cO :s:-n .,-o mC "'""-c:: - n ~~ C-n )>)> ~;;a ;:;;-II -"' COI"'m §;?; ~v! COMMEN T 8z"'> "-' 0 4 Michele M. Gierck Letter to a tank COVER STORY -1 commander I 26 Transitions I 0r East Timor in progress: photo 0 Cl essay by Michael Coyne. -< SNAPS HOT 27 Transitions II 6 Director's cut, answered prayers, Refugee lawyer Martin Clutterbuck prizes, rights, refugees and n ew turns storyteller. archbishops.

BOOKS LETTERS 33 Ca th olic identity and the abortion 8 Philip Mendes, John East debate Tony Coady reviews Dombrowski Publisher Andrew Ham ilton 51 and Deltete. Editor Morag Fraser THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C Assis tant editor Kate Manton 38 The short list Graphic des igner Siob han Jackson 1 0 Margaret Coffey In m emoriam : Reviews of the books In Fear of General manager M ark Dowell Herb Feith Security; Taliban; September 11 ; Marketing Kirsty Grant 11 Bill Thomas Tiger attack Advertising representative Ken Hea d Religion and Culture in Asia Pa cific; Subscription manager Wendy Marl owe 13 John Sendy Batting average Jesus and the Gods of the New Age Editorial, production and administration 14 Andrew Hamilton Therese's things and Bowling Alone. assistants Juli ette Hughes, Paul Fyfe 51, 14 Philip Harvey In a word Geraldine Batt ersby, Ben Hider, Susanna h 39 Party profiles Buckl ey, Kate Hird, Mrs Irene Hunter Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg John Button reviews Liberalism and O'Kelly 51, Perth: Dean Moore, Sy dney: the Australian Federation and Tru e COLUMNS Edmund Ca mpion & Gera rd Windsor, Believers. Queensland : Peter Pi erce 7 Ca pital Letter United Kingdom Deni s Minns OP 41 Games we play Jack Waterford Dividing the spoils Jes uit Editorial Board Peter L' Estrange 51, Michael McGirr takes a punt with Andrew Bullen 51, Andrew Hamilton 51 12 Summa Th eologiae Peter Steele 51, Bill Uren 51 The Best Ever Australian Sports Patrons Eureka Street gratefully Andrew Hamilton Ordinary happiness Writing and Local Rites. acknowledges th e support of C. and A. Ca rt er; th e trustees of th e es tate 20 By th e W ay 43 So und Winton of Miss M . Condon; W .P. & M .W. Gurry Brian Matthews Dad's army Juliette Hughes sings along with Eureka Street magazine, 155N 1036- 1758, 25 Archimedes Tim Winton 's Dirt Music. Australia Post Print Post approved pp349181 /00314, is published ten times a Tim Thwaites The colt we may regret 44 Th e writing of wisdom year by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 50 Watching Bri ef John Sendy reads the letters of Henry 300 Vi ctoria Street Ri chmond VIC 3121 Handel Richardson. PO Box 553, Ri chmond VIC 3121 Juliette Hughes Rings and changes Tel: 03 94 27 731 1 Fax: 03 9428 4450 45 Ripe pi ckings email: eureka ®jespub.jesuit.org.au Hugh Dillon samples the latest http://www .eurekastree t.com.au/ Res ponsibility for editorial content is FEATURES collection of essays from Clive James. accepted by Andrew Hamilton 51. 300 Victori a Street, Ri chmond 1 6 Where are we now? 46 Th e dark gent Printed by Dora n Printing Robert Manne gave som e national Robert Phiddian reviews Katherine 46 Industri al Drive, Braeside VIC 3195. co-ordinates at the Eureka Street Duncan-Jones' Ungentle Shakespeare. © j esuit Publications 2002 dinner. Unsolicited manuscripts will be returned only if accompan ied by a stamped, 21 Th e new breed se lf-a ddressed enve lope. Requests for FLASH IN THE PAN permi ss ion to reprint materi al from th e Peter Browne profiles Peter Andren. magazine shou ld be ad dressed in writing 24 Ri ghts rou ghed 48 Reviews of the films Th e Golden Bowl; to th e editor. When the going gets tough, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Th is month: governments ride over human rights, Stone; Beijing Bicycle; Monsoon Cover des ign by Siobh an Jac kson. argues Moira Rayner. Wedding and The Score. Cover photograph by Michael Coyne: Highland wedding in East Timor. 31 Th e law of words Graphics pp6, 16- 19, 20, 24, 33-36, 45, Steven Columbus looks at refugee 46-47 by Siobhan Jackson. SPEC IFI C LEV ITY Cartoon p1 3 by Dea n Moore. rhetoric, government legislation and Ph otograph p21 by Peter Brow ne. the UN Convention. 5 1 Joan Nowotny Cryptic crossword C OMMENT MICHELE M. G I ER C K

Letter to a tank commander

I "-M' M"'R OUR fit" meeting. We wete ptcpating democratic right of choice, you were prepared to die. presentations for international aid workers. Your topic Later, you appeared in military uniform. 'Dressed was 'civil/military co-operation'. Mine was 'working to kill/ I remarked, but then caught my breath-that with refugees'. Although you were casually dressed, green camouflage garb triggered memories of military your whole being exuded a military air: the physique, madness. You listened; suggested we go somewhere short-cropped hair, the tan, the demeanour. for a chat. N ever once did you seek to disengage. Australian so ldier on th e beach, Dili, 2001. I wondered as we began that week-long course, You told me about your work: looking after those Photograph ed by Michae l how a peace activist like myself who had denounced in your command and following orders. And if the Coyne while he was on so many military atrocities, could end up working enemy falls? That's the fault or weakness of their location in East Timor with a tank commander. commander. And you added, or at least this is what doing photographic Our first conversation was challenging. I thought I heard you say, 'And I have to live with that.' background work for th e pl ay Tour of Duty. I explained that, had we met ten years ago, I would How do you live with that? How does anyone? The play, by Graham Pitts, not have been able to speak to you. I was then so angry I realised that down to your last drop of blood, you con cern s a WWII so ldier at the military for what they had done in Latin would look after those m en and women under your who returns to Ea st Timor America, and for all the US funding and weaponry command-an admirable quality. to recover th e Iulie (s pirit) that was used against the people and communities I had learned a lot about the military during the of th e pl ace and to find th e East Timorese I had worked with in El Salvador. You replied civil war in El Salvador. The safety and security of criado (guide) who once instantly: if I chose to be angry with the military, so my friends and colleagues in that country depended sa ved hi s life. be it, but in order that I and other Australians had the on my not engaging with the military, so I learnt how

4 EUREKA STREET • j ANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 to avoid them, how to cast my eyes down when an part. You knew I did not have a clue who you really encounter was unavoidable, how to keep quiet, and, were; that in six days I had not managed to get beyond when the lives of the people I loved were under direct the military surface. What's more, you had been military threat, how to pick the moment to speak up. subjected to so much of my past as I relived it that (Was I now expected to capitulate?) week and I found your strategic approach devastat­ Unlike you, I was not trained for war. I didn't ing. I was left to ponder if the only reason we engaged know the first thing about grenades, bombs or bullets at all was so that you could meet your military objec­ when I first landed in El Salvador. There are, however, tives-what is referred to as 'commander's intent'. some things that don't take long to learn. But still we listened to each other intently. At DM4, the infamous Salvadoran military base Something seemed to shift. The real dialogue of two located at the foot of the mountains, a camouflage human beings who live in different worlds could wall is painted with h uge black letters, in Spanish: now begin. 'No Mission Im possible'. Even then, I knew the haunt­ Later that afternoon, you took me to visit a ing truth of that m essage. In 1996, 15 years after the military base in Brisbane. You wanted me to see that El Mozote massacre, the New York Times reported not all military bases were like OM4 in El Salvador. that as many as 1000 unarm ed peasants had been Walking around were regular Australians who could killed. That mission was unleashed from DM4. I worked be neighbours or family. The next day, as we said our with the one fe male survivor-Rufina Amaya. farewells, you reminded me that I now had Until the day I stepped into that military head­ "{ i{ T a friend in the military. quarters at DM4, I had supposed that evil existed but I had never actually fel t it. At that mom ent, in that V V HEN I RETURNED HOME, I emailed colleagues from place, I knew, right down in my bones, that evil was El Salvador. One, Ana, was a young girl when the precisely what I was experiencing. Salvadoran military rolled tanks into the parish of San Life for m e since then has never been the sam e. Antonio Abad in the capital of San Salvador, splatter­ Perhaps, as a tank commander, there were times, ing everything in their wake: the fence, the garden, decisive moments, which changed you forever too. and the priest, Father Octavia Ortiz-Ana's brother. One of our finer m om ents of en gagem ent That was before the war officially began. During the occurred on the dance floor. Who would ever imagine war Ana's four other brothers were killed and the that an Australian tank commander could dance salsa m ountains where she was born were bombed-exten­ as well as any respectable Latin American? Som e­ sively and persistently. where between the twirling, the Latin American After m y en counter with you, it was Ana's rhythms and the perspiration, we were just two people counsel I sought. (Perhaps I wrote out of guilt, having enjoying the music and dancing. fraternised with the enemy.) Ana could just imagine Later you talked to m e of good military and bad m e twirling the night away. In fact, she couldn't help military. Australians in your schem a were naturally but laugh- Michele bein g spun around by the good. You spoke of their peace-keeping roles. But military. She added, if that's what it takes to fi x my weren't we the ones who trained the Indonesian injured back, then why stop? Special Forces before the system atic devastation of But som ewhere in that message, Ana was encour­ East Timor? And what about the US military, train­ aging m e to leave the past behind. Not to forget, but ing elite Latin American forces including perpetrators to move on. Had I been caught in the past while my of th e El M ozote civilian m assacre? Who is Salvadoran friends and colleagues embraced responsible? reconciliation? As the days passed, I began to glimpse the man I will continue to believe that alternative behind the uniform. Yet, a voice kept reminding me, solutions to war are possible. As you said, that is my 'he's m ilitary'. I began to disengage. From your right. After all th e refugee camps, the bombed perspective, my disengagement resulted from my lack communities, and the devastated people I have seen of having any clear obj ectives. But I could not bring trying to rebuild their shattered lives years after the myself to debate tactics. war finishes, I consider it my responsibility. I hadn't slept all week. My past was keeping me Thirteen years ago, issues of war and peace company, surrounding me. seemed so black and white. But it's not that simple, The last day of the course was a relief. I knew is it? There are so many areas of grey. That's where I needed to touch home base. In the final hours, during I stand now, up to my neck in grey as I search for a a scheduled feedback session, you and I sat down and degree of humanity in social responses, and in each faced each other. The tank commander and the peace human being I encounter. I just never expected to activist finally get down to tin tacks. There is a lot find that humanness behind the uniform of a man they admire in each other. who commands military manoeuvres from inside I was impressed by your strategic abilities and an army tank. communication skills. You, as I recall, noted my zest for life and sense of humanity. Then came the tricky Michele M. Gierck is a freelance writer.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 5 clapped out and the rooms overcrowded. Peace) they called for a concerted grass­ So the novices held a novena of Masses, roots campaign to change perceptions that the leadership would take notice of and, ultimately, policy, on the detention their distressed building. Exactly one and treatment of asylum seekers. Both month later, the building burnt down. questioned the government's position on family reunion. Chris Sidoti noted, with Adelaide disgust, the occasional practice of holding Festival trials family members in different detention camps, a situation made even more The tribulations of this year's Adelaide distressing when Department officials Festival have made depressing reading. make no effort to notify relations about Losing Artistic Director Peter Sellars only the welfare of those dearest to them. three months before opening night (was Scooping Details of the Human Rights Register he pushed or did he jump?) is certainly the pool are available on the Commission's regrettable and one doesn't envy new website: www .melb.catholic.aust.com / director Sue Nattrass' task of trying to December 2001 was a busy month for agency fjustice.html tidy up what is obviously a pretty sorry Peter Mares, Eureka Street regular and mess. But several points must be made ABC broadcaster. In recognition of his about this saga. Whatever the short­ recent book about Australia's refugees, comings of Sellars' eventual program, and Borderline, Mares received both the despite the failure of vision that saw the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity partial unravelling of his nine-person Commission's Human Rights Award associate director structure, any seasoned 2001 in the category 'Arts Non-Fiction', observer-let alone the Festival Board­ and the Centre for Australian Cultural Asp inall's should have seen it coming. What Sellars Studies Award 2001 for an outstanding election delivered was surely pretty much what contribution to Australian cultural life. he promised two years ago. Eureka Street readers will recall Mares' Brisbane's next Anglican archbishop was And this is not the first opportunity two recent articles, in July/August 2000 elected in November 2001. lost for the Adelaide Festival. Indeed, its and November 2001, on Woomera and on At 41 , Bishop Phillip Aspinall is the earliest days are best remembered for the events surrounding the Tampa . youngest archbishop ever chosen in what it didn't do rather than for what it Australia (beating Primate Dr Peter did. Was it not the very first Festival of Carnley by a year). In a church desperate 1960 that turned down Alan Seymour's for renewal, his youth flags a generational The One Day of the Year, because it change and new ways of leadership. might offend the RSL? And didn't it Diocesan clergy fears-that the pro­ follow suit in its second (1962) by not longed selection process would come up doing Patrick White's too-depressing The with a manager rather than a pastor­ Ham Funeral? Given that both plays have Raising were fanned when a m edia release listed since taken honoured places in the the rights flag Dr Aspinall's Master in Business Admin­ Australian dramatic canon, could the istration. But at his first media confer­ Adelaide Festival again be left wonder­ Many church leaders have recently taken ence on 16 November, the archbishop elect ing what might have been? up the cause of asylum seekers and refu­ confounded expectations by making an gees. Most, understandably, speak of the eloquent pastoral response to the events claim that asylum seekers make on our of September 11 . He reminded journalists hospitality and kindness. But Adelaide's that passengers on doomed aeroplanes new Catholic Archbishop, Philip Wilson, headed for the World Trade Center and in a notable recent statement, insisted the Pentagon telephoned loved ones. that our support was also a matter of jus­ 'At the deep core of human life,' he tice. As human beings and as societies, said, 'what ultimately matters are things Burnt we owe protection to the unprotected. like love and compassion and relation­ offerings In Melbourne, the mood was related. ships, and finding the courage to be truly Exactly one month after the recent fed­ oneself ... That's when people discover Are prayers answered? Sometimes, as the eral election, former Human Rights com­ what it really means to be fully human Bible says, in mysterious ways. Margaret missioner Chris Sidoti and former Liberal and to be fully alive.' Walsh's recent, capacious The Good Minister for Immigration Ian McPhee Dr Aspinall has been assistant-bishop Sams tells a story of how the novitiate made forthright statements. Speaking at in the Diocese of Adelaide since 1998 and building of the Sisters of the Good the launch of the 2001 Human Rights chairs Anglicare Australia. He will be Samaritan, in Sydney, was run down, the Register (compiled by the Catholic Com­ installed in St John's Cathedral on hot-water system and the plumbing mission for Justice, Development and 2 February.

6 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 Dividing the spoils

I HN HowARO" smc '"voming the moment. He will pwbably not have so easy a task before her. Howard has no great intention keep doing so all the way to February, when he will have to of helping the states out of the problems of hospital funding. address a Budget by then looking about $3 billion in deficit. It's The new secretary of Health will be Jane Halton-very able, not that the political antennae are not out checking what his but highly aggressive. Even her champion, Max Moore-Wilton, political opponents-particularly in his own party-are doing, jokes that he has been trying to teach her to go for the knees but the Prime Minister is looking very relaxed and comfo rtable rather than the throat. Halton is Canberra's first second­ after his toughest year yet in politics. He has very little in his generation secretary- her father was also a secretary. From her in-tray, and not a little good-humoured mischief on his mind. deputy secretary's position in the Prime Minister's Department, Retiring? I'd be very surprised indeed if he faced the next she was the one who co-ordinated the Howard government's election, but he has no idea of doing Peter Costello any favours response to the Tampa affair and also the deploym ent of troops and will go at a time entirely of his own choosing. Until he in Afghanistan. Tony Abbott, in industrial relations, will have does, he will run government his way, as if to set up yet another Canberra's most ideological and political secretary, Peter Boxall, victory by himself. John Howard got where he did by being doing his barking for him, and will as well be Howard's primary himself and now, in his sweetest moment, he is not going to strategist in parliament-hardly a sign that H oward intends change, even if, as ever, he remains flexible on issues that are to lower the temperature on chamber acrimony. not central for him. But forget the idea that he may do aU-turn The hopefuls who have fixed their fortunes on Costello­ on his refugee policy, or on Aboriginal affairs. If his successors, such as Bruce Baird-failed to get promotion in the reshuffle, whoever they are, want to change course, that will be a matter and the only complete dud to get marching orders was Bronwyn for them , but he is not going to make their task easier. Bishop, who can do Howard little harm if only because she com­ It would not be strictly correct to say that he is actively mands so little support. On the other hand, Howard was not sabotaging Peter Costello as the natural, ultimate successor, only willing to retain, but actually promoted into cabinet, the but Howard has done all that he can to keep a few rivals in the hapless Ian Macfarlane, the minister in so much trouble over ring. Tony Abbott has been effectively promoted, and so has GST shenanigans until he was saved by the Tampa affair Brendan Nelson and som e other ambitious politicians from in early September. NSW and elsewhere. None have significant personal support bases-they will depend on Howard's goodwill for any success ITMAY WELL BE THAT THE m ost comfortable prospect facing that they enjoy-but all have platforms from which they can Howard, however, is the knowledge that yet again he has Labor show off what talents they have. And some have opportunities over a strategic barrel. Presumably, this time around, Labor will to look good at a time when Costello m ay be looking m ean, be doing rather more to develop policies so that they are seen tricky and difficult to communicate with (in part because he 'to stand for som ething'. But whom are they campaigning will be dealing with the Howard-Costello black hole). against ? Suppose that Howard does go. Suppose too that Peter Brendan Nelson has been given education and, clearly, the Costello wins the leadership. One can assume that Costello task of repairing the relationship with the universities. More­ will fairly abruptly change a few symbolic policies, if only to over he has been given a departmental secretary, Peter Shergold, demonstrate that a new, forward-thinking man is now in charge. with some capacity for making ministers look good. Nelson If Labor has, in effect, pitched itself against Howard, it might may be a moderate of the type Howard-ever the factional not be difficult for Costello to sneak by on Labor's left. Yet if warrior- despises, but he is not being set up in the way that Labor recognises Costello as the likely enem y and keeps its most of the senior moderates, such as Amanda Vanstone and focus on him, its parliamentary performance against Howard Michael Wooldridge, were set up in 1996. The moderates then is likely to be weak-a fact which Howard will exploit. It could were given the big-spending departments, and the biggest almost incite him to do som e sort of Hawke in imagining that agenda for cuts; most had to severely mortgage their own he, and he alone, could bring back the Liberals a fourth time. reputations to survive. Nelson, by contrast, may not be there Somehow, however, I doubt it. Howard didn't ge t where he did to preside over a major expansion, but he will not be the in politics, or survive so long, by self-delusion; Bob Hawke did, minister for bad n ews. at least while others were willing to stroke him. • No doubt Kay Patterson, the new Minister for Health, does not want to be the minister for bad news either, but she may Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of the Canberra Times.

V OLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 7 LETTER S

Eurp/..a StrPet welcomP'> conflict and violence between Palestinians In two minds letters from our readt>r'> and the Israeli army. Short letters are more likely There seem s to be a consensus inside to bt> published, and all Recent events in the Middle East present a letters may be edited. LPttt'r'> Israel that the debate over the settlements tragic and sobering reality for those of us must bP signed, and should was lost in the 19 70s, and that they will committed to a peaceful solution of the mdudc• a umtact phone never be dismantled. However, the one Israeli- Palestinian conflict. More than ever, number and the writer's continuing certainty in the Middle East is the region seems dominated by ideas and name and address. Send to: that all Palestinians will continue to regard eureka ra• jespub. Je"u it.org.au or action s of extremism and violence, rather 1'0 llox 'iS l, Richmond VIC 112 1 the settlements as illegal, immoral, and an than those of moderation and reconciliation. unacceptable foreign intrusion into their Until the outbreak of the Palestinian Jewish settlem ent in the biblical areas territory. They will alm ost certainly intifada, I believed that a clear-cut two-state ca ll ed Ju dea and Samaria. Labor govern­ continue to target the settlers with indis­ solution was not only the m ost practica l, m ents both prior to 1977 and fo llowing the criminate and often brutal violence in an but also the most likely, if not inevitable, Oslo Accord of 1993 also actively initiated attempt to force them to leave. outcome of the peace process. However, and expanded settlem ents. There is therefore an urgent need for an with hindsight, it now appears that the 0 lo The most recent Peace Now Settlement internal Israeli debate around the future of Accord was based on the inherently fatal Watch report estimates that 146 Israeli the settlem ents, and their implications for defect of assuming that pragmatic conflict settlem ents with a total population of the peace process. This debate would need resolution could overcome the em otive and around 203,000 settlers exist in the West to recognise the political errors of the Israeli irrational aspects of the conflict. Bank and Gaza Strip. These settlements sit core narrative of the last 34 years, and In short, the Oslo Accord did not require alongside a total Palestinian population of particularly the fa tal mistake of aligning either the Israelis or the Palestinians to approximately three million people. Most military and security concerns in the terri­ participate in a process of honest self­ significantly, there has been a 52 per cent tories with political obj ectives. It will also examination leading to a deconstruction of growth in housing in settlements, and an require an explicit amendment to the Israeli their core narratives regarding the history approximately 72 per cent growth in the Law of Return designating that it does not and the causes of the conflict. Consequently, settler population, since the signing of the apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This n either side was willing to com e to terms Oslo Accord in September 1993. This build­ is not likely to be a debate with a simple or with the practical rea lity of dividing a land in g has also been accompanied by the speedy resolution. into two separate states, or m ove towards paving of over a hundred Israeli bypass The Palestinian claim to a righ t of identifying the core limits of their proposed roads designed to strengthen ties between return inside Israel similarly acts as a core final state or territory. the settlements and Green Line Israel. barrier to a two-state solution. In particular, t h e Israelis failed to Many of these settlem ents exist in or T he concept of a right of return was examine how the continued presence of near densely populated Palestinian areas. based on the UN General Assembly reso­ militant Jewish settlem ents in sovereign For a number of reasons, the presence of lution 194 of December 1948, which gave Palestinian territory could possibly be com­ the settlers inflames Palestinian opinion. Palestinian refugees the option of return or patible with a two-state solution . And First, the confiscation of Palestinian land compen sation. H owever, by the early similarly the Palestinians fa iled to concep­ for Jewish settlem ents involves a second 1950s, it was obvious that the Israelis tualise how the proposed return of hostile dispossession for Palestinians, many of would not permit the bulk of the refugees Palestinian refugees to Green Line Israel whom lost their original homes in 1948. to return, and that equally the neighbour­ could possibly be acceptable to a sovereign Second, the settlers regard themselves ing Arab states would refuse to permit any Jewish state. as the true owners of the territories, and organised resettlem ent. The problem of the Jewish settlem ents make no attempt to recognise Palestinian Prior to the 1967 Six Day War, Pales­ needs to be addressed first for the simple national or political rights. On the contrary, tinian right of return rhetoric was used to reason that their presence has long acted many settlers engage in verbal and physical deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel, as a foreclosure on the peace process. In abuse of the Palestinian population, includ­ and so provide a rationale fo r the Arab addition, the current centre-right Isra eli ing violent assault and murder. Third, the refu sal to recognise the State of Israel. government is firmly opposed not only to presence of the settlers provokes constant However, following the 1967 war, the their dismantling, but even to a cessation international debate shifted from questions of existing plans for expansion. November 2001 Book O tte r W inners about the legitimacy of Israel within the R. Borrell, Po rt Fairy, V IC; D. Ca rroll , Ga rran, Contrary to popular perception, the ACT; W . Du Ve, Deepdene, VIC; M . Fi tzgerald, Green Line borders to questions about the settlem ents were not solely the creation of Wel lington Poin t, Q LD; N. Ga rdner, Thi rroul, legitimacy of a Palestinian state in the West right-wing governments committed to the NSW; S. Houghton, Westbury, TAS; N. Lanskey, Bank and Gaza Strip. The subsequ ent concept of a Greater Israel. To be sure, the Edmonton, Q LD; S. j. Fl etcher, Box Hill South, political contest for or against a two-state VIC; E. M ea dows, Parkvi lle, VIC; A. R. Begin and Shamir Likud governments were Molomby, Es se nd on, VIC; E. Robin son, Seacliff solution explicitly assumed that any primarily respon sible for their massive Park, SA; A. Stevenso n, M awson, ACT; j. Suth­ resolution of the Pales tinian refugee resourcing and growth. However, there was erl and, Mos man, NSW; R. Wa lsh, Newdegate, tragedy would be addressed within the a broader national consensus in favour of WA; j. Wilso n, Toowoomba, Q LD . territories occupied by Israel in 1967.

8 EURE KA STREET • j AN UARY- FEB RUARY 2002 The current Palestinian position, how­ Writing in the 1999 text The Palestinian narrative may be harder than for the Israelis ever, is that a right of return must also apply Exodus (edited by Ghada Karmi and Eugene given that the former still lack an estab­ to Green Line Israel. This position is backed Cotran), Khalidi acknowledges the immense lished nation state. This is particularly by suicide bombings inside Israel which gap between Israeli and Palestinian narratives the case given that there are now Pales­ suggest an opposition to Israel per se, rather of 1948, and the practical barriers to any tinian right of return coalitions all over than an opposition to the Israeli occupa­ return of refugees to Israel. N evertheless, the world campaigning for wha t they tion of the territories. Khalidi recommends that Israel formally rec­ describe as an inalienable right. N ever­ To be sure, the proposed right of return ognise its primary responsibility for the cre­ theless, it is an internal debate that the is currently theoretical rather than real. ation of the Palestinian refugee problem, and Palestinians h ave to have if there is to be However, as with the actual presence of accept at the very least a responsibility to any hope of movement towards a genuine coerced Jewish settlements inside Palestin­ compensate the refugees for loss of property. two-state solution. ian territories, a plan for a coerced Pales­ He suggests that this recognition occur Philip Mendes tinian presence inside Israel constitutes an within the context of a truth and reconcil­ Kew, VIC unacceptable foreign intrusion into a iation commission similar to that currently sovereign state. existing in South Africa. What Khalidi For the Palestinians, the right of return doesn't do, however, is extend this prescrip­ Second impressions is a core narrative which clashes head-on tion of repentance to the Arab states which with two forms of reality. First, no repre­ were equally involved in the 1948 war. Robin Gerster concedes that 'Perhaps it is sentative segment of the Israeli population Perhaps this is in part because the five just too soon to write about what happened from Left to Right will accept the return of Arab states involved are still unwilling to on September 11 ' ('Recu rring Images', 1948 refugees to Israel. Second, the Pales­ open their archives on the 1948 war to Eureka Street, November 2001) but that has tinian narrative of 1948 has to confront the historians, let alone publicly expose their in no way deterred him from giving us absolutely dichotomous Israeli narrative of actions to international analysis and criti­ another 2000 words on the subject. His 1948. For the Israelis, the core story of 1948 cism. Yet as Edward Said noted recently in article is rich in meteorological detail, but is not the dispossession of the Palestinians, The War fo r Palestine (Cambridge, 2001), poor in serious analysis. Yet he contemp­ but rather the unprovoked attack on the their decision (with the partial exception tuously dismisses writers who have fledgling Jewish state by neighbouring Arab of Jordan) to confine and isolate the Pales­ attempted to find the real significance countries. tinian refugees, rather than welcome and behind the CNN images: Edward Said is an While a number of Israeli revisionist sustain them, was and remains scandalously 'old critical warhorse', Susan Sontag is historians, including most prominently inhumane. Moreover, it is unlikely that the accused of 'colossal fatuousness' and Benny Morris, have debunked the mythical Israelis will enter into any serious atone­ 'polemical chutzpah', John Pilger is 'the Israeli version of 1948, few Palestinians m ent for their actions in 1948 unless great gadfly'. Gerster is surely correct in have been willing to deconstruct the Pal­ discussion also extends to the broader saying that 'the events have yet to be prop­ estinian version. One scholar, Professor context of the associated military conflict erly digested'. Unfortunately his article Rashid Khalidi from Chicago University with the Arab states. only contributes to our dyspepsia. has, however, at least been willing to ask For the Palestinians, coming to terms John East the hard questions. with the practical limits of their core Greenslopes, Qld Men of hospitality Living and proclairning God's hospitable love

As li ved out by StJohn of advocacy and reconciliation Will you dare to accept God's God over five centuries ago, for those marginalised by our invitation to a life dedicated our vocation is to give of society. to hospitality? ourselves compl etely and Our core of hospitality If so please contact: freely; to be a brotherly compels and urges us to Br.John C legg OH. presence; a symbol of hope deepen our relationship with Vocati ons Director. PO Box BN 1055, for the world; proclaiming God, o urselves and those Burwood North NSW 2134 God's hosp itabl e love to with whom we share our Australi a. all. lives, community and T elephone (02) 9747 1699 We are ca ll ed to a ministry. Fa csim.ile (02) 9744 3262 charism of hospitality and We are the: 'Brothers of Email pr ov in c i a l @s ~ o hn . c om .a u love that promotes heali ng, StJohn of God.' Website: www.stjohn.com.a u

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 9 - ~ 4'~ ~ ~ · ~ : THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC

his father was agnostic and his mother, during 1967 when he was living again in In memoriam secular in Vienna, joined the Liberal con­ Indonesia he joined Indonesian Council of gregation in Melbourne. Herb's contact with Churches delegations to visit political HERB FEITH , 1930-2001 the SCM and with his future wife, Betty prisoners. From the beginning he was critical Evans, drew him t owards a life-long of Indonesia's East Timor adventure and of H ERB FEITH , who died in Melbourne in engagement with Christians. Even before the Suharto government's human rights November at the age of 71 , was a remark­ he went to Indonesia that first time he was record. (He was denied a visa for eight years able and delightful person. When he was involved in the setting up of the annual as a result.) alive people knew that he was special, and appeal we call the Christmas Bowl. The In the early '80s, with Professor Joseph it has been in mourning him that so many Cam illeri and others, Herb set up the have discovered just how large and various Victorian Association for Peace Studies. is their company. Over the years Pax Christi m embers cam e Emeritus Professor Jamie Mackie of the to know him well and so did the students ANU has described Herb as one of the and staff at the Centre for Security and foremost scholars working on Indonesia Peace Studies at the University of Gadjah throughout the past half century, and as Mada who were, among oth er things, universally acknowledged to be the best involved in bringing together Muslim and and wisest of Australian scholars of Christian community leaders in Maluku. Indonesia . That's saying something. There The night before he died Herb was are many eminent Indonesia scholars in planning with Jo Camilleri a conference in Australia (for whom we are grateful, because response to the military intervention in they maintain inquiring, friendly and Afghanistan. The next morning he rang the knowledgeable contact with Indonesian ABC to say how much he had appreciated people and communities all the while our the Encounter program broadcast on Radio governm ent mood is in flux) . Herb Feith National that week: Florence Spurling's was their precursor. National Council of Churches in Australia program included an interview with Profes­ Herb Feith went to Indonesia first in (NCCA) sponsors it now, but it was initiated sor Larry Rasmussen of Uni on Theological 1951 as a new University of Melbourne by a Methodist minister who worked to Seminary in N ew York, who has written graduate to work with the Indonesian civil form the ecumenical International Relief about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Herb Feith service. In this way not only did he begin a and Rehabilitation Committee as a response admired Bonhoeff er greatly, and he life-long involvement with Indonesia, but to the needs of people affected by World especially welcomed Rasmussen's invoca­ also he pioneered the Volunteer Graduate War II. Betty Evans was herself a Method­ tion of Bonhoeffer in the aftermath of Schem e, which has since evolved into the ist, later a member of the Uniting Church, September 11 : 'How do yo u resist evil in Australian Volunteers In tern a tiona! organi­ and today she remains a committed ways that don't perpetuate violence and sation and which also partly prompted the Melbourne volunteer for the NCCA, where retaliation and don't issue in con tempt for setting up of the American Peace Corps. Herb too was a familiar figure. the enemy and humanity in general?' Many of those active in the Schem e's Herb took up a senior lectureship at Everyone who speaks of Herb Feith beginnings were members of the Student Monash University in 1961, shortly before mentions his ability to listen, to attend, to Christian Movement (SCM), which Herb the publication of his classic study of The pay respect. Everyone speaks of his modesty, had joined when he was 16. They shared an Decline of Constitutional Democracy in simplicity and generosity. With that atten­ international vision and a passion for social In donesia. He was co-founder there of the tion and simplicity Herb widened the world justice, and I like to refl ect that they had Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies for all those he met. Religion was part of arrived at this kind of world view when and an exemplary teacher. that wide world, not in any denominational they were teenagers at school, sustaining it, Nearly 30 years later, on his retirement or sectarian sense: in fact, Herb seemed free many of them, in action throughout their from Monash, Herb returned to Indonesia, of any kind of attachment other than to lives. Herb continued his connection with a volunteer again, to teach at the Univer­ people and ideals. He was devoted to the the SCM through its Indonesian branch. sity of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta. Betty idea of inter-religious dialogu e and to When Herb set sail for Indonesia he was went with him to teach English while Herb's recommending Islamic and Christian barely 21 and he had been in Australia only courses were on Indonesian history, peace thinkers who pursue this idea. Hence, he 12 years . He had spent his first years in studies and conflict resolution. To Herb, was a friend of Mangunwijaya-'Romo Vienna; his parents were Austrian Jews peace studies and conflict resolution were Mangun'-the Javanese priest/architect/ who fled with their only child in 1930. Herb never only academic issues: when he was a novelist and advocate for the poor who died remembered Kristallnacht. In his back­ schoolboy this Jewish refugee had collected three years ago. He was drawn to theology ground there were certainly observant food and clothing for German prisoners of that affirms a place in God's eternal plan fo r Orthodox Jews, even a Chief Rabbi of war. He knew of the bloodshed that m arked various religious traditions-theological Vienna. However, of his immediate family the ousting of Sukarno in 1965-66 and ideas he heard about from people like Father

10 EU REKA STREET • jANUA RY- FEBR UARY 2002 Bono SJ in Yogyakarta. Long before Islam and made a m ental note to visit that pool need to be treated on a respirator, some­ became the province of pundits, he was the next morning. times for many weeks. pointing people in the direction of thinkers Sunday morning, 9.30am beside the The m edi cal e m ergency s taff at such as Mohammad Arkoun and Farid Delatite. Glorious day, warm and sunny. Mansfield Hospital were ready for me. After Esack, and to the Indonesian Muslim and We got out of the car. As I was walking to a speedy, thorough examination I had an IV Christian activists for social justice and the back to get my waders, I fe lt my right leg drip inserted in my arm and an altogether democracy whom he so admired. being poked at with what I thought was a unpleasant catheter inserted to allow for The memorial service for Herb in bit of dry bracken. I jumped, and looked continuous urine analysis. Then a shot of Yogyakarta was an expression of all these behind m e, to see a large snake removing its adrenaline, followed by 3000 units of Brown things : there were many students and head from my leg and whipping away at snake and 3000 units of Tiger snake teachers and activists; the FCJ sisters (some about warp factor 9-the same speed that antivenene via the IV drip. of them originally from Melbourne) were I was moving in the opposite direction. The antivenene is manufactured from there, as were his village family who had I saw only about a metre-and-a-half of it at horse serum. Some people have a severe remained his family all those years since he any on e time, but it was thick and reaction to it that can result in anaphylactic had lived with them in 1953; and the Aus­ I suspected a Tiger snake. shock and death. There are two schools of tralian Ambassador came from Jakarta. The hardest immediate task was con­ thought about the use or otherwise of There were Muslim and Christian prayers vincing Martyn that I really had been bitten. adrenaline to reduce the chances of the and readings, and at one point a friend It was only when I ripped m y compression reaction. Having a fully equipped em er­ wheeled in Herb's bike, his helmet slung on bandage out of my fly-vest and started to gency room eased my mind more than a the handlebar. One obituarist wrote that apply it that he saw the blood and realised little and, fortunately, I appeared to have Herb Feith was almost a kind of secular that I was not having him on. He took over no adverse reaction to the antivenene at saint. He qualifies simply as a saint. and bandaged expertly over the bite and up that time. -Margaret Coffey my leg. We headed for Mansfield Hospital. I was almost certain that a Tiger snake Fortunately, we were within mobile range was the cause of my problems. The venom and I was able to phone ahead to let them of different snakes works in very different Tiger attack know how long we would be and what my ways so it is safer to treat for the snakes condition was. common to a given area until a positive PUTTING THE BITE Symptoms appeared: within 15 minutes identification can be made. Confirmation I TO FLY -FISH ! G I had a blinder of a headache and was in a comes from a swab test and takes about 20 lather of sweat. Tiger snake venom is both minutes. For this reason it is important not L MID-SPRING my mate Martyn suggested a pre- and post-synaptic neurotoxin and to wash the bite site or remove any clothes we fish the King River over the Melbourne rapidly affects the muscles. Double vision that may have venom on them. Cup long weekend. Work commitments and drooping eyelids are usually the first My test confinned that I had indeed been meant that I could only manage the Satur­ signs, the muscles in these areas being very bitten by a Tiger snake. The first lot of anti­ day and Sunday, so on the Friday night delicate. Then can come more serious venene had reduced my symptoms but they Martyn, his family, my 13-year-old son involvement of the cardiac and respiratory were starting to return, so I received a further Sam and I joined the thousands heading for muscles, in which case victims usually 3000 tmits of the Tiger snake antivenene. the mountains. We arrived at Pinnacle Valley resort too late to wet a line on Friday evening, but anticipated success the following morning. At lOam we m et John, our local guide, to discuss a plan of attack. Good recent rains had the rivers run­ ning fast but still clear. John suggested the Delatite in the morning, lunch and the Howqua in the afternoon, staying on for evening rise. The rains meant that road and stream­ side grass was about waist-high. The question of snake sightings arose. John had seen a few on the roads in the area and cautioned us to keep our eyes peeled. He went one step further and offered to lead and act as spotter (s tandard good guiding practice?). The fishing was mainly nymphing across and down. It yielded us two fish apiece by the end of the day-all in the 'alpine' category. I did, however, have a take on the Delatite that was much better than average, An Extra Large Fat Basta rd-size snake vi ctim needs an Extra Large helicopter. Photo: Karen Saunders.

V OLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 11 I was told that although things were going well, I needed to be moved to a hospital with a laboratory attached to it-for more accurate blood and urine monitoring. My blood tests were showing clotting problems and the presence of certain enzymes in the blood indicated muscle breakdown. Urine analysis showed both blood and sugar: my kidneys were threatened. Ordinary happiness Mansfield scrambled the police hcli­ copter from Melbourne. I was collected from the heliport just outside Mansfield, flown to the Alfred Hospital, met by my N ovEMBER WAS THE T IME FOR serious literary criticism. Harry Potter got banned partner Jenny and taken straight to the for sorcery. A friend attacked Emel

12 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 Postscript: after seeing me off at the Larwood; Ponsford's gallant 85 during which concentrated on batting advice (like many helicopter, Sam an d Martyn took my car he allowed himself to be hit on the body, bowlers he fancied himself as a batsman and returned to the spot I had intended to repeatedly, by fierce rising balls. and, indeed, was a useful tailender) and in fish that morning. A phone call to intensive Strangely, the famous incident of bawling us out for misdemeanours like care from Sam that night informed me that Woodfull being struck over the heart by forgetting our sandshoes on practice after­ he had bagged not one, but two fish in my Larwood did not survive in my memory. noons, a lapse condemned with memorable spot-a one-and-a-half-pound brown and a Later again came the almost unbeliev­ vehemence and effectiveness. one-pound rainbow! -Bill Thomas able: a few precious coaching sessions from After such intoxicating highlights my Clarrie Grimmett when for a season I was brilliant cricket career started to go bung, opening the batting and bowling for despite my playing on for years around the Batting average Norwood High. At 48 the diminutive Adelaide hills and suburbs. Grimmett, a towering figure in world So, from the age of innocence to cricket's WHEN CRICKET WAS CRICKET cricket, was still playing for South Aus­ modern times. Big money, television, tralia in the Sheffield Shield team. advertising, bottom lines and endless one­ M v CREDENTIALS AS a cricket critic could The general perception of Shane Warne day series which blur into the meaningless be considered dubious. Having played at as the greatest wrist spinner of all time is and forgettable have encouraged gambling only modest levels, with no dashing arguably incorrect when Grimmett's record and crime. Suspicion and doubt mar a game centuries or big swags of wickets, I displayed is analysed. He played his first Test at age once regarded as the epitome of fairness and a potential which never materialised. 33-older than Warne is now. His 2.16 Test sporting skill. Replays and big screens Nevertheless, my passion for cricket has wickets in 3 7 Tests at an average of 2.4.2.2. encourage viewer and player reaction and been long-lived and studded with unforget­ per wicket is superior to Warne's. His titillation. table moments and memories. wickets, it should be noted, were taken On-field unsporting behaviours, foul It began at a dried fruits block near the mainly against a cricket-strong England abuse and consistent sledging, perfected in Murray. Sitting on a dirt road under a few with batsmen of the calibre of Hobbs, the Chappell era, has slowly but surely scraggly trees, another small boy and I played Sutcliffe, Hammond and Leyland. Anyway, spread to all cricketing countries, and out Test matches just after Bradman's it seems that Bradman rated Grimmett throughout all levels. Snarled obscenities, breathtaking run spree in England. slightly ahead of Warne. taunts and insults disparage ability, courage Sun and sky dominated above the young Grimmett's appeals were low-key and and careers. Great bowlers like Warne and vines, trellises and irrigation channels. We he expressed no raucous or foul-mouthed McGrath resort to such abuse when batsmen sat less than two metres apart, with empty unseemliness when confounding his hit them about or when their appeals are oblong Log Cabin tobacco tins for wickets, opponents or being punished by them. rejected. Hurled returns from close range a marble for a ball and a tiny, rudely Unaccountably, Grimmett taught us often nearly decapitate batsmen who have fashioned piece of wood for a bat. Vehicles, virtually nothing about bowling but been given the benefit of the doubt by horse-drawn or motorised, umpires. rarely if ever disturbed us. Contrast Gary Sobers There, Larwood and Tate SO Nt.XT MONTt-t'S 600K CHOICe. 15 driving Benaud for four after would bowl to Woodfull, four in the 1960 tied Test. -AND I SP£AK fOR Ponsford and Bradman; and VIOC..E.f~ I'M SURE The bowler amiably ap­ f}J.,t., Of us wHet-t r SA. 'I r DR~ AD ro Tim Wall, Clarrie Grimmett IHINK. plauded the batsman's shots, and Patsy Hornibrook tack­ WMAI 'T!fAr MIGHT' Be./ acknowledging his prowess. led Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Some years back the Hammond. It was late 1930. struggling West Indian, Three years later I Robert Samuels, was watched two days of the labelled a '- - loser' by Adelaide Test to see the sledging Australians. He body line series reach a fren­ told Michael Holding that zied peak. Though long, long battling against the Austral­ ago some things rem ain ians provided a complete sex vivid: the 8.30am arrival to education. 'That just about secure seats for an 11am says it all,' com m en ted start; the draught horse haul­ Richie Benaud. ing the mower round the But such th ings have oval; the crescendo of boos always happened in cricket, for Jardine; the deafening according to sledging sup­ exuberance only m inutes porters! This is not correct. into the gam e when Tim During all my playing years Wall bowled the England never on ce was I abused or captain neck and crop; the tau n t ed n or di d I ever solidity of Maurice Leyland, h ear anyone else verbally Wyatt and Eddie Paynter; assaulted. Su ch conduc t the aw esom e sp eed of would h ave been regarded

V OLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EU REKA STR EET 13 as outrageous. Great bowlers of the past to the MCG boundary in his incredible the ra ilway station, waiting for its parents like O'Reilly and Grimmett, Tim Wall and double century for the Rest of the World to place it on the train. But they do not Keith Miller, Wes Hall and An dy Roberts early in the l970si the thrill of a bare­ come, and the train is leaving. Still there did not bait and abuse their opponentsi they headed Richie Richardson hooking sixes off are other trainsi I shall not miss them all.' exhibited their aggression with the ball, not his eyebrowsi the classically devastating The differen ce between Therese's with invective. wicket-to-wicket spells of Richard Hadlee effusive painting and her spare words may On the last Indian tour of Australia the and the breathtaking stroke power of Adam provide the right lens for fixing the popular mild-mannered Srinath struck Panting with Gilchrist. Such is the real stuff of cricket. response to the visit of her relics. The dis­ a bouncer. When he enquired if Panting was - John Sendy tinction is one classically made between all right he received a mouthful of abuse. devotions and devotion. Ian Chappell, on and off screen, still The pain ting belongs to the world of encourages warlike sport. For example, Therese's things devotions. Its interest lies in the contrast some years ago Andy Biebel hit a ball very between the ecstatic expression of the child hard into West Indian Jimmy Adams at READING RELICS and the sub ject of h is dreaming- the short leg. Adams had togo off for treatment. insignia of pain and death. The image brings From the stump microphone Biebel was I N JANUARY, relics of St Therese of Lisieux together Christian faith and the hard things heard to call, 'Bad luck, mate.' An amazed are touring Australia. When in Ireland, they that most challenge it. But it does so tenta­ Chappell complained, 'Well, he's a polite attracted millions of people and left com­ tively and sentimentally, in a dream where young n1an.' mentators perplexed. Some recognised suffering is not real. The painting When Curtly Ambrose struck a bats­ in the event the vacuum left by the explores whether such a dream, man and went down the wicket to look at demise of popular devotions, such a dreamer, is possible. his condition, Chappell lectured that such while others saw the triumph Devotions allow people to was not the business of the bowler. Why of sentiment over substance. test imagi natively hard not? Even the dreaded Larwood ran to bats­ Devotion to St Therese realities against faith. Like men whom he thought he might have has always attracted follow­ soapies, they help us explore injured. ers and critics. Her older from a safe place the reality Such conduct and attitudes, irrespec­ sisters in Carmel, who even of crisis and our response to tive of country of origin, contribute nothing during her lifetime regarded it. Because they explore except ugliness to cricket. Australia has her as a saint, encouraged sentimentally, the art and refined a concentrated form of intimidation devotion to her. They edited rhetoric that they produce and attack. We should be in the forefront of her writings and touched up are often tacky. trying to abolish both. her image to fit the ripely The test of any faith, Steve Waugh's Australians have been emotional world of 19th­ however, com es at midday recognised, correctly, as the strongest team century piety. That Therese when we face the full heat in the world. However, defeat in India, herself belonged to that ofpainandloneliness, with­ victory over England and a drawn series world is evident in her painting of the out reassurance. Only devotion suffices, against a resurgent and unlucky New dream of the Infant Jesus. She painted it at the unsentimental and stripped down love Zealand was hardly a triumphant 2001. the age of 20, four years before her death. shown in Therese. Dream is replaced by The series against South Africa will be She copied a commonplace work, adding reality. interesting. The International Cricket touches of her own. Her sister later amended The popular response to Therese's relics Council's call for tougher penalties for bad it to make it even sweeter. suggests the importance of the imagination on-field behaviour is necessary and long Photographs of Therese Martin, however, within faith. A theology that speaks well overdue. It is unfortunate that it was first show a strong and composed young woman, about death and suffering does not substi­ implemented against half the Indian team and the unedited version of her writings tute for an imaginative pondering of these for offences which some commentators and conversations are laconic and astrin­ things. But while images and devotions considered to be minor, thereby inflaming gent. She died agonisingly of tuberculosis. rehearse reality, devotion engages it. harboured perceptions of racial bias. During her illness she thought occasionally -Andrew Hamilton Furthermore, in these times of privati­ of suicide, and in her inner experience en­ sation, the regular practice of the Packer tered fully the world of unbelief. Her faith men, Ian Chappell and Tony Greig, officiat­ remained simple, but was without reassur­ In a word ing at Test match tosses and after-match ance. It finds expression in spare words in presentations leaves a certain taste in the counterpoint to the devotional rhetoric of THF GIST mouth. her sisters. When, for example, her sister OF TilE GifT For me som e memories never fade: the remarks how lovingly Therese is looking majesty of the Walter Hammond cover towards Heaven, she answers, 'Do you think 'WAT DOES Christmas mean to you?' drivei Don Tallon keeping wickets to any­ I am thinking about the real Heaven? I am would have been an improbable question in one, anywherei the power and grace of Bill simply admiring the sky. The oth er is more the ancient world. More probable would be, Brown using his feet against Grimmetti the and more closed to me.' 'What does Epiphany mean to you? ' as it hostility of Lindwall and Miller opening The tension between faith and the was Epiphany, not Christmas, when the the bowling for Australiai Sobers explo­ absence of God are ca ught in another early church commemorated Christ's entry sively and repeatedly square-driving Lillee poignant image: 'I am like a small child at into the world.

14 EUREKA STREET • jANUA RY- FEBRUARY 2002 2002-The year of industr ial relations? (Billboard, Abbotsfo rd , Vi ctori a)

'Epiphany' comes from the Greek for see that it is Christ, the receiver, who in with Epiphanies of worldly things ('the bar manifestation of a god, which is why the turn teaches each one of us about our own mirror gilded lettered where hock and claret Orthodox to this day use the festival to gift. Open to awareness, we too learn about glasses shimmered'), actions ('a plume of celebrate Christ's baptism. The Western the preciousness of existence, the surprise steam from the spout') and statements church emphasised the revelation of the of constant offering, the m eaning of our ('pennyweight of powder in a skull'), some Incarnation to the Gentiles, in the form of own life and death-all these things being metaphoric, some not, but all heightened wise m en. The Bible says nothing about the Epiphanies. with the nowness of existence. It is not too m en being kings or only three in number. By 1648, whenthepoetRichardCrashaw far-fetched to say that Joyce would have us I find this preferable, as it opens up the writes to Queen Henrietta, 'May the great see Epiphanies of the present world, a con­ possibility for any listener to be part of the time in you still greater be, / While all the sciousness of the visible. He is one of the story, bearing their gift. Anyone has the year is your Epiphany', the word is used to great artists of the senses, caught up in potential to become a wise person. mean the gift itself. For Henrietta this meant carnate experience. Because Epiphany grew to be synony­ the kingdoms that she ultimately lost any­ Celebration of the senses, that very m ous with the wisdom story, it gath ered to way, but for us Crashaw's lines can be read modern form of celebration, can be traced it other m eanings. One was the recognition as an expression of limitless possibility. in part to Joyce, the sensual pioneer. And of an irrefutable truth. Another, the won­ Time is a hindrance and can be overcom e. this concern is not too far from the meaning drous acceptance of the exceptional in the The world and our own existence are gifts of the Magi's gifts as tokens of the created ordinary. Epiphany became an example of that can be explained at any time and in any world we all enjoy. The task is to under­ pilgrimage, the following of a star. Also, it place, once we offer them in praise and stand these gifts and use them wisely. was related in people's minds with giving, thanksgiving. The created world is revealed -Philip Harvey perhaps the real source of the Christmas to us in all its vulnerability and power. practice. In modern times Epiphany came to mean This month's contributors: Margaret Coffey We all have our own ideas about what a kind of Twelfth Night of the Soul. James is a producer of Encounter on Radio the gifts mean. For m e, the gold is not just Joyce, in his proto-novel, Stephen Hero, National; Bill Thomas is a teacher and some clumsy ingot but rather the bright­ defines Epiphany as 'a sudden spiritual photographer. His work h as featured ness of the world itself, everything the sun manifestation' when the 'soul' or 'whatness' regularly in Eureka Street since 1991. To shines on, all we've got. Frankincense has of an object 'leaps to us from the vestment ensure its continued appearance we are no other job than to burn itself up in an of its appearance'. The language may be currently negotiating with all Tiger snakes; expression of glory. Myrrh, perfume for religious, but the intention is pure Andrew Hamilton SJ is Eureka Street's embalming the dead, is a prefiguring of aesthetics. Joyce invents a literary device publisher; John Sendy is a freelance writer; Christ's death and our own. Essential to that can recreate in words the common Philip Harvey is a poet and librarian at the this reasoning is to read the story further, to facts of daily life. His works are crammed Joint Theological Library, Melbourne.

V OLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 15 THE NAT ION:l

Where are we now?

At the second ann ual Eureka Street dinner on 30 November 2001 , the guest speaker, Robert Manne, answered the question.

I oouOT WHHHCR THCRC h" been •ny election in After Tampa, but before September 11 , for the first Australia since 1975 more dismaying for the left-of­ time since the 1998 election, the opinion polls began centre intelligentsia than the one we have recently strongly to favour the Coalition. On 7 October, at the been through. It is not merely, or even mainly, that beginning of the formal campaign, Howard govern­ the Coalition has been returned. Neither the election ment ministers seized upon an incident where Iraqi of 1996 nor that of 1998 was, for the group of people asylum seekers were claimed to have thrown their I have in mind, a particularly disheartening experi­ children into the ocean, in order, so it was said, to ence. What, then, was unusual about 2001? blackmail Australia into accepting them. In his usual It is clear that the election campaign was con­ role as the nation's primary moral interpreter on ducted under the shadow of the Tampa 'crisis' and matters concerning refugees, Immigration Minister the 'Pacific solution' far more than it was under the Philip Ruddock told us he had never witnessed a more shadow of September 11 and our troop commitment callous act in his political life. The Prime Minister to the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It is also agreed. From the depth of his understanding of such clear that the Tampa was more important than matters, he told us that such behaviour was not the September 11 in the return of the Coalition govern­ way of genuine refugees. The Western Australian ment to power. Any account of the post-election mood Liberal Senator, Ross Lightfoot, described these Iraqi of the left-of-centre intelligentsia must begin, refugees as 'repulsive'. Throwing one's own children although it must not end, with the role Tampa and into the ocean might be acceptable in Muslim its aftermath played in the shameful triumph achieved countries; it was not acceptable here. by the Howard government on 10 N ovember. It was already painfully clear, by the time of the Tampa signified the Australian decision to repel election campaign, that Beazley Labor would support by military means all future asylum seekers who tried every word or action of the Coalition on the asylum to get to Australia by boat. From now on the Navy seeker front, no matter how illiberal, no matter how would be used either to escort these boats back to damaging to the national interest, no matter how crueL Indonesia or arrange for the temporary incarceration A surprising amount of time was spent during of the refugees in processing/detention camps on the only election debate between John Howard and whichever of the Pacific island states were open to Kim Beazley on the issue of border controL The only Australian diplomatic or financial inducements-a significant difference to emerge was over whether system officially called the 'Pacific solution' but asylum seekers were to be repelled by the deployment which I privately call the 'Ruddock Archipelago'. of the Navy or creation of a special-purpose Coast Let me briefly recall the role Tampa and its Guard. In order to prove his macho credentials over aftermath played in John Howard's return to power. border control, Beazley reminded Australians that it

16 EUREKA STREET • )ANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 was Labor and not the Coalition which had instituted asylum seekers ever again setting foo t on Australian the system of universal and m andatory detention for soil, or at least on that kind of soil which had not asylum seekers. been excised from the Migration Act. Just in case all The nature of the m oral ignominy into which the this was not enough, in the final week John Howard bipartisan, tough -guy consensus had led was revealed renewed the hint first dropped by Reith, nam ely that not long after the Great Debate. During the campaign it was not impossible that operatives of the al Qaeda a boat with 400 or so asylum seekers on its way to terror network might be on board the leaky vessels Australia sank. Three hundred and fifty-three people sailing from Indonesia to Australian detention cam ps. drowned. There was on board an Iraqi woman, Sondos, It was, self-evidently, not indecent enough that with her three young daughters. Her husband, Ahmed, the Coalition should have returned to power through was in Australia. Although he had been accepted as a a refugee repulsion re-election strategy. After the genuine refugee, under the barbarous system of election, Lynton Crosby, the federal director of the temporary visas instituted by Philip Ruddock he was Liberal Party, claimed that border control was not an aware that he could never lawfully be reunited with important ingredient in the Coalition victory. Accord­ his wife and daughters. D espite this, Ahmed had ing to him, an internal party poll revealed that only advised his wife, who had made her way to Indonesia, ten per cent of those who voted Liberal gave the against coming to Australia. He thought the journey asylum seeker issue as the primary reason for the way from Indonesia too dangerous. She disobeyed. Sondos they cast their vote. Only ten per cent? Elections in was on the boat that sank. Miraculously she survived. Australia are invariably close. N ovember 10 was no Her three children drowned. I will never allow myself exception. Ten per cent of voters casting their vote to fo rget what happened next. Sondos was not allowed for the Liberal Party primarily because of border to com e to Australia. Ahmed was informed that if he control was proof not of the irrelevan ce of the visited his grieving wife in Indonesia he would not be Coalition's post-Tampa strategy but of its permitted to return. Interviewed on this m atter on outstanding success. successive nights on ABC TV, Mr Howard defended these actions and Mr Beazley concurred. I cannot recall ~Y MANY AusTRALIANSn ow believe that a Coalition a more abject incident in the life of Australian politics. victory on the basis of the post-Tampa asylum seeker The Liberal Party, shortly after, held its launch . strategy and rhetoric has changed Australia. I want Among the ministers in attendance Ruddock received briefly to consider if this is true. the m ost rapturous applause. With Howard's pledge I have been arguing since the mid-1 990s that the that Australia would decide who would be allowed to most important and troubling divide in contemporary enter this country and the circumstances under which Australia is the one that separates those who I have, they cam e, the audience erupted in delight. Liberal not entirely happily, called the elites from those I have

Party headquarters took the hint. It was this sentence called, even less happily, the ordinary people. It has which dominated their advertising during the fi nal been my view that the elites and the ordinary people week of the cam paign . are separated from each other not only in power, In the sam e week the 'children overboard' issue wealth and status but also in world view. returned. It becam e clear now that the Minister for In m y argument, Australia, since the early 1970s, Defence, Peter Reith, had deceived the public about has experienced two great tran sformat ion s, on e the existence of a N avy video showing children being located in the cultural, the other located in the thrown into the ocean by their parents. It also becam e economic sphere. From the 1970s Australia has been clear that Reith had released photographs of children transformed culturally by the end of White Australia, in life jackets in the sea, which had been presented as the abandonmen t of the aspiration to assimilate material evidence of children having been thrown into migrants to the Anglo-Australian n orm , by the the ocean, but were in fact photographs of children in opening of the country to Middle Eastern and Asian the water after their boat had sunk. Political insiders immigration, by the embrace of the idea of m ulti­ were of the opinion that even proof of ministerial culturalism , by the attempt to deepen our bonds with m endacity would h elp, not harm the Coalition 's the Asia-Pacific region, by the republican aspiration, election prospects, simply by reminding voters of and by the quest for reconciliation between the H oward's m ad dystopian schem e to prevent an y Indigen ous dispossessed and the non -Indigenou s

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EUREKA STR EET 17 dispossessors. And from the 1980s Australia has also Yet the meaning of the election of 2001 is more been transformed economically-by the dismantling serious even than this. No-one who is not a knave or of the old protectionist, interventionist and regulatory a fool can fail to see that the history of Australia is state, established after federation-in the name of a involved with troubling questions of race-the free-market reform process based on financial and dispossession of the Aborigines and the radical labour-market deregulation, the idea of small govern­ exclusion of all non-Europeans from our shores on ment, a variety of national competition policies, the the basis of the White Australia policy. During the

removal of tariffs, the privatisation of publicly owned Howard years, questions about Australian identity and assets, and so on. race have begun, in one way or another, surprisingly At the core of my interpretation of recent Aus­ and disturbingly, to return to haunt our tralian politics is the following proposition: that while ""r discussions about ourselves. left-leaning elites have embraced the cosmopolitan cultural transformation with great enthusiasm, and J. HE PROBLEM OF THE relationship between Austral­ the right-leaning elites have cheered on the economic ian racism and the asylum seeker issue is complex. rationalist transformation, the majority of the Some parts of the relation, however, seem clear. As ordinary people have viewed both these transfor­ things stand, Australia will not, of course, revert either mations with puzzlement at best and hostility at in its immigration or its refugee selection program to worst. Hansonism is, in this interpretation, a populist the racial exclusivism of the White Australia policy. howl of protest from globalisation's losers, against For this reason, loose talk about a reversion to White both cultural cosmopolitanism and economic ration­ Australia seems to me wrong. On the other hand it alism. On occasions, political leaders who have seems to me equally wrong to speak as if recent events embraced these transformative agendas too nakedly and current Australian goven1ment policy, with regard or enthusiastically-John Hewson in 1993 over to the treatment of asylum seekers, are unconnected economic rationalism, Paul Keating in 1996 over to a new Australian policy of race. It is utterly cultural cosmopolitanism- have been punished with inconceivable that if those of European ancestry-for humiliating electoral defeat. example white Zimbabweans-were fleeing to It is my view that John Howard is the first Aus­ Australia from persecution or tyranny, they would be tralian prime minister since the 'Australian settle­ treated in the way we routinely treat Iraqi or Afghan ment' began to be dismantled, who has broken with refugees. Is it conceivable that a white Zimbabwean the kind of bipartisan consensus over the economic who arrived in Australia would be defamed as a selfish, and cultural transformation of Australia. Howard is, wealthy queue-jumper? Is it conceivable that a white of course, still an economic rationalist, albeit of a Zimbabwean male found to be a bone fide refugee cautiously pragmatic kind. On the other hand, in his would be forbidden, forever, from reuniting with his anti-republicanism, his hostility to the idea of multi­ wife and children? I think not. culturalism, his indifference to the question of Yet the connection between racism and the Australia's place in the Asia-Pacific region, his aban­ asylum seekers goes deeper still. In recent times three donment of the quest for reconciliation and, now, in quite different events have raised questions in Aus­ his strident anti-asylum seeker policy, he has, in my tralia about Arabs, Muslims, and those formerly living view, reshaped Australian politics by mobilising the in the Middle East. The first concerned the vicious hostility of ordinary people against the cultural rape of young women in Sydney by Lebanese youths; cosmopolitanism of the elites. This populist repudia­ the second the Tampa 'crisis'; the third the terrorist tion of an open, cultural cosmopolitan future for Aus­ attack of September 11. As a result of the scrambling tralia is the reason I regard this post-1996 period in together in the public mind of these three totally our history as the barren years. With Howard's unconnected issues, in contemporary Australia, in re-election on lO November, on this basis, a new era recent times, a powerful and disturbing anti-Muslim, of populist conservatism has arrived. It is no accident anti-Arab, and anti-refugee wind has blown up. that members of Australia's small right-wing intelli­ John Howard would have to be an entire social gentsia have celebrated the re-election by poking their innocent not to recognise that his decision, taken tongues at the elites. during the Tampa incident, to repel all future asylum

18 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBR UARY 2002 seekers was certain to excite the already existing civilisations in which such people have the misfortune hostilities to Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern to have been born. refugees. He would also have had to be a total political In the course of making his case fo r a migration innocent not to see that the way his government program , restricted to those 'capable of assimilating manufactured and managed the Tampa crisis and its into Australia's basically Judea-Christian culture', aftermath would prove, by fanning these flam es, to John Stone asked us to 'note that I have nowhere be of inestimable benefit to his re-election chances. referred to race ... not race but culture is the issue'. In The Age, Christopher Pearson made an identical point. Because of their ignorance of European politics what neither Stone nor Pearson appears to realise is that the argum ents they deploy are identical in their struc­ ture-culture, not blood or biology, as the basis for exclusion- to those offered by Jorg Haider in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. In order, in addition, to prove that he is no racist, John Stone inform ed us that 'calls for Australians to refrain from harassing ou r exis ting Muslim community are, of course, One day a scholar will, I hope, document the eruption entirely proper'. While it is good to know that the of racist passion stimulated by the arrival, within a former Secretary of the Treasury does not actually fortnight, of the Tampa crisis and Septem ber ll. If support anti-Muslim pogrom s, it is genuinely alarm­ this study is made it will discover that the anti­ ing to see how quickly after 10 November the pro­ Muslim and anti-Arab passions were found not only Howard intelligentsia have begun to replicate the kind among ordinary people bu t, in addition, the kind of of arguments associated with the so-called 'new people who were at the heart of the anti-stolen gener­ racism ' of the European extreme right. • ations campaign, the righ t-wing intelligen tsia around Quadrant magazine. Robert Manne is Associate Professor of Politics at La The N ovember Quadrant published an article by Trobe University, Melbourne. the emeritus professor of economics at the University of N ew South Wales, Wolfgang Kasper. It argued that, because they are a tribal people belonging to closed societies, without any respect for, or understanding of, democracy, free speech, the rule of law or-wait for it-'tolerant openness towards others', those com ing from the entire Middle Eastern region ABR.\t STR 11.1 1 '\ Boo!-- Rr1 11.11 (excluding for reasons unexplained, Lebanon ), were unsuitable as migrants. For such people, violence, of the kind revealed in the Sydney rapes, and the sup­ SUMMER IDGHLIGHTS posed blackm ail tactics, of the kind revealed by those picked up by th e Tampa, were typical forms of The Best Books of 2001 behaviour. According to Kasper's economistic gobble­ Our Critics Have Their Say dygook, such people imposed upon us unacceptable 'transaction costs', which those elites who live in leafy Reference Books suburbs are able to ignore but those who live in The Australian Centenary History Cabramatta or Broadmeadows, in their daily lives, of Defence know only too well. The implication of the article Peter Ry an was clear. With regard to potential Middle Eastern migrants, Aus tralia sh ould introduce a racially discriminatory policy. We should bar our door to Australia's Best Sports Writing Middle Eastern refugees. Craig Sherborne Kasper's article, which was cheered on by Alan Wood in The A ustralian and Miranda Devine in The Best Australian Essays 2001 Sydney Morning Herald, was accompanied by closely Don Anderson associated pieces from Christopher Pearson in Th e Age and John Stone in The A ustralian. According to John Reed's Letters th eir way of thinking, Australia should restrict John Thompson Muslim or Arab immigrants because of their clear cultural incompatibility with Australian 'Judea­ Subscribe n1m! $63.50 for ten issue~ (incl. GST) Christian' civilisation and also, in the case of Stone, Ph: (03) 9429 6700 or E-mail: abr

V OLUME 12 N UM BER 1 • EU REKA STREET 19 Dad's army

I T WAS CHR>STMAS MORN

20 EUREKA STREET j ANUARY- FEBR UARY 200 2 The new breed

Peter Browne meets a different kind of politician, the independent member for Ca lare, Peter Andren.

I T's A W eoNCSDAY moming in lm the objective will be achieved. But who Bulletin, it was 'the gutsiest speech' on November and I'm sitting in a classroom will take the Taliban's place? There are the day. 'We cannot claim the high moral at St Joseph's Primary School, Molong, a lot of doubts about the mob we've been ground in sending our troops against about an hour's drive north-west of helping.' Saddam,' Andren told the House, 'we can­ Bathurst. Peter Andren, the independent 'You know the asylum seekers1' asks not condemn the Taliban extremists, if federal member for Calare, is telling a another grade-sixer. 'Why were they we aren't prepared to accept there are room full of attentive grade four, five and throwing children off the boat? ' thousands of persecuted victims of those six students about parliament, political Relieved that I don't have to answer regimes who manage to escape. Why parties and how he goes about represent­ this question either, I start loading film wouldn't they seek asylum in the most ing the electorate. Returned to Canberra into my camera while Andren recounts free nation on earth?' with an extraordinary 15 per cent swing the events surrounding that notorious As he told the students at St Joseph's, three weeks earlier, he is emphasising the allegation. But when he gets stuck on the he believes that our first instinct should importance of independent MPs in the most recent details he turns to me for be to welcome people seeking asylum. parliamentary process. But when the kids extra information. Forty faces swing in Although it was a risky stand for a rural start asking questions it's not long before my direction as I do my best to summa­ independent, it seems to have done no terrorism and asylum seekers come up. rise the Navy's view of the original damage at all to his support in the elec­ 'Do you think Australian troops incident, which emerged a few days torate. Nor is it the first time Andren has should be sent to help find bin Laden?' before the election. spoken out on issues which, according to asks one. It's not an easy question to Despite this minor gap in his know­ conventional wisdom, we wouldn't answer concisely in front of 40 primary ledge, Andren's attitude towards the boat expect to win support in Calare. In April school kids, som e of them only ten years people is informed and sincerely held. Its 2001, for example, he introduced a private old. But Andren isn't at all evasive, care­ strength became clear when the govern­ member's bill aimed at abolishing fully explaining his fear that the US and m ent's first 'border protection' bill was mandatory sentencing in the Northern its allies could get caught up in another introduced on 29 August. With an hour's Territory. protracted conflict like the war in Viet­ notice he spoke against the bill in parlia­ But attempting a more detailed assess­ nam. 'Thankfully,' he says, 'it seems that menti according to Laurie Oakes in The ment of how voters in Calare reacted to

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 21 Andren's attitude to the boat people-and when they've taken a problem to him.' whether his success offers lessons for the In the electorate, he says, Andren is m ajor parties-is not straightforward. credited with successfully pursuing Over the three elections that Andren has Telstra over rural services, and persuad­ successfully contested, support for the ing the federal government to change two Coalition parties has fallen signifi­ Austudy rules that threatened to disad­ cantly in Calare, not just because of vantage the children of farming families. Andren's success but also because of the The Advocate editorialised against the 11 per cent vote for One Nation in 1998. governm ent's asylum seeker policy and This year, perhaps as a consequence, the reported sympath etically on Andren's Liberals decided not to stand a candidate, decision to oppose it. leaving the fi eld to the National Party. When I talked to Labor's Kath Knowles The Coalition vote fell by over two per over a cup of coffee back in Bathurst, she cent, suggesting that part of Andren's also drew a useful distinction between increased support could have come from the political culture of an electorate like former Liberal voters, some of whom Calare and its urban counterparts. A local would undoubtedly have been alienated m ember who effectively represents the by the National Party's strident and broad interests of the electorate, she says, simplistic anti-'boat people' campaign in can expect to retain a seat like Calare Calare. almost regardless of which party he or she The dramatic fall in support for One belongs to. One great advantage many Nation at this election would also have rural members have is their access to a benefited Andren. He has been a vocal comparatively large number of media advocate for farming groups and local outlets. Andren has a column in two daily industry and a strong opponent of Telstra papers, and is sought for comment by privatisation-all of which has some local and regional television, radio and appeal for former One Nation voters-as weekly and tri-weekly papers. An urban well as taking up popular issues like the MP, by contrast, will usually have only a generosity of superannuation benefits for handful of free weeklies published within federal parliamentarians. his or her electorate. Underlying all this is Andren's seem ­ In Andren's case, the range of media ingly unassailable standing in the com­ and his own background in television­ N ew Directions Sabbatical munity. I didn't encounter anyone in nearly 20 years with Channel 8 (now New spirit for a new world Bathurst who didn't admire his perform­ Prime) and 2GZ in Orange-combine to R enew ance as local member, and people who reinforce his image of energy and com­ your spirit in a flexible program , a global have spoken face-to-face with him find mitment in Calare. The day we drove to community, and the scenic that he's a good listener who communi­ Molong, Telstra announced job cutbacks San Francisco Bay area. Whether you cates frankly but undogmatically. The in one of its divisions, with a potential want to take a break or take on new worst criticism I heard is that he doesn't impact within Calare. Prime Television's experiences, yo u will enjoy a wide have a sense of humour (although newsroom called Andren straight away range of spiritual, recreational, and I wouldn't describe him as humourless). (on the road between Orange and Molong) academic resources. His Labor opponent in the November to find out what he knew about the cuts election, Kath Knowles, obviously dis­ and to arrange to film an interview for New Directions agrees with various of Andren's poli­ the evening news. As if to underline the a sabbatical for one or two semesters cies-she mentioned his support for the importance of Telstra in rural Australia, government bill to exempt small his mobile phone periodically cut businesses from the unfair dismissal out as we wound our way to Molong. J ESU IT SC HOOL OFTHEOLOGY rules- and argues t hat independents at Berkeley benefit from being under less pressure to I FIRST MET Peter Andren in April last a member of the release broad, coherent policies. But she year, on the day he introduced his private Graduate Theological Union readily concedes that Andren's energy m ember's bill on mandatory sentencing. 1735 LeRoy Avenue and visibility have won him a high level Only one member of the government and Berkele)! CA 94709 of regard over the five-and-a-half years fi ve opposition MPs were present when (800) 824-0122 since he entered parliam en t. he spoke in the House, and a sm all (51 0) 549-5000 At Bathurst's daily paper, the Western handful of journalists watched from the Fax(510)841 -8536 Advocate, journalist Tony Rhead says press gallery. E-mail: [email protected] that Andren is 'astute and hard-working' What the missing MPs and journalists www.jstb.edu as a local MP. 'I've yet to m eet anyone didn' t h ear was a persuasive, w ell­ who hasn't been happy with the outcome researched speech delivered with passion

22 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBR UARY 2002 and conviction. As Andren spoke, a few maintained after his retirement. 'I was Things changed in the second term. ALP members trickled into the chamber, confident that if I could come second, or 'There was a lot more respect because then in came a large Labor contingent to better, on the primary vote then I'd pick I came in with the third safest hear Kim Beazley introduce his own bill up support from both ends of the spec­ seat in the place.' on m andatory sentencing. Beazley was trum.' That's exactly what happened. luckier than Andren: by the end of his Andren received nearly 30 per cent of first BOTH KATH KNOWLES and another speech another two government MPs had preferences, picked up second preferences prominent local I talked to made a similar wandered into the House. from Labor and the N ationals, and ended observation: that Peter Andren had accu­ Although it was prepared with none up with 63 per cent of the two-candidate mulated enough respect in the commu­ of the resources of the government or preferred vote. nity and pushed enough local issues in opposition, Andren's speech was an Other independents have managed to parliament that his views on asylum important contribution to the mandatory sneak over the line in three-cornered con­ seekers-wh ether voters agreed with sentencing debate. Later, in the midst of tests, but it's unusual for them to go on them or not- did not pose an electoral his small, enthusiastic staff in Parliament to win an increased share of the vote at problem . Some may w ell have been House, he seem ed unperturbed by the customary absence of government m em­ Peter Andren had accumulated enough respect in th e bers during his speech, but a little surprised that m embers of the press community and pushed enough loca l issues in parliament that gallery had complained he hadn't warned his views on asylum seekers-whether voters agreed with them them that he'd be speaking. Andren was elected as m ember for or not-did not pose an electoral problem. Calare, a regional N ew South Wales seat taking in Lithgow, Bathurst and Orange, the next election, and to tie down one of persuaded by Andren 's newspaper in 1996. This was the federal election that the safest seats in Australia. Andren columns on the topic and his advertise­ propelled no fewer than five independ­ gained over 40 per cent of the primary m ents on radio and TV, which responded ents into the House of Representatives, vote in 1998-a swing of 11 per cent­ to the National Party's scare campaign all but one of them to be pitched out by and a remarkable 72 per cent of the two­ ('You might like Peter Andren ... but you their electorates two-and-a-half years candidate preferred vote. won't like what he thinks about protect­ later. Of the five, only Andren, who had Armed with that convincing majority, ing Australia's borders.') with an been working at Prime Television, had he set about representing his electorate argum ent for humane policy. Others, not previously been a m ember of one of on an enormous range of issues. Petrol according to Tony Rhead at the Western the major parties. pricing, coal mining, fuel grants, Telstra Advocate, would h ave admired h is Andren decided to run in 1996 when and superannuation are among those courage in statin g an unequivocal the sitting Labor m ember announced his with particular resonance in Calare, but position on the issue. retirement. 'A lot of people were partic­ Andren has also spoken in parliament on It's impossible to draw any firm con­ ularly unimpressed with the candidates the less predictable topics of drug policy, clusions about the significance of coming forward for the 1996 election, and reconciliation, East Timor and mandatory Andren's achievem ent for other parties. som eone su ggested that I run as an sentencing. H e argued persuasively Local electors knew that their vote for independent,' he told m e at Parliament against the government's intention to Andren would not contribute to the elec­ House. 'I thought long and hard about it deny prisoners the right to vote, and he tion of a government with a different and thought, why not ? I'd been up there opposed the government's bill to censor attitude to 'border protection'. But it may for 20 years or more and I felt that it was internet content. be that Andren's decision to adopt a my patch of dirt as much as anyone else's, To keep up with this workload potentially unpopular stance helped to that I knew the issues. Like everyone else Andren has a staff of just four people. As consolidate his reputation among seg­ I was critical of the abandonment of the a result of a deal between Brian Harra­ ments of the community and so contrib­ regions by successive governments. The dine and the former Labor government uted to his dramatic rise in support. National Party had becom e the little red he is entitled to one more staff m ember On the way to Bathurst Airport caboose on the end of the Liberal train. than an ordinary backbencher in recog­ I m entioned to the taxi driver that I'd So for all of those reasons I wondered how nition of the fact that he has none of the spent the previou s day with Peter well regional and rural areas were being resources of a parliamentary party. Andren. 'Andren, eh ?' he said. 'I always represented.' During Andren' s first term his job think that independents are a bit like Andren's win in 1996 was based on a wasn't made any easier, he says, by the granny's tooth- all alone and not much simple electoral calculation. 'When I sat attitude of many members of the govern­ use.' He paused. 'But, gee, he seems to be down with one of my sons and looked at ment. Like his counterparts in Victoria, stirring them up, doesn't he?' • the numbers from the 1993 election I who later had an opportunity to take could see that the Labor vote was never revenge on the Kennett government, Peter Browne is a research fellow at going to hold up,' says Andren. The Labor Andren says that 'apart from a couple of Swinburne University's Institute for Social member, David Simmons, had built up a ministers' the Howard government Research and producer of The National strong position which was unlikely to be treated him with 'a degree of contempt'. In terest on ABC Radio National.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EURE KA STREET 23 THE LAW MOIRA RAYNER Rights roughed

What happens to ri ghts w hen the national interest becomes the main ga me?

L ARST CASUACTY of wa< is s.id to directly challenged their trea tment just Refugee Convention did not fe tter this be truth. In the war against terrorism, before September l l. power, other than procedurally. Anyway, human rights are the second casualty. By the end of November the High he thought, the rescuees were not After the Twin Towers' fall (surely, Court had refused to allow Melbourne 'detained'. They had no right to enter someone else has caught the Tolkien solicitor Eric Vadarlis leave to appeal Australia; the Commonwealth had the allusion?) the US president asked for and against a Federal Court decision not to power to stop them, 'whatever might be obtained Congress' support for an Anti­ issue two of our most ancient preroga­ thought about its policy or whether it was terrorism Act that fillets constitutional tive writs for the benefit of 433 people, exercised wisely or well'; and their free­ guaran tees of habeas corpus, presumption rescued from a sinking boat in dom was limited by the of innocence and due process. It also the Indian Ocean by the Nor­ Tampa captain's refusal to allows non-citizens to be detained on wegian ship, MV Tampa, then leave Australian waters, not suspicion or secret evidence, permits prevented from landing the Australian troops who eavesdropping and placing people under on Christmas Island. were present on board for aid surveillance without evidence of wrong­ and security purposes. doing, flouts lawyer/client privilege and INAucusT, Vadarlis and the Chief Justice Black came creates military tribunals in place of Victorian Council for Civil Lib­ to the opposite conclusion. civilian courts. erties had asked for 'mandamus' Though a nation state does In the UK, the Home Secretary to oblige the Commonwealth to have the sovereign power to decided that in presenting to parliament bring the rescuees ashore, trig­ protect its borders, it has no anti-terrorism legislation-which will gering an assessm ent of their refugee executive authority other than by stat­ authorise the indefinite detention of claims under the Migration Act. 'Habeas ute to detain anyone, citizen or no, in suspected terrorists without trial- he corpus', an ancient remedy for unlawful Australia. The power to prevent unlaw­ would not declare that it complied with detention, was sought to procure their ful entry by non-citizens in peacetime the UK's international human rights attendance before the court. It was on an does not lie in som e unwritten common­ obligations. It wouldn't. A year ago, the application for habeas corpus by anti­ law prerogative to expel or exclude non­ UK's Human Rights Act made such slavery activists that a British Court citizens. That was last used in 1771, rights and that declaration a central tenet ordered that Somersett, an American when the British Crown directed that of the common law. slave brought into Britain by his owner, Jews unable to pay 'the usual freight' Detaining even unpleasant people must be freed because the common law should be excluded. It had never been without trial is wrong, obj ectionable and did not recognise his servile status­ u sed sin ce and was defunct in 21st­ impractical. Nobody should be detained ultimately killing off slavery. century Australia. There was no room for unless for a reason and through the A Federal Court judge, Justice North, a parallel, non-statutory regime once the disciplined proving of the case. Arbitrary had ordered the rescuees be brought to exhaustive Migration Act regime was in detention is impractical because, on the land and released. The Commonwealth place, and that regime could have applied evidence fro m World War II, it does not appealed. Three judges arrived at different to the rescuees had the government not, guarantee security and causes misery to decisions on the same law on two issues: on its own admission, 'taken a view' that the innocen t. It is obj ectionable because whether the government had the power it did not wish it to apply. There was no international law does recognise states' to expel the rescuees from Australia and statutory power to detain the rescuees on entitlement to suspend internationally detain them for that purpose, and wheth­ the ship. Australia's laws must now be guaranteed human rights, but only to the er the Tampa passengers were detained. interpreted in light of its treaty obliga­ extent n ecessary, in times of war or Justice French decided that the Com­ tions, and our 'national interest' included public emergencies that threaten a monwealth had the sovereign power Australia's protection obliga tions under nation's existence: not these. under the constitution to decide who the Refugee Convention. In considering Australia has acted as though there might enter Australia, to prevent their whether they were 'detained', the court were such a war since 1992, when Labor entry and to make people leave. This had must look at the ultimate consequences first introduced the mandatory detention not been lost by the enactment of the fo r an individual's freedom of the series of asylum seekers. A consortium of pro 'comprehensive regime' of the Migration of acts by which detention was brought bono lawyers and civil libertarians Act 1958. Australia's ratification of the about. There was no point in arguing that

24 EUREKA STREET • jANUA RY- FEBRUARY 2002 the rescuees' situation was 'self-induced' or that the application might facilitate other rights claims under the Migration Act. Habeas corpus was a fundamental protection of a fundamental right. Justice Beaumont agreed with French (which meant the Commonwealth won), archimedes arguing that: (a) Vadarlis had not pleaded that the rescuees had a common-law right to enter Australia; (b ) technically, the Court could not issue the writ, just relief The colt we may regret 'in the nature of' habeas corpus (a fine distinction, which the Commonwealth had not argued); and (c) even if it could, A ROUND M ELBOURNE CuP TIME, Aus tralia's racing minist ers decided the court should not, because it was a unanimously to ban the cloning of animals involved in their industry. schem e to use the Migration Act regime. Racing, like the stock market and other forms of wagering, is a very skittish Besides, it was wrong for a person to rely animal, subject to all sorts of external physical and psychological pressures. So on their own unlawful act (in practically the simple certainty of the ruling may well be a good thing. compelling MV Tampa to divert fr om What was really interesting, however, was the debate surrounding the Indonesia to Christmas Island) to secure deliberations. At times it appeared to simplify the issues to an absurd degree. an advantage not available legally. Many commentators seem ed to assume that animals cloned from the same If the remedy of habeas corpus depend­ champion parent would be identical, and retain all the characteristics that m ade ed on the detained person having a com­ their forebear a winner. 'Imagine the difficulties of punting when confronted mon-law right to enter a country, then with a field of Sunlines or Northerlies,' one bookmaker said. poor black slave Som ersett would have But an organism is much m ore than the sum of its genetics. To recognise languished in chains in an English port. the role that environment plays in shaping the final individual, we only have to Justice French added a postscript: refl ect on the human clones we have m et- more usually known as identical The counsel and solicitors acting in the twins. Friends and family have no difficulty in telling them apart, and they interests of the rescuees in this case have often have very different characters, strengths and weaknesses- m ore than evidently done so pro bono. They have enough to sort them out on a racetrack. acted according to the highest ideals of the Science fiction and the simplistic 'nature vs nurture' debates have taken law. They have sought to give voices to their toll on the word 'clone'. In common parlance, it has now been reduced to those who are perforce voiceless and, on describing som e sort of photocopy. The reality is m ore complex. H osts of factors their behalf, to hold the Executive account­ are at play in any one action. Science generally copes with this complexity by able for the lawfulness of its actions. In so studying the impact of one factor w hile holding all the others steady. This is doing, even if ultimately unsuccessful in reported in the scientific literature, but by the time it reaches m ost of us, the the li tiga tion they have served the rule of artificial context in which the results were obtained has been fo rgotten . law and so the whole community. Recently, the media reported that a Massachusetts company had created In abandoning human rights when the the first human clones. In the ensuing clam our much of the context was lost. going gets tough, governments send a These cells were not grown as embryos, but as a step along the way to 'thera­ very clear m essage to people in their own peutic cloning'. The distinction between producing full human beings via country, and tyrants in others', that our cloning, and creating embryonic tissue to replace degenerate adult tissue stated values are m ere political puffery. (therapeutic cloning) has never been clear in the public mind. The cells produced But in instructing the C ommon ­ in therapeutic cloning never grow into a human embryo. (While this distinc­ wealth to pursue the lawyers who tried tion does not am ount to moral justification of the practice, it is important for to protect the rescuees' rights for its enor­ inform ed discu ssion .) m ou s legal costs, federal Attorney­ The Massachusetts 'clones' had no arms or legs or heads. They am ounted General Daryl William s, who advocates to three bundles of cells, the largest of which consisted of six cells. And it took pro bono representation by the legal 71 human eggs to create them . According to several leaders in stem cell research, profession, has gutted its willingness to this is the critical point- human eggs are difficult to harvest and limited in take on public-interest litigation. Wil­ supply. They say the work m ay well be a last hurrah for therapeutic cloning, liams has said, coolly, that this litigation because it effectively dem onstrated that it is likely to be too difficult and was not in the public interest. His behav­ expensive to be practical. These research ers are now working on other iour reveals just how much it was. approaches, many using cells from adults, which are m ore likely to be ethically The truth is out there. Drowning. • acceptable. This is hardly the m essage that em erged, perhaps because it was not simple enough . • Moira Rayner is a barrister and freelance writer. Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STR EET 25

THE WORLD

In 2001, Michael Coyne travelled from Melbourne to East Timor to follow a story about a WWII Australian soldier who had been saved by an East Timor criado (guide). While there, Coyne met and photographed East Ti morese citizens now able to get on with their own lives in their own land.

2001 was the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Refugee Convention. Australian lawyer Martin Clutterbuck recalls the people, from many countries, whose I ives have crossed his own in the course of refugee work.

A YEAR AGO I WAS ACCOMPANYING six asylum seekers from Burma to an interview with the D epartment of Immigration. They were farmers from an ethnic minority high in the mountains of Burma and had arrived in Australia on visitor's visas. They had all been the victims of forced labour for the Burmese regime and they had no real experience of the modern world. When they approached the revolving doors in the D epartment of Immigration building they watched open-mouthed as people sm oothly passed through. Then, after observing for a minute, they made a rush towards the doors-all six of them. There was much hilarity as they attempted to disentangle arms and legs. A bemused security official came to help them out.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 27 Lawyers and other workers in this jurisdiction play a similar role when they assist asylum seekers with the complex refugee determination process on their arrival. Asylum seekers often com e to a jarring halt when confronted with an unfamiliar world. They are propelled through the system to its often Kafkaesque conclusion. The cases of individu al asylum seekers often illustrate the point. Ali Hassan was an unsuccessful Somali asylum seeker who had sustained head injuries from a bomb explosion in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, during the civil war. His refugee application was refused not because he did not have a fear of persecution in Somalia, but because decision-makers claimed there was insufficient evidence to prove that Ali was in fact a Somali. He was now about to be deported from Aus­ tralia, but to where? It was apparent to anyone who had anything to do with Ali that he was very much a Somali. As immigration officials scratched their heads they agreed that it would be appropriate to return Ali to Somalia. They then set about the task of obtaining a Somali travel document for Ali-the type of docu­ mentation that he had himself been unable to obtain to prove his case. Within hours of his deportation from Australia, the High Court intervened to prevent Ali's removal. He was allowed to reapply for refugee status and was found to be a refugee from Som alia second time around. Ali is an example of the type of refugee most in need of Australia's help despite having arrived in an 'unauthorised manner'. With a serious m ental disability, Ali would have been among the most vulnerable in war-torn Somalia. Before starting refugee work I had questioned whether asylum seekers really needed legal represen­ tation. Surely they could tell their stories directly to an immigration official through an interpreter with­ out the need for external assistance? Working in detention centres soon disabused me of this notion. Being in a detention environment is a particularly dis­ enfranchising and dehumanising experience. In July 2001 I was asked to assist an elderly Afghan asylum seeker in one of the rem ote detention centres. On seeing m e, my client becam e overwhelmed with em otion . He pumped my hand vigorously and could barely stammer out his nam e. I looked at his identity card and saw a younger-looking man with brown hair. He smiled wanly and told me that he had been in detention for over five m onths without being able to see a lawyer, despite having m ade it clear that he wished to apply for refugee status. He said, apologet­ ically, that he had becom e extrem ely distressed. His hair had turned completely white. In many cases, the challenge is to try and free som eone from the sticky bureaucratic web they have becom e enveloped in. Mr Ahmadi was a stateless refugee from Kuwait who had left behind a wife and six children as he tried to make a future for them . He arrived in Australia without authorisation and was detained.

28 EU REKA STREET • jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2002

During the refugee application process, admitted that they had m ade a m istake. He was Mr Ahmadi's then advisers inexplicably contacted offered a compensation payout and now lives in Kuwaiti authorities with his personal details. Kuwaiti country Victoria with his wife and six children. authorities wrote back confirming that they had The act of detaining people has in itself become indeed deported Mr Ahmadi from Kuwait. They then a growth industry under the presen t governm ent . made the wild assertion that Mr Ahmadi was an 'Iraqi I recall speaking last year to som e Afghan clien ts spy'. Su ch beh aviour might be expect ed from a about conditions in detention. 'We have no com­ persecutory regime, but one would not expect Aus­ plaints. We are fed, we are given blankets, we do not tralian authorities to accept such allegations at face have to sleep on the fl oor and we are not beaten by value. Yet this is precisely what happened. Australian the guards,' they said. They were comparing their in telligence authorities refused Mr Ahmadi's appli­ detention experiences with their time in a Taliban cation on the grounds that there were reasons to jail in Kandahar in Afghanistan. believe he was a national security risk. To my mind there is no question that our practice As w e wound our way through the lon g and of immigration detention is a dark chapter that will arduous process of refuting the allegations, become as unthinkable to future generations as the Mr Ahmadi sighed with exasperation, 'If I were an act of arbitrarily interring in Australia all persons of Iraqi spy, why would Australian authorities leave m e German or Japanese origin during World War II. in detention where I have contact with all the Iraqi There have been many obstacles placed in the asylum seekers?' I shrugged my shoulders and tried way of asylum seekers over the last five years. One of to explain that regimes such as the one Mr Ahmadi the most serious restrictions occurred early in the had left behind do not have a m onopoly on irrational term of the Howard government when it moved to behaviour. Finally, after Mr Ahmadi had been in limit access to work rights and financial support. det ention for 18 m onths, intelligen ce authorities I currently act for an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone,

30 EU REKA STR EET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 Samuel, who has been in Australia for over three years period he became the main feature-writer for the without work rights or any form of financial assist­ pre-eminent Somali newspaper in London, Kasmo. ance. Somehow, he has managed to survive, mainly When interested readers asked how they could contact on hand-outs. As I contemplate the compatibility of Yusuf to comment on his articles, the editor had to Australia's domestic law with the International Cov­ advise them that he was living in an immigration jail enant on Civil and Political Rights, my client states somewhere in Australia. resolutely that he must not work in Australia because Yusuf was accepted as a refugee only after an he comes from a country that has no law and he knows important full Federal Court decision concerning his what can happen . Samuel was at home when his right to freedom of speech for his writings. As we chat mother had her arm amputated by rebel soldiers in over coffee in Fitzroy, Yusuf is aware of the irony that an act of pointless violence, so he speaks with some despite having been in detention for over 18 months, passion about the rule of law. Over the last three years, he is fortunate to have had his case decided prior to he has rebuilt his life. His nightmares have subsided the new changes in law which would have torpedoed and he has married in Australia. D espite this, his his claims. He knows he would otherwise be dodging application to remain in Australia first as a refugee bullets in Mogadishu. The eternal optimist, Yusuf and then later on account of his marriage, has failed. beams from ear to ear, 'I feel just like a new child.' As I explain the situation to Samuel and his wife For me, the last five years have been filled not with Joanne, I can see Samuel staring back into the abyss. 'queue-jumpers' and 'illegals' but with a glimpse of the 'Pacific solutions' and 'border protection' rich tapestry of the world. Kurdish journalists, Iraqi legislation usher in a brave new world for refugees in doctors, Burmese students, Somali poets and Afghan Australia. Those who have beaten the clock can count farmers. Stories of pathos, good humour in the face of themselves lucky. Yusuf Farah languished in the adversity and people who are unstintingly grateful for Maribyrnong Detention Centre for over 18 months the second chance Australia has given them. • before being accepted as a refugee. A Somali poet, Yusuf spent much of his time in detention writing Martin Clutterbuck was co-ordinator of the Refugee and articles critiquing the political situation in Somalia Immigration Legal Centre in Melbourne. He is currently and the power-plays of Somali warlords. Over this in the East Timorese territory of Ocussi.

THE NAT I ON:2 The law of words Steven Columbus examines the gulf between Australian government rhetoric and the realities of international refugee law.

I T MAY COME AS A surprise to som e readers that rational, humanitarian response to the plight of those government rhetoric on asylum seekers and refugees, fl eeing human rights violations. It is a moral docu- while establishing a clear stance on those deserving ment. The government also dons the mantle of of our protection, has no bearing on who ultimately morality in claiming to champion the rights of 'needy' receives such protection. refugees. But its high-minded assertions are compro- That latter task remains within the purview of mised by parochialism and political expedience. international law, particularly the 1951 Convention The government has been very successful in and 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees dictating the language, and hence the tone and con- (hereafter 'the Convention'). The Convention operates tent, of the debate. Dehumanising rhetoric has paved at the administrative level of refugee determination, the way for callous, inhumane legislation. Australia but also imposes obligations on signatories' treatment purports to offer a haven to 'refugees in need', and a of asylum seekers/refugees across the board. resolute barrier to opportunistic 'boat people'. What Both the Convention and the government recog- the Convention demonstrates so forcefully, however, nise the need to assert an ambition to protect those is that 'boat people' and 'refugees in need' are in many 'most in need'. But they differ markedly in the criteria cases one and the same thing. used to make this judgment about priorities, and The essential components of government rhetoric consequently, in their respective conclusions. Why? are contained in the following quotation by the Part of the answer lies in the fact that they reflect Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock: different imperatives. A product of enlightened self- I am going to continue to press the argument that, if interest, the Convention nevertheless represents a you have a moral view of these matters, you would

VOL UME 1 2 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 31 be concerned about those people who are languishing Australian government rhetoric includes terms in refugee camps with no prospect of go ing home: like 'queue-jumper', and 'forum-shopper'. The Con­ unsafe where they are, in need of an urgent resettle­ vention, however, makes no judgments about where l Vhat the ment outcom e and in some of the most deplorable an asylum seeker lodges a refugee application: rather, circumstances in the world. And I compare those cir­ it places primary importance on protection as its Com entwn cumstances with the circum stances of those who are raison d'etre. One does not have to be poor (or unedu­ able to travel freely and have the money to engage cated, or downtrodden ) to be a refugee. On the con­ demonc:;trate ... <;O people-smugglers. I have to tell you that, if you are trary, it is often the well-heeled and well-connected looking for refugees in need, I know where you will who are liable to face persecution. Lawyers, bureau­ IOJ ce(ul/y 1~ thc1t find them-and you do not find them coming to Aus­ crats, intellectuals, journalists and politicians often tralia unlawfully by boat. 1 possess both the m eans and motivation to confront /boat peof>le injustice, and are frequently targeted by Not so much a definition as a value judgment, Mr abusive regimes. ancl'reluge(''> m Ruddock's 'moral' view is only ostensibly about refu­ gees. A superficial reading presents two contrasting I T WOULD BE HEARTENING to conclude on a positive need· ate 111 types: the 'refugee in need' and the 'abusive asylum note, to emphasise that, in spite of the damage done seeker'. The subtext is immigration, and specifically by divisive rhetoric, it is the humanitarian dictates f/Jcln) C che5 border control. of the Convention that guide the process by which Unpacking this passage further, 'those people Australia actually determines refugee status. How­ one ancl the who are languishing in refugee camps with no pros­ ever, in the legislation pushed through parliament pect of going home' refers quite clearly to those during the first two weeks of September were the 'idtnl' thtng envisaged as eligible for Australia's off-shore refugee Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration resettlement program. The comparison between these Zone) Act 2001 and the Border Protection (Valida­ desperate individuals and those 'coming to Australia tion and Enforcement Powers) Act 2001. Both are unlawfully by boat' could not be more disparaging. designed specifically to target 'abusive boat people'. Contrast this with the provisions of the Conven­ The former excises certain territories from Aus­ tion. According to Article 1A(2) of the Convention, a tralia's migration zone, and therefore from the refugee is a person who: jurisdiction of the Migration Act. Asylum seekers landing on Ashmore Reef, Christmas Island or Cocos ... owing to a well -founded fear of being persecuted Island- territories which in the last two years have for reasons of race, religion, nationality, m embership accounted for 100 per cent of asylum seekers landing in a particular social group, or political opinion, is by boat-are now denied access to the Convention­ outside the country of his nationality, and is unable based determination process enshrined in the Migra­ to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself tion Act. As for those intercepted at sea, the latter of the protection of that country. Act empowers Australian defence personnel to board Note what it emphasises: a well-founded fear of the vessels, and detain and transfer asylum seekers persecution. Note what it does not: money, means of to territories of the minister's choosing. Then, at the entry and prior movem ents. Even a cursory reading discretion of the D epartment of Immigration and should alert readers to the fact that both 'needy refu­ Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, asylum seekers gees' and 'abusive boat people' could hypothetically may be transferred outside the juri diction of domestic fa ll within the bounds of the Convention definition. law and beyond the scrutiny of the Australian public. Refugee status determination is not a popularity So according to what procedures will the claims contest; it does not pander to parochial conceptions of these unfortunates be assessed? As yet, no-one of good character, or to religious, cultural or societal knows. What we do know is that the Department's prejudices. It exists in isolation from the concerns of discretionary powers will be unfettered. The deter­ generic immigration policy. Considerations of skills, mination regime will have no legal basis; it will language, wealth and familial connection to Australia instead be a product of internal policy imperatives, have no bearing on refugee status determination. subject to change without public consultation, and The current government penalises in word and implemented without public accountability. deed refugees who enter Australia by unauthorised We in Australia have failed the test of our own means. Such practices find no sanction in the Con­ civilisation. • vention, which acknowledges irregular entry and in Article 3 1 explicitly prohibits the imposition of Steven Columbus worked in the New Zealand penalties on refugees on account of their illegal entry Refugee Status Branch as the refugee determination into the receiving nation. The drafters recognised that officer. Currently he oversees publications for the people fleeing persecution could face enormous Amnesty International (Victoria) Refugee Team. obstacles in obtaining travel documents, not the least I As quoted in 'Toxic rhetoric blurs sorry truth', Mike Steketee, being bringing themselves to the attention of those www.news.com.au, 25 September 2001. they fear. A longer version of this article i } available (email: eureka@;espub.jesuit.org. au).

32 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY- FEBR UARY 2002 REV I EW ESSAY

TONY CO ADY

(athol ic identity and the abortion debate

A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion, Daniel A. Dombrowski & Robert Del tete, University of Illinois Press, 2000. ISBN 0 25202 550 4

WNPoec JoHN XXIII opened the Second of identity at the time, but generally understood to Vatican Council in 1962 he was seeking renewal of be ephem eral because they were matters of church his ancient church, hoping that like the renovation discipline which could and did change. The status of of a historic building, the process would remove an unmarried clergy is surely in the same disciplinary unnecessary accretions and disfiguring ornaments, boat, though church authority holds inflexibly to it returning the edifice to a condition of pristine beauty. with a determination that defies logic. But such expectations await the m ercy or cruelty of Such is the identity crisis generated by circumstances and, from the vantage point of a new the events around Vatican II that virtually century, it is clear that the process of renewal has none of these certainties now have general had surprising, confusing and often ambiguous con­ acceptance. The proud boast that 'outside the sequ ences. The renovations have presented the church there is no salvation' is now an outside world with a curious spectacle and left the embarrassment, though this was a central and If we aba ndon or inhabitants disoriented and unsure of their location. commonplace teaching for centuries. More­ One of the m ost significant effects has been the over, few (beyond perhaps a small Vatican modify th e current erosion of a long-standing Catholic identity. There coterie) even harbour this thought secretly. orthodoxy on abortion, was a time, not so long ago really, when people were The prohibition on contraception has not agreed upon the certainties that characterised the been formally abandoned, but it is no longer what happens then to typical Catholic. Such typical Catholics confidently seriously taught or preached and it is hardly the sense of Catholic believed that their church was the one, true road to obeyed by any of the laity. N or do the vast salvation, that the Pope was the fount of doctrine and majority of the disobedient, or their pastors, identity and solidarity discipline, that he was (in certain circumstances) see their behaviour as in any way sinful. that has been both infallible, that women could never be priests, that a Many still believe in papal authority and m arried clergy was som ething only Protestants infallibility, but papal authority in m ost supported and indulged, that contraceptive sex was mortally sinful, moral matters is effectively a dead letter with symbolised by it? and that abortion was a dreadful wrong because the the laity, while infallibility is highly conten­ foe tus, from the m om ent of conception, was an tious as to m eaning and truth. Marian Th ere is no doubt that innocent human being. The list is not exhaustive: devotion has dram atically declined in many this identity will be there were, for instance, matters of devotion, such as parts of the Catholic world, and the impact that to the Virgin Mary, that were characteristically of key Marian doctrines is mostly insignifi­ furth er eroded, but is (though not exclusively) Catholic, and there were cant. But one item has remained rock solid­ that such a bad thing? various doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception the rejection of abortion and the belief that associated with those matters. the destruction of even the very early foetus is the Of course, there were many perfectly serious killing of a human being (or, as som e would more 'non-typical' Catholics who were unpersuaded of one technically have it, a person). or m ore of these certainties, just as there had been Of course, this conviction is not restricted to Catholics in every age who belonged to 'the loyal Catholics. It has becom e a centrepiece of fundamen­ opposition' on such standard certainties as the legiti­ talist Protestant Christianity, especially in the United m acy of torturing and executing heretics or the States, and there are even som e non-believers who permissibility of slavery. There were also other cer­ hold a similar position. N onetheless, one gets the tainties in the fairly recent past, such as the impression that Catholics who disagree markedly on prohibition of vernacular Mass and the ban on eating all sorts of other religious and moral questions breathe m ea t on Fridays that were perhaps equally definitive a sigh of relief that they can at least agree on this.

V OLUME 1 2 N UMBER 1 • EUREKA ST RE ET 33 This collective sigh is surely emitted as a mark of are distinctly unim pressed with this interpretation common identity. The shared fe eling is that h ere of their work. Of course, they may be wrong, but it is diversity can unite in the finn conviction that reason, significan t that the church's shift away from the faith, compassion and tradition speak Thomistic/Augustinian positions began with confu­ together on this one certainty. sions generated by new scien tific developm ents. As Dombrowski and Deltete point out, the inven tion of YET T H ERE ARE MANY curious aspects to this cons en­ the microscope and some misobservations made with sus. One is, of course, that Catholic wom en have it led scientists in the 17th century to the profoundly proportionately as many abortions as any other group mistaken theory of 'preformationism ' whereby it was in their communities. Another is that the current supposed that every organism starts off with all its Catholic orthodoxy on this issue is relatively new. A parts already formed. The theories of procreation recent book by two American Catholic philosophers, known as ovism and homunculism gave differen t Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete, provides spins to this outlook in projecting the idea that tiny a timely reminder of this. In A Brief, Liberal, Catholic humans were somehow wholly present in the female Defense of A bortion , the authors point out that not egg or in the male sperm. only were there striking differences am ong many of These theories are now m erely historical curios­ the Fathers, but the great theologians of the m edieval ities, though, at the time, they constituted advances and early m edieval period, StThom as Aquinas and St in the understanding of generation. But as scientists Augustine, did not propound the view that is now m oved on, theologians and religious apologis ts standard. They thought there was a marked difference rem ain ed fixated in a preformation ist mind-set . between the early and late stages of foetal life, and Dombrowski and Deltete give an interesting and the confidence of the contemporary view of the early persuasive sketch of the development of this fi xation, foetus as 'a human person' would surely have struck and in doing so draw upon the work of such theolo­ them as unfounded. Augustine refers to the early gians as M essenger and de Dorlodot and, m ore foe tus in vegetative terms and Aquinas held that recently, Shannon and Wolter. They chart the emer­ 'ensoulment' could not occur in the early processes gence of an ontological view of the imm orality of early of gestation when a m erely vegetative and then animal abortion (whereby the foe tus is a human person from soul were involved. It required a later divine inter­ the 'moment of conception') and contrast it with the vention to provide the developing living matter with perversity view that dominated earlier thinking about a rational human soul. In fact, in an early work, his the matter. The perversity view is the position commen tary on Peter Lombard's Bool< of Senten ces, (m en tioned above) that early abortion exhibits the Aquinas places the crucial point at 40 days wrong attitude to sexual intercourse. It is connected for a male and 90 days for a fem ale. Making with the idea, most explicit in Augustine, that due allowance fo r equality of the sexes, this procreative intent is the only thing that can justify would plausibly indicate som ething like the sexual intercourse (and then only within the confines end of the first trim ester. Augustine displays of m arriage). More broadly, it is associated with the less certainty about ensoulment, speculat­ profound suspicion of sexual pleasure and sexual The tangled historical ing at one poin t that it might occur at the desire that has marked official Catholic Christianity 46th day and elsewhere expressing a degree from its earliest years. This was relaxed som ewhat in record does not prove of agnosticism. But his most considered the 20th century so that sex solely for mutual pleasure th at th e present judgm ent on the immorality of early abor­ (between married couples) is now officially approved tion condemns it on the grounds of its in certain circumstances- a view that would have orthodoxy is wrong; but connection with sexual licence. He does struck Augustine as immoral. Indeed, the English if it is wrong or dubious not call it murder but m arried adultery. Catholic philosopher, Peter Geach, a strong opponent Aquinas likewise considers early abortion of contraception, was speaking in auth entic, if on other grounds, it in the context of sexual perversity. Their extravagant, Augustinian tones when he said, 'Apart helps explain how outlook was determinative of the church's from the good of marriage that redeem s it, standard teach ing until the 17th century. sex is poison.' 1 church authority got it The usual response to this intellectual wrong, and reduces th e history by the church's moral majority (when T E TANGLED HIST O RI CAL record does not prove that they don't ignore it altogether) is to point the present orthodoxy is wrong; but if it is wrong or appeal of the argument out that Augustine and Thomas were oper­ dubious on other grounds, it helps explain how church fro m tra dition. ating with outdated science. Modern science authority got it wrong, and reduces the appeal of the places, or puts theologians in a position to argument fro m tradition . But is the present view place, 'ensoulment' at the beginning of fo etal life and wrong? Dombrowski and Deltete do not argue out­ hence to treat early abortion as a form of murder. But right that it is wrong, only that it is suff icien tly there are many problems with this response, not the uncertain to allow that other views on abortion, more least of which is that m ost contemporary scientists favourable to its m oral legitimacy, should form part in the relevant areas, such as embryology or genetics, of a pluralistic outlook within the church. They are

34 EU REKA STREET • j ANUARY- FEBRUARY 2 002 not the first Catholics to challenge the ruling provides a reason for according it value or respect. consensus. On the local scene, Fr Norman Ford, the Similar things can be said about the idea that the Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health embryo and early foetus have already been Ethics in Melbourne, has argued in his book When 'programmed' for a distinctive human life. Popular Did I Begin~ that the human person does not begin at genetics has much to answer for, most nota- conception, but roughly two weeks later at segmen­ bly the quasi-magical notion that an tation (or the 'primitive streak' stage) after which there individual's genes dominate their choices is no longer any possibility of identical twinning.2 and destiny-'we are our genes!' Religious Others have highlighted the same historical story that people are inclined to resist genetic deter­ the American philosophers have told, and several minism and various forms of genetic reduc­ other Catholic intellectuals-notably Daniel Maguire, tionism, and I am sure that they are right to Joseph Donceel SJ , Bernard Haring, and Garry Wills­ do so. This makes it all the more surprising Modern science places, have questioned the validity of the arguments by that they fasten on to fanciful elaborations which the consensus is commonly supported. of such ideas as 'genetic code' and 'genetic or puts theologians in a In an attempt to dispel the initial implausibility programming' for their own purposes. So position to place, of the tiny person thesis, the anti-abortion case often they leap from the workaday significance of deploys the idea of potentiality. The argument is that these concepts to dramatic conclusions 'ensoulment' at the a certain point in embryonic or foetal development about the presence of a small human being beginning of foetal life (preferably conception) marks the decisive presence or person. This leap implies the equivalence of the potential for being a fully functioning human of the soul or 'individual human substance' and hence to treat early person. Destroying this potential is tantamount to to the chemical make-up of remarkable but abortion as a form of killing that individual human being. But this primitive cellular life. manoeuvre has many problems. For one thing, it Much as the personhood of the foetus murder. But there are makes Norman Ford's argument difficult for the from conception is proclaimed by the anti­ many problems with theological conservatives to handle. Ford is no radical abortionists, it is hard to believe that it is on these matters, and opposes very early abortion on seriously held in their hearts. The test of this response, not the the grounds that it destroys potential human life, but genuine belief is surely the commitment to least of which is that he argues that the embryo is not an individual human its obvious consequences. Yet there are many being (or person) until the appearance of the primitive ways in which these consequences are most contemporary streak at roughly two weeks after fertilisation. Prior ignored or avoided. If the early foetus is a scientists in the relevant to this we cannot have an individual human being person, then we would expect its death in because too many things are indeterminate, including miscarriage or abortion to elicit some areas, such as whether the entity will be one being or more­ concern for burial rites, but Catholic author­ embryology or genetics, twinning can still occur. On this view, there would ities have never required or urged anything seem to be a dramatic difference in status after two of the sort. (Interestingly, Canon Law 871 are distinctly weeks so that the morning-after pill could no longer states that' aborted foetuses, if they are alive, unimpressed with this be regarded as a person-destroyer, even if it destroyed are to be baptised, in so far as this is possible'. interpretation of their something that had the potential to become a human But pastoral practice is hardly in enthusiastic individual. accord with this precept.) In fact, a very high work. But even after the primitive streak stage, the percentage of normally fertilised human eggs question of potentiality is very ambiguous. We must are destroyed by natural processes, but no-one treats be wary of the traps that can beset the use of adjectives this as a natural disaster akin to an earthquake. Nor like 'potential'. 'Potential' does not function in the does anyone seriously suggest some sort of baptism way many standard adjectives do. A happy dog is of for stored embryos, created by the new birth tech­ course a dog, as a snappy tie is a tie, or a sad face a nologies, when they are about to perish or be destroyed face. But just as a decoy duck is emphatically not a (allowed to die) . Similarly, most anti-abortionists duck, and an imaginary win is not a victory at all, so make an exception to the ban on killing the early foe­ a potential champion is not yet a champion of any tus in cases of grave danger to the mother's life, and sort. Hence the allegation that abortion kills a poten­ some make an exception in cases of rape or incest. tial baby or potential person does not, even if true, Yet if these foetuses are persons or human beings in amount to the charge of killing a baby or a person. any morally significant sense, they are clearly inno­ Even if segmentation is an important step on the way cent of the crime or risk that allows their death. This to being a person, in that a more individual pathway is so whether we treat 'innocence' as meaning 'with­ for human development is in place, this does not out moral fault' or give it the meaning common in license the conclusion that the implanted embryo is 'just war' theory of 'not doing harm'. Some theolo­ now a human being on a par with a newborn baby or gians adopt this second interpretation and allow the late-term foetus. (I thank Arthur Kuflik for helpful killing of a foetus whose presence is endangering the discussion of this point.) None of this is to deny, of mother's life because it is (or is like) an 'unjust course, that the potentiality of an entity sometimes aggressor'. But the analogy with war is too remote:

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 35 soldiers who try to kill you may be morally innocent person as the fertilised egg that he or she grew out of. (because they are ill-inform ed or coerced) but they are Perhaps because the two authors themselves still trying to kill you and that is what licenses your disagree on some fundam entals, there is a certain lethal self-defence. The fo etus has no such intent. tension in their book between different reasons for (Contemporary philosophers would treat the life­ respecting the life of the late-stage foetus. The official endangering foetus in the category of 'innocent threat' reason is that the late-stage foetus is conscious and and many would hold it licit to kill an inno­ capable of experiencing pain. This puts the case for / cent threat to one's life. But it is doubtful respecting its 'right to life' on a par with respecting - - .. that traditional Catholic moral theology can the right to life of various animals. Sometimes, :_ .. _; ~ "": --- follow this path.) Consistency fo r the 'early however, they seem to place m ore weight on the com­ -.,.- . .. ~-.J' ---- foetus as person' view can be achieved by bination of this actual sentience with the adequate denying the permissibility of early abortion development of the cerebral cortex to the point where in such cases, but it is consistency achieved it can be said that 'real capacity' (see page 72) for A church known for at the cost of compassion and common sense. rational thought is now instantiated. In any event, The implausibility of the ontological however the authors should be interpreted, there is a compassion, humility view suggests a deeper philosophical prob­ real issue (or several real issues ) here. If sentience is and openness is more lem since the idea that the embryo or early all that is at issue, there will be good reasons for not foetus is already a human being with the killing the late foe tus but these will only be as strong likely to achieve a deep sam e moral standing as other humans seems as the reasons fo r not killing a dog. N o doubt we and impress ive identity to fl y in the face of the Thomistic tradition's should be more respectful of animal life, but even unitary approach to the reality of human m any dog-lovers might hesitate to accept this parity. than one marked by a persons. Following Aristotle, Aquinas sees This suggests that when developmen t has reached the passion for stringent the human soul as the fo rm of the human stage of 'real (though unexercised) capacity' for ration­ body. Dualistic theories that view the human ality there is room for an argument giving a stronger, metaphys ica l soul or mind as a distinct complete substance though perhaps not absolute, right to life to the late dogmatism in the face fr om the body m ay be able to envisage a foetus. Once we can think of the being in the womb human soul connected to anything at all, a not merely as an entity with a certain potential, but of complexity and stone or a frog perhaps. But for Thomas there as an actual though immature member of the human suffering. is surely som ething absurd about a rational community, then we should treat it as more signifi­ soul animating a tiny speck that does not cant (even ) than the household pets. If this is 'specie­ have organs or sensation even though it has som e sism ', then so be it.4 prospect of eventually developing them .3 It is surely Then there is the question of what respect, if any, more plausible to place the moral significance of the is due to the foetus in the early stages of its progress developing human organism at the stage where the to being a human person, an issue that receives insuf­ physical structures underlying sensation and thought fi cient attention in Dombrowski and Deltete's book. are at least seriously in place. D ombrowski and Even if we reject the minuscule person story, this may Deltete argue that this happens only towards the not m ean that we can treat the destruction of the early end of the second trimester. There is clearly room embryo as a matter of moral indifference. The very for debate abou t these matters but the standard early stages of pregnancy m ay deserve respect for Catholic view blocks this debate with its commit- reasons that do not commit us to anything like the m ent to 'immediat e hominisation ' (as m etaphysics of 'immediate hominisation'. We can Donceel calls it). recognise that there is som ething remarkable in the processes of fertilisation and early foetal development D OMBROWSKI AND D ELTETE try to support their (at least at and after the stage of segmentation), some­ position by recourse to 'process metaphysics' and a thing to evoke attitudes of wonder and even a certain philosophical critique of strict identity involving a reverence, without falling into the trap of 'immediate theory of 'temporal asymmetry'. The average lay hominisation'. Such attitudes might well deploy the reader will find m ost of this merely m ysterious and notion of potentiality (without fa lling into the traps distracting, and I must say, as a professional philo­ mentioned earlier) and might well lead to a certain sopher, that a good deal of it struck m e as philosoph­ recoiling fr om the idea that abortion is a perfectly ically unpersuasive and dubiously necessary for the neutral moral practice. T hey m igh t also support a case they want to m ake. The notion of identity at concern that abortion not becom e more widespread, work in common uses of 'the same person' is not and a sense of regret whenever it becom es necessary. univocali in one sense I am clearly the same person In allowing room for such attitudes, I do not mean as the 12-year-old boy in the photograph preserved in to suggest that they are entirely unproblematic. In my parents' photo album, but I can also say that, in a particular, there are two sorts of problem that they different sense, I am now another person altogether. face. The first concerns the weight to be given to this But we do not need to unravel these issues to be clear respect. Some conservative moralists, including many that there is no sense in which any adult is the sam e Catholics, view it as overwhelming. Invoking talk of

36 EU REKA STR EET • jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2002 1 the gife of life1 they use this idea to rule out any such crucial issues as slavery 1 separation of church research on the early embryo that is likely or certain and state1 freedom of conscience1 and the status of to be destructive1 including research that promises w om en illustrates the dam aging eff ects of this m ajor m edical breakthroughs such as the procuring ingrained resistance to change. of stem cells. I doubt that the respect in question can In the light of this resistance, the standard line be made to do so much work. In particular1 where on abortion has a significance beyond a concern fo r infertility clinics have 1Spare embryos that are to be the status of the unborn. The standard line has led, destroyed an yway1 the serious prospect of curing fo r instance, to official Catholic opposition to in-vitro disease or relieving great suffering by carefully super­ fertilisation and m ost other form s of artificial birth vised/ though destructive1 research seem s to m e t echnology. It is an important elem ent in the clearly to outweigh the demands of respect. campaign against research using stem cells (which can The second problem concerns the question of only at present be got by destroying embryos), even whether such attitudes are distinctively religious1 in though this holds out hope for the treatment of m ajor 5 som e broad sense of the term1 as Ronald Dworkin has diseases. It is connected to the rejection of all forms argued1 and whether1 if S0 1 they should form no part of human cloning. Som e of the issues in this area are of law and public policy in pluralist democracies. legitimate causes for public concern and debate both These questions are related to the way we should with regard to their ethical and health aspects. The understand politicalliberalism 1 and are too complex fact that a project is aimed at prom oting human good to discuss further here1 although the issue is canvassed does not immediately guarantee that it has no moral by Dombrowski and Deltete in their chapter on liber­ flaws. N onetheless, a thread that runs through the alism . This chapter is not particularly deep or novel church 1 s compreh en sive oppositional stance is a philosophically/ but it avoids m any of the errors and disturbing lack of compassion for human misery and misunderst andings about contemporary liberal suffering. One prominent church spokesm an, reject­ thinking that are unfo rtunately fa r too common ing recently the idea of genetic testing of embryos for am ong Catholic and other Christian commentators. tendencies to cancer used the 1What next?' device to They also have an interesting chapter propounding a suggest that scientists might next want to reject the new Catholic approach to sexual ethics/ but reasons implantation of embryos that h ad a t endency to of space also preclude a discussion of this here. asthma. The spokesm an no doubt did not intend this If we abandon or m odify the current orthodoxy as a gratuitous slight to those who suffer from this on abortion 1 what happens then to the sen se of terrible disease, but this sort of insensitivity em erges Catholic identity and solidarity that has been both all too readily in the polemical context of the abortion supported and symbolised by it? There is no doubt debate. A church known for com passion, humility and that this identity will be further eroded1 but is that openness is m ore likely to achieve a deep and impres­ such a bad thing? The sense of identity has an impor­ sive identity than on e m arked by a passion for tant psychological and m oral role to play in human stringent m etaphysical dogm atism in the face of life1 but its role is not always positive. There are good complexity and suffering. • and bad identities and the fashion for preserving identities at all costs is one of the m ore ambiguous Professor Tony Coady is an ARC Senior Research and som etimes dangerous fads of contemporary life. Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Applied N azi politicians and their supporters had a strong Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of sense of identity but they would have been better off Melbourne. without it and similar things can be said of many 1 l Peter Geach, The Virtues: The Stan ton Lectures 1973-4, dam aging/ thou gh less dreadful1 identities. The Cambridge Univers ity Press, 1977, pl 47. Catholic identity referred to at the beginning of this 2 Norman M. Ford, When Did J Begin! Conception of the Human article was both rigid and highly oppositional. It set In dividual in History, Philosophy and Science, Cambridge Uni­ Catholics proudly apart from other Christians and versity Press, 1988. other religiou s people and sign alled that their 3 When T homas speaks of 'ensoulment' he does not-or should characteristic beliefs and practices were unchanging not- mean that an ethereal substance is injected by God in to 1 the foetus, but rather that a new stage in foetal development indeed unchangeable. But this separation and inflexi­ has emerged in which the orga nism now has rational ca pacities bility m ay be precisely what needs to be abandoned. (if not abilities) and hence a new moral status. He also thinks this requires a special act of God, but this is another matter. Catholics should absorb the genuine insights 1 values and discoveries of other religiou s and secular 4 Les t this be thought too dismissive of an important line of mora l critique, I would refer the reader to my more developed traditions without viewing them as m ere optional critique of Peter Singer's view on speciesism in 'Morality and 1 1 add-ons to the guaranteed deposit of faith • T hey Species', Res Publica, vol. 8, no. 2, 1999. Copies can be obtained should be particularly wary of treating a m ere attach­ from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the U niversity of Melbourne (email: [email protected] .au). m ent to social1 m oral and political conservatism as if it constituted attachment to the person and m essage 5 Recent scientific developments suggest that it may become feasible to get healthy stem cells from living adult humans with­ of Christ. (The sam e goes of course fo r radicalism.) out da maging the adults. Were this possible it would bypass the The record of church authority in recent centuries on problem of embryo status.

VOLUM E 12 N UMB ER 1 • EU RE KA STR EET 37 [HEsHoRrl iS]

In Fear of Security: Australia's Invasion Anxiety, no less pertinent. Am in Saikal, in particular, outlines the impact Anthony Burke, Pluto Press, 200 1. ISB I R6403 on Islamic people around the world of United States policy­ 125 'i, RRI' $39.95 particularly its historical failure to address Palestinian grievance This book examines and criticises the idea that and its tacit encouragement of Taliban domination of national security is an unquestionable good. A Afghanistan. Chandra Muzaffar makes the most salient point long time ago Augustine argued that wars are about religious conflict in Asia. At issue is power and land, and fought for the sake of peace, and that the quest religious differences are manipulated to further the agenda of the for unconditional peace inevitably leads to war. powerful. The prevailing religion is ' moneytheism'. If that bleak This book explores the same paradox, analysing assessment is more generally true, we might expect that the process by which the idol of security leads popularity of war against terrorism will enable governments to us to identify groups whom we must fear, and to identify struggles for economic justice and cultural freedom construct our own identity out of a shared struggle against them. with terrorism. Military power and economic exploitation can Security, which is supposed to kill fear, in fact nurtures it. As the then grow unchallenged. -A-H. author was finishing his book, the Tampa sailed by. He quotes from a speech of Prime Minister Joseph Cook when he accepted naval Jesus and the Gods of the New Age: Communi­ vessels in 1913: 'This fleet will defend White Australia from less cating Christ in Today's Spiritual Supermarket, advanced but aggressive nations all around us with lower stand­ Ross Clifford & Philip Johnson, Lion Publishing ards.' Today's prime minister speaks with the same timbre and (Oxford), 2001. ISRN 0 74595 060 4, RHP $22.95 sentiment. -Andrew Hamilton SJ These two Evangelical writers do not demonise New Age spirituality, but try to understand its September 11, Noam attraction. In dialogue with their adherents, Chomsky, Allen & Unwin, they describe various New Age beliefs and 20()1. ISBI'. ] 86S08 8 18 8, RRP practices. At the close of each dialogue, they $17.9S; Taliban: The Story of show how the speaker's desires and questions the Afghan Warlords, Ahmed may be met in Biblical Christianity. Although, Rashid, Pan Books, 2001. for my taste, they move too briskly from questions to Bible, they are l'>BN 0 BO 49221 7, RRP $20 spot on in identifying the questions that young adults ask: How can Two short books, both I be the best person I can possibly be?; How can I find my place in essential reading if you the world?; Who am I, and who might I become?; How do I find want background to the release from my brokenness, and cope with my illness?; Where do crisis in Afghanistan or I find peace?; How can I reconnect with the divine source of all life?; some sense of the diversity of opinion in the United States. What path should I choose, and what values should I embrace?; Rashid's Taliban has a new, post-September 2001 preface. The How is it that the world, which seems designed to be harmonious, rest of his meticulous and detailed journalist's account of the rise is so stuffed up? of the warlords is timely-and timeless-in its analysis of the Anyone wishing to understand young adults could listen long to power battles and the vested interests that lead nations and whole them addressing these questions. -A.H. regions on a path of destruction. Rashid also gives a very useful account of the less-discussed agendas of the current 'war on " ' " " "" """"" Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of terrorism' by detailing the complex of oil fields and transit routes American Community, Robert D. Putnam, that criss-cross Afghanistan. Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2001. ISBN 0 Chomsky's September 11 is a rather more opportunistic 74320 304 6, RRI' $34.95 volume- a series of interviews given by the MIT professor of Published well before September 11, this is a linguistics and long-time left activist to a variety of news services landmark study, written by a Harvard political after the attacks on New York and Washington. There is, in conse­ scientist who has a common touch, a prophetic quence, some repetition, and some predictability in Chomsky's bent and all the analytical equipment needed to stance. But the book does make one think more than twice about effect a sea change in American community what the 'war on terrorism' means and who, over the past two life-if only people read and listen. It's a big decades, have been the terrorists. His accounts of US activity in El book, but written with such lively understand­ Salvador should be familiar, but, given the short memory of inter­ ing of the social dynamics of the United States that it could well fix national news media, probably isn't. Read September 11 for that if the ills it documents. Religion and Culture nothing else. -Morag Fraser Putnam's strength for a general reader is his vivid, concrete in Asia Pacific: language-'bowling alone' is typical. How better to phrase a state Religion and Culture in Asia Pacific: Violence or of isolation? Or take another example: the Glenn Valley, Pennsyl­ Healing?, Joseph A. Camdlcn (c d.), Pax Chnsti, vania, Bridge Club, strong for 50 years, no longer has any members. 2001. ISBN I 87637 002 5, RRI' $ 19.95 Putnam tells why, explaining much about 'social capital' along the The title of this collection of papers from a Pax way. And better, he traces other times when America's social fabric Christi Conference held in October 2000, reads was torn-and Americans repaired it themselves, with grassroots poignantly after the events of September 2001. acumen. Community and individuality-Putnam understands and The threats of violence have flowered; the reconciles both strands of the American dream- with panache and promises of healing have withered. But these infectious hope. Take it to the beach with you and then pass it on. measured analyses of the role of religion are Australia could benefit from it too. -M-F.

38 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY- FEBRU ARY 2002 SUMMER READING:l

JOHN BUTTO Party profiles

Liberalism and the Australian Federation, J.R. Ncthcrcote (ed.), Federation Press, 2001. ISBN 1 86287 402 6, RRP $45 True Believers: The Story of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, John Faulkner & Stuart Macintyre (e ds), Allen & Unwin, 2001. ISBN 1 86508 527 8, RRP $35

N O'

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 39 which embraces even those with serious the Liberal Party' it does not 'cover the field'. Bell, are motivated by 'ideology'. It is a shortcomings. Revered leaders like Curtin, There is, for example, no chapter on the belated attempt to remove any imperfec­ Chifley and-for vastly different reasons­ party organisation, an important omission tions in the story of the only icon. Menzies Whitlam, are the most obvious examples of given that John Howard refers in the fore­ would not have attempted it himself. He Labor icons in the 20th century. But others word to 'thousands of members throughout spent a lot of time trying to persuade Curtin have their place in history too. the country contributing their policy ideas'. to replace him as prime minister in a govern­ Menzies is the Liberal Party's only Though the book is conceptually flawed, ment of national unity. established icon. Deakin, w ho left the it includes some fine essays. 'Australian The final chapter, 'In the National imprint of his mind on Australian politics Liberalism', a chapter by Gregory Melleuish, Interest: Liberal Foreign Relations from for 80 years, could have been one but there is nicely written, and 'Liberalism: The Nine­ Deakin to Howard', by Professor Carl Bridge, has always been a strange ambivalence about teenth Century Legacy' by Winsome is the most selective and subjective of all. It Deakin. After all, he was, as Frank Moor­ Roberts is an essay of quality, although it invites the reader to try to see through a house observed in his introduction to Walter has little to do with the rest of the book. keyhole with both eyes, and because of this Murdoch's biography, 'a thinker and a Clem Lloyd contributes an interesting and comes nowhere near the quality of dreamer'. This is enough to make him a colourful historical chapter on 'The Rise rr other essays in the book. subject of some suspicion in Australian and Fall of the United Australia Party' and public life, particularly on the conservative Ian Hancock writes lucidly on Liberal gov­ .l.uuE BELIEVERS, by contrast, makes con­ side of politics. Hughes the populist and ernments from 1966 to 1972. There are cessions, accepting in the introduction the Lyons the pragmatist were both Labor several other good essays. late Henry Mayer's view that the Labor renegades; not good material for icono­ But the closer the contributions get to Party has had no monopoly as the party of graphy. And Gorton, the most attractive party politics the less objective and the initiative. Even the introduction contains and interesting Liberal leader since Menzies, more desperate they become. Michael some nice ironies about the Labor Party's was undermined and stabbed in the back by Keenan, for example, is so incensed by Paul failings as well as its successes. his own party. And in turn, Malcolm Fraser Keating's broad-brush criticisms of the The book is edited by Labor's Senate is presented as presiding over a government Menzies legacy that he falls into the same Leader, John Faulkner, and historian Stuart of equivocation, although, as the author of polemical bear-pit himself. Bu t when it Macintyre. As the subtitle says, it is 'the the Fraser chapter observes, he was 'perhaps comes to colourful argumen ts, Keating does story of the federal parliamentary Labor the most genuine heir of Menzies: a man of it much better than Keenan. David Day Party' and because it is a history and tries to the right but inclined to be reasonable and (Menzies and Churchill at War) is accused be nothing else, it's easy to follow the not take things to extremes'. But nowadays of relying on 'circumstantial evidence'. narrative. This is in spite of its many he has become unfairly the subject, as Pat Other historians, J.M. McCarthy and Roger au thors. It is a 'warts and all' history, with Weller put it, of 'a Liberal demonology'. chapters on Labor splits, caucus critics, This leaves Menzies, a very skilful Labor 'rats' and Labor's shortcomings politician whose gravitas was under­ in its slow acceptance of a role for pinned by the fact that he was an women. Break-out pages profile erudite and cultivated man, which prom in en t identities like King allowed him to embrace an ad hoc O'Malley and reflect the views of progressive Liberalism. He was various leaders on caucus procedures 'inclined to be reasonable'. and functions. It all has a certain The Liberal Party hang-up is political earthiness. encapsulated in this question: how The first Labor caucus met on come we, who occupied the Treasury 8 May 1901 in the basement of Parlia­ benches for two-thirds of the 20th ment House, Melbourne. George Reid century, have so little written about observed that already Labor was us? It's a good question, to which 'steering from the steerage'. Its mem­ there is often a range of unkind bers were predominantly British in responses. Here, in the first chapter, outlook and background, with strong written by Staley and Nethercote, the allegiances to the trade union move­ problem is expressed in this way: 'In ment and somewhat weaker alle­ very recent decades the literature giances to the British varieties of about Liberalism and its various socialism . T he platform was clear organisational manifestation s h as enough: one adult, one vote; exclusion been growing, though it still has some of coloureds and 'undesirable' races; distance to go before it rivals that of referenda as part of the democratic its major challenger.' process and old-age pensions. Later a Liberalism and the Australian citizen army and compulsory arbitra­ Federation carries a number of dis­ tion were in cluded. This caucus claimers in the preface. T he views are represented a fair cross-section of the those of the individual authors, not broader Labor m ovemen t. It was, as n ecessarily of t he Liberal Party. Stuart Macintyre puts it, 'a white Though 'a unique project in the life of brotherhood that was exclusive in its

40 EU REKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 SUMMER READING:2 MICHAEL McGIRR composition and outlook and which never­ theless aspired to a more decent, democratic and equal Australia'. Over the decades that followed, changes in the composition of the federal caucus, and sometimes its role, reflected funda­ Games we play mental changes in Australian society, par­ ticularly the weakening identity and decline of the traditional working class, the role of The Best Ever Australian Sports Writing: A 200 Year Collection, David Headon (ed.), women, new technologies in the workplace, Black Inc, 2001. ISBN 1 86395 266 7, RRP $49.95 broader access to education, and the develop­ Local Rites: A Year in Grass Roots Football in Victoria and Beyond, Paul Daffey, ment of a more outward-looking and less Black Duck Publications, 2001. ISBN 0 64641 248 5, RRP $24.95 parochial culture. In 1935 John Curtin moved to give the party organisation more influence in the Someone once said that the higher councils of the ALP. In the mid leastA oneUT Australian coat of arms should 1960s Gough Whitlam's interventions cultures of which they are have a chip on its shoulder. It swung the balance back in favour of the often suspicious. Like the is certainly true that the sports parliamentary party. By the 19 70s Whi tlam Chinese, they read the paper literature of defeat has a vital had established a caucus which was more from back to front. Browsing indignation that makes self­ middle-class, better educated and more throughDavidHeadon'smam­ righteous accounts of victories widely representative of the community in moth collection, The Best Ever dreary reading by comparison. both its make-up and authority. The story Australian Sports Writing, it The suggestions Kenneth of caucus is full of swings and roundabouts. is possible to see why. The Slessor made in Smith 's True Believers gives a lot of attention to Australian passion for sport, Weekly in 1922 for improving the relationship between caucus and cabinet which is often carried to bizarre the chances of an Australian and not much to the relationship between and tedious extremes, has Rugby League team against caucus and the party organisation. Though engendered some passionate England are a case in point. He understandable, this is a pity. It's a relation­ writing. A lot of it has quali­ advocated the introduction of ship which should lie at the heart of a ties of insight, drama and telescopic goal posts to frus­ democratic party. True Believers reflects comedy which makes it worth trate opposition kickers. great pride in the ALP's long history but reading after the game, match Another case is Roy Masters' there is a dangerous assumption that past or set it describes have long portrait ofTom Raudonikis: 'At longevity assures eternal political life. By since passed in to the graveyard Wests we never made a grand implication, other parties come and go, of statistics. final, reaching the preliminary change their names and spots, but Labor Some of the best sports final twice, and after both goes on forever. Other parties have to writing has a deep sense of moral grievance: games Tom was a spent, exhausted shell. It reinvent themselves but the Labor Party the race that should have been won, the was the only time he was totally vulnerable transcends all this. At the beginning of a club that should have been saved, the umpire because he had nothing left.' new century it is in fact Labor which is in that should have been strung up. A lot of it One of the many treasures that Headon most desperate need of reinventing itself. is territorial. Victoria's Barry Dickins wastes has dug up is a piece written in 1862 by the The philosophies and prejudices that no time in dismissing Rugby League as the firebrand Reverend, John Dunmore Lang, have served both political parties well in province of drunks and big business. Hugh in which he rails against sport as a waste of the past will not necessarily serve them Lunn, a Queenslander, celebrates a Rugby moral energy: well in the future. After all, these books are League victory over NSW in 1980, remind­ One of the worst features in our colonial both about the last century. This one will ing readers that the southern clubs made community is the wide-spread and growing be even more demanding. • their money from poker machines long taste for frivolity and dissipation in every before Queensland descended to that level. form-cricketing, horse-racing, regattaing, John Button was a senator and minister in In other words, the maroons deserved to &c., &c., &c., and I confess I almost despair the Hawke and Keating governments. defeat the 'cockroach es'. of the social and political-not to speak of

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V OLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EU REKA STRE ET 41 the moral and religious-advancement of Daffey encounters Justin Charles on the brake off. Winmar sends him a message: a people who expend so much of their sideline of a game in his initial year as 'Hey, Cuz, you can have your car back.' time and means in such pursuits and coach of the North Footscray Red Devils. In Daffey indicates deeper probl em s in amusements. 1997, when he was playing for Richmond, Winmar's life: 'In court, he was fo und guilty Charles became the first AFL player to be of assaulting his wife, now estranged, and The 700 pages that follow contradict Lang. found guilty of the use of banned drugs. fined $3000. In the new year, he ended his They suggest that moral argument, the Daffey records the dramatic effect this had days in Victoria and returned to Western tribunal for the relationship between on his career, but also the importance of a Australia.' circumstances and character, is the stock­ local club in his psychological rehabilita­ Daffey is both entertaining and serious. in-trade of a lot of sports writing. It is as tion. He asks his players constantly, 'Who's He returns to where Australian Rules may at home in the back pages as it is foreign responsible?' They respond, 'I am .' It is a well have begun, in a small town near the in the front. There is an entire seminar lesson Charles seems to have learned and Grampians where, in the 1840s, Tom Wills waiting for anyone game to explore this now wants to pass on. Local Rites also tells noticed Aboriginal people playing a game of phenomenon. 'It's not a case of a novelist of characters whose return from different 'kecpings off' called marn grook . He began straining for meaning,' writes Tom wars was eased by their connection to a club. to think of 'a game of our own'. That gam e Kcncally. 'It's simply true. The great game Nicky Winmar emerges as one of a range now embraces all the complexity of the is a fascinating moral phenomenon.' He of complex, struggli ng person alities. Australian community. Daffey encounters could be thinking of any one of t he Winmar appears in Headon's collection in a a club which has to replace a player because, numerous sports represented in tribute by Stephanie Holt, one of t he being Islamic, he is required to accompany n this inexhaustible collection. relatively sm allnumberofpieces by women his sister to her sporting events. He also in the collection. (Headon explains the encounters a team fro m th e Jewish L uL DAFFEY's Local Rites has far fewer reasons for this. It's not his fa ult that sport­ community which has to negotiatcfortheir pages but, in some ways, is almost as vast. ing culture has changed so slowly.) Holt is grand final not to fall on holy cla ys. He Daffey spent a year making contact with able to capture the fascination that such a theorises that a Catholic background can many of the small Australian Rules clubs m ercurial player as Winmar held not just stiffen the resolve of certain teams. He in south-cast Australia. forSt Kilda fo llowers, nor even AF L follow­ watch es an Aboriginal team which is While some ofDaffey's detailed descrip­ ers, but for the Australian community. He beginning to find its feet in Benalla. Mean­ tions of games might be of m ore interest to was the player who lifted his jumper to while, on the other side of the tracks, Old enthusiasts, the book is full of personality indicate the colour of his skin to the crowd Melburnians, the club connected to Mel­ and local colour. He comes across a number at Collingwood's Victoria Park, the home bourne Gram mar, figh ts doggedly through of figures who've had starring roles in the of the black and white. He is also another of the courts to defend its standing against an AFL, the Broadway of the code, in out-of­ th e defeated. alleged breach of the amateur code. QCs are the-way venues. He finds Bob Rose, the In Local Rites, Winmar is playing out of called to take up the fight. They do so will­ former Collingwood president, watching a town for the Warburton-Millgrove Kooka­ ingly. They have a passion of their own. game in the Mallee. Rose had played for burras. His very presence at the club boosts Nyah West in 1945 before moving on to a the numbers at training. He creates a frisson Michael McGirr is the author of Things You bigger stage. At the age of 72, he is still of excitement. But his chaotic behaviour is Get For Free. His essay 'The Ultra-Slow connected to his roots. The same is true of not easy to accommodate. T h e club Marathon', published originally in Eureka the Danihcrs from Ungarie, 650km from president lends him a car which rolls into Street, appears in The Best Ever Australian Melbourne. the river when Winmar leaves the hand- Sports Writing.

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42 EU REKA STREET • jANUA RY- FEB RUA RY 2002 SU MM ER READIN G:3 JULIETTE HUGHES Sound Winton

Dirt Music, Tim Winton, Picador, 2001, ISBN 0 330 36323 4, RRP $43.95 Dirt Music: Music for a Novel by Tim Winton, CD ABC 472 046-2, RRP $30

A ny thin you could play on a verandah. time Win ton reas ures the reader You l

VOLU ME 1 2 N UMBE R 1 • EUREKA STREET 43 of White Point, a fishing port, and White the Foxes are the jonahs of White Point. In an odyssey of one's own. Some music is Point's leading citizen, Georgie's de facto, a superstitious fishing community their good travelling music, and Winton has Jim Buckridge. When Georgie sees Fox's luck is too bad to risk employing them. His chosen his pieces well. boat heading out to poach pretending to be father an asbestos casualty from Wittenoom, There may be people who find the book a hobbyist or 'shamateur', she struggles for his mother killed by a sheared-off tree more popular in feel than Winton's previ­ a moment with the problem of whether to branch in a sudden gust of wind, Luther Fox ous stuff. Cloudstreet fans may complain, dob him in, or just to let things lie. In doing is left with music, his brother, his sister-in­ but Sh allows fans will rejoice at another the latter she is further weakening a loyalty law and their two children. They form a working-through of grief, guilt and redemp­ that has become increasingly attenuated band that can fit safely into a small niche of tion. Like the music he selects for Luther to over the past few months. Her relationship acceptability gigging at White Point wed­ be expert in, Dirt Music is rich, not to be with Buckridge has lasted three years, a dings and parties; given their luck, this taken lightly, deceptively powerful, and record for her. As her past is revealed we see cannot last, and when we meet Luther he is simply strong. her as having been the rebel in a house of alone and freakishly bereft once more. In the end the thing that always springs four privileged, privately educated sisters, When things finally catch up with Fox at you is the compassion. Plunged into the daughters of a faithless man who belittled in White Point, he takes off towards Broome boiling whitewater of experience in his their mother, a man narcissistically flam­ and the Kimberley. The second CD is books, you could be buffeted and drowning boyant and detached as only a QC can be. important here: it contains the classical without the redemptive hand he reaches His name, 'Jutland', opens an interesting music that is played by the elderly couple out. And the redemption is never facile, line of speculation: it resonates with old with whom Fox hitches a lift. It is a curious never a cop-out. Dirt Mu sic, as with many pompousnesses in its evocation of the Battle mix: Bach's 'Befiehl du deine Wege' (better a Winton novel, shows people stuck, strug­ of Jutland, and the sinking of The Jutland in known to most as the tune of '0 Sacred gling, yet alive with a kind of blind persist­ World War I. Empire, British links, old Head'); Peter Sculthorpe; Shostakovich; ence in living that hardly qualifies as hope, money- Winton sometimes m akes Dick­ Vaughan Williams; Arvo Part. But in listen­ yet functions very like it. • ensian magic with his names: think of Des ing to the CD, the reading-journey through Pustling in Shallows. the endless spaces of the big west becomes Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. In Buckridge Georgie obviously sees som eone close to her own background: he went to boarding school, his family have been powerful landowners and now he is a SUMMER READING 4 powerful fishing-busin essman among a JOHN SENDY community that is fertile One Nation terri­ tory: under-educated bigots who have no allegiance to the poor from whom they have just sprung by sheer luck. The brag­ mansions that have erupted around White The writing of Point are contemptuously dismissed by Winton as more ugly than the hovels the new millionaires used to inhabit. Buck ridge is not an evil man: he stands, wisdom now at any rate, apart from their worst barbarities, but there is a darkness in him, Henry Handel Richardson: The Letters, Vo lumes I, 2 and 3, and his past is full of bullying and heartless­ Clive Prohyn and Bruce Steele (eds), The M1egunyah Prc~s . 2000. ness. A widower, he has more than grief to JSII N 0 S22R4 797 H, RRI' $8H each deal with. Yet his wife, dead of cancer in her 30s, is as sacrosanct as Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Georgie will not pry much: when 'W om '"' wm< To'' ' f,iend •nd opinion •hoot wntmg, t<•n,hbon, Buckridge denies her entry to his past he asked dubiously when the three volumes of publishing, social issues and politics as creates the trajectory their relationship will the letters of Henry Handel Richardson well as a treasure-trove concerning the follow. His small sons are as closed to her as were published. famous author, her family and her wide he is. By contrast, Fox has few defences Indeed, many have believed HHR's long circle of correspondents. against her. Strangely, but not inexplicably years in England, spanning the first half of the In 19 10, Paul Solanges, an elderly French- for a Winton novel, Buckridge enables 20th century, were aloof and lonely, isolated man living in Italy, wrote to HHR offering Georgie to track Fox down when he flees from Australia and largely friendless here. to translate Maurice Guest into French. north. It doesn't make Buckridge into a The letters indicate that such impres- She agreed and there developed a surpris- hero; you sense that he wants to control the sions are false. Large numbers are missing, ingly suspenseful, riveting and wide-ranging way Georgie leaves him, to make some sort deliberately destroyed or accidentally lost, correspondence which becomes the bulk of of gesture that can make sense of things in but nearly a thousand remain. Volume l. his way. They exhibit intelligence and learn- HHR (nee Ethel Florence Lindesay Fox is a member of the kind of family we ing, wit and humanity, inevitable splashes Richardson) tried to conceal her identity as are used to in Shallows and Cloudstreet. of conceit and prejudice and plenty of a woman. However, a close reading reveals Chaotic, joyful, tragic, jinxed and foolish, gossipy details. They provide illumination that Solanges tumbled to, and was greatly

44 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2002 amused by, her deception, lending their When Solanges criticised British suffra­ despite his talent. But they have-in exchange a romantic or coquettish undertone. gette actions as well as their charms, her combination with his intelligence, gift for For 35 years, from 1911, HHR corre­ feminism did not waver: 'Many of England's languages, humour, well-stocked mind, sponded with Mary Kernot, a Victorian, finest women are undergoing imprisonment generosity, and volatile mixture of bravado who as Mary Robertson was a school friend today-and some of her most beautiful, too and humility-produced one of the best at Presbyterian Ladies College. The charac­ ... My own sister happens to be among them.' essayists and critics (of an anti-post­ ter Cupid in The Getting of Wisdom was The reasons for her nom de plume modernist ilk) writing in English. based on her. Kernot loved books and nature. become obvious in the letters: she had a At his best James is utterly engaging, She could write and gave her friend plenty mania for privacy and believed a male name not only because of his verbal gymnas­ of Australian colour, lively gossip and as author of her first novel, Maurice Guest, tics-where words are concerned he is valuable literary information and assist­ would yield more interest and hope of both gourmet and gourmand-but on ance. This exchange has great importance success. account of the depth of his knowledge of in Volumes 2 and 3. An added attraction is the two-way a simply astonishing array of subjects. Letters to and from Nettie and Vance traffic: several hundred are letters written One of his greatest strengths as a critic is Palmer, Miles Franklin, Brian Penton, Nor­ to HHR. Annotations at the bottom of each his capacity and desire to go where few man Lindsay, Katharine Susannah Prichard letter amplify and give simple and helpful major English-speaking critics will-for and sundry other writers, publishers, friends information. example, into eastern European and Aus­ and acquaintances from many countries These three volumes, following the 1998 tralian literatures and pop culture. But he round out the volumes. publication of Maurice Guest in its original has also nervelessly taken on the far more HHR's attitudes on many subjects are and unabridged form, are a major cultural taxing mission of saying something new disclosed. These include her opposition to event for Australia and a triumph of scholar­ or fresh about subjects-George Orwell, novelists trying 'to lead, direct and influence ship for Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele and Hamlet and Mark Twain, for example­ the social life of the day' and her belief that their team working on the HHR Project at upon which the last word may be thought instead they should concentrate on 'the Monash University. • to have been spoken. conduct of human beings in relation to If James fails from time to time (I think other human beings'. John Sendy is a freelance writer. this collection is a flawed oneL no-one could ever accuse him of lacking the courage to stray beyond the boundaries of a special­ SUMME R READING:S ity. The range of his learning and his enthu­ HUGH DILLON siasm for extending it has become so much a part of the landscape of bourgeois culture in the English-speaking world that we have almost taken it for granted. It is only when we attempt to measure it, by criticising the critic, that we fully realise his standing. This new collection brings us 42 pieces. Many are brilliant, a few embarrassingly slight, a couple simply embarrassing. My first reaction was that his editors would have done him a big favour had they turfed his pieces on the Sydney Olympics and on Princess Diana. And yet ... One of the characters in Kipling's {u st So Stories is a young elephant full of Ripe p1ckings 'satiable curtiosity. This might be a description of Clive James. John Carey said of James in Pure Pleasure that he 'writes Even As We Speak: New Essays 1993-2001, Clive James, Picador, 2001. like a man who knows he m ay be torn to ISBN 0 330 48176 2, RRP $26 pieces if he lets boredom supervene for a microsecond'. James' remark, in his essay on Bill Bryson, that 'there is nothing like CONNOCCY once wwt<, 'Lite<>- 'nd w'iting, the evidence of thi' collection sophistication for cutting you off from turec is th'"''e art of writing som ething that and his oeuvre as a whole shows that he is experience' applies aptly to himself. He is a will be read twice; journalism what will be not at heart a political thinker. Rather, to determined seeker after experience, sophis­ grasped at once.' If that is so, Clive James adopt the imagery of Isaiah Berlin, he is a ticated or otherwise. So my revised view is has bridged the divide. In this volume are fox rather than a hedgehog, a creature who that the light, demotic pieces are essential som e of James' best essays, which will be knows many things rather than one big to a full understanding of a man who, read and reread for a long time. thing. I suspect, thinks as he writes, 'When I grow While he claims that his belief in liberal These intellectual tendencies may have up I want to be a ... [poet, novelist, photo­ democracy and his opposition to totalitari- resulted in Jam es' never attaining the first grapher, film-maker, historian, philosopher anism are the central themes of his thinking rank as a writer of imaginative works, or all of the above].' If seen that way, his less

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 45 SUMMER READING: 6 ROBERT PH IDD IAN admirable adventures, such as his ghastly television 'postcards', don 't ultimately diminish him; rather, they show us more of his angles. For my money, his essay on Orwell is not only one of his best but, in the vast corpus of Orwellian criticism , is one of the best-judged analyses of that 'wintry con­ The dark gent science of a generation'. Although it is by no means an original insight, James correctly Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life, Ka therine Duncan-Jones, recognises that Orwell's journalism was The Arden Shakespeare !Thomson Lea rning), 200 1. ISBN l 90343 (i2(i S RRI' $49 .9'i m ore important than the two novels for which he is most famous. Orwell's peren­ nial gift to our culture was his recognition that language is political. As James observes, T,cowu • ' upplement' of the week­ life can be; that is, factual in some of the 'it wasn't just the amount of truth he told end papers should be baying. William Shake­ details and no better than plausibly inven­ but the way he told it, in prose transmuted speare, pillar of Western civilisation, was a tive in the psychology. to poetry by the pressure of his dedica tion'. bisexual, misogynist, social-climbing miser This is as it must be. The archive of James' trenchant critique of Daniel who died of syphilis. Katherine Duncan­ known facts about Shakespeare's life has Goldhagen's controversial Hitler's Willing Jones' n ew biograph y of Shakespeare m ounted over the centuries, but parish reg­ Executioners is one of the best non-specialist certainly runs the risk of being controver­ isters, political history, folk recollection, examinations in English of the flawed thesis sial. Her Shakespeare is an individualist on theatrical archaeology and legal documents that the entire German nation was simply the m ake, hungry for material success, social can give us nothing that we would recog- waiting for an opportunity to exterminate Jews. Despite his scholarship, James seems to have missed Christopher Browning's important book on the same topic counter­ ing Goldhagen, but this does not detract from the force of his argument (and I am drastically simplifying here) that the Germans as a people were not uniquely evil as Goldhagen suggests, and that Hitler's rise was necessary for the Holocaust to be perpetrated. It is the best short piece on Goldhagen in English. James writes, he says, for 'generalists status and pleasure: the very image of the nise these days as psychological depth. We repelled by an age of increasing specialisa­ 1990s cultural entrepreneur, almost. have more direct access to Iago's or Cleo­ tion, misfits caught between the active and The world she imagines him in, though patra's personalities from one of their contemplative life, hustlers too hard at work plausibly Elizabethan, has preoccupations speeches than we do to Shakespeare's from to examine at leisure the way the world is very like our own: all his works. Not only did he live before going yet incurably at thirst for the totality novels and Romanticism told us that we all I don't believe that any Elizabethans, even of knowledge-the true, the eternal have complicated emotional histories; he Shakespeare, were what might now be students'. We see this as he explores the was also a playwrigh t, an inventor of called 'nice'-liberal, unprejudiced, unself­ poetry of Les Murray, Kenneth Slessor and personalities. He wrote the traces of multi­ ish. For most men of talent and ambition in Philip Larkin, sheds light on Federico Fellini, ple identities, then gave them to actors to this period, even those who, unlike Shake­ reminds us of Mark Twain the journalist, realise. What he was really like himself is speare, enjoyed the privileges of high birth, defends the honour of expatriates, scruti­ just about irretrievable from the gallery of some degree of ruthlessness was a neces­ nises photography, mourns Peter Cook, possibilities he imagined. sary survival skill. It was also essential to savages tabloid journalists and protests Duncan-Jones' Shakespeare is a profes­ be able to adapt effectively to continual against the dumbing-down of television sional writer and man of the theatre. Not change. I have tried to give some sense of documentaries. the work of isolated genius, his plays are the great part played in Shakespeare's life In another volume he remarks, apropos pres en ted as coming in to existence through by sheer accident, such as unwanted preg­ of Seamus Heaney, that the best way to collaboration with actors, audiences and nancy, sudden death, plague and fire. Three guard against one's envy of anoth er writer's other writers. An outbreak of the plague, topics used to be traditionally taboo both gifts is to admit it. Most of us would confess shutting the London theatres, was a more in polite society and in Shakespearean envy of Clive James' riches as a writer, but immediate problem for him than any strug­ biography: social class, sex and money. I have it is washed away in th e pure pleasure of gles with the muse. He worked every given a good deal of attention to all of them. reading him. • audience available: the Globe, the streets of Duncan-Jones' Shakespeare is an operator. country towns, the courts of monarchs and Hugh Dillon is a Sydney magistrate and Her argument is as convincing as any magnates, and the relatively intimate and writer. argument about a Renaissance playwright's select theatre at Blackfriars.

46 EU REK A STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 He was born in a part of the Midlands There is no evidence to contradict this rich with literary m en, m arried young, possibility, but then neither is there any­ badly, and unhappily to Anne Hathaway, thing m ore than a plausible hypothesis in YARRA and sought his fortune in the m etropolis. its favour. He m ade his real m oney through his share This Shakespeare lived in dangerous THEOLOGICAL in the profits of the Lord Chamberlain's times, and Duncan-Jones is brilliant in Men (in James l's tim e the King's Men) bringing those tim es to life . Her writing UNION ra ther than directly from w riting, and also returns often and freshly to the poems in Melbourne offers Duncan-Jones sees a steady search for and plays; this is not the dreary sort of respect (if not entirely for respectability) in literary biography where the literature gets his conduct. He sought gentleman status lost under a pile of school records and through the (som ewhat dubious) purchase laundry lists. Ungentle Shakespeare avoids of a coat of arms, and was a peripheral bardolatry at every step, but never causes player in court intrigues, particularly during one to question the value and fa scination of the last decade of Elizabeth's reign . Shakespeare's works, either in their own time '(I' Two things that Duncan-Jones insists or in the light of our edgier preoccupations. Social Justice upon to m ake her case fo r Shakespeare's Duncan-Jones seem s to have been influ­ ungentleness are his go uging attitude to enced by her previou s work as the Arden Studies 2002 m oney and his resistance to any form of editor of The Sonnets. Her Shakespeare at Diploma, Graduate Diploma fem ale companionship. Unlike m ost pros­ exists in a shadowy world of desire unevenly perous citizens, he did no good works in his matched to attainment. She doesn't torture and Master of Arts levels home town, but bought up some of the the (lack of) evidence to 'out' Shakespeare prime real estate in Stratfo rd. Indeed, there as a practising hom osexual, and is too good For those w ith a degree other a historian to pretend that than in theology, students ca n our p atterns of sexu al undertake a Graduate Diploma in identity m ap Renaissance Theology specialising in Social experience at all accurately. Ju stice. This Graduate Diplo ma, H owever, she does place Shakespeare in a h om o­ or a degree in theology, provides erotically charged, socially the ba sis for the M aster of Arts unequal world. All his deep­ degree. est em otions, ambitions and Course offerings include friendships revolve around men of power. • History of Catholic social This poet of the sonnets movements is evidence that he evaded civic respon­ is conscious of his social inferiority, of his • Justice and social teaching sibilities there and was listed during the artistic superiority, and of the heaviness of • Church and politics fa mine of 1598 as hoarding grain to sell his body. His body is vulnerable and prone • Christianity and economics later at higher prices. His will is presented to decay, yet it draws him into conflicting • Can war be just? as a vengeful document, his money going appetites, for both the bea utiful young m an • Biblical foundations/ m ostly to those in important social places, and the dark lady. His mind is lonely, Ecology with precious little to his unfavoured daugh­ ambitious, and racked by self-doubt. Would ter or to the poor of Stratford. the editor of one of the rom antic com ­ • Theologies of liberation And, of course, the will left only the edies-Midsummer Night's Dream, Much • Ethics second-best bed to Anne, his wife of 34 Ado about Nothing, or As You Like It, for • Bioethics years. Duncan-Jones gives the impression example-have discovered a gentler Shake­ • Political philosophy that Shakespeare almost never cohabited speare, m ore inclined to celebrate intelli­ with her, and suggests that he regretted the gent young wom en and the values of Enrolments close 20 February 2002 . marriage to the older (a nd pregnant) woman community? Would the editor of King Lear YTU does not offer almost from the m om ent it was contracted. have discovered an apocalyptic genius? correspondence courses. His sex life with wom en is presented as T he central fac t of Shakespeare's life predatory, unsatisfactory, and peripheral to remains the imaginative power of his works. For further information, contact: the m ain, manly business of his profes­ Duncan-Jones insists on this, but she also The Registrar, sional life. shows it unwittingly. The poems she knows Yarra Theological Un ion, It's a provocative case, and one that best warp the way she tells his life and, P.O . Box 76, Box Hill VIC 3128 sheds light on m any of the darker places of though this might detract from som e the poems and plays. The misogynist rage abstract notion of balance, Ungentle Shake­ Fax: (03) 9890 1160; of Othello, Lear, Leontes and others makes speare is all the better for it. • Phone: (03) 9890 3771; 9898 2240 sen e if the author had caught venereal Email: [email protected] disease from some obscure wom an and was Robert Phiddian is senior lecturer in Eng­ Website: http:/www. rc. netlytu episodically dying of it over his last decade. lish at Flinders University, South Australia.

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 1 • EUREKA STRE ET 47 apparent to any of the children who still revel in the book and this film. The fact is, children love repetition of good things, from pat-a-cake games to stories and songs. What is tiring is the ava lanche of peripherals that has accompanied the Potter hype. To be tired of Potter hype isn't the same as being tired of the books or the film, which will stand as children's classics beside Narnia, the Faraway Tree and hobbit-stuff, bearing repetition in the way only such classics can. The fi lm, perhaps the most faithful rendition of a novel since To Kill a Mocking­ bird and the most eagerly awaited since Gone with the Wind, has done all it should have done. Columbus has managed to con­ vey the magic, the quirkiness and the visual richness of the book in l SO m inu tes, which is pretty good going. In one interview he says that he and Joanne Row ling (the book's author) had agreed that it would have taken seven hours to pu t absolutely everything in. But the compromises are decent ones, and the non-compromises are a triumph. The look is enchan ting: soaring aerial shots, various castles and cathedrals making and his sulky wife with him to exhibit a perfect Hogwarts. T he actors (Daniel Leaden bowl (both) in a huge purpose-built art museum? Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron Who cares? Perhaps only the ghost of Weasley) are all a reasonable Potter-fan The Golden Bowl, dir. Jam es Ivory. Here's Henry James cuddling his psychological could want. Emma Watson as Hermione is Merch ant/Ivory adapting Henry Jam es complexities in heaven and wondering why smaller and rather more pert than I imagined again. This time it's The Golden Bowl and none of them made it into the plot. Several her, but delivers the lines with perfect it's about a love quadrangle with three good actors waste their time on this decora­ understanding. Robbie Coltrane, th e only Americans and one Italian in Edwardian tive trifle and most give as good as they can, possible Hagrid. Maggie Smith, the only England (plus a dash of rom antic Rome). though the role of Ameri go is stereotyped possible Professor McGon agall. Alan Adam Verver (Nick Nolte) is a super-rich beyond Jerem y N ortham 's powers of Rickman, perhaps not nasty enough as art collector. Adam's daughter, Maggie (Kate redemption. Snape. Beckinsale), is married to Am erigo, a There are the usu al Merchant/Ivory The film is really the firs t Potter book, dashing, penniless Italian prince who's got servings of lush period buildings, interiors, done in fa ithful short scenes. Nothing is the hots for Maggie's impoverished best paintings and scenery, and the usual fasci­ added: Harry, orphaned when his wizard­ friend Charlotte, with whom he was nation with the idle rich, but my over­ paren ts are murdered by the evil sorcerer entangled before the need for serious wealth whelming im pression at the end was relief Voldemort, is sent to live with the Dursleys, struck home. that the world so devotionally portrayed his pusillanim ous aunt and uncle, loathers Steamy Charlotte (Uma Thurman, above, here has gone forever. -Tony Coady of an ything to do with magic. So while their permanently on the boil) doesn't want to son Dudley is indulged to ruination, Harry stop and fortunately contrives both close is relegated to the cupboard below the stairs proximity and luxury by marrying widow We ll-spel led and half-starved. Columbus evokes the Dad. For most of the film, Adam and Maggie Dursleys' lower-middle-class narrowness seem oblivious to the screamingly obvious, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, with awful decor, and dresses them with a largely because they have this deep father/ dir. Chris Columbus. It is quite possible fearful respectable dullness: they could have daughter thing that Ziggy Freud would have that by the time this review is read there stepped from an English Women's Weekly been delighted to explore. Will the penny will be a fashion for Potter-fatigue. A week of the early '60s. drop and what will happen to the serious after the movie's release the Melbourne Harry, of course, is not forgotten by the bucks if it does? Should Amerigo really Herald Sun sported the question, 'Are we wizarding world: in surviving the death­ heed Adam's dark hints of violence against tired of Harry yet?' After profiting mightily, spell that killed his parents he has broken anyone harming Maggie? Does Amerigo one imagines, from the sale of Potter albums Voldemort's power. Wh en the time comes really love Maggie as well as her fortune in and running endless hype-features on the for him to go to secondary school, Hogwarts, spite of his lusty frolics with Charlotte? film, the Hun gave notice that it will soon the wizards' boarding school, sends for him. And will Adam forsake cultured Europe for want to be on the side of the naysayers too. The film's designers evoke Hogwarts in the crudities of America, taking his treasures The essential unfairness of that should be fine style: Escher-like staircases, echoing

48 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 halls, mysterious passages, forbidden areas. Some well-staged bike chases through that surface as the families come together. John Cleese has a too-brief cameo as Nearly narrow Beijing alleyways and the odd hand­ They cope by relying on their love for each Headless Nick, a partially decapitated ghost. some observation kept the film this side of other. Julie Walters gets another short stint as the boring but there was only a tyre width in it. Part of the vibrant action is a sometimes mother of the large and hopeful clan of -Siobhan Jackson hysterically funny sideshow provided by Weasleys-not for the first time recalling the frenetic tent-and-catering contractor, Dickens: just as there is a David Copper­ P.K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz) and his love for fieldish, Oliver Twistish feel to Harry, the Golden wedding Alice, the family maid. Weasleys are very Micawberish. This is a gorgeous film. Robust, fast­ Harry Potter is a classic boarding -school Monsoon Wedding, dir. Mira Nair. The paced and earthy, it takes us for an exhila­ story, with wizardry added. What sets the opening titles of Monsoon Wedding are in rating ride. The music is an important books apart from ordinary fantasy or school primary colours, the opening scene features component of the ultimate satisfaction the stories is the eccentricity, the solidity of a bridal arch of marigolds in vibrant yellow film provides. the world conjured, and the small, rich and what follows is a rich kaleidoscope of Visually and emotionally the film is a ironies that underpin everything. The high­ colour and sound. Director Mira Nair knockout. -Gordon Lewis light of the film is the Quidditch game, (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) has where players zoom around on broomsticks achieved a joyous film, about an arranged to play a kind of fiendish aerial lacrosse. Punjabi wedding between the children of Three score gets 10 If the joyful queues were anything to go two middle-class families in Delhi, in the by, expectations were high, and in the quirky monsoon season. The Score, dir. Frank Oz. Three good reasons session I attended, not one child seemed The bride, Aditi (Vasundhara Das), has to go and see Th e Score: Marlon Branda, bored, tired or anything but happily worn just ended a love affair with a raffish TV Robert De Niro and Edward Norton. out at the end. All the red lollies and Coke presenter and has agreed to an arranged Arguably the best male screen actors of in the theatre couldn't break their atten­ marriage with an Indian engineer living in their generations, the trio come together in tion spans for this one. Roll on the sequels. the USA. The problem is obvious: a modern a stylish and well-crafted thriller which is -Juliette Hughes young Indian woman in an arranged mar­ almost unbearably tense from start to finish. riage with an expatriate Indian engineer, The well-dressed world of traditional the relationship swathed in ceremonial safe-breaker Nick (De Niro) and set-up man On your bike custom and family expectation. Max (Branda) is upset by aggressive young During the four days between the upstart Jack (Norton). Max's plans to Beijing Bicycle, dir. Wang Xiaoshuai. You couple's ceremonial engagement and the smuggle a jewel-encrusted sceptre into know the old adage that basically there's celebration of the marriage, five stories are Montreal (via a piano leg) are stalled when only a handful of stories at the root of all convincingly interwoven into the frantic the instrument is impounded by customs. other stories-the coming-of-age tale, the wedding preparations, the family anxieties, Jack is the man on the inside, and hungry adventurous-spirit-finds-a-path-home tale, the predictable tensions, and the clash for success in his first big job. the star-crossed-lovers tale, the country­ between the old Punja bi cui ture and modern Counter to their best instincts, the mouse-visits-town-mouse tale, and ... well attitudes and technology. careful veterans take Jack on; there is an ... actually that's about it. How I wish it Naseeruddin Shah gives a moving impending sense of disaster. What elevates were not true. Beijing Bicycle certainly performance as Lalit Verma, the loving this familiar old-crim versus new-crim does little to shake the maxim. This is your father of the bride, trying to cope not only morality tale is its loving attention to detail, classic town-mouse-country-mouse­ with the demands of an arranged marriage, quality acting and character interactions, coming-of-age story with just a few added but also the pressure of social change. His especially between Max and Nick. In one of spokes and derailleurs. confusion, his efforts to cope with events the best scenes, the mountainous Max Guei (Cui Lin) moves to Beijing from beyond his control and his bewilderment at pleads with his long-time collaborator Nick, the countryside and lands himself a job as a past events that are more than his decency while sitting dissolute and resplendent on bicycle courier. He rushes packages all over can absorb, are seen in juxtaposition with a the edge of his half-built spa. The men share Beijing on a silver mountain bike that he is montage of the old and new Delhi. a quiet respect, almost love, for each other, slowly buying from the company out of his Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2001 something that the ruthless Jack complete!y wage. The work is gruelling and the pay Venice Film Festival, the film has an earthy fails to understand. meagre, but Guei is content to be surviving realism. While the dialogue is a mixture of The Score is a radical change, of course, in the big city. Just as he is about to pay off English and Hindi and while, as usual, sub­ for director Oz, who made his name as part the bike, and so retain a larger cut of his titles distract, the problems and family of the team behind the Muppets and later as earnings, it is stolen. crises are so familiar, so universal, that the voice of Yoda. Bran do was not impressed, From here on the story skips between large stanzas of the film require no dialogue. and is said to have banished Oz from the set Guei's distress at lo ing his bike and the Surprisingly it is not the problems of the during his scenes, taking direction from De new owner's delight in being able to impress young couple that take centre stage. Rather Niro instead. girls with his new toy. And while the con­ it is the understated loving relationship The film ends with a great twist, and a trast between necessity and vanity should between the father and mother of the bride smattering of cliche, leaving viewers with have driven this movie along with some that involved m e most. After decades of the warm feeling that in art and life, at least real emotional punch, instead it just free­ traditional marriage, neither of them is Hollywood life, the old buggers win some wheeled for an hour or so before crashing. equipped to cope with unforeseen changes of the time. -Catriona Jackson

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 • EUREKA STREET 49 Rings and changes

INTH< w'""" m 1987 we tumed off the TV •nd «•d The old don, puzzled and embarrassed by anything hysterical. The Lord of the Rings aloud. We read it not only in the living room, idea of people taking the trouble to learn enough Elvish to but also in the car on a winter holiday to Wilson's Promontory. converse in it made him impatient. You could see why: the We read it together in the cabin in the evening and on wet documentary shows a scene where fans gather round his afternoons. While we were in the story, the world was clearer, Catholic graveside to chant mournfully in Elvish, which in their deeper- the sound of the sea, a walk under the full moon with earnest mouths sounds like Welsh-Swahili. strange wispy clouds scudding over the stars, the darkness These funny folk may be the snake-dancing fundamental­ behind the forest paths. ists of the broad church of Tolkien aficionados, but they're not The kids were in primary school: the younger one in prep, the only strange types. The stern spokespeople from the Tolkien the older in Year 6. Sixth grade is one of those halcyon child­ Society were more your high magisterium va riety: don't-ga­ hood times. A time when it is possible to be childlike but wise ge tting -any-bright-ideas-because-it's-all-been-worked-aut­ with an open-hearted serenity that will soon be blown away by by-us-and-Mr-Big. Lots of people had ideas about him, some Cyclone Puberty. The older one sat, Zen-still, as the words made quite interesting, as was the anthropologist who declared that worlds in his mind. The young one listened kinetically: he Tolkien had set himself the task of creating British myth. Some swooshed quietly around the room with a cardboard sword, were just annoying, such as Jenny Fabian, author of the earth- doing battle with orcs and Black Riders. shaking book Groupie, saying that The Lord of the Rings The Beatles, according to the 1997 documentary Tolkien: was just like an acid trip, but with not enough sex. An Awfully Big Adventure (screened by SBS two nights before Christmas), wanted to play the characters, pretty much as my H owEVER, when Tolkien told us what he thought the book little one did. The six-year-old or the adolescent (however old) was about, I listened: 'When you really come down to any large thinks that the story is all about himself: John was to be Collum, story, which interests people, can hold their attention for a con­ Paul to be Frodo, Ringo would be Sam Gamgee and George, siderable time-the stories, the human stories are practically God rest his good soul, was to be Gandalf. He was probably all always about one thing: the inevitability of death. All men must of 25 at the time. I suspect Marianne Faithfull might have ended die, and for every man his death is an accident, even if he knows up as Galadriel if the Beatles hadn't been pipped for the film it or consents to it-an unjustifiable violation. You may agree rights even as they were pipped for the rights to the bulk of with the words or not, but those are the keyspring of The Lord their own work. The first was a lucky escape for them and all of the Rings.' of us; the second was an epic in its own right. George Harrison, who when young played with the idea of As I write this, I have not yet seen the Lord of the Rings playing Gandalf, and who when a little older wrote All Things film, which will arrive here on Boxing Day, that traditional Must Pa ss, would have understood that. They're talking now, time for Christmas pantomime. The youngsters are all hang­ in some celestial anteroom where British Hare Krishnas can ing out for it, desperate to experience Middle Earth in a way take a timeless moment before reincarnation or nirvana to chat that demands less effort than black words on white paper. I am with British Roman Catholics who love word and myth and epic. apprehensive: this is somehow different from the Harry Potter Postscript: The ABC screened a footnote to a real and film, which is pantomime of a high and satisfying order. But terrible epic in mid-December when it showed Jamie Oliver The Lord of the Rings is something else. I suspect that we'll be doing Christmas in New York. The 'MM' at the end credits presented with something that resembles my heart's Middle was an underlining of the change that has come about the world Earth as much as The Ten Commandments resembled the Book since September. The Twin Towers were still there on the sky­ of Exodus. Film's abbreviation of narrative creates problems: line. Frequent shots down narrow street canyons were an elegy words can be carved in stone and yet be as live and slippery as to recent felicity, but also a chilling memory jog of the killing water, but flickering images set ideas in concrete. clouds that rolled along them like a volcano's pyroclastic flow Words create a character, but the film ends all argument that dreadful day. The food was forgettable: all I could think of about his looks or the way he speaks. Ideas, put through the was that the famous swinging, brash New York feeling evoked audio-visual mill, get minced, squeezed. 'It's a curse, having in the program had now become history, even myth. • the epic temperament in an age devoted to snappy bits,' said Tolkien in the documentary. It showed him as very much the Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer.

50 EUREKA STREET • jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2002 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 100, January-February 2002 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM

ACROSS l. It's expensive, darling. (4) 3. Peculiar aroma around fish Dora, initially, tells the diplom at. (10) 10. Cryptic sort of writing, not for the tall worker? (9) 11 . The newspaper, called Thunderer, had sales perhaps, multiplied. (5) 12. Old widow lost time looking fo r the keepsake. (5) 13. Small animal has place to sleep beside the river. (8) 15. Some rush in. I, erratic as always, show them som ething brighter. (7) 17. Happy 2002! (3, 4) 19. In idyllic poem, English hint about the piece of wood. (7) 21. Poor Gran with keg produced som ething unsavoury­ for the curate's breakfast ? (4,3 ) 22. Som ehow grip a pot when faced with Communist propaganda. (8) 24. Dad, to begin with, took 10 to the courtyard. (5) 27. Girl or boy nam es bird. (5) 28. Plate they used in the dem onstration of this form of communication . (9) 30 & 29. Risque displays viewed through tinted glasses. (4,10) Solution to Crossword no. 99, December 2001 DOWN l. Very upset about the cutting of locks? (10) 2. Coral island everyone gets round to visiting, perhaps. (5) 4. In disguise, Dan and 'er and m e- we just stroll along! (7 ) 5. Furniture for the hearth produces a din Ron dislikes. (7) 6. Dispute about gam es of tennis to follow. (3-2) 7. Ornamental metal etching by person from Syrian city. (9) 8. Wine with fl oral bouquet l (4) 9. Hose used by Santa for the children . (8) 14. Unusually dotty role George initially played- that eccentric hermit! (10) 16. Sick, for example, I half blench at the script that's hard to make out. (9) 18. Instrument of the orchestra or anatomical part? (8) 20. Make a mistake over a spasm that's abnormal. (7) 21. About the lentils-they're what I always reject. (7 ) 23. Whatever way you take it, such a belief holds firm. (5) 25. Arrant impudence, perhaps, of som e tot altogether spoilt! (5) 26. Very French! (4)

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Broad reflection on the relationship between The eminent Islamicist William Montgomery Watt theology and economics wrote not so many years ago: " Does th e shari 'ah - Islamic law - all ow Musli ms to li ve peaceably Case studies on topics such as globalisation, with non-Musl i ms in the 'one world'? To have an the environment, fi nance, and church involvement answer. .. may be a matter of urgency in a few in the welfare and labour market years time." Can be taken by students for credit into degree Former head of Linguistics at the University of programs, or for general interest by anyone Melbourne, the Revd Dr Mark Durie. wanting to explore the relationship between Christianity and contemporary society

Taught by Paul Oslington, Senior Lectu rer in Economics, UNSW/ADFA.Winner of a CTNS The Melbourne Anglican course prize for excellence (funded by the 1998 wi nner of the Gutenberg Award for Excell ence Templeton Foundation). in Religious Communication Mention this ad for a free sample copy of TMA Contact MCS/ now for more information: Phone: (03) 9653 4221 MACQUARIE CHRISTIAN STUDIES INSTITUTE LT D ABN 63 08 2 393 691 Tilt PO BOX 1507 MACQUARIE CENTRE NSW 211 3 PHONE 02 9850 6133 FAX 02 9850 6144 Email: studentmvices@ mcsi.edu.au

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