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T H E I N S T I T U T E ol RELIGIOUS FORMATION AT CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNION C H C A G 0
es igned fo r those who prepare religious women and men fo r li fc and mission in the D church, the In stitute of Reli gious Formation chall enges participants to a spirituality that adapts to the needs of th e compl ex global vi llage ,, e inh ab it.
FEATURES 0 I"O xccllcnn: or CTU l ~1cult y and nati onal experts 0 Theological rellection and collaborati ve learni ng 0 Cilnba l perspective and language rcspcctru l ol' dive rsity 0 Chicago's wea lth or cu ltural and ministerial reso urces 0 Issues spcci lic to formation in the 2 1st ccnlllry 0 Weekly scripture and spirituality courses 0 Guided spring retreat in the l loly Land CONTACT Sr. Barbara Doherty, SP Director 0 September- May sc hedule Ph : 773.256.4256 Fax: 773.667.1250 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ctu.edu/religiousformation.htm
------EUREKA STREEli! Iii 0~ ol 10C:fi ! ~)> EUREKA STREE mN ;:z _,.. ~0 35 The new anti-Semitism ~.,., LETIERS w"mC We have to take racism seriously, ;
4 EU REKA STR EET jA N UARY- FEBR UARY 2004 comment Andrew Hami lton
Washed clean
INCAMB OmA, m cwow in the cdeb.ation of the world were mirrored in the king's government. the new year is a washing ceremony. You dip your H e was expected to rule reasonably, to pursu e the hands into scented water in order to wash off the universal good, and to act without vindictiveness old year and to wash in the freshness of the new. or partiality. The king was a public figure who The image is appropriate for Australian public bore himself in a way that inspired respect for the life at the beginning of 2004. Much that is squalid divine order and commended the common good to and stale cries out for washing and renewing. We his subjects. can think of particular policies and the harsh exe Implicit in this view of rule is the conviction cution of them, like the continued detention of that good government is not m erely executive but children, welching on our responsibilities to the exemplary. Governmen ts must commend the vir Turkish Kurds who sought asylum, sending asylum tues that are necessary within society. These include seekers back to likely death, going to war on Iraq a level of trust, a commitmen t t o a national good on fraudulent grounds and refusing to contribute to that goes beyond individual interests, an imparti reconstruction . And you can find other instances ality based on a respect for all person s, an honesty in the policies that will engage Eureka Street's that respects agreem ents, and a commitmen t to attention during the year. act reasonably. By embodying these qualities, a But the grottiness in Australian public life government and public bodies will commend them today goes beyond particular policies and events. to the citizens. N eglect of them will lead to It lies in a pervasive calculation in the exercise of alienation . power. That calculation is shown in econom y with truth, in the understanding that ministers should N o -oNE NOW wouLD advocate a return to not hear from the public service truths that might kingship. In m odern dem ocracies, the heavy implicate them in immoral actions, in the expedi reliance on the king's virtue has been replaced by ent nonsense devised to avoid the obliga tion to structures of accountability and review designed to respect human dignity or to honour international exclude arbitrariness and conflict of interest . But commitments. the exemplary function of government remains Calculation also rules in public discussion, enshrined in the assu m ption that the government when sour abuse of opponents becom es the pre should be a m odel litigant, on e inspired by benevo ferred fo rm of argument, when mistakes are never lence and reason, and not by the simple desire to acknowledged, and when power is preferred to win or by vindictiveness. truth. Humanity and reason are expendable. In any political system , truth and virtue matter A cynic might ask w hy we would expect and need to be commended by public exam ple. governments or newspaper columnists to do any The miasm a that hangs over Au stralian public thing other than lie. And this cynicism appears life today com es fro m the corruption of reason to be shared by m ost Australians. But the conse and m oral seriousness. A govern men t that prefers quences of devaluing truth and virtue are large, as calculation to reason does not only cause personal becom es evident when we refl ect on older political sufferin g. It also weakens confidence in the fo un philosophies of kingship. dations of society and of government itself. To T he rule of the king was instin ctively seen to wash away these things, the waters of th e new year image the rule of God. When the nation was gov will need to be singularly powerful. • erned well, the wisdom, reason, love of humanity and lack of envy recognised in God's ordering of -Andrew Hamilton SJ
JANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 EU REKA STRE ET 5 almost untenable. cooks of Madrid from their apartments to 'MedicarePlus' offers a complex series the street, where he refashions their blades of reforms including a $5 incentive to bulk on a pedal-powered sharpener. If it wasn't bill children, pensioners and concession for the clamour all around him, to which card holders; a safety n et to protect peo he invariably seems oblivious, this m an ple from rising costs and money to recruit (also in a beret) could have been strolling more doctors and nurses. At a cost of $2.4 through the quiet streets of San Martin billion it is certainly more generous than del Castaiiar or any other pueblo across MedicarePius Kay Patterson's $900 million 'A Fairer rural Spain. f'ROTECTINC MEDICt\REI Medicare'. Madrid is also the sort of place where N o doubt the additional expenditure you get to know the local personalities. helps. More patients will benefit. Out There's Rosa, the portera (loosely trans L E FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has been of-pocket expenses will be reduced. Doc lated as caretaker) of our building, who trying to edge us closer to private health tors will be better off and will be able, for has a heart of gold, makes it h er busi care for many years. It continues to sub a while, to continue to bulk bill targeted n ess to know everybody else's business sidise private health in the form of the patients. But 'MedicarePlus' is still a two and accosts all unauthorised visitors to Private Health Insurance Rebate. Kay tier system. The rich will be able to afford the building in her role as the maternal Patterson's health package 'A Fairer Medi to go to doctors who charge more; the guardian of those of us wh o are fortunate care' planned to allow people to take out poor will not. And Medicare will exist as enough to live here. Or th ere is Luis, the insurance to cover the gap between doc a safety net rather than a universal system watchman at the underground car park tors' fees and the Medicare rebate. Private of health care. Those who must rely on the across the road who, every Monday morn health care costs governm ents substan safety net will be the least empowered in ing, announces for the benefit of the whole tially less than public health care. It looks our society. What will happen when the street the weekend's football scores. better on the bottom line. So why is 'cud value of subsidies like the extra $5 for bulk On the numerous occasions when dly Abbott' (as Labor Health spokesperson, billing decreases? Will the government be world events invade the city, the Julia Guillard, called him) now spending willing to pledge more money without an response, too, is sometim es that of the $2.4 billion on public health? election looming? village. When I was in Australia in Febru One answer is that it's election count 'Medicare Plus' is designed by Howard ary, I watched television coverage of the down time. Australians expect free or and Abbott to avoid accusations of m ass anti-war protests across the world. highly subsidised health care. When dismantling Medicare. Howard says they As soon as the coverage shifted from seri Howard said in 1987 that Medicare was have 'listened to the Australian people', but ous-faced protesters in Sydney and Berlin 'one of the great disasters of the Hawke he is throwing money at a failing system. to a happy crowd of demonstrators sing government' he could not have known 'MedicarePlus' is an attempt to prop it up ing and dancing, I recognised the energy of how much the concept of free and univer for a while. When it comes crashing down, the Spanish village fiesta and knew that it sal health care would becom e part of the after the next election, private health had to be Madrid. Back in Madrid a mon th Australian psyche. How it would be one of insurance funds will be waiting quietly in later, on a cold night in March and at the the biggest obstacles the bulldozer of Lib the wings. height of Spanish public opposition to eral Party economic reform would have -Kathryn O'Connor the war in Iraq, I was washing the dishes to face. So much so that in 2004, Howard when our street erupted in a cacophony would need to be seen to embrace Medi of noise. I have to confess that at fi rst I care. Announcing 'MedicarePlus' he vowed Global vi II age didn't notice. When it continued, we went to protect 'one of the best health systems out onto the balcony to be greeted by the in the world'. LIFE IN MADRID sight of all the other balconies fi lled with But the Medicare that Howard claims Madrileiios banging their pots and pans to protect is a system in decline. In 1987 I F IT WASN'T FOR the minor fact of having in protest against the war. Across the the amount a doctor received for bulk bill six million other people as neighbours, life city, the scene was played out simul ing was adequate as full payment. N ow in Madrid could sometimes be mistaken taneously in perhaps the most creative with a payment of $25.70, bulk billing is for life in a Spanish village. (and noisiest ) protest among many. At the end of our street, on any aft er Ride in the lift of any office build noon after the siesta hour, old m en in berets ing across the city and you 'll be greeted For rent, Melbourne: three nights to sit with old women on wooden benches to by every person who gets in, and then three months. discuss the day's events, pass on the gossip wished well by everyone who departs. On Modern one-bedroom furnished of the barrio or simply watch the world go the streets, pedestrians, particularly the apartment in St Kilda. by with the enigmatic gaze of the ancients. elderly, routinely step out onto the road Sunny courtyard, close to everything, Every week, I hear the mournful whistle of and seem genuinely surprised (and even quiet street, car park. the old knife sharpener who passes along irritated) to find a vehicle bearing down Tel 03 9525 5324 or 02 4236 0551 our street, fighting to be heard above the upon them. email: [email protected] car horns and amid the general Spanish dis Yet for every vestige of village-Madrid, tins regard for noise. His whistle summons the is also a city which does things on the grand-
6 EUREKA STR EET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 'F- est possible scale, making it one of Europe's summa J ,.) liveliest and most extravagant cities. This is the city of Rea l Madrid, a tea m of theologiae outrageous football (soccer) talent contain ~ · fJ,j ing an unparalleled gathering of Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Ronalda, Raul and Roberto Carlos. This is football royalty with all of the attendant expectations. At one ga me last year, the team was roundly I T" ATRmSM THAT most people tod•y '" booed when they could only win 3- l. i ~n~~i :est ~! i ~p:u: ity, less interested in religion, and little interested in churches. People who offer When their only trophy at the end of the independent answers to the deeper questions of life receive a good hearing, but season was the Spanish Primera Liga, the Christian answers to the same questions are generally seen as boring. coach and club captain were unceremoni The tension between spiritual hunger and distaste for traditional Christian ously sacked, even as 300,000 Madrilefws food can be seen in the programs offered in Christian spirituality centres. Apart crowded together to celebrate in the Plaza from explicitly Christian retreats and prayer days, they may also make room for de Cibeles . With the arrival last summer of David yoga, aromatherapy and reiki. They m ay also encourage retrea tants to partici Beckham and his celebrity wife, Victoria, pate in retreats on their own terms, without asking of them an explicit religious it appeared as if Los Galacticos were set faith or practice. to become the most perfect tea m in his These custom s blur the boundary between Christian spirituality and other tory. Football quickly took backstage, spiritualities, as well as the boundary between Christian and other partici however, as it became apparent that pants. They sometimes provoke a reaction from those who wish to return to David Beckham and the city of Madrid a more narrowly focused program in which Christian faith and practices are were made for each other. In the Spanish reinforced. capital, a passionate love of celebrity runs The sam e debate about boundaries is also found in discussion of attitudes deep. It was in Spain that Hola magazine to other religions and to our contemporary culture. If you insist that Christian (which later grew into the worldwide jug faith and practices are uniquely privileged, you will most likely hear the obj ec gernaut Hello) was born. Every night, Span tion, 'But we all worship the sam e God, don't we?' To which you might obj ect ish television is awash with talk shows in turn that n either ancient Judaism nor the early Christian churches were passing judgment on The Next Big Thing heavily into crossing boundaries. They saw other Gods as rivals. They also in (the wife of a bullfighter, the chances that sisted on the crucial importance of distinctive practices like baptism or dietary the Beckham marriage will survive), all at laws. And so the argument will continue. the tops of their voices. In Christian debates about spirituality and religion, both sides will appeal But even Beckham was upstaged at the to the belief that God came into our world in Jesus Christ- the doctrine of the beginning of last November when it was Incarnation. Those who believe that boundaries should be porous will see in announced that the very eligible bachelor, the Incarnation God's strong affirmation of the world, of culture, and of the Prince Felipe (the king-in-waiting), was to aspirations expressed in other faiths. In becoming human, God wanted us to marry a glamorous TV presenter. The city recognise the value of our world, including the aspects of it that a narrow view went into a frenzy, above even its usual would discount. buzz of rumour and celebration, as every Those who insist on the privileged character of Christian faith and on the aspect of the betrothal was dissected. At importance of a distinctive Christian faith and Christian religious practices also the end of it all, every analyst confirmed appeal to the Incarnation. They argue that in coming into the world in Jesus that this was truly a marriage made in Christ, God named this one life as a unique m eeting place. So, the Incarnation heaven. is an exercise in boundary marking. For those of us lesser mortals who live in Madrid, it is this strange harmony of In any decent Christian theology these two aspects of the Incarnation will village values with a city of significance be held in tension. But the image of God identifying with our solid world sug that is so compelling. For an Australian, gests a further tension in spirituality. The Incarnation underlines the value of Madrid feels like the clamorous centre of every human being, and affirm s the invitation that God makes to each human the world, calling everyone from beggars heart. God is involved in each person's personal journey. to Beckham. And yet as I walk down the But the earthiness of the Incarnation also suggests that journeys do not end street I can still be certain that people will in the heart. We travel fortified by rituals, practices, public commitments and know my name. beliefs. These, however, are related to the inner journey in complex patterns -Anthony Ham that ca1mot be manhandled to fit an established template. So although spiritual ity cannot be identified with the inner journey that remains when religion and This month 's contributors: Kathryn its institutions are siphoned off, neither can it be identified with a one-size-fits O'Connor is an emergency doctor and a all set of religious practices. • freelance writer; Anthony Ham is Eurel JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 7 snap shot the two-way ladder of Jacob's dream. The Leonard French stained glass ceiling Jacob saw a vision of angels ascending remains, restored for future generations to and descending the ladder that joined lie on the floor of the Great Hall and gaze earth and heaven, a vision of connection. up at the net of colour. Ladders of connection that bring together people at the top and at the bottom of society for their mutual enrichment have advantages. Certainly, they are better than the ladders of aspiration that you need to kick others off if you are to climb. Stakes Good to see Mark Latham restore the simple metaphor to political life, even if a humble ladder seems a bit out of place in our monumental Parliament House. Of course, you can't put too much weight on Taking over the asylum metaphorical ladders. They always speak of dreams of the unlikely. Unlike the Many of us were nurtured on the story of real thing, you can't fall off m etaphorical Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan who, as a prisoner in a concentration camp, gave ladders, feel faint when you are three steps New views up them, break the rungs as you climb, or his life so that a married man might live. find them swaying backwards as you reach He is a worthy example for the bishops of the top. But ladders do have a long history The National Gallery of Victoria is a Australia. In November, 14 Turkish asylum that politicians might usefully draw on. favourite landmark of Victorians. Many seekers were repulsed from Australian Mark Latham's ladder is a typically have childhood memories of running fin shores. They were not exactly repulsed. The modern model. It is a one-way ladder, gers across the iconic water curtain, see shores were redefined to avoid the need for made for going up. You can't come down ing a masterpiece up close for the first anything so crude. The Governor-General it, at least not while preserving your self time or being struck by the energy and life was summoned from the Melbourne Cup respect. This brand has a long history of emanating from canvas. The St Kilda Road for the purpose. use in moral exhortation. A Greek spiritual gallery reopened in early December, as the But 14 is not such a large number, even writer was even called John the Ladder. St NGV International, after a four-year clo of Turks. It would be a fine thing if, instead Augustine used the ladder as a model for sure and a $168 million makeover. of speaking up yet again, 14 Australian bish spiritual progress, admonishing his hearers Italian architect Mario Bellini has clev ops offered to take their place. This would to make a ladder by trampling down their erly reworked the 1968 building, originally say more than words in the current climate. vices. When the executive chair replaced designed by Sir Roy Grounds. Its exhibi Some of our Christian leaders should hand heaven at the top of the ladder, the vices tion areas have been expanded, new light, their passports over to those in greater need became other people who were to be open public spaces have been created, and a and forfeit their citizenship to asylum seek trampled on as you made progress towards sculpture garden at the rear of the building ers. This is not to disparage the episcopacy, realising your aspirations. has become home to many of the sculptures although most people do recognise that it's previously scattered around the city. The harder to replace a decent parish organist and ladders Australian Art collection has moved to than it is to replace your typical bishop. the Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square, Indeed, the bishops could flourish in Turkey. These one-way ladders are pretty allowing the St Kilda Road gallery to display If you take Gallipoli and the cities of St frightening affairs. They create shame when a greater number of works from the interna Paul, there is more Australian spirituality you descend the rungs. And they also make tional collection. The space for contempo in Turkey than there is in Australia. On the you isolated on the way up, and fearful that rary art is now bright, white and stark. other hand, there is more Turkish food here the music might stop before you reach the To the relief of many locals, the most than in Turkey. Indeed, if the example of the top. And if it does, then with Yeats we are admired elements of the original build bishops were to take on, an entire country back to the world of Augustine: ing have been preserved. The much-loved swap makes excellent sense. It would save N ow that my ladder's gone water curtain (don't call it a waterwall) a lot of travel on Anzac Day and mean that I must lie down where all the ladders start, still acts as a luminous filter between the the Prime Minister would never need to go noise of St Kilda Road and the contem far when he needed to mouth a few cliches. In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. plative spaces of the gallery. However, In time, Suvla Bay could become the new Given the disadvantages of the one new technology has now enabled the Bondi. And if anybody dared to step unin way ladder, perhaps Mark Latham might architect to move the wall forward, vited on our beach, we'd be waiting for them ponder the virtues of the older model: separating it from its concrete pillars. in the hills. 8 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 eapital letter Gloves on Q,ALL THE COMMENTS made afte< Ma JA UARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 9 Uni¥a, the Jesuit Social Just1ce Centre, presents archi me S UMM 10 EU REKA STREET JANUA RY- FEBR UA RY 2004 A sea of opportunity A wEEK JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 11 lw,1lth c,lf(' Rod W ilson MedicarePius or minus Reforming Medicare is a favoured New Year's resolution T,WTURC m p,;m.,y heolth '"" ;, doctors for seeing the $1000 safety net a at the forefront of community debate in patients with a person would have to the lead-up to the next federal election. health care card visit the GP on This issue has only become of real or those under 16 about 40 occasions. concern to politicians over the last 7- 8 years is not enough It would also require months. to m eet the practice the person to keep very During this time we have seen the costs of most GPs and will not clear records so that they release of the federal governm ent's Fairer encourage doctors to bulk bill. GPs ( could determine when they Medicare Package, the Labor Party's own will not return to bulk billing if it had reached the safety net. Medicare Package, the revised Fairer m eans charging less than they are The government's proposals make Medicare package called M edicarePlus at present. MedicarePlus offers no the system extremely complicated and now a community debate about the encouragement to GPs to achieve and difficult for both doctors and future of Medicare and primary health an optimal bulk billing rate. The patients to understand. One of the care services throughout Australia. package does not address the major benefits of Medicare has been MedicarePlus is based on an assump fundamental inadequacy of the its simplicity. tion that most Australians should not amount of the rebate shortfall. D espite recent increases in the only pay for the health care services This can only result in a decline overall number of GPs, MedicarePlus through their taxes, but also at the point in bulk billing and an increase in fails to address the need for a more of delivery, in the form of an upfront fee upfront fees. equitable distribution of GPs. Present to their general practitioner (GP). The Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, incentives designed to encourage GPs It is acknowledged by politicians of has indicated that the Commonwealth to m ove to country or outer urban areas all parties, the broader community and government does not believe in univer are failing. health economists that implem entation sal access to bulk billing. MedicarePlus The MedicarePlus package does of MedicarePlus will see decreased bulk provides significant disincentives for not address the need for better after billing rates. people to use primary health care serv- hours access to health care. Emergency The Australian Medical Association ices. Establishing safety nets departments throughout Australia acknowledges that the extra once people have reached are now flooded with patients who $5 rebate to either $500 or $1000 annu should have been seen in GP ally will still m ean that practices. those on low incomes will have to think twice before M EDICARE PLus ALSO fails to seeing a GP. Given that address practice inefficiency. Recent those who have the low studies have shown that m ost medi oo est incomes also have the cal practices spend over 50 per cent of worst health, it makes lit- their revenue on operating costs. This is tle sen se to impose any clearly an inefficient use of m oney. We obstacle to securing basic need to consolidate GP practices into health care services. more economically viable operations. '{., \ l t z001 The average out- It is my view that the package will cost more than the projected $2.4 billion of-attendingpocket aex GPpense across for over fo ur years, as the resulting decline di:\ ;C~\(:"'"!!!!!II!!'l;~;l~O~!!I!III;,~:~~Australia is over $13 per visit. in access to health services will inflate -; In order to get to the $500 safety net or overall costs to the system . As we en ter 12 EU REKA STREET JANU ARY- FEBRU A RY 2004 a market-based, 'user pays' era of h ealth Commonwealth and state governments. a catalyst for discussion among com care, we will see significant increases in There is a need for significant munity groups and people seeking to the prices that GPs charge. Already con incentives for GPs to lift bulk billing develop a positive and feasible blue sultations cost $50 in some areas and it rates. Further, GPs ought be licensed print for the delivery of h ealth care will not take long for the charge to reach to practice in nominated areas to pre services in the community. $55, $60 and even $70. vent over- and under-supply of services. It is worth noting that surveys con T his will see a much higher level The charter also outlines the need for ducted following the last round of federal of Australia's gross domestic product more university places for training GPs, tax cuts indicated that consumers would spent on h ealth care than the current nurses and allied health workers. far prefer better access to basic health 9.3 per cent. Primary health care team s ought to care services than further tax cuts. The Victorian Medicare Action Group, be integrated and the community would The principle of access to hea lth in consultation with over 300 m embers, profit fr om a stronger emphasis on services based on need rather than abil has recently developed a draft Consumer health promotion. In this way the effec ity to pay should be at the core of our Medicare Charter. This has allowed us to tiveness of the health care system might h ealth service. Historically, M edicare be proactive and positive in determining be m easured by health outcomes rather has been able to provide this for the what we want from our health than how many patients are seen. vast majority of Australians. It has care services. The Public Dental Service requires becom e less eff ective as GPs have a further $500 million commitment moved away from bulk billing. We now C HARTER C ALLS FOR the devel from the Commonwealth government h ave an opportunity as a community to opment of a National Health Reform in order to provide adequate care. voice what it is that we want from our Council capable of determining state Scrapping the $2.5 billion h ealth insur health care services in the lead-up to Commonwealth demarcation issues ance rebate, which is clearly ineffec the n ext election. • over funding, and the development tive, m ay go som e way to addressing of consumer-based Primary Care funding sh ortfalls in other areas. Rod Wilson is the Convenor of the Trusts, which will hold funds from the The charter is intended to act as Victorian Medicare Action Group. JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STR EET 13 the nation Frank Brennan The following is an ed ited text of an address given by Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO, at the launch of his most recent book, Tampering with Asylum. L HPARn C ULAR ""on' heighten my delight The Commonwealth saw fit to inform the court by at being in the Brisbane City Hall for the launch of affidavit:'On6 N ovember 2003 theAFP/DIMIA (Australian Tampering with Asylum. First, Brisbane is the place of Federal Police and the Department of Im migration and my birth, childhood and initial education. Launching a Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs) team boarded the book on refugees, it is good to return to a place that will vessel and conducted interviews with the crew and pas always be hom e. Second, the Queensland Government sengers to elicit intelligence information regarding possi and the Brisbane City Council have done much to m ake ble people smuggling.' Why did the Commonwealth not up the shortfall in our welcome to those who have been see fit to inform the court of the interviews conducted proved to be refugees fleeing two of the most dreadful or about the information received about asylum claim s? regimes in modern history. Third, this is the home of The government now admits that asylum clainls were the Tiger XI soccer team, a group of young Hazara men m ade across the Turkish-English language barrier without from Afghanistan who fled the Taliban and who now face translation services being made available. the review process for their temporary protection visas During the hearing of the case on 7 N ovember 2003, (TPVs). These young men put a human face on the des the judge asked the Commonwealth's key witness, Mr perate journeys these people have made to every corner of John Charles Eyers, Assistant Secretary, Legal Services the earth- journeys that cannot reasonably be classified and Litigation Branch, DIMIA: 'Do you know whether or as queue-jumping searches for migration outcomes or as not any of the persons who arrived on the vessel asked for secondary movement entailing the voluntary surrender of assistance?' He answered, 'Not to m y knowledge, Your effective protection. Honour.' He clarified this answer saying, 'I don't know I have five pleas. Could our government stop tam whether they did or not.' When the judge delivered his pering with the truth? Could our government offer written reasons two weeks later, he said: us a coherent rationale for the detention of children? Could our government take a sensible, decent humani Mr Eyers (was not) able to advise whether or not any inter tarian approach to the return of those whose TPVs preters in either Turkish or Indonesian had been employed have expired and to the permanent resettlement of at any time either by the Navy or by the Australian Federal those refugees still deserving our protection after three Police/DIMIA team. Mr Eyers was asked specifically why years living in our community? Could our govern Ms Cox's [Director of the Northern Territory Legal Aid ment stop invoking the Christian scriptures in support Commission] request to seek access to those on board the of such an un-Christian policy? And could we all go vessel was not acceded to. He replied that it was normal and do something about it? It is up to us to stop procedure that unless a person requested legal assistance our goverm11ent tampering with asylum. it is not provided. He said that he did not know whether any of the persons concerned had asked for legal assist T UTH AND CONSISTENCY of policy are elusive with ance or not and did not know whether any of them had our developing policy of tampering with asylum. When asked for asylum. Even allowing for the urgency under the Minas a Bone was being towed out onto the high seas which this affidavit was sworn I found it incredible that in November 2003, lawyers sought the intervention of the (Commonwealth's) prirlcipal witness could not answer the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory to ensure these questions. that the 14 Turkish Kurds could obtain assistance and pursue their asylum claims if they had any, which of Next day, Mr Stewart Foster, the Director of DIMIA's course was highly likely. Public Affairs section in Canberra, issued a statem ent 14 EU REKA STREET jANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 saying that 'a number of comments made by Justice it right. Unlike Downer and Vanstone, Justice Mildren Mildren in his judgment on the Minas a Bone case need to was not led into error by the public servants. But nei be clarified'. Mr Foster wanted the public to understand, ther was he assisted by them. Sadly, in this high policy as Justice Mildren had not, that one reason for the govern area the Comm onwealth is no longer a model litigant. ment pronouncement of a 'temporary air exclusion zone' It is time to put a stop to the government's word around the boat was 'to protect the privacy of those on games. board the Minas a Bone'. Justice Mildren had the temerity to observe, 'Behaviour of this kind usually implies there WHY no WE CONTINUE to detain unauthorised is something to hide.' arrivals, including children, once we know they According to Mr Foster, 'The government's key wit are not a health or security risk and once we know ness was never asked if those on board the Minasa Bone they are no more likely to abscond than other had made a claim for asylum.' But hang on. The key wit asylum seekers living in the community? ness had told the court that interviews were conducted 'to On 14 November 2003, Prime Minister Howard told elicit intelligence information regarding possible people ABC Radio: 'The point of our policy is to deter people smuggling' and he did not know whether anyone on the from arriving here illegally. That's the starting point. boat had asked for assistance of any sort. What is DIMIA That's what people have got to understand. Our policy suggesting? If Mr Eyers had been asked directly about any is to say to the world "We will take 12,000 humanitarian request for assistance with asylum, would he not have refugees a year", we'll have that policy, we'll run a non answered, consistent with his more general answers, 'I discriminatory immigration policy, but we will not have do not know'. Or is DIMIA now intimating that if asked people arriving here illegally and we will act to deter that directly, Mr Eyers would have told the court that he did occurring.' know? That he did know what? Would he have asserted Has the Prime Minister now given us the true that no claim of asylum was made? Remember that two explanation? We have a panoply of measures in place, days after Mr Eyers gave his evidence, Ministers Downer including the long-term detention of children, hoping and Vanstone told us formally in a joint press release, to deter others from coming here to seek asylum. Mr 'The passengers of the Minas a Bone did not claim asylum Ruddock knew there was only one problem with this in Australia'. We now know that was false. At the time simple prime ministerial explanation. The High Court Downer and Vanstone made this statement, there were has said detention for such a purpose is unconstitutional public servants who knew this to be false. Is DIMIA now unless authorised and supervised by a court. intimating that, if asked, Mr Eyers would have told us Mr Ruddock always said it was a matter of regret correctly that asylum claims had been made? Either he that we had no option but to detain children during the knew or he didn't. The judge thought it incredible that he processing of their refugee claims. His argument ran thus. did not know. If that requires clarification, then presum Usually it is best that children remain with their parents. ably Mr Eyers did know or else there must be some credible reason for the most senior public servant respon sible for immigration litigation not knowing. If he did know, did he know the truth or did he know only the lie being peddled around Canberra at the time by his fellow public servants: that there had been no asylum If we release parents with their children from detention, claims made? we will set up a magnet effect, providing an incentive for Isn't it time for DIMIA to wear the rap? Whether it boat people to bring their children with them. So we must be deceit, reckless incompetence or wilful institutional keep them all in detention. miscommunication born of the 'Children Overboard' Once identity, health and security issues have been mindset in Canberra, public servants have caused senior addressed, is there any reason to keep everyone in deten ministers to misstate the facts and have withheld from tion? Or should we only detain those who are a risk to the a court relevant information in a way the judge finds corrununity? Mr Ruddock offered two reasons for ongoing 'incredible'. Having heard from the government's key detention: ease of processing and availability for removal. witness that he did not know whether any of those on Those in detention are six times more likely to suc board had asked for assistance of any sort, the judge was ceed in an appeal to the Refugee Review Tribunal. So it is justified in finding it 'incredible' that the key witness hard to argue that detention helps with processing. Ninety did not know whether any person on the boat had asked per cent of the last wave of boat people were proved to be for asylum. It is even more incredible that public serv refugees and therefore not in need of removal. Though ants use the taxpayer-funded website to further obfus we remove more than 10,000 people from Australia every cate the truth, implying that the judge hasn't quite got year, on average only 222 of them are boat people. The JA NUARY- FE BRUARY 2004 EU RE KA STR EET 15 search for a coherent rationale for universal mandatory the Australian government 'sees no reason why people detention of unauthorised arrivals including children is no longer in need of Australia's protection should not ongoing. So is the traumatic effect on the detainees. Such return to Afghanistan'. After all, 2.3 million refugees have detention may be popular with the electorate. That does returned home since March 2002, most returning from not make it right. That just proves that fear of the 'other' camps in Pakistan and Iran. is so deep in Australia that we are prepared to lock up kids Afghan TPV holders are presently receiving the first for no good reason. letters of rejection now that their three years' protection If there is no practical reason for the ongoing detention is over. Even if someone is found no longer to suffer a of children related to their processing or removal, then special threat of persecution from the Taliban, we are still we have to admit that we are using these children and asking them to return to an untenable situation. So why the deprivation of their liberty as a m eans to an end. We the need for indecent haste? If we are committed to a TPV detain them to deter others. There are not only legal and regime, why can't we permit the TPV holder to remain in constitutional problems with this approach. It is mor Australia with work rights but without the right of fam ally flawed. Government should not use children as a ily reunion until it is safe for the person to return to their means to an end. Government should not abuse the lib hom e country? erty of children to send a m essage to others. Using their Our decision makers now admit that some applicants detention as a deterrent signal might be incidentally would face acute risks if they return to their home villages defensible if there were some other compelling reason outside Kabul. They overcome this glitch by pressing the for the detention. It is time to distinguish detention word processor entry that says, 'On the information avail able I am satisfied that the applicant would not be at risk of Convention-based harm if he elected to relocate to Kabul'. Pray tell, how many people are we expecting to relocate to Kabul so that we can simply clear our books? There is little consolation in the deci- at the initial screerling phase and at the final removal sion maker's cute observation, 'While I accept that the phase. There is a coherent rationale for detention at applicant has no family or conununity links in Kabul, those times. There is no coherent rationale for mliver the resourcefulness and survival skills that he has dem sal, mandatory, judicially unreviewable detention during onstrated in establishing himself in Australia, lead me to the processing phase. Asylum seekers who come with conclude that the applicant could relocate to Kabul and out a visa are entitled to the same freedom during the "could reasonably be expected to do so"-' processing of their claims as are other asylum seekers Why do we insist on going through the bureaucratic once they are proved not to be a health or security risk. hoops for refugee reassessment including the payment of The detention of clllldren without a coherent a $1400 fee for an appeal to the Refugee Review Tribunal rationale is institutional child abuse. when it is inevitable that forcible return at this time would be a humanitarian obscenity? Why not simply put I HAVE SOME SYMPATHY for a government policy of the processing on hold until it is safe for these people to granting temporary protection to people who flee situ return? If on reassessment they are found still to engage ations of persecution or civil war. If governments were our protection obligations, they should be permitted per always required to grant permanent residence, they manent residence in Australia. I imagine that most of would be less likely to pernlit people to stay in the first those who are rejected at this time will have the decision place. And there are some humanitarian disasters in the makers adding tllis sort of conclusion to their finding: world that can be put right in a few years, making it safe for people to return home. But there must be limits to the Willie the applicant's claims do not bring him within the extent that we ask people to put their lives on hold and to Convention definition, I recognise that his reluctance to the extent that we demand that people return to humani return to Afghanistan stems in part from concerns over the tarian disaster situations once we satisfy ourselves that general security situation in the country, and particularly they face no greater risk of persecution than anyone else in his home province, where the security situation remains in the situation of humanitarian disaster. highly unstable and volatile. The Afghan TPV holders are a case in point. Yes, Regu lar and constant reports of random violence, ban the Taliban has been removed as the government of ditry, looting, property disputes, and other civil unrest Afghanistan. Those who fled fearing systematic perse involving warlords attempting to assert their control in cution by the Taliban are now not likely to be in any particular areas have been well documented. Furthermore worse position than others who fled Afghanistan at the UNHCR reports of Afghan returnees have noted difficul tin1e. The Australian public is now regularly told that ties in resettlement due to lack of available housing, job 16 EUREKA STREET JAN UARY- FEBRUARY 2004 opportunities and the widespread poverty in the country. the other side of the world who are in greater need than That these difficulties represent major obstacles to the tllis man. If I help him, I will only attract others to come successful and sustainable reintegration of returnees is here and I will not have the resources to help those on the undeniable. Hence the main concerns being expressed other side of the world. It is best that I do nothing.' now by UNHCR and international welfare agencies focus In a November edition of the Good Weekend maga on the provision of adequate infrastructure to support zine, Mr Ruddock offered his interpretation of the par returning Aighans. able of The Good Samaritan. Mr Ruddock distinguishes In light of the current country information it appears Christ's situation from ours. Christ was describing what that there may be humanitarian considerations which need one should do if one stumbles across a single person in to be considered in relation to the return of this applicant. need of our help. 'What Christ wasn't describing was how you deal with a situation if 200 people lay down The humanitarian answer is as plain as the nose on beside the llighway, all claiming they need assistance, your face. So why does the government department whose one genuinely in need of assistance and others saying officers know all this as much as we do continue to post wouldn't it be nice to get it.' But let us not forget that 90 on their website political cant such as 'The Government per cent of the last wave of boat people to Australia were sees no reason why people no longer in need of proved to be refugees deserving our protection. Maybe it Australia's protection should not return to Afghanistan'. would be a different situation if it were one in 200, rather We are back to the struggle for truth and than 180 in 200 who made a legitimate claim on our care justice in the face of politics and populism. and protection. Not w1reasonably Mr Ruddock suggested that Jesus W en speaking to church audiences over the last might have set up a triage system for dealing with couple of years I have been fond of giving a modern those most in need. Invoking another gospel story, he Australian variant on the story of Dives and Lazarus and asked, 'Would He, as He did with the money changers on the parable of the Good Samaritan. in the temple, have said to those who were fabricating If seeking to implement a Christian response to their claims that they didn't deserve his attention?' But refugees and asylum seekers on our doorstep, we might what would he have said to those fleeing the Taliban contemplate the present Australian version of the par and Saddam Hussein and who were not fabricating able of Dives and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-26 with a contem their claims? Even if we cannot collectively emulate porary Australian gloss): the Good Samaritan, could we not at least emulate the United States in this one regard: admitting a generous There was once a rich man, who dressed in purple and the quota of offshore refugees each year and granting asy finest linen, and feasted in great magnilicence every day. lum to onshore asylum seekers without pretending that At his ga te, covered with sores, lay a poor man named each successful onshore applicant takes the place of a Lazarus, who would have been glad to satisfy his hun more needy offshore refugee? The last thing the Good ger with the scraps from the rich man's table. Even the Samaritan would have done was to abuse the needy per dogs used to come and lick his sores. One day the poor son in his street in the name of helping the more needy man died and was carried away by the angels to be with elsewhere, then do nothing further to help those else Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and where. We take only 4000 offshore refugees a year which in Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up; and is less than the annual average since the end of World War there, far away was Abraham with Lazarus beside him. II. Our foreign aid budget is only 0.24 per cent of our gross 'Abraham, my father,' he called out, 'take pity on me! domestic product while the UN's recommended level is Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool 0. 7 per cent. Let's not invoke the gospel as an excuse for my tongue, for I am in agony in this fire. And remember doing less at home when we might in the that I overlooked Lazarus at my door only because there future merely consider doing more abroad. were many other people on the other side of the world who were in even greater need. I wanted to dispense char AusTRALIANS wE need to find our way back ity and justice in an orderly way, not rewarding queue to the truth, to a way of treating children decently, to jumpers like Lazarus who is now with you.' But Abraham treating in a humanitarian way those whose visas have said, 'Remember, my child, that all the good things fell to expired but whose countries are still disaster zones, and you while you were alive, and all the bad to Laza ru s; now to a way of applying the great Christian parables of care he has his consolation here and it is you who are in agony. for the other to the complexities of our present situa But that is not all: there is a great chasm fixed between us; tion. Let's maintain hope that decency and democracy no-one from our side who wants to reach you can cross it, are not antithetical to each other even in an age of terror and none may pass from your side to us. ' and uncertainty. • My adaptation of the parable of the Good Samaritan Frank Brennan SJ AO is the Associate Director of Uniya, has nm along these lines: unlike the priest and the Levite, the Jesuit Social Justice Centre. His most recent book, the Good Samaritan takes pity on the man by the roadside Tampering with Asylum, is published by University of but then says to himself, 'There are many other people on Queensland Press, 2003. JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 17 verse Surviving A patchwork of tin: rust red peeling away from silver, faded light green, and greys of several ages-cut to fit the irregular space above a carport door- Funeral of Queen Mary it's classic Australiana. Morning and turbulent dreams You could move my neighbour's shed in the chapel lies a dead child knight to the National Gallery. Found I am holding his small marble hands materials, and the skill he tells me hush, hush. of cutting precisely to size, I open my eyes to stillness. and all the right tools, and a life when nothing went to waste. Out there its Elizabethan white frost on the silver roof To sit and look for an hour crows, bare branches at these rusting panels, half wood and wings-one sleek drama obscured by the waving branches glistening. Winter. Tallis scholars sing of the apricot tree- to sit from the clock radio with the telephone silenced, and gusts thou knowest lord the secrets of our hearts of wind and rain on the windows for the funeral of Queen Mary. and not write, not find words for everything that's happened: Processional. Black trains trail, sweep brush without this emptiness, through the bright snow. this quiet watching, how Let the ice tears be shed. can the words re-form themselves around the unspeakable? Look And here has happened a rare how the shed sits square in the chaos and secret thing of billowing green leaves, a december mystery unmoved by the passing drama a late arrival in this room last night of horizontal rain doors were unlocked and some sweet tenderness ushered in. or without fuss absorbs Your face wakes quietly the afternoon sun-the tin a new reign has come today. too hot for a human hand- - Kirsty Sangster - Caroline Williamson 18 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 Troy Bramston Opening Whitlam's cabinet Th e annual release of the once sec ret cabinet papers on New Year's Day is now a politica l ritual. After 30 years, the pub I ic is able to look at cabinet's deli berations on weighty matters, w hich have bee n kept under lock and key for a generation. T,R JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 19 new government representation at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), removal of the ban on the advertising of contraceptives, removal of sales tax on the contraceptive pill, new membership of the Commonwealth Grants Commission, the convening of an interim committee of the Australian Schools Commission, a new airline curfew for Sydney airport, new benefits for permanent members of the armed forces, the appointment of 'Nugget' Coombs as an adviser to govern ment, the commencem ent of talks on dip lomatic recognition of China, reopening of the equal pay case, restoration of Wilfred Burchett's passport, instruction to TAA to lower fares, announced scrapping of the honours list, the closure of the Rhodesian Information Centre in Sydney, and the recalling of Australia's ambassadors to the United Nations, Washington and Taiwan. Cou rtesy of Th e Canberra Tim es, Labor's 'bi g four' at the ca ucus meeting, 18 December 1972 . W ITLAM AND BARNARD also m et From left: Lance Barnard , Gough Whitlam, Li onel Murphy and Don Willesee. Photo: Bluey Thomson. with Governor-General Paul Hasluck as part of the Federal Executive Council and approved 18 recommendations at designed to be an interim Ministry; that it sions or the processes surrounding them. meetings between 5 and 19 December held no Cabinet meetings but that it nev Indeed, the cabinet papers include what 1972. These included: amendments to ertheless made and promulgated certain Bunting had asked his deputy for-merely various government regulations, the decisions.' a list of media releases issued by Whitlam making of ordinances, making various and Barnard. Yet Whitlam saw no grounds government appointments including Casting doubt over the methods of for concern, at the time arguing in a tel permanent heads of departments, the decision-making and the pace with which evised 'Report to the Nation' that every signing of the International Covenant on such decisions were being made, Bunting decision was in response to 'our unmis Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and suggested to his deputy, 'It would be useful takable mandate'. the International Covenant on Civil and to get from the press or the prime minis While 'rapid-decision government' was Political Rights, and the abolition, m erger ter's office the daily statement of decisions the method adopted by the first Whitlam and establishment of government depart or actions.' As a senior public servant ministry, the second was comparatively m ents. One journalist termed it 'rapid who had worked with prime ministers considered. The first m eeting of the full decision government'. since Robert Menzies, and who was well cabinet on 20 December made just five The concern within the bureaucracy schooled in the proper methods of pub decisions: it adopted standard proce over Whitlam's style of government lic administration, the the first Whitlam dures and practices for cabinet, noted the was such that a 'confidential' note in ministry appeared deeply unorthodox to 'requirements and conventions' of public the department's files from secretary Bunting. It indeed appears as if the pub duty and private interest of ministers in John Bunting to his assistant secretary lic service, and in particular the Cabinet government decision m aking, appointed was distinctly uneasy. Moreover, so Secretariat, which had hitherto been several permanent heads, and established a disturbed was Bunting at the speed and responsible for administering the cabinet, procedure for award variations in method of the decisions being taken, keeping proper records of its discussions government employment. he decided to mark it of relevance to and implementing its decisions, had sud 'future historians'. Bunting wrote: denly found itself on the outer. The public L E FIRST FULL CABIN ET m eeting also service was being kept in the dark by its decided to support the claim by pub For record purposes, including for future new master. Moreover, the decisions that lic servants before the Public Service historians, I would like you to have it prop Whitlam made in those first 14 days were Arbitrator fo r an extra week's annual erly recorded in our running papers that far from insignificant- rather these were leave. This was the first and only decision the McMahon Government went to elec among the more groundbreaking deci by the Whitlam government in 1972 that tion on 2 December; that the first Whitlam sions of any government since Federation. was based on a submission, and where Ministry was formed on 5 December; that It is concerning that no cabinet meetings the public service was comprehensively it consisted of two Ministers only-say were held to make such decisions, nor was consulted. Newspaper reports at the time ing their names and portfolios; that it was there any proper record kept of such deci- noted that the Public Service Board had 20 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 previously opposed the application for the government had declined rapidly. By is the 'style and character' of the govern extra leave. Despite these objections, on July 1973, Labor was trailing the Coalition ment. Lloyd and Reid write: 18 December, Whitlam indicated to the in the Morgan Gallup PolL Despite win Chair of the Public Service Board, through ning a second term in 1974, with a small If many of the virtues of the second Whitlam his adviser Peter Wilenski, that he wanted swing against the government, Labor was government were present in the first minis a 'comprehensive analysis' prepared on the largely behind in the polls for much of the try, so also do many of its flaws show up in proposal in the form of a submission, which period. In almost every poll from July 1973 the prototype. Most importantly, a pattern of could go to cabinet the next day. Noting until November 1975, Labor was behind decision-making appropriate to two men in a time constraints, Cooley indicated that the Liberal-Country Party opposition under hurry and with little time for rational assess they would do their best, and a submission Billy Snedden and later Malcolm Fraser. ment was carried over into the working of was prepared. The Cabinet Secretariat indi Apart from policy, in many ways the the full ministry. Preoccupation with the cates in a 'Note for File' that if a submis Whitlam government's later problems number of decisions, piling one on the other sion could not be prepared by the following stemmed from the administrative practices without proper attention to coordination or day, and be ready for cabinet, Whitlam had it adopted in those first 14 days. Whitlam coherent strategy, was one of the major flaws resolved to 'make his own decision ... '. was suspicious of the public service after 23 of the two Whitlam governments. The departmental file makes it clear that years of conservative government. Further, although the public service carried out he believed that there was a lack of inter Whitlam's key adviser, Peter Wilenski, the wishes of government, the demands est in, and expertise for, some newer areas acknowledged that the ' ... inherent prob and style of administration were of policy he championed. Whitlam appeared lems in Labor's programs were compounded not what they were used to. unwilling to listen to advice or to include by their mode of implementation.' Despite the public service in the processes and deci making several spending commitments in W ITLAM sooN TURNED his atten sions of his government. Whitlam suffered its first few days, there is no evidence in the tion to the structure of the bureaucracy, from a failure to consult, to debate, to lis papers that any advice was sought on the causing further disquiet among senior ten and an absolute belief that he was right. state of the economy or the impact on the mandarins. Brian Johns, writing at the While the records show that McMahon suf government's budgetary position. time, labelled the changes as '... the most fered from a lack of decisiveness in cabinet, While the method of government drastic remodelling of the public service in Whitlam's decisions suffered because he throughout 1973 was more conventional, the post-war years .. -' N ew departments was too decisive and disinclined to debate. the speed of government remained the were created and several were abolished but, The incredible number of decisions same. The papers show a bureaucracy under according to Johns, senior public servants made by the first Whitlam ministry took incredible pressure and a ministry seemingly baulked at several of Whitlam's changes. place without any cabinet discussion or burdened with more paperwork than ever The Department of External Territories before. In 1973, the cabinet considered 823 was to be merged into the Department of formal submissions, made 692 decisions Foreign Affairs, but it remained in place after While the records show not based on submissions and passed 221 bureaucratic resistance. Similarly, the gov acts of legislation- more than any govern ernment had planned to split the Trade and that McMahon suffered ment ever before. The initiatives were often Industry Department, with Foreign Affairs so ambitious that there were disagreements assuming responsibility for trade matters. from a lack of decisiveness over their implementation and concern in Johns wrote that ' ... while the top public the public service over how they would be servants are malleable on policy, they are in cabinet, Whitlam's ftmded. Yet Whitlan1 sailed through. While determined defenders of their institutional noting the large amount of business, he homelands. Departments can be renamed, decisions suffered because maintained his reforming zeal, all under the even regrouped, but our mandarins, predict authority of fulfilling the 'mandate'. ably, resist to the end the abolition of their he was too decisive and The implementation of his 'man power bases.' date' was central to the government's for In its first 14 days, the Whitlam gov disinclined to debate. tunes. Whitlam's speech-writer Grahan1 ernment clearly and unequivocally moved Freudenberg argues that tl1is was '... ftm decisively on many of the issues that the damental to any understanding of what McMahon cabinet had found difficulty debate, nor any input from the public the Labor government did, why it behaved with. In subsequent years, Whitlam and service. N evertheless, political historians in the way it did, why it succeeded, why it his ministers would make additional far Lloyd and Reid (Out of the Wilderness: failed and, ultimately, why it felL' Indeed, reaching decisions in many areas. Whitlam The return of Labor, Casell, 1974) argue tl1e beginnings of the Whitlam govenunent's offered a visionary agenda, which dra that ' ... it would not have been possi eventual destruction were evident in those matically altered Australian political life. ble to symbolise the regeneration of an first 14 days. • However, within six months the Australi;m infirm political party in a more impres people had begun to grow weary of the radi sive way.' Indeed most of the major Troy Bramston is co-editor of The Hawl JA NUA RY- FEBR UA RY 2004 EU RE KA STREET 21 Held captive Irish Political Prisoners, 1848-1922, Theatres of War, Scan Me Con ville. Routledge, 2003. t~B 0 4 15219 9 1 4, RRI' $200 1TH< CONTeXT of cu«ent deb"e about the penal ideas that governed the treatment punished. They sailed out to Van Dieman's how to secure Australia against terrorist of these prisoners. The book arrives, at least Land in better conditions almost than any threat, it is interesting to reflect that implicit at a recommendation to democratic body apart from a colonial governor. They Australia has been integrated in the his governments: locking up (and/or executing) had their own cabins: do you know what tory of modern terrorism for a very long your political opponents is not inevitably a it would have been like to have your own time. Way back in April 1876, six Fenian good idea, because that way you grant them cabin on one of those little sailing ships?' prisoners, all of whom were serving life sen political longevity and even, possibly, politi McConville makes much of the compara tences, escaped from the colony of Western cal triumph. As a rule of thumb it seems to tive privilege the Young Irelanders enjoyed, Australia on board the barque Catalpa. hold, when you consider not just the Irish and of the 'ingratitude' of some of them. He Their escape was the fruit of 'secrecy, care Free State and Eamon de Valera but also points out for example that John Mitchel's ful planning and fi11ancial control' and its Nelson Mandela and Xanana Gusmao, along partial fettering as he boarded the con achievement a persuasive argument in with Aung San Suu Kyi in her domestic vict ship became the myth of 'Mitchel, the minds of a particular segment of Irish prison and Yasser Arafat confined by check bound in chains'. A footnote records that nationalist militants for the application of points and security fences. The prisoners at this 'myth' was given life in the first the same organisa tional principles to the Guantanamo Bay have yet to prove it but instance by Gavan Duffy immediately after dynamiting of British cities. 'Scientific war the United States Government might well Mitchel's transportation, and regenerated fare' is what they called it, back then, out of attend to the observations Sean McConville by Mitchel hin1self five years later, when confidence in the capacity of a well-placed makes of the Irish Free State's attempts to he hit the speech circuit in America as a stick to elin1inate legislators instead of punish generations of Irish rebels-and the liberated man. Even if the British authori 'innocent soldiers'. Ironically, the plamling, State's obliviousness to the lessons taught ties were not prepared to treat the Young fundraising, recruitment and training for by its own historical experience. Irelanders as ordinary convicts, it was the 1880s DY11amitards campaign to destroy Irish Political Prisoners begins with rhetorically useful to invoke the the centres and symbols of power in Britain another Australian connection, in the sen image of such degradation. all took place on United States soil. tencing to transportation to Van Dieman's Who now knows about the climate of Land of the 1848 Young Irelander leader IS A BIG book, 820 pages, with fear in England, the emergency Bill to con ship, who had imagined that their self-sac copious footnotes, and for a good part of trol the possession and use of explosives, rifice would awaken demoralised people it McConville's theory seems to stand up. and the attacks on train stations, the Home to political ambition. Of course they failed 'As we advance through the story, he says, Office, Foreign Office, Colonial Office, the spectacularly but in their story, McConville because of changing political circumstances, Local Government Board, military bar says, he found a nascent theo1y: that 'the because of the changing class nature of the racks, Scotland Yard, London Bridge and closer one gets to a proper democratic state, people who came, the types of punislunent The Times. The name of the Bin Laden-like proper popular representation and so on, also changed. It is fair to say that by the figure, O'Donovan Rossa, and the organisa the more intolerant the state will become. time the late Fenians are imprisoned, they tion he directed has disappeared from public The stronger the mandate of the state, as were imprisoned under extremely arduous memory; in British cities, the 'deep and pro validated through the ballot box, the less conditions.' Those conditions were the found disgust with Ireland and her people', room it has to compromise and the less terms of ordinary imprisonment of crimi which in the 1880s displaced a growing reason it has to compromise'. In the case of nals during the 1860s and one of the Fenians sympathy for Ireland, has in tum given way the Young Irclanders, the government was was Michael Davitt, who later testified to a mood that accommodates Irish theme astute enough to avoid creating martyrs, before the Kimberley Commission to the pubs and Irish rock stars, even when it tires commuting the traditional death sentence grotesqueries of the British penal regime, of events in Belfast. for treason (hanging, beheading, and quar designed as it was to crush the spirit. Whatever about repeating itself, history tering), to transportation for life. All were McConville's recounting of Davitt's experi certainly echoes, and you can hear those res gentlemen of one degree or another, and ence (and of the Fenians' generally) makes onances in a recently published account of having spared them from the gallows it for unpleasant reading, in the descriptions Irish political prisoners in British jails dur behoved the government to treat them as of terrible deprivation and cruelty and in ing the three quarters of a century leading such. 'I suppose removing somebody from its tale of the recruitment even of medical up to the declaration of the Irish Free State their everyday life, especially if they have persmmel to the administration's implac in 1922. Sean McConville's Irish Political an interest in politics, to a remote corner of able logic of suspicion. (Prisoners in Irish Prisoners, 1848-1922: Theatres of War sur the earth, was a punishment, but in terms jails were allocated much smaller bread veys the crimes, the prison experiences and of material punishment, they weren't really allowances, just in case Famine victims 22 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 sought prison as a solution to their hunger.) disabling impact on the prison system. discern continuing motifs. McConville The prison doctor at Mountjoy in Dublin With De Valera 'inside', the prison com leaves the task to the reader since his book was an exception: in a suppressed report missioners found themselves negotiating comes abruptly to an end with the release of he insisted on the connection between with a prisoners' committee, an unprec prisoners following the signing of the Treaty insanity, prolonged confinement and severe edented event in English prison history. in December 1921. (A second volume is discipline, and when his report made its Nevertheless, only a few years later when intended, dealing with post-independence way into the public domain, forcing some the Anglo-Irish War had broken out, more Irish prisoners to 2000.) But there are some improvements in the prison regime faced than 2000 men were held in Irish intern threads: through the 75 years from 1848, by the Fenians, he was removed ment camps and a spate of executions was the authorities invariably found the Irish from his post on a pretext. under way. The closer we get to popular bothersome, and the limits were almost democracy, it may be, the more incoher invariably-in the end-stretched. The A MONG MiCHAEL DAVITT'S achieve ent is government response and the more Irish were always determined to distinguish ments was his escape from the madness surely public sympathy is engaged. On themselves as political prisoners and the that in the end afflicted or threatened so 14th March 1921, a crowd of 20,000 people authorities to cast them as common crimi many of his fellow nationalist prisoners, fell to its knees outside Mountjoy Prison as nals. Those detained were mostly younger and McConville credits him with 'a touch the bells tolled for each execution. men, middle class and at least reasonably of the Mandela's': 'Somebody who had Three or four thousand documents, educated. Many of them had committed gone through this great ordeal but with no says McConville, provided the ground of acts of violence or had conspired to commit bitterness, no exaggeration, no hysteria, no his book. This assiduous poring over the acts of violence. Often they distinguished self-magnification, and quite apart from archives enables him to pin his characters themselves in prison by their discipline, his influence on Irish nationalism, he had often to their flaws, but occasionally to character and bearing. Their sense of pur an influence on English penal measures their grandeur (as in the case of Michael pose validated suffering and self-sacrifice. to deal with ordinary criminals because Davitt), sometimes to their political In varying and increasingly focused ways he could speak humanely and decently, nous (William Gladstone recognised that they invoked a distinctive Irish identity. but not sentimentally, about criminals.' imprisonment alienated moderate opin By De Valera's time, in the words of one Irish nationalist prison ion) and sometimes to the British authority, 'they are bound together ers invariably found their truly unexpected: recently [in large numbers] by the common tie of encounter with the gen released documents their race and ideals, their cause, and their eral run of the English show that King George suffering, and they are permitted to study prison population dis V intervened repeatedly Gaelic which alone feeds their tressing-it became an in the case of the Lord enthusiasm for their cause.' element of their 'mar Mayor of Cork, Terence tyrdom' and, as some MacSwiney, urging the L E OVERRIDING CONTINUING motif is British authorities rec government to exercise the question of justice and the capacity of ognised, 'led to a higher clem ency. MacSwiney politics, as distinct from law, to deliver it. and even exaggerated was on hunger strike in Sean McConville admires Gladstone's com sense of [their] position'. Brixton Prison (where he mitment to politics as a way of translating After the 1916 Rising, was visited by Archbishop the ethical nature of the State into every however, that encounter Daniel Mannix) in protest day life. He didn't vote for Tony Blair but, was minimal, as the state at his 'illegal' arrest in he says, 'I think of all the British Prime compromised in its treat Cork on 16 August 1920. Ministers in the 20th century, he has taken ment of nationalist pris While the government was the most Gladstonian approach to solving oners while not admitting determined not to give in, the Irish problem: I think politicians very them to political prisoner the King's concern was the often have to deal with a scale that doesn't status. (A War Office memo did describe 'increasing spirit of retaliation and revenge' balance and they have to be satisfied with them as 'prisoners of war'.) This is the that prevailed and the 'misery which at the that and the frustrations of that and Tony point, McConville says, where his nas present time casts a shadow over the daily Blair has been prepared to take a view that cent theory came undone. 'The thesis that life of the Irish people.' MacSwiney died the solution has been its own morality in a I started out with, that the closer we get on 25 October, after a hunger strike last way. [It] somehow or other justifies all that to popular democracy the more repressive, ing 74 days. From his perspective, writes could be portrayed as shoddy deals with is turned on its head. They [De Valera, McConville, the contest had been one not violent and wicked people getting away Michael Collins, etc.] certainly weren't of vengeance but of endurance. He quotes with their deeds- there is a greater good treated oppressively. Eamon de Valera a speech by MacSwiney: 'it is not they coming at the end of it if I can write an end in particular managed to turn the prison who can inflict most but they who can to this story.' It's hard not to admire that inside out.' McConville is unsure whether suffer most can conquer. ... Those whose breadth of view. • De Valera's inventive disruptiveness was faith is strong will endure to the end and 'out of a spirit of natural rebelliousness, or triumph.' Margaret Coffey is a journalist and as part of a strategy to continue the strug In the extraordinary accrual of ref broadcaster, presenting Radio National's gle in prison' but he is certain about its erence and fact it is difficult to always Encounter program. JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 23 111<1 ll\ Jo shua Puis Thirty years of war Ewo' us CAN "Y we've libemted ' Simpson's latest book The Wars Hussein's first US rescue, according to city. John Simpson did. Speaking as he Against Saddam: The Hard Road to Simpson, came in 1986 during the Iraq entered Afghanistan's capital in N ovem Baghdad has just landed on the shelves Iran conflict. 'The Iranians invaded the ber 2001 , the BBC World Affairs Editor of Australian bookstores. Those wanting Paw Peninsula, took it over-that was a said that it was 'extraordinarily exhilarat to immerse themselves in the good cheer stunning victory for them. Saddam was ing to be liberating a city'. Interviewed of platitudinous certainty this Christmas absolutely on the ropes and the British, next, the British Home Secretary David tide should avoid it; those wanting to put the Americans, the French, the Germans, Blunkett said, 'I'm still reeling here from both bleeding hearts and reclnecks off their weighed in to help Saddam because they the news that the BBC and John Simpson left-over plum pudding should stock up. didn't like the idea that Iran was going to have taken Kabul.' Fair call. Simpson will not pennit a banal analysis win. So they saved his bacon there.' It was a remark about which Simpson along the lines of: 'ancient peace-loving America's next omission Simpson later said he was 'very, very, very embar culture-controlled by mad dictator seems to feel more bitterly: 'In 1991 rassed', but he also took the opportu overthrown by Western forces [wholly after the Gulf War, when George Bush nity to accuse those m edia outlets (not liberators or wholly looters]-ancient Senior said that Iraqis should rise up to m ention military forces) who were peace-loving culture thrives again-' It is against Saddam, they did, and our friend 'hours and hours and hours behind us' of neither Hussein, nor Bush and Blair and Colin Powell was the one who persuaded 'sour grapes'. Howard, who Simpson has in his sights; George Bush not to give them any support. The episode gives a good measure of his target is simple-minded sloganeering. So those revolutions which would have the man, a man with a Shakespearean For instance, Simpson is under no undoubtedly succeeded, collapsed sense of theatre and not a lot of tact. illusion about the Iraqi culture. Act One for lack of American support.' A veteran of over 30 years and 30 wars, (the book unfolds in acts, not chapters) is John Simpson was once threatened with called 'Iraq's bloodstained history'. IRAQ IS HAVE not forgo tten tllis, liquidation-not corporate mind you, but 'It's a country with a very violent past', according to Simpson. Act Three is called corporal. By someone with both the mal says Simpson. 'Lots of ferocious little city 'The Uprisings and U. S. Betrayal'. Simp ice and the m eans: Chalclean Christian states fighting each other, turning into big son, like many others including Bush, and former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, empires, collapsing, new empires forming, Blair and Howard, had been sure that Tariq Aziz. violent gods, violent leaders. That is the the allies would be greeted as liberating 'I was probably a bit tactless in ask history of Iraq-a history of violence, and heroes. But the betrayal of ten years ear ing him questions. It was during the 1991 of violent leaders.' lier was still vividly in the Iraqi memory. bombing ... We hadn't seen him for some Simpson does nevertheless have much 'I was certain that when the Americans days. I was determined to get some word to say about Bu sh and Blair and their invaded, they and the British and the Aus out of him. So I just followed him down m erry men. tralians would be regarded as saviours and, the corridor, asking him the same ques 'I'm sure Blair wouldn't have gone in well, it happened a bit but it didn't happen tions. He said at the end if I asked another for it if he didn't believe that they had the anything like I was certain it would.' question he'd have me liquidated. I just weapons. I don't think it was a cynical It was not just the 1991 betrayal that thought, well, he might do what he says. exercise on his part. I think Blair was a feel this ambivalence. The Iraq into which I went away.' true believer. ' Will Blair survive the fa ll Bush's armies marched, or rather crawled, One rather gets the feeling that after a out? 'I suspect that Blair will survive-he was also a country crippled by sanctions. Palestinian gun to the head, being gassed has survived reasonably well. I think he's Simpson is less than enthusiastic about in the Iran-Iraq war, shot at in Tiananmen going to be permanently damaged by this strategy. 'I've seen them in too many Square, and taking 14 pieces of American it, winged by it. Everybody will always countries to like them', he says. 'Where shrapnel in a missile attack this year that rem ember that this is what happened to they're successful they do awful damage killed his translator, it takes a fair bit to him and why it happened.' to the weakest people in society, while the make John Simpson go away. As fo r the Americans, Simpson is a little regime, whatever it might be, gets away Aziz could have taken a tip from former more critical. 'If it hadn't been for the with everything, and lives high on the hog. British prime minister Harold Wilson United States on two completely different Secondly I just think it eats away at a coun who opted not to liquidate Simpson but occasions, Saclclam would have gone down. try, even though actually fo r the most part rather just to punch him. The young On two occasions they saved him, and so sanctions don't work terribly well. Govern Simpson had asked if Wilson were about it's hard for them now to grumble about ments usually manage to get everything to call an election. him, although they seem to manage.' they need at a higher price, and again, the 24 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 price is paid by the poorest and weakest in You can't conduct an anti-terrorist war 'you can bet the Iranians are really stirring society. It never has quite the effect that without intelligence.' things up.' everybody promises at the start.' The same is true of the search for Act Four is ' 11 September-the fall Had there not been sanctions, would Saddam Hussein. According to Simpson, out'. Simpson referred to an extraordinary there have been weapons of mass destruc nobody really has any idea where he is. American opinion poll that claimed that tion? Simpson's response was reluctant, Simpson's best information is that he is 20 per cent of people thought that Saddam almost grudging. 'That is a possibility, with Bedouin tribes in the huge area to the Hussein and Osama bin Laden were the yes, that might well be. This is an historic west and north-west of Baghdad. Simpson sa1ne person. 'There never was any serious kind of judgment, which is hard to be suggestion that Saddam Hussein, such certain about. That is certainly pos an anti-religious character, could have sible, that is certainly why the sanc had the remotest contact with Osama tion were introduced. ' He quickly bin Laden. He's just the kind of per adds, 'Whether, even given that, it son that Osama bin Laden wanted to was the right thing to impose them overthrow. Yet, because we've man is another question, but yes, I think aged to attach this "evil" notion so that is a possibility, certainly. ' very clearly onto Saddam, that means Simpson is pessimistic about the "OK if he's evil, well he must have prospects for the United Nations in supported 11th September. That was the wake of the war. The Iraq episode evil, ergo he must be evil, and ergo 'leaves it really looking as though it there must be a connection". I do does what the United States wants it feel we've got to get away fro m that. to do; that is the biggest danger for I think there's an awful lot of project the UN. This is not after all meant ing of our own failings and shortcom to be an institution which serves the ings and our own fears onto somebody interests of one particular country. else, onto Saddam in this case.' Something has to be done about that, And yet, Simpson is certainly no if the United Nations is to keep its Hussein apologist. It was, he says, self-respect and the respect of [mem 'a horrible and fear-ridden regime. ber! countries. The Islamic countries Sometimes when you read the anti feel that the UN doesn't operate in war people it's as though Saddam was their favour at all.' a quiet little social democrat.' But he Simpson seems worried about says that the book is 'an attempt to America's commitment to recon counter the idea that is so common struction. 'I think the danger is [in Britain], and I think in Australia that having found itself in this posi too, and certainly in the US, that tion, the Americans are going to get Saddam is som e kind of devil char increasingly anxious about it, and acter. H e's just a sort of mad dictator, politicians are going to come up that you don't need to take seriously. who say the only answer is to get I've tried to present him as a real out, and then, as we saw in Vietnam, human being, not just a hate figure.' they could get out really, really quickly, has heard what he calls a 'very, very strong 'Everybody calls him by his first without proper planning and organisation. story' that there is an 'ultra secret bunker' name as though they know him. And Leaving a hastily got-together army from which Hussein constructed. He is then yet he's a very, very complex and inter the UN or anybody else who'll send sol said to have executed anyone who knew esting character and in some very diers might be equally as dangerous. anything about it. 'I got that from one of restricted, limited way, is very impres 'When the Americans get out of a his former prime ministers.' sive. I just don't think we should allow place they get out of it so much that they 'I'm certain that he thinks this is going ourselves to lose sight of that simply scarcely leave a notice aft er to end up with him back in power again, because we don't like him. 'l X T wards of what happened there.' even though I don't think that's very likely. 'I just think it's important to see I think that's what he's playing for.' people as they are and not just do a lot of V VHAT BEGAN AS a series of random 'He m ay well be protected and helped sloganeering about them .' • acts of resistance in Iraq has turned into a by the intelligence services of one or other 'planned, organised, fully operational war of the neighbouring countries who just Jo shua Puls is a lawyer and psychologist of resi tance. As things stand, the Ameri keep an eye on things fo r him.' Simpson and is Chaplain of Newman College in the cans, the British, the Australians, the read a widespread ambivalence in the University of Melbourne. other UN outfits, do not have any serious region. There are Middle Ea tern leaders intelligence about who's doing these bomb who are glad to see Hussein gone, but who John Simpson's latest book The Wars attacks, why, where or anything like that. nevertheless are worried that Iraq 'will fall Against Saddam: The Hard Road to Bagh That's a serious, serious disadvantage. into the American orbit'. He adds wryly, dad is published by Pan Macmillan, 2003. JA NUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EU REKA STREET 25 llw \vurlcl. 1 Minh N guyen US foreign policy: Where to from here? W RLD ORom" m' ""'of flux not '"n ' '""tho fit" road', he said. 'Now we must decide whether it is possible to half of last century. The way that the US executed regime change continue [with the present arrangements] or whether radical in Iraq is the realisation of a decade of change. Such actions pose changes are needed.' a serious challenge to the multilateral system that has existed for Annan left little doubt about the present disarray of world poli nearly 60 years. The post-1945 system has been characterised by tics. But while we might be shocked by events of recent years, we detente and containment, by multilateral institutions and by the should not be surprised. The world has been stewing, to adapt the old compromise of power around the United Nations Charter. That business analogy, like a frog in boiling wa ter, oblivious system now risks being swept aside in a new era of unilateralism to the changing temperature. and ad hoc coalitions of the willing. Proponents of unilateralism argue that the old order is no 0 VERA DECADE AGO the Cold War ended with the crumbling longer relevant, if it ever was, in guaranteeing peace and security of the Soviet Bloc and its planned economies. This was a unique in a hostile world. What the world needs now and into the future, time in modern history, marked by turbulent change and a bank so the argument goes, is a benign hegemony to maintain order ruptcy of political alternatives. With the monopolisation of world and stability and to promote the universal values of freedom, power, the Third World-which had benefited fro m playing off democracy and free enterprise. This requires a leading nation one superpower against the other- lost its bargaining leverage with military supremacy, in this case the US, to defeat current and became fractured and marginalised. Meanwhile, busines and emerging enemies, unilaterally if necessary. interests became increasingly vocal and global in the absence of Some world leaders are troubled by this logic. The usually an ideological alternative. The triumph of the market hastened subtle Kofi Annan warned last September against what he change and u11leashed an unprecedented worldwide orgy of strliC called the 'lawless use of force'. 'We have come to a fork in the tural adjustment and deregulation. The 1990s also saw the rise of groups resisting these trends. The Islamic terrorists are the most prominent, but there are oth ers . Xenophobic and isolationist groups captured political dis course in many countries, including One Nation in Australia. They offered alternative views to the self-declared inevitability of cultural and economic integration. The sa me period produced the international protest movements against the excesses of global ReJax capitalism. These gro ups promoted globalisation of a different kind, With-God - and - one that prioritises human rights and sustainable development. By Minister the late 1990s the world had become a battlefield of ideas. to Yourself It was in this context that two competing US foreign pol icy approaches developed. 'Pre-emptive unilateralism' is what we call the approach of the current US administration. Some Pentagon officials articulated this concept as early as 1992. This policy seeks to revamp the approach of the Clinton administra tion, which the former US ambassador to the UN, Madeline SAT Sabbatical Program Albright, called 'assertive multilateralism'. o Res t Self-cont ained. free and tl cxihlc modul es arc Assertive multilateralism works within the post-1945 inter r,; pccificall) dc:.: igncd to ass ist indi,·id uab Time o Be Nu rtu red national framework to exert US power while maximising consent to int egrat e th colog) , spirituality, human o Be F1ee to ... dn elupm cnt and ministry with th eir and minimising risk. 'When the United States intervenes alone', o Play Ji ,cd c..:: pcri cncc. Albright once said, 'we pay all of the costs and run all of the risks. o Pray Four-month and ~ i nc-mo nth progr ams When the UN acts, we pay one fo urth of the costs and others o Share New Id eas S.\T • School or .\ pplicd T hcolug.1 provide the vast majority of troops.' Both views share a strong (~ntd u u t c T hcologicul Union sense of America's mission to the world, but whereas assertiv 2-J()() Ridge Ro"d • llcrkclc.1 C .\ 9-1 709 1-800-101-0555 . 5 10-652- 1651 multilateralism represents the spread of American values in evo lutionary terms, pre-emptive unil ateralism understands it as a SA tical ,~;~~~~: ~ ;~~ ~~,~ ~~: : ~~ ·~:~g revolutionary activity. 26 EU REKA STREET JAN U ARY- FEBRUARY 2004 poetr\ M. L. Escott The current revolutionaries in Washington do not entertain the notion that democracy and free enterprise is an automatic expres sion of economic facts or the inevitable product of history. 'Freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history/ says President Bush. 'Liberty, if not defended, can be lost.' While the unilateralist camp shares with the multilateralists foreign policy realism, the former is distinguished by its sense of moral purpose and historical urgency. Unilateralists see the absence of a rival superpower as an opportu nity to transform the world radically and to create a capitalist ver The Cubbyhouse sion of 'permanent revolution'. President Bush calls his project a 'global democratic revolution'. The UN, a body that includes quite a few undemocratic characters, is a persistent source of frustration Overhead the loquat's for the unilateralist agenda. deep-veined leathery leaves The importance of Iraq in this debate should not be over looked. Iraq is not just another petrol station under new manage cast perennial shadows ment, although it would be naive to dismiss the role of the global across the perky gable. oil market in US calculations. Nor is the issue primarily about Furry yellow fruit sheds to ground terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, reasons all but admit squishy with decaying flesh ted to be 'bureaucratic' by the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz. It is both a moral necessity to clean up the and slimy seeds. Middle East and an opportunity to free the US from institutional restraints. Assertive multilateralism was undone in the same Two children, mincing sideways way it was introduced: by bombing Iraq. History records the debate at the end of the first Gulf War about in their flimsy little sandals whether to carry the fight on to Baghdad or not, with serious impli the way mounted police dodge cations for US strategy and world order. Bush Senior and National protesters' marbles, Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft made the case clear. 'Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the UN's mandate, approach the picket fence would have destroyed the precedent of international response and miniature curtained windows. to aggression we hoped to establish.' The argument against Chameleon-like they enter, invasion won in the end and set the terms of US fill the house with the rattle engagement for years. of teacups and spoons, IFWORLD ORDER rs still in a state of uncertainty, Iraq is the and solemnly discuss housekeeping testing ground. Foreign Islamic fighters pouring across the border interspersed with baby talk understand the significance of Iraq. Loss of American life and the hindrance of nation-building in Iraq will be the biggest test for as they feed their dolls America's sense of purpose since Vietnam. But even as the situ then tuck them up in cots ation deteriorates, the US is unlikely to abandon its hard-fought and read them stories. gains. The credibility of pre-emptive unilateralism is at stake. One by one they tiptoe out The US will wrestle the UN for the sake of it. There are now signs, however, that the revolution is unravel when their charges are asleep. ling. The situation in the Middle East is deteriorating, as are any moral gains won via a quick victory over Iraq. No revolution can And over there a giant pumpkin be sustained without short-term successes or popular domestic support. Social and political forces opposed to the new order are half-obscures the dark gaping again on the move. The way the Muslim world reacts will affect mouth of an air-raid shelter. how Americans see themselves. The way the UN and Europe, There'd been a war on and the men particularly the Franco-German alliance, reorientate themselves will affect US foreign policy options. Meanwhile, the people divested of blue suits had thrown up who mobilised the massive global peace protests last year are shovels of earth and sculpted the raw mound again meeting at the World Social Forum-in Mumbai, India, in now embraced by tendrils creeping January 2004- where they will work on alternatives to President ever further on the quarter-acre block. Bush's vision. Over a year after the unveiling of the US's pre-emp tive strategy, it is not just the UN that finds itself at the cross roads. All interested groups are reassessing their strategies. • - M.L. Escott Minh Nguyen is a researcher at the Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre. JA NUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 27 1 The Iguaz CJ Falls, Argentina 2 The church of San Francisco, Salta, Argentina 3 Sunset at Laguna Colorada, Salt Plains, Bolivia 4 The ring- tailed viscacha feeds for the camera, Salt Plains, Bolivia 5 Restoration workers on the Ca thedral built between 1858- 1878, Salta, Argentina 28 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 6 Alpacas by Laguna Hedionada, Salt Plains, Bolivia 7 Sunset at Laguna Colorada, Salt Plains, Bolivia 8 Village woman sifts and dries quinua grain, Salt Plains, Bolivia 9 Pink flamingoes on Laguna Canapa, Salt Plains, Bolivia 10 Laguna Verde, Salt Plains, Bolivia John Fish is a barrister who enj oys bushwalking, trekking, outdoor sports and playing music in his spare time. jANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 EU REKA STR EET 29 ( ' . l \ Rufus Black Community in an electronic age L SMS M<"Aces-one ,d, the co-ordinating commercial activity both relationships in the 'offline' world. These other joyful-captured for me the power nationally and internationally. Organi possibilities for exchange will only grow as and problems of communication in an sations have become more focused as greater bandwidth enhances the quality of electronic age. I received the first message a cheaper communications have made out sight and sound. few years ago on a misty winter's morning sourcing more economic, and more global, However, what is missing when the on the shore of Lake Geneva. 'Gran has as cheaper communications, transport body is absent is vulnerability. This is not passed away peacefully. Lots of love, Mum and information technology and falling to deny the psychological vulnerability and Dad.' The other was on my phone when tariffs have reduced the cost of distance. that can be present in 'online' encounters. I awoke in London in February this year. It Communications are changing the Nevertheless, in these encounters of the was from my wife: 'I'm pregnant'' nature of organisations and markets, mind our physical self is never 'on the I was very glad to receive both mes but what are they doing to the nature of line'. Vulnerability and trust are inextri sages; it is not the sort of news you want communities and the ethical structure cably linked, which means that a world to wait for. I was glad to receive the word, that secures them1 We would do well with declining physical vulnerability is but it was only half or less of the com to remember that the printing press was also one in which the landscape of trust munication; there was no-one to offer the the precondition for the Reformation. is changing. comforting touch, and no belly to kiss. In Until people could possess their own The same phenomenon, often in more some ways there is nothing new about this version of the Bible in the vernacular it subtle forms, is increasingly present in experience. Letters from the fronts of wars was impossible for religious authority daily life. Notably, we use electronic com told an earlier generation of the passing of to shift from the interpretation of the munications to deliver the tough message. their sons. What is new is how much of Church to the personal interpretation Partly that's because it's convenient. But our communication is done at a distance of the written word. When those shifts we also find it easier to send an email with and how rapidly we have embraced it. occurred, both the structure of society a message that we know will cause an upset 1l1e shift to communicating elec and nature of ethics changed irrevoca rather than deal with someone face-to-face. tronically is not simply about increased bly. Clearly the shifts created by elec Rarely do we see senior executives stand frequency, it's about the mobility and tronic communication will be different in front of a workforce they are about to variety of forms it can take-voice, fax, to those of the Reformation, but retrench or restructure in wrenching ways email, voicemail, SMS, mms and video. perhaps no less important. and explain what they are doing. And the revolution is far from over. In As we become less accustomed to deal its next phase, as voice recognition soft W EN PEOPLE DON'T meet physically, ing with our vulnerability, our ability to ware improves, these different forms will there is an erosion of trust. The place where trust is reduced and we start to withdraw merge. You can expect to have your email this is most obvious is the internet. Many from exposing ourselves to the physical read out to you by your mobile phone and people in the West already spend signifi presence of others. We become less com to record a m essage over the phone that cant amounts of time in this world. What is fortable dealing with conflict because con will arrive as faxed text to a colleague. distinctive about these relationships is that flict when we are physically present always Driving the communications revolution they are disembodied-people never need has implicit within it a risk to our bodily has been the plummeting cost of connect to meet physically. Or, more commonly, selves. As we avoid conflict we become ing. For example, a three-minute trans physical meeting becomes a less and less less able to deal with difference, dissent atlantic call cost $US250 in 1930. By 1960 significant part of the relationship. and plurality. We lose the levels of trust it had fallen to $50. Between 1970 and 1980 What are the limits of disembodied that enable us to speak openly it went from the mid $40 range down to the relationships? Advocates of the internet and rely on others. $1 range and by the 1990s the cost could be will argue that relationships in the 'online expressed in cents. world' can be as rich as those in the 'offline SPEAKING FACE-TO-FACE not only grounds There is no doubt that there has been world'. People certainly have signifi trust, it is also the basis of an ethics of enormous gain from this revolution. We cant relationships through the mediums empathy. An ethics of empathy is pivotal to are more connected that ever before. For of email and chat-rooms. Some of these sustaining community because it enables Australians, cheap phone calls and flights conversations form, and many sustain, us to negotiate difference and conflict. It have conquered the tyranny of distance. In commercial terms the revolution is even more extraordinary. Cheaper, more sophisticated communications ..... have changed the structure of organisa tions and markets by lowering the costs of 30 EUREKA STRE ET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 begins with sympathy-when we recognise whatever will keep their options open. They idea of 'the bottom draw letter'-these are our common humanity in someone else. resist commitments-marriage, mortgages, letters or notes written in anger, often in In that moment we recognise our ethical careers or social engagements. Technology a healthy expression of frustration, which obligations towards them. is clearly not the direct cause of this lack should never actually be sent. We need Empathy goes one step further. Empathy of commitment, however the mobile phone sustained moments to pause and reflect. is not just understanding what it would be is its great enabler. It frees people to make Our moments for reflection are rapidly like to be ourselves in someone else's shoes, last-minute decisions-not to attend if a disappearing. Partly because we are work but also what it would be like to be them in better option appears. ing longer and harder than ever before. their shoes. It is not simply that we can get hold of Between 1964 and 1984 the percentage of In our transactional encounters through people more easily. Reflect on when you the Australian workforce workil1g more electronic media, both signs of our common are excusing yourself from a meeting or than 49 hours a week was constant at about humanity and of our diversity are obscured. appointment. The best option is to have 15 per cent. Since then it has been on an When we deal remotely with people it is someone else do it for you. Failing that, upward trajectory and now stands at over usually only their voice, the description of we opt for voicemail, email or phone 20 per cent. Australian labour productivity their circumstance and perhaps our mem anything that eases the awkwardness of grew at 13 per cent per year between 1980 ory of them that we encounter. At best saying face-to-face that we can't make it. and 1989. In the followil1g ten years it grew video technology may give us an image. I suspect the reason is that face-to-face at an average of 24 per cent a year. What is missing are the numerous makes it much harder to hide our real One of the great enablers of this smaller clues, which we often don't even reasons for opting out. increased productivity has been commu realise we notice-from seeing the key The mobile phone also permits the nications technology, but it has come at ring on the desk that shows they drive the Options Generation to create remarkably a price. Emails and voicemails mean that same car to the twitch under the eyelid ephemeral social events, such as raves and there are always messages to be answered, that betrays stress. It is these observations protests. While there is appeal in the spon and we feel an increasing compulsion to that create the moments of sympathy that taneity and serendipity of these events, check and respond. Under this sort of pres enable me to recognise something of myself they do not amount to community. Their sure our very ability to pick up and respond in someone else. Hidden also are the differ very spontaneity means that these group to these messages anywhere and anytime ences that enable me to enter their situa ings do not endure. To such groups we only means that we do. When I saw recently tion empathetically. It is the sympathetic give what we can get back in the moment. that British Airways is introducing and empathetic cmmections that even Where a group doesn't endure enemies make when they meet. That is we won't provide others with -- -- T l1 e ------______why peace negotiations are conducted face til11e or resources, as we realise to-face and why the world is often surprised that we can expect nothing in j\1 r~. 1 13 t ., t T It N I~ at the compromises each side will make. It return. We won't create what .....W"f Tht- 8£NOIGO i...t- is why when people aren't ready for peace some call social capital-that they aren't ready to meet. reservoir of assistance that a As greater use of electronic com community accumulates for the "A gutted Anglo-Catholicism leads to ... 'The munication reduces our opportunity to mutual benefit of its members. Vicar of Dibley Syndrome'. 1t's not what discover our cmmections and limits our Mobile phones also erode Newman, Pusey and Keble desired." opportunities to practise observational commtmity in a more insidious skills that found an ethics of empathy, way. With only a small percent- Peter Corney on Anglo-Catholic decline are we making ourselves a people age of mobile phone numbers who aren't ready for peace? listed in the white pages, the people who are accessible to L usT AND EMPATHY are not the only us are increasingly only those "We ourselves are locked into a way of life parts of the ethical structure of commu we have chosen to exchange that involves killing animals for food ... Even nity put under strain in the electronic age. our mobile phone vegetarians can't escape responsibility for the Because mobile communications allow number with. carnage, since our whole way of life is at the last-moment changes to our plans, the expense of much destruction in the natural fabric of commitment is also unravelling. MOBILE PHONE also world." Consider the generation aged roughly plays an important role in 18-30. Hugh McKay calls this the Options reducing the time for refl ection. Dr Scott Cowde/1 on animal theology Generation because an organising fea One of the many wise pieces of ture of their lives is that they seek to do advice from m y father was the Th e Melbourne Anglican Mention this ad fo r a free sample copy of TMA Phone: (03) 9653 4221 or email : [email protected] u JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STR EET 31 onboard in -seat email connections diaries for refl ection, to pause and find out despaired-one of the last sanctuaries from how our colleagues are travellii1g. accessibility, where you genuinely get space We also need to re-ritualise the work Spiritual to reflect and where I have some of m y place. The passing of the tea trolley was fresher thoughts, is about to be invaded. one of many opportunities, now lost, to Companioning This reduction of tim e to refl ect is a connect with workmates. To compen problem fo r the ethical structure of commu sate, some workplaces now begin their nity in a number of ways. day with a 'stand-up', in which everyone Formation First, the i1runediacy of responses means stands and says how they are in addition we have no time for 'second thoughts'. to what they are doing. If you have been A course for those exploring These 'second though ts' are critical because at a stand-up and heard that a colleague companioning/direction and they are often about the wider effects of our has been awake half the night with a sick decisions. When we suddenly set a dem and child, you can react with sympathy rather the skills required ing deadline for a piece of work, for exam than fear their grumpiness later in the This ecumeni cal course is offered as part ple, do we reflect on how that will affect the day. If this sounds like a time commit of rh e ongoing program of the Australian commitments of people to their families? ment that will be the straw that breaks the Nerwork for Spiritual Direction. Second, when we are constantly caught cam el's back, then the camel's back has in what Harvard Professor Ron Heiftz calls long since been broken. It is a part time program which comprises the 'dance' and never have the opportunity It is not only in workplace rituals a guided reading program and monthly to get on the dance hall 'balcony', we don't that we need to re-embody our commu discussi on groups, a residential school see the larger patterns. If you listen to sto nications, it is also in social and religious and opportunities for supervision. ries of oil and milling companies caught rituals. And perhaps the greatest and m ost out by human rights protesters you will important of those rituals in Western cul Applica tions close 13th February 2004. find that m any were so busy just rmming ture is the Mass. The very act of regularly Full details available from : their busii1ess that they weren't seeing the turning up for the Mass creates commu T he Registrar (Mr John Stuart) patterns of social concern shifting. nity and social capital. More deeply, it T hird, more and more of our commu is an invitation for us to be physically 193 H otham Street nications are about co-ordinating activity present to one another and to God. You Eas t Melbourne VIC 3002 or email to: canoniohnws@ hotmai l. com rather than about letting someone else simply cannot celebrate m ass over the ) know who you really are. In the attics Internet. Every time w e physically gather of the future I don't think we will find to receive the Eu charist we are on ce again m any bundles of emails tied with a ribbon being entrusted with the body of Christ. Whatever else the Mass is, it is because they are the treasured m emories We are being entrusted with the bod essentially ethical and political. It calls us of a life. They don't carry the m arks of ily care of one another-to care for one to care for one another and all those we the journey they have taken-no elephant another as vulnerable people. physically encounter as part of our daily stamp from India, no black postmark from The Mass is centrally about bodiliness, lives. It is a reminder that true intimacy a heavy-handed postmaster-and they vulnerability and trust . This is startlingly and trust with God and with one another don't provide a physical link to the per clear if we refl ect on th e biblical passages is founded upon this type of trusting phys son-no sense that this paper was once in that record its institution . Jesus took a ical encounter. In the contemporary world one's lover's hands, no spidery writing that loaf of bread and said: 'This is m y body, this is profoundly counter-cultural and, in can only really be deciphered because you which is given for you . Do this in rem em an age of electronic communication, pro know the person well. Communica tion, brance of m e.' We often tend to read this as fo undly important if we are to remain a rather than bringing us closer, m aking though it's a one-sided transaction- Jesus connected community. 8 us m ore connected, will make us is giving his body to us. But that giving is more distant. in fact a trusting-Jesus is entrusting his Rufus Black is an ethicist, theologian and body to us. Jesus m ak es this disconcert managem ent consultant. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION risks ingly apparent when he ends his words of erodii1g trust, empathy, commitment and instruction saying: 'But see, the one wh o Acknowledgem ents: I would like to reflection, how are we to respond? We can betrays me is with m e, and his hand is on acknowledge fo ur current and former no more end email than we could have the table.' This is the type of trusting that colleagues for conversations that gave stopped the printing press. is necessary for a truly intimate relation birth to important though ts in this paper: Awareness of the risks is a good start ship-for a relationship that is not based Cameron Hepburn, Scott Keller, David because it allows us to make the thou on power, but on love. Dyer and Jules Fl ynn. sand sm all choices that will help retain the balan ce. It allows us to recognise that it m atters to turn up in the call centre or on the factory floor if we are a senior executive, to choose to deliver a difficult m essage in person, to carve out iiwiolable time ii1 our 32 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 intervi('w: > Juliette H ughes Charting a future course w .N 'H' R"" TO ulk, D•wn Nungalinya. She is one of nine children, a these were the very areas threatened by Cardona's deep voice rings effortlessly single mother, who likes self-help books, severe funding cuts. through the m eeting room . As the loves fishing and never forgets her Bible. Nungalinya is dependent on N orthern new principal of Darwin's Nungalinya 'I keep it close to my heart,' she says. 'My Territory government funding. The NT Theological College she is touring NSW, mum was a strict Catholic. I always try to government receives the money to do Adelaide and Melbourne to heighten live by what it says. I see myself as here to this from the Commonwealth govern awareness of its work. She m entions tri do the work of Jesus.' m ent CST allocations. But in November umphantly that one of their students, She has entered into her job at a turbu 2003, said Cardona, they were advised by Theodore Tipaloura, is to be made a dea lent time for education in Australia, when government of a redirection of funding. con in early December at his home parish higher education finds itself under the scru This m eant that the Recurrent Funding on Bathurst Island. Then there is a sardonic tiny of those whose first priority is not the allocated to private registered Training grin: she wonders if she'll need a new pass education of the poor, the Indigenous or the Organisations was at risk. The threatened port to go there, since the Howard govern unusual. At St John's that day, the whole closure of two schools-Textile Arts and m ent has just excised Bathurst Island from Nungalinya endeavour looked to Family and Community Services-meant Australia in order to prevent some desper be under threat. that Nungalinya students' commitment to ate Turks from claiming asylum. Cardona a course of education would be interfe red is unsurprised; she is no stranger to the C ARDONA TOLD US briefly about the with. It is very difficult to get some box vagaries of government. Nungalinya story. The college was founded ticking education bureaucrats to under At a young-looking 40, she is probably in 1973 by the Christian Missionary stand the needs of Indigenous students in the youngest person in the m eeting room Society (CMS ) and the Methodist Overseas higher education. Attendance criteria that at St John's Southgate on an unseason Missions (later the Anglican and Uniting are fr amed for urban Australians take no ably warm and muggy November morn churches). The purpose was to train account of Indigenous cultural imperatives: ing. St John's is a Lutheran church, much Indigenous people for leadership in their for instance, if a death occurs, a whole sought after by musicians for its excellent own communi acoustics, tucked into the new brutalist ties. In 1994 the developments around Melbourne's south Catholic Church ern and docklands area. Over the last 15 joined by invita years, hotels, offices and shops have mush tion. Indigenous room ed, along with the casino and the participation has kind of apartment blocks that are favoured always been a pri by youngish lawyers and advertising folk ority: by 1977 there with no pets or children. StJohn's is just as was an Indigenous new, but its timber fittings inside and bits lecturer and now of garden outside make an oasis in the grey the principal is concrete tourist traps that surround it. Indigenous. Since The space is late 20th century but the 1983, the majority people who have com e to see Cardona, are of the Nungalinya drawn firmly from the first half. Kind grey Council mem heads nod appreciatively as she talks; lined bers have been faces are bright and eager with goodwill. It Indigenous. is obvious that she is comfortable around The secret the kind of enthusiasm that Catholics of Nungalinya's are often embarrassed about, and that unique success is Protestants can do very well. that it has built Cardona looks as though she fi ts this on Indigenous stren gths. Its Textile Arts family group must leave college for weeks postmodern space well. She represents School has been an enormous su ccess, to mourn the person properly. If the col many new things, many firsts: the first along with its groundbreaking School of lege were inflexible about such matters, Catholic, the first wom an principal of Fam ily an d Community Services, but then no Indigenous person could do a JANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 33 higher ed course and still remain fai th and prayed fo r all the poor and desperate and vagaries among the box-tickers. It ful to his or her culture. And it was the people caugh t in the snares of govern has been a success for Indigenous people unique, Indigenous-rich curriculum that ment. They were content to let their good because it respects their culture. People was under attack: at one point it was fortune rem ain mysterious. go there because they want to; old ghosts decreed that the textile course should be a In the m eantime Cardona can get of past missionary coercion and wrongdo duplicate of a Melbourne one. back to the real job, that of running an ing have no place there except to be dis However, Cardona has since shown ecumenical college that caters actively to cussed freely. One of the participants at her steel. After leaving the southern Indigenous culture, without worrying the St John's meeting mentioned that when states she lobbied politicians carefully that it will all fa ll to pieces, for she had worked in Papua New Guinea, it an d persistently. On 2 December she this year at least. was the funda m entalist missions who cre m et w ith N T government representa ated problems, 'threatening them if they tives. The news, surprisingly en ough, SHE LIKENS WORKING in an ecumenical did their traditional dances'. N ungalinya's was good: funding was m ade available for environment to making a cake. 'The unique gift is to convey Christianity with their courses via Competitive Response answer is in the recipe stemming from the utter respect for Indigenous wisdom . Funding, allocated on a yearly basis. They thoughts of Marie Vines,' she says. 'Think of Cardona says that each studen t works out would have to fulfil actual contact h ours it as making a cake. First let's put in som e the balance for himself or herself, that one of delivery but could negotiate if these faith and hope-the Anglican, Uniting and culture impinges on another in completely were not m et. Catholic Churches, a dash of culture individual ways. The news was welcom e but that m ade rem ote, rural, southern, Indigenous and She still marvels at the change of heart, the earlier rejection puzzling. 'The info r Torres Strait Islander people, a dollop of and the hope for the future: m ation we initially received indicated no achievem ent--education, training, learning, On Tuesday when we met with the funding at all', said Cardon a. 'Was it a and ministry. Now mix it all together so it's Government it was the day the tides m isinterpretation or uncommunicative well blended, place in the sun and let it nur were O. Om-the day when Old Man Rock info rmation I For me, I understood and so ture with encouragement, commitment and appears-a day of strength, so lidarity and did m y two colleagues that there was to dedication, then watch it rise to success.' continuity. That's Nungalinya- solid rock be no funding.' Nungalinya is still vulnerable. Like standing on sacred ground. T he turnaround was complete, and m any wondrous things in this country they went to Theodore's diaconate with that exist only because governments sup joy, and without needing new passports, port it, it is subject to whims, fashions Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. / _L 71 _,::__ __ .-:-- -, ' -" 34 EU REKA STR EET jANUARY- FEBRU A RY 2004 th e world :2 Anthony Ham The new anti-Semitism A Nn-S'M'mM " on< of th< mo" the island of Jerba in Tunisia. Nineteen was quoted in the Western media as say powerful words in the English language, people were killed. ing: 'Iraqis are the world's best dodgers and a word resonant with the murder of more That all of these attacks have been thieves-they are descended from a direct than six million Jews before and during widely condemned does not temper the line of Ali Babas.' World War II . In sheer numbers alone, disquiet that the spectre of an old hatred If such words, such projects of cultural the genocide practised upon the Jews of may be re-emerging. As a people, no-one stereotyping, were to be directed against Europe is recorded history's most grievous has suffered from racism as greatly as the Jews, the outcry would, rightly, be wide crime against humanity. It all happened Jews, and renewed fears of anti-Jewish spread in its condemnation. But there because of an anti-Semitism that fed off violence are very real among the Jewish have been few outcries in defence of Arabs conspiracy theories and an abhorrent diaspora and in Israel itself. and Muslims, no public denouncing of nexus between a person's race or religion There are, however, at least two impor this form of anti-Semitism. and his or her right to live. tant elements of the popular debate which The point is not that the racism Fast forward nearly six decades and must be considered alongside the recent directed towards Arabs and Muslim is there are deep-seated fears that anti outbreaks of anti-Semitism. somehow worse than that which has been Semitism may again be on the rise. The first is the word itself. The literal experienced by Jews. Nor does recognis In early November 2003, a German MP meaning of anti-Semitism m eans racism ing the term is often misused in any way and the commander of Germany's Special directed towards the Semitic people or diminish the repugnant nature of anti Forces were forced to resign after the those who descend from Shem. Cot.mted Semitic acts that are targeted at Jews. The former made comments linking Jews with among the Semites are Arabs and Assyrians, point is, however, that both are equally atrocities committed during the days of as well as Jews. On one reading, the exclu repugnant. To enclose one within the the Soviet Union. The well-known Greek sion of Arabs and Assyrians from the world definition of anti -Semi tism, thereby evok composer, Mikis Theodorakis, recently of Semites is a mere semantic distinction. ing humankind's darkest days, while call described Jews as the root of all evil. His And yet, the fact that 'anti-Semitism' ing the other something else, is perhaps comments came barely a month after has come to exclusively refer to racism to suggest that some forms of the outgoing Malaysian prime minister against Jews has the dangerous potential racism are worse than others. Mahatir Mohammed stated at a confer to separate racism into different, even ence of Muslim leaders that Jews are 'arro unequal categories. The rising tide of TmSECOND DANGER arising from the gant' and 'rule the world by proxy'. Little 'Arabophobia' or 'Islamophobia', which prevailing public use of the term 'anti seems to have changed since deeply offen ga thered unprecedented pace after Sep Semitism' is that it assumes that some sive conspiracy theories, that Jews had tember 11 , carries none of the power to people, by virtue of their race or religion, been somehow responsible for the attacks shock that anti-Semitism, a term forever are somehow immune from criticism. It on the Pentagon and World Trade Center linked to the Holocaust, possesses. is a strange argument, one that seems to on 11 September 2001, gained widespread While mainstream political leaders assert if your people have suffered from currency in the Arab world. across Europe have publicly denounced widespread racial violence or genocide, As is often the case in a climate where the attacks against Jews, racism against you cannot be criticised in perpetuity. Fol racist comments are widely aired, attacks Arabs and Muslims has become almost lowing this line of reasoning to its logical against Jewish targets are on the rise across institutionalised in the West. In the after endpoint, the Tutsi-dominated govern Europe. This year alone, attacks against math of September 11 , thousands of peo ment of Rwanda cannot be condemned synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and other ple with Arab-sounding names, and with for their role in fuelling the conflict in the Jewish symbols have been reported in the origins that lie in Muslim countries, have Democratic Republic of Congo, nor for United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, been rounded up and detained incommu their responsibility for large-scale human Austria and Belgium. These attacks have nicado for indefinite periods and seem rights violations. ranged from defacing Jewish memorials ingly without legal rights. Although it no The Israeli governm ent's dismissal with anti-Jewish propaganda and Nazi longer does so publicly, the current US of critics as anti-Semitic is an insidious slogans to attempted suicide bombings. administration has spoken of 'de-Arabis means of stifling debate. Turning the Jewish communities elsewhere have ing' the Middle East, while US Under spotlight around onto the accusers is an been similarly targeted, to even more secretary of Defense, Douglas Feith, has easy way to destroy credibility without devastating effect. On 15 November, the talked of Israel's 'moral superiority' over having to address the issues in any sub bombing of a synagogue in Istanbul killed its neighbours. And among those who stantive way. The equating of all opposi 20 people. In April 2002, a truck bomb daily police the Western occupation of tion with an incitement to violence is, exploded at the El-Ghriba synagogue on Iraq is one Corporal Kevin Hamley who at its worst, an inverse form of racism, a JA UARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EU REKA STREET 35 form of 'moral superiority'. today, in order to incite it and to under ease with which it can be invoked to deter That such a belief should be sufficient mine the Jews' right to self-defence, it is criticism and the excision of Arabs from to ward off criticism is a precedent as dan re-aroused.' those who are the victims of such racism, gerous as anti-Semitism itself. Israeli gov This is a prime minister who, barely a resembles nothing so much as an intri ernment policy towards the Palestinian decade ago, claimed in an interview with cate conspiracy theory levelled against people includes extrajudicial killing, Time Magazine that there was no such an entire people. In their exclusivity and detention without trial, the destruction of thing as the Palestinian people. And yet exclusion, such theories allow political houses and other collective punishments he decries as anti-Sen1.itism (with justi opponents to be dismissed as evil rather against the families of alleged suicide fication) the hatred of those fundamen than those who simply do not agree. This bombers, the strangling of the Palestinian talists who seek the destruction of the unwillingness to distinguish between economy, the construction of walls and state of Israel and deny Israel's right to those who seek change through violen t settlem ents to separate Palestinians from exist. This is a prim e minister whose own means and those who seek reform through their land in the name of security, and legal system condemned him as 'person political debate also enables governments occupation of land which is not ally responsibl e' for the Sabra and Chatila to sanctify some human rights violations legally theirs. massacres when he was Defence Minister as justifiable. during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the One of the tragic lessons of the Holo W EN PROTESTS AG AINST such actions early 1980s. Prime Minister Sharon evi caust is that people of particular races and are mounted by the international commu dently feels no hint of moral hypocrisy religions can be so degraded in the popular nity, particularly by Europe, the response in describing suicide-bombers as anti mind and by government policy that their of the Israeli government is unanimous. Semitic terrorists. very existence can be called into question. When European foreign ministers recently What is at issue here is not only whether The Holocaust taught us that when racism issued a call for justice fo r the Palestinians, those who seek the destruction of Israel by becomes widely acceptable as a political Natan Sharansky, a government minis killing innocent Israeli people, or by attack tool, violence towards the victims of such ter who once spent years as a prisoner in ing Jewish targets across the world, are racism can take hold and become seen as Soviet labour camps, stated simply that guilty of anti-Semitic behaviour. There is legitimate, even as a form of self-defence. 'Anti -Semi tism has become politically little doubt that anti-Semitism is invaria But when people have said, as many have correct in Europe'. Israeli prime minister bly behind such attacks. Such acts must be since World War ll, that it must never be Ariel Sharon similarly did not address the condemned in the strongest possible terms allowed to happen again, they were not just substance of the allegations but instead and the perpetrators brought to justice. talking about the Jews. Whether we have said that 'What we are facing in Europe is What is also at issue, however, is the learned that lesson remains to be seen. • an anti-Semitism that has always existed casual manner in which some forms of and it really is not a new phenomenon ... racism are becoming acceptable. The Anthony Ham is Eureka Street's roving This anti-Semitism is fundamental, and misuse of the word 'anti-Semitism ', the correspondent. E.VERY SUMMeR fi<.ANK SP6NDS 111'1\€• AI IHE- 6f.AGH CATCHI~G- UP Willi HIS Rf.ADIN&! 0 0 36 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEB RUARY 2004 books:2 Dewi Anggraeni Asian relations Australia's ambivalence towards Asia, I.V. D'Cruz and William Steele. Monash University Press, 2003. ISB'I l H76 924 09H, RRP $49.90 I NmR THOUGHT l'n towards Asia, the blows are set up by Anglo-Australians-namely, the say this about a book: somewhat broken by his current notions of what is good. Australia's ambivalence delightful wit and humour. Prominent among the ideas about 'what towards Asia is not for Australia may have been ambiv is good' are democracy and liberalism. the faint-hearted. alent towards Asia ... , but the D'Cruz and Steele demonstrate that In the last few years, Asians too have been ambiva Australian public figures are unable to see a number of books have lent towards Australia for more that the liberalism dominant in Australia's been published looking than a century ... All through our political life is flawed, because it allows into Australia's relation childhood teens, we never got for an insidious racism. They uncover and ship with the other coun any inkling that Australia was display evidence of this racism in almost tries in the Asian region. It or had been, like India, a colony. all sectors of life, revealing an undercur is fair to say the consensus Unlike the Irish, the Australians rent of unconscious racism that affects is that Australia has prob hid that part of the story quite not only the social interactions between lems fitting in. successfully from us. At least in white Australians and their Aboriginal Vin D'Cruz and India, Australia projected itself and Asian-born fellow citizens, but also William Steele's Australia's ambivalence as an extension of Britain-a slightly policy-making at the institutional leveL towards Asia stands out, however. They declasse, provincial, off-colour Britain, but The authors use Turtle Beach, consistently and relentlessly identify the Britain nevertheless ... the award-winning novel by Blanche reasons behind Australia's failure to be In the pages following Nandy's fore D'Alpuget, as a case study. It has a number accepted as a neighbour by Asian countries. word, all gloves are off. of instances of this subliminal racism. As a The subsequent report is disturbing, to say Australia is uncomfortable positioning writer of both fiction and non-fiction, I see the least. Professor David Walker, from its psyche in Asia, according to D'Cruz and another dimension to many of these exam the school of Australian and International Steele, not only because Asians are people ples. The fiction writer draws from his or Studies at Deakin University, who pro of colour and the majority of Australians her own psyche when writing a novel, so vides the afterword, writes of Australia's are white, but also because Australia is what is written reflects not only what the ambivalence that: obsessed with its desire to prove itself eyes see, but what the subconscious has It disrupts many of the comfortable equal to Britain and other Western nations. absorbed. They are reflections of the writ notions we may have formed about how While Britain and continental Europe er's social conditioning. Whether the story best to interpret the relationship between believe they are superior, Australia feels it is offensive or not depends very much on Australia and Asia. I am right behind them has to prove its worth. who sees the reflections. in this enterprise. One sure way of proving one's own Though I would be reluctant to call superiority is, of course, to treat oth those instances racism, I would see them as Although the book focuses on ers as inferior. It is providential that in proof that deep down Australians are yet to Australia, it also projects Australia against Australia's case, these 'others' are close discard their sense of superiority and their the background of Western nations in gen by, in Asia and the Pacific, and in its own tendency to be judgmental towards their eraL Most of the discrepancies between land. The feeling of superiority overshad Asian neighbours. Australia's ambivalence professed ideology and practiced policy ows even Australia's intended good ges uncovers this attitude in many parts of that abound in Australia can also be found tures towards its Asian neighbours and its Turtle Beach Only when Australians begin in other nations that belong to the Western own Indigenous people, and refuses to fade to regard Asians as equal and accept Asian European intellectual and cultural tradi away though it is clear that it is causing Australian voices as part of Australia's tion. However, some instances of glaring considerable offence. orchestra of opinions will Australia be bet hypocrisy are idiosyncratically Australian. This patronising stance is extended ter accepted in the region, because only The foreword by Ashis Nandy, a to the former subjects of Asian coun then will the discom.fort and awkwardness professor at the Centre for the Study of tries who have migrated to Australia and ease all round. • Developing Societies in Delhi, does not become Australian citizens. For Australia, prepare the reader for the contents of the it seems, multiculturalism involves Dewi Anggraeni's latest book, Who did this book itself, because while it is incisively these new citizens accepting the existing to our Bali?, Indra Press, will be released in critical of Australia's stance and attitudes cultural benchmarks that were initially February 2004. JANUARY- FE BRUARY 2004 EU REKA STREET 37 people David Glanz Odds on T,WAR WAS ov'R and thO<< the backyard fences. On another were jobs for all. By September 1946, occasion, Arthur and his mates were Prime Minister Ben Chifley could walking down the lane, discussing boast that, despite 10,000 servicem en how the Buffalo hall roof would be a being discharged from the forces every good spot to keep nit when an incau week, unemployment had remained tious police officer looked out from below one half of one per cent. With over the parapet, blowing his cover. rationing limiting consumer choices, 'In 14 years I got caught once. This that meant a lot of money burning one time, I felt this big hand on m y holes in a lot of pockets. So where shoulder. It was a cop, and he warned could a man dispose of a discre me that if I yelled out I'd be nicked. tionary shilling or two? That sum But I didn't have to-just walking up mer, one place as good as any other the lane with him was enough to tip was Foley's Lane in the northern the blokes off.' Melbourne suburb of Coburg. each race day to the 14-year-old boy who With such vast sums of cash There, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, kept nit- looking out for the police-was sloshing through the bookies' hands each Cole Robertson, Jack Attwater and part a minor business expense. race day, was the lane a target for standover ners Phil Samson and Jim Elliott stood To that boy, Arthur Bell, five pounds m en? 'You never had any trouble at all,' willing to offer fair odds on the nag of your was a passport to freedom. 'My dad was says Arthur. Perhaps it's nostalgia, but choice-at the prices chalked on the boards getting that working at Millers Rope the world seemed a different place then. they hung on the fence or at the starting works.' Being one of the four nit-keepers 'I lived nearby and m y lock never, ever price. Being an SP bookie was a lucrative in Foley's Lane twice a week, plus can had a key in it. I'd rather have those days business. There were four lanes working nily playing the odds at two-up, brought back. My sister went up to the Trinity in Coburg alone, and dozens more across his weekly income to a king's ransom dance hall every Thursday and Mum and the city. At least one registered racecourse of 15 pounds. 'I owned a horse and cart Dad never had a worry in the world. I bookie gave up his licence to work in the which mum and dad didn't know about. used to keep bookies' money in the stove. lane. The SP men would hold five hun I used to play up a little bit! When I had Mum started it up one day without know dred pounds on a race day, at a time when to go to work at Gilmours Smallgoods ing. The money was all crinkled, but the three blocks of land a little further out of as an apprentice I was getting just seven Commonwealth bank still took it-' In the town, next to Fawkner cemetery, could shillings and sixpence a week.' early days, even the police problem could be picked up for one hundred the lot and Arthur didn't have far to go to 'work'. be bought off with a judicious backhander a nice little house in Rosebud was a snip Foley's Lane, behind the Buffalo lodge and or two, although not everyone played by at three thousand. So giving five pounds alongside a wood yard, has long since been the 'rules'. 'Bookies used to take bets covered up by the Coles in a paddock in Reservoir. One day the supermarket carpark. cops came driving past and jumped out Arthur's 1946 bedroom to grab them. One bookie was very upset is now an aisle in the and told them, "it's not our neighbouring Liquorland turn-we paid last week".' bottle shop. Keeping nit meant strolling around EVEN WHEN THE police did make an the corner into Victoria arrest, their victim would usually give a Street and keeping a sharp false name but a real address. That way, eye out for the cops-and they could keep the police happy by pay for his own back. 'The ing the one hundred pound fine-then, as cops used to haunt us. now, gambling was a revenue earner for If we saw them coming, the state government-without running I'd head off through the the risk of getting three fines in their own pub or jump on a tram.' name. Three fines meant jail time. From There were times when the age of 18, Arthur started writing bets. Circa 1946, Arthur Bell is th e spiffy young man sea ted on the ri ght. They're they had to scramble as 'I had a bank book in a false name. If the in a mate's backya rd, just a few metres from Foley's Lane. the police came across cops got me I could produce it, as all they 38 EU REK A STREET JANUARY- FEBR UARY 201 wanted was to send out fines. The cops my brother didn't pay for his reception, one of 1300 or more bookies and would were getting them all the time from differ given the amount I was owed. There was drive thousands of kilometres in a week ent lanes-wrong names, right address for an off-duty cop- who I could name, but I end, from Mildura to Gippsland. Now he the bluey (the fine notice). After the war won't-who used to come in and place his reckons there are scarcely 160 and Arthur everyone had a quid.' bets on the way to work.' limits himself to Moonee Valley, Geelong, The problem for the police was that A combination of police crackdown Yarra Glen and Ballarat. most people didn't really consider SP and the establishment in Victoria of the Once a year, he heads down to St Fran bookies to be a danger to civilisation. They country's first TAB brought the SP days to cis' Church in central Melbourne, which may have been illegal, they may have been a close. 'All good things come to an end. holds a mass for the racing fraternity on linked to graft and corruption, but there Our lane was the last to finish.' Arthur, the Sunday before the Melbourne Cup. He was nowhere else to have a flutter away thanks to the false name in his bank book, long ago got roped into doing his bit, tak from the track. As Arthur explains: 'Sena could sit the examination for a bookmak ing round the collection plate. It's a long tor McKenna's mother and father lived er's licence with a clean record and a clear way from the days of keeping nit, but the nearby. His father was the warders' boss conscience. Today, he runs a pet shop in punters' dreams remain the same. You at Pentridge. But they never complained. Victoria Street, a stone's throw from the could ask Arthur to lay odds on it. • No-one around here accepted it as crimi lane where he worked in the SP business nal. Everyone wanted to get a bet on. A for a dozen years-even on his wedding David Glanz is a Melbourne writer who mayor of Coburg used to bet with us. He day. But after work on race days, he still knows one end of a horse from the other had a catering and wedding business-and runs a book at the trots. Once he was as long as it neighs. books: i Kirsty Sangster Delicate steps Dancing with Strangers, lnga Clcndinncn. Text Publishing, 2003. I SBN 1 877008 58 3, RRP $45 I NGA CLENDINNEN HAS ONCE again 'these people mixed with ours and all of the relationship between Captain Arthur written on a subject chained to brutality, hands danced together.' On the hot sands, Phillip and Baneelon (Bennelong), gives us a anger and sometimes unspeakable suf- the raggle-taggle mob that has just arrived glimpse of two men who are genuine in their fering-as with her extraordinary book from the seas meets up with the other mob attempt to understand each other. There is Reading the Holocaust (Text Publishing, that lives here. They begin to dance. Each tenderness in her portrait of Phillip. She 1998). The history of white 'invasion' or partner in the dance is equally appalled by writes of his humanity, his open-house pol- 'settlement' is also a highly politicised one: the other's weird smell. The white man is icy for Baneelon's many relatives, his tern- where both sides in the history war claim to fetid, stinking of unwashed wool, sweat and pered generosity. Phillip builds a house on know the truth. grime. The black man is perfumed with fish the Point for Baneelon and we see Baneelon's Clendinnen describes what happened oil that has been poured over his hair and all partner Barangaroo sitting naked with a between black and white in the first few down his bare skin to ward off mosquitoes. 'slim bone in her nose' at the Governor's years after the arrival of the First Fleet. Yet they dance and sing together. table, 'except once, when, fresh from a grand She does not claim the objective truth, This encounter marks the beginning of ceremonial occasion, she appeared in the but rather likens her subjective journey a fragile reciprocity between the newcom- glory of body paint'. Then comes the gradual through the letters and journals of the First ers and the Australians. On both sides, degradation, the slow death of understand- Fleeters to an underwater, an aquatic expe- there is a mixture of puzzlement and con- ing. The 'springtime of trust' turns out to be rience. Clendinnen takes as her academic tempt as they stare at the strange figures fleeting and dissolves into violence. mantra Milan Kundera's phrase 'Man pro- before them. There is the exchange of Inga Clendinnen is a rare scholar. She ceeds in a fog'. Everything is strange here, in women, weapons and fish. They share also dismisses academic jargon and writes this misty and submerged place called the the violence of men. Two warrior cultures. clearly. She ventures into dark subjects past. Yet through the patchwork process One side is horrified at the hangings, the that require honesty, empathy and moral of research, Clendinnen lets us hear bits of gibbets, the slash and burn of the cat-o'- courage. She refuses to be silenced by the conversation, distant voices and songs from nine-tails. The other side shocked at the mawkish ideologies that are rife in the Botany Bay. domestic beatings, the blows across the current political climate. She seeks some Clendinnen gives us a wonderful picture head and the rape of women. To each party, common ground. Dancing with Strangers of the chaos and misunderstandings of those the other's violence seemed aberrant and is a work of great beauty. • years. The initial encotmter between black uncontrolled. and white is one that begins with dancing. There is also, initially, a careful diplo- Kirsty Sangster is a poet. Her first collection, As one Lieutenant William Bradley, sec- macy and a degree of collective political Midden Pla ces, will be published by Black ond in command of HMS Sirius, recounts: bargaining. Clendinnen, in her description Pepper Press in 2004. JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 39 hook'>:.~ Jim David son Not another word Death Sentence: T he Decay of Public Language, Don Watson. Knopt, 20m. ISBN I 740:11 20(, 'i, 1uu• S2l).9'i A NYBODY WHO WRHES' book on bngu•ge, •nd its imperative has been to turn needs into wants. (Or particularly its misuse, runs the risk of being dismissed should that be to turn wants into needs? No matter, as an old fart. But Don Watson writes so wittily about so long as it turns a dollar.) And marketing now goes the problem he discerns, one which he sees as lying everywhere the m edia goes, which today is just about at the heart of contemporary life, that most people everywhere. Meanwhile, since the '80s, the overlap reading Death Sentence will be both instructed and between business and politics has seen a merger of amused. It ain't just grammar he's after, not even the political and economic language, a consequence of errant apostrophe. As he says, in one amongst many economics being seen as the main game. Business lan aphorisms, 'To work on the grammar is like treating guage itself has got worse, 'mauled by the new religions a man's dandruff when he has gangrene'. Or again, of technology and management'. So there is a paradox: when he gets into his stride attack at a time when the language is ing verbless sludge: 'Split infinitives expanding as never before-20,000 are not the problem with public lan new words are added each year- the guage. In its modern form there are capacities of everyday speech are not enough infinitives to split.' actually declining. One of the book's epigraphs is This is at once evident in poli drawn from Orwell's 1984, where tics. Politicians not only fail to one character points out that New speak in arresting ways, but now speak is designed to narrow the lack even the words to do so. There whole range of thought. We may has been no inspirational summa have escaped-at last- the totali tion of September 11-though JFK tarian spectre that novel raised, but would have fo und one. And that's other forms of control have been quite apart fr om what Burke or refined. The new management Pitt or Lincoln, all discussed here, speak, as Watson demonstrates, is would have made of it. Instead of now seeping into everything. It may Pericles .. . Little Johnny. The Prime be the language of the leaders rather Minister's letter about the terrorist than the led, and it may be true that threa t is here subjected to a with people write in manereal-diseased ering analysis, totally justified by prose because it is expected of them. the banality of its concepts and But now one hears of 'accountabl e' language. As Watson says, Howard foo tball- from a foo tballer-or, 'They risk-taked all makes everything sound the same. (The PM hea d day'-from a coach. A brother might even say to his butts like a sheep, implementing a boredom strategy.) sister how a newborn child 'value-adds' to the rela Watson also points out how these days our leaders tionship with his partner. The book provides many worry less about what they say than the visual effect: examples of the charmless prose we are all subjected Howard hugging survivors at Bali, Dubya landing on to these days, prose which Watson variously describes board an aircraft carrier dressed in full military attire. as clag, gruel or porridge. Keynes, says Watson, would No wonder the Prim e Minister's letter said so little probably have been unable to develop his theories if about the Australian way of life that had to be pre they had been ventured in such verbiage. You can't joke served: the accompanying visuals said it all. We need in it, sing it, or exercise the imagination in it. Mean to defend our sacred right to go to the beach. while it spreads like an oil slick. The language of eve Characteristic of this book is the broad perspec ryday speech in turn has become 'less like a language tive Don Watson brings to this subject. Death sentence and more like just what happens when you open your may, he is well aware, already have been passed; resist mouth'. ance may be futile. 'Managerial language', he writes, How have we got into this mess? The primacy of 'may be to the information age what the assembly marketing has a great deal to do with it, as marketing line was to the industrial'. Another comparison comes has never been much concerned with truth. Rather, to mind: we had scarcely absorbed the impact of the 40 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 Industrial Revolution, then along cam e the technologi letter or two, the wrong word is used-as in the injunc cal one, effectively putting a brand new motor inside an tion, not 'Seize the day' but 'Cease the day!' Then there old chassis. Clearly it is m eant to run on hot air- if it is computer mangling, cutting off letters as if they were doesn't shake to pieces. One of the most telling obser so m any decimal points; the perfection of highly acces vations in the book is that many people are letting go of sible printing, privileging presentation over content, the language simply because it is ancient. also has much to answer fo r. A section of the book fo cuses on the peculiarly Watson is m erciless about the overuse of certain Australian dimension of the problem . Since the cant words, such as commitment, enhancem ent and nation was founded as a penitentiary, the most utili the like, but says little about 'product', a word now tarian of purposes and externally imposed, it com es extended from the physically m easurable to a wilder as no surprise that not one of the first half dozen ness of shysterism, or- my favourite-'exciting', the governors made a remark worth rem embering. But word which reduces us all to being a great big bunch the habit remained; as Watson shows, Australian of kiddies. N evertheless, he does provide 'exercises' at statesmen (let alone politicians) have gener- the back of the book, and says we should all start some ally shied away from ideals and abstractions. where. Journalists should challenge politicians more: 'At the end of what day?' Wherever we can, we should EOR A LONG T IME the space remained occupied by roll back the gunk. Empire-speak; it is no accident that Whitlam, who This is a book of unusual significance, a m editation challenged much of that, is the greatest exception. on our times as much as a work on language. Having Laconic, practical and inventive our language may be, been at various tim es historian, writer, satirist, country but there's no real place in it for idealism or refl ection. boy and speech-writer, Don Watson has drawn from an So m anereal-diseased language seems to have marched unusually wide conspectus to produce Death Sentence. further into public discourse here than anywhere else. It is as much a refl ection on his experience as Recollec There are som e aspects of the problem Watson tions of a Bleeding Heart, and will still be read-and doesn't address. The dramatic reduction in tenses, for enjoyed-in 50 years' time. one; m ost people operate now on a simple present, past, future. In reading, words tend to becom e ikons, Jim Davidson is a Professor of History at Victoria recognised as a whole; rather than being misspelt by a University of Technology. Love ought to show itself in Sept.1999 Appointed Associate Director, Office for Ecumenal and deeds more than in words. lnterreliJious Afralrs, Archdiocese of Chicago. -St. Ignatius of Loyola May1999 Initiates Catholic-Muslim I!IIUcallon Project for high school students In Clllalp. 1997 Cl'llllulllls fiom Weston Jesuit School of"'--oaJ's MISter of Theological Slud'- Pfosram; specialization in Catholic-Muslim relations. 1995 Jesuit Volunteer Corps: coordinates afterschool tutorins prosnam for Inner-city native IIIIHII'ican children. 1993 Arch-'oslcli dia In Jordan; experiences Islam firsthand. WESTON JESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Telephone (617) 492-1960 • Fax (617) 492-5833 A N INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CENTER Admissionsln [email protected] • www.wjst.edu For information please contact: Office of Admiss ions . Weston jes uit Sc hool of Th eology 3 Phil lips Place • Cambridge, MA 02138 ·3495 USA f iNANCIAL A ID IS AVAILABLE JANUARY- FEBRU A RY 2004 EUREKA STREET 41 books:S Deborah Gare Examining the remains Black Kettle and Full Moon: Daily life in a vanished Australia, Geoffrey Blainey. Vik ing, 2003. ! >;BN 0670041.327, RR P $45 K LMAR<> m Goofhcy Bbinoy'' '"""" indudo hi, strong relationship with significant events. Nowhere is this spectacularly good titles and his masterful command of prose. m ore apparent than in Blainey's discussion of moonlight. For Devotees of Blainey have long admired both qualities in such books just as the society hostess relied on her almanac to plan an even t as The Tyranny of Distance, A Land Half Won, The Rush that around a predicted full moon, knowing that guests would have Never Ended and Triumph of the Nomads. In his most recent book, sufficient light to travel by, so too did N ed Kelly employ a full Black Kettle and Full Moon, Blainey has triumphed again. moon for som e of his most daring robberies, ensuring sufficient The immediate impression Black Kettle and Full Moon moonlight to make a difficult getaway on horseback: gives is of a weighty volume in which Viking has given more care to the text than to the illustrations. The font is generously A glance at old almanacs reveals that he made his two celebrated sized and spaced, spread over a significant number of pages. But raids on banks-at the small town of Euroa in December 1878, and though it has been dressed with period images on the cover and Jerilderie the following February- when the moon was full . The on the inside, these seem to lack the punch and creativity that raids were carried out when the moon was in such a position as to might have otherwise completed a terrific book. be favourable to their enterprise. The unusual and valuable thing about Black Kettle and Full Moon is that it covers a forgotten period of Australian It seems that the Eureka Stockade m ay have been planned history-the years between the 19th-century gold rushes and around the advent of the full moon. A fact, argues Blainey, that the cataclysmic days of the Great War. The historical con was critical both in the strategy and in the defeat of the stockad sciousness of most Australians, if they have one, tends to jump ers. Explorers such as Burke and Wills and, m ore successfully, from the Eureka Stockade of the 1850s, landing momentarily John Forrest, made use of the moonlight as they advanced across at federation, to Gallipoli and the birth of the Anzac legend. unfamiliar desert terrain. It is partly for these reasons that this The period that Blainey recovers here is a forgotten one in our is an exciting book. In uncovering the aspects of 'everyday' life national m em ory, yet he considers it to be both 'crucial' and and custom that are now forgotten, Blainey has also added to our 'fascinating'. understanding of certain key events within Australian history. This is m ostly a social history of Australia, but it's not a In the second part of the book, Blainey describes the social rehash of the many others now in circulation. It pays close atten and domestic aspects of Australian life. He writes of how tion to the details of everyday life for earlier Australians. This Australians cooked, what they ate, what they smoked, and where is not a 'big picture' history. Rather, it looks at what people ate, they shopped. He describes the household economies that were drank and read; where and how they shopped; how they told the made in times of financial hardship-the patched clothes that time, cast light into a darkened room and forecast the weather. children wore, the way food was seen as the main target of con Black Kettle and Full Moon has two parts. The first resonates stricting family budgets. In the 1890s, writes Blainey, the 'land with Blainey's earlier books, in terms of technology and science. of m eat had temporarily become, for many, the land of dripping'. An interest in such things as climate, gas lighting, printing, ship Pumpkin, potatoes and bread were the cheapest items in the ping and cameras is quintessential Blainey. Indeed, in some ways 1890s kitchen pantry, though many looked to cut back on such this book is what his Tyranny of Distance set out to do 40 years expensive items as beef, pork, butter, cheese, bacon and eggs. Even ago: it praises the scientific advancements of Australians and coffee, tea, beer and tobacco were quickly rationed when neces captures the way that technology shaped their everyday lives. sary. And in times of adversity, social services were rarely avail As he says, the story starts out with can dles and billy tea, and able. Instead, these were the years in which friendly societies, concludes with ice cream and the telephone. trade unions and community co-operatives were the A combination of science and m yth ruled m any aspects of main source of social support. Australian life during this time: an often uncomfortable balance between what was proven to work in the antipodean climate and B uT THIS WAS ALSO the age of chocolate and sweet treats. In what was still protected by superstition from the old country. fact, w rites Blainey, the appetite for cocoa and chocolate was We are told that farmers killed livestock and planted crops based indulged more often in Australia than in England, where people on the pattern of the moon; that households made their own were generally less wealthy. And though the chocolate bar itself candles by pouring fat into m etal moulds; that the new steel pen was probably not in common currency until nearer to the Great aided the advancement of the letter as a conveyor of news. War, boiled lollies were cheap and had long been a favourite. These quaint tales of everyday customs had a surprisingly T hese kinds of small details have appeared regularly in all of 42 EU REKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 Blainey's work. But in Blacl< Kettle and Full Moon he indulges in a rich collection of anecdotes, stories and factual accounts, showing how the combination of all these things added up to an Australian way of life. For example, on the Australian penchant for sweet things, Blainey writes that the word 'lolly' was prob adonna, the ma~azine of prayer and ably in use from the 1850s. While luxurious chocolates were nor spirituality helps to nourish the spirit and mally imported from Europe for the affluent, boiled sweets were feed the soul by offerin~ today's Christian ... as often made in family kitchens as they were in urban factories. Those who did buy their sweets from a store would find them Links Prayer and Life displayed in tall glass jars on the shop counter: In a popular and accessible way the Daily Prayer reflections help to enhance the spiritual The shopkeeper thrust his hand inside the jar and clutched the lot development of readers. lies and then weighed them or counted them. The sticky sweets Inspirational readin! were wrapped in newspaper or greaseproof paper and then handed to Articles and pers onal stories the purchaser. Most lollies were touched by human fingers ... It was reflect on the presence of God believed that glass jars protected lollies from germs and dust. The in people's lives. germs, however, entered the jar at their pleasure. The shopkeeper did not wear gloves and did not use metal tongs, and so the lollies An appreciation of Christian were easily contaminated. But the feeling among medical men was belief and practice that, if an infectious disease was traced to a shop, goods in jars were Madonna helps people to find safe but goods in the open air were suspect. their place within the tradition and culture of the Church, and Blainey has often tended to focus on the south-east cor to communicate core Catholic ner of Australia, particula~ly Victoria. To me, the test of this teachings and beliefs. book's strength was whether it embraced the peripheries of the Subscribe today and receive nation as much as it did the people of Sydney and Melbourne. And it's not too bad. John Forrest appears on the same pages an extra copy FREE. as Burke and Wills. The account of the complicated routine in To find out more about Madonna Melbourne to broadcast the progress of the mail steamer from p lease visit www.madonna~niin•a•z ····· England is accompanied by the practices in Perth, Brisbane and Sydney. We find that Hobart had two mail deliveries Len~th of subscription a day while Sydney and Launceston had fo ur. And though 0 One year (6 issues for $30 inc. GST) PLUS ONE ISSUE Blainey might have reverted in Part Two to a customary use FREE of Victoria's post-gold rush decades as representative of all 0 Two years (12 issues for $57 inc. GST) PLUS TWO Australia, he appears to resist the temptation and continues to ISSUES FREE pay surprising attention to the rest of the nation Your contact details: both urban and rural. Mr/Miss/Ms/Mr First Name Surname B uT THERE ARE STILL some readers for whom alarm bells will Street No. Street Name rightly ring. Black Kettle and Full Moon claims to be a history of 'our forebears' which, by necessity, excludes the great numbers of City/Town/Suburb Stale Postcode people who descend from Australia's immigrants of the 20th cen tury. It suggests that Blainey's Australia is still a British Australia, Daytime Telephone No. Fax/email both then and possibly now. It implies what many already sup pose, that he is uncomfortable with the period of Australia's his tory that has followed World War II . Little is said about rich and Payment details: poor, convicts or Aborigines, churches, clothes and houses. But, 0 I enclose a cheque/money order for $ 1 then, Blainey doesn't claim to do so. made payable to Jesuit Publications '------' T he innovation of this book, combined with all the hallmarks 0 Please debit my credit card for$ I J of Blainey's own trade, makes it a significant and highly read 0 Visa 0 Bankcard 0 Mastercarcl able contribution to the bookshelves of Australian history. It is Card No. unlikely to incite controversy among the profession. Rather, it I I I I II I I I II I I I II I I I I will be valued and appreciated by those who normally enjoy his I Cardholders name work, and questioned, even disliked by those who normally do not. Black Kettle and Full Moon is based on important new m ate I I Signatu1e Expiry date rial. But it is not a new Blainey. • Dr Deborah Gare is a lecturer in the College of Arts and Letters Send the form with payment to: at the University of N otre Dame (Australia). Madonna, Reply Paid 553, Richmond Vic 3121 JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 43 Rebecca Marsh Firebrand No Logo, Naomi Kkin. Flamingo, 2001 . I~B:-< 0 00 6 =i 3040 0, JUU' $24.9:1 Tm's A eAm m botte 44 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 poetry Kate Llewellyn is that 'as more people discover the brand-name secrets of the global logo web, their outrage will fuel the next big political move ment, a vast wave of opposition squarely targeting transnational corporations'. While Klein documents a wide breadth of resist ance to transnational corporations, her focus is largely on uni versity-educated activists in the West and does not convincingly herald the growth of a large global movement. What No Logo does successfully document is the myriad of strategic and i.J.mo vative resistances to multinational corporations. The mapping of patterns and strategies of resistance, criticism and change are very useful and provide strong models for subsequent activism. Klein's discussion of the limitations of consumer campaigns is particularly salutary. K LEIN ALSO UNRAVELS some of the gender, class and etlmicity threads running through patterns of brand globalisation. She observes that in the US, it is the richer neighbourhoods that are Morning able to maintain independent stores and unbranded public spaces. Poorer neighbourhoods are the targets of franchise saturation and The yellow chair and the red invasive intrusions into public spaces, including aggressive bill boarding and branding of public sporting facilities. She highlights sit at the pine table on the verandah the parallels between factory workers in developing countries waiting for tea. and franchise workers in the West. Significantly, in a replication of class divisions on a global scale, it is in those non-Western countries that are poorest and least protect human rights-such The voice of that crow as Burma, Nigeria, China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka-that transna I can't kill tional corporations proliferate, producing non-essential goods for comparatively wealthy Westerners. saws through the chairs' legs. Despite the excellent research and well-reasoned central arguments, Klein sometimes digresses onto historical tangents. Green hills sit hands in laps These are often weak, unsupported and do little to aid her thesis. During her discussion of current worker discontent in the West, smoke coming from their nostrils. Klein says that 'the fear that the poor will storm the barricades is as Here come the guinea fowl old as the castle moat'. She supports this contention with a motley last to roost and first to rise- and discmmected assortment of evidence including an observation by Bertrand Russell on Victorian class fear, an account of her dying a flock of nuns ringing their tiny bells. grandfather's mental confusion, an anecdote about fear of servants in the Punjab and the i.J.1crease of gated communities in the US. Similarly, Klein's claim that student activism around identity An island floats in the dam politics ill the early 1990s was to blame for the incursion of tran a burnt meringue in a green jelly. snationals ii1to universities is both unsubstantiated and poorly One wild duck drags its silver victory flag argued. Klein provides little evidence to support her claim other than her own memories of university. She directs her critique around and around the dam solely at feminist activists 'fighting about women's studies and while the blond boy sleeps on the latest backlash book while their campuses were being sold in this old wooden house out from under their feet'. The reader may well ask where every body else was. After making such a strong case for the sophistry sailing through the breathless morning. of advertisers and the insidious undermining of public space and choice by branded corporations, this finger pointing seems a little simplistic and incongruous. -Kate Llewellyn It is the gripping nature of Klein's writing, however, that makes No Logo so compelling and provoking. With her penetrat ing gaze, her savage and insightful analysis, Klein enables us to see that the transnational emperors are wearing no clothes. After reading No Logo, our choices, particularly our consumer choices, become politicised and powerful. • Rebecca Marsh is a Research Fellow at Deakin University School of Health Sciences. jANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 45 Ruth and Charles and Elvira is perhaps when they talk about 'the help' and how the m ost enjoyable part of the show. difficult it is to get the right staff. When on stage The contrast between the strait-laced, the cook nms off after being completely uptight Ruth, played by the very funn y spooked by the paranormal goings-on of the Roz Hammond, and the sexy, carefree household, Ruth is consoled by her friend Elvira, played by Pamela Rabe, turns the who reassures her: 'Servants are awful, concepts of alive and dead on their heads. aren't they? Not a shred of gratitude-at the Rabe appears to be the most 'alive' of the sign of trouble they run out on you-like Close encounters play's characters, with the exception rats leaving a sinking ship.' perhaps of Madame Arcati. The language is gorgeously antiquated The scene in which Elvira makes the by today's standards, with terms like transition from a spirit to the ghost that 'fiddlesticks', 'cowardy custard' and I T TOOK EN cum playwright Noel Charles can see and interact with is excel 'pompous ass'. Their quaintness does Coward less than a week to write Blithe lent. The lighting on Rabe and her dress, not diminish their power, as many of Spiiit. It was penned in 1941, not long and even her skin colour, seem somehow Coward's dry observations about life and after the Blitz bombings of London. Many ethereal. She plays the mischievous, the human condition remain true. His critics surmise that Coward sought relief cheeky spirit very well, baiting Charles fast-paced, witty dialogues, especially from what was an increasingly mad world about the nervousness and bad humour of between Charles and his wives, are rather through his immersion in the bizarre world his second wife. He he creates. Coward himself suggested the is initially defensive, same: 'I will be ever grateful to the almost but her barbs con psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe vince him to look at Spiiit in five days during one of the darkest his second wife with years of the war.' new eyes. The irony is that Coward chooses Much comic to write a comedy about death. Murder material is drawn mystery writer Charles Condomine and from the idea of his wife, Ruth, invite the local psychic, returning from the Madame Arcati, to their home to perform dead-Rabe's charac a seance. Charles is writing a novel about ter mentions having a fraudulent homicidal psychic and wants met Merlin, play to draw material from Madame's behaviour ing backgammon to flesh out his character. 'with a sweet old The trouble occurs when Charles' first Oriental gentleman wife, Elvira, speaks to him during the Ghengis Khan' seance. He is the only one present who and Joan of Arc can hear her voice. Elvira then appears to ('she's quite fun!'). Charles-and Charles only-having appar Coward plays with Miriam Margo Iyes as Madame Arca ti . Photo: Jeff Busby. ently been summoned back to the world terminology and of the living. In spite of himself, Charles social euphemisms as well. At one stage, like a tennis game with long, powerful is lured into her 'reality' and manipulated Charles refers to Elvira as dead, to which rallies, heightening in intensity with into enjoying himself with Elvira at the she replies 'Not dead Charles-"passed each hit. It is a script full of Wilde-like expense of poor Ruth. over". It's considered vulgar to say " dead" observations, together with ordinary Blithe Spiiit explores the relationship where I come from.' statements used to comic effect. between husband and wife; it profits from Madame Arcati, the town's psychic, is Directed by former MTC artistic the insatiable curiosities we have about played by the inimitable Miriam Margolyes. director Roger Hodgman, Blithe Spirit our partners' previous loves, the jealousies She is completely over-excitable, yet is an enjoyable and well-executed pro and the misunderstandings. The interac presents as one of the few real characters, duction. It doesn't stretch one's mind tion between Charles (William Mchmes) unaffected as she is by social expectation and indeed was not intended to be any and his wives-alive and dead-proves full or convention, which contrasts nicely thing more than an amusement. Coward of comic opportunity. with the cloistered behaviour of Ruth and himself called it 'An Improbable Farce Mcinnes does well playing the hen Charles. Well known for her appearances in Three Acts'. In a time when it seem s pecked husband, whose life has been run by in Blacl< Adder, Romeo+[uliet, and recent our world is going mad, in ways reminis women, starting with his mother and con Harry Potter movies, Margolyes is a fabu cent of Coward's, the play provides wel tinuing with his two wives, even though he lous actor, and her presence on stage brings com e relief and carries you off to another remains in denial. 'You won't even let me a palpable tension and excitement. world, albeit briefly. • have my own hallucinations,' he cries to Coward mocks the English upper his second wife. classes for their insular and snobbish Kerrie O'Brien is a freelance writer and The banter between Charles and attitudes. This is particularly apparent editor. 46 EUR EKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 film Jo Dirks The price of peace DO BLMEIER 1S recent ential in the development of US social plotting to overthrow Hitler. Bonhoeffer film Bonhoeffer is a documentary on ethics. There are evocative images of accepted and used his connections in the life of anti-Nazi Dietrich Bonhoeff er Bonhoeffer at the black Abyssinian international ecumenical circles to pass (1906-45). It shows Bonhoeffer's trans Baptist Church in N ew York (1930-31). on messages. One of the most important formation from pacifist to conspirator There he found exuberant worship and messages from the group was to George in a plot to kill Hitler. The US film spiritual songs, records of which he Bell, who was also a member of the maker, based in Washington, has mixed brought back to Germany and played Westminster Parliament. Bell did speak together archival footage, interviews for his own students. These experiences in the British Parliament, but the plot with Bonhoeffer 's relatives, contempo undoubtedly influenced him to take a ters were told they were on their own. rary theologians and churchmen, includ strong stance against the treatment of Ironically, Bonhoeffer is now captured ing Archbishop Tutu, and photos from the Jews in Germany. in stone on the facade of Westminster the Bonhoeffer family archive. Yet the film does not shy away from Abbey. Doblmeier doesn't show this, The perennial issue of censorship showing the human side of Bonhoeffer, but Bonhoeffer's is one of ten new comes up in the opening sequence of his doubts and weaknesses, such as giving statues unveiled by the Archbishop of the film. Nazi thugs toss books onto a into fear and not preaching at the funeral Canterbury, in the presence of royalty, street bonfire. This is contrasted with of his sister's Jewish father-in-law, a deci church leaders and representatives from the genteel and aristocratic atmosphere sion that Bonhoeffer deeply regretted. On many parts of the world, on 9 July 1998. of an extended family gathering in his second visit to America, just before Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King the Bonhoeffer home. Bonhoeffer was the outbreak of war, Bonhoeffer admit are two of the others honoured in stone. born into a privileged class. His father ted he had made a mistake in fleeing Forbidden to write, Bonhoeffer none was Professor of Psychology at Berlin the coming disaster. Only those who theless began his Ethics, published after University. This contrast between the stayed in Germany would earn the right his death, in which he rejects Luther's family gatherings and Hitler's night to have a say in the reconstruction, he ' two kingdoms' doctrine where the time ranting, the rallies and torchlight said. He sailed back to Germany from political and secular realm have nothing marches sets the mood for the film. New York on the last ship before to do with Christian ethics and obedi 'We should not harm anyone. But we the war started. ence. This issue is still hotly debated. will not allow anyone to harm us.' This Does the church have a prophetic voice strike-first policy belongs to Adolf Hitler. BONHOEFFER's FIANCEE was Maria in the public arena? There are those who Sadly, similar words are heard in our own von Wedemeyer, whose grandfather pro prefer the church to be silent. day to justify pre-emptive warfare. The vided the house where the illegal seminary Bonhoeffer failed to convince his conflict between good and evil is aptly of Finkenwalde was located. In interviews church to stand by the Jews, failed to summed up in the Edmund Burke phrase with Maria's sister, Alice von Bismarck, rouse the Allies on behalf of the German 'The only thing necessary for the triumph Doblmeier skilfully interweaves the resistance and failed to topple Hitler. of evil is for good men to do nothing'. intimate and the social. The regal and He died broken on the gallows, yet Doblmeier shows how slow the gracious Alice cries as she recounts the Doblmeier presents the execution as a churches, Protestant and Catholic, were doomed couple's story and her sister's Christ-like sacrifice. Bonhoeffer's life to recognise Hitler for what he was. The defiant and loving gesture in her last speaks of a costly, lived discipleship that most telling image is of Hitler greeting meeting with Bonhoeffer in prison. makes him a compelling figure nearly 60 Abbot Schachleitmer and Reichbischof Doblmeier has a few surprises years after his death. • Mueller at a Nuremberg rally. The for the viewer. In the mid-1930s, Catholic bishops were cunningly neu Bonhoeffer was about to go to India to Jo Dirks SSS is the Australian Provincial tralised by Hitler's concordat with the study non-violence with Gandhi when of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation, Vatican. Bonhoeffer felt betrayed by his the Finkenwalde project was offered a member of the Council of YTU in own Lutheran Church to such an extent him. The other surprise is Bonhoeffer's Melbourne and board m ember of the that he became part of a group of dissent friendship with the Anglican bishop of Christian Media Trust. ing clergy who formed the 'Confessing Chichester, George Bell. This friendship Church' . Doblmeier includes footage proved vital when Bonhoeffer was Bonhoeffer will be released nationally on of Bonhoeffer in New York, where he invited by his brother-in-law, an officer DVD/VHS by Ronin Films on l February, studied under Richard Niebuhr, influ- in German Intelligence, to join a group (02) 6248 0851. JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 47 1. Who was Ambane-Lai? N ame the literary work in dispositions which were then uppermost: which he appeared and its author. -Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,-I am verily 2. Name the title and author of the book in which persuaded I should have made a quite differ this is the first line: ent figure in the world, from that, in which (i) My godmother lived in a handsome house in the reader is likely to see me. the clean and ancient town of Bretton. (iv) I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell m y (ii) It was a warm day and they had behaved, as husband I don't want to be married to him any they had promised they could, so there must 1nore. be ice-cream. (iii) I wish either my father or my mother, or 3. Who wrote the hymn 'How Sweet the Name of indeed both of them, as they were in duty Jesus Sounds', and what were his other claims to both equally bound to it, had minded what fame? they were about when they begot mei had 4. If you counted all the stars in the Milky Way at they duly considered how much depended the rate of one every second, how long would it upon what they were then doingi-that not take you to count them all? only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy 5. Whose neglect by the Puteaux Cubists led to a formation and temperature of his body, new art movement? perhaps his genius and the very cast of his 6. What do Walter Pater and Ouida have in common? mindi-and for aught they knew to the con trary, even the fortunes of his whole house 7. What was the building demolished to make way might take their turn from the humours and for the Melbourne Trades Hall? Q u z 48 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 •• 8. Who said: 23. Name the runners-up in the Australian, the UK (i) 'It can take 100 years to build up a good brand and the US Idol contests. and 30 days to knock it down.' 24. Name the CEOs of (i) Billiton; (ii) Orica; (ii) 'I think I have to be there for the party to (iii) WMC. move forward.' (iii) 'Democracy passes into despotism.' 25. Where would you find an Oppidan during a half? 9. Which Australian male swimmer won two gold 26. Define (i) eukaryote; (ii) prokaryote; (iii) karaoke. medals at the Mexico Olympics? Bonus points for creativity here. 10. Between 1820 and 1920, how many immigrants 27. Define (i) creationism; (ii) creative account entered the United States of America? ing; (iii) creation myth. Bonus points for poetry, doggerel, limericks, aphorisms or inspired rants. 11. What is a benami transaction? 28. What are (i) the ILO; (ii) ELO? 12. Define: (i) a Faraday cage; 29. What is the name of N ed Flanders' dead wife? (ii) a Mandelbrod set; 30. What did Will Danby, Hector Grant, Will Strong (iii) a bundle of Vicq d' Azur. and J.P. McColl have in common? 13 . What is the winter diet of the Smoky Mouse (Pseudomys fumeus)? 14. Who was author David Brock's childhood political hero? 15. (i) Who won the 2003 Walkley Award for Television Current Affairs Reporting (less than 20 minutes)? (ii) What was the program that won it? 16. What caused Peter Costello to 'spit the dummy' on someone else's birthday? 17. Who has been called 'the great Narcissus of Australian politics' and by whom? Gi d eo n H a igh 18. Why, unlike Britain, Canada and Australia, has the United States of America never developed its own version of Vegemite? Marks given for the When you have done your best, most likely, and for the most creative answers. post, fax or email your answers by 19. Who was the first woman in Australia to: 1 February 2004 to: Eureka Street (i) graduate from a university? Summer Quiz, PO Box 553, Richmond (ii) lead a political party? (iii) win the Archibald Prize? VIC 3121, fax: 03 9428 4450, or email: eureka@eureka. jespub. jesuit.org.au. 20. What was demolished to make way for what next was demolished to make way for the Sydney Please include your name, address and Opera House? Seriously. phone number. The winners will each receive 21. Why is it better to have round manhole covers a copy of Gideon Haigh's 'compendium of than square ones? illuminating knowledge' Uncyclopedia, courtesy 22. Which mainland European dialect is considered of Text Publishing. by linguists to be closest to English? Winners and answers in our March issue. JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 EUREKA STREET 49 Matthew Klu gman The games couples play A chess challenge for keen players C HESS rs A revealmg ga me. The knockout tournament and features Mrs troubles by sacrificing two pawns for a great range of pieces creates a wealth of Rowena Bruce (the World Girls Champion speculative attack. possibilities-it has been calculated that in 1935 and eight times British Ladies 19. BdS dxe3 there are more possible chess games than Champion) playing her husband, Mr Ron 20. Rae1 exd2?? atoms in the universe-and the styles of Bruce. Many years before this game Mr A greedy mistake- a counter-attacking play we choose often reveal much of our Bruce had taught Mrs Bruce how to play move such as ReS or even h6 would have mood and character. At times, some peo- chess, and so this gam e also shows how held White's attack and given Black the ple can't seem to resist going on an all- one day the student might take their edge, as White would have struggled to out attack every time they play, striving revenge on the teacher (and so reveals a defend both her bishops. through pressure and sacrifice to destroy nightmare of mine). 21. Rxe8 Rxe8 their opponent as quickly as they can. Mrs Bruce sets herself for an Others en joy slowly denying space and attack on her husband's king, play to their opponent, strangling them to while he marshals his pieces .I. death. Som e players tend to spend most of around the centre. All seems to *B their time searching for beautiful moves be going well for Mr Bruce as Mrs and combinations, while others delight Bruce becom es increasingly des- :1 B:1 :1!.:1 7 in a bleakly pragmatic approach. Some perate-until Mr Bruce becom es 6 even enjoy frustrating the efforts of their too greedy and is destroyed by a :1 1:1 opponents with stubborn defence, before beautiful combination . 5 gradually building a counter-attack. White Black ;lg ~ Like those who analyse art and society, (Mrs Bruce) (Mr Bruce) analysts of chess have come up with a l. f4 Nf6 ~~ 4 myriad of theories. These range from 2. e3 g6 j the sublime to the brutal, such as the 3. Nf3 Bg7 ;g advice of Ruy Lopez, a 16th-century 4. d4 0-0 ~ Spanish priest, who recommended plac- 5. Bd3 cS gg ing the board in a manner that makes 6. c3 b6 :1 your opponent have to look into the 7. 0-0 Bb7 1: sun . I like to think that the theories of 8. Nbd2 d6 ;i~ a b c d c g h chess echo the great epochs of Western 9. h3 Nbd7 thought. There was the renaissance of 10. Qe1 Qc7 Suddenly White is able to unleash a Lopez, who showed the importance of ll. g4 eS beautiful combination that checkmates quick development; the enlightenment 12. fxeS dxeS Black in five m oves (that is, five moves by of Morphy who indicated the general 13. Qg3 NdS White and four counter moves by Black). rules for open games; the modernism 14. Ne4 Rae8 Can you see it? of people like Tarrasch who codified 15. Bd2 Kh8? The first person to send in the correct the importance of controlling the cen A waste of time. Black is better off playing combination • wins a copy of Cecil tre; and the so called 'hyper-modern' in the centre, which his pieces are starting Purdy's Guide to Good Chess, which has movem ent of players like Nimzovich to control- a simple move like Re7 with generously been donated by Chess World in the early 1900s, who undermined the Rfe8 to follow looks good. www.chessworld.com.a u Probably Aus rigid rules of the modernists. (In the late 16. Qh4 N5f6 tralia's most famous chess player, Purdy 1920s Nimzovich published perhaps the 17. NfgS threatening to win a piece was a World Correspondence Champion second-most famous book to have the on f6 as mate is threatened on h7 (e.g. and four-time Australian Champion. title My System.) Nx£6, Nx£6 followed by Rx£6 and if Black Solutions should be sent to: Eureka The fo llowing game illustrates another takes the rook then Qxh7 checkmate). Street Chess Challenge, PO Box 553, revelation-the possibility of great change Bxe4 Richmond, VIC, 3 121. in a moment. My partner found it in an 18. Bxe4 exd4! ·r will accept fo ur-move combinations old book compiled from a BBC radio series Black, following the adage that when as one of the five is simply a last-gasp on chess, Chess Treasury of the Air, and all else is equal the attack in the middle interposition by Black. presented it to me with a wicked gleam in should defeat the attack on the wing, is in her eye. The game took place in a 1950s a better position. White responds to her Matthew Klugman is a Melbourne writer. 50 EUREKA STREET jANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 t ~ hort list Frontier Justice: Weapons of mass destruction The Nicholson scenario underscores the power of political and the bushwacking of America, Scott Ritter. cartoonists, and in an age of polished spin and obfuscation, we have Scribe, 2003 . ISBN 1 920769 04 8, RRP $2S never been more in need of their sharp analysis. While we might George Orwell would have been proud of recognise the name of a columnist and inm1ediately read on, or turn Scott Ritter's latest book, Frontier Justice. the page, the cartoonist is much more likely to get his or her message It continues the tradition of using clear and across in one hit. precise prose to cut through the spin, lies and - Marcelle Mogg hype that pollute our world. Ritter examines the foundations of the marketing of the war Quarterly Essay, 'Made in England: in Iraq, and exposes the half-truths and lies Australia's British Inheritance', David that led the American public into war, as Malouf. Blacklnc,2003. r~RN I R639S39S 7, well as those responsible. MADE IN RRP $ l2.9S The strength of Frontier Justice is that it goes beyond the sin ENGLAND I have long suspected that David Malouf AUSTRALIA'S BRffiSH gle issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to the deeper ideo INHERITANCE values what he perceives as his cool, rational logical struggle to define democracy, the rule of law and freedom. David English inheritance from his mother more The parallels that Ritter draws between the political strategies Malouf than the warmer, Mediterranean infusion of the Nazis and the Washington neo-conservatives or, as Ritter from his father. This essay-with his prose 'WMI'1'BWU.A.,._.UP'UeM•IT•Y.U._, labels them, the 'PNAC posse' [Project for the New American Moft. I'.A. o...do C..-., • .., Z~ky, MIW'Ck as detached and deliberate as ever-appears Century] are both eerie and disturbingly plausible. Some may say --~ to confirm my hypothesis but he seems to that Ritter's analogy in Frontier Justice between Bush and Hitler have been enticed into byways which are as is a tired leftist stereotype. However, the analogy is based on solid idiosyncratic as they are unconvincing. argument and highlights the gravity of the current American and I do not challenge his essential argument that language defines global predicament. culture. Indeed, the force of history (as well as language) is extraor Ritter recalls the words of Nazi minister, Hermann Goering dinarily enduring and Malouf presents well his belief that American at the Nuremberg trial: 'Why of course the people don't want war society is, in its tissue and public rhetoric, the product of the ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and Elizabethan England of the era of its foundation (can American denounce the peacemakers for a lack of patriotism and exposing solipsism be so readily accounted for?), whereas Australia is the post the country to danger.' The words are a powerful reminder that Enlightenment child of Englishmen who had become phlegmatic of abuses of power continue, whether in government or the media. temperament and utterance-hence our understated character and The exposure of such abuses in Frontier Justice makes it well cast of speech. worth reading. His view seems to be that the rest of us have pliably accepted -Godfrey Moase this fine, if austere, patrimony. Accordingly he ignores the profound Irish counter-influence, going so far as to call Patrick O'Farrell as a Best Australian political cartoons witness to the genteel adaptation by the wild Hibernians when they !:/Jest , i/";lla/ian POLITICAL CARTOONS 2003, Russ Radcliffe (c d). Scribe, entered a finer society. 2003 2003. ISBN 1 920769 06 4, RRI' $30 This is odd in an essay that draws so extensively- and engag r-:.... l ((·.:::; . ' At last year's Melbourne Writers' ingly-on history but sometimes Malouf's conclusions are eccentric, Festival, cartoonist Peter Nicholson even amblyopic. If it is a shock to read his opinion that Australian showed an early draft of his cartoon history has been 'unviolent' (how could anyone assert that nowa about Peter Hollingworth's handling days?), then it is simply bizarre for him to argue that 1941 was of the sexual abuse issue. The arch the watershed after which we were all 'fully alive at last to our bishop marches proudly onward, consciousness', deeply connected to the soil. stltc t ~ dbylhr nh dclllh INTR ODUCTION BY DON WATSON eyes on the future, leading his sheep, Few would concede that we have fully reached that state 60 while at the back of the pack, unseen years later but Malouf's assertion is of a piece with the pervasively by the archbishop, a ram rapes a panglossian tone of his perplexing essay. small lamb. There was an audible - John Carmody gasp from the audience. The published cartoon depicts the same And further ... scene with a vital diffference. The ram is staring down at the lamb, intent on intimidating, but without the sexual element the image Essays read most sharply when you can instantly see who is the is much less confronting. (The first, unpublished cartoon, forms arguing partner. In this respect, the previous Quarterly Essay by part of this collection.) Germaine Greer contrasts starkly with David Malouf's serene Russ Radcliffe's collection is a welcome assessment of the year celebration of the patterns of relationships and institutions past. Many of the cartoons depict the war in Iraq, and Australia that come with an English foundation. Perhaps at the heart US relations in light of the justness or otherwise of that conflict. of Malouf's Australian story is a defence of the Enlightenment Remember too that 2003 gave us the 'history wars', the jailing of against its critics. For me, the essay did its job-it led me to Pauline Hanson, the attempted dismantling of ATSIC, the ordina take up again Manning Clark's more dramatic m editation on tion of an Anglican bishop who declared himself gay, accusations the spiritual and cultural conflicts involved in the distinctively of ABC bias, the detention of children and Medicare overhauls. All Australian appropriation of the Enlightenment. have been rich fodder for Australia's excellent political cartoonists. -Andrew Hamilton jANUARY- FEBR UARY 2004 EU REKA STREET 51 limits of power. As the pair improvise string Campion's and her characters' casually duets together, so they question one another uptight way of dealing with danger is about war and personal ambition. genuin ely subversive and lends the film The questions linger, which is why more grace than gratuity. flasn in t this is an interesting film. They linger Framtie (Meg Ryan) is an English in the atmosphere that Weir conjures so teacher-sexually frustrated and lonely. skilfully- the sea, the French quarry in She meets homicide detective Jam es Crowe's nest the mist. But, finally, adventure rules, and Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) when a piece of Russell Crowe's implacably glamorous a woman's 'de-articulated' body ends up Ma ster And Commander: Th e in the garden bed below her apartment Far Side Of The World, dir. Peter window. The meeting is brief and fright Weir. The queues-and they're ening- charged with intelligence and cru long-are about 70 per cent dity. And so begins the fi lm's strange and male. Interesting, because what unusual beat. they get for their money, apart Encouraged by her half-sister Pauline from a couple of short, smoky (Jemtifer Jason Leigh) to pursue Malloy, 'if sea battles and Russell Crowe's only for the exercise', Frannie begins a dark (right) commanding swagger as slide into a relationship that is equal parts Captain Jack Aubrey, is a fair perfect and destructive. dose of life before the mast. It The scenes between Pauline and ain't all adventure: weevily food, Frannie are the highlights of In The Cut. hammocks that wreck your back Half-phrases and intimate understand and no workers' comp; weeks ings shared between two women who in the literal doldrums, a lot of have spent a lifetime together. This is shipboard domesticity at close where Campion's direction really comes quarters-sail sewing, deck alive. Full of enquiring detail and texture, swabbing, rope coiling. And obliging you to fo rget plot and soak up discipline-this is the British character. Ironically this is both the film's navy, 1805, under threat from downfall and its saving grace. The interior Napoleon, and with much of the imaginings of the film 's lead characters are crew press-ganged into service. drawn sharply but the plot is left flounder A man is fl ogged for declining to ing, almost to the point of silliness. salute an officer. Frustra ted by the mechanics of a It's also a film about personal thriller/slas her plot, In the Cut really command- the charisma and doesn't work. But boy oh boy would I pre integrity of leadership. (Maybe fer to see Campion's failures than most that accounts fo r its appeal at directors' successes. She is an important a time when leadership has director. She sees the edges of stories, the become an event staged with a desires that loiter in shadow (not the stand Thanksgiving turkey.) Aubrey ard hidden desires-shocking ones that has Admiralty orders to pursue a expand understanding rather than confi rm French friga te, the Acheron, a fa ster, bet Captain Aubrey, sailing off to another ing fear) and explores the form of cinema in ter equipped vessel than Aubrey's HMS daring encounter with the Acheron, complex risky ways. Surprise. But by his own admission, he embodies the film 's strength, but also its -Siobhan Jackson exceeds his orders from Brazil on, so the confining weakness. quest becomes a personal obsession as -Morag Fraser well as a test of his ability to carry m en Down by the river with him. There is m ore than a touch of Prince Hal Aubrey-even a version of the Sharp edges Mystic River, dir. Clint Eastwood. Dennis 'Once more unto the breech' speech. 'This Lehane builds his tragic crime novet ship is England', declares Aubrey. And his In The Cut, dir. Jane Campion. Campion Mystic River, out of an intimate and precise rhetoric works. sure can direct. Whether or not she can sense of what anchors people-to family, to Weir is interested, as he has been before subvert a genre and control a sprawling the place where they grew up, to dignity, to (remember Gallipoli?L in the whys of power slasher plot at the sam e time is still up a sense of themselves. So you understand, and how men wield it. In Master And fo r discussion. reading him, exactly what is lost when Commander he uses the pairing of Aubrey In The Cut is many things-both those anchors drift, or are cut loose. and his friend, the Irish ship's doctor and good and bad, edgy and flat, tragic and Clint Eastwood has absorbed and trans naturalist, Maturin (Pa ul Bettan y, exqui silly, erotic and irritating. These con lated Lehane's grasp of locale, of psycho site in repaired spectacles), to examine the tradictions are the fi lm's downfall, but logical context. He has also, in the quite 52 EUREKA STREET JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2004 superb casting of Mystic River, matched the monumentality of Lehane's characters. This is, simply, a magnificent film. Three men from the same Boston blue collar district meet in adulthood. All are damaged, in linked ways. Jimmy's daugh ter has just been mu rdered. Sean, now a Boston cop, is investigating. Dave, abused as a boy in an incident that left his two companions unscathed, is implicated. All three men have wives, families and connections somewhere between psycho criminal and just plain complicated. Could be GoodFellas-banal tribal evil, with banality being the point. But Lehane and Eastwood operate on a grander scale. These characters touch tragedy. The performances are extraordinary. Tim Robbins as Dave, the man-boy robbed of his childhood and innocence, is lit, by Eastwood and his crew, to become a kind of grotesque, a mirror of his own internal terrors. Sean Penn's Jimmy, the reformed rash, ardent, slightly tough and bereft father, is mesmerising priggish, good-hearted one of the finest performances and most romantic thrown complex characters you'll see on screen. into sudden poverty He has his own Lady Macbeth in Laurey by his father's death. Linney. Marcia Gay Harden, as Dave's Along with his mother accomplice-wife, Celeste, is Lady Macbeth and sister, he then haunted. Kevin Bacon, as the too-involved experiences the life cop, has Laurence Fishburne as a sharp of the poor in 19th tongued foil, and a reminder that this is century English society. crime genre- along with everything else. He earns the vindictive Eastwood's direction is masterful. All hatred of his wealthy his emphases, got by music, by quick uncle, Ralph Nickleby changes of angle or perspective, by sud (Christopher Plummer), den burst into light, are Lehane (a good by said priggishness wordy novelist) in another mode, fully and good-heartedness. He suffers, becomes Dotheboys Hall. He says his lines as if he rendered. But it is Eastwood too-this is acquainted with cruelty and despair, and means well, but doesn't understand English indelibly his work-in the dark sonority, also unexpected kindness and love. It is properly-and blends into scenes of 1830s the pace, the close focus on faces, and the easy to play it to the gallery, and why not? London only marginally better than Big faithful way he films the physical jostle of At feature-film length, if the main plotlines Bird would. One after the other, some of these people's lives, where wakes are held and characters of a Dickens novel come the best character actors in movies today in crowded kitchens, and in the gravity of across successfully, you're doing all right. dash their performances to pieces against his way of giving form to the tumult in Packed with Jim Broadbents and his irredeemably 21st-century handsome their hearts. Christopher Plummers and Barry dopiness. -Morag Fraser Humphrieses, Douglas McGrath's Nicholas In spite of Nicholas Nickleby's Nickleby is occasionally real fun in the faults, it would be unfair not to mention campy Christmas panto style (not that Julia Stevenson's Mrs Squeers, which Saint Nick there's anything wrong with that) but is impressive and far more terrifying is patchy and sometimes tiresome and than Jim Broadbent's Wackford Squeers. Nicholas Nickleby, dir. Douglas McGrath. raucous. Try as it does, the ensemble Heather Goldenhersh, as Fanny Squeers, is Charles Dickens' galleries of well-loved cannot get past the incomprehensible delightfully funny in her ill-fated pursuit of grotesques always seem to tempt fine actors error of casting Charlie Hunnam (late Nicholas. Romola Garai, as his sister Kate, to out-ham each other, and in Nicholas of Queer as Folk) as Nicholas Nicldeby. conveys with delicacy the horrors of her Nickleby (right), which deals directly Charlie Hunnam is a gorgeous young lowered caste. McGrath did better with his in dramatics and self-dramatisation, hunk with tousled long, blond hair and version of Emma in 1996-perhaps Jane the dream of the self is played out both truly magnificent abdominals, which Austen's simple, elegant plots are harder to in the theatre and in life. Nicholas is a he displays inexplicably in a scene at muss, even by blondes. -Lucille Hughes JANUA RY- FEBR UARY 2004 EU RE KA STRE ET 53 watching brief V. good New Yea r's reso lutions: 1. No more TV IQ tests that expose one's innumeracies and six respectively and we turned off the TV and read The Lord of estimate one's intelligence at somewhere between a One the Rings aloud to each other. Some of their pals found out and Nation voter and a newt. would come round and listen too. Long car rides became sunny 2. No more Big Brother, Survivor, Wild On, or suchlike fooler times of wonder, school holidays full of fi erce paper sword ies, on doctor's orders. fights and detailed map-making. The very memory of it has 3. Ration Pa ssions to one viewing a monthi won't miss any moved m e to create the following lines of what my Grandma thing of the plot at all, since it takes weeks for one day to Hughes used to call 'doggery'. elapse in their timewarp. 4. Take up another hobby using whatever fingers left from the Oh the TV the TV is such a great thing leadlighting class. It mal 54 EUREKA ST REET JAN UARY- FEBR UARY 2004 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM puzzled Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 120, January-February 2004 ACROSS 1. Adder on vacation? This is the season for it! (6,7) 8. Gore, we hear, perhaps gone south where he threatens with clubs. (9) 9. Get to the bottom of it vertically? Sounds like a piece of fruit' (5) 11. That soup mixture is a work of art! (4) 12. Central direction to Syria or Jordan, for instance. (6,4) 13. Man from East Timor is assiduous. (8) 15. Grit one's teeth, for example, to be a man of such hardness! (5) 17. Gemstone found at an exit, perhaps. (5) 19. Being insecure, N ed grew slack. (8) 22. In Roman mixed farm, rear it on solid earth. (5,5) 23. Peas spilt in church recess. (4) 25. The ground could be arid, I think, where lines from the centre reach the boundary. (5) 26. Possibly sullen if I am thwarted! That renders the arrangement useless. (9) 27. Method of memory training? Or make superfluous utterance? (6,7) DOWN Solution to Crossword no. 119, December 2003 2. Bazaar, by the sound of it, is out of the ordinary. (7) 3. Wise men brought some presents from a gift shop? (4) 4. 3-down had to find their direction again as they travelled east. (8) 5. Belonging to the team, having a favourable attitude. (2,4) 6. Makes a strong impact as one half returns around the cupboard. (9) 7. Flatter the person who wrote brief advertisement for a lute, perhaps. (7) 8. Farmer sowing grain, for instance, is heard on the radio. (11) 10. Ordinary uniform for soldiers somehow betters lad's appearance. (11) 14. Possibly I endanger silk fabric with pomegranate juice. (9) 16. Order nail from dispenser of disinfectant solution. (8) 18. Curtail a card game. (7) 20. Study up Latin for this type of conjugal ceremony. (7) 21. Bird found in poplin netting. (6) 24. 20-down relationship may be sealed with this osculatory act. (4) This subscription is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill in your own contact details, left) D New [l Renewa l D Gift IMr·siM >ss/Ms/Mr First Name IIMrs/Mrss/Ms/M,- Frrst Name ~ Length of subscription: ~S=ur=na=me======~~Su=rn=a,=ne======~ D One yea r (10 issu es for $70, $60 concess ion for rt No. Street Name II Street No. Street Name pensioners, students and unemployed . 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EUREKASTRE Fragments: Moments of intimacy by Terry Monagle Terry Monagle finds the rich life of the sacred in the ordinary event of each day: gardening, love, relationships, arguments and the people he encounters. Fra gm ents is a collection of his writings, many of which have appeared in the Age . For those who doubt there is any such thing as an Australian spirituality, this book provides welcome evidence to the contrary. With thanks to John Garratt Publishing, Eureka Street has ten copies of Fra gm ents: Mom ents of intimacy to give away. Just send your name and address on the back of an envelope to: Eureka Street January-February Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121. See page 4 for winners of the November Book Offer. Money can be a powerful force for positive change. By putting your money with Au stralian Ethical Investment you are investing in portfolios dedicated to benefit society and the environment. What is your money doing? 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