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COMMENT 4 Morag Fra ser Between overs 5 Andrew Hamilton Pressure unrelenting

COVER STORIES SNAPSHOT 6 Philip Berrigan, accountability, 8 Ju st War comic opera, and senior graffiti Bruce Duncan examines the churches' response; Andrew Hamilton unpicks THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC the arguments. 20 Seven days in Kabul Publisher Andrew Hamilton Sl 13 Grant Morgan On your bus Editor Morag Fra ser 14 Anthony Ham Kerala leads Dorothy Horsfield reports on the Editorial ass istant Susa nnah Buckley rebuilding of Afghanistan. Graphic des igner Siobhan Jackson 16 Matthew Albert Sudan in Australia General manager Mark Dowell 18 Steven Columbus Coming to terms 26 Wotjobaluk man Marketing & advertising manager Kirsty Grant Tracey Rigney profiles her grandfather, Subscriptions j ess ica Battersby William John Kennedy. Editorial, production and administration COLUMNS assistants juliette Hughes, Ben Hider, 28 The Consolations of Biography Steven Conte, Kate Hird, Kristie Dunn, Alex Connelly, Tara Drinkwater, Paul Fyfe Sl, 7 Cap ital Letter Peter Rose on writing Rose Boys. Geraldine Battersby, Irene Hunter Ja ck Waterford Carmen rolls the dice 32 Of gods, monsters and fairytales Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly s1; Perth: Dea n Moore; Sydney: 14 Summa Theologiae Dorothy Lee on epic, theology & The Edmund Ca mpion & Gerard Windsor; Andrew Hamilton Roads to roam Lord of the Rings. Queensland: Peter Pi erce United Kin gdom Denis Minns OP 17 Archimedes Jesuit editorial board Peter L'Estrange Sl, Tim Thwaites Big money Andrew Bullen Sl, Andrew Hamilton Sl, Peter Steele Sl, Bil l Uren Sl 23 By the Way Patrons Eureka Street gratefully Brian Matthews Trammelled acknowledges the support of C. and A. Carter; th e trustees of th e es tat e of 46 Watching Bri ef Miss M. Condon; W.P. & M.W. Gurry Juliette Hughes Distant voices BOOKS continued

Eureka Street magaz ine, ISS N 1036- 1758, 39 Th e human as such Aust ralia Post Print Pos t approved FEATURE Peter Steele reviews Terry Eagleton's pp349181/00314, is published ten times a Sweet Violence: the Idea of the Tragic. year by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 300 Victori a Street, Richmond VIC 3121 24 The Quiz 41 Th e word sh ifter PO Box 553, Ri chmond VIC 3 121 The return of the sizzling summer Penelope Buckley reflects on Aileen Tel: 03 9427 7311 Fax: 03 9428 4450 home wrecker. email : [email protected] Kelly's City and Stranger. http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/ Responsibility for editoria l content is 42 Caught behind accepted by Andrew Ham ilton Sl, POETRY Alex McDermott examines Brett 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond 35 Chris Wallace-Crabbe Hutchins' Don Bradman: Challenging Printed by Dora n Printing the Myth. 46 Indust rial Drive, Braes ide VIC 3195. Reflective Insulation © Jesuit Publications 2003 Unsolici ted manuscripts wi ll be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, BOOKS FLASH IN THE PAN se lf-addressed enve lope. Requests for 44 Reviews of the films The Quiet permission to reprint material from th e 36 Th e short li st magaz ine should be addressed in writing to American; Tadpole; Harry Potter and Reviews of Quarterly Essay, the ed itor. the Chamber of Secrets; Lovely etJ Groundswell: the Rise of the Greens; Amazing and The Fellowship of the This month: The Tournament; The Writer and the Cover design by Siobhan jackson Ring (extended version DVD). Cover photograph by Bil l Thomas World and Wild Politics. Graphics pp6, I 8, 24-2.5 by Siobhan jackson 37 Found in transl ation Cartoons pp13, ·t 6 by Dea n Moore SPECIFIC LEVITY Photographs pp20-2 1, 22 by Dorothy Kevin Hart on the poetry and essays of Horsfield Czeslaw Milosz. 47 Joan Nowotny Cryptic crossword COMM ENT:l

MORAG FRASER

Between overs

W COMc TO OUR Summe< '""'· A' we prepared this holiday edition it was raining in Victo-

MAY ria. Even a little in New South Wales-enough, thank 19Sl God, to help douse the bushfires. Very Australian, that- drought here, fires there and hailstones bound to arrive as soon as you set up the annexe of the tent. So pop your Eureka Street into a plastic bag-like an orienteer's map-and open at page 24 so you can while away the bad weather, or the humidity, or the ANOTHER longueurs of the Boxing Day Test with this year's JACK DYER worse-than-ever Eureka Street Quiz. FEAT~ Families preoccupy us over Christmas and the holiday season. This month two of our writers take a fresh look at the intricacy of family bonds, and the delicate business of being honest about them in print. ~? Peter Rose (pictured, above right, with his brother Robert, and his father, Collingwood hero Bob Rose, below) discloses some of the difficulties-and the rewards-of writing Rose Boys, his poet's account of growing up in a sporting family, and dealing with his brother's life and premature death. In quite a different vein, Tracey Rigney tells the story of her grandfather, Jack Kennedy, a Wotjobaluk man from Dimboola, who fought with the Sixth Division in Syria and later campaigned for land rights back home. A playwright, Tracey catches the voice and dignity of a man she both loves and admires. Dorothy Horsfield, in 'Seven days in Kabul', looks at the aftermath of war in Afghanistan, and meets some extraordinary characters involved in its reconstruction. Back home, Bruce Duncan and Andrew Hamilton examine the theory and practice of just war-and ask whether or not Australia should be involved in Iraq. • -Morag Fraser

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4 EUREKA STREET jANUA RY- FEBRUARY 2003 COMMENT:2 ANDREW HAMILTON Pressure unrelenting

The EastTimorese in Australia I N PYTHON STORIES, the serpent grasps its victims, East Timorese belong to their community and must suffocates them and digests them, and all the while not be deported. the bystanders stand around in helpless distress. What can be done? Sympathetic bystanders who The python is an emblem of Australian immi- watch Australian immigration policy at work may gration policy that crushes asylum seekers in order to feel impotent. But the East Timorese choked by the excrete them . It grasps them in detention centres and policy need two forms of support. First, as in Darwin, in legal processes. Then, by depriving them of income the Australian community must express its concern and benefits, it 'persuades' them to leave Australia. at the excision of people from its heart. Protests by The 1600 East Timorese asylum seekers in activist groups have limited effectiveness, but school Australia are now entrapped in this process. Many communities, neighbourhood groups, workplaces, have lived in Australia since 1990. They sought employers and churches can effectively express their refugee status, but Australian governments did not at outrage at what is done to their communities by this the time consider their cases, fearing the disapproval treatment of their East Timorese fellows and friends. of the Indonesian Government. In the m eantime, These people have had to live in constant anxiety they have found work in Australian businesses, have as a result both of what they suffered in East Timor sent their children to Australian schools, and belong and of Australian delay in hearing their cases. They in the Australian community. have grown into the Australian community. Their claim s for refugee status are now being s They must be allowed to stay here. processed. The East Timorese must show that they would face persecution if they returned to the ECOND, AS THEIR cases are heard and reviewed, independent East Timor. a growing number of East Timorese need material Predictably, no refugee claim has so fa r support. They are unable to work and have no income succeeded, although a few people have won to feed and house them selves. Many, too, are still so residence on the grounds of their close ties with affected by torture and trauma suffered at the hands Australia. When rejected, they can appeal to the of the Indonesian administration that they cannot Refugee Review Tribunal, which, however, is highly work. They rely entirely on the governm ent grants unlikely to find in their favour. In the event of a administered through the Red Cross. And these grants second rejection, they can then appeal to the they are now steadily losing. If voluntary organisa- Minister for Immigration for consideration of their tions, including local churches, do not support and cases on humanitarian grounds. encourage them , how will they survive? And yet the At that point the coils tighten . For when they groups most responsive to the needs of asylum seek- appeal, they automatically lose their right to work. ers are already overwhelmed by the needs of others They recover it only if and when the Minister indi- similarly deprived. New resources are needed. cates he will consider their case-a process that takes In stories, pythons are inexorable, and bystanders som e months. They will also be deprived of m edical impotent. Pythons crush, kill and swallow what they and other benefits, and any income they may have snare. In the case of social pythons, bystanders can received through the Red Cross. They will have no impede the python only if they are organised and resources for rent, to attend to their health or to determined. buy food for themselves and their families. Those One way to help is through the Red Cross. The whose balance of spirit is precarious will find their Australian Red Cross, which administers the sense of worth put under further pressure. Against government-funded Asylum Seeker Assistance the background of these suffocating provisions Scheme (ASAS), is in touch with the more vulnerable designed to drive them from Au tralia, they will rely East Timorese asylum seekers. It would like to heavily for support on an already poor East Timorese continue to assist them personally and materially. community. If you would like to help, contact the state office The East Timorese asylum seekers themselves of the Australian Red Cross, or the National have become increasingly anxious as their cases are Manager of ASAS, Noel Clement, on (03) 9345 1800. • heard and dismissed. Other Australians are also dis- tressed. In Darwin, representatives of business and Andrew Hamilton SJ is Eureka Street's publisher and local government have protested, claiming that the has worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 5 will address some of the trickier issues The same couldn't be said of the other that PR professionals have to face day singers: Iolanthe and the Fairy Queen by day. Among them: managing m edia both had old-lady vibratos that often bent relations and working with crises (some­ their pitch, particularly at high notes. And times one and the same thing!). The when Phyllis began to sing, Mum turned conference will also look at current to my sister and said in the penetrating In ethical issues (yes, that's right-ethics), stage whisper of the conveniently deaf: memonam especially the need to inject corporate 'Huh! Musical-com edy voice!' When an social responsibility and accountability unfortunate group nearby clapped prema­ When Philip Berrigan died of cancer in into the communications mix. turely she snapped 'Shut up I' All in all she December 2002 he was 79 . His struggle The speakers form a line of those who had a wonderful time-it would have been against American war policies had receded know: political speech-writer, Bob Ellis, quite disappointing if Opera Australia had into the dimness of recent history in a heads the team of presenters and will been able to match the voices of wartime culture that is now even more disturbed discuss the role of 'spin' in today's com­ amateurs a long, long time ago in a galaxy and embarrassed by civil disobedience munications. Marika Harvey, PR Manager far, far away. than it was in the 1960s and '70s. During for the ACT Government's Chief Minis­ that time he had been a Catholic priest, ter's Department, w ill discuss the very a Josephite in a Baltimore parish that was pertinent question of how to m anage the poor and black. His radical pacifism began relationship between ministerial offices in World War II. He saw and deplored the and government departments. discrimination practised against black In addition there are speakers from the US soldiers by their own country, and Department of Defence, Melbourne City developed a passion for social justice. In Council, Telstra, Westpac, Department of Writing Baltimore he founded Peace Mission, an Main Roads Queensland and more. on the wall anti-war group that in 1966 picketed the For more information about the con­ homes of Secretary of Defense, Robert ference, go to www.iir.com.aujmarketing When Arthur Stace wrote 'Eternity' on McNamara, and Secretary of State, Dean or call (02) 9923 5090. Sydney footpaths it was a tender para­ Rusk. Berrigan conducted raids on draft dox: unendingness in the most fugitive boards, burning or spilling red liquid on m edium-chalk- inevitably scuffed and draft records. In a protest in Catonsville, sluiced away by shoes and rain. He created Maryland, he was joined by his brother, an illusion of lastingness until he died and Daniel, a Jesuit priest and poet. Together the last copperplate sigil flitted away. they becam e much-feted and extensively Yet on the whole, graffiti goes the profiled celebrities of the peace move­ other way: it lasts far beyond the currency ment. G & S of its idea. Who can forget travelling to The obituary in the New York Times excess work and seeing 'Out Menzies' well in to and Wa shington Post quoted N oam the '80s? Trevor Chappell's underarm Chomsky's verdict on the two priest/ There we were, all 17 of us, at Opera bowling rebuked for years on an inner activists: 'heroic individuals, willing to do Australia's production of Iolanthe. A few urban wall; the twist of gender politics in what many realise should be done, regard­ husbands and children, some lovers, a the '70s that declared war to be menstrua­ less of personal cost'. friend or three, and Mum. At 81, and in tion envy. The voices were silent long a wheelchair, she was the reason for the before the paint faded. The scratches in outing, a Christmas gathering in fealty Pompeii were even more personal, more to her past triumphs. The sets and cos­ evanescent in their concerns, alm ost like tumes were far more lavish, more cod­ email. But over the last few years on other Victorian than hers would have been in inner urban walls, a voice has been cry­ the 1940s when she was Phyllis, yet the ing out on a very particular, very personal parliamentary satire, even on the Brit­ issue. 'More older 9 on TV'; 'More hairy Need ish system, still seemed fresh, still drew 9 on TV'; 'More disabled 9 on TV'; 'More to know gales of laughter from an audience whose gay 9 on TV'. You might wonder why the intimate knowledge of the libretto m ade graffitist doesn't just send in a CV to the 'Accountability' and 'professional stand­ up for the singers' appalling diction. The networks. But lately the graffitist has gone ards' are among the watchwords of the honorable (indeed brilliant) exception to to the trouble of climbing onto a five- or­ moment. So if you want to hear them ana­ this was Denis Olsen who was, as ever, six-foot-high junction box to write 'More lysed and discussed you might like to take the cynosure of all eyes with his ruth­ older 9 on TV' over a Chi vas Regal poster in the annual Public Affairs in the Public less upstaging business, and of all ears featuring a pretty girl. This feat makes you Sector conference in Canberra in March. with his pellucid patter. He is no longer wonder whether the writer is in fact old or The conference, with its panel of young, but his voice has not aged at all: disabled. Maybe not even gay. Maybe not experts from the public and private sectors, resonant, clear, deep, fl exible and steady. even 9. Maybe conundrums are eternal.

6 EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 Carmen rolls the dice

c ARMEN L AWRENCE SP ORTS t OO m an y SC"'S and has t OO flirtation with pragm atism . In standing beside Lawrence, the much history, not least the undying enmity of Brian Burke's Albanese faction was signalling not only that the push is now old m ates, ever to contemplate a future leadership role in the on against Crean, but that at least som e within the party are Labor Party. But she has certainly set the cat among the pigeons searching for som e m oral authority with which to woo back (in the process initiating the endgame for Simon Crean) and defectors to the Greens. has also probably guaranteed her place in the party pantheon. Meanwhile, a rattled but unmoved leadership sees Indeed, those in the party who are bagging her hardest admit appeals to morality or to ideals as entirely the wrong way to that a m ajority of party branch members support her views on go. Let the bleeding hearts go. They m ay go to the Greens, but refugees, and her fru strations with the leadership's incapacity their preferences will com e back to Labor, after all. No causes. to strike a moral note. That incapacity has becom e almost a N o campaigns. It's a search for the middle ground and the political virtue-proof that the leadership is now so hard-headed underlying values and beliefs (as revealed, of course, by and focused that it ignores its m embers and responds instead to polling and focus groups rather than leadership or intuition ), and what the electorate 'feels'. for the middle class and the middle-incom e earners. A middle 'We need to tell Australians a story about the sort of way, undercutting Howard (it is hoped) by better articulating country we want this to be, what we hope for them and how many of the traditional values, if with a more caring we think their lives can be improved,' she said as she marched touch. off the front bench. 'Certainly we have to be aware of the community's needs w.RE CREAN MORE PERSONABLE, and quicker On his feet, and interests. But we can't keep responding to what is the he might do better with this policy m odel than Kim Beazley short-term view of the most audible section of the community. did before him. Except, of course, Beazley was better at this­ To develop good policy, Labor has to start with set values and if only by being more avuncular and sounding rather more ideals to which we aspire as political activists. Otherwise, why sincere. And Beazley failed, being completely outmanoeu­ bother? Values and ideals shouldn't be for decoration; they are vred by a John Howard in only half the form that Howard is not just a preamble to the policy statements. They should be in now. And in the process he trashed his party's capacity to embedded in it in terms of the decisions and the language. And appeal to the heart as well as to the brain. Crean himself can't they shouldn't be abandoned at the faintest whiff of grapeshot. do it and his party knows it. But it cannot think of a m ore 'As long as Labor tries to argue the case on Howard's attractive salesman or a more attractive strategy, especially territory, then he's the one dictating terms about the political while the party rem ains in the thrall of those who have made contest and how it's played out. After all, Labor played along such strategies work so well, with leaders who are at least as with the moral panic surrounding the boat people instead of unimpressive as Crean, in the states. That the only people who ge tting out there and persuading Australians to a different have signalled-subtly-their readiness to lead, were Crean to point of view.' fall under a bus, are unsellable hacks such a Wayne Swan or Throw in a few words about timid leaders promoting unappealing technician s such as Kevin Rudd, underlines the policies designed with one eye on the polls and the other on crisis. John Faulkner, alas in the Senate, has the heart and media impact, about forelock tuggers and a lack of a compel­ the brain to lead, but not the sense of duty. As som eone once ling leader, and it was pretty mutinous stuff. Pretty disloyal, commented of the 1930s Tories 'It was the usual collection: too, coming from a person who was a political liability for all those who have been tried and found wanting; those who are of her period as a Keating minister, who was hardly a stunning wanting to be tried; those who are manifestly wanting and example of adherence to core values as West Australian minis­ those who are manifes tly trying.' ter and premier, and who had made little impression as either That's Crean' best chance, in fact. Foundering he may a Beazley or a Crean shadow minister. But, oh so right, articu­ be, but there are no other strong swimmers, least of all ones lating the despair felt by so m any in the Caucus and the rage anxious to lead the party into what is shaping up, against inside the party at large. either Howard or Costello, as almost inevitable defeat. A Nicely fitting, also, into a major struggle within the La­ defeat, m oreover, that would leave most of the party faithful­ bor Left, in which the NSW-based Albanese faction (to which who hear other sirens, not least those suggested by Carmen she belongs) is head-to-head with Martin Ferguson over ide­ Lawrence-fairly unmoved. • as, ideals and all of the perks of office. Ferguson is entirely unsentimental about refugees and a leading defender of Labor's Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of the Canberra Times.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EU REKA STRE ET 7 The history, the current circumstances INCHRmtAN THUnited States. all war today is intrinsically immoral or or cautioned against, war with Iraq- in Rich Cizik, an official in the National that, despite the reasonable arguments in marked contrast to their initial support Association of Evangelicals in the United favour of war, the specific teaching and for the Vietnam War in the 1960s. The States, also supported intervention on example of Jesus Christ forbids his follow­ mainstream western churches, hav­ the grounds that Saddam was linked ers to take part in it. ing subjected the claims of the Bush with the al Qaeda attacks (again, without Many are attracted to pacifism because administration to careful scrutiny, remain evidence). it is radical and uncompromising. They unconvinced about the moral legitimacy The Catholic Church overseas has con­ may also disdain just war theory as a of the war and have refrained from blessing sistently urged restraint and has refused device for allowing those set on war to any such endeavour. to accept that the Iraq situation meets maim and kill others, while also enjoying Their opposition has presented the US the conditions for a just war. The Vati­ a good conscience and reputation. Both administration with an unprecedented can's Cardinal Ratzinger did not accept the form of argument endorsed by just war problem of moral legitimacy. The US the concept of a 'preventive war', insisting theory and its conclusions are, according churches play major roles in shaping pub­ instead on the need for the United Nations to pacifists, inconsistent with Christian lic opinion. If they continue to refuse to to authorise any decision for intervention. faith. endorse military intervention, it will cre­ He considered that any war would wreak Pacifism is often a powerful, mute ate grave problems of conscience for many more harm than good-hence failing the challenge to the national conscience. Bu t Americans. principle of proportionality. public discussion will be the poorer if it President Bush and Vice-President In September, president of the is the only Christian contribution. For if Dick Cheney have met opposition to pre­ Italian bishops' conference, Cardinal pacifism is grounded in the example of emptive action against Iraq even from Ruini, added a warning about the grow­ Jesus Christ, it will be able to engage only within their own churches. On August ing differences between the United with Christians, leaving others to get on 30, Jim Winkler, chief staff executive of States and Europe over Iraq. In October unchallenged with the making of war. If the United Methodist Church's advocacy the French bishops' conference said the pacifists argue that all war is immoral, and action agency, appealed to George ethical conditions for a just war were they need to argue their case. W. Bush to refrain from taking military not met, including the condition of last Public argument and conversation are action. 'Pre-emptive war cannot become resort. important, because they allow arguments a universalized principle lest disaster and In England, Cardinal Murphy- to be scrutinised. They also demand that chaos result', he said. The World Council O'Connor in the London Times of 5 Sep­ arguments apply equally to similar cases. of Churches also urged restraint, fearful of tember called for Prime Minister Blair to The reasons that allow or prohibit us from the cost to innocent civilians. publish evidence that 'the threat posed going to war will also allow or prevent our One of the few religious organisations by Iraq is both grave and imminent ... '. enemies from doing so. to support military intervention has been The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, A recent statement by the United the Southern Baptist Convention, com­ George Carey, also urged caution. Carey's States bishops accepts the importance of prising 16 million adherents. Richard continued page 10 public discussion. Because it is pitched

8 EUREKA STREET JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 of Saddam's regime. It is difficult to see, however, how that would help to provide security against terrorism or realise other larger goals. Just war theory asks finally whether there will be proportion between the good achieved and the harm inflicted by war. This calculus is often discussed in amoral terms. It is argued, for example, that for Australia, the importance of the United States alliance outweighs any moral objections to participation in the war. But in moral argument, the benefit and harm The arguments Andrew Hamilton sJ of war must be measured in human and not in geopolitical terms. The killing and within the public debate, it offers a frame­ which a war may be fought is self-defence. maiming, the damage to health, educa­ work for moral conversation without The United States has urged this case tion and spirit, the resentment of losers drawing definitive conclusions. It uses against Iraq, claiming that it, in common and the moral blinding of winners must the categories of just war theory in a way with other peaceful nations, is at grave be given their full weight. These conse­ that shows awareness of their frequent risk from terrorism, and that Saddam quences are massive and predictable. The misuse: Hussein's evil disposition and possession benefits brought by modern war are so of weapons of mass destruction greatly doubtful as to weigh morally against any Just war teaching has evolved ... as an increase the risk of terrorist attack. decision to go to war. The United States effort to prevent war; only if war cannot be This argument for war is vulnerable in bishops represent Catholic teaching in rationally avoided, does the teaching then its parts and in its articulation. Although saying, 'Such a decision, especially today, seek to restrict and reduce its horrors. It Iraq_, under Saddam Hussein's regime, requires extraordinarily strong reasons for does this by establishing a set of rigorous acts viciously and has some weapons of overriding the presumption in favor of conditions which must be met if the deci­ mass destruction, it is not alone on either peace and against war.' sion to go to war is to be mostly permis­ count. The United States itself has a more Although the statement of the United sible. Such a decision, especially today, lethal arsenal, while the Burmese regime, States bishops is open-ended, it opens the requires extraordinarily strong reasons for example, acts equally brutally. But way for strong action. In a balanced and for overriding the presumption in favor of these qualities alone would not justify war apparently anodyne passage, it consid­ peace and against war. waged against these nations. Furthermore, ers conscientious objection: 'We support The categories of just war theory, no evidence links the Iraqi Government to those who risk their lives in the service namely proper authorisation, just cause, terrorism that claims Islamic inspiration. of our nation. We also support those who hope of success and proportion between The lack of this evidence, and the relative seek to exercise their right to conscien­ good and evil caused, offer a shorthand list weakness of Iraq_, disqualify a war against it tious objection and selective conscien­ of questions that Australians might usefully as one of defence against aggression. Rather, tious objection, as we have stated in the ask about their participation in it would be a pre-emptive war, fought to pre­ past.' any war against Iraq. vent the future possibility of terrorism. Because the bishops are so sceptical The moral consequences of deeming about the moral justification for military 'IE DEBATE ABOUT the proper authori­ legitimate such a preventative war are action against Iraq, their support for selec­ sation of an attack on Iraq has largely been enormous. The argument, if endorsed, tive conscientious objection is significant. identified with securing a United Nations would justify a military response to Governments often accommodate pacifists resolution. The issue is important because almost any perceived threat, no matter who believe that all war is immoral. But it assumes that to be legitimate, war how remote. It would also negate the force they are angered by anyone who wishes must be approved by the international of another provision of just war theory­ to opt out of the particular war that community and not simply by one nation. that it should be a last resort. The normal they wish to wage on the grounds that While the process leading to United responses by a stronger power to real but it specifically is morally unjustifiable. In Nations' resolutions can be manipula­ not immediate threats are monitoring and this statement, just war theory provides tive and coercive, the demand for such containment. There is no evidence that the grounds for making this claim, and resolutions should be endorsed. those responses have failed in this case. the insistence on the right to selective General support for a war, how­ To be morally justifiable, a war must conscientious objection provides the ever, does not alone legitimate it any also achieve its goals. Although some space to act on the claim. • more than it legitimates bullying in the opponents of war claim a war might be playground. The cause for which the war long and inconclusive, massive military Andrew Hamilton SJ is Eureka Street's is fought must be right. There is increasing superiority could be trusted to achieve publisher, and teaches at the United agreement that the only just cause for short-term goals, such as the collapse Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

JANUARY- FEBR UARY 2003 EUREKA STRE ET 9 from page 8 resort to war aga inst Iraq, lacking clear and letters to the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, designated successor, Rowan Williams, adequate evidence of an imminent attack 38 leaders of numerous Christian commu­ likewise opposed military intervention of a grave nature. With the Holy See and nities, including at least eight members and was among 2500 signatories, along bishops from the Middle East and around of the Catholic hierarchy, deplored the with six other Anglican and Catholic the world, we fear that resort to war, under possibility of Australian involvement in an bishops, to a peace petition organised by present circumstances and in light of cur­ attack on Iraq. The Anglican Archbishop Pax Christi and delivered to the Prime rent public information, would not meet of Melbourne, Peter Watson, accused Minister's residence. The declaration the strict conditions in Catholic teach­ the Australian government of a 'major called an attack on Iraq 'immoral and ing for overriding the strong presumption propaganda push' to involve Australia in illegal'. against the use of military force. a war with Iraq. Mr Howard reportedly But the most significant episcopal condemned the views expressed by statement opposing US policy came from The bishops urged the United States Anglican and Uniting Church leaders the US Catholic bishops themselves. On to pursue alternative ways 'to contain and critical of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq behalf of the 60-member Administrative deter aggressive Iraqi actions and threats'­ (The Age, 5 and 8 October). Committee of the bishops of the United They also called for strong steps to reduce Archbishop Francis Carroll, Bishop Pat States, the president of the US Bishops' Power of Canberra/Goulburn and Bishop Conference, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory William Morris, chair of the Australian of Belleville, Illinois, wrote to President Catholic Social Justice Council, together Bush on 18 September expressing 'seri­ with leaders of eight other churches, ous questions about the moral legitimacy expressed their concern about Australia's of any pre-emptive, unilateral use of 'unquestioning support' for unilateral US military force to overthrow the govern­ military intervention in Iraq on 23 August. ment of Iraq'. He went further: 'Given But as a group the Australian Catholic the precedents and risks involved, we bishops have been slow to respond, issu­ find it difficult to justify extending the ing their first joint statement on the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and prospect of war on 29 November. adequate evidence of Iraqi involvement Even after m onths of debate, the in the attacks of September 11th or of an or eliminate weapons of mass destruc­ statement was vague and perplexingly imminent attack of a grave nature.' tion, and 'fulfilment of US commitments non-committal on whether war would be The bishops welcomed the US decision to pursue good faith negotiations on justified. The bishops made no mention of to seek UN approval for any action nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear the US bishops' statement or the opposi­ but, on the evidence available to them, Non-Proliferation Treaty'. tion to the war by other western episcopal opposed 'a pre-emptive, unilateral use The bishops' conference of England conferences or Catholic church leaders. of force', which, in their view, failed to and Wales followed with a brief statement Nor did they assess the issue in term s of m eet the traditional just war criteria of calling on their government to 'step back traditional just war criteria, except for rec­ just cause, right authority, probability of from the brink of war'. Cardinal Murphy­ ognising that 'any further conflict would success, proportionality and noncombatant O'Connor, on 15 November, added that be a human catastrophe, with the weakest immunity. the dossier on Iraq published by Prime inevitably suffering the most.' Cardinal McCarrick of Washington Minister Blair failed to convince the bish­ They urged Australians 'to work and on 27 September reiterated that the US ops that the threat from Iraq justified war. pray for justice and peace', called on politi­ needed to produce evidence that it faced The armed forces' Bishop Tom Burns said cal authorities to 'do all in their power to an imminent threat from Iraq, lest 'we do he feared that British troops sent to fight build peace and avoid war', and affirmed something which we would have to say in Iraq might not be fighting for that the United Nations 'is the legiti­ would not be moral'. a just cause. mate authority in the administration of The documents released subsequently Resolution 1441 ', ensuring that Iraq dis­ by Prime Minister Blair and President Bush A s A SIGN of m ounting opposition to arms. They saw the central issue as being did little to satisfy these requirements, and war in the United States, leaders of major 'the possibility that the Iraqi leadership certainly did not produce irrefutable proof religious traditions have begun issuing is amassing weapons of mass destruc­ that Saddam was planning to attack the joint statements against a war on Iraq. The tion, implying the threat of an imminent United States or had links withal Qaeda. Council of Religious Leaders of Metropoli­ attack-' The United States Conference of Catholic tan Chicago declared on 1 December that But this is precisely the issue: there is Bishops on 13 November reiterated the con­ currently 'conditions justifying war have no evidence that Iraq is planning an immi­ cerns expressed by Bishop Gregory in Septem­ not been met. We still lack compelling nent attack on anyone, as the bishops of ber. By an overwhelming vote of 228 to 14, evidence that Iraq is planning to launch the USA and England and Wales made with three abstentions, the full conference an attack'. clear. Without such evidence, what is the declared that : In Australia, opposition to a war with casus belli? There is none. Nor are we Iraq has been voiced across the spectrum certain what chemical or biological weap­ Based on the fac ts that are known to us, we of churches, including Anglican, Uniting ons Iraq has, even the weapons originally continue to find it difficult to justify the Church and Catholic. In early September in supplied by the United States. And if it

10 EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRU ARY 2003 has some, does this justify war? Is this the about its assuming an 'imperial' role m ore significantly-it was angry that 'last resort'? Why cannot containment be instead of relying on and developing the Kuwait was pumping oil out of Iraqi oil­ an alternative, as the US bishops suggest? collaborative institutions of international fields, flooding world markets and depress­ The Australian bishops did not discuss law and governance. N evertheless, the US ing oil prices when Iraq was desperate for the US claim to a right of pre-emptive still threatens to act unilaterally against revenue to repay heavy debts and rebuild unilateral strike if the inspections fail and Iraq if the inspections fail and the UN its economy after eight years of the UN refuses to endorse such a strike. does not approve military intervention. war with Iran. Nor did they raise the question of consci­ The argument for a right to pre-emptive entious objection if m embers of the armed action rests on a belief that containment D ECISIVE ACTION NEEDS to be taken forces consider a war against Iraq unjust. of Saddam Hussein has failed, and on an to reduce and eliminate weapons of Just war theory has long recognised a assumption that he possesses chemical and mass destruction, but as Richard Butler, right to a 'pre-emptive strike', but only biological weapons and is intent on develop­ former head of the UN weapons inspec­ when an enemy attack was certain and ing nuclear weapons as a direct and immi­ tion commission in Iraq (UNSCOM) in imminent. And in contemporary just war nent threat against the West and its allies. the 1990s, has argued (in Fatal Choice: theory, any right to a pre-emptive strike has What is the force of these arguments? Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of been down-played, since invoking it would President Bush argues that deterrence Missile Defense), the United States itself undermine one of the central pillars of will not work against Saddam since he has failed to promote such disarmament. international law: the inviolability has used chemical and biological weapons It remains the largest anns spender and of national sovereignty. against the Iranians and his own Kurd­ refuses to seize this opportune, post­ ish populations. But what Bush omits to Cold-War time to set in place an effective PRINCIPLE OF inviolability of say is that the United States supported international disarmament process. national sovereignty has been the corner­ Iraq during the 1980s with weapons and As this article goes to press, it is not stone of international relations for over 50 intelligence in the war against a radical clear whether the new UN weapons years. On occasion, however, it is neces­ Islamist Iran. inspectors in Iraq will succeed. Ideally, sary to override this principle, particu­ Even after the US Congress voted if they were to eliminate any weapons larly for humanitarian intervention-as for sanctions against Iraq because of the of mass destruction, sanctions could be happened in Uganda, Somalia and the poison gas attacks on the Kurds, Bush Wted and Iraq could begin rehabilitation. former Yugoslavia, for example. In such Snr. refu sed to implem ent sanctions and But if Saddam Hussein refuses to co-oper­ instances, 'right authority' assumes added continued to supply Iraq with weapons of ate, containment still offers an alterna­ significance in just war theory, and ideally mass destruction, including anthrax and tive to war. In the predominant view the United Nations would exercise that botulinum toxin and missile equipment. of many churches, and on the available responsibility, although, in practice, polit­ In effect, Iraq remained an important ally evidence, a new war would fail the test ical differences may make that impossi­ of the United States. It is thus not surpris­ of just war theory, particularly on the ble. In such a situation, other coalitions ing that people in the Middle East see grounds of 'last resort', proportionality might act as a legitimating authority, as these arguments by the United States as and just cause. • NATO did during the Bosnian crisis. deeply hypocritical. In the case of Iraq, the United States at Moreover, Iraq's 1990 invasion of Bruce Duncan cssR lectures in social ethics first claimed a right to act independently Kuwait, foolish and unjustified as it was, at Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne, of the United Nations, but bowed to pres­ was prompted by real grievances. Iraq and is a consultant at Catholic Social sure from its allies, who were unhappy had historic claim s to Kuwait, but-and Services Victoria.

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JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 11 Join us on AtABR:s 1 RAil A:-.: Boo;; Rn·IJ \X a road less SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS On Books, Libraries and Writing An Essay by Clive James travelled. Indonesia's Protean Politics John Monfries

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to board. He runs alongside, then leaps on. My stop is just up ahead and I step into On your bus Further ahead we stop. A sea of gridlocked the doorway. The rushing wind is a wel­ LEARN ING INDONESIA vehicles stretches into the distance. The come relief. I reach up and knock loudly only movement is the delicate weaving of on the ceiling, just like the locals do. The the motorbikes through the mess. Finally, bus slows and I concentrate on the next I T's THE 604: a public bus that begins its they too come to a halt. task: getting off. My Indonesian friend also journey in the congested south of Jakarta A young man takes advantage of the advised, 'Step down with your left foot and winds its way towards the even more gridlock and steps confidently onto the first.' This is so you can hit the ground run­ congested heart of the city. bus. He has a ragged look and wild eyes, ning and avoid falling over. I've done this The bus has an orange and blue exterior and carries an old guitar covered in stick­ before so I'm quite confident. with the route number printed on the front. ers. He begins to play. The chords alone The bus is going slowly enough for me It's decorated with fast swirls and dynamic sound harsh and tuneless. But then he sings to get off. And yet I sense something­ patterns. Inside there are rows of plastic and I am drawn by the simple poignancy someone standing close behind me. But I'm seats with leg-room for people with short of his song. I notice the dirt on his clothes too focused on the road to turn. The driver legs. At the front the driver has surrounded and the sores on his feet, and wonder how is getting impatient. I lean forward and I'm himself with colourful stickers and wind someone so ugly can produce something just stepping out when I feel the slightest chimes. The bare metal structure is a deep so beautiful. The traffic begins to move of touches, like a shadow in my pocket. red brown. A combination of dirt, rust and and he accepts coins in a plastic cup before I whirl like I've been stung, slapping my metal fatigue gives one the impression of exiting. hand to my pocket. Glancing back as I'm travelling inside a rotting log. It's time for me to get off, and I rise from falling out the door, I see a man standing The passengers sit or stand, calmly my seat. As I move towards the door his on the second step. His hands are by his squashed together. A young man holds a song is still going through my head. Sud­ sides and he looks so relaxed, so calm. I'm wad of notes in his left hand and jingles denly some other words come. 'Hati-hati, the opposite. coins in his right. The passengers respond, Grant. Be careful on the bus.' My Indo­ The bitumen greets me unkindly. Legs reaching into pockets, handing over the nesian friend had told me of a girl who, tangle, stagger, stumble and for a moment fare. I have the exact fare ready so my after catching the bus, had got all the way I believe I will fall. Instead, I stand there, wallet stays in my pocket. I don't want to home before realising that her bag had been watching the bus move away with the attract attention. slashed. 'Hati-hati ya, hold your bag in pickpocket safe inside. The buildings look A baby sits wide-eyed in its mother's front of you.' lap. The young man, having collected the fares, yells out the doorway at pedestrians, soliciting potential passengers. I sit forward in my seat to cool the sweat on my back and I notice the stares from the other passengers. It is not often they see a bule ('boo-lay': Westerner) this far from the hotel, let alone one travelling on a bus. Although the attention makes me feel like an alien it also heightens the sense of adventure. I am experiencing what few of my kind ever do-but not without a sense of anxiety. I eye everyone with suspicion. I am out of my element and although I'm trying hard to look relaxed I suspect they can tell. The driver guides the bus through S"ND"-ID.S, \.OLLY PAt'~S. an impossible gap in the traffic and the toot t>cAt> ll'l~Ec.'(S, of the horn startles me. The street officially ,. ANP wEe11'116- has six lanes but today there seem to be CI-\II..!) I..P\Ne ten, as is the will of the motorists. A coin is rapped against the window and Moor<& the bus slows. A man in the street wishes

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 13 down impassively and Indonesia goes about its business as if nothing ever happened. t a e Turning to face a burning sky, I put my hand in my pocket and realise Jakarta has been kind. Relief mixes with victory. I smile as I pull out my wallet. Today I was too quick for the pickpocket. Roads to roam -Grant Morgan

O NE OF THE great enemies of understanding is simple division. When you Kerala leads divide your fellow citizens into Australian and un-Australian, your fellow GUARDING INDIAN PLURALISM Catholics into conservative and progressive, church members into practising and lapsed, and theologies into static and dynamic, much satisfaction may be I N THE souTHERN Indian State of Kerala, gained, but little illumination. the success of the world's largest democ­ But these categories can be quite useful if you ask why they don't work. The racy, the world's most religiously diverse discovery that many conservative Catholics hold views that have no support secular state, is everywhere evident. In in tradition, that som e liberals are quite intolerant of difference, and that many places like Fort Cochin, an ancient trad­ practising Christians do not practise the Gospel, may make us attend more ing port on the Malabar Spice Coast, closely to the real differences between groups. Hindu temples, mosques, a synagogue and In a little book mischievously entitled, Is the Church too Asian~ (Chavara churches stand in close and harmonious Institute of Indian and Inter-religious Studies, Rome & Dharmaram Publica­ proximity on a narrow spit of land. tions, Bangalore, 2002), Norman Tanner looks at the claim that the Catholic The Jewish community is reported to Church is European and not Asian. Tanner's distinction itself will ring strangely have arrived as early as the lOth century in Australian ears, because his Asia includes the Middle East and Turkey. By AD. The mainstream Christian churches examining the contribution made by Eastern (Asian) bishops to church Councils, followed in the wake of Dutch, Portuguese he explores the common presumption that the Catholic Church is radically and British colonial occupation, although Western (European). there were communities of Syrian Chris­ By including Christian Egypt, Syria and Palestine within Asia, Tanner deals tians long before Europeans even knew of himself a winning hand. By any standards Jesus, Mary, the Twelve Apostles, the India's existence. Muslim and Hindu com­ Four Evangelists and Paul compose a powerful and decisive Asian foundation munities similarly pre-date, by centuries, for any Christian church! The early church Councils, too, gathered a predomi­ the advent of India as a united and inde­ nantly Eastern group of bishops to decide questions which had been posed and pendent state. In Fort Cochin, religion is a debated in Egypt and Syria. The contribution of Western thinkers and bishops private matter of identity. Communal ten­ was relatively marginal. sion is almost unheard of. Only when the Christian East and West were separated by the population Under the palm trees and thunderous movements of the West, and by the rise of Islam in the East, did a distinctively downpours of the tropics, Fort Cochin Western church develop. But it long displayed the alternating aggression and somehow keeps at bay the clamour of urban India. Old trading houses with peel­ diffidence of a church unsure of its own identity. It classified its own Councils ing pastel fac;ades decay elegantly. The as general, not ecum enical, because they did not include the Asian churches. tranquil streets are lined with spice ware- The West without the East was seen as incomplete. Unfortunately, this sense of incompleteness did not last. In the more recent Councils, bishops from Eastern churches and from the 1Peter 'Mifllfl¥e/& continent of Asia have participated. Tanner illustrates the distinctive contribu­ tion of those from the Eastern churches. But the interventions of those from ABBOTSFORD CYCLES Asia have contained little that is characteristically Asian. These men have 27 Swan St. @Richmond Station generally been formed in a narrowly Roman theology. Ri chmond Finally, to ask whether the churches are European or Asian is to pose a (03) 9429 6889 false question. It is like asking whether chess and Willow Plate are European or That squeaky wheel need ed oil months ago! Chinese. Like organisms, cultures assimilate and modify what was initially We quickly and economically repair and foreign to them. The question left hanging is whether regional church es can service all kinds of bicycles, and se ll useful bear to see themselves as incomplete. If they do, they will acknowledge the bags, baskets, lights, locks, mirrors, racks, distinctive gift of what lies outside them, and their own need for this gift. tools, trailers, wid gets and comfy seats. That acknowledgment seems to have been rarely made in Europe or Asia, in Open Bam to 6pm weekdays, 1 2;30 Saturday East or West. • 1Peda l d&atm, cat:c:fl t:fle tram, bu&, train ar walk t-a (JIU},rle! Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

14 EU REKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 houses from which waft the aromas of car­ of Kerala's population is Hindu. mir's maharaja at the time was a Hindu. He damom, pepper, ginger, turmeric and spices It would be overstating the case to sug­ chose to become part of India, condemning that once drew m erchants from across the gest that Kerala is free from communal ten­ its people to over five decades of conflict. world (Vasco da Gama died here in 1524); now sion. In 1997 in the small fishing village of For Hindus and Muslims alike, Kash­ men with traditional weighing scales haggle Vizhinjam, alongside the beach resort of mir has become a cause celebre. Now any over the prevailing world market prices. Kovalam on Kerala's southern coast, Mus­ Indian government which gave up India's But then, Kerala itself has always been lim and Christian fishermen clashed over claim to Kashmir, or even allowed a ref­ a place apart. In 195 7, it was the first area fishing and mooring rights. Since then, all erendum in the troubled region, would be anywhere in the world to have a demo­ has been quiet, although teams of fisher­ committing electoral suicide. Pakistan's cratically elected communist government men are now either Christian or Muslim, serially precarious governments would (which, since then, has never been out of never mixed, and village life takes place similarly sign their own death warrants if power for longer than five years). Although against a backdrop of unease and mistrust. they allowed Kashmir to slip from their the present Keralan government is led by The village is now divided into Christian grasp. the Congress Party, the Communist Party and Muslim quarters. A senior Indian naval officer, who of India maintains a powerful hold over the On the train from Kottayam to Thiru­ liaises on a regular basis with Pakistani state. On at least two occasions during my vananthapuram, an amiable Keralan officers, told me that he was mystified that month-long stay, all commerce and most businessm an lamented the fact that if it the world held Pakistan and India equally road transport was shut down across the weren't for the Muslims, some of whom responsible when 'the Pakistanis are the state during a hartal (strike)-the first in refuse to send their daughters to school, ones in the wrong, so they must take the support of improved workers' rights, the Kerala would long ago have achieved total first step'. Political analysts fi ll the pages second to protest against globalisation. In literacy. Such comments and incidents are of national newspapers with arguments the biggest cities and the smallest villages, significant precisely because they that if India relinquishes Kashmir, India's along highways and backwater canals, the are so rare in Kerala. natural geographical barrier-the Himala­ hammer and sickle flag flies proudly. yas-will no longer be able to protect India, The legacy of both the communist E RTHER AFIELD IN India, the picture allowing India's enemies to sweep into the party and other left-leaning governments is not quite so promising. On 31 Octo­ Indian heartland from the north. in the state has been more than simply an ber 2002, the government of Tamil Nadu In Kashmir, in Gujarat, in Tamil Nadu, international oddity in times when com­ (which borders Kerala to the east) intro­ it is difficult to escape the conclusion that munism is supposedly on the wane. Kerala duced a bill which would make religious secularism Indian-style now entails sim­ is renowned for the quality of its education conversion illegal. Proponents of the bill ply the right-even the necessity-to live and it consistently records the highest lit­ argue that the legislation is designed to pre­ as separate communities. This is what led eracy rates (over 90 per cent) of any state vent forced conversion through blackmail to the partition of India and Pakistan in the in India. The Kottayam district in central or bribery. You could argue, equally, that it first place, and against the wishes of India's Kerala was the first in India to record 100 symbolises a threat to secularism in India. spiritual founder, Mahatma Gandhi. per cent literacy. Earlier this year, the state of Gujarat India may be the world's second largest There have been numerous benefits to descended into communal riots after a train Muslim nation (around 12 per cent of the the state from the prioritisation of educa­ filled with Hindu pilgrims, reportedly en population or more than 120 million peo­ tion. According to some reports, m ore than route to Ayodha to aid construction of a tem­ ple), but there is a pervasive presupposition half of the foreign nurses working in the ple on the former mosqu e site, was attacked that Muslims are the enemy, that Pakistan United States are of Keralan origin, and a by Muslim stallholders. In September, an will always be an enemy against whom significant proportion of foreign nationals attack on a Hindu temple in Guj arat's state protection is required, that the division of working in the Gulf countries of the Mid­ capital, Gandhinagar, saw the community communities into mutually exclusive reli­ dle East are Indians from Kerala . Remit­ once again divided along religious lines. A gions is safer than upholding a secular ideal tances from these workers to their families Hindu friend from Udaipur in Rajasthan of communal interaction. at home in Cochin, Kasaragod, Kannur, told m e proudly that she had once employed Every now and then, voices of reason Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam make a Muslim girl because 'she was so nice, not rise to the surface. Muzaffar Hussein Beig, an important contribution to the state's at all like the other Muslims. If only they the Vice President of the People's Demo­ econom y. could all be like that'. cratic Party-a party which is in coalition Other spin-offs are less obvious, but And then there is Kashmir, a state, government in Jammu & Kashmir since nonetheless of national significance. a disputed territory which lays bare the the recent elections-argued that 'with­ Kerala is one of the few states where the communalist angst of secular India. In the out waiting, they should open the borders Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (an avowedly lead-up to independence from Britain, the and engage people in trade and commerce, Hindu revivalist party which came to rulers of m any semi-autonomous princely because most people in Pakistan believe prominence as a driving force behind the states around India, on behalf of their sub­ that Indians have trishuls (tridents-the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayo­ jects, were given the choice by the Brit­ symbols favoured by Hindu warriors and dha in December 1992 and now holds ish authorities to determine whether they holy men) in their hands to demolish power at a national level) has no strong­ wished to join 'Hindu India', or 'Muslim mosques, and Indians are of the opinion hold, no seats in the state assembly. Pakistan'. Kashmir's population was, and that Pakistanis are drug-peddlers and have This, despite the fact that the majority remains, overwhelmingly Muslim. Kash- guns in their hands to kill people'.

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 15 Such voices are, however, in creasingly because they happen in the shadows- out­ others in a way which would be disagree­ being drowned out. Slowly, India is divid­ side the media spotlight. Sudan, the largest able to oneself.' 'In the garden of thy heart ing into coniessional communities, in nation in Africa, endures one of these. It plant nought but the rose of love', says a much the same way as the world since ll has a long history of war and bloodshed and member of the Baha'i Faith. A Buddhist September 2001. With almost one quarter has recently gone through the cycle from calls people to 'hurt not others in ways that of the world's population and strong com­ war to peace and back to civil war. you yourself would find hurtful'. munity representations of all the world's Perhaps the most universal religious How, then, is inhumanity perpetrated major religions, India will be at the fore­ doctrine is that of concern for the other. A at the hands of believers of such noble front of any coming clash of civilisations, Muslim believes that 'those who act kindly faiths? And how is it that these convergent and conflict between the world's great in this world will have kindness.' Confu­ viewpoints result in conflict at all? In most faiths. cius taught his followers to help others to conflicts it seems that there is an implied Since independence, India has, remark­ achieve their goals as they might wish to historical obligation to act in hate. Where ably, kept at bay widespread communal tensions, safeguarded democracy despite overwhelming logistical difficulties and been exemplary in reconciling religious difference within a secular framework. 6UI PON't ~OU 11--\INK IT PVTS ME- IN A RATHt;R That framework has now begun to look precarious, as if India- the world in micro­ lNY\DIOVS POSlllO~ TO HAVE. tO MAKE. A cosm- wishes to send a message that coex­ CoMMiiMf;N\ 10 1C-LL 1Hc iR.\)IH, WH~N IN istence doesn't work; that separation is the fAc:r IV\~ cN1\Rb OEf&KG~ K£)1'5 ON 1\ answer. CARe fl)LL'( C.RAfi e\) Ll IA~lf Of Ll~ S, 2 Only in Kerala do such old-fashioned D\S10K1\0NSJ AND CoMPLt.ft. FF\~RICAIIONS . notions as the separation of religion and politics, belief in the possibility of religious harmony, and an understanding of the nec­ essary primacy of education offer a work­ able alternative vision. -Anthony Ham Sudan 1n Australia

SETTLI NG D IFFERENCES

A family sat eating their evening meal in their home. A s they cheerfully recalled the day's events one child noticed a snake slink into the house. Panic broke out. Outside was another family with whom the first family had often argued and dis­ agreed. The second family noticed the commotion and immediately called for everyone to go to the aid of the troubled household. Together, they fended off the snake and made the house safe once more. (Sudanese fable) achieve your own. 'Do unto others as you there isn 't, leaders, some with official reli­ Religious conflict covers the globe the would have them do unto you', says the gious positions, often create conflict by way water fills a tray. The Israeli-Pales­ Christian believer. A Hindu fo llows the scapegoating minorities, causing a self­ tinian conflict, the Irish situation of years rule that 'One should not behave towards perpetuating cycle of hate that no religion past and even the so-called War on Terror, condones. feed-at least superficially-on religious November 2002 Book Offer Winners Does this have to be? Of course not. R. De Groot, Ba lwyn, VIC; A. Henson, Toormina, NSW; difference. Divided nations embrace peace J. Lewis, Anglesea, VIC; Little Sisters of Jesus, Woodville Every now and again, we hear of small­ rarely, and often only temporarily, return­ Park, SA; E. Lomman, Prospect, SA; Mrs A. Musgrave, scale reconciliation efforts. One memo­ ing to conflict with depressing regularity. Cordeaux Heights, NSW; C. Quinn, Armidale, NSW; A. rable example was a project run in Israel Rodrigues, JCU , Townsville, QLD; P. & B. Snell, Glen Africa hosts too many conflicts, and Waverl ey, VIC; S. Tutton, Ormond, VIC. between Israeli and Palestinian school­ most are made all the m ore wretched children. The children were encouraged to

16 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEB RUARY 2003 build a garden together and see for them­ selves that theirs could be a nation of fruit­ ful co-operation.

Sudan's wars are being fought along lines of religious difference, at both a archimedes national and a provincial level. Nation­ Big money ally, the ruling Islamic military govern­ ment in the north is at war with the Animist and Christian south. Within the south, centuries-old conflicts prevail along MOST ORGAN

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STR EET 17 a library, free excursions, camps, artistic be lost on the conservative political elite. performances, a craft workshop and the Coming to terms It is likely, however, that little in the way sam e support to newly arrived Sudanese ref­ of concrete, verifiable information will be ugees. SAIL is now a sizeable team effort. It RCFUCEE FACTS, NOT I EAR offered to support this presumption, and has managed to keep pace with the growth that fact is liable to be lost on an already of the Sudanese community through the I A BSCONDING' ts AN issue nota­ anxious public. continuing altruism of many individuals, bly absent from the high profile and bit­ In reality, reliable international figures schools, companies and libraries. ter debate about asylum seekers in this on rates of absconding arc hard to come by. The SAIL Program is an embodiment of country. There is an anomaly here. Other Those that are publicly available suggest the United Nations directive 'Think global, considerations notwithstanding (secu­ that absconding is the exception rather act local. ' It is not a charity group. There rity, health and identity concerns among than the rule. UK Home Office stati tics arc tutors and students but in practice SAIL them), the vast majority of asylum seekers put absconding at less than four per cent of has become a place of exchange-of cul­ are detained to prevent them from disap­ all asylum refusals, while a three-year New tures, stories, experiences and hopes. Non­ pearing into the community. But all this York State trial of supervised release of asy­ Sudanese SAILors share the past struggles is about to change, and absconding (a long lum seekers into the community recorded of the Sudanese SAILors, the group's with compliance more generally) will court hearing attendance figures of 93 per present su ccesses and future hopes. SAIL is move from the margins to the centre of cent. And that was after participant asylum one local way of responding to homeless­ this most divisive of issues. seekers had been repeatedly told that they ness and statelessness. It is a group which In short, the government has met with would be re-detained if they were ordered expresses in microcosm the aspiration of such unalloyed success selling its hard line to be removed. peace activists the world over. to an anxious electorate that it has rarely Are these figures indicative of the sort needed to invoke the spectre of abscond­ of compliance rates that could be achieved ing. Consequently, government strategy in Australia? I am confident they are, pro­ As a tenth generation Jew, I turn up­ has remained unwavering, despite sus­ vided that an appropriate framework is dare I say, religiously-to a church hall tained criticism from sectors many and established to manage and support asy­ every Saturday for this ga thering. My dif­ varied. The strategy adopted by the human lum seekers entering the community. A ference, like the differences of every other rights community, on the other hand, has well-tuned risk assessment procedure, in SAILor, is acknowledged but respected. of necessity been an evolving one. Increas­ tandem with a graduated, comprehensive As with so many Australian volunteer ingly there is a shift in emphasis from criti­ range of detention alternatives, would groups, SAIL has attracted a layered and cism of the mandatory detention system to achieve very high compliance rates with­ diverse mix of cultures and consequently the formulation and promotion of viable out imposing severe restrictions on the an impressive conglom eration of belief sys- alternatives to it. In this new climate, the movements of most asylum seekers. Rele-

tcms: Christianity, Islam, and Animism in official line that there is 'no alternative' to vant factors would include, inter alia: pres­ its various forms. Indeed, it could be said mandatory, arbitrary, indefinite detention ence of community ties, stage and strength that the SAIL Program lives and thrives on will become untenable, and the govern­ of claim, age/sex/dependants, and access difference, and on a healthy dose of mutual m ent will turn to the issue of absconding to legal representation. High -risk asylum respect. in an effort to derail debate and preserve seekers could be precluded from commu­ Perhaps the SAIL Program is an exam­ the current detention regime. nity release, although it is likely that such ple of the tyranny of distance disarming the The absconding charge presents a for­ individuals would account for only a small tyranny of history. Or an exercise in turn­ midable obstacle to those committed to proportion of unauthorised asylum seekers. ing 'should' and 'could' into 'is' and 'do'. In convincing people and politicians that The remainder would be determined eligi­ any case, it is a very real example of dif­ viable, preferable alternatives to the status ble for release into the community, albeit ferent people sharing their humanity and quo exist. Formidable, but not insurmount­ under varying degrees of constraint. searching for commonalities. able, for the potency of the absconding Generally spea king, very few asylum Every Saturday, I witness a celebration argument lies in its emotional rather than seekers pose an absconding risk during the of the human spirit as we work for a better practical content. course of the determination process. The global future. The spectre of absconding arouses pro­ incentives for them to comply with official - Matthew Albert found and deep-seated community fears, requirem ents are many and compelling. (with research by Anna Grace Hopkins) the provocative potential of which will not Even the Department of Immigration and

18 EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs has choice between interdiction at sea coupled compliance. They take seriously the chal­ acknowledged this to be the case. Conced­ with mandatory, indefinite detention of lenges posed by absconding, but recognise ing this small truth, however, exposes a big those reaching the mainland, and porous a problem to be managed, rather than an lie, for if compliance (particularly abscond­ borders leading ineluctably to large-scale intractable reality that justifies a retreat ing) does not constitute the real reason for absconding of refugee applicants into the from basic standards of human decency. m andatory, arbitrary, indefinite detention, community. Presented in this way, the lat­ A humane approach to asylum seek­ then we are entitled to ask: what does? ter amounts to an abdication of national ers need not come at the expense of the It is only when all hopes of winning sovereignty, leaving the government with national interest. A compromise can be official leave to remain have been extin­ 'no alternative' but to impose the former. struck between the rights of asylum seekers guished that absconding becomes a real This bipolar view amounts to a gross mis­ and the responsibilities of the state that is concern. At this juncture return to deten­ representation of what is a complex issue. beneficial to all parties. The challenge now tion could be warranted for som e indi­ Many constructive alternatives have is to convince the government that it is in viduals, but relatively higher levels of already been mooted in the Australian the interests of the Australian public to ini­ supervision within the community would context, while global conduct offers noth­ tiate such change. -Steven Columbus suffice for the rest. ing but alternatives. In practice, most First Obviously human rights NGOs and World states accept a degree of absconding This month's contributors: Grant Morgan asylum seekers would welcome a compre­ on balance, the moral obligation to pro­ is a freelance writer; Anthony Ham is hensive community release scheme. How­ tect those in need being seen to outweigh Eureka Street's roving correspondent; ever the government is unlikely to initiate the deleterious impact of low-scale abuse Matthew Albert and Anna Grace Hopkins any such alternative until it is satisfied of the system. Among other things, it is are the founders and coordinators of the that absconding can be kept to an accept­ deemed unconscionable to subject a large SAIL Program. For more information able level. Which begs the question-what majority to the trauma of detention on visit www.SAILProgram.cjb.com; Steven would constitute an' acceptable' level in the account of the abusive intent of a small Columbus worked in the N ew Zealand eyes of the Australian government? There minority who may abscond. Refugee Status Branch as the refugee deter­ is compelling evidence that a zero-tolerance Domestically speaking, models devel­ mination officer. Currently he oversees mind-set pervades official thinking on this oped by the Refugee Council of Aus­ publications for the Amnesty International issue-a mind-set that the current geo-polit­ tralia and the Justice for Asylum Seekers (Victoria) Refugee Team. A footnoted ver­ ical climate only encourages. alliance explicitly address community sion of this article will be available on the Government rhetoric presents a stark concerns about border integrity and Jan-Feb website.

Australian Catholic University Brisbane Sydney Canberra Ballarat Mel bourne Trinity College Theological School ~ ACU National Trinity College , University of Melbourne Royal Parade, Parkville 3052

• Explore you r faith within the context of a ACU National, a public university funded by the dynamic learning community Australian Government, is opened to students and staff of all beliefs. • Enjoy studyin g theology via the large and In a friendly community environment the University well-resourced United Fac uity of Theology offers opportunities to study theology in Ballarat, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. • Gain a theological qualification awarded by Courses available include Bachelor of Theology, Graduate Certificate in Arts (Theology) and Master of the Melbourne College of Divinity Arts (Theology). • Experience the flexibility of choosing to These programs are offered in a va riety of modes: face­ to-face, distance, intensive and on-line. study either face-to-face or online Inquiries about resea rch degrees (Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy) are also welcome. • Acces s Melbourne's uniquely rich ba se of At ACU National you can be part of an expanding theological re sources program of study in theology. For further details contact: Course, subject an d enro lment details avail able from: Dr David Sim (03) 9953-3129, www. tri nity.unimelb.edu.au/ th eolog Ema il: [email protected] .edu.au or phone Deborah Guess on (03) 9348 7127 Dr Veronica Lawson (03) 5336-5380, Email : V.lawson@aquinas. acu .edu.au Rev Dr Gerard Hall (07) 3855-7254 Trinity College Theological School Emaii :[email protected] Dr Kerrie Hide (02) 6209-1139 Email : [email protected] Shaping women and men in Dr Laurie Woods (02) 9701-4299 Email : [email protected] .edu.au Christian mission and ministry

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 19 THE WORLD

DOROTHY HORSFIELD

Seven days •tn Kabul

/ K ABUL wm NEVeR b'com' what is the fifty-year-old, Soviet-designed Kabul 'What's happened during the last 23 it was,' Afghan Professor Rafi Samizay Hotel where conference delegates have years,' Professor Samizay says, 'is very says to m e. been accommodated. The corner of the tragic at all levels. It makes you angry. 'Besides you have to remember there hotel was demolished when the ammu­ And yet people here are so good-violent are no good old days. Even in the '70s nition stores at the Presidential Palace and uncompromising on the one hand, there were problems.' ignited. At the hotel gates, the beggars gentle and polite on the other.' It's the first day of the 'N ew Vision for have gathered. Women in sky-blue chadors The professor is an eminent member Kabul' five-day conference he has helped squat in the dust. Little kids, skinny as of the Afghan intellectual diaspora, one to organise. Academics, aid workers, phi­ sticks, cry out softly to passersby. By con­ of a group of more than 50 engineers, lanthropists and businessmen from 25 trast, the crippled boy is fast and efficient, urban planners and architects who have countries have gathered together for the first time. I'm representing the Rotary Club of Canberra and am the only Aus­ tralian, apart from the President of the Australian Afghanistan Association, Wali WEARE FOR Hakim. A TOTAL BAN ON LANQMIN,E Professor Samizay and I are standing in ·· N,OTHING LESS., the autumn sunshine outside the recently renovated auditorium of the Lycee Estiqlal where the conference is being held. Armed boy soldiers in oversized uniforms lounge scooting round the corner with broken come home deliberately to help plan the against the walls, smoking and posing for sandshoes on his hands and dragging his city's future. A short, balding man with photographs. They are also wearing black twisted legs. He parks directly in front of a creased kindly face, he strives to take Calvin Klein T-shirts, a gift from the high us and puts out his palm. Stephen Rossi, a background role in the conference. As a fashion clothing company. Getting into the folksy engineer from West Virginia result, almost everyone consults with him the conference means two bag and body with a plan to rebuild the city's sewerage frequently and defers to his opinions. He searches with meticulous attention to and drainage system, kneels down and was formerly Director of Kabul Universi­ cameras and mobile phones. Four m onths takes the child in his arms. He hugs him ty's Architectural School, but was impris­ ago the French-built school around us was then discreetly stuffs a wad of American oned during the Russian occupation and almost destroyed by bullet and mortar dollars down his shirt. forced to flee the country in 1981. These fire. The UN-sanctioned International days he heads the School of Architec­ Professor Samizay's statement seems Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrols ture and Construction Management at understandably bleak. Hardly a centi­ the streets and circles the sandbagged air­ Washington State University, teaching metre of the city has not been damaged port every hour in helicopters like lethal his third-year students to plan buildings or flattened by the war of the northern black insects. The fields around the land­ sensitive to Afghanistan's geography and warlords. Eighty per cent of the adobe ing strip are littered with the burnt-out culture. houses, block after block along the pot­ wreckage of aeroplanes and army trucks. A culture of war, political instability holed, furrowed roads, are now dust and The previous day, flying in over the Hindu and economic ruin? rubble. Half of the city's 2.2 million peo­ Kush, the mountains were dotted with Samizay shakes his head. 'Perhaps ple are squatting in the ruins with three deserted settlements of roofless buildings there is the danger the old guard steps into thousand more 'returnees' each day. And and broken walls. Outside Kabul's island the political vacuum. But we m ust not let with no reliable clean water, garbage dis­ of peace, the war is not yet finished. Inside political manoeuvrings get in the way of posal, sewerage, drainage, electricity or Kabul there is still a curfew. Nothing reconstruction-' telephone systems, optimism seems an moves from midnight to 4am, except for a On the first afternoon we tour the city, impossible sentiment. pack of crazed, half-starved dogs who run pausing at the huge Darulaman Palace Across the road from the Lycee Estiqlal yelping through the darkness. on a hillock on the outskirts. The build-

20 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 ing was home to King Zahir Shah, the speeches of the Afghan professionals, a 37-year association with the country. last king of Afghanistan, who fl ed into Toshiyasu is cool, logical. A summary of 'Together we'll write something about exile after a Soviet-backed military coup the draft initiative is distributed to the how important this conference is,' she tells in 19 73. Built in the 1920s, it was mod­ delegates for written comment and we m e. 'You can write and I'm an old Afghan elled on the grand 19th-century German are taken crisply through the main points: hand.' She taught at Kabul University in palaces in Munich, and bombed to a ruin population trends, agriculture produc­ the late '60s and is a specialist in the tra­ by warlord Gulbuddin Hikmetyar in the tion targets, landmine clearance, indus­ ditional arts of Afghanistan, including 1990s. Our tour guide, architect Najim trial rehabilitation and political unity. carpet-weaving, embroidery, jewellery, Azadzoi, straight-backed, silver-haired It's a humane, comprehensive document leatherwork and woodwork. She is a with an aristocratic elegance and impa­ which also points out that at $US80 per small, tubby woman whose grey curly hair tience, stands in the courtyard with tears head per year, the UN billions are far from is streaked with blond. She is also boister­ streaming down his cheeks. sufficient. Of course the country will need ously channing, garrulous and a little deaf 'We did it to ourselves,' he tells me, all the help it can get from NGOs, interna­ so that we have exhaustingly loud conver­ 'this destruction. But, yes, of course we tional aid and private sector investment. sations across our hotel room. will rebuild it.' So who on earth would invest in the 'When I first met bin Laden many For the first time I glimpse the issues country right now? years ago,' she shouts at 5.45am from the behind the conference's dreams for re­ Akil Erturk is a Turkish Business next bed, 'he did not even acknowledge creating the city. How do you shuffle the Development Coordinator for an Ameri­ me because I was a woman. His relation­ priorities: deciding what must be done can-based construction company owned ship with the Taliban is all politics. Do urgently and what are long-term projects? by two expatriate Afghan business­ you really think such a rich, upper-class Squatter housing versus conservation of men. He attends all the long conference Saudi man would link himself to Mullah architectural heritage? Modernisation sessions and tirelessly works the room Omar if it wasn't politics? That he would versus memory? What does sensi tivity to during the coffee breaks. Over afternoon marry his 14-year-old daughter to such an tea on the Hotel Kabul patio, he tells ignorant village bumpkin for any other me he has already been here for weeks reason? I've been to Kandahar and seen finalising approval for a three-star hotel. the palace they made for her. How can I He describes it as a kind of self-sustain­ describe it? Like marble design painted all ing module, minimally dependent on the over the walls when she was used to the resources of the city and dropped into the real thing.' place by a team of skilled workers brought Arlene hops up and comes to stand into the country for the purpose. If all goes next to my bed. 'In the US I founded the well, six months from now he will begin Afghanistan Relief Committee which sup­ planning a five-star hotel. ported Bush's war against terror because it local culture really imply to people who Perhaps the hotels will service person­ got rid of the Taliban.' need proper shelter immediately? What nel from the 72 different NGOs now in 'What is at stake in this new great does it really m ean to aim to reweave the city? gam e is oil,' she adds, in no uncertain the urban fabric into a calm, harmonious, Akil shrugs. 'Of course.' terms. 'N ot for the 21st century. By the prosperous city? The conference has attracted other 22nd century Uzbekistan oil will be abso­ During the next two days of the opportunistic but cautious investors. lutely important.' conference there is constant talk of the Twenty years ago Duane Kissick was an Arlene's conference paper is to kindle importance of a master plan, a blueprint aid worker in Yemen. N ow he is the Wash­ interest in rebuilding the Chahar Chatta covering every aspect of redevelopment. ington-based President of Planning and bazaar. The bazaar is part of the history of It seems clear there is nothing that does Development Collaborative International old Kabul, dating back centuries; a kind of not need to be fixed and there's an anxiety (Padco). In the heat and dust of Kabul he living museum to display the country's about who will steer and fund the imple­ looks immaculate in a snow-white shirt, art and craft treasures, but also to provide m entation of such a multifaceted plan. well-cut suit and satellite phone. Duane's an on-site workshop where such works Everyone is tacitly aware that rebuilding company tenders to the UN or to NGOs are created. By the end of the conference is an integral part of the peacemaking­ to facilitate and package Third World Arlene is ecstatic to be appointed deputy without it there will be more conflict projects. chair of the bazaar-steering committee and political instability. UN-Habitat has 'Let's say Kabul needs a new road sys­ under the chairmanship of 'that gorgeous helped to sponsor the conference but the tem,' he says, 'and the UN doesn't have sexy man', Yousaf Pashtun, Minister for UN's pledge of $US4.5 billion to Afghani­ the local knowledge. Padco sends some­ Urban Development. Back in the States stan last January has been slow to arrive. one in to make it happen. The guy we'll she plans to set up the Chahar Chatta On the third day UN-Habitat Director send in here is fantastic- worked Bazaar Foundation. of Asia and Pacific Programs, Toshiyasu for us in East Timor.' My other hotel room-mate is Dr Magda Noda, unveils the 'Draft Reconstruction Katona, an eccentric Hungarian orientalist Vision: Crescent to Full Moon Initiative' I 'M SHARING MY ROOM at the hotel with with a shock of hair the colour of vanilla from the Japanese Society of Civil Engi­ two other women. One is Professor Arlene yoghurt, a large square jaw and grey teeth neers. After the lengthy, impassioned Lederman, a Jewish N ew Yorker with tinged with green. She speaks fluent

jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 21 Russian, as well as one of the local matching headscarf and pale blue sneakers. in the hotel rooms and the bottled water languages, Dari, and humourless gym­ In deference to local conservatism, I'm with incomprehensible labels in Russian. instructor English. During the Russian wearing baggy pants, a man's white shirt 'My God, I never thought I see myself in occupation she worked as a translator down to my knees and my head wreathed Kabul,' he says. with the Hungarian embassy but since in a gold silk scarf. Arlene looks me over. On the second last day of the confer­ then has published a book on historical 'Round here you're a beauty,' she tells ence, the hundred or so delegates divide links between Hungary and Afghanistan. me. 'You've got a good nose on you, you're into four working groups: Urban Manage­ In the late afternoon before dinner, carrying an extra five pounds and you've ment and Planning, Housing and Squat­ Magda, Arlene and I lounge around the got those blue eyes.' ter Settlements, Heritage Conservation, hotel room. We're talking about the Arlene says she is too old to be a sex and Infrastructure and Services. We must savagery of the Taliban's treatment of object. Downstairs she flirts successfully submit our written suggestions at the last women, the public executions and beat­ with every man in her orbit. session. ings in the street and the reasons for it. The party is 95 per cent male. Men in For the first hour of the 'Housing and At a UN-Habitat dinner I had sat next to a suits, ties and business shirts are lined up Squatter' group, Afghan men in their ubiq­ UN aid worker who had been stationed in in rows of lounge chairs listening sedately uitous suits make interminable speeches the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif during to a group of traditional musicians. After in Dari. They are deciding who will chair the Taliban regime and who claimed that half an hour, Professor Reinhard Goethert the group. I slide out the door to meet an some of what went on under the mullahs introduces himself. aid worker from the UN's International was misreported. 'A lot of women weren't Dressed in a tweed jacket despite the Organisation of Migration who is to take cowed and brutalised,' she said. 'In Mazar heat, he has a red genial face and walrus me on a tour of the squatter camps. Our there were groups who went fearlessly moustache. He is from MIT and one of first stop is Jangalak, formerly a sort of every day to the Taliban to demand their Samizay's oldest friends. His paper that Paddy's Market of Kabul where you could rights.' day on the squatter camps, 'the informal buy almost anything from antique carpets 'I can tell you a story,' Magda inter­ settlements', was both compassionately to car parts. Now the Australian govern­ rupts abruptly. 'It happened when I was ment is renovating two buildings there to living here before, during the Russians. house and train 700 returnees. It's almost I was travelling much and my husband finished and one of the foremen insists also, so I brought from Budapest a gov­ proudly on showing us around. On the erness for my daughter. She was a large stairs I ask him questions, including one woman, very intellectual with advanced about cost. training in psychology, a serious person 'It is not much for Australia,' he says with black-rimmed glasses and thick hair. scornfully. Together we were here at the Kabul Hotel 'How much?' for a garden party. The Uzbek warlord, 'Afghans are very good refugees,' he General Rashid Dostum was sitting near tells me. 'They work very hard for them­ us. He'd had many women but when he selves and for the country.' looked at the governess, he combed care­ pragmatic and delivered with the heart of He is the eighth person in five days fully his moustache. Then he said she a skilled teacher. who has told me this. must go upstairs to a room and wait for In Kabul and internationally, these On the last day of the conference him to come. She would not do it and we settlements are of course huge and grow­ return to my working group, which in explained that she was a serious intel­ ing, he said. They are characterised by a spite of my misgivings has produced lectual. Dostum was just shrugging his process of progressive urbanisation: what a detailed list of what to do about the shoulders and saying he'd had all kinds begins as a chaos of refugees develops informal settlements. At the final ses­ of women and now he would try an intel­ its own infrastructures, such as informal sion Minister Yousaf Pashtun announces lectual. It was because of this situation realtors who help in the orderly subdivi­ the formation of a steering committee the governess for safety must leave the sion of land, or water sellers or money­ to guide these plans, comprised of local country.' lenders who deal in microloans. Helping representatives and the expatriate Afghan 'It is not for laughing,' Magda adds these settlements m eans agreeing with professionals. As well, a 'New Vision for sternly, when I begin to chuckle inappro­ the community about the immediate Kabul' website would be set up within priately at her heavily accented sense of problem s. For instance, housing may not weeks, where the rest of us and the world melodrama. be a top priority problem but rather clean outside can contribute advice, ideas and 'I'm telling you,' Arlene says tactfully, water, health, education, employm ent aid on how to rebuild a city with hard-won 'they treat women like animals.' and transportation. And because squat­ optimism and determination. 'Yes, of course,' agrees Magda. ters would like to be like everyone else, As Professor Samizay put it: 'Rebuild­ providing an address may be the most ing Kabul is like acupuncture. You create INTHE EVENING we dress up for a party important priority. bright spots and they radiate along the downstairs at the Kabul Hotel. Magda At the party Professor Goethert and I energy lines of the city.' • puts on a traditional Pakistani costume talk about mementoes of Kabul, in partic­ in white trimmed with turquoise with a ular the lolly-pink, elasticised toilet paper Dorothy Horsfield is a Canberra writer.

22 EUREKA STR EET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 Trammelled

/L oonN' COR WARD TO your cup of coffee, Ed?' and obsessions up against it by chance not design. 'No money, Harry.' Despite the heat, both are in heavy blue jeans to which 'Don't need any, mate. No worries. I know 'em all down Harry has added a thick sweater and Ed a duffle coat, boots and there. Milk and three for you, I seem to remember?' a knitted woollen beanie. Wherever they've come from on this Ed nods. Or at least I assume he does. I can't actually see shining Monday morning, the choice of ensemble was narrow. either of them because I'm standing-or, more precisely, strap­ 'We'll go into that shady courtyard for coffee. Remember, Ed?' hanging- with my back to them on a packed Melbourne tram. Ed nods and his face crinkles under his beanie. Turning 180 degrees will discombobulate too many other trav­ The tram creeps into Elizabeth Street. My guess is they're ellers. But Harry's voice is distinctive, penetrating. It seem s to heading forSt Francis', where there must be tea and coffee and rumble the length of the tram. Its rich, gravelly timbre is the biscuits for the homeless. For the 'derros' as we used to say, decades-long work of truckloads of tobacco and vast quantities though not all homeless are derros. Ed and Harry are derros, of alcohol ranging, no doubt, from the infamous White Lady though. 'Dead set', as they themselves might have put it a few (milk and m eths), various brown paper-bagged ports, and other years ago, before they lapsed into monologues and mutterings. fortifications to-in good times-conventional pots of beer. Suddenly, shouting and tumult erupt at the other end of The tram rolls on. With a precision that is the gift the tram. and glory of experienced Melbourne tram drivers, our man 'By Christ,' says another rough and much abused voice, expertly misses several green lights, closes last-minute doors on 'bloody trams always full as a £art. A bloke can't hardly fit on desperate, late-arriving fingers, and clangs the bell at random the bastards.' intervals unrelated to the state of the traffic. Students battle 'Limmo,' Ed says, showing animation for the first time. their way on board at each stop, and everyone sways and brac­ 'That's Limmo gettin' on, isn't it, Harry?' es as the driver engineers, for no apparent reason, occasional Harry nods gloomily and announces that Limmo used to run muscle-wrenching lurches-another indispensable skill from a fleet of limousines-'that's how he got the name, like'- until the Melbourne tram drivers' manual. things went bad for him. Partly the 'gummint', partly 'the booze'. 'Lotsa university students use this tram, of course, Ed.' 'We might see Limmo in the courtyard.' Ed gestures vaguely 'Uni-vers-it-y stu-dents,' Ed says. It's Monday morning at the tram windows. and maybe Ed needs to treat words like explosives, any one of 'Possible,' says Harry. But his eyes are dead, and it's which might blow off the top of his aching head. hard to know if he's being laconic or just vacant. 'What I find,' says Harry to no-one in particular, 'is I get watery eyes in the morning. Could be the drinkin', of course. I L EY GET OUT at St Francis', Harry walking with a protec­ dunno. I'm seein' the quack about it next time at the clinic.' tive hand on Ed's thin shoulder. Up the other end of the tram, The tram grinds up to the university stop, and waves of stu­ a commotion and a curt 'By Christ' suggest that Limmo, as dents clatter into the roadway with a tintinnabulation of mobile expected, is heading for the refuge too. phones. Released from the imprisoning cocoon of bodies, bags Missing the green light, we sit there in a silence that is and bumping hips, I can now get a look at Harry and Ed. both uncomfortable and sad. Christmas decorations on city 'I'm sixty-two this year, y'know, Ed. Sixty bloody two,' says buildings present their snow-laden pines and prancing rein­ Harry. He's a big bloke, blankly smiling, exuding unfocused deers to the scrutiny of the murderous sun. affability from a ravaged face. Wispy remains of hair sprout 'Bad time o' year to be down and out,' says a voice as the from either side of his head in grey tufts. He has a four- or doors flap shut. five-day gingery-grey stubble. His gnarled hands are covered in 'When's a good time?' says another voice. liver-coloured spots. All in all, he looks an unhealthy eighty. A Salvation Army trooper, who had been watching Ed and As for Ed, he sits in a sort of catatonic state, nodding every Harry with sympathetic interest, says, ' "0 scatheful harm, now and then as Harry rattles on about this and that. His condition of poverty".' Everyone within hearing looks embar­ stubble is scrubby, his features destroyed by the challenges of rassed. The tram clanks across the intersection and noses deep the destitute years. In the opposite seat, a dark-suited, corpo­ into the spangled and glittering central business district. rate-looking bloke desperately ignores them and, next to him, I look back, trying to glimpse Harry, Ed and Linuno at the gates a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman smiles now and then at of St Francis', but they are lost in the crowds and dazzling light. II Harry and Ed, not realising that they are essentially oblivious of the world around them, merely bumping their monologues Brian Matthews is a writer and academic.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 23 11. French astronomer Abbe Nicolas Louis de Lacaille defined several new constellations in the southern hemisphere. Name three.

12. What does the acronym HACCP stand fo r?

1. What do Richard Branson, the Duchess 13. Who was 'the furious, black-m aned fellow of York, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Elle from Treves'? McPherson have in common? 14. Which three American authors did Tom 2. In an Australian industrial award, how Wolfe refer to as 'my three stooges' ? many matters are allowable? 15. In Tom Wolfe's novel A Man in Full, 3. Which word m eans both the sculptural male prisoner Conrad Hensley is inspired by the figure used as a supporting column in architec­ writings of which philosopher? ture and a character in Greek mythology? 16. Who said in 1861: 'Labour is prior to, and 4. Three m en won the Nobel Prize for their independent of, capital. Capital is only the work on the structure of the DNA molecule. fruit of labour, and could never have existed Name them . if labour had not first existed. Labour is the When the cricket is w grow feral, gather th ~ reference b< encyclopc and set theW( sun brainte2

5. Who was their female colleague and why superior of capital, and deserves much the did she not share the Nobel Prize? higher consideration.'?

6. Name the four steam locomotives that were 17. What is Wednesday's child full of? streamlined to haul the Spirit of Progress. 18. Who was described as 'an archangel a little 7. In which year will the Gregorian calendar damaged' and by whom and when? be one day ahead of the true solar year? 19. In which Australian public gallery is Freder­ 8. What year is this, according to: (a) the ick McCubbin's painting 'A Bush Burial' held? ancient Babylonian calendar; (b) the Jewish calendar; (c) the Muslim calendar; (d) the 20. (a) Who, in 1658, recorded the second current Mayan great cycle? definite European reference to a marsupial, and (b) which animal was being very mislead­ 9. Come on scientists: an equal amount of ingly described as 'wild cat, resembling a civet each spectral colour produces what? cat but with browner hair'?

10. What or who or where are the: (a) capsule of 21. What was the name of Elvis Presley's first Tenon; (b) Lord of the Isles; (c) island of Reil? professional band?

24 EU REKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 22. Who was 'gypsied to kill in a silky scarlet 32. Who were the librettists for: (a) The Mar­ petticoat'? riage of Figaro; (b) La Traviata; (c) Carmen.

23. I have a base, a collector and an emitter, 33. Name the nine bad shots of golf, according and the world would be very different without to St Harry Vardon. m e. What am I? 34. In The Lord of the Rings, what are Gandalf's 24. Who was the oldest member of the names according to: (a) the Elves; (b) the Maiar? Beatles?

25. Fran<;oise Athena'is de Mortemart, Marie When you've done your collective best (and Dolores Eliza Gilbert and Margarethe Gertru­ mended the family fences), post, fax or email ide Zelle were more famously known as ... your answers-however few-by I February, 2003, to: 26. Two prominent Australian business­ Eureka Street Summer Quiz, PO Box 553, men had a stressful November last year. The RICHMOND VIC 3121. Fax: (03) 94284450. unfortunate A was voted off the board of email: [email protected] Coles Myer and the hapless B was voted off the board of the Carlton AFL Club. Name the Please include your name, address unfortunate A and the hapless B. and phone number. ·ashed out and the kids e family, haul out the Joks, get the ~ dia online tle in for )rst-yet 1mer tser qu1z.

27. Who was the first boxer to beat Muham­ mad Ali? (Your dad will know.) The prize: Oxford's OKFORD absolutely necessary 28. These two stars of stage, studio and screen, A Dictionary of Marshall Mathers III and Thomas Mapother Euphemisms, How Not To IV, are better known as ... Say What You Mean, by R.W. Holder, 29. Provide the given names of: (a) T.S. Eliot; for the two nearest (b) J.K. Rawling; (c) C.S. Lewis; (d) H.V. Evatt; correct answers. (e) A.D. Hope. It's exactly what you will How Not To Say 30. A major sporting event to be held in need after completing the What You Mean Australia in September will have an open­ quiz w ith Uncle Ralph A Dictionary o f Euphemisms and computer-whiz, ing ceremony that is guaranteed not to be a IL W . HOLDER 'rugged testosterone show'. Name the event. Cousin Rose.

31. Which sporting heroes are or were known as: (a) Madame Butterfly; (b) the Shark; (c) The Winners and answers in our March issue. Lithgow Flash; (d) the Rocket.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 25 PROFI LE

TRACEY RIGNEY Wotjobaluk man

William John Kennedy Snr. is th e oldest male Aboriginal elder in the State of Vi ctori a. He fought in the Second Worl d War. He worked on th e ra ilways. He campaigned for land ri ghts. And he just happens to be my grandfather. To most people he's kn own as ' Uncle Jack', but to me, he's 'Pop'. This is his story.

Tell me about growing up. it had nothing to do with us. Well no sooner I turned I was born by the [Wimmera] river in a mud hut, in 21-that was in 1940 on the 23rd of March-as soon 1919. [Today you can still see the remains of this as I turned 21 I joined up. hut.] See, well, my Uncle [Walter], he used to get me It was all right then-as soon as I turned 21 I was and teach me things about culture. There was one my own boss, I could do what I wanted. Except my time when I was four years old ... my uncle and the brother was two years younger than me and he let other elders took me out into the Little Desert. They him join. As soon as I joined up he wanted to join, told me 'wait here and we'll be back to pick you up' ... well he joined .. . Father signed the papers for him, I waited for a while and then started to cry ... then all but he didn't sign for me because he didn't want m e of a sudden I thought, 'they're trying to tell me some­ to go ... I don't know why. He just didn't want me to thing.' So up I got and followed their tracks out ... and go. here they are all waiting for m e. They patted me on It was the Depression years and there was the head and said, 'good boy'. nothing to do and I was battling for everything. Well At school I had to speak English ... I got a bloody in the army I got my clothes free, got my tucker good hiding if I spoke in [Wergaia]language ... but a free-everything! lot of it's lost now ... I was five years and about ten months in the Well, then, my father, he got rheumatic fever army. I went over to Syria, I fought in the Sixth shearing wet sheep and his heart went on him. So I Division. And in the Syrian campaign we fo ught the left school [at the age of 13] and worked. I worked on Vichy French and a lot from out of Africa-they were a farm at Woorak near Nhill. Two and six a week I real black' But we beat them. started work for, until it got to ten shillings-that's where it stopped. I was driving horses and I loved What did you do in the army~ horses. When crops grew, I drove teams to strip the I was a gun layer- I used to lay the gun and pull the wheat off ... I didn't like shearing. They just told me, trigger ... A 25- pounder- that was the weight of the they said, 'you're not fast enough to shear a sheep'. shells see- that we used to put in and fire. They used Well, the quicker you can get down and shear your to give me the range, elevation, everything like that. sheep and straighten up again, well it wouldn't affect I had four bubbles on it to level. I used to do it in four your back ... but I was too slow shearing. seconds ... course no sooner I'd get the word 'fire' I'd shoot. I got caught one day, yeah. I shut my mouth What about the war~ Tell m e about those years. and pulled the trigger, instead of keeping it open ... See ... then the Second World War started-that felt like the top of my head blew off. Never really started in 1939. Well, England and Germany was affected me though- I'm 83 now and I don't wear where the war broke out. Well you see, us Austral­ hearing aids. ians, we were naturally straight into it. In 1939 I couldn't join the army, because of my father. You see Pop shows me photos from war. I study his face as I wasn't 21 and my father wouldn't sign the papers his mind revisits these places. for me to join. He didn't want me to go ... he reckons We were just out of Damascus-that was the end of

26 EUREKA STREET JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 the Syrian campaign ... it snowed for a week. Well, I got the photos here, where just the top of the tent is showing. We used to have a rope running from our tent to the toilet so we knew where to go. You couldn't see anything. It was Christmas, 1941. That's my first white Christmas and I said that I don't want to see another one! I'd put all my clothes on to go to bed, and we had to stop in the tent for a week! We did nothing.

When did you leave the army and what did you do~ The 24th of the tenth, 1945 was when I was discharged-an honorary discharge on account of long service. But about mid-1946 ... you see I wanted to join the Occupation Forces, where I'd go to Japan and that. I was walking down the street and I read on the front page of the newspaper that Bob Menzies didn't want any Aborigines, or people with Abo­ riginal blood to enlist in the Occupation Forces, 'because they were too illiterate' .. . so I didn't join. I was out at Antwerp. There was rab­ bits everywhere- millions of them! We killed them for skin. They went up to a pound a pound for skin. You'd get about two to three hundred rabbits. I then worked on the salt lake, then I went from there and settled down a bit. My twins were born in 1951. We [Pop, Nan, Mum and Uncle] lived in Antwerp, then came to Dim­ boola. We lived over the other side of the river, in the Common. Then they built us houses in Dimboola. We got our first house and moved in. At that time I was working on the railways. First of all I was stacking barley bags, then I was doing maintenance work just to keep the train on the line. Looking after the tracks as a repairer. Then I was super-repairer after a couple of years ... Just close on 30 years I worked on the railways. knowledge and wis­ dom, I doubt that we Pop retired in 1979, the year I was born. He now lives have been given this determination. A humble in Dimboola, still a father to his twins and grand­ man, Pop is precious- just like the land. father of three. He is the proud elder of the Wotjo­ • baluk. The lands of the Wotjobaluk, which he has Tracey Rigney is a writer, playwright, and one fought long and hard for, cover both the Little and Big of Eureka Street's FEST Fellowship recipients. Deserts in north-western Victoria and extend as far Her play, Belonging, premiered at The Playbox in east as Mt Arapiles and the Black Ranges. Recently Melbourne in February 2002. we were given a native title determination from the State government over a portion of our land claim, which our community is very excited about. For the Photograph above: jack Kennedy (ri ght) and friend, Sergeant Percy first time in south-eastern Australian history, native Kimpton, in th e main street of Damascus, 1941 . title exists, and it exists on our land. Without his Photographs courtesy of jack Kennedy.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 27 ESSAY

PETER ROSE The Consolations of Biography

I MeROBABLY, GWEN MY inte«'" •nd when he was 22, Robert seemed to be on fo llowed by the cricketer's usual apothe­ the subsequent direction of my life, I come the verge of Test selection. osis-a lucrative contract as a television from a sporting family. It is that quintes­ Apart from his precocious sporting commentator-! wouldn't be speculating sential Australian world that informs my prowess, Robert was an adventurous about the consolations of biography. Rob­ book Rose Boys, as it goes on informing young man, to put it euphemistically. ert and I were both irascibly close and bois­ my life. My father, Bob Rose, played for He was hedonistic and immensely popu­ terously competitive as children. We had the Collingwood Football Club in the lar. He wasn't called 'Rambles' (after the little in common. I didn't like the way he 1940s and 1950s. His four younger broth­ Nat King Cole song) for nothing. Trevor treated people, especially women, and I'm ers all played for Collingwood, too. They Laughlin, one of Robert's cricketing sure he was frustrated by my bookishness, were known as the Rose Brothers. Dad mates at Collingwood, remarked many my isolation, my general weirdness, as he won more Copeland trophies than anyone years later that he and Robert had always saw it. Quite possibly we would before him, he helped win a premiership thought of themselves as 'bullet proof' in have drifted apart as grown men. in 1953, he was the first Australian Rules their wild days. I was struck by this. I had player to be dubbed 'Mr Football'. Later, no such sense of recklessness or invinci­ M Y REASONS FOR WRITING Rose after a stint coaching Wangaratta, where bility. When I was an adolescent I was Boys were quite different from those of a I grew up, he returned to coach Colling­ bookish, m orose and abnormally isolated. conventional sporting biographer. I knew wood into some of the most celebrated The contrast between my innate fatalism it would be possible to write a straight grand finals on record, including the 1970 and Robert's boundless assurance was the biography of Robert (just as someone is grand final, perhaps the greatest individual first of many I examined in Rose Boys. now at work on a biography of my father), game of them all. Sadly, Dad lost all three Robert was alluring to many because but I had no interest in being the one to grand finals, by just a few points. He later of his undoubted humour and charm, but do so. Although sporting references per­ coached Footscray and had a second stint also because of the glamour that sport vade the book, and although Victoria Park at Collingwood in the 1980s. He served on confers-almost uniquely confers-on the forms the affectionate tribal backdrop to the Collingwood comm ittee for decades. young and athletic in our society. When the early chapters and my adolescence, When he resigned in 1999, his official con­ I interviewed people for Rose Boys, many Rose Boys is essentially about other nection with the club had lasted for more of them referred to Robert as a 'golden themes: family, obligations, moral limits, than 50 years. youth', unconscious of the fact that our disability, masculinity, and above all, My family's link with Collingwood father had been described in exactly those mortality. didn't end with the Rose brothers. My terms half a century ago. So many of the For the reality is that my brother's brother Robert-my only sibling, three journalistic tropes used to describe Dad's life-all our lives-changed forever in years my senior-also played for Colling­ prowess were later applied to Robert-all 1974, when Robert was 22: blithe, blond, wood. Promising though he was as a foot­ those floral allusions. If I had shown any sunny, interested chiefly in the nirvana of bailer, Robert was a much better cricketer. sporting ability, they would doubtless sport. That's when Robert was involved Even as a young schoolboy, much was have sprung them on m e too, a kind of in a car accident and broke his neck, expected of Bobby Rose Junior, as he was banal birthright. instantly becoming a quadriplegic, with known. He realised much of that poten­ Had that been the innocent end of the one of the highest levels of paralysis it tial in his teens, first playing cricket for story, had Robert Rose gone on to play for was then possible to survive-from the Collingwood, then for Victoria. By 1974, Australia, and achieved a certain average, neck down. For the next 25 years, until

28 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 his death in 1999 at the age of 47, Robert of them. The Wherretts' book comes to doesn't actually believe in airing secrets was totally dependent every minute of the mind, but there are clear differences, the about other people. Hadn't she endured day on other people, and totally dependent collaborative nature of it being the most enough prying into her private life? on modern medicine, which had kept him obvious. I was also aware of the surprising This is the challenge, the everlasting alive in this depleted condition-some­ dearth of books about that intense, inter­ moral dilemma for any writer of family thing that would have been impossible necine and intoxicated world of Austral­ memoirs, especially one that deals with just a few years earlier because of the ian Rules. profound affliction and highly delicate nature of Robert's injuries. There fol­ Why I wrote Rose Boys-why I wanted material, and that sets out to tell the story lowed a quarter of a century of fluctuating to write it-why I needed to write it-is in blunt, journalistic detail. health, long illnesses, wretched pressure another story, and still something of a For a time, the irresolvability of these sores that kept Robert in bed for years at mystery to me. I realise that people enter­ ethical questions had a paralysing effect on a time, intermittent depression, an almost tain sundry, even conflicting, motives for me. I found it impossible to start the book, inevitable divorce (Robert's wife was 19 writing any book, from the metaphysical and reached a point when I thought I would when it happened), and the numberless to the prurient, from the commercial to have to abandon the project. I kept finding daily frustrations and indignities that any the lyrical. Writing a book about one's ever more ingenious reasons for not begin­ quadriplegic suffers. dead brother, about a hard death follow­ ning. Research can be a wonderful excuse. But those years also brought the many ing two decades of sorrow and slog and How to write about the living, the rich insights that perhaps only the griev­ survival, is rather different. Putting one­ dead, a brother who did not give me per­ ously disabled and afflicted among us self through it is one thing, but putting mission and who might not have approved can fully attain: new friendships, several other people through it-forcing them, if of such an intimate portrait-one that years of relatively even health, a second they choose to read it, to relive traumatic shows him, I trust, in a noble light, but major relationship when Robert was in also discusses painful and tragic incidents his wheelchair, richer moral qualities in in his life. How to reveal Robert's story to my brother, his extraordinary courage his only child, Salli, my adored niece, who and stoicism, and the profound rapport he was only eight months old at the time enjoyed with our parents. of the accident. The most disconcert­ Indeed, mindful of those warm and ing moment in my research came when emotionally fulfilling years for the fam­ I interviewed Salli, one of several inter­ ily, I kept reminding myself as I wrote views I undertook with Robert's family, the book that I had a duty not to produce partners, friends, sporting colleagues and an unalleviated 'library of lamentation', medical carers. Salli chilled me by admit­ to borrow Oscar Wilde's description of ting that she had no memory of her life his post-prison book, De Profundis. I until she was about 12-none at all. The hope I haven't done that, but I know that reasons for that kind of amnesia weren't the tendency in a relatively short biog­ hard to deduce, for Salli's infancy and raphy is to dwell on starker moments childhood were shadowed by great trauma and the more critical passages in the and unhappiness, but it was chilling nev­ subject's life. For a poet-biographer, this ertheless. Was I to endow Salli with a may be even more of a temptation-an memory, a memory laced with sorrow and occupational hazard, if you like. Wilde conflict? Was I the one to tell her about again, this time to Andre Gide: 'Il faut the circumstances of her parents' separa­ vouloir toujours le plus tragique' ('One tion two years after Robert's accident? must always seek what is most tragic'). And why go over a story as terrible Seamus Heaney put it another as Robert's? Why force people to relive way: 'The true subject is loss.' it? Why relive it myself? Why did I so Father, sons and brothers. Above: Bob Rose w ith want to be in the car when Robert had his EoM THE OUTSET, I thought of my book Robert. Left, Robert and Peter. Page 30, Bob Rose in accident? Why did I feel I had to describe as an exercise in fraternal juxtaposition­ Sporting Life, Peter, Bob and Robert on the field. that night? Why such dreadful actuality? All images courtesy Peter Rose. part autobiography, mostly biography-in I went as far as Far North Queensland in which my own life experience would be events and their painful aftermath-is fact, and tracked down one of the two men a factor, obliquely, but always secondary even more dubious. My parents are still who were in the car with Robert and who to the major theme and the major interest alive. We're very close. I have responsibili­ survived the accident. (Robert Bird, who of the book, which was Robert's ordeal. ties. My father may, like all canny sports­ was also playing for Collingwood at the Most writers want to do things a little men, have enjoyed publicity, understood time, gave me a remarkable interview­ differently, but it's not easy, given the it, and used it to his advantage, but my the first time he had discussed that night riches and burden of literature, in all its mother is an extremely private person, with anyone.) consolidated forms. I knew that there had with a powerful dislike for publicity and Why did I choose to describe Robert's been few if any Australian books about the exposure that comes with Australian death in such graphic detail- punishing two very different brothers written by one Rules celebrity in Melbourne. My mother detail, I know from readers' letters? Why

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 29 did I describe my mother unpeeling the of those lines from Robert Lowell's poem later at Victoria Park, where I seemed sheet as Robert lay dying and revealing his 'Epilogue': 'Yet why not say what hap­ to spend most of my childhood when network of scars? Why did I need in my pened? ... We are poor passing facts, I not at school. Later chapters, especially book to go back to the coroner's office and warned by that to give I each figure in the those describing Robert's accident and the identify Robert the night after his death, photograph I his living name.' In writing shattering consequences for him and the recognising him as in the dream that pro­ family, were of course far from enjoyable vided a sort of leitmotif for the book? At to think about or write, but those early some level, this was undoubtedly morbid chapters were quite different: celebratory, work, with a pathology of its own. nostalgic and surprisingly fluent. I suppose all I can say by way of expla­ Previously, I had never really thought nation is that I belong to a generation of about my sporting background, the pro­ writers-a generation of human beings­ found influence it had on me, and the accustomed to openness and unfettered paradoxical nature of my membership analysis of the emotions and personal of such a milieu. Perhaps, to a certain dilemmas. For me, in a way, there was degree, I hadn't wanted to examine those no choice. The book was there. It was a personal implications, of membership fact. The subject was irresistible. We all and unsuitability. Now I was free to roam have our reasons and our needs. This is around in my imagination, going back to the biographer's questionable but inalien­ those charged clubrooms and grandstands, able urge-the need to pursue his or her remembering the fervour and absurdities obsessions. of organised sport, renewing conversa­ Henry James, ubtlest of novelists, tions with all those idols and elders and played with the idea of writing a 'broth­ journos and players' wives- the teem- erly autobiography' about his relations ing and affec­ with William James. Unfortunately, he tionate tribe that never wrote it. But he did leave us two was Collingwood late, densely textured, masterly mem­ for me in the oirs of his own, A Small Boy and Notes 1960s and 1970s: of a Son and Brother. Of his reasons for writing them he said: 'I did instinctively my book, though pre­ When was regard it at last as all my truth, to do what viously an incorrigi­ yo ung the first I would with.' That 'at last' is telling-the bly non-visual kind question stran­ note of belated retrospection, possibly of of writer, I found gers asked me tardy tribute-and 'the all my truth ... to myself relying on old was, 'And are yo n do what I would with'. They are the biog­ family photographs, go ing to play for rapher's and the autobiographer's respon­ for corroboration of Collingwood?' sibilities, and dispensations, and audacity. my themes, and some­ Like all mantras Summing up one's own life is hard enough, tin1es for new themes. it never changed: ludicrous enough in a way. Daring to In doing so, I too was the wording, the reduce another random complex breathing trying to give each figure in the photograph intonation, the expectancy, the profoundly life to ink and paper, to careful phrases, to his or her 'living name'. This act of remem­ innocent goodwill. They cocked their anatomies of emotion, is even more temer­ brance and evocation proved to be the first heads and waited for an answer. How could itous. But go on doing it we surely do, in of my consolations in writing Rose Boys. I disabuse them? increasing numbers. The attractions are Until then, I had never written about my considerable; the liberty is large. childhood or adolescence, except for a few My m emory, normally unreliable, sud­ Candour, this thing called candour, is random and often occluded personal poems. denly became vivid and insistent, with a all we have. It is clearly what the reader­ Rose Boys begins with several chapters new kindofau tomaticspring. Nevertheless, and the publisher-expect. I often thought about my upbringing in Wangaratta and I was under no illusions about the

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30 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 sanctity or veracity of memory. Although Robert's condition in the modern fashion Rose had been for me-what we had I was able to draw on a huge body of would have been ludicrous. (I like that actually meant to each other: journalism written about my father and quote from Henry Louis Gates: 'We live in It is time to listen to my brother whose brother, plus the interviews I conducted an age of irony ... even the mediocre lack message, laconic but self-evident to many with the survivors, in the end I was left all conviction.') in his life, I somehow never fully heeded. with my own impressions, fully aware I was determined to avoid any trace of If I am to overcome these eternities of mal­ how capricious, elegiac and downright sentimentality, which is not easy when adjustment, as a friend put it when Robert apocryphal they can be. This was highly you are writing about terrible events, a died, I must try. Brothers so close yet so subjective work. 'Each man is a memory pitiable condition, the slow destruction of incongruous meet improbably in this shift­ to himself,' says the poet-figure in Words­ a family member. ing text. worth's The Prelude. Marina Tsvetaeva, Thus began the challenging but illumi­ the great Russian poet, went further when nating process of paring back the story to One of my modest hopes for the book she said: 'The memory is compliant, and its essence, gradually eliminating all those was that it might help other families who for me is identical with the imagination.' digressions and allusions and quotations were going through what we did. I remem­ That very compliance or plasticity was we writers love to employ. For me, it felt bered that no such book had been availa­ the key. paradoxically liberating to be writing in a ble in 1974-no books, no counselling. So Of all the consolations I drew from language that was not exclusive or mar­ Rose Boys had a modest political aim, as this, for me, new genre, the most surpris­ ginal, a language that took the reader into well as satisfying an obscure and perhaps ing and welcome was the literary trans­ my confidence and did not merely address indefinable personal need. formation, or should I say relaxation, the air. I hoped that something of the I also hoped it might assist the work that was required. Before this, I had only universality and suggestiveness of poetry of a new charity we have created to help published poetry. Most of my poetry is would inform the memoir, and I did draw people with spinal cord injuries-the Rob­ fairly densely textured, relying on allu­ on that early poem about my brother ert Rose Foundation. Perhaps, I thought, sion, association, obliquity, and employ­ in which I belatedly recognise him in a if people read my book and were moved ing a reasonably ornate diction and range dream, but generally I knew I had to find by Robert's story they might want to of references. Some of my poetry, I'm a plainer and franker voice to tell Robert's help other young people in his situation. well aware, is quite obscure. It's a kind story. My discovery of the pleasures and Not that I delude myself that I will ever of poetry that goes so far in divulging its rewards of that kind of candour fully understand what my brother went meaning but leaves part of the work of has been belated, but profound. through. It is impossible to exaggerate the deconstruction up to the reader. Let me difficulties that quadriplegics have to face illustrate this with a poem that demon­ R EADERS ARE TURNING TO memoirs and day after day, year after year. Disability on strates some of these qualities. It is titled biographies in increasing numbers, making such a scale is just like war in Graham 'Greening', but is not about environmental it one of the dominant genres of the dec­ Greene's epigram: 'The nearer you are to matters: ade, but they expect openness in the nar­ war, the less you know what's happening.' ration, a lack of tonal complications, and As for the ultimate consolation I Let's not watch the main event, they certainly won't put up with authorial derived from thinking about Robert's life let's watch the people. evasion or condescension. and about the way disability transforms There we shall be beautifully private, Putting these literary considerations the victims and the people around them, each lake with its own suicide, aside, I wanted above all to place on record let me look to another quotation from those grand disclosures a frank, sympathetic account of what Henry James. It doesn't come from one of aching on a beach. happened to Robert, and the terrible reper­ James' novels, but from a remark of his to Your beauty is the last quotation, cussions that profound disability has for his nephew Billy James, son of the great an available dark. the victims and their families. I wanted philosopher. Billy had asked Henry what In the forest, single lights flicker, to show the reality of quadriplegia-the really mattered in life. I'm always rather day rapturously evokes night. daily grind, the inconvenience, the humil­ moved by Henry's response, by its grave Soon we shall descend iations, the domestic, financial and emo­ simplicity. It was the summation, after into the public acre, tional consequences. I wanted to break all, of a life almost abnormally devoted to a rhapsodist will forfeit down some of the ignorance about spinal literature, to the art of fiction at its most his throne by the view. cord injuries. I wanted to portray Robert's sophisticated, to the grandeur and terror and So let's postpone matter for a while: second life-the sorrow, the struggle, but subtlest shadings of human consciousness: the ritual caper, an auspicious turn. also the goodwill and the devotion and 'Three things in human life are important,' My reason for citing this poem was Robert's astonishing courage and lack of Henry James said to his beloved nephew. not to deprecate the power of poetry nor self-pity. 'The first is to be kind. The second is to be to disown this particular poem. But Rose I took up an editorial from the Mel­ kind. The third is to be kind.' • Boys clearly had to be written much more bourne Herald in May 197 4 that was headed directly. My brother, the focus of the 'The message of Robert Rose': a plea for Peter Rose is editor of Australian Book story, was a laconic bloke without any greater care on our roads, and better funding Review. This is an edited version of the side. His story was too stark and confront­ of our hospitals. My challenge was at last 2002 Colin Roderick Lecture, delivered in ing to be sugared by me. To have ironised to determine what the message of Robert Townsville and Cairns in July 2002.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 31 Tolkien's epic resists allegory, but Dorothy lee found it open to mythological and spiritua l exploration.

I 'vE BOOKED MY ticket fm The Two Towas, •nd One common characteristic of the Inklings was I've seen its predecessor, The Fellowship of the that they took myth seriously, and for them 'myth' Ring, three times. Nothing unusual in that, you didn't mean untruth but a story of gods and heroes say. Except, I'm the type who prefers books to mov­ that expressed the deepest truths. In an increasingly ies-hands down. I'm unconvinced that the visual secularised and pragmatic age, the Inklings believed medium can capture the imagination or comprehend that mythology should be allowed its own integrity the subtleties of the written word. So I feel the need and not be relegated to the nursery. That meant to justify my enthusiasm (especially given the inex­ resisting what they saw as the dangers of allegorising. plicable omission, in Peter Jackson's direction of Both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis refused to allow their The Fellowship of the Ring, of Tom Bombadil, and stories to be turned into allegory. Their tales were the pointless replacing of Glorfindel by Arwen-not to be read and valued in their own right, and not for to mention a certain loss of gravitas in the plot and any covert message that the acute reader characterisation). might detect. The justification: ever since reading Classics at university, I've been a sucker for epic stories-for high W AT WERE THE Inklings reacting against in tales of gods and mortals, with all their strength and their dislike of allegory? It's obvious that no story­ frailty, heroism and fear, love and hate. And The Lord teller-especially a writer of what we call'fantasy'­ of the Rings, even on the big screen, is a modern epic would want his or her narrative to be read only for in the style of the ancient myths. Of course, it isn't the insights it gives into something else. Stories are written in poetry like Homer and Virgil. But Tolkien's not orange peel to be discarded once the 'real' mes­ epic tries to make up for not being in poetic metre by sage has been found. But the reaction against allegory including poems and songs all the way through-as arises also from the work of scholars on the parables Tolkien also does, though more humorously, in of the Gospels. The early church, according to these The Hobbit. Needless to say, the poetry (along with scholars, seriously misread the parables. Parables, Tolkien's graceful prose) is lost in the movie. they argued, work by drawing people into an experi­ J.R.R. Tolkien was part of a literary circle called ence of God's kingdom, rather than by giving a moral the Inklings, which included such luminaries as C.S. message. Set within a narrative frame, they are sym­ Lewis and Charles Williams. They used to meet dur­ bols, not allegories. But the early Christian commu­ ing the 1930s and '40s in the small back room of an nity gave the parables a moralistic or allegorical twist Oxford pub called The Eagle and Child. There, in an and, in doing so, distorted them. atmosphere that must have been loud and stuffy, The example most often cited is Augustine's they smoked pipes, drank beer, and read their sto­ interpretation of the Good Samaritan. Interpreted ries aloud. Most of the gathered writers shared a through the lens of the Fall and Redemption, each love of myth, and were steeped in the Classics and element in this parable has significance. The travel­ other mythologies, including the old Norse legends. ler represents humankind beaten up and robbed of its They were also, in their different ways, committed immortality; the priest and Levite who pass by on Christians-although in those pre-ecumenical days, the other side stand for the Mosaic law and the old the Catholic-Protestant divide between Tolkien and covenant; the Good Samaritan is Christ who rescues C.S. Lewis became increasingly difficult for them both. fallen human nature; the inn to which the wounded

32 EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 man is taken is the church and the innkeeper repre­ way to som ewhere else. Symbols, in contrast, not sents the apostle Paul. To our ears this may seem a only point you in the right direction, but also take bit ridiculous (although in general Augustine, even you there: a signpost and a mode of transport com­ by our standards, is an insightful interpreter of bined. Signs are restricted in meaning and have a the Bible). Yet the parable in Luke's interpretation fairly simple, one-to-one correspondence with the already bas allegorical elements. His context is a thing signified. Symbols are more ambiguous, lend­ dispute between Jesus and a scribe on the meaning ing themselves to multiple levels of meaning. This of the command to love our neighbours as ourselves. definition, supported also by the Roman Catholic As Luke has it, the story is about how radical such theologian Karl Rahner, places symbol, sacrament, love needs to be. The traveller represents the 'neigh­ parable and myth on the same level, each capable bour' who is to be loved and the Good Samaritan is of communicating mystery and transcendence. Alle­ the benevolent Christian who follows the gory, in this definition, especially in its cruder forms, example of Christ. is closer to sign than symbol. It was this kind of symbolic interpretation of A CCORDING TO SCHOLARS, a different interpre­ myth that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis wanted to recover; tation emerges once the parable is stripped of its one where the story was allowed to stand by itself, in explicit allegory and removed from its narrative set­ all its power. Tolkien succeeded more than did C.S. ting. Jesus' listeners would have identified not with Lewis in his Narnia tales, perhaps because Narnia the Samaritan but with the Jewish traveller on his is a world that intersects with ours, in contrast to way to Jericho. They were perfectly familiar with Middle-earth, which is a different realm altogether. that particular stretch of road. In a culture where It's hard to make an explicitly Christian story out of ritual cleanliness was vital, especially for those offi­ The Lord of the Rings. The Narnia books, however, ciating in the Temple, the hearer wouldn't be alto­ quiver with Christian meaning from start to finish. gether surprised that the priest and Levite don't want By the end of the series, the narrative strongly sug­ to risk uncleanness by touching a body-even if they gests that Aslan is Christ in different guise. Other break the Law's demand that the stranger and alien elements fall into place: creation, the Devil, the are to be cared for. What would stagger Jesus' hearers, paschal mystery, the church, the apostles, the age to however, is the response of the Samaritan. Samari­ come, and so on. The N arnia books tell the story of tans were members of an alien and despised race salvation in a mythological form that is identical, in who also followed the Jewish Law. The Samaritan many respects, to the biblical story. Their allegorical

:while there is no overt deity in the story, there is a distinct . i ·.. sense of a destiny to which the characters are called, an I . awareness of purpose that comes very close to being theistic.

traveller's indifference to the ritual code as well as his force, at least for adults, is not hard to perceive, extraordinary compassion towards a Jew are unset­ though my guess is that, for children, the Narnia tling and disturbing. The roles of insider and outsider stories are appreciated simply as stories (as their are reversed. The last person Jesus' audience would author would have preferred) . expect becomes the very one who exemplifies the C.S. Lewis also wanted his lesser-known novel 'neighbourly' love of God. Till We Have Faces to be read as myth. Yet it too has While this interpretation has allegorical ele­ allegorical elem ents, whatever the author's inten­ m ents, the real power, according to modern scholars, tions. To my mind, this is one of Lewis' best novels lies in its overturning effect on the hearer's world - much better than his adult trilogy that begins with view. The story works in a symbolic rather than alle­ Out of the Silent Planet. Till We Have Faces tells the gorical way. There is no moral at the end: the experi­ Classical story of the secret love between the mortal ence of hearing the story is enough to transform the woman, Psyche, and the god of love, Eros. Psyche listener. The sense of relief and yet distaste at the is extraordinarily beautiful and resented by Eros' actions of the Samaritan turns the hearer's world on mother, the goddess Aphrodite. Wishing to know its head, paving the way for a radically new under­ the identity of the lover who comes to her by night, standing of the grace of God. Psyche breaks her promise and lights the lamp, spill­ One of the great Protestant theologians of the ing a drop of oil on the sleeping god and causing him 20th century, Paul Tillich, made a useful contrast to wake. As a result, their love is discovered and Eros between symbol and sign. Despite superficial simi­ vanishes. Psyche searches everywhere to find her larities, he argues, signs are signposts pointing the divine lover, and Aphrodite for a time imprisons her;

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 33 finally, the two are reunited. Lewis relates the myth on Middle-earth intrinsic m eaning and purpose. through Psyche's sister, who is so ashamed of her There is a mystery that hangs over Middle­ own lack of beauty that she wears a veil and rules as earth in Tolkien, a mystery undispelled by The queen with her face always covered. Silmarillion and its account of the events of In retelling the story, C.S. Lewis is heir to an Middle-earth's early history. At the end of The Lord ancient history of interpretation of the soul's rela­ of the Rings, we do not know where the ships that tionship with the divine-a mythic interpretation leave the Grey Havens are going. The elves depart that also has allegorical aspects. 'Psyche' is the Greek Middle-earth when their time is over, and Bilbo and word for soul and 'eros' is one of several Greek terms Frodo accompany them. Later so does Sam Gamgee, for love, as well as representing the divine realm. In at the end of a rewarding and eventful life. But what or Lewis' hands, the story recounts in mythic form the where their destination is we do not know. The book soul's journey to God. It depicts the transfiguration gives the sense of realms beyond Middle-earth- not of the central character from ugliness to beauty, from just other lands but other dimensions of existence, self-rejection to self-knowing and love. already portended in the joy and immortality of the The question is whether it is possible to be too elves, the most spiritual and spirited of all rigid in rejecting allegory. A myth can retain sym­ the creatures of Middle-earth. bolic meaning as well as narrative impact, while also including allegorical dimensions. The problem with 0 NE OF THE most profound aspects of The LOTd modern readings is the insistence that a story be read of the Rings is its portrayal of evil. Although the at one level only. In the early church, passages of the figures of Sauron and his followers- the nine Ring­ Bible could be read at several levels at the same time. wraiths and the orcs-are painted as unequivocally Admittedly, the early church disagreed about the evil, others are more ambiguous. Saruman the Wise, extent of such multiple readings: Antioch favoured once head of a noble school of wizards, turns to evil the more literal approach and Alexandria the alle­ through his greed for power. Collum is a pitiable, gorical. Yet by the Middle Ages, there was consensus treacherous creature fatally addicted to the ring,

'· ...,. ·• · · · - ,.,, t t n - 1· To say that Iol~i~n' is 'rEially about' the existential battle betyveen}goodJ.al(ld\evil, orr a,l?q~t } s~lya.tibn histo~ri a~dit.he church, or (in)ungia'6 termsfa99 'tft!f~~· i'rig the .~-.p'\ -'} / ./ shaqow, sho_"Ys an ina?J~i!Y to value the story as sto~y'. that a passage could produce a literal meaning and without the resources to break free of its grip. The a spiritual one, a moral lesson and a spiritual truth, reader can't fail to feel some sympathy for him and, an individual application and a community one. The in the end, thanks to the m ercy that saves his life, same passage could yield more than one m eaning. he plays a vital (if unintended) role in destroying In the case of the Good Samaritan, for example, the the ring. Finally, there are characters like Boromir, message that Luke detects-the radical love of neigh­ essentially good in themselves but so eaten up by the bour- can be held alongside the theme of overturn­ malevolent power of the ring-so filled with hope­ ing grace. And, at another level, the whole story can lessness and despair-that they are led into unchar­ be read (as in Augustine) as a succinct summation of acteristic actions with tragic consequences for them­ the human condition in its brokenness and need of selves and others. healing. The problems with allegory come only when In all this, The Lord of the Rings has a vision of we assume that, once we've found the 'key', the story good and evil locked together in mortal strife. There can be set asidei or, when the allegory is crude and ill­ is no doubt that goodness will prevail, even if the fitting, in the closing off of other interpretations. characters themselves fa il to survive and even if this In a letter to a friend in 1953, Tolkien himself period of history is lost. Yet there is no sense that described The Lord of the Rings as 'a fundamentally evil is either inevitable or necessary. On the contrary, religious and Catholic work'. Tolkien's writing can be evil is an invasion into the beauty and goodness of interpreted at more than one level, including the the­ the world, to be cast out with courage and integrity. ological. The story unquestionably exists in its own In this regard, The Lord of the Rings is rather differ­ right (as myth and symbol), yet it also has elements ent from the Susan Cooper series, Th e Dark is Rising, of allegory. While there is no overt deity in the story, which has a Manichaean flavour to it. Although good there is a distinct sense of a destiny to which the and evil contend in Cooper's novels, they appear as characters are called, an awareness of purpose that equal forces needing to be kept in balance, without comes very close to being theistic. Speaking of the hope of a final overthrow of evil. Tolkien's vision strange history of the ring, for example, Gandal£ says is much closer to the Christian vision: indeed, his that first Bilbo and then Frodo were somehow m eant portrayal is deeply influenced by biblical apocalyptic. to find it. There is a sense of a transcendent Presence, While there is no explicit Christ figure in The a providential Power that ordains events, giving life Lord of the Rings, several of the characters, in different

34 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 ways, parallel Jesus in the Gospel story. There is Gandalf the Grey, for instance, who falls into the depths of the Mines of Moria while contending with the terrifying Balrog. Later, to everyone's astonish­ Reflective Insulation ment, he re-emerges victorious as Gandalf the White. Frodo, the leading hobbit, reluctantly yet tenaciously plays the role of Ring-bearer and makes the hard, pain­ ful journey to the fires of Mount Doom in the heart of You just walk out of the world, and into enemy territory. Aragorn, whose identity is hidden, Australia. (Lawrence) is finally revealed as the true King of Condor, whose advent will restore the fortunes of Middle-earth. And Dozing mere afternoon away Galadriel, the elven queen in the forest of Lothl6rien, has Madonna-like qualities in her compassion for and hot and salty, outside time guidance of the Fellowship in their quest. you do not see the powderblue It would seem that the Inklings' rejection of of distant hills, beyond that cape: allegory, however understandable, is an overreaction. everything has become marine Allegory does not need to be set in such stark con­ with gulls for scattered punctuation. trast to myth and symbol. They needn't be seen as mutually exclusive, providing that the story is heard in its plenitude of meaning and neither ignored nor Huddled all together lie abused. To say that Tolkien is 'really about' the the igneous and stratified: existential battle between good and evil, or about craglet, pit and water pebble, salvation history and the church, or (in Jungian mini-tarn, long crinkled shelf terms) about facing the shadow, shows an inability to value the story as story. It's very different to say, yellowish, ginger, tan, wet-black however, that there are striking parallels between with a hint of half-decayed one world view and another, or that Tolkien's kelp, sea-lettuce-something off. mythological and symbolic world is open to Could be a dead penguin, eh? "'{ i{ T other possibilities of interpretation.

V VHAT WE CAN say about Tolkien's symbolic Meanwhile, back there on the sand universe in The Lord of the Rings is that, while it listening to the Test match rhythms, is not an explicitly Christian novel, its mythology elastic theology on the green shapes the reader in much the same way as bibli­ or psychic stress enacted by cal mythology. There's a striking coherence between the two mythologies, a sympathy, a similarity of a flanneled ghost in the machine. values and longings. Above all, there's a sense that Days are seasons of the psyche, victory comes by going through suffering, not by fresh waves crash against the sill, sidestepping or denying it; that it's often the humble over after over. and weak who achieve what the great ones can't; and Sandstone that goodness and beauty will finally triumph over evil. is the metaphysical pavilion; I understand why The Lord of the Rings is said our old friend the summer's ocean to be the most popular book of the 20th century, a finding odd gaps in the field. century both of technological advancement and appalling manifestations of evil and suffering. The Epics within epigrams myth captures the experience of the 20th century perhaps more than anything else has: its darkness and the stink of restlessness, and despair, its loss of meaning. Perhaps our culture but on the sand it feels like Bush Week, is not quite as secular as it appears on the surface. folk with towel and radio Perhaps, after all, Christianity in the West is not on its crescent between quotes of rock, last legs. Perhaps, in the interplay between symbol and off which those yellow-eyed silver mullet allegory, mythological tales like The Lord of the Rings (even in the movie version) have the power to bring us patiently abound. back to a vision of the world that's finally redemptive. • Chris Wallace-Crabbe Dorothy Lee is Professor of New Testament at Queen's College, in the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 35 Groundswell : The Rise of the Greens, Raymond Chandler is more given to soWoquy after his loss to Rodo, Amanda Lohrey. Quart erly Essay edited 'I lost a game and got something wet from the court-side fridge. by Peter Craven, Bl ack Inc., 2002. I ~ II N I tried to sip it but I wasn't fooling anyone. The place was a m ess. ] 1.\63 95 227 6, IUU' $ !1.95. Someone could clean up later. Right now I had to think. I went out GROUND­ As a sometime lecturer in political again and bent a couple at the guy up the other end. A dame behind SWELL science at the University of Tasmania, me yelled, "Out." She was right. It was that sort of a day.' THE RISE OF THE GREENS Amanda Lohrey has been close to the It beats watching tennis on the box. And best of all, the Amanda furnace in which the Australian Greens cultural anti-heroes lose big time. -Andrew Hamilton SJ Lohrey Party was forged. Groundswell: Th e Rise

Corre'fi'On d<:• of the Greens is eighth in Peter Craven's The Writer and the World: Essays, Y. S. ~ RRift'DY Chrh IWI~ ~ Gr.lnt, .laiDes Grifl'in, ""*"-- "-ittoa. remarkable Quarterly Essay series: in Naipaul. Pi cador, 2002. IS LI N 0 330 4 1290 6, it Lohrey charts the party's history and RRP $30.00 describes its constituency. From her Naipaul's essays, written between 1960 anal ysis, it is clear that efforts to label the Greens' rise and 1990, bring ali ve half-remembered as being nothing more than a function of the Democrats' events and half-familiar people. People as decline or a implc defection of Labor's disenchanted Left diverse as Mailer, Jagan, Duvalicr and Mal­ are wrong-headed. Lohrey sees the Greens' constituency as a cohn X arc depicted by a writer with an eye new one, based 'on a new paradigm or grand narrative of what for the telling detail and the exact phrase. poli tics is about, i.e. the "ecological" '. That is not to say that We read a novelist's critica l essays less ex-Labor or Democrat or even Liberal voters have not felt disen­ for the world that his eye sees than fo r franchised by their old party loyalties and resorted to the Greens. the gaze which he directs on it. Naipaul's But Lohrey m akes crucial distinctions that enhance understanding perspective is distinctive. He distrusts of the Greens phenomenon, not just in Australia but worldwide. A passion and rhetoric in political life, Green vote can no longer be seen as soft, single-issue, or volatile. seeing in them the destruction of the small orders that guarantee She also points out that as the Greens become m ore successful, peace and tranquillity. In that sense he is conservative. the rhetoric against them will becom e more hectic in proportion To maintain that perspective, you need to distance yourself to their perceived threat to established powers. The warning signs a little from the lives of people who are the ca use of passions. to Labor in particular arc cl ear: John Button's contribution to the Naipaul's detachment is delicate: he preserves distance while series (Issue 6 Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor!) becom es offering immediacy in his observation of the relationships and even more interesting when read in conjunction with Lohrey's. habits that form the surface texture of life. The inner struggles, -Juliette Hughes the vulnerability and the injustices of those whose inner li fe he portrays li e under the page. These arc the aspects of humanity that T he Tournament, john Clarke. Tex t might arouse vicarious passions. -A.H. Publishing, 2002. ISBN l 877008 37 0, RRI' $28.00 Wild Politics, Susan Hawthorne. Spinifcx, Magrittc and Dali arc paired in a tennis 2002. IS ll N [ 8766756 24 J, IUU' $29.9S tournmcnt against Hammett and Chan­ Wild is for the surprising, for the card that dler. They win, of course, with their confounds those who think only in suits. capacity to change the gam e between In Susan Hawthorne's broad-ranging explo­ points, and to play shots which land in ration of the chall enges facing us today, a different dimension from the one they the opposite of wild is narrow, controlled, began in. separate, abstract and w1ivcrsal. When the John Clarke carries off well the universal and separate rules the local and conceit of a tennis tournament in which cmmected, people arc subordinated to th e cultural icons of the 19th and 20th profits. centuries are steadily despatched. His Hawthorne celebrates the local in humour is not subtle, but it is knockabout and inventive. He the image of biodiversity. Biodiversity is concentra tes on what all tennis commentators see as the Heart of vulnerabl e both to the planning that exalts the Matter (Greene, incidentally, loses to Kazantzakis in four sets econom y of scale, and to a culture dominated by consum er choice. during the first ro und), the court chat between players and with To ensure biodiversity, you need to privilege the networks of local court officials. relationships over the exploitation of resources. So, Fermi asks for a ruling on 'whether "on" the line was "in ", I found her evocation of politic?.] priorities appealing and sur­ in the same sense that "on the line" was "in the line".' prisingly familiar. Underlying her vision is a philosophy that sees 'If you have a ball, for instance,' he said, 'which is clearl y out, the world not in instrumental terms but as a whole formed by a and which marks the round outside the line, but which brings up complex set of interrelationships. Her treatment left me with one dust, having struck the outer extremity of the line with its inner question. If you are to privilege the local and particular as a centre extremity, can it not be said that dust is the criterion, rather of va lue, do you not need also to defend the universal? Certainly, than the inness or the outness? I think we should be clear about the preciousness of each human being can be defended only by these things.' laws and attitudes that apply to all human beings. -A.H.

36 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 BOOKS:l

KEVI N HART

Found in translation

New and Collected Poems 1931-2001, Czcslaw Milosz. Allen Lane, Penguin, 2001. IS BN 0 713 99549 1, RR P $ 121.50, $80 To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays, Czeslaw Milosz. Edited anclmtroduced by Bogdana Carpenter ~ and Madeline G. Levine. Farrar, Straus and Giro ux, 200 1. ISBN 0 374 25890 2, RRP $72

~ HAT CzESLAW MrLosz is a com- With poems like 'Dedication' and 'Ode manding figure in contemporary letters to a Bird', which are m oving lyrics even goes without saying. When he received in English, I find myself pressing fingers the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, at on the page, as though the poem were the age of 69, the tribute was immediately covered with layers of tissue paper that recognized as entirely appropriate. Even I must smooth over in order to see the those who rarely read poetry applauded words more distinctly. the Swedish Academy's decision. Milosz 'The health of poetry', Milosz remarks, had been known for 30 years as a trusted lies in capturing 'as much as possible witness of the allure and horror of totali- of tangible reality'. To read and reread tarianism, and The Captive Mind in par- his poem s is to gain some sense of what ticular was widely held to be a central Milosz has experienced, and the ways work in the political imagination of the in which experience has occurred for 20th century. Born in Szetejnie in rural him. He has moved through a world that Lithuania, Milosz has remained faithful to appreciation of his poetry, especially in the presents itself in terms of fierce contrasts: his origins in central Europe, even though United States. And once the poetry is read brutal politics and the fragility of love; the extrem e politics have forced him to live one must be impressed by the range and beauty of art and its dealings with evil; the most of his life in exile: first in France intensity of the work. Here is a massive quest for m eaning and the loss of sense. At and then, for many years in the United body of writing with deep roots not only no time, though, has Milosz succumbed States. When language is controlled by the in European history but also in western to despair. For him, m eaning occurs in state, no poet can serve; and Stalinism was philosophy, a work that responds to politi- and through the tensions of life; poetry uncompromising in its hold on language cal horror while affirming the beautiful, always breathes in hope even though it in Poland. A poet above all, Milosz had to a ceaseless and passionate meditation on life cannot always speak of it. Hence Milosz's choose between the country for which he that is religious yet never at ease impatience with Philip Larkin's 'hectoring wrote and his freedom to write. It was a with ossified doctrine. about nothingness'. I remember an essay, cruel choice. Prized for the humanity of E not included in To Begin Where I Am, in his moral vision, as evidenced in many AS CINATED BY the aesthetic and moral which Milosz said of Larkin's 'Aubade' essays and lectures, he is more highly dignity of Milosz's work, the reader that it was a poem eminently endowed regarded for his verse. And had he not without Polish cannot go much further with all the qualities of literary excellence elected a life in exile, a life largely spent and experience the poetry as poetry. On except one-hope. 'Aubade' is a direct unable to speak the language in which he the basis of these words from 'A Magic confrontation with death, 'the anaesthetic writes poetry, we would not have this vast Mountain ', Milosz would surely agree: from which none come round', as Larkin body of work before us. 'And Chen, I have heard, was an exquisite puts it, and is as piercing a witness to a life 'I belong to the estate of Polish litera- poet, I Which I must take on faith, for he stripped of all religious consolation as one ture and to no other/ Milosz declares in wrote in Chinese.' We can discern som e- could look for. But is the poem without the opening essay of To Begin Where I Am, thing of the grandeur of poems such as 'A hope? To be sure, it denies any hope of per- and towards the end of the collection he Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto', 'The sonal immortality for reader or writer, yet adds, 'Polish is my fatherland, my home, Master', 'To Robinson Jeffers' and 'Elegy the very fact that Larkin has written the and my glass coffin. Whatever I have for N . N .', but always with a sense of their poem and published it means that he had accomplished in it-only that will save distance from us. When we hear 'plain hope of communication, hope that others, me.' These are forceful and honest words; speech in the mother tongue', Milosz at least, might be honest in their accept- and yet Milosz is revered in America as says, we should 'be able to see, I As if in a ance of finitude and, implicitly, that 'the well as Poland, and the bulk of his admir- flash of summer lightning, I Apple trees, uncaring I Intricate rented world' might ers, including m e, approach him solely a river, the bend of a road'- And so we do; becom e a little more caring. in translation. Without a doubt, Milosz's but when we hear poetry in translation To read Larkin, for all his fear of the moral authority has lit the way to an we see those things as if through a fog. void, is to enter a world in which each and

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EURE KA STREET 3 7 every word has been delicately weighed successful, he sugges ts, because it tends headed that he would not have agreed and placed precisely where it should be. to prize the political over the poetic. Only with Milosz's special plea ding for poets Regardless of what we think of the 'little indirection works, as in 'Campo dei Fiori', before the court of ethics. 'A good person England' his poems project- its sorrowful a lyric from 1943 that evokes the suffering will not learn the wiles of art', the Pole diminishments, its m earmess, its will to of Polish Jews by picturing the execution declares, while in 'Biography of an Art­ m ediocrity-we value the experience of of Giordano Bruno in 1600. People came ist', he opines of a painter, 'he promised his language. After reading Larkin for an out into the piazza to see the burning of his soul to Hell, I Provided that his work hour we might long for the larger ges­ the m an who had defied the Church, but remained clear and pure'. We've heard that tures of Milosz's 'ecstatic praise of being', only for the first moments of his torment: sort of thing before, from W. B. Yeats for although when we leave the Englishman one, although Milosz presents the view in Already they were back at their wine for the Pole we have to live with lines a stronger and more disturbing fashion in or peddled their white starfish, that no decent poet writing in English one of his m ost compelling poems, 'The baskets of olives and lemons would dream of publishing. 'Shout, blow Master', a dramatic monologue spoken by they had shouldered to th e fair, the trumpets, m ake thousands-strong a composer. 'They say that my music is and he already distanced marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeat­ angelic', he begins, and we are left in no as if centuries had passed ing only: is!' The vigorous thought is to be doubt that he is a very great artist. But while they paused just a moment honoured, but the line would be crossed from where does high art arise? for his flying in the fire. out in any undergraduate exercise in crea­ No one knows how I was paying. Ridicu­ tive writing. Yet Milosz cannot help but elevate lous, they believe In the end, it is not the fact that Milosz the poetic over the political at the end It may be go t for nothing. We are pierced writes in Polish that impoverishes our of the lyric-'on a new Campo dei Fiori by a ray. experience of his verse. After all, people I rage will kindle at a poet's word', he They want a ray because this helps them read his fellow Pol e Zbigniew Herbert says-and the introduction of the author to admire. without being all that bothered by transla­ himself, and talk of the power of art, can tion. Rather, what impedes our reception only seem intrusive. That said, 'Campo There is no such ray, we are assured; of Milosz is that he belongs to a class of dei Fiori' is one of the most successful rather, the master has gained insight into poets whose high rhetoric and generosity of poems in English in the entire collection. the human condition by unnamed acts of gesture sit awkwardly in English. When we One can only wish that Louis Iribarne evil that haunt him still. He cannot repent read Herbert's poems in translation, their and David Brooks had translated because the beauty of his music rests on concepts appear sharply behind the Eng­ more of the m aster's work. the acts he has committed. The poem lish. Consider the prose poem 'Violins': concludes: L E EXPRESSION 'tangible reality' also Violins are naked. They have thin arms. And yet I loved my destiny. bespeaks som ething of central importance Clum sily they try to protect themselves Could I move back time, I am unable to to Milosz's poetics: a faith in the earth as with them. They cry from shame and cold. guess our true home and in the narrow limits That's why. And not, as the music critics Whether I would have chosen virtue. My of human moral improvem ent. He does maintain, so it will be more beautiful. This line of fate does not tell. not affirm the incarnation of God: 'What is not true. Does God really want us to lose our oul can we, ordinary people, know of the For only then He may receive a gift with And when we read Tomas Tran­ Mystery?', he asks. N or, though, does he out blemish? stri:im er's lyrics we find them so visually insinuate that everything proclaim ed by A language of angels! Before you mention exact that the passage from Swedish to Christianity is a fiction: there is a m ystery Grace English seems hardly to matter. When that runs throughout life, and it is not to Mind that you do not deceive yourself and he writes 'All I want to say I gleams out be reduced by apostles of the enlighten­ others. of reach I like the silver I in a pawnshop' m ent. His religion is a very modest affair: What comes from my evil- that only is we feel that the lines survive translation, May we not care about what awaits us true. even if local effects have been lost. Milosz after death is different. Drawn neither to the brilliant The Milosz who chides utopian visions But here on earth look for salvation, idea nor to the arresting visual simile, he in his essays and poems, and who reminds Trying to do good within our limits, forever reminds us that he is distant from us we live in a world torn by evil and mis­ Forgiving the mortals their imperfection. us in his very practice as a poet. ery, is also the poet who readily concedes Amen. How does one capture 'tangible real­ that art is complicit in making that world. ity'z By performing a double task, Milosz Straightaway we recall his words about He bears witness to the tragedies around admits. On the one hand, the artist must his mother tongue: 'Whatever I have us and to art's equivocal relations with be passive, receiving 'every poem as a accomplished in it-only that will save those tragedies. • gift'; while, on the other hand, the art­ m e.' Even Philip Larkin could subscribe to ist must keep his or her mind and will such a shrunken creed, although his atti­ Kevin Hart is Professor of English at the forever alert. The poet is therefore in the tude to its consequences differs markedly University of Notre Dame. His most world and withdrawn from it at one and from Milosz's. recent book is Flame Tree: Selected Poems the sam e time. Political poetry is rarely Larkin, though, was sufficiently hard- (Paperbark, 2002).

38 EUREKA STRE ET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 BOOKS:2 PETER STEELE

The human as such

Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic, Terry Eagleton. Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0 631 23360 1, RRP $52.75

COULD ACCUSE Terry Eagleton of lacking a policy. Years ago, asked why he wrote about literature, he replied in my hearing, 'To help bring about the arrival of socialism.' Nothing in Sweet Violence suggests that he has changed that agenda. Early in the piece he claims that 'It is capitalism which is anarchic, extrav­ agant, out of hand, and socialism which is temperate, earth-bound and realistic.' The reader has been given notice. Trenchancy though is not Eagleton's only mode. He writes, for instance, 'In many of its aspects, religion today rep­ resents one of the most odious forms of political reaction on the planet, a blight on human freedom and a buttress of the rich and powerful. But there are also theo­ Eagleton usually writes as though he is passion and anchor of domestic life. But logical ideas which can be politically illu­ fired as much by what he is reading as by much the same is true of material produc­ minating, and this book is among other his prior notions about it, which is a rarer tion-the raw, earthy energies on which things an exploration of them.' For rea­ thing than it sounds. For instance, when civilization is reared, and which bulk large sons which do not matter here, I came to he says that in the myth of Prometheus. the book with no high expectations; in the ... the world of Samuel Beckett, in which event, though, I think that Eagleton has Reading this, I think of the Auden things appear at once enigmatic and baldly gone about his grave task very well. whose intellectual energy was constantly self-identical, seems less a place which That task consists in a rethinking of seeking variety of experience and also once had a meaning which has now haem­ the character of tragedy. The first chapter, appropriate forms for that variety, pari­ orrhaged away than one which calls that 'A Theory in Ruins', consists of a critical ties among the disparities: Eagleton too whole rather peculiar way of looking into overview of the ways in which, in older is notably a 'maker', a fashioner of shapes the question. Maybe what we call nihilism and in modern times, tragedy has been amidst the shifts. Firm in his own faith is just the wish that things had meaning in conceived. Eagleton has always been good in the possibility and the desirability of the sense that fish have gills, and the fury at surveying fields, usually with an eye to political transformation, he can still be that they do not ... the cockle as well as the wheat, and so it hospitable towards foreign insights and goes here: it is a Good Thing, for example, one might agree or disagree with the haunting questions. Significantly, Sweet to be Raymond Williams or Walter Ben­ philosophical position which Eagleton Violence ends with a quotation from the jamin, and a Bad Thing to be Dorothea favours, but still find Beckett's writing end of Kafka's The Trial, in which Josef Krook or George Steiner. The Eagleton illuminated, either way. In a chapter K., about to be executed, glimpses, at a who elsewhere makes clear how thor­ called 'Freedom, Fate and Justice', Eagle­ distant window, a human figure stretch­ oughly he loathes the Catholicism of his ton remarks: ing out its arms: 'Who was it? A friend? childhood can still write, betimes, in the A good man? One who sympathized? One spirit of a medieval scholastic theologian, To see Greek tragedy as poised between who wanted to help? Was it one person? determined to make clear just who are the the heroic-mystical and the rational-legal Was it everybody?' It would be a bold, or enemies and who the friends. is to say that, like Freud, it is struck by a blackish, writer who thought Kafka By contrast, though, with some of the paradox that the very forces which go easily amenable to domestication, but those predecessors, he has a genuinely into the making of civilization are unruly, Eagleton is surely right to invoke that vivacious mind, which can be generously uncivil, potentially disruptive ones. This is master of concern and enigma when he inventive even when it is being mordant. most obvious in sexuality, at once anarchic has himself been attempting to pick his

jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 39 way through the labyrinth of tragedy. The modest parlour game called 'Cull the Index' is suggestive where Eagleton is concerned: 'Nabokov, Naipaul, national­ ism, naturalism, Nature, Nazism, neces­ sity' it goes: 'negativity, New Testament, Nietzsche, nihilism, Noh theatre, nomi­ nalism, normative tragedy, novel, Nuss­ can be explained, without remainder. Part baum.' Index making is itself an art for of him, the favourer of Marxist doctrine, adepts, but even so, this roll-call, taken is drawn in that direction, and part of him, at random, suggests some of the spring the questioner of all doctrine, is drawn of Eagleton's mind. There is a price to be elsewhere. Montaigne (again) speaks in paid for this, of course, which is that the an essay of 'an art which wrestles against reader can feel a little like a sparrow in a the art' in thought, and that disposition is modern city, restlessly aware that some­ given a good run in this book. thing is likely to come roaring past at any For me, the most striking, and at times moment, rarely sure whence, and some­ haunting, parts of Sweet Violence are times uncertain why. But then, Eagleton those in which 'the Law', in various of its himself is in effect that sparrow, and the pluriform expressions, is being reflected city is the whole world, material, social, upon. The Old and the New Testaments conceptual, and imaginative. Elias Canetti are of course major players here, but so is remarks derisively how odd it would be to an ensemble of later writers, among them imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Racine, Kafka and Freud. 'Relax!': it would be pretty odd, though for Usually, Eagleton resists the temptation different reasons, to be saying it to Eagle­ to make them fit too polished a theme ton either. or theory, and one has a sense that he is The fact is that while the declared thinking his way through them, rather ambit of Sweet Violence is the character than just past them. In his chapter on of tragedy, Eagleton is on the spoor of 'Tragedy and the Novel', he points out the human as such. Chapter titles like that: 'Heroes', 'Pity, Fear and Pleasure', 'Trag­ Jane Austen's novels give us a record of edy and the Novel', 'Tragedy and Moder­ experience, but along with it the norms New Directions Sabbatical nity', and 'Demons' are so many signals by which that experience should be judged New spirit for a new world that whatever else tragedy proves to be, and corrected; and literary form is one vital it can be a lens for the inspection of what Renew bearer of these norms. But form in other some still call human nature, and others, your spirit in a flexi ble program, a global hands can easily become ironic, since like more guardedly, the human condition. community, and the scenic the Law in St Paul it only serves to show 'The human condition' was an expres­ San Francisco Bay area. Whether you us how far the shabby content of our lives sion invented by Montaigne, and there is want to take a break or take on new falls short of it. experiences, you will enjoy a wide a streak of the montaignean in Eagleton's range of spiritual, recreational, and own manner. He refers at one point to Perhaps all this is indeed fostering the academic resources. 'the sceptical, self-ironizing prose style arrival of socialism, but for those with of Montaigne, a writer with what Claude other things on their minds Sweet Vio­ New Directions Rawson has called "a temperamental lence may still be worth the candle. N ear a sabbatical for one or two semesters shrinking from catastrophic perspectives" ', the end of the book, Eagleton writes that and although Eagleton is not much of a one for 'To strive for objectivity of judgement in shrinking from things, he nourishes wariness fact demands a fair amount of courage, JESUIT SCHOOL OFTHEOLOGY realism, openness, modesty, self-disci­ at Berkeley in a good cause-that of taking the measure of human behaviour, again and again. pline and generosity of spirit; there is a member ofthe This book takes its title from Sir nothing in the least bloodless about it. Graduate Theological Union Philip Sidney, whose An Apology for But the true paradigm of objectivity is not 1735 LeRoy Avenue Poetry Eagleton quotes at the point where epistemological but ethical. The model of Berkeley, CA 94709 a murderous tyrant 'could not resist the objectivity is a selfless attention to anoth­ (800) 824-0122 sweet violence of a Tragedie'. Eagleton er's needs.' A rich mix, this, but a good (51 0) 549-5000 is properly dismissive of sentimental one: and the book aspires to be of that Fax (510) 841 -8536 indulgence in such a one, but he remains kind. • E-mail: [email protected] fascinated by the element of paradox in www.jstb.edu much human behaviour. I cannot be sure Peter Steele SJ has a personal chair at the whether he believes that the paradoxical University of Melbourne.

40 EUREKA STREET JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 BOOK5:3

PENELOPE BUCKLEY

The word shifter

'l x T City and Stranger, Atlecn Kell y. F1vc 1slands Press, 2002. ISBN 0 864 18 7Y8 , RRP $16.95

V VHY DID Yeats wnte leave you alone, and it won't quite leave ('Aftershock'), or interiorized in the rogue you 'Partnered, settled, childed'. You are body ('Cross country'): Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer always in two places and absent from two long in my body, heart-city of graffiti: Whatever is begotten, born and dies. places, inhabited by conflict, strange to MUTATE NOW AND AVOID THE yourself. RUSH; and not 'Fish, fl esh, and fowl' ? 'The whirlpool' takes this preoccupa- REAL PUNKS CANT SPELL QUEECHE; imagine because 'or' is better rhythmi­ tion up directly ('an arrow labelled You THE MEEK DONT WANT IT. cally. Aileen Kelly has this kind of ear: I Are N ot Here.') 'First lesson' involves stubborn, m eticulous, inventive. a collision of different life forms in one Pun-scutted, chrome-eyed, the city's rodent peeps space, when a curious child tries to ingest In the freshening pond pobblebonks yell from its burrow reamed in the heart's experience: 'the ice ... worked I its way for the brief right chamber ... down longer ... a strange I relish of roost- comfort of procreation, the myth of ing starlings ... 1. .. all their dropping-germs In that delightful poem of self-recla­ escape. I frozen alive woke in m y belly ... '. Primal mation, the 'skin-naked self' is restored Strength and poignancy are hurried instincts collide, the lodestone can work in a suburban garden . But there are many into that little preposition: 'for' in exuber­ backwards. You switch on the TV and 'the in this collection where the self seems ance, and out of need. Her poem 'Notes city is burning' but you don't know which barely to have a skin . In 'N otes from the from the planet's edge' might have given city. 'For us I it was bombs'. Distinctions planet's edge', the planet is 'still testing Kelly's magnificent second book an alter­ collapse like buildings. The city may be its options I between life and vacuum'. By native title: it is testimony to its brave a m etaphor for the sane mind: 'm y city one option, humanism that City and Stranger is a humming with wax-making and stinging' The last tadpoles truer name. strangle N ot that 'City' is ever-present. In the sun-pinched in mud. cover picture and matching sequence 'After Drysdale', the city is an absence, By another, or an emblem of displacem ent. Against The last tadpoles the desert is the human figure, 'lump stumped of enduring female'. Somewhere in that drift down and rot. lump, a distorting m emory is held, as 'sad shoes' or 'gigantic handbag'. The city is Between these painful possibilities lost, but the stranger is the very embodi­ human beings 'insect over the surface m ent of the human. You don't need a city with oars and rods.' to be alone, only dislocation and som e All kind of m emory. over the planet's knobbly rind A city will do it. The title poem wryly the frogs are dwindling celebrates a random occupation by the but their mud our mud unknown, 'a short-rent flat' in the kind is starred with the invisible sift of space. of city across the world that Kelly's ances­ tors once left. This poem maps a psychic Lines of separation disappear in the space before the poetry comes. In that planet's 'knobbly rind', and human feel­ preliminary idleness, 'you're never truly ing fl ows across a vanished boundary with alone'. Alone comes later: a shock ('their mud our mud') which is m ore than empathy and m arks a dispos­ you're reading session of wherever it had been before. with a postcard from the familiar to book­ The shift of pronoun is characteristic mark where you think you can return. of Kelly, as is the discipline with which it You can return, but you bring with is used. In 'Documentary', there is another you what you have left behind. It won't such shift, another underwater death.

JAN UARY- FEBRU A RY 2003 EU REKA STREET 41 Here the human is segregated in the grey 'Sister', 'Pippins', that scary city poem out of this stubbo rn constipated world world of obsessive m em ory, as the speak­ 'To a son' and 'Curtains', where the vola­ maybe I'll come back sober. er's father watches old film. tile pronoun is the punning subject, as a m ouse-sized 'i' tries ('put a pox on yr All do fall down, but only the fa lls one Each night (I suppose willy') to provoke a lion-sized 'You'. now there's only me to dream takes oneself are funny. At ground level, Much of this book is hugely funny. his silent history) this indestructible difference between the The wit is invigorating even as it scares self and others is fo rtifying. Yo u can also his frien ds walked the undersea you. As was said at the launch of the book, trust the syntax. terrain from which no bubbles rise. Aileen Kelly's work is terrifying. But it is Perhaps 'A new and accvrat mappe' They ca rry their dead hi s dea d each also fortifying. While 'self' is stripped and best shows the kind of synthesis Kelly can other in disintegrated arms. peregrine, there is a spirit of facing up to make of potentially estranging difference. '[ N[ow there's onl y m e' has all the one's own history. 'Open house' zig-zags T he speaker tries to be her own inter­ sorrowful ambiguity of keeping someone between the pits of class or clan disloyalty preter, translating sound in to vibration: company who is no longer there. That and paranoia, and ends by acknowledging My jump vibrates the floor to warn bleakness recurs. the philosopher's descent to earth as seri ­ you silent boy ... But the poems speak to each other. ous, while those of the poet are absurd. I wake the floor, rattl e the cups 'Simple' is an exquisite history of the Perhaps the shatter to tell you there are dragons in your path. down-sizing of God. of significa nt bones in yo ur long The silent boy, from his beneficent, Fetching the paper I thought I heard you fall to hard ground set you that shape. My brilliant world, gives her dragons back: sigh fa lls or laugh in the min tbush by my ga te are short, absurd. Tangling bruised on Yo u show me pati ently finger-spell and and who was it fl ipped the peta ls, hi ding public land, pencil ... under a single knocked fro m brea th and composure ... An d now wi th inks and oils how petal, littl e god? But when I turned a wet I am harrowed away by practical neigh­ sunlight stri kes a fi re leaf bo urs off green lizard skin. there was onl y a websoft texture, and abandoned on my own doorstep. A bottle of red to anyone who can fi nd an intimate scent m e a better poet writing in Australia. • that troubled my fingers till someone I am just going outside, I may be some ground the coffee. time. When my freezedried foot has learnt to Penelope Buckley is a writer and former Facing that is the minimalist 'Fog'. kick some shit lecturer at the University of Melbourne. T his appears a negative infl uence, a blank.

T hen it starts to talk. BOOKS:4 Understand me ALEX M c DERMOTT if yo u must.

I would rather you put out blind hands into Caught behind my swathed Don Bradman: Challenging the Myth, Bre tt Hu tchins. Ca mb ridge Un iversity handfuls of darkness Press, 2002. ISBN 0 S21 H23H.t 6, IUU' $.W.9S until you begin to touch. T his fog both is and is not God (and not DON BRA DMA N is an Austral-The 'true' Australian, as first described the little god that flipped the petals). The ian icon, yet he was such a distinctly and analysed by Russel Wa rd in Austral- two poem s form a paradigm of ways to be un-Australian hero. Teetotaller, Protestant, ian Legen d, was egalitarian, a swearing and not be in two places at once: in time Mason, closer to his wife than his m ates, and drinking m ale who bonded with other and on the page, in fo rmal possibilities a leader, a loner, never one of the boys- blokes of his type but was ill at ease with ful fi lled and excluded. the list of culpable behaviour goes on. wom en. He was the product, Ward assures T his is a poetry of great expo ure. Always shrewd and calculating, in both his us, of the distinctive, masculine ethos Pronouns are volatile, the centre of self batting and business endeavours, he never that sprang up in the Australian bush in migrates. There are several dynamic by­ bet onhorses,never sw ore. Notrugged.He is the 19th century-a tradition and shared products of the sh ifting pronoun: 'Scare­ un-Australian in the way Menzies is set of values bequeathed by countless crow', 'N ext field' ( 'I am straw. Fear un-Australian. Both were patriots, but gold-diggers and shearers, ex-convicts climbs m e ... '), 'The right stuff' ( 'You slit patriots of a nation founded on British blood and stock-drovers. It took the first Sydn ey m y skin briskly ... / I am ready for your and Empire. That is just one of the para- Push of the 1890s-which included the guest' ), 'Three wild angels'. But the m eta­ doxes of the Bradman m yth that Tasmanian Bulletin writers, the Henry Lawsons and phors are sustained: both terms develop sociologist Brett H utchins has set himself Banjo Pattersons-to assert that the bush with inspired impartiality. So it is with to solve in Don Bradman: Challenging the didn't just foster brutes, as had been pre- the eat's neat poem 'Found', 'Cop-out', Myth, and he does the job pretty well. viously thought. Rather, it was the cradle

42 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 of a distinctively Australian civilisation. to enshrine a particular mode of national revealing for participants-and spectators The cities were unstable, as the 1890s being, a kind of verbal iconograph that are participants-something authentic Depression proved, while the bush was som eone like John Howard could pit about themselves and their place in the the home not just of the weird but of the against the demons of multicultural Aus­ world. It is this sort of thing that Man­ truly authentic and real. tralia. Hutchins does his analysis very ning Clark probably had in mind when Since this argument was first coined in well. He examines not only cricket's role he pointed out that most Australian men the 1950s, it has been criticised for leav­ in developing a sense of specifically Brit­ experienced their moments of spiritual ing out as much as it includes. One thing ish (yet quasi-autonomous) nationhood in epiphany while watching sport. it fails to explain is how Don Bradman has the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but In Don Bradman's case his mythic been incorporated into the Australian tra­ also the way in which Bradman's own life, aspect was perhaps best put by singer dition; how a m an who was consistently achievements, characteristics and beliefs and songwriter Paul Kelly{ whose lyrics sober, reliable, monarchist, monogamous came to be incorporated into a quite Aus­ announce that 1He was something like a and ruthlessly accumulative, whether at tralian story, even though Bradman himself tide, he could take on any side', that 'They work or play, could so effortlessly becom e was 'never quite typical'. He is a sportsman always came for Bradman 'cause fortune the definitive Australian hero. who incorporates-and to a certain limited used to hide in the palm of his hand.' Hutchins provides one answer. Along­ extent transcends-two distinct strands of And yet the story of this figure of quite side the Wardian bush ethos there is the Australian history: the boy from Bowral, elem ental power is also 'the story of a social conservative tradition, both Aus­ and the loyal servant of the King. man'. This is more than simple false con­ tralian and Anglophile. The Menzian But when we try, like this, to explain sciousness, and it too can be caught in the worship of British institutions, culture, why Bradman has becom e ensconced in net of sociological inquiry. Why do people values and habits is the final apotheosis of myth, we have always to come back to react so strongly when watching other a very British cult of respectability which the fact that he was the finest cricketer people dressed up in funny clothes, chas­ took root and flourished in this very alien who ever lived. His batting average so ing{ throwing and whacking a ball around? ground, living on in Australia's longest far surpasses that of all others that Peter Those questions belong here too. • serving prime minister's mind well after Roebuck, celebrated cricket writer, was the British themselves had packed up their right to remark after Bradman's death that Alex McDermott is completing a PhD at empire and gone home to join a European not since Shakespeare has one individual La Trobe University, and is the editor of union. In this context Bradman joins with so outshone all contemporaries. If you The Jerilderie Letter (Text publishing). politics to make an Anglo-Australian sort average 99.94 runs every time you walk of authority and legitimacy. He is used to out to bat then you could be Jack the Rip­ reinforce dominant social values, and to per and still be incorporated into a nation's reduce, reuse, recycle, convince us that stability, predictability psyche-however ambivalently. Hutchins and methodical cultivation of talent can acknowledges Bradman's statistical prow­ be just as Australian as doing just enough ess in his first chapter, though a little invest ethically work to get you through to next smoko. grudgingly. You get the fe eling that he'd Combine this influence with the Brad­ prefer it if Bradman's achievem ents had man industry- the ever increasing pro­ been not much more than average, thus duction, sale and consumption of a 'wide providing further proof that Bradmania array of Bradman-related products'-and is no more than the creation of an Anglo- you have a self-perpetuating cycle, a com­ Protestant elite conjoined with a mercialised tradition, one which makes posse of marketing executives. money for many while also affirming core elements of the conservative tradition. W I CH rs FINE as far as it goes: it is 'Those seeking to demythologise the Don important, and salutary, to have a scep­ face a considerable task', Hutchins muses tical analysis of the particular stories darkly. 'Popular hagiographies, m embers and cultural configurations produced by of the cricket fraternity, sections of the one man's sporting ability and personal Why bother recycl ing if your savings pollute? Why m edia, the m emorabilia industry and character. But it is a pity when there is conserve energy if your investments waste it? people such as the present prime minis­ no room in the analysis for the mythic You needn 't compromise your principles to ea rn a ter influence the way we conceive of the aspect of sport, where spectators identify competitive return . Invest your savingsw ith Australia 's Don.' We are confronted with a legend so vividly with individuals and teams, and specia list fund manager. that is masculinist, monocultural and not because the spectators are dupes of 1 largely positive' about Australian iden­ dominant institutions, texts and powerful tity, and Bradman is part of this fabric, people. A myth inspires passionate identi­ Save with Australian Ethical Investment implicated in 'these reductive and narrow fication with its 'truth1 for deep reasons. phone 1800 021 227 now for aprospectus configurations of gender, cultural and his­ A myth, wrote Mircea Eliade, is a 'true or visit our webs itewww.austethica l. com.au torical identity'. story' because it is 1 Sacred, exemplary and Applicali~ f~ invesUOOll can only be made on the f~m contai.-..d in the current prospectus Hutchins looks at the way the achieve­ significant'. Sport is living myth in that (dated 23110/21100 ar

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 43 girls his own age. In short, he's a bit of a pill- like a lot of teenagers. He wouldn't be very interesting at all except he harbours a grand passion: Tadpole is in love with hi s forty-year-old stepmother, Eve (S igourney Weaver). On the night he decides to declare his heart, however, our Lothario-in-waiting wavers, gets drunk, and almost by accident goes to bed with Eve's best friend, instead- the gorgeous and sexually pragmatic Diane (Bebe Neuwirth). But Oscar is no ordinary boy. Putting honourable intention above hormonal impulse he shuns the prospect of regular sex and continues to pine for the impossi­ ble. Hard to believe, but that's the plot. To its credit, Tadpole isn't simply a coming-of-age comedy; it's just as much about the wearine s and compromises of middle age. Oscar is attractive to the older women in the film because of his vital­ ity and naivety; as the film-makers make clear, he's a conduit to types of happiness and sadness that they know they'll never experience again. Unfortunately, though Winick's fi lm Screen Greene every special-effects trick in the deck. aims for charm, it all too often delivers But here he distils horror by showing it preciousness. If the m aestro of New York in slow passage through the ageing, rep­ romantic com edy hadn't become so light­ The Quiet American, dir. Phillip N oyce. tilian contours of Michael Caine's face. weight himself in recent years, you might Now that it has secured release in the Caine (a bove, with Do Thi Hai Yen) plays damn Tadpole as Woody Allen Lite, but at United States one can begin to think criti­ Greene's English journalist, Fowler-rou­ just 78 minutes, the film is too hort to cally instead of politically about Phillip tinely sardonic, curious, but too long­ really overstay its welcome and the per­ Noyce's translation of Graham Greene's standing an ex-pat to be ambitious, or formances are uniformly excellent. famous 1955 novel. No more alternating even surprised. Then suddenly, the rind is Tadpole also throws up some inter­ anxiety and indignation that a fine film peeled off the man's face and mind. esting questions about the digicam aes­ might sink because of distributors' blue Caine's performance is subtly stellar, thetic of American 'indie films'. What funk-or worse. Not that the politics will but not upstaging in a film full of angu­ is the point of them ? Cheap and easy to go away. Greene's caustic account of love, lar and beguiling acting. Brendan Fraser, shoot, they get made because they can get treachery and high-intentioned CIA ter­ as the quiet Alden Pyle, is both bumble­ made-an achievement in itself, I sup­ rorism in mid-20th century Saigon was footed and ominous-culpable innocence pose-but they look terrible up on the shocking when it was published, and it more frightening than anything Machia­ big screen. Television's The Sopranos, remains so. Little wonder that American velli could manage. Fowler and Pyle share for example, is better filmed, just as well audiences couldn't stomach the film in its a compromised passion for the beautiful acted, and ultimately not as ephemeral. try-out screenings after September 11th. Phuong, played with dignified allure and -Brett Evans At the heart of The Quiet American just enough fatalist pragmatism by Do Thi is a scene of sudden, ferocious carnage. Hai Yen. Graham Greene would, I think, Greene tells it in myopic detail. Noyce, have owned them all. -Morag Fraser Pottering about wisely, does the same. The camera catches fragments, shards of the moment that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, lodge in memory, like shrapnel. And Frog principles dir. Chris Columbus. When I heard that despite all that we know now about hor­ Spielberg had wanted to collapse the first ror, what happens remains in some way Tadpole, dir. Gary Winick. The epony­ three Potter books into one film, set the unassimilable. That is Noyce's extraor­ mous Tadpole, otherwise known as Oscar plot in the US, and cast Haley Joel Osment dinary achievement. He doesn't sate the Grubman (played by newcomer Aaron as Harry, I was relieved that Columbu ' imagination: he sharpens it. And we reel. Sanford), is a precocious 15-year-old who first effort (Harry Potter and the Phi­ Noyce is a veteran director of action lives on the Upper East Side, speaks losopher's Stone) had been a tad on the movies (Patriot Games, etc.) and knows French, quotes Voltaire and doesn't like homage-ish side. The sequels were bound

44 EUREKA STREET JA UARY- FEBRUARY 2003 to be better, I reasoned: the books tended too-hard basket. Lovely etJ Amazing is an to deepen as the characters matured. exception. In a neatly honed 90 minutes it Ringin g success There was reason to be optimistic about has more impact, more memorable scenes this sequel. The first film's rather subdued and more sheer class than any of the lum­ The Fellowship of the Ring, dir. Peter acting could be excused by the fact that bering two-and-a- half-hour-plus epics now Jackson (extended version DVD/VHS it had had to set the scene, give the back­ about. Although billed as a comedy, there release). We watched this as a family, ground to the few stylites and anchorites is at times a fine line between a laugh and hobbit-lovers all: nudging each other who'd never heard of the stories. So many a lump in the throat. with excitement as it began . Hopes were characters had to be introduced and it Jane (Brenda Blethyn) and her three high, because all we'd asked last year of had to contend with knowledgeable fans daughters all ooze personal insecurity. the cinema version was more: more of and fervent demand for it to be faithful. Jane, loving, maternal and quite daffy, Jackson's vision, so like the pictures in Columbus' team of art directors succeeded thinks that the only path to self-respect our heads when we read the book. And wonderfully with the look of it, making it is through liposuction of ten kilos of fat we were well satisfied: he gives more time a delight to watch. The acting was a worry, from around her middle. To her mind, the in Lothl6rien, more background in Hobbi­ though . How on earth did Columbus very prospect of this reduction will make ton, a filling-out of dialogue, a pace that manage so to tone down the likes of Rob­ her attractive to the doctor who is doing lets you observe more. The extended ver­ bie Coltrane, Julie Walters and Maggie the job. sion is around four hours, giving an extra Smith? Some performances survived the Michelle (Catherine Keener, who half-hour-which is all gain, because this numbing touch of his direction: Alan was wonderful in Being John MallNicole Holofcener. are utterly involved in the lives of all four he won a new following that will be led December is the month of critic-proof characters and you leave the cinema feel­ to the extended version and to the books. blockbusters, films for kids reviewed ing that you haven't had enough. Don't let Now we are all counting sleeps to Boxing by adults, and early Christmas turkeys Lovely etJ Amazing slip through without Day, when The Two Towers is released. which are leftovers from a distributor's your seeing it. -Gordon Lewis -Juliette Hughes

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 EUREKA STREET 45 Distant voices

I WAS WATCHmc ' Mi'

4& EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2003 ACROSS 1. Happily named cat, tail docked, goes to the metropolis, showing contentment. (8) 5. Put a stop to drinking this. (6) 9. Having authority, small in size, age about right. (2,6) 10. Can south-east London initially be described as showy but cheap? (6) 12. Make it difficult in the rear. (6) 13. I said 'Gone?' Distressed at the news, perhaps, I suffered greatly. (8) 15. Occasion for a continental celebration? (9,3) 18. Late on 29-across, counting from Christmas (as Shakespeare wrote)? (7,5) 23. Being on the way out, going round south gate, perhaps. (8) 24. Unusual relics I detached with this instrument. (6) 26, 8-down. Breaks in the routine of education-including 29-across. (6,8) 27. Two slide awkwardly across the water when the moon influences them. (3,5) 28. Edward, turning, embraces sibling briefly. Don't carry on! (6) 29. Possibly, any pipe heard initially would do to celebrate this day? Manifestly! (8) Solution to Crossword no. 109, DOWN December 2002 1. It can go up or down, in the air or on the stair' (6) 2. A nuclear accident-the queen was missing, thus creating a gap. (6) 3. Large estate in Bordeaux, perhaps. (7) 4. At first she got her swimming gear back to front. (4) 6. Greek letter dead against Tuscan wine. (7) 7. Were they picked on trial? Lateral thinking by Border. (4,4) 8. See 26-across. 11. A GI can't possibly be related on the male side. (7) 14. Mad keen to scratch? (7) 16. Emphasised the importance of having some senior journalists around the lock. (8) 17. Switches off the electricity with great pleasure? (8) 19. In pronouncing somehow a soft double 'u', his statement appeared inanely foolish. (7) 20. Federal senator at the summit. (4,3) 21. Current publicity backing first class area of Canada. (6) 22. The leading champion, somewhat out of practice, became quite bad-tempered. (7) 25 . Jointly-owned enterprise can become, if modified, a place of confinement. (2-2)

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Hell's Gates tells the story of Alexander Pearce, transported from Ireland to Tasmania in 1819 for stealing six pairs of shoes. Pearce escaped from Sarah Island prison in Macquarie Harbour and survived a nine-week trek into the heart of Tasmania's south-west wilderness by eating his fellow escapees. He was con­ victed of murder and sentenced not just to be hanged, but to have his body dis­ sected-a rare humiliation reserved for the worst murderers. It was, as Collins writes, a case of science cannibalising the cannibal. Paul Collins is a broadcaster, theologian and historian. He is the author of six books, including the controversial Papal Power. Hell's Gates examines the rela­ tionship between the h ell on earth that was 19th-century Van Diem en's land, and the depths to which Pearce and his fellow escapees descended. Thanks to Hardie Grant Book , Eureka Street has 10 copies of Hell 's Gates to give away. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and send to: Eureka Street January- February 2003 Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121.

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