New scholarship for the new world Coming events Learn to teach and serve the Eureka Street and Rea der's Feast Bookstore Church of the future- in a community that values pas­ are co-sponsoring two conversa ti ons w ith sionate debate, original writers. research, and vital ministries. Ou r rigorous programs Jo in us on W ed nesday 5 June to hea r will prepare you to be an agent of change, in word Fay Weldon discuss her recent writing, and deed. parti cularly Auto Oa Fay, w ith Clare Fo rster. Master of Arts (GTU Common MA) And on Thursday 13 June, Don Watson, Licentiate in Sacred Theology hi sto ri an, author and speechw riter to Doctor of Sacred Paul Keating, will di sc uss his account of the Theology Kea ting yea rs, Recollections of a Bleeding H ea rt, w ith M orag Fraser. JES UIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY all welcome at Berkeley time: 6.30pm a member of the Graduate Theological Union place: Reader's Feast Bookstore, downsta irs, corn e r of Bourke and Swansto n Streets, Me lbo urne 1735 LeRoy Aven ue Berkeley, CA 94709 cost: $5 (800) 824-01 22 bookings: (03) 9662 4699 (51 0) 549-5000 Fax(510)841 -8536 E-mail: [email protected] www.jstb.edu June

- ·-- Til t· ----· · ------~1 E L B () T R N E ------~ --- .. Meditation takes away your fear of death AABRusTRA LI AN Boo K RE V IEW by giving you a li ttle glimpse or taste of the Resurrection, what is abiding, what is still, JUNE/JULY HIGHLIGHTS what is a lways present. Fr Lawrence Freeman, Director o,lthe World After the Academy Community of Christian Meditation An Essay by Kerryn Goldsworthy

Am I the on ly person to find it strange that Patrick White, Sidney olan and Me wh i 1st we in Australia discuss the pros a nd A Memoir by Tom Rosenthal cons of stem cell research, meanwhile in the Middle East the most appalling conflict is Don Watson 's Portrait of Paul Keating taking place . .. Which of the two is the most Neal Blewett demeaning to our humanity? John Carroll on September 11 Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Watson. Edmund Campion Does St Patrick's Day

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-i "'"'I COMMENT )> ;o -i 4 Frank Brennan The Mabo decade V1 5 Morag Fraser Too many laws )> z 6 Francis Sullivan Aiming high 0 -i ...,I SNAPS HOT .--0 0 8 Calling it, the view from Jordan, (') -< a social gathering, Brown acts for Green, and occasional toppings.

LETTERS 9 Ray Ca ssin, Abe W. Ata

THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C COVER STORY Publisher Andrew Hami lton 51 10 Edmund Campion Open door 25 The man of conscience Editor Morag Frase r 1 0 Peter Pierce At Rusty's Edmund Campion examines the legacy Assistant editor Kate Manton 12 Juliette Hughes The explorer Graphic designer Siobhan lackson of that most enigmatic of eminent General manager Mark Dowell 1 2 Geoffrey Milne 'I am I ... ' Victorians, the liberal, Catholic, Marketing Kirsty Grant 13 Meredyth Tamsyn In Dili historian-scholar, Lord Acton. Advertising representative Ken Hea d 14 Morag Fra ser Close up Subscription manager Wendy Marlowe Ed it orial, producti on an d admin istr ation BOOKS assistan ts juliette Hughes, Paul Fyfe 51, COLUMNS Geraldine Batt ersby, Ben Hider, Susannah 38 The short list Bu ckley, Kate Hird, Mrs Irene Hunter 7 Capita l Letter Reviews of Words in A ction: Contributing editors Adelaide: Greg Ja ck Waterford The Budget front O'Kelly 51, Perth: Dea n Moore, Syd ney: Speech Act Th eory and Biblical Edmund Ca mpion & Gerard Windsor, 11 Summa Theologiae Interpretation; Children of the Queensland: Peter Pi erce Andrew Hamilton The inclusive life Shadows; Gifted Origins to Graced United Kingdom Den is M inns O P j esuit Edit orial Board Pet er L'Es trange 5L 24 Archimedes Fulfillment: The Soteriology of Julian Andrew Bu llen 51, Andrew Hamilton 51 Tim Thwaites When dry means of Norwich and Some Conclusion in Peter Steele I, Bill Uren 51 the Heart. Patrons Eureka Street gratefu lly drought ackn owledges the support of 30 By the Way 39 Knockabout bloke C. and A. Ca rt er; th e trustees of the es tat e John Button reviews Ian Hancock's of Mi ss M. Co ndon; W .P. & M .W . Gurry Brian Matthews Fingers and the pies biography of John Gorton. Eureka Street magaz ine, 155N I 036-1758, 46 W atching Brief Aus tralia Post Pr int Post approved Juliette Hughes Laugh? I nea rl y .. . 41 Th e Arca dian pp349 181/00314, is published len times a Stephen Holt reviews Keeper of the year by Eureka St reet Magazine Pt y Lid, 300 Victori a Street Ri chmond VIC 3 t 2 t Faith, Paul Strangio's life of Jim PO Box 553, Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1 FEATURES Cairns. Tel: 03 9427 73 11 Fa x: 03 9428 4450 1 6 A better way emai l: eu reka@ jespub.jes uit.org.a u 42 Hazard lights http://www .eureka street.com.au/ Rethink university funding and policy Michael McGirr reviews Gillian Mears' Res ponsibility for editorial content is determination, says Frank Ja ckson. A Map of the Ga rdens and Kate accepted by Andrew Hamilton 51, 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond 19 On Elcho Island Jennings' Moral Ha zard. Printed by Doran Printing Ju stin Coleman reports on h ealth and 46 Industrial Drive, llraeside VIC 3 195. resources in Yolngu territory. © jesuit Publications 2002 POETRY U nsolicited manu scripts wi ll be returned 21 Carving out th e peace 33 Aileen Kelly Dandelion clocks, on ly if accompanied by a stamped, Bougainville is building a new life for se lf-addressed envelope. Requests for The right to remain itself, according to Jam es Griffin. permission to reprint material rrom th e 43 Thomas Shapcott Oysters magazine shou ld be addressed in writing 31 Fin e discriminati ons to th e editor. Maim Rayner on women, children and Thi s month: the price of rights. FLASH IN THE PAN Cover des ign by Siobh an jackson 44 Reviews of the films Beneath Clouds; Cover photograph of Lorcl Acton from 32 Looking after Letters of l.ord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Juliette Hughes on one way to handle Storytelling; No Man's Land; eel. Herbert Pau l (George Allen, London, Baise-moi and The Ma;estic. 1904) sexual abuse. Ph otogra ph p5 by Q . Saka mak i/Agence 34 Th e question of terror Fri ends SPECIF IC LEVITY Graphics pp8, 1 D. 12, 16--18, 1 1 by Ian Bucl

L Y>A'S ACO, on 3 june, the High Coun handed parliam ent passed the Racial Discrimination Act, down its decision in the Mabo case. Don Watson in state parliam ents and state governmen ts could extin­ his recent book, Recollection s of a Bleeding Heart: guish native title at their whim without payment of A Portrait of Paul Kea ting PM, recalls: 'The historic compensation simply by granting the land to some significance of the decision was obvious to everyon e, other person . In Mabo, due process and compensa­ except all those who either had no history or som e­ tion for native-title holders would be available only thing else on at the time. As this m eant about 80 per to those fo rtunate enough to have retained their lands cent of the population and up to 90 per cent of the during two centuries of colonial dispossession prem­ [press] gallery, panic and excitem ent took som e time ised on the terra nullius mindset. That is why Noel to set in.' Indeed. Pearson describes Mabo as the High Court peace plan Mabo was the first case where the full bench of with a three-part comprom ise: 'Wh itefellas keep the High Court was asked to consider the common­ what's theirs, blackfellas get what's left over, and law recognition of land rights. Justice Brennan, who there's an area of land in the middle, in relation to wrote the lead judgm ent, off ered this general com- w hich th e cou rt has prescribed co-existence. ment on the occasion of his retirem ent from Moreover, in relation to the co-existence, the court's Eddie Mabo and his the bench six years later: formula is very simple. That is, that the crown title will prevail over the native title if there is any incon­ The agenda of the courts are defined by QC, Ron Castan/ sistency.' As N oel says, 'There could be no more the litigants. T he courts decide the con­ peaceful a proposition for peace than the one pu t troversies that the people bring to the have died. The forward by the High Court.' courts for decision . They are the people's Since Mabo, a newly constituted High Court has majority of the Mabo problems. The Court has no agenda of its had to apply the principles of the decision to pastoral own. But, as th e issues that arise for deci­ bench has retired. leases in the Wik case and to offshore areas in the sion are contemporary issues ari sing in Croker Island case. Bo th the Howard and Keating But native title is contemporary circumstances, the work of governments have tried their hands at legislative the Court in each generation refl ects that responses to the High Court decisions. Even John here to stay/ helping generation's concerns. Howard as prime minister has told parliament, 'The to put right what Eddie M abo was the driving fo rce substan ce of [the Mabo] decision, now with th e justices Deane and behind the litigation, having commenced passage of time, seem s completely unexceptionable the proceedings ten years before. He'd had to me. It appears to have been based on a good deal of Caudron described to run the gauntlet of Joh Bjelke- Petersen's logic and fairness and proper principle. ' invalid law that sought to extinguish all That view is shared by both sides of the political as our /national native title rights-retrospectively and chamber and by most lawyers at hom e and abroad. So legacy of unutterable without compensation . Though the case the dust has settled. The original decision is no longer bears Eddie's nam e, he actually lost his par­ seen as a revolution but as a belated commonsense shame ~ ticular case, being unable to establish the piece of legal reason ing. Hugh M organ's 1994 evidence of his claim to land in the Murray declaration now seem s a little melodramatic: 'In Islands because of his long absence fr om the Torres Mabo, and all that fo llowed fro m it, we are engaged Strait. His fe llow claimants, David Passi and Jam es in a struggle fo r the political and territorial future of Rice, carried the day. Eddie's widow, Bon ita, still Australia.' That struggle has focused on our borders carries the pain of Eddie's loss and som e feelings of and on the fe w thousand 'boat people' who have rejection as the Murray Islanders celebrate the tenth turned up in the last year. anniversary. The Mabo decision has withstood the test of time Although, in Mabo, Indigenous Australians won and is now seen by most com mentators as being in recognition of their traditional rights to land, the High accordance with contemporary Australian values. Court by the narrowest majority (four to three) decided Universal respect for property and the principle of non­ that these fragile righ ts were readily extinguishable. discrimination m ight even be thought to be 'the vibe From 1788 and untill975 when the Commonwealth of the Constitution'-to quote The Castle.

4 EU REKA STR EET • jUN E 2002 Eddie Mabo and his QC, Ron Castan, have died. the right things to strive for. I am not foolish or wise The majority of the Mabo bench has retired. But native enough to be certain that Aboriginal tomorrows will title is here to stay, helping to put right what Justices really be the better for it.' But as reconciled Austral­ D eane and Gaudron described as our 'national legacy ians we so hope. • of unutterable shame'. The anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner once reflected Frank Brennan SJ is Associate Director of Uniya, the on his own contribution to the granting of Aboriginal Jesuit Social Justice Centre, Adjunct Fellow in Law land rights: 'All I can say is that they seemed to m e at the ANU and author of One Land One Nation.

COMMENT:2 MORAG FRASER Too many laws

.. ''" ··· "'-:-~.·· .':" ·

VcrOR>A' s SENATOR B"ney Cooney bid it on the will be given a thorough drubbing. As they should. line. The federal governm ent's anti-terrorism bills People who once supported the cause of independ­ were flawed legislation, he declared. They would 'steer ence for East Timor by defending Fretilin- sometimes the law in a new and unfortunate direction and away judged a terrorist organisation-would have contra­ from the fundamental principles which underpin our vened that proposed law. So would defenders of the society'. ANC in South Africa. There is something anomalous He went further: 'They set precedents in the about our considering legislation that would, in criminal jurisdiction which, if followed, [would] another time, have ruled out Nelson Mandela as a fit grievously disturb the proper balance between the associate. The distinction between terrorist and public interest in suppressing crime and terrorism and freedom fighter is notoriously hard to draw. But it the public interest in maintaining a just and demo­ would not be hard, under the legislation as proposed, cratic society.' for innocent Australians to find themselves on the Senator Cooney's objections to the proposed anti­ wrong side of the law. terrorism legislation have been echoed by a Senate One of the rnost disturbing aspects of the pro­ committee, chaired by the Liberals' Marise Payne, and posed legislation is its excess. It rides roughshod over by many individuals, lawyers and civil liberties liberties and rights and the due process that we groups. properly take for granted in Australia. It smells of But in the flurry of pre-Budget leaks and leader­ political expediency. It de-legitimises dissent and ship speculation it was hard to find su stained treats Australian citizens like fools who have to be newspaper analysis of the bills and their implications saved from themselves. (radio did better) . Now, with a stay of execution (the There is time and opportunity now, so read the bills have caused such a stir in the parliamentary bills. Make your own judgment about what con ­ corridors and committees that they have, for the time straints, beyond those we already allow, are necessary being, been taken off the Senate agenda) it might be to make Australia safe, free and decent. • possible to have informed community debate. But you -Morag Fraser have to wonder about the contrived air of urgency in Another thing: by the time you read this you will know which the leg~s lation was drawn up. whether the US experienced the dire economic downturn It now seems likely that some of the most alarm­ predicted to follow nationwide absenteeism and consequent ing aspects of the bills-particularly the power to ban productivity loss generated by the mid-week premiere of bodies judged to be linked to 'terrorist' organisations- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clon es. Ah, the relief ...

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 5 C OMMENT:3 FRANC I S SUL LIVAN Aiming high

L '""'.co,RAC Budget h Rd the poor Rnd the around 200,000 people to the concessions list. T his hard-pressed in its sigh ts. Rather than introducing is the area to w hich real reform of public entitle­ fa r-sighted policies to address the fi scal pressures of m ents and subsidies should be directed. But it is an ageing Australia, it opted for soft political targe ts also the politically sensitive and growing 'grey vo te' who have little voice and tenuous public support. area, and political minders know their stuff. Better to Prior to Budge t night, Treasurer Peter Costello please everyone on concessions than to discriminate made much of his inaugural Intergenerational Report. and risk upsetting groups that have demon- It was designed to deal with the costs of an ageing strated their acumen and their readiness to population- not a n ew idea but one currently agitate. fashionable in Western democratic countries. On the surface, the report presented a benign scenario, almost WHT H E BuDGET changes to drug subsidies, the too laudatory of the government's fiscal management government hit struggling low-income fa milies harder to take seriously. But lurking in the detail was a than well-off retirees. The increased charges for cautionary revelation: with an ageing community, m edicine mean that a wealthy retiree will pay $1 extra advan ces in technology and increased consumer for a prescription, but a low-incom e working family expectations, the cost of government services is will pay $6. 20 m ore for each prescribed m edication . predicted to escalate by at least 20 per cent over the Hardly fa ir, and hardly in keeping with the prescrip­ next 40 years. In today's dollars that m eans a short­ tion that we must keep an eye on the future. fa ll of $87 billion between the cost of services and Yet such is the nature of politics today. Welfare the revenue available through taxation. dependency becomes a pejorative. Ministers too easily fn another win for th e Even to the casual observer, it is clear conjure images of lazy, shifty, poor people draining that rising health costs will require policy the public purse, and downplay the real dependency fortunate, the new reform and a m ore rigorous approach to on public hando uts of a growing group of the entitlem ent and safety-net programs. But well-to- do. 'baby bonus' mea ns the Intergenerational Report notwithstand­ This Budget continues to allow wealthy couples th at a woman ea rning ing, the Budget failed to address these to incom e-split for tax purposes, to receive 30 per cent priorities. It chose instead to squeeze low­ off their health insurance and to becom e eligible for a $60,000 a yea r will incom e people, the disabled and the series of state-based benefits. chronically ill rather than revise the list of At the same time, the government has imposed receive $2 500 those who actually receive public subsidies. harder conditions on disability paym ents and has annually for five years La st year's election Budget placed reduced benefits for some unable to work. And in added strain on federal subsidies. Oddly, another win for the fo rtunate, the new 'baby bonus' to stay at home with m any of the benefi ciaries were the better­ m eans that a wom an earning $60,000 a year will off people. In a blatant grab for the 'grey receive $2500 ann ually fo r fiv e years to stay at home her child. Compare vote', the go vernment ensured that a sin­ with her child. Compare this to the $500 annual bonus this to th e $500 annual gle retiree now gets a $20,000-a-year tax- for a woman on $20,000 a year- in the unlikely event free threshold, whereas a regular worker that she can stay at hom e. bonus for a woman on receives just $6000 before the threshold That this Budget has gone soft on the better-off applies. Furthermore, retired couples can should com e as no surprise. In a portent of that night's $20,000 a yea r - in th e receive over $32,000 tax-free, while a proceedings, the government earlier on Budget day had unlikely event that sh e couple earning just over $26,000 each a year to scramble to defend itself against revelations that pay over $9000 in tax. Some financial even people able to buy million-dollar properties are ca n stay at home. planners now claim that retired couples can still eligible for the first-home-buyers' grant. earn as much as $85,000 a year from differ­ Whatever the pressures predicted by the Inter­ ent forms of private pensions and still claim the full generational Report, it seems those with money make public age pension. On top of this, couples over 65 money. have becom e eligible for the Commonwealth health • card if their earnings are less than $80,000 a year. For Francis Sullivan is Chief Executive Offi cer of Catholic singles it is $50,000 a year. These inclusions added Health Australia.

6 EU REKA STR EET • j UNE 2002 The Budget front

J UST WH' AuSTRAUA needs a m.ssi'" inmase in the big-bmth" than it has to do with any objective security threat. It's about apparatus of the state is far from clear. But even among those making Australians 'feel' safer, whether they are or not. It's who think that the world changed after September 11, it is not about a gamble that a new host of minor inconveniences will entirely obvious that what we want are new sets of SAS units seem nothing compared with the greater sense of security we to rescue hostages from aircraft, a regiment to deal with a chem­ all have. And it's not only about protecting ourselves from ical, biological or nuclear radiation attack on our east coast, or horrible and alien terrorists, but from ghastly and unwanted a substantial increase in the nmnber of police SWAT squads. refugees. The border-control measures are an integral part of Almost the only deployments of such groups over the past the message-and the more saleable now because they involve decade have involved confronting hapless, unarmed asylum not only a lot of political rhetoric, but a vast array of seekers at sea, or rounding up criminals (and, sometimes, their men and women in khaki. hapless neighbours) or harmless people with m ental problems. Apparently, however, the risk of a surprise attack by small E~HAPS THERE ARE EVEN more political opportunities in all this. groups of terrorists is such that the executive power of our We see it here in Canberra, for example. There is nothing like a domestic security agencies is to be raised to levels far higher defence and security apparatus to bureaucratise itself, creating than those believed to be necessary at the height of the Cold fresh and unaccountable activity in every direction. No-one can War. At airports and government buildings, citizens will now say whether it works or not: actual incidents can be used to face metal detectors, biometric checks of eyes, fingerprints or demonstrate a need for even further investment, a lack of them DNA and, probably, about ten extra minutes of officious to demonstrate just how effectively everything is working. At inconvenience in getting anywhere. the same time, however, a government looking for some spare Mix that with new moves to build a great wall around Aus­ cash can declare victory at any time, scrap a host of irritating tralia using far more aggressive interception and checking of controls and appear as liberators. Pending that, anyone who boats approaching our shore, detention facilities at Christmas objects to any part of the package-even, say, as it applies to Island, and arrangements to bribe or blackmail Pacific nations immigrants or refugees-can be portrayed as soft on terrorism, into holding asylum seekers for screening. Add massive extra or hopelessly naive about the nature of the modern world. And spending for formal defence, with the bulk of the money going in an environment where, as the children-overboard affair has not into the maintenance of troops abroad, or the re-equipping demonstrated, the military apparatus has scarcely a clue about of the services, but into domestic security needs. Clearly there how to resist being used for purely political purposes, stunts must be a major threat to Australia's security and safety, if not can be laid on at will to demonstrate the Churchillian qualities from invasion by an aggressor then from infiltration and sabotage. of our leaders. But whether life post- September 11 has so changed as to Or is it all a big distraction from a very ho-hum Budget require all this is far from clear. Do SWAT squads and SAS which produced indifferent numbers but which tested a few units actually stop suicide bombers? Ask Israel. Would all of nasties in health and welfare policies for the sick and the disa­ the protective security now being installed have stopped the bled? Fancy such people, and their champions, being unwilling capture of aircraft that were then flown directly into tall build­ to make a few tiny sacrifices when the future of the nation is at ings? Only if the security apparatus of the state is so extensive stake. Fancy their questioning the advice of the experts, which, that it can actually penetrate small and tightly disciplined unfortunately, cannot be shared because it is so secret. groups bent on terror-groups likely to possess valid passports The hollow truth may be that the Budget was not a rationale and visas, and from 'respectable' countries. Does a massive for a big-brother state or controls over a few areas of expendi­ increase in surveillance facilities allow greater capacity to ture, but rather a cover for the lack of an economic and social predict the acts of such groups? Not if American, British, Israeli strategy for the next few years. And that may not so much reflect and German experience is taken into account. And are there, in the tensions between a relaxed and comfortable incumbent and fact, such groups who are likely to make Australia a focus of an increasingly anxious successor as reveal that neither of them their activities? No-one has yet demonstrated that there are. has much of a plan. As least this one's wrapped in the flag and There has seldom been such a public investment in defence puts the reffos in their place. • and security infrastructure with so little rationale. One can bet it has more to do with the government's domestic political needs Jack Waterford is editor-in-chief of The Canberra Times.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EU REKA STREET 7 angry young Palestinian, 'Arafat and after prominent human rights lawyer Sharon, they are both fuckers. They will Digna Ochoa, who acted for them, was fight to the death, our death. But unfor­ shot dead in her Mexico City office. tunately, we cannot afford to wait for In Colombia, Bob Brown will meet someone else to come along. They are all with members of the government, human we have and so w e have to believe that rights organisations, peace activists and Name peace is possible even if it is not. ' victims of violence, including the family ga mes of Ingrid Betancourt. At the Global Greens conference in One of the lesser arguments for divine April 2001 , a 'Green Shield' program was providence is based on the power of established, under which Greens from names to predict futures. Can it have around the world support Greens who are been by coincidence that a bank has suffering human rights abuses as a result Mr Smart in charge of financial services, of their stand. and Mr Crook for its gen eral manager? Go Certainly Cardinal Law of Boston must tell it be pondering the power of names to inspire consonant behaviour in their Fired up about the future? Bemused by bearers. He faces a parish-based campaign the Intergen erational Report? Want to to withhold contributions to the Arch­ make a contribution? diocese in protest against his handling of The Victorian Council of Social Serv­ clerical child abu se. The name of the ice is holding a Social Policy Congress in In a instigator of this ecclesiastical heist is Melbourne between 31 July and 2 August. word Fr Albert Capone. If you, or your organisation, want to air your views on community well-being, Preservation and conservation are con­ human rights, h ou sing, disability, tentious topics. So, it became evident citizenship, health, rural and region al during a morning- tea debate, are con ­ issues, poverty, refugees (and much serves and preserves. T he topic was the more), contact Carolyn Atkins on (03) nature of marmalade. The range of 9654 5050 or [email protected]. answers was predictable: some defined it by its being chunky; others as its being Jordan made from citrus fruit. The least likely says answer seemed that which claimed that it could be m ade from citrus fruits or On the streets of Jordan, support for the quinces. But while quinces may or may Palestinian cause does not always trans­ not be odd in the marmalade jar, they late into approval for Yasser Arafat, cannot be removed from the name. For Chairman of the Palestinian Authority. Sav ing Ingrid marmalade is derived from the Portu­ To one Palestinian-Jordanian, Arafat is a Betancourt guese word for quince, the firs t fruit to m an of the past, more suited to the street be made into jam. In the 15th century, fighting of 1980s Beirut or the guerrilla Senator Bob Brown is travelling t o citrus fruit was treated in the same way. warfare of the 1970s. To another, Arafat Colombia to seek the release of Greens Whether with or without chunks, it is is a man who h eroically ran a small cell presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, hard to say. of resistance but who is now completely who, along with her campaign manager, Marmalade, however, is edible, and incapable of running a government­ Clara Rojas, was kidnapped by the Revo­ therefore has nothing to do with marmite every cheque, even for hospital bills, lutionary Armed Forces of Colombia which, like its Australian cousin, was must be personally signed by the (FARC) (see Em el

8 EU REKA STREET • )UNE 2002 L ETTER S

Eu reka Street welcomes Middle East know they exist. Another is Augustine v. Pelagi us letters from our rea ders. the persistent denial of their plight by a Short letters are more likely frighteningly influential Am erican Chris­ to be published, and all Andrew Hamilton (Eurel

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STR EET 9 -"".ll:o.~ ' ~ ' ~ THE TRAFFIC

Aboriginal woman seeking food. From then city block, crowded with stalls that arc Open door on, the doors never closed to Aborigines. divided by narrow alleys. Most of the On wet winter nights there might be one cnclo ure i. s under a cast-iron roof, creating TID Kl 1\~l In '<; I I (,\( Y hundred guests sleeping wherever there was sauna conditions in summer as it rattles space. Following Dorothy Day and Peter and rolls under torrential rain. Tarpaulins A llRIGHT CHAPTER in m odern Australian Maurin, they cooked food for their guests cover the rest, bellying with water in the history came quietly to an end a few Sundays too. And, however sticky or dangerous wet season, dripping on to the punters ago, when the congregation at St Vincent de things becam e, Kennedy never, ever called below. On the edge of the market arc Paul's Church, Redfern in Sydney, heard a the police. caravans from which coconut milk from letter read out, announcing the resignation At Redfern he found the great Shirley the shell, hamburgers, pies, hot and cold of their parish priest, Father Ted Kennedy. Smith-'Mum Shirl' as she was known to drinks, arc sold. The pineapple-crush man It was scarcely a surprise, for his health had all. In em ergencies, sometimes five times a has left though, obscurely dispirited. been problematic- he is currently conva­ night, he would call her for help. From her On Friday mornings early, when it opens lescing after surgery-but after 30 years of he learnt the pain and the pride of being for the week, Rusty's is packed with locals, his pastorate there, it will be strange to Aboriginal, which often led to suicide. He shopping before work. Later the clay, think of the Redfern parish without Ted noticed that Aborigines never left suicide ""u Kennedy. notes, as whites do: their own people alreacl y - ~ Fortunate in having parents whose door knew the pain that had driven them to this. ::~V was always open to those in trouble, he saw Mum Shirl taught him to be a fellow sufferer, early on that doing justice was a necessary to find Christ in the rejected and accept him part of the Christian religion. At the Manly there without questioning. She taught him seminary he began to read widely and about just anger too and the fight for justice. di criminately, something he never gave He called her, at her funeral, the greatest up. He gained too a comfortable companion­ theologian he had ever known. ship with poetry, so that every Kennedy In Redfern, Kennedy did not see himself s peech or sermon was studded with as a saviour or an improver. Although he quotations from favourite poets. was called on to help in many ways- the In his first parish he m et one of these Aboriginal Medical Service remains from poets, James McAuley, who was finding his his early years, and thri vcs- just by being bearings in the Catholic Church, which he there, he was saying that Christ hadn't had recently joined. McAuley showed the turned his back on them. That gives Father shaggy, hemp- and harlequin-costumed young priest something he had written and Ted Kennedy his place in our history. 'ferals' (as Lonely Planet gives us leave to Kennedy took it to another parishioner, -Edmund Campion call them ) come down from the Atherton Richard Connolly, asking him to set it to Tablelands, to sell jewellery and clothing. music. Thus was born the most successful Saturday is the busiest day, but by now the hymn-writing team in modern Australia, At Rusty's eyes have been picked out of the best of the McAuley and Connolly. Kennedy respected produce, the herbs especially. On Sunday artists and intellectuals and won their (,(>I (I,\\ \RKI Tl'\(, the wares for sale are more various. Stalls of respect in return. paperbacks appear, and second-hand stuff. His years as chapla in at the University H oTELS AND BLOCKS of apartments line Crowds arc thinner. The market winds of Sydney, when he made close friends the streets parallel to the Cairns mudflats. down for a few clays and soon-perhaps­ among university people, accentuated this Sometimes they are separated by old for good. side of his personality. He lea rnt to listen to Queenslandcrs, tenaciously or provoca­ The site was owned by Russell'Rusty' other people, especially those on strange ti vcly unsold, sitting like discoloured teeth Rees, who also ran a motorbike shop, owned paths to or from God. In those Vatican II in the rows of white buildings. A block or property in Grafton Street along the eastern years also, he became a m entor to dozens of two further back from the foreshore there boundary and had the pub next door to the young men enduring a seminary system , as arc stronger reminders of the old country m arket. After his death a couple of years he said, 'designed to keep us in short pants town that began to be erased in the 1960s: ago, the pub was fetchingly renamed The forever'. Asked to give the pre-ordination streets of ram shackle weatherboard houses Underdog and painted blue. Sad to say it is retreat at Queensland's Banyo seminary in that have not yet tempted developers. now dolefully called hcnanigans. Rusty 1970, he spoke of the poor, the disadvan­ Unhappily, that is not the fate of Rusty's was a 'character' when the label meant taged, and the down-and-out as his brothers. market, which is doomed to be built over by funny, ca ntankerous, beholden to no-o nc, T his was the man who moved into the just what Cairns needs more o f: a car park except that in the end he was-to his Redfern presbytery in 1971 with two and a backpackers' hotel. At present the creditors. Getting riel of the space that so younger priests. T hei r first caller was an market spreads over a quarter of an inner- m any have brought alive each week will be

10 EU REKA STREET • jUNE 2002 another stage in the sanitisation of Cairns. And where will the traders go? Judy, the bantering, generous fishmonger, has been 1 a e here for 22 years, one less than the market itself. And what of the Greek lady who makes spanakopita, the knife-sharpener, the vendors of tea and coffee grown on plantations in the Tablelands and the Daintree, the Lebanese wagon with its dips and felafel, the Australians with the best lettuce, salad mix and potatoes, the The inclusive life Spaniards who sell Mareeba bush-ripened tomatoes, the dealers in 'organics', the Filipina women with their endless arrays of L EOLOG!ANS OF A C LASSICAL BENT refer to it as 'the dreaded P word'. Postmod­ green vegetables? Where will one be able to ernism offers them all the combined scenic attractions of a jungle and a mirage, have red bean paste with sticky rice wrapped full of pathless theory and of understandings reached that prove to be illusory. in banana leaves for breakfast? Where will Many true believers are more robust. Without being sure what it is, they one buy betel nut? Or buy fruits with names identify postmodernism with every miasma that weakens modem culture: so exotic that they are mysteries to most of relativism, disengagement, hedonism, consumerism and the rejection of tradition those who live in the temperate regions of and authority, just for starters. Australia-rollinia, Iongan, black sapotel For this reason, a recent speech to a European Bishops Synod is worth noting. Approach the market along Sheridan Street. At the first stall a New Guinean The English Cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, spoke on the evangelisation woman and a French man sell cassava, of youth. He invoked postmodernism, not as an adversary but as the cultural yams, taro, sweet potatoes. In the aisle context in which young adults live, and so as the only context within which we beside them, a genial busker in a hat and may address them. From this notoriously polyvalent word, he picked out the Hawaiian shirt sings songs from the 1950s­ emphasis on choice and personal discovery, and the consequent insistence on Jim Reeves, country and western, 'That's the priority of personal over institutional authority. Amore'. Behind him families of Hmong (a As postmoderns, young people will ordinarily accept values and beliefs only Cambodian hill tribe) cluster within the when they see them embodied in attractive and inspiring lives. They also must hollow squares of their stalls, eating and be given space in which they can explore their commitments. Their search, selling rice from bowls. The other sizeable however, is fuelled by some of the weaknesses of the culture, and particularly group of Hmong refugees who came to Aus­ by the inadequacy of acquisition and of choice to satisfy people's deeper needs. tralia (although a few years ago there were only 2000 in the country) found its way far Although the emphasis on individual choice erodes established forms of from North Queensland. They went to farms community, it can arouse hunger for the experience of community. And about along the Derwent River, north of Hobart. community there is considerable stored Christian wisdom. Each Saturday they sell in the Salamanca Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, convinced that Christian faith knows some­ Market, varying the serried rows of craft thing about community, concludes by offering suggestions to the bishops. He stalls there. urges them to meet openly and often with young adults, to encourage the latter Rusty's, by contrast, is a cross between to live in small communities, and to share part of that community life with the a market and a country fair. For good and ill, young adults. the vendors all know one another, and they Those working with young adults will find that the speech represents know most of each others' customers. The common sense, and that its recommendations are modest and unexceptionable. market aisles are usually thronged, the But the Cardinal's image of a conversational and exploratory church contrasts ground underfoot is uneven, the air is with more recent images of the church handling allegations of child abuse. On sweaty, the fruit and human smells are the one side there is open conversation; on the other side, concern for appear­ over-ripe, but good cheer prevails. This is a very cheap entertainment of the kind most ances. The desire for discovery meets a passion for concealment. Vulnerable valued when it is lost. The mix is more bishops are juxtaposed with controlling bishops. Truth as journey replaces truth medieval than multicultural. The place is as possession. Of the two representations of church, that depicted by Cardinal starkly indifferent to fashion. Conversa­ Murphy-O'Connor is the more attractive. tion slides macaronically from language to He addresses the church. But his words will resonate with anyone who language. The produce of this region is as tries to commend to young adults a generous life, and hopes to enlist them in rich and enticing as anything to be found on the struggle to build social institutions around a moral centre. To rely on the continent. Rusty's will survive, its inherited traditions, on a liberal tolerance, or on a prescribed way will not be stallholders believe, even if it is pushed enough. Anything less than a radical vision that is embodied in a radical com­ into a horseshoe configuration around the mitment to community, and makes choices in pursuit of that vision, will turn backpackers' emporium. Judy reckons so: churches and agencies serenely into eventide homes. • 'You'll hear me, my little darling, wherever they put us.' -Peter Pierce Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 11 Canada and from Peru . Recent DNA Few people in history will ever have had The explorer evidence proves otherwise. But his heyday such control over their own life and destiny showed his real significance: Heyerdahl was as did Thor Heyerdahl. His breadth of vision ff!OR 1-ilvtRDAHL I 'J I-I 2002 so completely of the 20th century as to m eant that, despite being sometimes embody its deepest impulses. He lived as mistaken, he caused us to think about the I 1999 the pre-millennia! fever to list, freely as any human being ever could, a world in fruitful ways. mark, note and categorise everything about global citizen and atheist untrammelled by -Juliette Hughes the 20th century moved Thor Heyerdahl 's institutional religion, going where he would, native country to vote him Norwegian of doing what he wished. He symbolised the I the Century. On 3 May this year h e was century's early optimism about a bound­ 'I am I given a state funeral in Oslo Ca thedral, less world full of exploitable resources, a with Norway's royal family among the faith in 'civilisation' as well as in noble RE:VIVINC Til l mourners. savages. He was of the enlightened West, IMI,OSSII3LI: DRLAi\1 These were potent acco­ which, having defeated the lades for someone who had long Nazis, was going to bring D ALE W ASS ERMA N' The Man of La ceased to live there: he lived in equality, knowledge and jus­ Mancha (with music by Mitch Leigh and Tenerifeanditaly. Norwegians tice to the world as colonies lyrics by Joe Darion ) has been one of Aus­ at their best give globalism a sh ook off their masters and tralia's favo urite American musicals ever good name, and Heyerdahl peoples joined in greater since its first Melbourne season in 1967-68, embodied their Viking dream­ understanding through edu­ shortly aft er the show's very off-Broadway ing of boundless adventuring, cation and globalisation in premiere at N ew York University in 1965. seafaring and intrepid explora­ its most benign, UN-style That legendary J.C. Williamson's produc­ tion with a very modern twist forms. Communism , the tion played for almost a year, on tour and of global understanding and only threat, would soon be back in Melbourne, before being revived in tolerance. vanquished, capitalism and 1970 and 19 76. A 1988 production enjoyed Born at Larvik in 1914, h e freedom would bring lasting less success, but now there's another, in was the only child of older, peace. Rationalism would Melbourne and set to tour for some months. well-to-do, educated parents. replace superstition. Racial The current production is directed by At university he became fasci­ prejudice would die out. New Yorker Susan H. Schulman with Aus­ nated by Polynesia, and deter­ But Easterlsland became tralian s Peter England (set), Kristian mined to live as ancient a sign not of cross-cultural Fredrikson (costumes), Guy Noble (m usical humans had done. (His unfor­ hope but, as archaeological direction) and Trudy Dalgleish (lighting) tunate first bride fou nd herself research gradually revealed, making up the rest of the creative team. on Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas a terrible warning to the rest I saw one of the la t performances of the for a year-long honeymoon in of the world. Its inhabitants original JCW's show in Melbourne and 193 7, living on roots, berries had colonised the place, over­ remember vividly its huge moody set with and river prawns.) populated it, deforested it and a great drawbridge over the dungeons of the It was in the Marquesas, exterminated its animals, Spanish Inquisition, its intelligent lyrics studying the animal s and erecting those huge, strange (some of them worked up in richly contra­ plants that had drifted over on brooding monuments to their puntal, almost operatic duets and trios) ocean currents to colonise own hubris as they did so. In and, above all, its British-born star Suzanne Polynesia, that Heyerdahl the end they starved and died, Steele as Aldonza. Steele really stole that became convinced- against most other the m emory of their culture lost, resorting show. English-trained Charles West was a scientists- that the human population had to cannibalism in the famine and degrada­ good Cervantes/Don Quixote, but Steele done the same. His conviction was to cul­ tion that ensued. Heyerdahl was very con­ was the ultimate voluptuous kitchen-maid minate in the famed Kon-Tiki expedition in scious of this in later years, particularly whose feistiness made her a fl esh -and-blood 1947. Heyerdahl and five others took 101 after noticing the increase in pollution of evocation of the Dan's idealised Dulcinea. days to sail a balsa-wood raft 8000 kilo­ the oceans when he undertook his Ra expe­ The Man of La Mancha was innovative metres from Callao, Peru to Polynesia ditions in 1969 and 19 70. Twentieth -cen­ at a tim e when more typically glitzy Broad­ (Raroia Atoll, Tuamotu Archipelago). After tury man that h e was, h e became a way musicals like Sweet Charity held the Kon-Til

12 EU REKA STREET • jUNE 2002 The story is familiar. Spanish writer sh e reprises 'The Impossible Dream ', cluster of buildings and air-conditioned Migu el de Cervantes is thrown into jail for reawakening the spirit of Quixote in the portables that m ake up the soon-to-b e questioning (read torturing) by the Inquisi­ dying man. At this point, we clearly have a emptied United N ations headquarters in tion- not fo r his writings but because, in a simultaneous triple character portrayal: Dili, you will com e to a sm all Indonesian­ day job as a tax-collector, he has had the Cervantes as old gent as Quixote again. style warung. Inside, a smiling young m an tem erity to exact tax from the church and This is brilliant music drama: Schulman's fills a plate with rice, boiled eggs and cooked to foreclose when it refuses to pay up. His production and Warlow himself capture greens-all for one dollar US. This is Dili, fellow prisoners insist on a mock trial to the moment superbly. and for a fo reigner the meal is a bargain . For test what they see as his crimes: being a bad I had som e misgivin gs about the the locals around m e, it is often difficult to poet, an idealist and an honest man. In producti on. With an introduced interval m eet the basic cost of living. defending himself, he begins an elaborate it's slightly slow and ponderous at two-and­ Despite the usual dusk rush hour, things dramatisation of a m anuscript fo und in his three-quarter hours; the choreography of seem quieter on the streets of Dili, calmer possession : An elderly gentlem an takes the pa ck-rape (called 'The Abduction ' in than a year ago when I last visited East leave of his senses and his household to the program ) is twee and soft; Sancho Timor, and a world away fro m the carnage becom e the imaginary Don Quixote and to Panza's 'fat-suit' seem s to constrict its of September 1999. But the impact of the embark on his 'glorious quest ... to dream inhabitant unduly. aid agencies and foreign support that fl ooded the impossible dream, to right th e That it is still a highly enj oyable show is into the country in early 2000 is obvious in unrigh table wrong'. His duel with the wind­ due as much to the outstanding performers t h e con gest ed traffic and crowded mill is dealt with early, offstage but with a Australian-s tyle restauran ts. In Dili you smart light projection on a dungeon wall. can still watch the latest footy gam e with a His visit to the inn (which he imagines is a VB in your hand and a local prostitu te to castle), his subsequent investiture as a keep you com pany. T h ere are fewer knight and his fa lling in love with the fo reigners here now, and the T imorese look kitch en maid Aldon za (his Dulcinea) , to a m ore stable, peaceful li fe. But some occupy the bulk of the action. things that once would have been unthink­ Later incidents-Quixote robbed by able in this strictly Catholic society m ay Gypsies and Aldonza raped by muleteers, now be permanent fi xtures. for example-are all seen by the Don in the At midnight on 19 May, the UN officially same optimis tic light tha t pervades h anded over sovereignty to the East Voltaire's Candide. Adversity mere! y serves Aldonza (Caroline O'Connor) and Timorese Con stituent Assembly, forming to spur him on in his quest ... 'no m atter Q ui xote (Anthony Warl ow). the National Parliament. How the elected h ow hopeless, no matter how far'. as to the complex qualities of the musical leadership will deal with the m any problems Much of the irony in this, of course, itself. If the JCW's version was Suzanne they face is yet to unfo ld, but they have com es from Cervantes, but it is smartly Steele's show, this is Anthony Warlow's. achieved the l on g- fou gh t-for aim of borne out in som e of Wa sserman's and He is by turns authoritative, funny, vulner­ independence-East Timorese them selves Darion 's song lyrics. The idealism of able, compelling, pitiable and pitiful (truly dealing with the issues that face them. Quixote's notion of 'destiny' (in the open­ a knight of woeful countenance) and, finally, Society here has undergone a radi cal change. ing song line 'I am I, Don Quixote, the lord very m oving. He is also in great vocal fo rm. People are more open, the ingrained fear of La Mancha' ) and his willingness 'to march Caroline O'Connor worried me a bit at has gon e, departing with the last of the into hell for a heavenly ca use' (in the show's first-she's a rather reedy Aldonza-but Indonesian troops in late 1999. 'We will biggest hit song 'The Impossible Dream') her final mom ents were winners. make mistakes, but at least they will be our contrast poignantly with the pragm atism Finally, a visual delight: the horse and mistakes,' one university student told me. of Aldonza's 'One pair of arms is like mule on which Quixote and Sancho first The question three years on is how a another / It's all the same.' Likewise, 'I'm embark on their quest are marvels of society-as a collection of individuals and [we're] only thinking of him' is also bitterly 'improvisation' (in that they're fashioned as a nation- recovers from such widespread ironic, sung by the old man 's housekeeper, from available materials by the prisoners) trauma. Are the m echanism s to allow for padre and desperate- to-be-m arried niece but also of the designer's art. Their heads that healing in place? Antonia when they plot to recapture their are just bits of rolled cane with straw for One mechanism is the recently estab­ errant dreamer and make him face reality. manes, but each animal's fa ce projects a lished Commission for Reception, Truth Anthony Warlow is quoted in the sharp sense of personality. This production and Reconciliation. It promotes a process of program as saying 'he considers the dual appeals on practically every level. reconciliation for victims, low-level militia role of Cervantes/Don Quixote ... to be the -Geoffrey Milne killers and their leaders. 'To reconcile two musical theatre equivalent of King Lear'. sides it needs one who can reconsider, can The fin al scen es are complex, certainly. recognise that he did mistakes, and from Cervantes, his story apparently ended, is In Dili the other side the willingness to forgive­ called to go upstairs to fa ce the music, but that is reconciliation,' says the recently he now desperately improvises a last rite. HEALINC WAR WOUNDS elected president, Xanana Gusmao. His old man renounces his Quixotic charade Gusmao's principal concerns now lie and goes hom e to die, only to receive a final IFYOU WALK -p ast the Hell o Mister super­ with the need to rebuild the country. Infra­ visitation from Aldonza- now unmistak­ market, past the boys on the corner selling structure, education, health- this, he says, ably Dulcinea. As the drawbridge descends, T elstra phonecards, and turn left at the is what the people are demanding. And in

V OLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUR EKA STRE ET 13 any case, where would the funds come from Sarmento, the Council's co-ordinator, who to accuse, convict and jail hundreds of people celebrates his 26th birthday on the da y of when a large proportion of the population independence. has trouble providing a basic meal for their I first m et Joao in July 1999. At that time families? he was frantically compiling lists of human However, many young, educated East rights abuses to distribute to the inter­ Timorese have grave concerns about the national community and the media. He reconciliation process. Many villagers also. was one of the few people I knew who Close up They ask, 'How can you bring these people accurately predicted the scale of the military back when, in som e cases, we have not yet reaction to a vote for independence. Now The political rhetoric struts on stilts. even foun d the graves of the people they he is very angry about the lack of interest he Sharon won' t be deterred. Arafat killed?' It is a situation reminiscent of perceives in the country's leaders for estab­ mouths the words of a statesman, too Rwanda, where everyone knows someone lishing an international war crimes tribunal. late. N etanyahu ups the ante. In in their community who was killed, and There is a strong sense among many young Washington the cautionary language also knows the person who killed them . people of being sidelined by their charis­ might be bold but it has little effect . Many Timorese see the only solution matic leader, and it does not sit well. for true justice and reconciliation to be an In March of this year there was a protest Perhaps that is why still images international war crimes tribunal, and by some 20 East Timorese non-governm ent have so much power. T here is no reconciliation in their own communities. organisations over three issues: the arriva l compromise or pretence in what they Adrianno do Nascimento, a 32-year-old of the Japanese Defence Force without an show of daily misery and death in Israel former high-school teacher from Suai, is apology to East Timorese victims of rape and in what is left of Palestinian one of them . He now works for a non­ committed by forces occupying Timor territory. Little wonder war veterans government organisa tion called La ' o during World War II; the call for a US are so often silent about their H anmh1k, the East Timor Institute.for Recon­ apology for its part in supporting the 1975 experiences- we learn that anew each struction Monitoring and Development. invasion; and a demand for the establish­ Anzac Day. Their heads are still full of Adrianno studied in Kupang before ment of an intema tional war crimes tribunal. horror. Words don't serve their deepest returning to Suai in 1997 to begin teaching. Xanana Gusmao told the assembled crowd needs. There, as a student activist in January 1999, that such a tribunal was not a priority, But, in ways that are almost he was at the church in Suai, in charge of claiming it was up to the international registering refugees fleeing from the recently community to push for its establishment. unimaginable to us here, life has to go fo rmed militias. On 6 September, around 'It shocks many people,' says Sarmento, on in N etanyah, in Ramallah, in 400 people were murdered in church 'especially the victims.' Jerusalem, N ablus, Bethlehem, Jenin. grounds, along with the priests giving them A softly spoken, slight man, Sarmento The woman passing through the shelter. leans over and begins apologising for the occupied area of Hebron on the West 'After they killed them in the church, dust on the table in front of us. It is a hot Bank (top right) still has to fetch and this militia man cam e to my village and windy afternoon in Dili, and he apologises carry, find her way home through the said, "I have killed your leaders. See m y once aga in for the leaves that blow around litter of barbed wire and dom estic bloody knife and bloody T -s hirt. If you do my feet. As a young man looking to the fragments. Who once own ed the yellow not go to Atambua [in West Timor] this will future of his country, he asks an interesting bucket? happen to you." question. Is it possible to create a just and The blu e plastic (or is it a nylon 'He came back in mid-2000, was sent to democratic society in which the commu­ sleeping bag?) is no longer just an Dili by the PKF [peace keeping force] and nity will have confidence, when the crimes then was released in 2001 and sent back to of the past have not been fully addressed? incidental trapping of modern life. In my village.' 'If they allow this impunity it is very other images in this series, too terrible In this way Adrianno explains the bad for the rest of Indonesia, for West Papua to reproduce, it becomes a winding inherent difficulty of dumping former killers and Aceh,' he says. And finally: 'It is also cloth or a cover for people blown apart back into the community with no perceived about h um anity. Crimes against inter­ by suicide bombers. justice or reconciliation-just the leaders national law. Because crimes against East And the bombers themselves­ in Dili insisting that the community must Timor are also crimes against all humanity.' you ng men m ostly, but now some accept them. - Meredyth Tamsyn women too, though they are not shown + here- paper the walls in a travesty of This month's contributors: Edmund fame. Martyrs? The hands waving in I am sitting at the back of the East Timor Cam pion is a contributing editor of Eureka front of the posters (bottom right) are Student Solidarity Council in Dili, home Street; Peter Pierce is Chair of Australian the hands of Palestinian children, base for many student community cam­ Literature and Head of the School of caught up in the hysteria of protest and paigners for independence and justice. It is Humanities, James Cook University; difficult to imagine that this was once an Juliette Hugh es is a freelance writer; fervour. This is what war, terrorism Indonesian military base. N ow young men Geoffrey Milne teaches theatre and drama and intransigence teaches children. play volleyball where, not so long ago, they at LaTrobe University; Meredyth Tamsyn The photographs are by might have been interroga ted or tortured. is a freelance writer and frequent visitor to Q. Sakam aki/Agence Friends. This irony is not lost on Joao da Silva East Timor. -Morag Fraser

14 EU REKA STREET • )UNE 2002

Univers ities face yet another government review. Frank jackson argues that funding and policy should be determined by independent experts.

0 26 A e.", tho Miniete< fm Educ.rion, Science (Department of Education, Science and Training)­ and T raining, Brendan N elson, announced a wide­ with a sm all inpu t from the Australian Vice­ ranging review of h igh er education . Just about Chancellors' Committee. Finally, there are ad hoc everything will be on the table, but the issue that will government allocations. The allocations from the var­ do minate the review will be the perennial one of how ious program s in the prim e minister's $2.9 billion to determine the funding an individual university gets 'Backing Au stralia's Ability' initiative are good from the government. It is vital fo r the future of higher examples of the last. education in this country that we change the current A new set of DEST formulae came into operation system . this year, for funding starting in 2002. Three fo rmulae From the 1960s to the late 1980s Australia had a in particular require closer scrutiny. All up, they very simple way of determining the funding. We control the allocation of over half a billion dollars each divided the tertiary institutions into two groups, one year, so the incentives they generate are substantial: called universities and the other called advanced • The Institutional Grants Scheme (IGS) allocates colleges. Each group was funded on a per-student basis, funds on the basis of publications (ten per cent); taking som e account of cost differences between research income (60 per cent); and research student su bjects, but at a m arkedly high er ra t e for the load (30 per cent). institutions called universities than for those called • The Research Training Scheme (RTS) allocates funds advanced colleges. The arrangem ent was justified by on the basis of publications (ten per cent ); research giving the two groups different missions. Universities income (40 per cent ); and research degree completions were expected to carry out research and graduate (50 per cent). supervision as well as undergraduate teach in g, • The Research Infrastructure Block Grants (RIBG) whereas advanced colleges were primarily charged allocate funds on the basis of success in obtaining with undergraduate t eaching and professional grants from the ARC, NHMRC and similar bodies. training. These formulae cover each and every one of our With the decision in 1987 by John D awkins to 38 universities. In a country as large and diverse as abolish this division (known as the binary divide), a Australia, we should be developing a diverse system. new m ethod had to be fo und. The method that devel­ Yo u don't get a diverse system when major incentives oped has four elem ents. First, there rem ains a large are uniform across the system . funding- per-s tudent component that takes som e Further, the major role given to research training account of cost differences between subjects; yo u get in the RTS and IGS m eans that every university in more for a m edical student than fo r a fine arts one, Australia is under substantial pressure to boost its for example. Second, there is the funding allocated postgraduat e research enrolm ents. In the US, a by government-funded research agencies, of which the number of highly regarded colleges pride themselves Australian Research Council (ARC) and the N ational on being very good places to take a fi rst degree­ Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) are examples are Oberlin, Vassar and Smith. There is no the m ost significan t. Third, there are allocations chance of our getting an Oberlin in Australia under driven by formulae devised by DETYA- now DEST the present funding arrangements.

16 EU REKA STR EET • )UNE 2002 The pressure to boost postgraduate numbers is HECS return through the tax system, but they are an having some harmful effects. One is that some extra all the same. By contrast, the dollars for universities are entering into arrangements that additional research postgraduates come from inside border on buying postgraduate students. They are the system. moving substantial funds into additional scholarships, There are also serious problems with the publi­ top-ups on existing scholarships, and other financial cation element in the DEST formulae. (Incidentally, incentives like housing subsidies and relocation it was the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee expenses, to attract research postgraduates. (A VCC) and not DEST that pushed to have Arrangements of this kind have been around for some publications included.) Publications are weighted at time and are perfectly acceptable within limits. only ten per cent in the RTS and IGS, but because However, we are in danger of moving outside these they appear in both formulae, they move a lot of limits and entering into a bidding war. This is nice money. A paper is worth about $3000 and a book about for the postgraduates concerned but not so nice for $15,000. And, as with postgraduate performance, the the parts of the universities that are cross-subsidising funding is on a 'share of a fixed total' basis. If the the contest. It is widely recognised that the bidding number of publications from your university drops wars between states seeking to attract large companies as a percentage of the system total, funding moves are a net loss to Australia. I fear we may be facing a from your university to other universities. In conse­ We need a body similar situation in universities. quence, there is a significant financial incentive to charged with Another consequence of the push for post­ publish a lot. However, it is much easier to publish graduates is that departments are being pressured to in what are known as low-impact journals-journals providing funding take on students who should not be doing a research whose papers on average are not cited often-than it and policy advice degree in the first place. Sometimes the right thing to is to get a paper into one of the very best journals. So say to someone thinking of doing a research post­ the pressure to publish encourages the publication of on universities graduate degree is- don't. The right degree for them run-of-the-mill papers, and recent surveys of publica­ whose members may be a professional doctorate or a diploma or a tion practices show a clear trend towards publishing coursework Masters, or perhaps they should get a job in lower-impact journals. have the following and maybe-or maybe not-think about doing a The contrast with practice overseas is marked. characteristics: research degree after a period in the workforce. In this In the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK, context, it is worth emphasising that the monetary academics nominate a small selection, four or five, of they are people of value of a research degree to a university under the their best publications over a four-year period. undoubted formulae is independent of its quality, provided that Similarly, in the best US universities the it is completed successfully. A PhD that is praised by focus is very much on quality. sta nding; they external examiners and that secures a research know a lot about position at Imperial College London is worth the same So WITH THE DEST formulae we have a one-size­ as one passed without enthusiasm and never read by fits-all system when we should have one that universities; a anyone except the student, the examiners and the promotes diversity. We have a system that encourag­ good number have supervisor. es departments to give bad advice to intending Departments are also under great pressure to hold research postgraduates about where they should study, worked in a on to their best undergraduates. Often-not always­ and whether they should undertake a research degree university here or it is good for a student to move to a new university to in the first place. It is a system that encourages do their PhD or Masters degree. In the US this is universities to bid against each other for research post­ overseas; and they standard practice. The current system punishes a graduates with dollars taken from, for example, are genuinely department that advises a student to move on and undergraduate education and librariesi a system that cut the apron strings. encourages the publishing of minor papers and books. independent of In case you are wondering about the size of the The obvious question to ask at this point is, how did both the incentive to enrol a research postgraduate student, the this happen? return over time to a university for each student is There is much that could be said on this subject. government and calculated at between $40,000 and $100,000. And But I am sure that a m ajor factor is the process by the universities. perhaps more importantly, the return is on a 'share of which higher education policy is developed in this a fixed total' basis. This means that money going to country. one university comes from another university. If your Higher education policies, including the formulae university is not competing well, the result will not we have just been discussing, are developed through m erely be that it misses out on some extra dollarsi it a complex interaction between public servants will have money taken away from it. The situation is (especially in DEST), politicians (especially and quite different from that with so-called over-enrolled obviously the Minister for Education) and universities undergraduates. The dollars for enrolling above one's (especially through the A VCC). All three groups are undergraduate target are an extra in the system. True, far from ideal sources of policy input. it is an extra that comes at no net cost to the govern­ Many of the public servants involved in formu­ m ent because the extra dollars match the projected lating research-funding policy are very able, and care

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 17 for the sector, but their knowledge is typically very opportunities: when the program is first mooted, when Sometimes the much second-hand. They have little experience of bids for funding under the program arc called for, and right thing to say working and researching in universities. Also, som e when the results are announced. public servants are too wary of what is sometimes Finally, I should say something about the AVCC. to someone called 'interest-group capture'. Instead of taking advice The AVCC is composed of highly intelligent women thinking of doing from people who work in universities and making and men who care a lot about universities-whatever adj ustments for the inevitable self-interest factor, they their staff and students may think from time to time. a research tend to work largely independently of advice from the But they care most about their own university. This postgraduate practitioners. Also, as has been widely noted, recent makes it very hard for them to speak with a unified and not-so-recent changes to the Australian public voice on major policy proposals. For obvious reasons, degree is-don't. service mean it no longer provides the independent, in a system as diverse as ours, many major policy Th e right degree fearless advice to government that citizens would like proposals move dollars around, and when dollars move it to provide. Public servants are under pressure to around, there are losers as well as winners. Vice­ for them ma y be say what their minister wants to hear. chancellors of the universities that lose under a a professional Many politicians are not well-disposed towards proposed policy will oppose it more or less automati­ universities. It is said that a senior minister told Nobel cally. I would like to see more vice-chancellors taking doctorate or a Prize-winning scientist Peter Doherty that 'if we gave a whole-of-system approach to policy questions, but diploma or a universities m ore money, they would only increase this is no easy thing to do when your university is in the wages of the gardeners'. This may be apocryphal. competition with the rest of the system . coursework But I am s ure that many senior m embers of the Of course, the A VCC does sometimes speak with Masters, or government regard universities as places that protect a unified voice, usually in support of more money for mediocrity and resist change in order to look after the system as a whole, and often produces compel­ perhaps they their own interests rather than the interests of their ling figures to back up their claims. But they are so should get a job. students and the taxpayer. I think we in universities obviously a lobby group, and funding comparisons are partly to blame for this situation. Many senior between Australia and the rest of the world are m embers of the government, and the opposition if it sufficiently complex to allow government to respond com es to that, attended universities in the '60s and with their own figures in ways that leave the average '70s. Mostly they will have been taught by able, punter in a state of confusion about whom to believe. cleclicatecl staff, but the odds are that they will also have had som e teachers who were chronically late What should be clone? We need a body charged and disorganised (som etimes proudly so), who had with providing funding and policy advice on univer­ serious personal problems that interfered with their sities whose m embers have the following character­ teaching, or who had published nothing of note for istics: they are people of undoubted standing; they ten years and yet had the same teaching load as staff know a lot about universities; a good number have who were writing ground-breaking books. They will worked in a university here or overseas; and they are also likely recall that the university did nothing about genuinely independent of both the government and these staff. The situation in universities today is very the universities. different and some politicians know this, but many, If we set up such a body, we would return to the perhaps most, do not. These bad memories can be very system we had when the Universities Commission damaging when universities seek extra funding from (1957-77) and later the Commonwealth Tertiary government. Education Commission (1977-87) operated, and we However, the main problem with politicians is would fall into line with the UK with its Higher Edu­ that they are politicians, and I m ean this in a nice cation Funding Council (HEFC). way. The first question they tend to ask about any What are the chances? I am pessimistic. An HEFC funding proposal is whether it is good for the univer­ involves a transfer of power away from governm ent. sity in their electorate or state or territory. And if they True, it would assist the government in making un­ forget to ask this question, a call from the Vice­ popular but necessary reforms by allowing an HEFC Chancellor of the university in question will remind to take some of the flak. But governments these cla ys them. A major program in 'Backing Australia's Ability' seem to prefer power, and the correlative patronage is subs tantial new funding for Major National possibilities, to flak protection. Also, I suspect that Research Facilities. Each and every state and territory some universities would oppose an HEFC. They received some funding in this program's first round. believe that they do better by lobbying governm ent No-one thinks this was an accident. Also, politicians than by having their funding determined by a being politicians, they like media opportunities. This genuine} y independent body. • m eans that they are resistant to increasing the basic operating grants for universities, which is what we Fra nk Jackson was D irector of the Institute of who work in universities know is most needed. They Advanced Studies at the Australian National Univer­ much prefer to announce a complex set of new sity from 1998 to 2001. He is currently Professor of programs, each of which provides a number of m edia Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences.

18 EUREKA STREET • j UNE 2002 THE NATION

jUSTIN COLEMAN On Elcho Island W hen a southern -trained doctor does a locum stint in Yo lngu territory, the rules and rhythms of ge neral practice have to adjust.

E'"'"'"' o• town< in Amtmha could explained that the public address system and tobacco. In 1907, the newly formed lay claim to having English as a second can be heard throughout the township and Commonwealth government banned language, let alone rank it third. Thus, anyone can have a go. Macassans from entering Australian I enjoyed a rare experience on a recent visit Participation is particularly encour­ waters, and the entire export system to an Australian community where spoken aged at 7.30am because many families collapsed. English doesn't even score a bronze. don't own clocks, so the kids n eed a The Balandas, whose existence was I was invited to replace a doctor on reminder to prepare for school. If no-one still only hearsay for many Yolngu, had Elcho Island over Christmas. Elcho, where has anything to say, music is played, much made their first impact. Worse followed: gu m tree m eets tropical palm, is just a of it recorded locally-this is Yothu Yindi a number of mass murders in which entire short swim north of Arnhem Land. You and Saltwater Band country. family groups were hunted down and shot. could almost wade across from mainland Approximately 1500 Yolngu live on The Yolngu heard rumours that a new Australia in the deliciously warm Arafura the island. My family of fiv e swelled the 'government' had taken over down south, Sea, except the salt-water crocodiles Balanda (w hite) population by almost ten but they never met th ese strange law­ would take a keen interest. Little wonder per cent. makers who allowed lawlessness to go the box jellyfish antivenene in the doctor's For centuries before the Dutch ship unpunished. fridge remains unopened-even the locals Arnhem explored the region in 1623, Life on the land becam e untenable as keep their toes dry on the pristine beaches. Elcho served as a major link in the trade the pastoralists' fences multiplied, forcing I chose a safer method of transit, but route stretching from Central Australia the Yolngu on to the Methodist missions. even flying has its difficulties. It takes two through to Macassar, in what is now When Australia's north coast was days from Tullamarine and the Darwin­ Indonesia. The Yolngu traded vast quan­ attacked during the Second World War, to-Elcho leg is rumoured to be the most tities of pearls and trepang (sea slugs) to and Japanese bombs exploded over expensive public flight in the country, per the Macassans, in return for metal, cloth Darwin, lay missioner Harold Shepherd­ kilometre. I was determined to son moved his mission east, to get my money's worth, loading the relative safety of up the luggage compartment Elcho Island. with two weeks' supply of food for m y family (I'd heard the H ow FAR HAS Australia pro­ local store sold floppy carrots gressed since the days of unpun­ for three times the price of crisp ished human slaughter and ones back home). stolen ch ildren ? The Elcho I At the Darwin check-in the know has an Aboriginal coun­ attendant's fr own deepen ed cil and a thriving football com­ with every bag I produced. My petition, and a local Yolngu four-year-old's Wiggles back­ woman provides the police pack weighed more than he did, presence. Although the church and I was sweating like a drug mission arguably contributed smuggler. I was asked to step to the decline of traditional on the luggage scales myself, culture, it did provide som e clocking in with just grams to shelter against the cruel changes spare-the perspiration helped. sweeping Arnhem Land. The The first sound I heard as mission workers lived without I stepped on to Elcho was a luxury among the local people loudspeaker bellowing out one to a greater extent than most of the many Indigenous lan­ Balandas before or since. guages spoken on the island. Elcho Island Aborigina l hea lth worker, Rrapa Dhurrkay, takes a However, Richard Trudgen, The nurse who greeted m e pati en t's blood press ure. Photograph courtesy }uslin Coleman. author of Why Warriors Lie

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 19 Down and Die, suggests that the health laughed. It took a while to get used to The patient's family knocks on the of Elch o Islanders has declined signifi­ using a fully fun ctioning em ergen cy door of whichever house has the on-call cantly in the last three decades. Ironically, vehicle to take the family shopping. clinic car parked outside. In Rrapa's case, this dates back to the time when 'self­ In the afternoon I met Rrapa Dhurr­ this wakes up the 15 extended-family determination' became the buzzword in kay, the Aboriginal health worker who m embers sleeping inside h er three­ Canberra. would be sharing the on-call roster with bedroom tin house, and she goes to the He compares two health screenings, 35 me that night. clinic to trea t the patient. If all goes well years apart. In 1957, of 713 Yolngu people Rrapa h as spent h er life on Elch o I get a courtesy phone call from Rrapa, examined, only one had h ypertension and except fo r a few years at secondary school who describes her managem ent. I congrat­ one was obese. In 1992, a similar screen­ in Darwin. While working as a filing clerk ulate her on her m edical skills, then roll ing found 30 per cent were overweight and at the health centre she studied for a year over in bed. It really is a functional system. 50 per cent of adults had some degree of to gain a certificate as a health worker. Well, m

20 EUREKA STR EET • jUNE 2002 THE REG I ON

JAMES GR IF FI N

ToHC,NT h•ppening' in C•nhem of Defence, AusAID and the Federal a prime ruse in his locker: the MPs' augured that the Bougainville conflict Police, justifiably proud of a unique opulent slice of the rural development slush could end constructively and that Aus­ achievement. funds would be available after the session. tralia may have learnt a profound lesson However, at the launch on 12 March The task of the whips was also made easier about non-punitive peacekeeping in its we were not quite sure that the Papua as the major parties were mobilising con­ Melanesian 'arc of instability'- N ew Guinea parliament would rally the ventions at the time and could shunt mem ­ One was the visit to the Australian two-thirds majority needed to ratify the bers home via Port Moresby. National University (ANU) of two obscure constitutional changes that, on paper at In the event, 8 7 of the legislative traditional or 'Custom' leaders, Damien least, would break the impasse in negoti­ complem ent of 109 turned up and, on and Cecilia Dameng (pictured above), to ations on Bougainville's future. Sure, the 17 March, voted unanimously. Bougain­ tell their life stories. The other was the changes had already sailed through the ville is to have high autonomy within the launch of a small book, Without a Gun: first of the two separate scrutinies PNG constitution; it can have a referen­ Australians' Experiences Monitoring required by the constitution, but PNG is dum on independence within ten to 15 Peace in Bougainville, 1997-2000 (Panda­ in election mode. This is the year of the years of implementation; and a three-stage nus) . The latter was performed before an glittering prizes. Would enough MPs turn plan for the disposal of w eapons by atypical crowd in the tearoom of the up to vote on a now-tiresome issu e? ex-combatants is to be expedited. ANU's Coombs Building by Li eutenant Bouga inville, to the reps from the boon­ Breaking from PNG had always been General Peter Cosgrove. The well-lathered docks, was now merely geographically on Damien Darneng's mind. He and his listeners were not just the staids and tidied peripheral, where before, with a great 4000 or so supporters had done this in the scruffs from academe, but sartorial and­ copper mine providing 17 per cent of 1960s in the Kongora montane forest for the cocktail h our-seen ted public revenue and 36 per cent of export earnings, south-east of the Panguna mine site, servants notably from the Department of it had been economically central as well. where he set up his Bauring Association Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department Mercifully, Prime Minister Morauta had (bauring means 'th e/his child' in N asioi),

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STR EET 21 now referred to as Meekamui Pontoku thought regressive. In the 1960s and later, Solomons (to emphasise its 'natural ' Onoring (Meekamui m eans 'sacred land') . they were persuaded that ethnicity was location in the Solomons archipelago) It has been popularly known as the Fifty something that would be absorbed during followed on 1 September 1975, a fortnight Toea Government (toea m eans 'cents') modern 'nation-building'. So in Bougain­ before PNG became formally independ­ because of its subscription fe e and refusal ville the multiplier effects of a great mine ent. However, this was not an armed revolt, and what seemed to be a perma­ nent settlement occurred in August 1976 If Canberra had listened to Dameng and his like, the worst when PNG adopted a national system of catastrophe in the south-west Pacific since World War 1.1 would provincial government. The North Solo­ mons province became the most prosper­ have been avoided. ous and best-governed in PNG. Discontent smouldered over the next to acknowledge other governments, not and decolonisation would eventually over­ decade, however. The glaring desecration even the Bougainville provincial one. Its whelm 'Custom' and be accepted as of the ancestral lands-with a four-square­ aim was 'to fasten' their land and culture beneficial-or at least inevitable. In 1968 kilometre crater and millions of tonnes against alien intrusion. Professor Oliver, in the CRA Gazette (16 of overburden sludged into the Jaba river Educated to fourth-grade primary level, AugustL told shareholders that, while the system and Empress Augusta Bay-was Dameng, now aged 70, h ad been a impact of the mine rnight be traumatic, a continuous affront. The influx of 'red­ Catholic catechist but retained, syncreti­ the local people 'will probably get used to skins' from other provinces was irksome cally, only the rules and rites that could the Company's presence'. As for seces­ when they w ere gainfully employed, be blended with customary beliefs and sion, in the first edition of his best-selling threatening when they were not. Com­ practice. His association ran its own Bougainville: A Personal History (Mel­ pensation payments were to prove inad­ 'schools'- He saw Conzinc Riotinto of bourne University Press, 1973), Oliver equate, particularly when they had been Australia's (CRA) prospecting from 1964 would have gone to press without m en­ one-off and unproductively spent. There as a dire threat to his culture. Although tioning it if, at the last moment (as a sort was intergenerational conflict as popu­ his clan's land was not required, he of 'STOP PRESS 'L riots against the kill­ lation growth reduced benefits that were, resisted all blandishments and became the ing of two Bouga inville public servants in in any case, inequitably distributed in bane of the company and the Australian the PNG Highlands had not blazoned it. traditionally egalitarian clans. Although administration. On my first visit to Oliver was justly noted for his out­ the m ining agreem ent had been renego­ Bougainville in the late 1960s, his was a standing pre-war ethnography of the Siwai tiated in 1974 with provision for seven­ name to conjure with, but he was not on in Bougainville's south-west. If expert year reviews, these did not occur, owing general exhibition. humanist opinion was so impercipient, to the negligence of the national govern­ As was usual with such 'nativistic' what chance did hard-hatted mining ment. N either it nor Bougainville Cop­ movem ents, Dameng's had to be dubbed engineers have of understanding the con­ per Ltd (BCL) was alert to the ominous 'cargoistic' and 'cultic', as no doubt many text of their environmentally destructive, mood developing at the mine site. of his followers were. In his Blacl< although nationally essential, labours ? Violence, led by a former BCL surveyor, Islanders (1991), Emeritus Professor Yet, if they, or rather Canberra, had Francis Ona, erupted in late November Douglas Oliver, doyen of Harvard and listened to Dam eng and his like, the worst 1988 after the company failed to respond Pacific anthropologists, seems sure of it. catastrophe in the south-west Pacific to a demand fo r ten billion kina of com­ However, if the basic meaning of those since World War II would have been pensation (equal then to US$10 billion) terms is a belief in the supernatural prov­ avoided. Ironically, landowners on mining a! though total revenue from the mine to enance of money and goods, then a couple prospects in other parts of PNG welcomed that date had been less than two billion of lunch es and social events with this this sort of 'development'. It was beyond kina. Damage to infrastructure led to passionat e and reflective man are as Canberra's imagination that Bougainville incompetent and brutal police action and, disabusing as they would have been in the could be 'a special case', and in the late when that failed, to the call-out of the 1960s with principals of the notorious 1960s its mine seemed to be essential to Defence Force (PNGDF) in April1989. By Hahalis Welfare Society on Buka Island, what it was hoped would become an that time, secession, urged by Dameng or with which Dameng had 'bush corre­ economically viable, decolonised Ona, was back on the agenda. It was not spondence'. Aside from his surprise on Papua N ew Guinea. modified by Prime Minister Namaliu's seeing that whites actually grow their own generous offer of greater autonomy, vegetables, and some naivety as to cash EARLY PROTESTS against the resumption increased revenue and half the national flows, he was eminently rational. So was of village land from 1964 to 1974 were government's equity in the mine, which Cecilia, a dignified mother of ten (grand­ controlled by police action, improved now ceased to function. Ethnic cleansing mother of 49), with the carriage of one rents, elaborate tables of compensation begani the 'redskins' fl ed the province. honoured in the matrilineage system that and the prospect of decentralised govern­ By early 1990, the PNGDF had clearly prevails in most of Bougainville. ment. An impasse over the funding of the fail ed to defeat what had become the Dameng had an obdurate idea of his region's interim provincial government in Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA ). people's welfare, which civil administra­ 1975 led to its abolition. A declaration of In March, in an attempt to minimise tors and their academic consultants secession as the Republic of the North bloodshed, N amaliu declared a ceasefire,

22 EU REKA STREET • j UNE 2002 to take place under the supervision of a Bougainville in October 1994, under the for territorial sovereignty where Bougain­ team of international diplomats. He with­ surveillance of a South Pacific Peace ville was concern ed. There was also drew the PNGDF and riot squads from Keeping Force with personnel from Fiji, popularity to be won in forestalling body Bougainville and Buka Island but, without Tonga, Vanuatu and N ew Zealand, and bags and the drain on resources. instruction, the routine police also with­ only a surreptitious Australian presence. A truce was agreed to in October; a drew . A farcical show of handing in arms Although this force perform ed creditably, ceasefire at a further m eeting in Lin coln followed. Namaliu's next recourse was a the BIG/BRA did not attend, hoping for a (N ew Zealand) in January 1998. Proposals sea and air blockade of supplies and conference with a UN mandate ra ther than were m ade fo r a UN observer mission, a services. The rebel response was another one bound to be influenced by Australia. 'phased withdrawal' of the PNGDF as civil unilateral declaration of independence, This development coincided with the authority was restored, and a Bougainville this time by a Republic of Meekamui, emergence of a former acting judge, Reconciliation Government (BRG). Sup­ with Ona as president and former premier, Theodore Miriung, from the obscurity of ple arrangements had to be made because Joseph Kabui, as vice-president. his North N asioi village. Although by a BRG ran counter to C h an 's 1995 A period of anarchy followed during conviction a secessionist, he could see the reorganisation of the provincial govern­ which rebels attempted to purge opposi­ futility of the current armed struggle. m ent system, which reduced autonomy. tion. Educated and prosperous people were Assuming leadership with Chan's approval, A consultative Bougainville People's targeted; old enmities surfaced and he became the Acting Premier of a Congress (BPC) without a legal basis was payback was rife. The reaction on Buka Bougainville Transitional Government elected in May 1999, with Kabui as Island in the north was the initiation of a (BTG) comprising representatives from president. It was to co-exist with the Bougainville Resistance whose leaders eight 'interim authorities' around the officially reduced and now-appointed invited the PNGDF to return. Gradually, province. Its aims were to unite Bou­ provincial government. Their ultimate in 1991- 92, the PNGDF re-established gainvilleans and negotiate a new political rapprochement reflected concern that the itself at key centres in the province status within PNG. Suspicious of Miriung, province could be irremediably divided. without defeating the guerrilla BRA. following some military misadventures, With the constitutional changes of Atrocities occurred on both sides. BRA rogue army elements assassinated him. 2 7 March this year, the problem sympathisers and some journalists have Desperate for a decisive victory but was resolved. exaggerated the number of dea ths caused finally aware that the PNGDF could not by violence and lack of m edical supplies. achieve it, some members of Chan's L ROUG HOUT THE attempted reconcili­ Estimates of 15,000-20,000 are too high, government looked to mercenaries. The ation, emphasis was placed on instilling althou gh now accepted by Australian Sandline fiasco (in which the governm ent confidence in the immediate process Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, perhaps to swell the magnitude of his later achievement. A range of 5000-8000 would be closer to the mark. Villagers, A creative communal spirit is in evidence and it owes unlike the PNGDF, were only occasion­ something to the return of old leaders like Dameng to ally without adequate nutriment and sometimes healthier without processed public life and to the irenic example of the monitoring foods. Their medical situation was hard­ groups working without guns. ly worse than that of many areas of PNG, deprived as they were of medicines, particularly after revenues from Panguna were lost. contracted the m ercenary group, Sandline rather than outcomes. An unarmed Truce Futile attempts to bring peace began International, to conduct offensive Monitoring Group (TMG) had been set up in mid-1990. The Honiara Declaration of operations on Bougainville) followed in at Lincoln, consisting mainly of military 1991 called for a Multinational Super­ March 1997. This affair at least alerted personnel from Australia, Fiji and visory Team to oversee the destruction of both sides to the peril of escalating the Vanuatu but necessarily commanded by arms and the restoration of services. The conflict. The reaction of the PNGDF to a N ew Zealander until Australians estab­ Bougainville Interim Government (BIG)/ Sandline also improved its image in lished better bona fides. By May 1998, and BRA wanted UN involvem ent, in the hope Bougainville. A New Z ealand initiative having to bear the logistical costs, Aus­ of gaining international recognition, but coinciding with national elections in mid- tralia was able to assume leadership of the it never eventuated. After the elections of 1997 brought the Bougainville adversaries Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) which 1992, a new government under Highlander to n eutral ground at Burnham (New replaced the TMG. The PMG consisted Prime Minister Paias Wingti, influenced Zealand) to discuss a ceasefire. The new of some 300 m embers: 242 military and by ill-informed carpetbaggers, imagined PNG prime minister, Bill Skate, perhaps 16 civilians from Australia, 29 from that aggression might enable the mine because of a streak of fecklessness, had N ew Z ealand, 10- 12 from Fiji and area to be sanitised and reopened. Some been opposed to the PNGDF campaign. 12-15 from Vanuatu. In mid-2000 it was sensitivity was again restored with his Skate was a native Papuan and, with thought safe to reduce to 195, still a more replacem ent by Sir Julius Chan, who Bougainville no longer subsidising Papua, protracted and expensive venture than sponsored a peace conference at Arawa in he was not burdened by intense concern Canberra had envisaged but, as A.J. Regan

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STR EET 23 (constitutional lawyer and adviser to Bougainville and PNG leaders) has pointed out, a complex conflict and complex dynamics necessitated an equally complex peace process. The combatants had kept their arms, archimedes so there were serious risks. Ona had not accepted the PMG. He had declared large areas a 'no-go' zone, and in 1997- 98 he had once again proclaimed his Republic of Meekamui and changed the name of his When dry means drought Bougainville Revolutionary Army to the Meekamui D efen ce Force. It remains unpredictable although isolated. Moreover, there were still conflicts to ITHAS BEEN DRY IN M ELBOURNE for the past five or six years. Each Friday, residents be resolved, not only between the PNGDF keep a wary eye on advertisem ents showing the city's water reserves hovering and BRA and between BRA and the at about half full, just a few percentage points above the trigger point for water Resistance, but also within those groups restrictions. and between provincial leaders. Violations Of course, the restrictions w ould only be temporary. After all, this is of the ceasefire did occur, with even a few Melbourne, and for more than a century and a half the average rainfall in the pot-shots taken at the peacemakers. And catchments has been dependable. So things are bound to return to normal soon. there are still uncertainties to be resolved. Or so we hope. But what if the change is permanent? That is one of the prospects The new constitutional laws do not take held out by global climate change. effect until the UN team has verified the Until now, city water engineers worldwide have designed their systems to second stage of the weapons-disposal plan, cope with extremes that are forecast using past records of water flows, floods and this may depend on acceptable and droughts. But climate change would m ake it impossible to depend on history. arrangements for ·an amnesty. If verifica­ That's exactly what Mark Buehler of the M etropolitan Water District of South­ tion is delayed, a new post-election PNG ern California told the third World Water Congress of the International Water government could oppose implementing Association in Melbourne recently: 'The past no longer predicts the future.' the constitutional changes, although such What's more, change could be sudden. The most recent research suggests an action could not remain legal once that even if the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is gradual, there is verification occurs, and would overturn no reason to assume climate change itself will be gradual. Just ask the people of the unanimous bipartisan support of '27 March. And just as the BRA revolt spilled Perth. over into the Solomons, so a reverse Graem e Hughes, of the Water Corporation of Western Australia, told the impact could occur. The provinces of conference that, for the past 27 years, a 12 per cent decrease in rainfall in the Choiseul and the Western Solomons have catchments supplying Perth with water had reduced flow to the dams by 50 per strong affinities with southern Bougain­ cent. The change was so dramatic and prolonged that planners may as well ville and secessionist aspirations of their throw out the 100 years of data collected prior to 1977. own. The city has been able to meet an increasing demand for water, Hughes Finally, w e n eed to ask whether said, through a combination of conservation, reservoir development, and private Bougainville has the necessary adminis­ tapping of ground-water supplies. Even so, there have been times of severe water trative capacity to cope with the rebuild­ restrictions. ing of its infrastructure with .fewer 'Perth is not an outlier/ says Mark Buehler, 'but a forerunner of what will financial resources than it used to have. becom e common. ' Nearly all global climate models have predicted that the With a legacy of violence and anarchic sou thwestern part of Australia will becom e much drier. divisiveness, a fai lure to u se its n ew Graham Harris, from CSIRO, told the conference that in Australia we powers effectively would be disastrous. already use more surface water and bore water than is being replenished annually. A creative communal spirit is, how­ We are tapping into our reserves. 'We must seriously think about water reuse in ever, in evidence and it owes something ways we haven't before/ he warns. to the return of old leaders like Dameng Developing larger storages simply will not do, as global warming directly to public life and to the irenic example of affects the supplies of surface and ground water. Mark Buehler has come to the the monitoring groups working without conclusion that the most reliable sources of 'new ' water will be n on-traditional ~m. • ones, su ch as conservation and recycling-and we better start looking at them seriously. But it's all a bit difficult when you have federal governments in both James Griffin is em eritus professor of history at the University of PN G. Australia and the US who do not want to believe in climate change. • N.B. I am gratefUl to AI Regan fo r access to Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer. his voluminous writings.

24 EUREKA STREET • jUNE 2002 MILESTO ES

' In modern history the si ngle most creative idea has been the idea of consc ience, which began as a religious concept and fa nned out into anti­ imperi alism, anti-s lavery, democracy, federalism and generi c political realities.'- Edmund Campion on Lord Acton

E"'"'"o' RCM'M'"' one but whot of Queen EHz Bbeth I, thing about Lord Acton, w ho died who (they say) asked the jailer 100 years ago, this m onth, on 19 to murder Mary Queen of Scots, June 1902. H e coined the phrase, or William III, who ordered the ' Power- tends t o corrupt and m assacre of Glencoe? And what absolute power corrupts absolutely.' does one m ake of the m edieval Only ·their mem ory shortens the papacy, which set up a system phrase to 'Power corrupts.' Such is of persecution handing out the way of phrase-m akers, to have death and damnation to its their words misquoted or mis- opponents? It m ay have done used- Donald Horne has pent a many good things but this one life time hearing people get 'A us- fact should condemn it. If we tralia is a lucky country' wrong. judge our great ones by special The key to Acton's thinking lies lenient standards, then we have in his next sentence: 'Great m en debased our m oral currency. are almost always bad m en .' Australians are comfortable N o tice: almost al ways; pow er with the idea that great m en are tends to corrupt. There is nothing almost always bad men. Medieval necessary or inevitable about the writers, who taught the reverse wa.y power m ay spoil its users, doctrine, have had few fo llowers they have a choice in the matter. here. Inheritors of Machiavelli's Yet the potential is alway there, 'whatever it takes' science of it cannot be denied. politics, we know that power is Acton's sentences occur in a won by untruths, doctored photo- long letter to Mandell Creighton, graphs, mendacious denials and whom he had helped to fo und the putting the boot into those who En glish Historical Review and cannot kick back. In the debate who would later becom e an Angli- about an Australian republic, can bishop. Creighton was also the author of a five- the most compelling contrary argument was that you volume history of the papacy at the time of the could not trust politicians to act squarely. Great m en Reformation, early volumes of which Acton had are almost always bad m en ? We know that. reviewed trenchantly . A m ajor complaint of the Above: Th e Reg iu s reviewer was that the author had been too lenient on ••• Professor of M odern the papacy, which believed in killing its opponents. The old papal states maintained a prison fo r priests H istory at th e Universi ty of He accused Creighton of a watered-down m orality outside Rome, at Corneto. One day in 1866, Acton Ca mbridge, c. 1896. that excused the crimes of the great simply because gained admission and what he saw shocked him. Ph oto by Elliott and Fry, London, in Lord Acton, they were great and powerful. A true historian should There were 16 prisoners, dirty and dressed in rags. In by Roland Hill (Ya le go the other way, he argued. Thus Calvin, whom many squalid conditions, som e of them had gone mad; or Unive rsity Press, 2000). revere as their best religious teacher, is rather to be perhaps they had gone m ad before they were locked Be/ow: A spec imen of damned because he had Michael Servetus burnt as a up. Their jailers could punish them for infringing the Acton's un changin g heretic. Historians would hang common murderers; rules by denying them exercise, putting them on dry handwritin g.

VOLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EU REKA STRE ET 25 bread or making them sleep on the floor of an empty questions. It was an absurd sophistry, he wrote, to cell. They were not allowed to say Mass but they could say that it would m ean only that the Pope would be recite the Divine Office together. There was a small free from error when teaching ex cathedra. Acton prayer group under the leadership of a fallen Jesuit. suspected that it would force on believers the Catholic The prison had no library but the inmates earned a Church's then rejection-as taught in the papal little money by book-binding and copying music and Syllabus of Errors (1864)-of liberal principles such manuscripts. Their crimes were various: some were as free speech, religious liberty or the separation of sexual offenders, others heretics; one priest had tried church and state. There might also be retrospective to poison a papal servant in order to get his job for a ratification of papal misdeeds over the centuries. 'The relative, another had suborned a child to steal money most flagrant and obvious contradiction of papal from his father; some were prison escapees, recap­ infallibility is the conduct of persecuting popes,' tured; one, a suspected schismatic, was imprisoned Acton wrote in his journal. (When the journal was without trial. published, in 1975, by the Catholic Institute of The young English Catholic wrote to the Pope's Sydney, then the Theological Faculty of Sydney, a secretary of state, the vulpine Cardinal Antonelli, papal diplomat remarked that it was sad-making that

asking permission to send the sacerdotal prisoners a the faculty should publish such an anti-papal Catholic box of books. For three weeks he heard nothing. Then as Acton.) running across the secretary of state one day, he was The more he thought about it, the more Acton overwhelmed by the suavity of the cardinal, who became convinced that the push towards papal infal­ assured Acton that he was very grateful for his inter­ libility was part of a larger campaign to centralise vention and that the priests would soon have some church power in the hands of the Roman curia. One books. Back at the office, however, Antonelli ticked could date the beginning of the campaign at 1801, off the responsible bishop and told him never, ever to when Pope Pius VII, with Napoleon's help, sacked the allow people like Acton into their prison again. entire French episcopate in one night, as if the bishops were his curates. Other episodes included the ••• condemnation of liberal Catholics, the univocal One evening during the first Vatican Council, Acton declaration of Mary's Immaculate Conception, and went to dinner with Olga, Queen of Wurttemberg, at the Syllabus of Errors. Well, the 19th century was a her hotel in Rome. By now, he was widely known as century of empire-building and throughout much of a fierce opponent of the proposal that the council the world Catholics were a depressed civil entity and should declare the Pope to be infallible. For weeks he thus susceptible to strong ecclesiastical leadership. had been working hard to strengthen the hand of the The trouble with such imperialism, Acton thought, bishops who opposed this definition of infallibility, was that it led to historical window-dressing, defend­ as well as gathering news for the German press, which ing the indefensible. There were people who would he slipped through the net of the papal post office. gloss over or even lie about the murderous deeds of Queen Olga asked him, what do you people want? the past because to give them their proper weight For myself, answered Acton, I want to keep papal might reflect badly on the institution. The name of authority out of scholarly questions and confine it to this movement was Ultramontanism and he thought Above and page 27, discipline and administration . From such an energetic that to be an Ultramontane was to be in sin. It was iar righl: Fragments of th e activist, it seems quite a mild reply. If that's all papal tantamount to colluding with criminals. An unrepent­ john O'Aiberg, Lord infallibility was about, why the fuss? ant Ultramontane could never get to heaven, he A cton portrait, from Lord But Acton and his circle thought that papal thought. 'I understand the movement for the glorifi­ AclOn and his Circle, infallibility was about much more than this, which cation of the papacy as a scheme for the promotion of ed. Abbot Ga squet O.S.B (George Allen/Burns & is why they fought it. Acton's lieutenant, the British sin,' he wrote to Blennerhassett's wife in 1884. Oates, London, MP Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, wrote to his fiancee By 1884, however, it was clear that Acton's no date given). that it would be used to control Catholics on political reading of the infallibility doctrine had been haywire.

26 EUREKA STREET • jUNE 2002 Blennerhassett's 'absurd sophistry'-that it m eant himself. Then a stray sentence of Newman's caused only that the Pope would be kept free from error when offence and, to defend it, he wrote an essay on the teaching ex cathedra-was beginning to appear in role of the laity. The essay is today seen as the first catechisms and to be taught as the universal under­ text in the modern theology of the laity; at the time standing of the doctrine. By that date, too, it was clear it was regarded as heretical, and a bush bishop delated that Ultramontanes, such as Henry Edward Manning it to Rome. For years Newman was under a cloud, and William George Ward, had got it wrong also. They suspect and overlooked. Still he went on defending had wanted it to cover the widest variety of papal acts, and encouraging Acton. Then, when Manning was hot day in and day out. Such an interpretation was in pursuit of the young lord in the aftermath of unsustainable. Nevertheless, Archbishop Manning Vatican I, Newman, teeth on edge again at what Acton went after oppositionists like a shark after a school was writing, nonetheless refused to desert him. of fish. He was one of those bishops who believe that No good deed goes unpunished. Acton was the Kingdom of God is somehow advanced by deny­ ungrateful for the support Newman gave him. He ing the sacram ents to those who disagree with them wanted the older man to come out and say publicly (i.e. bishops); and he was keen to excommunicate the sorts of things he himself was saying. But Newman

Acton, if only the young man would give him an did not share Acton's intellectual position on this­ opening, which he never did. he thought (rightly) that time would give a milder Wiser heads waited to see how history would interpretation of infallibility than Acton was receive the new doctrine. Would it unleash maxim al prophesying-and also he had a duty of care to his papal pressures on each Catholic's everyday faith life, institutions, the Birmingham Oratory and the Oratory as Manning and Acton predicted? The experience of School, whereas Acton was an entirely free spirit, history has answered: no. Indeed, in the nearly 150 unencumbered by responsibilities of that order. So years since it was debated and then defined, it has Acton soured against N ewman. been so rarely employed that the question must The wisest of Acton scholars, Owen Chadwick, re-emerge: was it a strategy in a wider gam e plan? In has suggested that N ewm an's acceptance of a red hat, the centennial year of the definition, 1970, there was in 1879, enraged Acton against him, as someone who a noticeable silence throughout the Catholic world, willy- nilly had become a damnable Ultramontane. By broken only by the eminent US Protestant historian 1882 Acton was writing to his revered professor, Ignaz Martin E. Marty, who discussed in the National von Dollinger, of the new cardinal: 'H ere is the brutal Catholic Reporter the eclipsing of infallibility during liar, and the artful deceiver, who seems so scrupulous, recent decades. As well, a US bookshop threw a party and certainly does his work, the devil's work, best.' for Protestants, perhaps to celebrate how good for By that time, Acton had retreated into an interior business the controversial RC teaching had been. solitude, which had its own punishment; soon he Since then, increasingly this phantom dogma has been would break with Dollinger and write, 'I am absolutely of interest only t o his torians and professional alone in my essential ethical position .' ecclesiologists. One evening after Newman died, in 1890, Acton sat by his fire, collecting his thoughts about 'that Above, centre; Gladstone ••• splendid sophist', as he now described his old defender. family group at John Henry N ewman was more than 30 years older Perhaps he would write an article about him. As usual, Tegern see, 1879, with than Acton yet he was remarkably sympathetic to the Acton jotted his thoughts on record cards, which he Acton and Dollinger together at ri ght. younger man. This remained true even though many then put into a box and forgot about. The article was of the things Acton wrote set N ewman's teeth on edge. Above, left : reverse detail never written but the notes for it survive at Cam­ of Acton and Dollinge r. When the English bishops wanted to close down bridge. Reading them now, one can see how Acton From Letters of Lord Acton's magazine, The Rambler, for its cheeky tone, got madder and madder as the night wore on (was there Acton 10 Mary Gladstone, N ewman agreed to stay their hands by taking over a decanter of port at hand?) . He recorded, for instance, eel . Herbert Paul the editorship, which m eant writing much of it an episode about his colleague on Th e Rambler, (George Allen, 1904).

V OLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 27 Richard Simpson, who liked to tease ecclesiastics. He you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven .' They estab­ had written comically of Pope Pius V and N ewman lish, he said, the notion of the papacy: 'A church, reported that a Dominican friar had said he would therefore, without a pope is not the church of Christ.' like to bum Simpson at the stake ... Newman adding Further, he told Ri chard, in m odern tim es we attain slyly that he quite knew what the friar meant. A passing salvation by using the same methods as a ninth­ comment, not to be taken seriously? One would think century monk or a 13th-century friar. Don't think of so. By the end of the evening, however, Acton was the church as an ancien t manuscript needing in ter- noting that N ewm an himself wanted Simpson burnt. Yet Acton's m ind was too capacious to deny Newm an his place in history. A fe w years later, he gave his favourite daughter the complete works as a Christmas present and som e m onths later told Glad­ stone that Newm an was the best English Catholic writer since the Reformation. Characteristically, he added in that letter to Gladstone that N ewman's work was 'a school of infidelity'. In that, at least, he shared ground with Manning, who once listed ten heresies to be fo und in N ewm an's books. pretation, he said, it is 'a vessel carrying Christ in person'. +++ The religion of this fierce opponen t of Roman When Richard Acton was 19 or 20, his father, Lord centralism, once som ething of a mystery, has become Acton, took him fo r a walk near their family property better understood in recent years. N ewman 's more in Bavaria and talked to him about religion. After­ public experience affords a window on to what was wards the young man recorded in his notebook what going on in Acton's inner world. Over his painfu l years his father had said. It makes interesting reading. He as a Catholic, when m any hands seemed turned told his son that a Catholic should live and die with against h im , N ewman fashioned for h imself a Christ's words to Peter ringing in his ears: 'I will give theology of suffering: it was the tax God levied on his fo llowers for the sacram ental benefits of being a Catholic. Acton cam e to that position too. When people were seeking his excommunication, he wrote Denis Freney Memorial candidly to The Times that m embership of the church Scholarships-up to $5,000 was dearer to him than life. Applications are invited from people currently engaged His religion was simple-childlike, some have in (or about to commence) a research, writing or cultural said: daily prayer, regular at Mass and confession, project which contributes to the labour and progressive giving to the poor. He was an Imitation of Christ movements in Australia. Catholic who recited the entire Jesus psalter each The SEARCH Fo undation will award scholarships to Friday. When he came to Cambridge as the first papist assist with the costs of such pro jects, with priority to professor since the Reformation, the parish priest, at projects which have good prospects of publica ti on or other Cardinal Vaughan's urging, invited him to take a public use, but without access to other funding. leading part in the Bl essed Sacram ent procession; SEA RCH is an independent, non-profit fo undation which he did, wearing his academic dress. (Acton is a established to promote social justice, environmental suspicious omission from Archbishop Cou ve de sustainability and the development of a more democratic Murville's book on Catholic Cambridge.) and egalitarian society. Details of its aims and obj ectives Two quotations catch the reality of Lord Acton's are available on request. spirituality. The first are the word s he whispered to Suitably qualified applicants should contact SEARCH for his dying daughter, Elizabeth, in 188 1: 'Be glad, my detailed application guidelines. child, you will soon be with Jesus Christ.' The second, Applications must be received by July 16, 2002 applicable to himself, is a note he jotted down for a Social Education and Research lecture on Erasmus but never used: 'He did not despair Concerning Humanity (SEARCH) Foundation of the church.' Rm 610, 3 Smail St, BROADWAY NSW 2007 +++ Ph: (02) 9211 4164; Fax: (02) 9211 1407 www.search.org .au Lord Acton never vulgarised himself by writing a book. When he won the Cambridge chair, in 1895, the university library, som ewhat embarrassed that SEARCH their n ew profe sor had publish ed entirely in FOUNDATION periodicals and weighty newspapers (the 'go-ahead ACN 050 096 976 work', he had told Gladstone, is in magazines), hunted round and found an open letter he wrote to a German

28 EU REKA STREET • )UNE 2002 bishop after Vatican I. The library had this slim plunder; and then historians come along and rub this fascicle bound and at last felt content: they could say out. But fortunately they lived at a time when all over that the new professor had a book to his name. It was their world archives were being opened. Soon, there­ a subterfuge, of course, and Acton never delivered fore, they would be able to get behind official versions, himself of a book, although he proposed many a title­ to go into the kitchen and see how state banquets indeed, it becam e a joke among friends that the most were cooked. H e once said that no secret lasts more learned man in England knew too much to be able to than 36 years; now he said that soon there would be v t C.OWWM? 0: C'-Jo~ . (b~ Mt j cu: (XI. c.Vt4l ~ fiV'tl£ povJ:U c(L e'

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finish a book. Dollinger was on the money when he no m ore secrets. Behind this brave confidence in the said that if his star pupil didn't do a book by the time ability to correct official histories lay a hope that he was 40, he would never do so. his historians would becom e a hieratic caste pur­ After Acton's death, however, disciples found his suing history as chastely as mathem aticians their lecture texts, written out in full in the Cambridge mathem atics. Such confidence energised his plans for m anner, and made them into three stout volumes. the Cambridge Modern History, w hich he hoped They are not an easy read: too delphic, too allusive, would be written without revealing whether a page's too demanding and rather m ore dense than the simple author was French or English, German or Dutch, narratives his predecessors in the chair had consid­ Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. ered to be adequate history teaching. N evertheless, Ideas make history-that was the heart of Acton's le tout Cambridge crowded into his lecture room to teachings. He was always tracing the transmission of hear the cosm opolitan sage. H e took a glass of egg ideas, writing lists of names on his record cards, which and vermouth beforehand, to strengthen his delivery; have puzzled those who fail to see them as genealo­ and nibbled marshmallows and biscuits at the gies. This is why he thought highly of N ewman's rostrum, to keep his energy up. Young wom en were theory of the development of doctrine: it imported noticeable am ong his audiences- Acton was women­ Darwinism into the world of ideas. In m odern history fri endly, wanting them to be admitted to degrees, the single m ost creative idea has been the idea of som ething the university would not agree to until conscience, which began as a religious concept and after World War II . On undergraduate m ales his fanned out into anti-imperialism, anti-slavery, dem oc­ influence m ay be m easured by enrolments in the racy, federalism and generic political realities. He history school, w hich tripled during his time at thought things were getting better, and cen sured Cambridge. N ewman for his lack of fa ith in progress, which Acton The Australian undergraduate, who devoted his considered to be a denial of God's action in history. first day at Cambridge to m aking a pilgrimage to Yet within a half-century of Acton's death all Europe Acton's residence in Chaucer Road, wasn't far wrong. from the Urals to the Atlantic, with a few exceptions These autumnal years were Acton's happiest. Like on its fringes, knew the truth of his saying that Manning Clark, he discovered his primary vocation absolute power corrupted absolutely; n ot much in teaching students. He loaded them with books on progress then, nor room for conscience. loan, some in languages they didn't know, gave them Acton wanted his pupils to becom e hanging access to his collections of manuscript materials, and judges. 'If we lower our standard in history,' he told answered their questions with patience. You cannot them in the famous inaugural lecture, 'we cannot teach history without reading voraciously; Acton's uphold it in church or state.' We are the conscience pupils were beneficiaries of a lifetime's preparations of the human race about its past. In his notes- perhaps in a mountainous library. His books were for use, not for this lecture-he tried out an idea that the study of display. Brought to the university library after his history empowers you to choose your own ancestors death, some 14,000 of them were found to need or, as we should say, your own role m odels. This binding. They went on doing his work, although he suggests a more humble career for the historian, one was removed from the scene. 'Fellow students'-the in which he takes off the black cap and is himself or opening words of his inaugural lecture- had been not herself judged and corrected by the study of the past. • a formulaic greeting, but, rather, a teaching program. What did he teach theml Above all, to be critical. Edmund Campion is found at the Catholic Institute Trust nobody. The bad great men of history kill and of Sydney.

V OLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 29 Fingers and the pies

W TwnH oNe TH,NCand anothe., it'' pmbably been quite limit to Eddie McGuire's reach and influence. Here we were at a while since you perused the Honour Roll of the Battle of Tullamarine m arvelling that his voice should be directing us Agincourt. I've been pretty slack in that regard myself recently, to our aircraft but failing to realise that somewhere else, m ere but a strange, even eerie, experience at Melbourne Airport a hours ago, he was calling the footy in the box at Colonial having few days ago moved m e to wonder about Henry V's gallant and just arrived, not breathless, from speaking to a luncheon of the outnumbered troops. Who were they that faced the French on a 'Save Struggling Victorian Football Clubs so Long as Colling­ saturated foreign paddock on 25 October 141 5? wood is Not Disadvantaged Society', and before that he'd been The eerie experience went like this: I was heading for the at Crown Casino with the high-rolling Sheik Ali Ahrami Faqutu, check-in queue when an announcement had m e faltering, Grand Bludgeon Extraordinary to the Sultan of Ouazarzat, work­ disorientated, to a halt. It was not what was said- something shopping a plan to recruit from the Tuareg and Berber Arabs of about a late flight- but the voice. Those articulate, confident the Sahara, who would m ore easily withstand the tones, the engagingly Aussie lack of pretension- it had to be northern heat when playing the Brisbane Lions. Eddie McGuire. I would have doubted my own judgment had it not been for the reaction of all the other would-be passengers, B u T IT's USELESS TRYING to keep up with genuine, 21st-century or custom ers as they are called th ese days. Everyone had ubiquity. Eddie McGuire's capacity to live inside his many stopped. Some tilted their heads as if to hear the voice m ore compartmentalised heads (o n each of which, as he often notes, clearly; others looked up towards the ceiling seeking confirma­ is a different hat) was nowhere better demonstrated than at half­ tion of som ething they could not easily credit. time during the Essendon-Carlton game a few Friday nights And then the voice came again and there was no doubting ago. Fronting the camera with that prince of malaprop prolixity, it: the ubiquitous Eddie McGuire-known to Victorians as the Sam N ewman, a sombre Eddie explained that he was about to Collingwood Football Club president and face of Channel Nine wear his Collingwood president's hat to deal with a serious al­ footy and to people everywhere as the genial, cheque-signing legation and therefore Sam would have to chair the segm ent. compere of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!-was calling the If you're inclined to ask what other club president would have planes at Tullamarine Airport. access to such a forum to defend his team and break or embel­ 'Qantas flight 725 to Sydney,' announced Eddie, and lish sensational news, don't bother. The answer is: lock in everyone hung on his words, 'will be delayed owing to the late (q) shut your face or (z) what conflict of interest/ arrival of the connecting aircraft. The new boarding time will Such confident yet breathtakingly uncomplicated omnis­ be-we'll take a break and be back with more in just a m oment.' cience, I reasoned, must have originated way back in Eddie's Everyone relaxed. Who cared if the plane was late ' Eddie lineage. Don't bother testing this by seeing if the McGuires had it all under control just as he had Channel Nine, the AFL, were in the First Fleet. Of course they were. But what about the Collingwood Football Club and numerous other enterprises, proving grounds more distan t in space and time? Was there a small and large, at his dancing fingertips and twinkling toes, or McGuire at Agincourt1 rather the other way round, though not necessarily, as either Well, Shakespeare's Henry V was surely previewing one of way will work and that's the McGuire touch. Everything works. Eddie's most recent presidential exhortations when he said, 'he In a state of confused excitem en t and baseless euphoria, as which hath no stomach to this fi ght I Let him depart.' Not to if I had made it on to the podium of Who Wants to Be a m ention the unmistakable reference to Sam N ewman in '[wh o] Millionaire! then couldn't rem ember for $100 that it was N ed sheds his blood with m e I Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so Kelly not Ben Hall, Mad Dog Morgan or Chopper who wore vile.' armour, I hurried to the departure ga te expecting every mom ent More to the point, though, Eddie Macwilliam and Tom Eddie's next announcem ent. It came soon enough . Magson, Agincourt soldiers both, had names at least reminis­ 'Qantas flight 942 will depart from gate lounge 11 for cent of our man's. But Edward McWhyre sounds like the best (a) Cairns (b) Sydney (c) Darwin (d) Townsville.' shot-especially as he had to abandon the muddy chaos of the 'Lock in (d) Eddie!' som eone shouted and doubtless flight battlefi eld temporarily to nick into Calais 'for purposes of ye 942 duly set off for Townsville. busyness and ye trade'. Conflict of interest? Lock in (a) not ye As I sat there waiting for Eddie to announce my flight, bloodie chance, my coz. • hoping to lock in (b) Sydney since, by and large, that was where I wanted to end up, it suddenly struck m e that there was no Brian Matthews is a writer and academic.

30 EU REKA STREET • jUNE 2002 THE L AW M IRA RAYNER Fine discriminations Women, babies and questions of rights.

Y u'" coMe A long w,y, b'by! Th"'' migmn" to fill tho"''"''"· Au,cmli' n th"' lot of tho" women '" Indigeoou' how the peddlers of Virginia Slims tried women, it seem s, are engaged in a 'baby women in the less populou s parts of to con 'liberated' wom en into smoking strike'. Australia? dainty little cigarettes more than 35 years Pru Goward, the Sex Discrimination Seventy-three per cent of Australian ago. Freedom has a market price. And so Commissioner, associates the dropping women bear fewer than two children, and Australian women have found since the birth rate with the brave new world of more than 70 per cent of wom en are in Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act wom en's employment. When she released the employm ent market. Perhaps some 1984 (S DA) was pa sed with eventual her Valuing Parenthood report, which better-educated women choose not to bipartisan support. Discrimination is canvasses option s for paid maternity have babies because they do not trust in harder to eliminate than to prohibit. leave for wom en, sh e noted that 'the the ability of their communities to The SDA's basis is Australia's ratifi- fertility levels of women appear to be provide a decent life for them . Uncertainty cation of the UN Convention on the inversely related to their attachment to does not breed confidence. N either does Elimination of All Forms of Discrimina- the labour force, educational attainment inadequate, unpleasant or unaffordable tion Aga inst Women. The Convention and income', particularly among younger child care; scant maternity-leave provi- explicitly acknowledges that 'main- women. sions; or financial, social and stream ' human rights instruments do not These are the facts. More than 70 per y emotional in ecurity. refl ect or protect the special vulnera- cent of women aged between 20 and 54 bilities of women, particula rly their work. This is now the norm. The majority T SOME WOMEN will go to great lengths exclusion and disadvantage outside the of those who are holding down a job when to becom e pregnant. These, it seem s, are 'higher' status of m arriage. they becom e pregnant go back to those no t the sort of women we wish to Discrimination against women because jobs even if they have one, two or three encourage. of their gender, pregnancy or marital children, and most of them within a year In 1999 a Victorian gynaecologist status has been unlawful for nearly 20 specialising in IVF, Dr McBain, went to years. Yet we are still seeing challenges the Federal Court to test the constitutional to 'women's rights' . validity of Victorian laws that prohibit The Australian Treasury is very such treatment if the woman is neither worried that Australian women aren't m arried nor living de facto with a m an . having enough babies. Attorney-General He wanted a declaration that the legis- Daryl Williams and Prime Minister John --.... lation was invalid because it was incon- H oward, on the other hand, are very ·"' sistent with the Commonwealth SDA. concerned that the wrong kinds of women ,~ ...,;._ ··~~ If the Commonwealth intended to 'cover want to have them : middle-aged, unpart- . ~~~ the field', section 109 of the Australian nered or gay women . They have spent of the birth of their youngest child. constitution invalidates an inconsistent millions trying to change the balance of According to the Australian National state law on the sam e area. McBain the Sex Discrimination Act. University's Peter McDonald, more than wanted to be able to treat his single pa- There may be an agenda here. Finan- half of our fecundity is attributable to tient, Ms Meldrum, who was desperate cia) boffins have told the government in those 27 per cent of women who have to conceive but distinctly single, with- the lead-up to the Budget that Australia's more than three children. In other words, out fear of prosecution. greatest economic and social challenge is the current level of fertility depends on Ju stice Sundberg heard the case, which the drop in the number of wom en having small numbers of women having larger- was not defended by the state of Victoria. babies, with a birth rate among the lowest than-average families. Women in de facto At their request, the Australian Catholic in the Western world: just 1. 75 babies per marriages tend not to have large families, Bishops' Conference and the Australian mother recorded in the year 2000. They but young women whose first pregnancies Episcopal Conference of the Catholic are not creating the next generation of were unplanned are more likely to have Church were permitted to put arguments young workers to bear the burden of caring several children (1.6 times more likely). as amici wriae (friends of the court) rather and paying for the rapidly ageing, ailing Young women with less education have than as parties to the proceedings. They retirees, and their chemist and accommo- larger families-and by and large much sought to uphold the Victorian laws on dation bills. There will not be enough poorer ones. Has anyone noted, recently, moral and 'rights' grounds.

VOL UME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 31 The bishops chose not to become between private parties. They simply had accounts for this, and those who feared 'parties' to the litigation. But that also no standing. Possibly the High Court had that her appointment would be a 'disas­ meant they were not able to appeal. When no jurisdiction to entertain their applica­ ter' should be eating their words. Sundberg upheld McBain's argument, the tion, and in any event the public interest But how strange it is that, once again, bishops then went to the High Court, would not be served by allowing third the human rights of women should be claiming the right to invoke the ancient parties to seek to overturn an inconven­ reduced to an economic assessment of the prerogative writ of 'certiorari' instead. ient view of the law that resulted from worth to the nation of the fruit of their They said Justice Sundberg was wrong, private litigation. wombs. We haven't come such a long way, and sought to argue that the rights of the Pru Goward's maternity leave report baby. • unborn child or children required that the is getting a reasonable reception from the SDA prohibitions did not 'cover the field'. government, though hardly an enthusias­ Moira Rayner is Acting Commissioner for This caused an enormous stir. The tic one. Her personal friendship with Equal Opportunity for the state of Western Women's Electoral Lobby sought to be Prime Minister John Howard perhaps Australia. heard on the matter, as did the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commis­ sion, the Australian Family Association and the Australian Government Solicitor. Daryl Williams had given his fiat to the VIEWPOINT Catholic bishops to argue their case, but JU LIETTE HUGHE S then sought to argue on his own behalf as well. It was set to be a battle royal. It turned out to be a skirmish. The bishops and the Attorney were defeated. Nobody got to argue the 'ethical' point about the rights of the children, or poten­ Looking after tial children. The High Court found that neither the bishops nor the Attorney­ Other times, other ways. General had the right to argue the point. T h e case in the Federal Court was W,'" "HER Mothe< Hddcg"'d Engli,h ''" g

Remembe ring the 40th ;:~ nni ve r sa r y of the making freckles on our blue-white Pammy aged religious when we eagerly recounted begi nni ng of V;:~ t ic;:~n 11- ;:~ n opportunity to skin. My sisters and I had been welcomed some of the classroom invasions. sup port ;:~n d e n c o u r ;:~ ge e;:~ c h other ;:~ n d into this school by an order of nuns who M . Hildegard would swoop into a dull prayerful ly seek out the questi ons, seemed to be pleased to see us: fees were maths lesson, a black-and-white tornado poss ibilities ;:~n d c h ;:~l l e ng es for the C ;:~ th o li c reduced, help with uniforms was offered, of nemesis. 'Stand Up Any Girl Who Is Church t o d;:~ y . such a big Catholic family as we were. Hanging About With A Boy! ' (No takers Mother Hildegard was the headmis- there: you'd have to be mad to admit it.) St Joseph's Co llege Hunters Hill, NSW, tress who made us so welcome; a woman 'Stand Up Any Girl Who Owns A Pair Of July 12, 13 B..l4, 2002 who was often described as 'eccentric', a Trousers!' Everyone stood up for that last. 50-ish, stocky woman whose false teeth Unable to marginalise the whole class, she Keynot e Speakers: gave her endless trouble. Whenever she thundered about the destruction of Fr Joseph Komonchak, international was ranting about the turpitude of females Sodom, and bounced out again to affright ;:~ u t h o ri ty on the Council from C;:~tholi c wearing trousers, girls going out with boys Form Four. This new country was University, W ;:~s h i n g t o n DC, ;:~ nd M r John before leaving school, or anyone m issing anything but boring. Wilkins, Editor of The Ta blet, plus more than Mass to go to the beach, little nodules of On the day it happened it was my turn twe nty Au st r ;:~ li a n C;:~tholic l e;:~ der s . white foam would collect at the corners to do some job after lunch in the school of her mouth. Her jaw was perpetually hall, which overlooked the playground. Rese rvations essential. clenched as she spoke, something I began There were no spare shillings for profes- Contact P ;:~ tri ci;:~ on 02 9247 4651 to see as a caricature of Australian speech sional cleaners in those days, but I enjoyed Email : ;:~ q u in asa®tpg. com .8u delivery, long before it was ever parodied missing maths although I hated sweeping by Strop and Shirley Purvis. My Northern and stacking benches. A movement

32 EUREKA STREET • j UNE 2002 caugh t the corner of my sight, and what I saw drew m e to the window like a tractor beam . Mother Hildegard was about 15 Dandelion clocks yards away and sh e was talking to a l teacher whom we'll call Mr Blot. (Mr Blot They som etimes bring flowers was an English teacher, a non-Catholic, a milky hand of broken dandelions in his late 50s, I think, who was also a as you stand at the porchrail Pom. However, there was no sense of dem anding their path from the dusk cam araderie between him and my sisters: his background was in the south of Eng­ land, in institutions far m ore illustrious Som etim es broken hands than a poor convent school in the Antipo­ fingers kinked bloody spanners in their work des. It had never before occurred to us to Or looking fo r needles and your cool eye wonder why he should choose to work to fetch out splinters from their under thumbnail here.) He was harrumphing and jerking his head like an angry horse; Mother Hilde­ gard was talking, shouting, waving her Journeywom an whatever your mastery arm s, wagging her finger. He turned on his whatever you hack or add on your own account heel and strode away to his car. The dust they expect you webbed to your loom in the playground was creamy w hit e, quartz- pebbled, and it scuffed up in gritty attending your world only by mirror clouds as he gunned his motor out of the school ga tes. We never saw him again. Sons brothers lovers Later my younger sister's classm ate they som etim es bring fl owers (we'll call her Yvette) told us why. He had and after the long stem s clatter appropriate vases told her to stay back at lunchtime to look over som e of her work with him, and had and nosegays primp and settle into saucers tried to feel her and kiss her. She ran away, revolted and sick, and told her best friend, with respect to all that's proffered and arranged who said, with a confi dence we would all when your last work is emptied fro m your house have shared, 'You've go t to tell Mother they'll track the whiff of m ouldering petals cramm ed Hildegard.' They went over to the convent and Yvette, sham efaced and embarrassed in hasty cobbled pillows beyond all im agining, told what had hap­ Aileen Kelly pen ed. 'Can you swear t o m e on the honour of God that you are telling the truth?' said Mother Hildegard. When she got her answer, Mother Hildegard rang Yvette's parents and then the police. Then The right to re1nain she went to Mr Blot, told him what she thought of him and sacked h im on the N ot m om ent but instant: the folding of paper is stilled into origa mi spot. N o-one was sorry to see him go . or the twining of lovers' hands shapes into shadowplay, It couldn't h appen n ow. Industrial relations would dem and a process that the bird com es to itself silent on the lit wall or at stilt on the table gave the accused the right to defend him­ and everyone breathes 'heron' and laughs in delight. sell; the prospect of untrue allegations is too dreadful to contemplate. Yet, what Mother Which may be enough as chunnering time is never enough Hildegard did gave every girl in that school a feeling of being safer. The presumption for lovers even made young again and again till they look of innocence, when it com es to sex crim e, together, laugh in delight 'Do you rem ember when all these has signally fa iled over the years to pro­ stars were over there?' tect thousands of truly innocent girls (and Yet they shiver, holding hands into the questionable night. boys) who were not as lucky as Yvette. T h en again, M other Hildegard w as a Aileen Kelly wom an who really took seriously what she thought God would want her to do: protect the young girls in her charge. • Th ese poem s will be included in Aileen Kelly's City and Stranger, Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. due for publica tion by Five Islands Press in September 2002.

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 33 IAN BUCKLEY

.... -- . .~ ·. ~ . . . ·- ,. ,.,~· ~~....,_ .. "','' .. ,. . - --:~,, 2?·~¥~·<;;~~:~~ lhe question ofte·rr6r What is terrorism? What causes it? Can we prevent it?

I N ACnvm suPPORTING the United Stotes in its wa< Siege, blockade and starvation have been com­ in Afghanistan, the Australian go vernment claims m on features of terrorism, along with the threat and that we too are there 'to fi ght terrorism '. But what is use of physical violence. Terrorism has been the prime terrorism ? Do we always recognise it? And what can instrument used to fo rce surrender during wartime. we do to stop it? In World Wars I and II and in subsequent wars, terror­ Historically, although individuals or groups have ism has been systematically employed against the engaged in terrorist activity, terrorism has m ore military and civilians of both sides. Mechanised war typically been the preserve of governments. Not that amplified the horror endured by soldiers in the front it is ever named as 'terrorism'; it is action 'essential lines, while food blockades and other sanctions, along for good government', or force used only 'to maintain with aerial bombardment, sought to break the will of order'. In the 1930s, when Japan invaded Manchuria civilians. (Japan at the time was facing trade barriers and It is this attempt to coerce populations through attempting to emulate the West's colonial success in systematic and extreme violence that is the essence the East) the invasion was 'to restore order' and to of terrorism. And since all such population-directed combat the 'terrorism' of the resisting Chinese. terrorism is evil, unjustified, and in defiance of inter­ Terrorism has a long history: think of the Roman national law (as agreed by all states under the Geneva Empire's siege and destruction of Jerusalem, certain Conventions of 1949 and 1972), there is an urgent need Crusades, the Thirty Years War, 'the Terror' of the for terrorism in all its forms to be identified- whether Above: Quotidian French Revolution . Or a m ore recent, even more in our history or our present. violence on th e W es t Bank. terrible instance: the Holocaust. Whenever govern­ Contemporary examples are all too real. We An Isra eli tank in Nablus, ments have used terrorism to coerce whole popula­ immediately think of the terrifying attacks on New with pa lms, and power I i nes. Photographs here tions (their own or those of other states) it has been York's Twin Towers and their occupants on Septem ­ and p35 by Q. Sa kamaki/ enormously destructive-of people and of their life­ ber ll. That immense tragedy can seem totally Agence Friends. support infrastructure. perplexing: clearly it was a deliberate act, yet no

34 EUREKA STREET • j UNE 2002 responsibility was claimed at the time and no including malaria. No apology was offered and no demands were made. What was the point? We are not reparations paid that would have enabled the factory's even certain that it was 'state-based terrorism'. replacement. And adding to the human cost, sanctions Nevertheless, even if its precise source remains that remained in place ensured Sudan could not unclear, at least by implication this horrifying import the life-saving preventatives, such as chloro­ example of modern-day terrorism may involve quine for malaria. As Jonathan Belke put it (in the 'demands', not only on the population of the US but Boston Globe, 22 August 1999L the factory's loss on all of us. So whatever the difficulties in under­ caused not just the immediate deaths, but the 'down­ standing the event, we have to ask ourselves: what stream' deaths of tens of thousands of Sudanese, many was it all about, and how should we respond in order of them children. to prevent repetitions? If we pause to reflect on the human consequences To date we have little direct evidence of the exact of this bombing 'mistake', we should not be surprised causes of September 11. But the world has seen many if some parents, or brothers, or sisters of these victims, other examples of modern-day terrorism, of equal or having no recourse through international law or other greater magnitude, which might provide clues. That means, volunteered themselves into a bin Laden or most of these examples have been insufficiently rec­ other terrorist network, in order to draw ognised as 'terrorism' by the West does not negate attention to that attack on Sudan. their occurrence. There was, for example, the US cruise-missile L MAKE SENSE OF what has happened to transform bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in and destabilise our modern world since the end of the August 1998, allegedly in response to two horrendous Cold War, it helps to look at what has been happen­ terrorist attacks on US embassies in Africa. The US ing to the people of Iraq. We need to ask how it came eventually retracted its original claim that the about that a brutal leader like Saddam Hussein for so Sudanese factory was a cover for chemical weapons long received military support from the West and how production, but that retraction did not alter the even now, when out of favour, he has been permitted Below: A her one of the outcomes. The US also claimed that the number of to remain in power while the Iraqi people continue to Palestinian suicide deaths caused by the attack was not great. To the be subject to bombing and long-term debilitating sanc­ bombers was found to be extent the matter was understood in the West, the tions. A better understanding of these events may well a woman, all women have incident could have been interpreted as an honest shed light on the recent terrorist attack in the West. become suspect. mistake of no great consequence. Throughout the 1980s, Saddam's Iraq, a major oil In Hebron, an Israeli so ldier at a checkpoint For the people concerned, however, the reality producer, was at war with Iran, a country seriously at does the routine was different. The factory was Sudan's sole source of odds with the US after deposing its pro-Western Shah. in spection of Palestinian immunising and other agents for preventing diseases, The Western powers (with Russia) sold tens of women's passes.

VOLUME 1 2 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 35 millions of dollars worth of arms to Iraq as well as Here in the West we have been informed that the Iran. Saddam gained all the high-tech weaponry he original infrastructure bombing and the ten-year wanted plus US support in the form of space-based sanctions were necessary to control Saddam; but we military intelligence. But once the Iran- Iraq war ended should have known that Saddam, with or without his (at enormous human cost- so many lives lost in both weapons of mass destruction, was in reality a spent countries), and once Saddam, embarking on an force. Moreover, we should have recognised that 'independent' oil policy, invaded Kuwait, his useful­ terrorising Iraqis not only does nothing 'to control ness and popularity cam e to an abrupt end. Saddam' but is inhuman, and unjust in the extreme. Tragically, however, no appropriate international If we put ourselves in the place of the grieving mother, response followed. Instead of consideration, via the father, sister or brother, we may understand why some UN, of eff ective action to bring Saddam to order, the of those so tragically affected, lacking other means of US (backed by Britain and Australia) proceeded to a drawing attention to their plight, would want to take highly destructive military 'showdown'. Central to part in som e terrorist activity. How else might they that action was a savage campaign of aerial warfare, hope t o engage the consciousness of which obliterated several hundred thousand young unaware Westerners? Iraqis, m ostly conscripts, dug into bunkers on the Kuwait border (see Mark Baker, The Age, 8 March W AT OF IsRAE L's 34-year military occupation and 1991 ). The attack also destroyed Iraq's civilian life­ the expulsion of Palestinians? Four-and-a-half million support infrastructure-its factories and its plants for Palestinians remain refugees, including 1.3 million power generation, water purification, sewage treat­ jamm ed into the Gaza Strip. And w hat of the other ment, and so on. Those acts of terrorism against the remnant Palestinian territories, 63 non-contiguous Iraqi people were fo llowed by economic sanctions that can tons patrolled by Israeli troops, overflown by severely limited oil export income and prevented heli copter gunships and F-16s, with their road users repairs to the damaged infrastructure. Together, these delayed or detained at military checkpoints? Through measures ensured that Iraq's economy remained today's media exposure, most of us are well aware of severely crippled, the country reduced to a largely pre­ the situation in Palestine-or, rather, its Israel­ industrial condition. occupied lands. For many decades, Israel, strongly To some, the result of the Gulf War seemed a financed and armed with advanced weaponry by the satisfactory solution. But to the Iraqi people it has US, has systematically intruded into what was agreed Palestinian territory, for the purpose of establishing ORIC.I late 18th cent.: from French tcrroristc. from new Israeli settlem ents, often using the weapons and Latin terror (see TERROR). The word was originally m ethods of terror to do so. This is contrary to prior applied to supporters of the Jacobins in the French agreements and in defiance of several UN Security Revolution. who advocated repression dnd violence Council Resolutions-yet it has had the blessing of m pursuit of the principles of democracy and successive US administrations. equality. Throughout this long conflict there has been much violence and much terrorism from both sides. terrorize (also -ise) ..,.. verb w1th obJ] create and No just resolution is in sight. Indeed, it seems clear maintain a state of extreme fear and di tress in that the present Israeli government is determined to continue its takeover of Palestinian territories­ currently with the added 'justification' that such violent incursions are the only way to combat terrorism directed against Israel. Having long lost confidence that the rule of international law will be upheld by the Western powers, Palestinians clearly feel extreme desperation and many young Palestini­ ans are queuing to join the list of suicide bombers. meant ongoing deprivation, humiliation and stark There is no doubting or condoning the terrorism tragedy, especially for their health and well-being. carried out by young Palestinians, but we need not be Decline in comfort and living standards aside, the hoodwinked by Israel's denial of its own terrorism­ incidence of what were formerly preventable or treat­ a terrorism strikingly displayed in such places as Jenin. able infectious diseases rose sharply and has remained Clearly such tit-for-tat terrorist responses will high since the original attacks. The toll in disease and continue endlessly until the international community death has been great, especially among the children. intervenes. UNICEF and other UN agencies report child deaths But there is more at stake even than considera­ averaging some 5000 every month. The Iraqi people tions of justice and the urgent humanitarian needs of have endured this situation for ten years, with Palestinians. The two world wars of last century aggregate civilian deaths estimated to be over half a developed out of uncontrolled regional conflicts. million. Indeed, the United Nations organisation was largely

36 EUREKA STREET )UNE 2002 set up to avoid a repetition of exactly that kind of agriculture. This is not to say that investment in escalation. So the UN (which partitioned Palestine Afghanistan will not occur: the country sits astride for Israel's birth in 1947) should be encouraged now the most direct pipeline route through which central to intervene, not only to preserve lives and Palestinian Asia's vast oil reserves can reach Indian Ocean ports territories, but to head off the wider regional (note Richard Butler in The New York Times, conflagration. 18 January 2002). But while it may assist the West's

0 NE TERRORIST EVENT never justifies another. Those attempting to explain the New York calamity are not aiming to justify it. To 'justify' one terrorist event by a preceding one is the formula for endless payback, for never-ending terrorism- no solution whatever. The point to be stressed is that terrorism is never justified, not even if it comes from 'our side', not even if it is used to control some supposed 'rogue state' or employed as part of the strategy of war. The targeting of civilians and/or their life-support infrastructures terrou r, from Latin terror, from terrere ·frighten' . by aerial or other means is absolutely prohibited in terrorism ..,. noun [mass noun] the use of violence and international law. But the problem is that, while we in the West can readily recognise terrorism directed intimidation in the pur uit of political aims. at us, terrorism directed towards Middle Eastern, terrorist..,. noun a person who u es terrorism in the African or Asian people has all too frequently not been pursuit of political aims. recognised for what it is. Bombing and sanctions directed at distant 'foreign' populations have been 'oil interests', such investment will provide benefit accepted as 'necessary', as 'justified' in some grand to only a handful of Afghans. scheme of things better understood by others- the The UN should have been the key organisation politicians and the generals. involved in investigating and dealing with terrorism, It is plain not only that the recent US bombing and this should have applied from the end of World of Afghanistan was morally flawed, but that it yielded War II . But the major powers have long relegated the adverse results for all concerned. It was a 'show of UN to a subsidiary role, a tool in the big power game. force' in which the targets included Kabul and other That was the fate of the League of Nations in the '20s cities, mud-brick villages, hospitals, Red Cross ware­ and '30s-shamelessly abused, with the result we houses and mountain-tunnel networks-indeed any know too well. There is an urgent need, therefore, to location that could be a stronghold for Taliban give the UN a new lease of life, to take it seriously personnel, whether senior or not. Such attacks might and make it work in solving the very real threats of have killed Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda terrorism. members, but could never have brought them to face Clearly there has to be a very serious response to justice. In the event, the attacks did not lead even to terrorism. But the response must be specific to the the apprehending of bin Laden and his close associates. event. It must identify those responsible for the plan­ Instead, they killed and wounded several thousand ning and execution of specific acts of terrorism. It innocent Afghans as well as destroying many of their must gather the evidence, and it must, with the life-support facilities. And worse, the bombing set in assistance of the UN, bring the alleged perpetrators train vast movements of people who, due to past to trial in an international court of law. The US conflicts and disorders, were already on the point of government has refused to participate in the Inter­ starvation. We have this on the good authority of the national Criminal Court, just as it has rej ected so non-government organisations and UN agencies that many other responsible international agreements. were forced to stop trucking urgently needed food Australians should insist that our government desist when the bombing began. from any involvement in arbitrary military actions Some may assume that the Afghan toll will not outside international law, and instead do its utmost be 'too bad' and that in any case serious international to ensure that all cases involving terrorism are brought efforts are under way to 'rebuild the country'. But the to justice in a properly constituted international court. US and NATO powers did not repair the bomb damage Sidelining the UN while supporting military havoc to Serbia's civil infrastructure, and failed to remove overseas is a recipe for disaster, our own along with landmines and depleted uranium fragments scattered everyone else' s. We ignore the inevitable con­ throughout that country. It therefore seems highly sequences of the present course at our peril. • improbable that the US will remove its cluster bombs and other unexploded ordinance in Afghanistan, or Ian Buckley is a retired medical scientist and long-time repair bomb damage, or provide shelter, power and member of the Medical Association for Prevention of water supplies, or rebuild the country's subsistence War (Australia).

VOLUME 12 N UMB ER 5 • EUREKA STREET 37 [HEsHoRrliS]

Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical and powerful. But what happens when the histories arc too damaged Interpretation, Richard S. Briggs . Continuum/ to pass on ? T & T Clark, 2001. ISBN 0 567 08809 X, Ritl' $79.95 Direct Holocaust literature has a basilisk stare, and can induce During my boyhood, I used occasionally to numbness. Children of the Shadows stands one generation away, open my fa ther's surgery door for workers from ju st fa r enough to look honestly at the Holocaust without fa lling in. the local Tom Piper factory. In putting m eat We're presented with one damaged person at a time, oft en in into tomato sa uce, and cooking and canning the brea thtaking writing, and with the warm sympathy of a daughter or mixture, they had become too intimately son. -Susannah Buckley involved in the process. This experience flavoured, perhaps jaun­ Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment : The diced, my approach to literary criticism and Soteriology of Julian of Norwich, Kerrie Hide. literary theory. Like sauce, which usually masks the taste of food, The Liturgical Press, 200 1. ISIIN 0 Rl 4 65093 7, literary criticism is to be avoided unless it titillates your jaded taste RRP $69.95 or inspires you to try something new. And literary theory, which Revelations of Divine Love, written by the Nor­ disciplines reading, corresponds to the quality control that gives wich anchorite in the late 14th century, is an the diner confidence that people have remained outside the cans. unusual book. Its simple and apparently artless Each process is necessary, but among people of taste, neither forms English style encourages nostalgia for an age of a suitable topic for dinner conversation. a more simple faith in the sa me way as do Fra Words in Action, it must be said, is good quality con trol. Briggs Angelico's murals. But at the sam e time, it seems shows that m any Scriptural texts seek to involve the reader in m odern in its directness, inviting the reader to appropriate response, and illustrates how the language of the texts forget centuries of complex and systematising spiritual teaching. models how we should act. He expl ores this insight, which has a Australian scholar Kerrie Hide has written a detail ed study of good philosophical pedigree, in looking at teaching and confession Julian of Norwich, which penetrates benea th the deceptively simple within the church. surface and finds there a considerable theologian. Julian differed Because this is a philosophical enquiry, it makes demanding from professional theologians in that she explored contemplative reading for the general reader. But it is an encouraging book, for experience, but she grounds her exploration in a subtle and deep Briggs is modest. He does not identify a universal grid, a mincing understanding of God as Trinity. Her refl ection on the Trinity put machine through which all texts can be squirted. He contents relationships and love at the heart of the world and of her under­ himself with exploring the variety of ways in which religious texts standing of it. So, as any serious thinker must, she weighed and rituals can be self-involving and can model commitment. suffering and its chall enge to m eaning, but her characteri stic note -Andrew Hamilton SJ is one of confidence. We see this in the best-known quotation from her work: Children of the Shadows: Voices of the Second I may make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall Generation, Ka thy Grin blat (c d.), Unive rsity of ,,, make all things we ll , and I will make all things we ll , and yo u will Western Australi a Press/Benchmark Publica­ see yourself that every kind of thing will be we ll. tions, 2002. I<;I \N l R7 6 61507 9, RR I' $34.9S In Children of the Shadows, descendants of The repetition plucks hope out of hesitation and brandishes it. Holocaust survivors examine their rela tionships -A.H. with their parents and with Australia. Edited by Kathy Grin blat, the collection of essays, stories Some Conclusion in th e Heart, Grant Fraser. and poem s is painfully honest and bears witness Black Willow Press, 2001. I<; BN 0 939 39412 X, to ongoing trauma. The book is written against RRI' $20 the background of Holocaust literature, and The images in Grant Fraser's first book of poems some words-'Bergen-Bclsen', for instance-conjure specific terrible are rich and varied: one asks us to stand close to images. This extra dime nsion is m ade more powerful by a draught horse; another describes the twilight understatem ent. years of an old-man murderer named Pol Pot. SOME Certain themes recur: love, admiration, protectiveness on both Fraser is not afraid of gravitas: the full weight sides, irritation, guilt, the migrant experience, overfeeding. The of the world. He has chosen to look towards the CoNCLUSION descendants did not have grandparents. Their extended fa milies dark, in poems about Primo Levi, or the starving in rile H EART were ghosts and photo albums. Anti-Semitism bares its teeth: on Simone Weil. This takes both creative and moral her fi rst day of school, a child is racially taunted because her food courage. Yet he does not leave us alone in the is 'different'. The repetition works well on an em otional level, but clark. In the horses' eyes and 'as they nod their huge consents', we ca n blur one story into another. arc reassured by the 'resting of their massive gentleness'. Levity Many survivors remained silent about their experiences- to does not exclude joy, and the book is filled with poems on the flight avoid damaging their children, or because it was too painful to talk and rest of birds. Spirit inhabits this place in the smallest things. about, or too humiliating. The descendants clearly find this intoler­ The poet observes this, and his poems show his kinship with others able, describing a 'wall of silence' separating the generations. One who have done the sam e. In a poem about Thco and Vincent van woman writes: 'if I felt that pain, then maybe it would make our Gogh, Thea's final reply to his poor, m ad brother is: 'shy friend, relationship stronger'. Another: 'If I don't know your story J who brother J I shall watch with you J in the great feast of the sun.' will tell it to my children J so that our history J will continue to be Grant Fraser accompanies the reader; these poems are all heart heard?' and 'I have lost you.' The passing on of stories is symboli c stuff, heart logic. -Kirsty Sangster

38 EU REKA STREET • j UNE 2002 BOOKS: 1 JO HN BUTTO Knockabout bloke John Gorton: He Did It His Way, Ian Hancock. Hodd er Headline Australia, 2002. ISBN 0 733 61439 6, RRP $50

0 N 9 SEPTEMBER 2001 John Gorton celebrated his 90th birthday, som e achieve­ m ent fo r a man who'd suffered serious wounds in the Second World War and later the knives of politics. Et tu, Malcolm. I've always taken a passing interest in Gorton's longevity. During the 1984 federal election campaign Bob Hawke asked m e to go to Canberra and represent him and the government at the funeral of Dudley Erw in, the former Liberal Member for Ballarat and for a short period a minister in Gorton's government. I sat through the funeral service in a m ood of som e detachment. I'd not known Erwin personally. T he congregation seem ed an ageing and alien lot. I studied the stained-glass windows and wondered if it would end in time fo r m e to catch the plane back to Melbourne. After the funeral service I chatted with Gorton in the churchyard. 'You know John,' I said, 'when you die I'll com e to your funeral because I want to, not because I've been sent.' Gorton, old enough to be my fa ther, looked at m e with an impassive face and twinkling eyes, and replied in that characteristic draw l (by Geelong G rammar and Oxford, out of the bush ), 'On the con ­ trary John, w hen you die I'll com e to your funeral because I want to.' T h ere is som ething extraordinarily attractive about 'knockabou t blokes' like Gorton. In spite of the silver spoon of Geelong G rammar and Oxford being tuck in his m outh by an indulgent and rem ote father, he was much m ore influenced by his experiences of a lonely childhood, the war, labouring on the family orchard, a passion fo r sport and a few drinks with the m ates. It was these experiences which m ade Gorton an interesting politician and prime minister, together with his ability to see the funny side of li fe, even in adversity. At times he gave the impression of not giving a damn abo ut an y thing, a kind o f c ul t ivat ed existentialism which was refl ected in an attitude of 'I've seen worse things in life. What are you w orried about?' Gorton's distinguished headmaster at Geelong Grammar, Sir James D arling, Betty and John Gorton, on board shi p between Fi ji and Sydney, thought him ' an interesting character-great retu rnin g from a London conference

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUR EKA STREET 39 amount of "guts" but contrary and rather Gorton saw it as an attack on economic 'informality', appealed to a wide section of difficult'. The 'guts' part was admirable and freedom, as 'undemocratic and un-Austral­ the public but not enough to m any of his so was his passionate Australianism . As ian'. In 1949 he was elected as a Liberal parliamentary colleagues. T here was much Hancock puts it, 'He was above all, an senator, in an election that saw the demise tut-tutting. As his biographer concludes, Australian to the boot heels. For him, every of the Chifley government. 'Gorton could have been a great Prime Mi n­ other country was a foreign country.' No Sir James Darling wrote him a letter of ister, only by ceasing to be himself.' This is globalisation for John Gorton. congratulation prophesying that Gorton was a sad commentary on Gorton and on the I've always enjoyed a certain narrow­ destined to be prime minister. Gorton nature of politics. minded bias against Liberal prime ministers, replied that he was 'not nearly ready enough In a biographical essay, Paul Hasluck, but, try as I might, I could never bring myself for it' (subsequent events led some to believe who disliked Gorton, referred to him in his to di slike John Gorton. This was not, I think, that he never was) and, with a strange early years as 'plain speaking about the because of his qualities as a prime minister, prescience in light of the end of his prime things he was again st, communists, but because he was a colourful, unpredict­ ministership, observed that he might 'turn blackfellows, Africa n s, "no-hopers" able character and a knockabou t bloke. There down the offer because of conditions I shall (persons who did not work hard enough ), are no 'knockabout blokes' in Canberra any not choose to accept'. the United Nations, those who opposed m ore, which is one of the reasons why As a politician, Gorton enjoyed steady him and those whom he di sliked because parliament is so excruciatingly boring. So upward m obility in the ranks of the Liberal they were "ratbags"' (see The Chance of one looks back in sadness. Party. He seem s to have been a hard-working Politics, Text Publishing). Hasluck coyly Gorton returned from the war a 'closet' and sometimes impressive minister in observes that some of these opinions 'may conservative, but too busy with other things various portfolios. The chapter on his sometimes have made him seem a fascist'. to be preoccupied with politics . His ministerial career is the least interesting in But that would be unfair. philosophy, largely based on his wartime Hancock's biograph y because it least One had to counter that view with experience, emerged at a 'welcom e home' explains Gorton's own views on the policies Gorton's strong belief in a fairer deal for the dinner for local ex-servicem en at Mystic he implem ented. There is too much of underprivileged. But there was of course Park on 3 April 1946. It was a m oving Gorton preparing a submission and Gorton much m ore on the positive side of the speech to which Gorton had given delivering second-reading speeches, m ost Gorton ledger than that. He believed considerable thought. It reflected on why of which em anate from the bowels of the strongly in an independen t Australian servicem en had gone to the war. One reason public service. They were not vintage foreign policy. He doubted the wisdom of was to secure economic freedom for all Gorton. Nonetheless, in policy terms there committing troops to Vietnam. He was m en, which meant raising standards of were undoubted achievements. again st ' union bashing'. He believed living and removing the 'fear of poverty as Hancock's description of the intrigue strongly in better educational opportunity the result of illness, or accident, or old age'. surrounding Gorton 's election to the office and the importance of Australian creativity, These words might have been uttered of prime minister following the death of scien ce an d technology, was a strong by any one of the numerous servicem en Harold Holt makes fascinating reading. For supporter of the Australian fi lm industry, returning from the war who embraced the the Liberals, accustomed to the gravitas of and as a politician he was not too bad on the politics of the left . But there are other words Menzies and the decent ordinariness of hustings. in the speech that distinguished the con­ Harold Holt, it was something of a gamble. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a servative view from the radical view. Those Menzies was appalled. prime minister and a public figure was his who embraced the left believed in the mak­ When Gorton became prime minister, strange ability to make Australians feel ing of a better world, a world influenced by the Liberal Party of Menzies was in decline good about themselves. T his has been rare socialist principles. Gorton said, 'We did and Whitlam had the political ascendancy. in Australian political life. not go to war to make a new and better Gorton cam e suddenly to office insuffi­ Ian Hancock's biography is an important world ... We fought only to preserve, for ciently prepared and without time 'to plan book, nicely written, well researched and ourselves and our children, that conception and implement his ideas for a better Aus­ frequently entertaining. It captures the spirit of political freedom and justice tralia'. He had fractious colleagues and of this quintessentially Gorton quality and which was being attacked ... ' offended a number of them by his desire to because of that it is refr eshing as well. An old increase the powers of the Commonwealth warrior deserves such a book. • BEN CHIFLEY, an influential m an, brought at the expense of the states. His engaging Gorton out of his political closet in 1947 qualities, identified by Hancock as includ­ John Button was a senator and minister in with the proposal to nationalise the banks. ing 'irreverence', 'candour', 'charm' and the Hawke and Keating governm ents.

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40 EUREKA STR EET • jUNE 2002 BOOKS:2 STEP H EN HOLT The Arcadian Two new lmtdmark history titles from ... FREM A TLE ARTS CE TRE PRESS Keeper of the Faith: A Biography of Jim Cairns, Paul Strangio. A uslrn lin 's fiue,; l small publisll er Melbourne Unive rsity Press, 2002. ISIIN 0 522 85002 2, RRP $49.95 D R JtM CAIRNS was once the revered get excited about left-wing political parties conscience of the Labor Left in Australia. in post-war Australia. The Labor Party in For two decades after 1955 he defended the Victoria was too e nthralled by Bob Pila Nguru gospel of dem ocratic socialism in federal Santamaria to act as a vehicle for Cairns' T /1 e S p i 11 if e x P e o p I e parliament. But following the dismissal of ideas, while an attempt, not of his doing, to the Whitlam government a different enrol him in the Communist Party failed SCOTT CANE m essage came out of Canberra. In 1976 because he was seen as far too free a spirit. Pi/a Nguru. is among the most important thousands of converts flocked to a nearby A seat in the House of Representatives only written co ntributions to Australian social bush reserve when Cairns summoned cam e his way after the ALP split and needed hi story in rece nt years. It tells the story of the Australia's first counter-cultural festival. to exorcise the influence of the suddenly Spinifex People of Western Australia who were The participants, he declared, were planting demonised Santamaria. the first indigenous gro up on mainland ' the seeds of a change that will ultimately The Petrov election of 1955 marked the Australia to achieve native title rights, in 200 I. transform humankind'. fourth victory in a row for Robert Menzies. Includ es co lour reproductions, photographs This epiphany in the Australian bush, Cairns arrived in Canberra determined to and maps. while incomprehensible to almost all of cure Labor's despondency. Defeat was an Cairns'prosaicALPcolleagues, was wholly opportunity to rid Labor of Cold War in character. Cairns' image as a cerebral attitudes. Radical product differentiation was socialist was a veneer. At a deeper level he the order of the day. Cairns advocated a was excited by a different myth. His ideal- clearer commitment to public ownership ism was focused on the notion of regaining and disowned Gough Whitlam'smodishfaith happiness in a rural paradise. This was the in the doctrine of equality of opportunity. faith that Cairns kept. There were, however, other Labor The depth of this Arcadian bent, while shibboleths that Cairns was keen to ditch, perhaps coming as a surprise, is undoubtedly notably the White Australia Policy. He the key finding to arise from a reading of pressed for a fearless engagement with Asia, Keeper of the Faith, the third and very latest insisting that the post-colonial discontent Cairns biography. Its author, Paul Strangio, to Australia's north was the product of has put together a readable and reliable pres- l egitimate nationalist grievances, not entation of an Australian quest for enlight- Marxist manipulation. Inevitably, the enment. He leavens scholarly diligence with Liberal Party tried to portray him a NU MBER 2 HOM E acumen and deft commentary. dangerously soft on communism. A Stan' o.f Japan ese Pioneers ill Australia The veneer of inner-city intellectuality Strangio's account of the years in is easily peeled off. Cairns was born in opposition is relevant to current political NOREEN JONES Carlton in 1914 but his mother settled on a concerns. He ably delineates the divergent A major contrihution to ;uJ under-examined Victorian farm with her parents after her pressures on Labor as it sought to deal with aspect of Australian history. husband left her. Cairns did not live in a Liberal Party buoyed up by atavistic fears Melbourne until the Great Depression when of border pen etration. Whitlam had a the mortgage on his grandparents' farm was pragmatic desire for victory but Cairns, rudely foreclosed. Thus was paradise lost at ever concerned about the corrupting effect the instiga tion of the banks. of political power, was prepared to settle for Cairns was recruited into the Victorian defeat provided it was accompanied by left - policeforce by the seriously unlovely Thomas wing honour. The two men were equally Blamey, and then became an earnest mature- frustrated by Labor's old guard. Labor after age student as he sought to Lmderstand the the split was a party of resistance, not reasons for his family's dispossession. At initiative. Melbourne University in the 1940s, where he Whitlam was prepared to put in the hard studied and then taught economic history, he work required to modernise the ALP. He steeped himself in the ideas of Karl Marx and deserved to become leader in 1967 and prime the radical historian Brian Fitzpatrick. His minister in 1972. Cairns took a different political hero was Aneurin Bevan. path. He looked beyond conventional party Cairns embraced socialism easily structures once the Vietnam War took off enough . It was far harder, though, for him to as a political issue. The anti-war activists

VOLUME 12 NUMBER 5 • EUREKA STREET 4 1 who were associated with Cairns in the ever, he produced a stream of self-published tolerance. This gap between ru ra l innocence Vietnam m oratorium campaign in the early books. Perhaps haunted by his lost father, and the knowing ways of the wider world 1970s evolved into a dynamic and popular he singled out patriarchy and its discontents remained a constant. Everything else in protest m ovement. Cairns warmed to N ew as his doughty last enemy. Cairns' world of faith, as a candid response Left notions of participatory democracy and The public's response when Cairns left to the Strangio biography indicates, was consciousness-raising. His success in pro­ his rural study and went down to Melbourne ephemeral. • moting a non-violent form of mass protest to market his literary wares was one of marked a decisive break with the fear indifference tempered by good-natured Stephen Holt is a Ca nberra author. and timidity of the Menzies years. BOOK5:3 C AJRNS, SOMEWHAT contrarily, remained M I C H AEL McG I RR a senior politician even as anti-war activism made him increasingly dubious of the value of traditional parliamentary politics. He became a key member of the Whitlam government and was surprisingly effective in the trade and industry portfolios during Hazard Iights its first two years. Criticism by younger radicals in the moratorium m ovem ent had A Map of the Gardens, Gillian Mears. Picador 2002. ISII N 0 330 36346 H, IUU ' $2 I sobered him up. His dem ocratic socialist Moral Hazard , Kate jennings . Picador 2002. ISBN 0 33 0 36340 9, RRI' $2H notions having become muddied, he could concentrate more easily on the dail y minis­ terial grind of administrati on and policy development. Disappointment set in even before Whitlam was dismissed by Sir John Kerr. During 1975, rising inflation a nd unemployment ended Australia's post-war Keynesian consensus. Disciples of Milton Friedman in the media and public service I T'' HAW TO

42 EUREKA STREET • jUNE 2002 charcoal drawing of a sick m an looking at Death. Beneath it he has written: 'There are times at their very beginnings when you wish for their end. ' Moral Hazard is an account of one such time. It actually documents a disease: visits to doctors, attempts to join support groups, reactions of fr iends, removal to a residential Oysters care facility. Jennings' prose is beautifully controlled. She is telling you facts. Point blank. Then, occasionally, sh e lets slip a There is nothing better than good clean dirt phrase that is truthful in a deeper sense and reminds the reader that, for the most part, to compost the internal waste the prose is wearing the mask of someone and add fibre to your gluttony. who looks like they are coping. 'Bailey would erode like a sandstone statue, Admit it: food is only fuel becoming formless and vagu e, reduced to a but it enhances the sense of self nub'; 'This sense of failure was growing larger by the day. He carried it with him, when you accept the dozen oysters shouldering it like a sack of coals'; 'I had with that particular slice of lemon consigned him to a place where behaviour was infantile, instincts animal. A place of and the buttery triangle of wholemeal bread last things.' Cath refers to the kinship she with the crusts cut off. feels with the situation of Iris Murdoch and Pity about the crusts but food is only etc her Bayley. You expect a novel about dementia to be and besides, someone had handed you m oving and this one certainly is, all the a wide glass of stout with a froth m ore so because it is so pithy. But it is also intelligent and searching. In order to pay like the edge of a muddy pool but, the rent and m eet enormous m edical bills, admit it also, the flavour across the tongue Cath takes a job as a speechwriter with an investment bank on Wall Street. It's a world brings its own library of associations where only the fit survive. It demands a (mock-Irish pubs and bad fiddle playing) high level of performance. In so many ways, it appears to stand in contrast with Bailey's and, besides, stout they say induces lactation diminishing world. Here again, Jennings is if that is your ambition. For myself well served by her lean and precise prose. I always said that tits on men were She creates a complete picture of a greedy workplace but never says too much. She 'just in case' but I don't want to pursue the matter. n ever rants about the beh aviour sh e Everything has its other side encounters, just lets it speak for itself and allows Bailey's story to rub against it. The and good clean dirt is enough to get filthy in. two stories should be foreign to each other. The question is: I have appetite and I have cynicism. The m oral dilemma Cath comes to observe at work ought to be of a different kind fr om Which one will I murder first? the on e she ultimately confronts with Thomas Shapcott Bailey. But they aren 't. At least not entirely. Wall Street, like Alzheimer's, doesn't care whom it afflicts. It is a place without mem ory. The final story in A Map of the Gardens, 'I Shall N ot Pass Along This Way Again', is the most beautiful in the collection. It is about a woman returning to the town to visit the grave of her mother, a woman who writing she has committed to m emory, and m ost hidden, which then must face the great baked cakes in tins 'as large as baby's [sic] practises yoga and shiatsu with a guru. The arcs of light sweeping in through the gap.' graves'. The returning woman still has people story is a reminder that even the most elabo­ Wall Street and a bush cemetery have this in the town but doesn't look them up; she rate resources of heart and soul m ay not be much in common. N obody there has much does happen to run into a bloke who once enough to cope with such a commonplace to call their own. • asked her to marry him. The woman is experience as loss: 'In a big family, a m oth­ spiritually well resourced. She is familiar er's passing is like a forest tree falling down; Michael McGirr is the author of Things You with Hildegard of Bingen, parts of whose swathes of destruction unveiling those things Get for Free.

V OLUME 12 N UMBER 5 • EUREKA STR EET 43 say-that their performances were most startling. Sen will make lots of good fi lms in the future, I am sure, but don't miss this one. It has an energy and a clarity that is rare. - Siobhan Jackson

Auteur! Auteur!

Storytelling, dir. T odd Solondz . The films of director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness) have always had an unremittingly blea k view of the world at their core. His characters, almost without exception, lack the sel £-awareness to recog­ nise their own cruelty and selfishness, their facile m otivations, or their complicity in their own fa ilures. All relationships are abusive; all communication about t he exercise of power; all success, however illusory, is achieved th rough the exploita­ tion of others. Storytelling is no exception. What's interesting, though, is that this jaundiced lens is here turned upon itself: ultimately it seem s to suggest that the rela tionship between film-maker, film and audience may be as soured and abusive as the relation­ and very little m oney, she boards a bus to ships in the film itself. Up there Sydney. The title is our fi rst clue. Storytelling is Outside a roadside restaurant, Lena quite directly about the telling of stories as Beneath Clouds, dir. Ivan Sen. Beneath meets Vaughn (Damian Pitt, above right), a an exercise of power in which we attempt Clouds is Sen's first fea ture film. You'd young Aboriginal man who has just broken to shape and reshape our own lives and the never know. It's rhythmic, uncluttered and out of detention by hiding in the back of a lives of others around the stereotypes, self­ straight as a die. Dairy Farm truck. His m other is dying. delusions and self-justifications that m ake Sen is a Gam ilaroi man, and grew up in Having missed her bus because she is our own personal narratives. The fi lm itself small-town N SW . Beneath Clouds, at least vomiting in the toilet, Lena reluctantly is broken into two asymmetric and u ncon­ in part, is a look at life for Indigenous hooks up with Vaughn and they begin the nected sections, 'Fiction' and 'Non-Fiction'. teenagers out of the big citi es, but well long walk to Sydney. 'Fiction', the fi rst and shorter of the two, within the confines (I use that word advis­ Beneath Clouds explores both landscape explores a series of sadom asochistic ed! y) of white society-and like all teenagers and the fi gures within it with equal intelli­ exchanges between a Pulitzer Prize-winning they struggle wearily to find the secrets of gence. Like a great sprawling map, the land black author and h is talen tless wh ite happiness and purpose. rolls out in fro nt of the characters as they creati ve-writing studen ts. T elling and Lena's (Danniell e Hall, above left) move closer to understanding why the hell writing stories is defined here as an exercise mother is Aboriginal and her fa ther Irish. they care about anything. Vaughn and Lena of power: the one who ca n assert author­ She has fair skin and blue eyes. She has are drawn with a sober hon esty and given ship over events, and force others' stories never really known her father-he is just a hypnotica ll y plain language to communi­ and self-narratives to serve his or her own, face in photos and a few words on the back ca te the most complex, aching em otions. is master. of a picture postcard of the Sydney Harbour Sen gets superb performances fro m Hall However, as the second, longer, section Bridge. Lena lives in a state gently detached and Pitt (neither of w hom had acted before). (' N on-Fiction') makes clear, the author/ from the world around her-and you can T he onl y complain t I have about Hall director can be as much at the mercy of his see w hy. Her little brother is hauled off to receiving the award for best young actress or her own stories as the subj ects who juvenile detention fo r stealing a couple of at the Berlin Film Festival (a t which Sen appear in them . Here a wannabe documen­ cartons of cigarettes, her best friend is preg­ was the winner of the Premiere First Movie tary-maker Toby (Todd Solondz lookalike nant to a lad who still rides a BMX and her Award) is that Pitt didn't w in the young Paul Giamatti) persuades the suburban m um is so unhappy she seem s to have actors' equivalent. Sen wa nted his lead family of a high-school slacker to be the stopped loving anyone. Retreating into perfo rmers to have a great vocal presence­ subj ects of a veriu~ -sty l eexpose. The obvious dreams of her father and his hom eland, and boy, did he get what he wanted. But fo r issues of exploitation and distortion that Lena imagine him as her only way out of a me it was in the mom ents when they didn't this sets up are tempered by the way Toby's life she hates. Armed with a photo album speak-when there was simply nothing to own self- narrative leads him to manipulate

44 EUREKA STREET • j UN E 2002 and m ock his subjects for the entertain­ hate are unnatural, they bring no solution'. of anatomies of French society, in film and m ent of his audience. Fine sentiments, indeed, but this isn 't the fiction, with which Baise-moi takes an Solondz is clea rly inviting us to consider lesson of the dark parable he has created. T o honourable and in no way salaciou s place. his role as director, and ours as audience, in m e, this superb film delivers a harsh and -Peter Pierce similar ways- asking us to consider what universal homily: war is hell, and hell is both he and we get out of the m ocking other people. Its final image will rem ain cruelty that seems to underpin so much of fixed to your retina for days afterwards. Types hyped his aesthetic. Of course, that 'invitation ' is -Brett Evans exercised thro ugh the very authorial power The Majestic, dir. Frank Darabont. There is he draws our attention to. The relationship a rash of clunkers coming your way and The between film-m aker, subject and audience Flicked flic Majestic is one, probably not the worst but is m arked as exploitative and distorting in definitely of that ilk. The others include every direction, with no way out. As com ­ Baise-moi, dir. Virginie Despentes and Life as a House and Va Savoir. Life as a plex as Solondz's conception of these issues Coralie Trinh Thi. There was a security House can be summarised as: troubled is, it's hard not to feel in the end that it's all gu ard at the Lumiere cinem a in Melbourne. middle-class white American teenaged boy a bit too neatly tied up in despair. Isn't I could not buy my wife's ticket in advance. doing part-time prostitution to get drugs unremitting bleakness just as distorted a Her personal appearan ce was necessary to turns into one of the Bradys because divorced perception of the world as unexamined joy? guarantee that she was over 18. Thanks to dying dad gives him som e tough love. Va -Allan James Thomas the attention s of the Attorney-General, the Sa voir is so French, so cool, so narcissistique queu e snaked into Lon sdale Street in the zat you wahnt to parle frog toutle temps as rain. The occasion: Baise-moi, co-directed soon as vous gettez le circulation going Peace strain by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh encore dans vos legs at ze end because eet Thi and based on Despentes' novel about eez soo longue. No Man's Land, dir. Danis T anovic. Bosnian the murderous spree of two wom en across Th e Majestic is set in the McCarthy era director Danis Tanovic survived th e siege grim and grimy French cityscapes. In its and, in these toey post- September 11 days, of Sarajevo and work ed as an offi cial snapshots of urban cruelty and despair, the i s mildly, p olitel y critical of su ch cam eram an with the Bosnian army. He has film recalls La Haine andlast year's master­ naughtiness. It wastes som e good actors: obviously drawn on these experiences for piece La Ville est Tranquille (a long with Jim Caney (fast turning into an ex-funny his debut fea ture, No Man 's Land, a much else, the best explanation for Le Pen ). person like Robin Williams) stars as Peter, brilliantly plotted black farce set in war­ Separate killings and a chance encounter a rising young Hollywood writer; David torn form er Yugoslavia. bring Manu (Raffaela Anderson) and Nadine Ogden Stiers, a terrific actor, is awfully On a beautiful summer's day in 1993, a (Karen Bach ) together. Theirs is an almost underchallenged here as the wise sm all­ couple of enem y soldiers find themselves sisterly association and as n ear to tender as town doctor and father of Peter's love m aroon ed in a tren ch located m idway anything the fi lm shows. T hey continue to interest; Martin Landau has to deliver lines between two opposing armies. Ciki (Branko kill, and to rob. The first victim is a wom an. about The Hollywood Pantheon that would Djuric) is a Bosnian , and Nino (Ren e They are n ot exclusively m an -h aters, choke an Oscar presenter. (The Majestic Bitorajac) is a Serb. They hate each other on although they put a number of vile m en to itself is the town cinem a that has fa llen sight and go on hating each other to the end. death. Rather, they are nihilists. Beyond into dilapidation since the war .) But they are trapped together by circum­ belief or hope, th ey take what they know It's a thin plot: in the early 1950s Peter stance and a shared desire for self-preserva­ will be a short time to exercise a violence gets nam ed by McCarthyites and, going for tion. And to further complicate m atters, a that their society h as to som e degree a drunken drive to clear his head, crashes second Bosnia n soldier, Cera (Filip sponsored. This is the suicide wish so into a river and is coincidentally washed up Sovagovic), has been booby- trapped with a bleakly intuited in Michel Houellebecq's alive and amnesic near a sm all town, where landmine capable of killing them all. It's outstanding novel, Atomised. everyone thinks he is The Majestic-owner's Catch-22, Balkans style. The com e-ons/warnings to the film dead war-hero son Luke, his double. It's a Luckily for the m en in the trench, the m ention 'real sex', but one is left unsure time- dishonoured device compounded by UN's Sergeant Marchand (George Siatidis) what that m eans. 'Real' sex involves acting, the types that abound in the cast, including ignores orders forbidding him to intervene after all. There is vaginal and oral penetra­ a token black janitor and a sprightly old and rides to their rescue in his armoured tion, anal too, but this with a pistol and one piano teacher called Mrs Terwilliger. The personnel carrier. Then with the willing of the funniest scenes in Baise-moi. It takes fi lm, ironically enough, opens with Jim connivance of a British TV journalist, Jane place in a 'fu ck club', where blurring the Can ey's wonderful, expressive face as the Livingstone (Ka trin Cartlidge), he turns their distinction between the real and the staged single visu al, reacting to the voiceover predicam ent into an international m edia is presumably part of the point. Baise-moi con sisting of h orrible producer-t yp es event- much to the annoyance of his cynical is nonchalantly unerotic. By numerous destroying his script. Then it all turns into commander, Colonel Soft (Simon Callow). recent comparisons, its violence is muted. Mr Smith Goes to Washington m eets It's a The Colonel would rather play chess with The music is loud, clothes bad, dialogue Wonderful Life . The press kit claims that it his m istress than actually try to keep the droll: 'Where are the witty lines? ' 'We've is som e sort of homage to Frank Capra. peace. Eventually, however, courage goes go t the m oves, that's som ething.' And the There's also a line that asks reviewers not unrewarded, and cynicism is vindicated. words are abrasively to the point: 'There is to give away the ending, but why would I When recently discu ssing his film, no work in France,' Manu tells her brother. w eary you w i th yet m ore derivative, Tanovic rem arked that 'disharm ony and There are, however, an impressive number predictable dreck ? -Juliette Hughes

VOL UME 1 2 NUMBER 5 • EU REKA STRE ET 45 Laugh? I nearly • • •

LAUCHUR Mucmu" in comp.uy, leaping fmm b"in to b"in on Parhnson in early May, and told how he went to a Hindu like a crown fire. But so can its opposite: there is a kind of anti­ funeral in London: one old chap said sadly that the deceased had laugh-matter that, generated from enough party-poopers, can 'become a hamster' before finally dying. 'Guinea pig, ' corrected cause coolness, that enemy of mirth, that neutraliser of humour. Bhaskar unwisely, setting off a hilarious chain of recriminatory Once long ago I went to see Ruthless People down in the depths argument. When Ali G arrived, the tone was lowered, but our of the now long-dead Australia cinema in Melbourne. It was household has low tastes. As to the commercial networks, late in the run, and so there were only about two dozen in the Malcolm in the Middle is good; in fact Monday on Nine audience apart from my beloved and me. It was funny, so we is a bit like Thursday on ABC, with Sex and the City. laughed. But we were the only ones to do so, and soon, in the dark, cavernous silence, even the self-conscious laughter of B uT THE BIG TREAT that is coming your way via Nine will be defiance gave ground. I wonder about that audience now. Who The Osbournes. It is reality TV at its doubtful best, with Ozzy were they? Perhaps they'd just popped in to try to cheer them­ Osbourne, lead singer of Black Sabbath, welcoming the world selves up after a funeral. Maybe they were German nihilists into his home. At the moment we're watching it on MTV out to experience the void. Maybe they were French. through Optus on Thursdays at 7pm. I think Nine is waiting You would have to be a member of that audience not to for Ten to finish with Big Brother before launching Ozzy at us. laugh at the new ABC comedy series Kath eiJ Kim (Thursdays, BE has unfortunately blitzed the ratings and I think that the 9pm). Jane Turner and Gina Riley have written a series that others don't even want to try launching a new series before expands on the Fast Forward characters. The venture was risky: that blasted blight of BE is over for the year. wa there enough substance in the skitsl I would say yes, Ozzy entrances: at 52 he is the happily married, loving fa­ resoundingly. You could say that it's a very sharp Australian ther of two spoilt, bratty but not unlikeable teenagers. Very version of Absolutely Fabulous and just as funny, with Brady Bunch; in fact this is sent up in the opening credits. But memories of Edna Everage added. The dialogue is acid, bitter any resemblance finishes there. Ozzy shuffles around his huge and witty. Kath eiJ Kim is a closely observed soap-opera send­ Bel Air mansion like an old man; years of substance abuse have up with the confidence to go without a laugh track. Watching, damaged him in divers ways. His wife, Sharon, is a bright, cluey you see how the speech rhythms of middle America have woman who manages him well. There are dogs and cats, most become ours now. Kim, a spoilt drama queen straight out of of them incontinent. The language, delivered in flat Binning­ Home and Away or Neighbours, can say the contemptuous ham tones, is basic: MTV must use their bleeper ten times a 'Hello?' as authentically as any Val girl; Kath, in a pastel-track­ minute. Yet they are quite nice, and completely unworried about suited time warp fashion-wise, is nevertheless right up with cameras; they're showbiz, it's money, they're not effing daft Pilates, pump and pop-psycho life management. Magda enough to knock back some more even though they've got Szubanski is brilliant as the sport-victim second-best friend. plenty. Their problems are probably not ours: when he is arguing Like Ab Fab, the plot could be tragedy with just a twist in with his 17-year-old daughter Kelly about her acquisition of a the emphasis or delivery, but it is not. It screens before that small tat on the hip, he must take into account that he has sadly underrated series, Backberner, which continues to very little untattooed space on himself. However, when arguing excoriate the very unfunny joke that is our polity at the moment. with 16-year-old Jack over the lad's use of dope, he is able to And John Clarke and Brian Dawe still can make you laugh on point to himself as an awful example of what can go wrong, the 7.30 Report, even if you grit your teeth as you get their even though he's clean now. brilliant synopsis of, say, the collapse of the domestic airlines And while we're on what can go wrong, I'd like to thank or perhaps of the public service's ethics when faced with giving the kind people who didn't ring, email or write to point out my unwanted information to a minister. appalling laxness in naming the Sydney Morning Herald as the Just before Kath eJ Kim, however, is the wonderful, perpetrator of the 'Chris Aurora' stunt instead of the Daily fantastic Kumars at No. 42. It's British at its best, crossing Telegraph . It's nice to know you care. All fourteen of you. • boundaries between real life and fake life and making us look forward to Thursday nights. Sanjeev Bhaskar, aka Kumar, went Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer.

46 EUREKA STREET • j UN E 2002 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 104, June 2002

Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM

ACROSS 1. Spends cold months disconcertingly lost on ice-on the shortest day. (6, 8) 8. Edward, using peculiar nut, adjusted the instrument. (5) 9. What servant was paid in advance. (8) 11. About spy-did he take chemical substance for analysis? (7) 12. It seems that Reginald, in short, was at a yacht race-by the sound of it. (7) 13. Ten of these could bring you to the position of 14-down in numerical order. (5) 15. Sycophantic followers put their clothes on them. On? Yes. (7-2) 17. Catching large, lumpy fish is very satisfactory! (5 -4) 20. Where racing cars stop and say thanks for the Middle East­ ern bread? (5) 21. Sideways sort of thinking, like 5-down with a change of end. (7) 23. Headwear for the not-quite queen? (7) 25. About the Eastern Mediterranean coastal region, I'll tell you what's pertinent. (8) 26. Am able to listen to long section of the poem. (5) 27. Rom e? Or heaven? The never-ending metropolis! (3,7,4) Solution to Crossword no. 103, May 2002 DOWN 1. A pub where there's drink for animals? (8,4) 2. Grandma often minds the children. Why not? (5) 3. Would one stay in 27-across for so in terminably long? (9) 4. Pull out of shape, perhaps-to such an extent? (7) 5. A Council took place in 27-across-at the basilica, perhaps. (7) 6. Object to strange night. (5) 7. Exceptional EC artist expatiates initially on what he does when making his work of art. (7,2) 10. The losers pray to him, especially this month on the 13th. (5, 7) 14. Found one's position somehow, i.e. in tenth place. Considerably lower-or higher? (9) 16. Based on experience of primal ice treated and observed. (9) 18. A novel 'e perhaps read when away from work. (2,5) 19. Treated any cut a person sustained when visiting the Mexican peninsula. (7) 22. Old-tim e official I revere outright. (5) 24. Fijian airport sounds like this when it makes a din for better spellingz (5)

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~ .L ______:__ / __ posted in Au strali a.) D Please send me direct debit fo rms __j m 0 Mai ling li st: I would like to remove my name from the mai ling li st when it is used for outside advertising. Girt by Sea By Mungo MacCallum

Mungo MacCallum, on e of Australia's most influential political journalists, provides a devastating account of the Howard governm ent's treatment of refugees. He also delineates the factors in Australian history that have worked towards prejudice and those that have worked against GIRT it. MacCallum's survey has range: he covers immigration issues from Calwell's post-war policies to revelations of beat-ups and distortions in BY SEA the 2001 federal election campaign. AUSTRALIA, THE REFUGEES AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR He also raises the question of whether Australia's current treatment of refu gees has anything in common with the policies that have characterised our better traditions. And all in characteristic style- by Mungo turns dry, witty and considered. MacCallum

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