Vol. 7 No. 8 October 1997 $5.95
The Uncritical Culture EURI:-KA SJRI:-Er TALKS at Richmond on the hill Reconciliation: where to from here? Patriclz Dodson Chair, Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Wednesday, 29 O ct 1997, 7.3 0pm & St Ignatius Church, Fr Franlz Brennan SJ 326 Church St, Ri chmond Director, Uniya, Jesuit Centre for Social Justice
E uREKA STREET TALKS are jointly sponsored by Eureka Street magazine and by Fr Peter Hosking SJ and the Jesuit Community of St Ignatius, Richmond.
RSVP Anne 942 7 73 11 Park ing ava il able behind th e Church. Enter off Church Street, vi a Th e Vaucluse .
& Black Pepper Special book offer Kicking in Danger Alan Wearne
Wheth er you cheered for the Crows or groaned for the Saints last month, now you have a chance to assuage your withdrawal symptoms. Alan Wearne's Kicking in Danger is a novel about the true religion, a mystery story that uses the great mysteries of footy. Whether you love or hate Melbourne's greatest passion, you will still be enthralled by Damien Chubb, Alan Wearne's laconic ex-Bomber PI.
Thanks to Black Pepper, we have eight copies to give away. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and address it to Eureka Street Kicking In Danger Giveaway PO Box 553, Richmond Vic 3 121.
2 EUREKA STREET • OcroBER 1997 Volume 7 Number 8 October 1997
A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology
'Truganini's place in [Bernard} Smith's work over the last 40 years provides a vehicle for exploring bow Smith's ideas have changed over tin1_e and bow be bas CoNTENTS responded to new 4 36 COMMENT SILENCE ABOUT THE LAMBS social and intellectual Moira Rayner on child protection. developments.' 7 CAPITAL LETTER 37 -Tim Bonyhady ARCHIMEDES 8 Sec The Uncritical LETTERS 38 Culture, p24. BOOKS 10 Jim Davidson reviews Brothers To Us: THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC The Story of a Remarkable Family's Fight Against Apartheid by Kristin Williamsoni 16 Greg Dening looks at Kostl
V OLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 3 C OMMENT
A magazine of public affairs, the arts M ORAG FRASER and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Beyond -writing Editor Morag Fraser Consulting editor Michael McGirr SJ A sTH' un~:~,~~~ ' NG ue in Septembec, Production editor with accusations fl ying back and forth about falling standards, Lynda McCaff ery the derelictions of teachers and the political agendas of Production Manager ministers, I went to school for the day. Sylvana Scannapiego In the western suburbs of Melbourne, seven groups of Year Eleven s tudents from schools as far flung as Graphic designer: Siobhan Jackson metropolitan Adelaide, Springvale, the multicultural h eart Sub editor: Juliette Hughes of the south east of Melbourne-and Geelong-the Victorian Production assistants: regional city that bore the brunt of the Pyramid collapse Paul Fyfe SJ, Chris Jenkins SJ, Scott Howard came together to show one another the results of their six months' work on a project called Justice and Democracy. Contributing editors I'd met them before, early in the school year, when they Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ were at the start of their venture. It would be fair to say, at Perth: Dean Moore that stage, that the words justice and democracy were familiar Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor to them but only with the half-life shimmer that abstract South East Asian correspondent concepts have for teenagers focused on growing up, getting Jon Greenaway results, coping with jobs, family, weight worries and peers. But come September, with some extraordinary fi eld work Jesuit Editorial Board behind them, they had fl eshed out the ideas of democratic Peter L'Estrange SJ Andrew Bullen SJ, representation, of justice, equity, and a fair go. They'd gone, Andrew Hamilton SJ in their seven groups, out into their communities, to Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ investigate family breakdown, the justice of current systems Business manager: Sylvana Scannapiego of higher education funding, substance abuse and its impact Marketing manager: Rosanne Turner on families, perceptions of social class, prejudice, racism and Advertising representative: Ken Head the state of Australia's regional towns. They'd lobbied politicians, organised town m eetings, spent nights in refuges, put in the hard time digging out the facts that will have an Patrons impact on their future lives as citizens in a democracy. Emelw Street gratefully acknowledges the support of Colin and Angela Carter; the The project was a voluntary one. The students worked trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; closely with their teachers, who stretched their time and W.P. & M.W. Gurry; resources to fit it in, as good teachers have always done. The students' fin al presentations were sophisticated multi- media Eureka Street magazine, ISSN 1036- 1758, events, combining video, sound, drama, spoken word and Australi a Post Print Post approved written scripts-so good they surprised themselves. 'Don't pp349181 /003 14 expect much', warned one lad from Ararat, as he got up to is published ten times a year deliver his sharp analysis of the economic and social change by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, his home town has seen in a decade. But we did expect and 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3 121 he delivered, in spades. Tel: 03 942 7 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 These were not 'privileged' schools. But their students e- mail : eureka@werple. nct. au were engaged. Their teachers understood that education is Responsibility for editori al content is accepted by never just vocational preparation. The final presentations Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond . were literate and numerate in ways that no test could properly Printed by Doran Printing, assess. And underpinning it all was trust-young people's 46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3 195. newly-won trust in their own ability, their teach ers, and the © Jesuit Publications 1997. possibility making their society a better one. Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and I wish the m inister had been there. fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a - Morag Fraser stamped, self-addressed envelope. Reques ts for permission to reprint material from the magazine Note: This month's Eureka Street carries a number of should be addressed in writing to: advertising inserts. No party-political endorsement by the The editor, Eureka Street magazine, magazine should be inferred from any such inclusions. PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121.
4 EUREKA STREET • O c T OBER 1997 C OMMENT: 2 PAUL CHADWI CK When we want to be alone
A mR D,.NA, ANOTH" c "' '"" fo. pdvocy pwtection From the time they are cradled on the pavem ent outside under law. But for whom? The private what? Protection how? hospital to the time the gun carriage bears their coffin, they Justifiably breached when? How to measure the damage and exist to be photographed. Unlike the politician, film star or assuage it without compounding the breach ? And how to stop victim of tragedy, there is no reason for public interest in the the 'Royals factor' from distorting the Australian response? Royals except that they are there. We know, with Orwell's Winston Smith, that privacy is a Not having been elected or appointed; not having any precondition for liberty. We feel, even if we rarely analyse it, legislative, executive or adjudicative powers; not having that privacy is essential to selfhood. achieved anything except birth or marriage into a particular However, we accept som e loss of privacy, either as the family; they cannot easily be brought within the 'public intere t' inevitable result of being in society, or in return for benefits. criteria which may justify breaches of the privacy of other types The simplest example is disclosure of ~ of famous persons, yet preserve an our financial affairs to a bank in return inviolable private zone. for credit. What might justify breach of On the contrary, in seeking a privacy by the m edia (o ther than purpose, the Royals have them elves consent for reward of the Bob and shrunk the zone almost to nothing. At Blanche Bathrobe variety)? least since World War I, when their Accepting that the public interest German heritage was a tricky issue, the is more than public curiosity and that royal family has been offered as a the m edia's definition of 'newsworthiness' can be too self model family. The children go to good schools and behave, the serving, we need tests of public interest such as were proposed m en serve in the military and select brides who dress up, do by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Is the topic related charity work and produce heirs. Their weddings are always to sustainability of, or candidature for, public, commercial or fairy tales. Their deaths close and open eras. With their professional office or decisions or activities of those in office? names we m ark time. Property or services offered to the public? Apprehending offenders, enforcing law, protecting health or safety or IFSIMPLY LIVING IS THEIR PUBLIC PURPOS E, where doe their right administering justicez Or is it 'otherwise of legitimate concern to privacy begin? If the model isn't working, with all the private to the general public or to any section of the public'? suffering that it entails, why shouldn't the public know? The Adequate or not, such tests beg a final, vital question. What public has been invited to be interested in the lives of the royal kind of fame does the person enjoy/suffer? Different fame can family; it is not similarly invited to take an interest in the m ean different privacy loss, with different justification. marital troubles of a politician, or the financial affairs of a sports •Fame by election or appointment is for politicians, judges star. In Britain, where citizens subsidise royalty without electing and others in public office. They trade anonymity for power them, the public is a shareholder. and prestige and lose som e privacy because accountability Through divorce, Diana had exited the family but not the requires it. stage. Since her death it has becom e a cliche to say that because •Fame by achievement comes to actors, TV presenters, French privacy law is strict but did not prevent invasion of her sportsmen and women, business leaders and some writers. Many privacy, privacy laws are therefore of no value. This is silly. A invite publicity to get fame, earn money in exchange for privacy, law is not pointless because som e people break it, but rather if then protect privacy using wealth. most people do. A majority of the m edia is a tiny minority of •Fame by chance happens to anonymous people caught in the people but has a very loud voice. the randomness of tragedy or disaster (Lindy Chamberlain, In France, privacy protection is part of other laws protecting Stuart Diver) or, less often, good fortune. Such fame also comes aspects of personality, including reputation and the rights of to those declared 'typical' (Paxton family). Here, privacy is not an artist to defend the integrity of his or her work. traded but stolen . (At least initially: later, with greater or lesser Areas covered by privacy law include family life, sexual na'ivete, they may sell their testimony of suffering.) activity and orientation, illness and death and private repose • Fame by association is the lot of a politician's spouse, a and leisure. Courts have restrained or penalised the publication sports champion's children or the m other of a criminal. It is of photos of famous people ill or dying in bed, in wheelchairs or reflected fame, but not always glory. Ju stifiable breach of privacy attended by relatives. depends, as always, on the circumstances. For instance, the Modesty and dignity are enforceable: the former empress share dealings of a politician's spouse may be relevant to holding of Iran restrained publication of photos of herself in a bathing the politician to account. suit. The plaintiff need not prove that he or she was injured by •Royal fam e is unique. Members of that family, by birth the breach, nor that the defendant was at fa ult or had an or marriage, have no clear divide between private and public. improper motive.
VOLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 5 French law could have assisted Diana and Dodi Fayed in Yet money and timely legal advice are usually lacking for people France had they invoked it. affected by tragedy or disaster, who become famous at the worst As connected computers embed themselves in our lives, moment of their lives. For them, the best protection will be a we will not 'solve' the issue of privacy protection. But we will greater willingness among media people to extend the think more clearly about it in Australia if we acknowledge compassion and discretion which they habitually show when frankly that the Royals' experience is uniquely unhelpful; tragedy afflicts one of their own. • French law is neither useless nor readily adaptable; and the media's self-interest will distort the debate, but 'free speech' Paul Chadwick was a member of the committee to review the and 'public interest' notions are important. code of ethics of the Media Alliance (Australian Journalists' Wealth can buy privacy protection as well as access to law Association). Its report, Ethics in Journalism , was published in for most famous people, who tend to trade privacy for fame. September by Melbourne University Press.
COMMENT: 3 LIZ CURRAN Belting justice
E cmc< AND ' on-CATCH,NC "'"'' the Nmthem Twitoty •nd of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Western Australian mandatory sentencing laws arc draconian, (which states imprisonment should be a sanction only of 'last vengeful and disproportionate. resort'), but it also offends all concepts of fairness, justice and Mandatory laws give no weight to the circumstances of an proportion. In addition the laws are con trary to the United individual case. They take away judicial discretion, thus N ations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of rendering irrelevant the nature of the specific offence, the impact Juvenile Justice (The Belting Rules) which state that: on the victim and the offender's circumstances. '5. 1 The juvenile justice system shall emphasise the well The Northern Territory mandatory laws, effective as of being of the juvenile and shall ensure that any reaction to juvenile March 1997, mean that a child of 15 or 16 years of age faces a offenders shall always be in proportion to the circumstances of mandatory sentence of 28 days' imprisonment for a second both the offenders and the offence.' offence. If the person is 17 years or over, he or she faces 14 A criminal justice system built primarily on a philosophy days' imprisonment for a firs t offence, 90 days for a second of vengeance and punishment holds out little hope for those offence and 12 months for a third offence. Offences can include who may be capable of reform or who are treated unfairly minor ones such as stealing, unlawful entry, and criminal because they belong to a minority, are poor or disadvantaged damage. and prone to come to the attention of the law. In a climate of The mandatory sentencing laws of Western Australia, social strain, where a majority of the women in prisons have which came into effect in N ovember 1996, make it compulsory apparently suffered some form of physical or sexual abuse, when for a judge to sentence a repea t offender (someone who has been legal aid is restricted, where there is high unemployment, rising convicted on a previous home burglary for example) to a minimum levels of h om elessn ess and families in financial s trife, of 12 months' detention or imprisonment. The legislation appears government policies should ameliorate, not add to suffering. to apply to persons 10 years of age or over. Diversionary sentencing options which educate and reform can In a case in the Northern Territory on 24th June 1997, a often return off enders to a society as constructive human beings, man was sentenced to 14 days in jail for a $9 theft. In another unburdened by the sense of bitterness and anger that case, a young mother faces imprisonment for the theft of an a disproportionate prison sentence is likely to instil. item worth $2.50. In a case in Western Australia, a homeless boy stole a small amount of money for food and was imprisoned M ANDATORY SENTENCJNG 1s LEGALISM acting in a vacuum and despite an admission by the Department of Family Services that is contrary to our community endorsement of forgiveness and they had failed in their responsibility to look after the boy. In another reconciliation. It contradicts the role of society as the protector case a 12-year-old boy was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment. of human dignity, and can only lead to recidivism, a sense of The Starke Report and a large body of domestic and anger and volatility-a situation contrary to the long-term overseas research has repeatedly highlighted the nega tive effects interests of the common good. of imprisonm ent. They include damage to physical health, In convict days, people could be transported and imprisoned damage to m ental health, psychological problems, placing stress for the theft of a loaf of bread. Today, with the lessons of history on marital and family relations, jails becoming incubators of behind u s, one would have expected a more enlightened, crime, licit and illicit drug dependency, institutionalisation and considered and compassionate response. exposure to physical and sexual assault. The principle of sentencing as a last resort is contained in Liz Curran is a lawyer and Executive Director of the Catholic section 5 (4) of the Vi ctorian Sentencing Act. The Northern Commission for Justice, Development and Peace (Melbourne Territory law not only flies in the face of Recommendation 92 Archdiocese).
6 EUREKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 Corruption of the spirit
N VOLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 7 L ETTERS lC t ) l IC' t' l \\ L lL ll ll L ~ ' t l L .., patient consent. Surely noone is I 1111 ts tc.Jd,J-.. l.,ho t kttcY~ IlL seriously suggesting that there will be Pastoral cynical 1111l iL ftJ LJ\ lll ,, t' L 8 EUREKA STREET • O CTOBER 1997 Canadian, American, and Australian conscience through their knowing that are non-ethnic geopolitical designations, their action is m orally wrong. But, yet not all can be eponymously identi Hegel objected, not all bad actions are fi ed without, it seems, a qualifying pre accompanied by qualms of conscience; fix . I've yet to see a Chinese-Brit, but so that, on this view, the arch-sinner French-Canadian, Afro-American and who commits crimes without the Chinese-Australian are supposedly slightest qualm of conscience is not to indicative of racial harmony. They do be morally blam ed ! Agains t this T h is month, of course save strangers getting nasty perverse m oral princ iple, H egel the writer of each letter we surprises before meeting people. invoked Pascal's po werful retort publish will receive a six-pack of Geoff Hastings (which I here give in translation): Eureka Street postcards. Watsons Bay, NSW 'In that case only the half-hearted Keep in tou ch! sinners would be damned, those who Culpable have some love of virtue. As for the arch-sinners, the hardened sinners, the non-voluntary e uthanasia) without Ignorance unalloyed sinners who are completely patient consent is significantly higher From Edward Khamara, unperturbed, h ell will not receive than in a country with AVE effectively senior lecturer in Philosophy, them ; they have deceived the devil by legal; and that (projecting from the Monash University giving themselves up to him.' survey resu lts) Australian doctors I admire Mr Kennett's ability to quote, Hegel had another objection to the report that in several thousand cases accurately and off the cuff, Christ's second construal of Christ's prayer: per year the legal availability of AVE intercession at the Cross on behalf of 'Father, forgive them, for they know and/or assisted suicide would have his enemies: '( Father,) forgive them, for not what they do'. He remarked that, allowed them to improve their care of they know not what they do' (as on that construal, this would be 'a their dying patient. reported in the Age, 22 August; the superfluous prayer', since 'the fa ct that I suggest that there is more than reference is to Luke 23:34). These they did not know what they did made enough evidence about the probable hallowed words encapsulate a central their action innocent, and so took benefits in terms of increased respect moral tenet of Christianity which is away the n eed for forgiveness'. T o for patient autonomy-as well as the undoubtedly relevant to the current explain: those who were responsible near certain benefits in terms of the debate about what to do with Konrads for Christ 's crucifi xion had no bad alleviation of great suffering-to Kalej and his like. conscience about it; and so, on the justify the legalisation of active However, as the great German view that H egel is attacking, they voluntary euthanasia. philosopher Hegel pointed out nearly ought not to be blam ed. But C hrist Brent Howard two centuries ago, C hrist 's m oral prayed for them nonetheless: which Rydalmere, NSW stance in these his last words has oft en shows that he did not consider them been distorted; and I find it blameless despite their 'not knowing worthwhile, in view of the current what they do'. Glib and glibber debate, to report and elaborate his Edward Khamara points. Clayton, VIC From Geoff Ha stings The main point to notice is that Full marks to Paul Turnbull for his Christ himself is not forgiving his De mortuis concise and incisive essay 'The Body enemies, but praying on their behalf & Soul Snatchers'. It is worth 'drawing for his Father to fo rgive them. And the From fohn Lee Priam's curtain in the dead of night' if right way to spell out that prayer is, I William Byrt's 'forgotten source' something so worthwhile is exposed. I suggest (with Hegel), the following: (Eureka Street, letters, Sept, 1997) is hope the Koorie elders remain resolute (i) Although they (my enemies) do W.H. Auden' poem 'In Memory ofW. and ensure that their descendants are not know that they are committing a B. Yeats'. The stanza is: equally re olved. h einous sin, this does not mitigate Time that with this strange excuse I'm one of the millions of people their s in, but I pray m y Father to Pardoned Kipling and his views, who have walked through the tombs forgive them. And will pardon Paul Claude], of the Pharoahs and gazed without any The distorted interpretation that Pardons him for writing well. sense of shame or irreverence at the has sometimes been fo isted on Christ's In the last line the author being exhumed remains of those who took last words is the following: 'pardoned' is clearly Yeats (d. l 939), not su ch infinite pain to secrete and (ii) They (my enemies) do not know Claude! (d .l955), who at the time protect their bodies, but find that they are committing a great sin; Auden was writing was not safely themselves in unholy glass cases in that renders them innocent and ca lls dead. The implication of the lines museums throughout the world. for 'forgiveness'. seem to be that 'pardon' (i.e. I shudder when I hear politicians This construal is so m ora ll y admission to Auden's Hall of Literary a tte mpt to exte nd their political perverse that one wonders how anyone Fame) for good writers with bad continuum by such glib expressions as could be attracted to it; and indeed it politics can only be posthumous. 'multi-ra cial harmony'; as if culture is seem s to yield the very opposite of Presumably not quite the sort of point m erely the do nning or doffing of what Christ's words were intended to Mr Byrt wanted to make about colourful costumes at the weekend. convey. For it suggests that people are Manning Clark. The more prudent, and accurate, say not to be held morally responsible for John Lee 'multi-racial harmony'. their action unless they act with a bad Dudley, NSW VOLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 9 THE . ·', ~ MONTH'S . ' . \' TRAFFIC ~;~ strangely subdued, given over to virtual As a victim of the Windsors, Diana chapels and collections of Diana pictures. became the focu s of a discontent against Love for sale This was not a time for cynicism. It was the royal family which has blurred the however a time of hyperbole and boundary between republican a nd overstatement, of embellishment and monarchist. For republicans-here and T HERE WAS A MOMENT DURING Diana's exaggeration. A time of suspended judgment elsewhere- this may prove dangerous; funeral when I caught myself smiling. and an almost Orwellian turnaround in crucial arguments about democracy, Watching the faces of the Queen and Prince media reporting and public opinion. Some eq uality and matters of constitution have Phillip, etched deeply with tension and where within the fog of eulogy, objectivity, been swamped by an em otion al over concern and, many of us liked to think, by balance and truth was lost. With the death reaction which will allow the Windsors to a modicum of guilt, I remembered for a of Princess Diana we saw doublespeak at its reinvent themselves in a manner worthy of moment my royal family; a royal family of finest. Madonna. This will have a lasting innuendo, gossip, joke, where Prince The royal story effect; Prince Charles and T h e hades' greatest wish was to be one of became one-dimen British Prime Minister T ony Blair Camilla's tampons, Fergie was the sional as it lurched, are now pushing for a 'people's renowned Queen of Tarts, and Prince Phillip m e dia -d riv en, monarchy', a contradiction in terms couldn't be trusted to open his m outh in towards classic which may see the Windsors well public without putting his foot in it. tragedy: Beauty and into the twenty-first century. I say 'my' royal family because each of innocence lost, the The problem is that mass us uses them, I think, to fulfil a different scheming Family, emotion is always at the mercy of need. Some of us need them as arbiters of the insurrectionist political manipulation. 'I'm not a taste and refinement; some of us need them Earl, the young heirs political animal', Diana said, 'but I as moral guardians, as heirs of tradition or left behind, bewil think the biggest disease this world as champions of the people; some of us need dered and in danger. suffers from in this day and age is them to rebel against; the British need them There's a trick here the di sease of feeling unloved, and I especial! y as the guarantors of their threat that writers of soaps know that I can give love for a ened sense of greatness, and as a steadying know well; make minute, for half an hour, for a clay, influence in their battered outpost of Europe. the ordinary extra or for a month ... and I want to do that'. And we all, even the h ardest of dinary and the The irony here is that while we all republicans, need their stories. We use them extraordinary want to believe in the power of love, to shed light on our lives, our values, our ordinary. If Diana was extraordinary, as so it is the political animals of the world who outlooks-we use them to position our many have pointed out, it was not because take ownership of these ideals, and who selves as people w ho think and feel and of her capacity to love, h er empathy with distort them to less simple ends. Tony Blair have opinions. The loves, hates, triumphs suffering or her support for charities the has already trodden this path, talking and misadventures of the royal family feed royals don't publicly support. Nor because eloquently about love in his funeral reading our insatiable need to connect-positively she was beautiful, which she was, or very from Corinthians, using the example of or negatively-with a world beyond the intelligent, which she was not. She was Diana's life and the tragedy of her death as ordinary. We devour the gossip, ogle the extraordinary because, despite the trappings a leg-up towards a new Britain. Royal pictures, take sides in the royal squabbles, of her aristocratic life, we believed her to be stuffiness and protocol has been forced, tut-tut the moral lapses, laugh at the deeply ordinary. with his help, to make way for the wishes of inadequacies-and cry at the funerals. This is the key to Diana's popularity, the people. It's a situation in keeping with My particular royal family is a republican and the source of her troubled relationship Blair's vision of a more relaxed, informal, one. For as long as I can remember, it has with the Windsors; she committed the royal less repressed nation, and in the process his served as a source of satire and a chance to sin of admission-she admitted she was prestige and his reputation have increased. kick out at the presumptions of the rich and ordinary, she wanted us to think she was He may become the most powerful prime (en )titled. This version of the royals was ordinary. 'I'm as thick as a plank', she minister that modern Britain has yet seen. banished from the scene following the death famously told a little girl whom she was A confirmed royalist who has royalty under of Diana and the emotional response to her trying to put at ease during a public function his thumb. funeral. Newspapers that had been happy early on in her career. The sin was committed The media's role in all of this is vital. to criticise the dysfunctional Windsors and once again in the Panorama interview of The unprecedented public show of gri ef at their highly public and somewhat unnatural 1995 where she admitted being bulimic, Diana's funeral was as much to do with the lives, were suddenly professing love and depressed and suicidal. In the kingdom of m edia's complicity in the Blairite vision as loyalty as if their heads depended on it. the Windsors a sin of admission is a cardinal it was with genuine love. It's tempting to Even the Internet, homeoftheRoyalFamily one. None could attract greater magisterial think that editors around the world felt Swimsuit Parade and the Camilla Parker opprobrium, and none, it seems, could guilty for the constant sniping at Diana and Bowles diary ('Queen by 2010'), was garner more sympathy from the people. for the shameless intrusion of privacy that 10 EUREKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 passes for journalism in the mass market. club to say that 'the AFL has reduced Aus battling cancer. His plight seem s to encap More likely, there have been edicts and tralian rules fo otball to a game of netball.' sulate much of what the club went through m emos from on high, whispered advice in It w as an ill-te mpe red m a tch. Mic k and to explain why the fans should be corridor to keep it clean for a while, and to Malthouse, the West Coast coach, said untroubled by a m ere downpour. Only a profit from the public em otion. This will afterwards that he was glad he never had to h andful h ad brou ght umbrellas. The pass, and despite the alacrity with which return to such a hostile place. The Herald supporters were to n eed all that grit in the the tabloids have renounced their love affair Sun ran back-page screamers on three days weeks ahead when the team missed a place with the paparazzi, sooner or later someone of the fo llowing week: 'Wild Dogs', 'Dog in the Grand Final in the last minutes of will buy and publish those photographs of Gone' and 'Dogs Snarl. ' their preliminary final and when Chris the accident; the stakes are too high, and The m ood in the crowd was more fes tive. Grant missed the Brownlow m edal because the m ass obsession with Diana, given time, The Western Oval had seldom been as he had been suspended for just a week early is not beyond fascinated horror. crowded, but the dram atic change in the in the season on video evidence. But the m edia alone did not kill the local team 's fo rtunes throughout 1997, Winter in Melbourne this year also saw Princess. This was a point missed by T ony coupled with the chance to farewell the a rem arkable retrospective of the work of Blair when he admonished the press to venue, had turned supporters out in force. the Aboriginal artist, G inger Riley. Riley's 'stop using members of the royal fa mily as On the way to the ground, a ten-year old u e of colou r is a cure for the experience of commodities'. A commodity requires a Vietnam ese scalper tried to sell us some grey on grey which describes a visit to buyer as well as a seller. The paparazzi tickets. Once in ide, we quickly gave up on Melbourne's concrete National Gallery in wouldn't be interested if we didn't want to finding any shelter from the pouring rain the middle of the year. Some of his paint see-and pay t o see-the lon g- l e n s and the driving wind. The Western Oval ings had been commissioned by the AFL photographs of Diana kissing Dodi Fayed, wa built in days before people cam e to the during 1996. One of these is called Munanga Fergie having her toes sucked, the Queen football for comfort. (white fella way) AFL football. Another is weeping as Windsor Castle burned. We buy By half time, the windsock on the called Wul gori-yi-m ar-football for all the papers and wallow in the gossip and Geelong Road side of the Aboriginal people. One we're ultimately responsible fo r the ongo ground was so wet that difference between the ing saga. Diana, we are told, was the most not even a gale could lift two paintings is the use photographed woman in the world. Put her it. We reassured of con centric circles picture on the front cover and your sales ourselves that at least we which, the exhibition would break records; Diana smiling; Diana were not going to blow explained, design ate shy; Diana petulant; Diana running from away. On the other hand, sacred space. In the the paparazzi; and infamously, Diana at the we weren't so sure about painting of 'football fo r gy m; Diana holding hands with Fayed. She the old pie van behind all Aboriginal people', was an ordinary m ortal with ordinary us, which whistled in the the players are in ide the con cerns struggling bravely in a cold wind like a bad set of sacred space. In 'white universe of intrigue, power and jealousy. teeth. The Vi etnam ese fe lla way', they stand How far she contributed h erself to the bloke standing behind us, around it. m aking of this image-the extent to which no more than a year out Maybe this is why she m anipulated us and the media to her of school, m et an old the crowd fo r the 666th own advantage-is an important point. school teacher and asked ga m e at the Western Love sells, as does victimhood. The him if he wanted a 'bite Oval spent so long on da nger fo r republicans is that it's just too of my tinny.' The bar near the ground, inside the easy to buy. - Gary Bryson the windsock closed concentric circles, after early, not fro m lack of the gam e. West Coast trade, but seemingly had kicked to within When the devil's becau se they were not two goal in the final sticking to the two-can quarter, but the Bull got your number limit. After all, what dogs regrouped and gave could the law do ? Prevent the old ground one last them from trading in the happy memory. After ITWAS JUST AS wELL that the Western Bull future? wards, a West Coast dogs won the last AFL game ever to be Michael Cordell followed the team with supporter yelled at stra ngers, asking the played on Footscray's legendary Western a camera throughout the 1996 season when directions to Sunshine. Meanwhile, crowds Oval. It was the 666th time the dogs had the Western Bulldogs, then known as were making their way around to the front played there, but they didn't look in the Footscray, finished second last, better only of the stands where Peter Corlett's sculp m ood for either apocalyptic omens or for than their unhappy co-tenants a t the ture of the Footscray legend, E.J. Whitten, nostalgia. Before the ball was bounced, Western Oval, Fitzroy. N o other Australian had been unveiled a few days earlier. They players had singled out the young West documentary has ever had such wide cinema waited their turn to be photographed in Coast Eagle ruckman, Michael Gardiner, release than the work that resulted, Year of front of the statue. They laid fl owers under for som e h eavying up. Three Western the Dogs. The film is a wonderful account it. They reached up to tou ch it and held up Bulldogs were fined as a result of the of human adversity. Its hero is Shaun Baxter, their children to do the same. After all, it is incident, which led the president of their a young player who spent most of the season a contact sport. -Michael McGirr SJ V OLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 11 then attempted to leave the country. He Pim Samkhon is the President of the News in first tried to cross into Thailand to the KJA. When he returned to Cambodia in North East of Phnom Penh through Poi Pet. 1993, after spending 17 years in France, he Roadblocks made this impossible so Cheng founded Khmer Independent News. Asked returned to the capital, from where he was why he and his colleagues are reluctant to I NTHO ~~~ o~~£!~ng Sokn' smuggled by boat and plane. return to Phnom Penh, gi ven that some found himself wandering around the streets Huddled around a table soaked in the papers have reopened and a few are publishing of Phnom Penh, his hands secured at his kind of yellow light that suggests the criticism of the govemment, he replies that front by a pair of handcuffs. He had just clandestine, Cheng Sokna is among a there have been too many deaths. bribed his way out of police custody and handful of Cambodian journalists 'I think the government has no control was looking for someone to set him free. explaining why they are in Bangkok and over its military and its police', he adds. 'The police wanted me to pay', Cheng how they are lying in wait. Their surround 'I classify myself as in opposition to Hun said through an interpreter. 'I was released ings are a far cry from the fashionable hotels Sen. Sometimes they lth e govemmen t) wrote with the handcuffs still on because if they just a couple of blocks away in Silom Road. statements against me; sometimes they spoke opened the handcuffs that meant ... a They lean forward to make themselves heard on the radio and the TV against m e.' problem.' above a clattering air conditioner. The ride 'Hun Sen wants the world to recognise 'If I was recaptured then he [the police in the lift up to their rooms on the lOth that he is the first Prime Minister and for officer] could say to his boss that I escaped.' floor requires a leap of faith. The whole that he needs some of the opposition papers Cheng Sokna is the director of Khmer group must save money because they don't to reopen. He has asked deputies and News, a newspaper that had been highly know when they might return to Cambodia. reporters to reopen the papers-such as critical of Hun Sen up until the weekend of At first glance it's hard to imagine that Cheng Sokna's paper-and provide money the 5th and 6th of July, and one of the these good-humoured people could to do it and they attack Hun Sen, but now twenty or so news organisations that shut constitute a threat to Hun Sen. They claim, he is happy. down after that weekend. He believes that however, that they have good reason to be 'It has created a climate of freedom. But Hun Sen has m ade him a target, even though in Bangkok. As editors and newspeople in reality it is a temporary freedom in the police were willing to take the money involved with some of the papers and Cambodia. It is puppet opposition.' and let him go. He cites as evidence a phone organisations that criticised the activities The denouncing of the KJA precipitated call he received from the editor of another of Cambodia's second Prime Minister they a split in June and the formation of another paper critical of the status quo, Save Cam fled a Cambodia they believed was about to organisation that was more in line with bodia. The police had arrested the editor, revisit its all-too-recent past. An added dan Hun Sen. The press had divided itself, in then, under duress, he called Cheng on his ger is the association many m embers of keeping with other Cambodian institutions mobile phone and asked him to come to his their organisation-the Khmer Journalists' that had succumbed to the bipolar nature of office. It was there that Cheng Sokna was Association-have with the opposition the power-sharing that fo llowed the 1993 arrested. parties, not only Prince Ranarridh's election. Unable to find a locksmith after he had Funcinpec, but Sam Rainsy's Khmer Nation Pim Samkhon implies that the links he bought his freedom, Cheng eventually cut Party, plus the Khmer Neutral and the and his association have with Ranarridh the handcuffs away with a power saw. He Buddhist Liberal Democratic Parties. exist only because they have a common enemy. 'If they [Funcinpec) do something bad for the country then they would face the same criticism.' Pim Samkhon's accusation of extra judicial killings was supported by the UN's Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, Thomas Hammarberg. In a report released on September 5, he documents 41 confirmed-and possibly up to 60- poli ticall y-motivated, extra-judicial executions following the July coup. This hard evidence will provide a stumbling block for Hun Sen as he attempts to secure the world recognition that Pim Samkhon suggests he is anxious to achieve. Pim Samkhon's belief that international pressure can influence Hun Sen-despite his marathon rants on television and radio during which he has castigated the UN, the United States and ASEAN- is shared by Prince Ranarridh. At a press conference in Bangkok on September 1, he, with his fellow Lap-top news conference in a hotel room, Bangkok. leade rs of the Union of Cambodian 12 EUREKA STREET • OCTOBER 1997 Democrats, announced a 10-point plan for the restoration of peace and democracy in Cambodia. It called for the signatories to the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, including the UN and ASEAN, to provide enabling technical and financial support and also for these aforementioned organisations to preside over an independent commission 'It may be profitable for you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed that would supervise the safe return of and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach them political leaders and activists. selves. It is as certain as death.' (David Copperfield to Uriah Heep.) Ranarridh left in the days following the Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the com. (Deuteronomy 25:4) coup to ask world leaders to continue pressuring Hun Sen. The response of the Perks, lurks and rorts international community demonstrates some uncertainty about the National C ONFECTIONERS TEND TO ALLOW WORKERS an open go at the lollies On the COnveyer belt. Assembly's appointment of Ung Huot as Members of parliament have generous travel allowances, study leave, u e of government Ranarridh's successor. cars, and a host of other comforts designed to make up for the fact that they have to mix At the same press conference Sam Rainsy with other politicians and turn up for work for about six months of the year. These side told the assembled media that the situation benefits of employment are 'perks'. in Cambodia can change very rapidly and it The word is a colloquial shortening of 'perquisite', a word that The Shorter Oxford is getting more difficult for Hun Sen all the English Dictionary tells us was first used inl450, and derives from a medireval Latin time. word perquisitum, meaning acquisition. Perquisitum in turn derived from the Latin 'He said he could take O'smach in a day, perquirere: to seek diligently, something you might do if you're looking for a way of and it has now been one month', Rainsy including a perk in your package. The sense of 'perquisite' that gives us 'perk' means, said [at the time of writing Royalists forces according to the Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary (MED ): '1. an incidental emolument, were still holding out], 'and the economic fee, or profit over and above fixed income, salary, or wages. 2. Also, perk. a. anything and social situation is getting more difficult customarily allowed or left to an employee or servant as an incidental advantage of the and diplomatic pressure is going to increase.' position held. b. any fringe benefit, bonus, etc., attaching to a particular post which an Assessments of the financial stability employee receives in addition to his normal salary.' In other words, something extra of Hun Sen's government vary depending salary that you get from a job, all quite legal, all above board. on whom you listen to. Many Cambodians Lurks, on the other hand are not at all above board. The fact that the verb 'to lurk' are mindful of Hun Sen's past as leader of also means to sneak or hide, often with a whiff of being in ambush, gives the noun a sense Vietnam's puppet state, and rumour has it of underhandedness. If the confectionery worker, instead of snacking on the sweets at that the Vietnamese are heavily behind work or taking home some misshapen rejects for the kids, were to start quietly selling Hun Sen. These reports may be coloured by those rejects out of the boot of his/her car, the perk would have transformed into a lurk. Cambodian resentment of Vietnam. Other If the honourable member were to take study leave in Las Vegas or Amsterdam to make rumours suggest his involvement with the a very personal survey of gambling or brothels, then that perk would have become a lurk. drug trade. Teng Boonma, the high-profile Lurks are, at base, frauds. president of the Cambodian Chamber of Sometimes a lurk is, in itself, a way of life or, as MED puts it, 'a convenient, often Commerce, denied (in an interview pub unethical, method of performing a task, earning a living'. Poachers, black marketeers, lished in the Phnom Penh Post) that the embezzlers, all are lurkers. The word ha an air of sticky fingers in the till, cops on the $US 1 million he gave to Hun Sen bankrolled take, the labyrinthine tax avoidance scheme that has found a loophole in the overbur the July putsch. He said the money was dened letter of the law and flouts its spirit-all lurks, though some might take issue with provided to stop soldiers looting after oppo the last since it clings by a manicured fingernail to the ledge of legality, and whether you sition forces had fled Phnom Penh. The US can have a legal lurk is debatable. Ask the bottom-of-the-harbour chaps-while they State Department alleges that Teng Boonma were doing it, it was legal. is 'heavily involved in drug trafficking'. 'Rort'. It seems to be a peculiarly Australian word meaning very much the same as 'lurk', but perhaps with added connotations of outrageousness, shamelessness. Limited November enrolments. 'rort .. .n. Colloq. 1. a trick; lurk; scheme. 2. a wild party. -v. t.3. to gain control over (an The beauty of enamel on si lver with organisation, as a branch of a political party) esp. by falsifying records. 4. to take wrongful advantage of; abuse: to rort the system. [orig. uncertain]-rorty, ad;.' (MED) Carolyn Delzoppo I first came across the word as a fresher at uni, reons ago. The engineering faculty was advertising one. I was warned by friends that overconsumption of beer and deflowering 22-26 November 1997 of virgins figured largely at engineers' rorts, although the former may well have Small is beautiful precluded the latter. Before long there were attempts to prevent such excesses, not by at banning them, but, with a touching faith in the power of culcha, to require all STUDIO 33 engineering students to do one humanities subject. (The Life Drawing Class was always 33 Hill Street Uralla NSW 2358 the first to be booked out, as indeed most of the lads could scrawl two circles with central dots. But there were dark murmurings of rorts of the other sort from those who missed ph: 02 6778 3733; ph/fax: 02 6778 3333 out and had to read a novel.) - Juliette Hughes email:modoz®northnet.com.au VoLUME 7 NuMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 13 AUSTRALIAN Diplomatic involvement is also circumstances they have managed to pro likely to be limited, at least until early duce a newsletter called Free Citizen News. BOOK REVIEW 1998 when the next election is clue. Friends and colleagues back in Cambodia ASEAN tried to broker a truce in early have smuggled copies into Phnom Penh. August. But governments have not Pim Samkhon points to a copy. in October: heeded Prince Ranarridh' s call for them 'These are the facts', he says. to recall their ambassadors, and Japan -Jon Greenaway John Button reviews Donald Horne's h as resumed dialogue with Hun Sen's The Avenue of the Fair Go government. Pim Samkhon believes This month's contributors: Gary Bryson is that ASEAN should be doing more. executive producer of Radio National's Late Trish Goddard on Understanding Troubled Minds 'ASEAN can be a partner of Night Live. Michael McGirr SJ is consulting democracy,' he stresses. 'If ASEAN editor of Emeka Street. Juliette Hughes is Gillian Rubinstein on Isabelle Carmody's Greylands think they can change Burma to be a Eureka Street's sub-editor; Jon Greenaway, good country why not Cambodia?'- a is Eureka Street's South East Asia Don Anderson on reviewing reference to Burma's admission to the Correspondent. organisation ahead of Cambodia. There is an air of intractability about an extract from Dorothy Hewett's the current proble m s afflicting work-in-progress The Neap Tide Cambodia. Hun Sen has tried democ racy and found it not to his liking. His 'Lost Things in the Garden of Type' CPP party was beaten in 1993 by an essay by John Tranter Funcinpec, a result he couldn't accept, and his attempts at pork-barrelling his way into favour have, reportedly, not FoUowing the tremendous success of our 1995 won over the Cambodian people. Given adolescent spirituality conference we wiU be the ch an ce, they would vote the exploring further some of the issues raised at Subscriptions may be phoned , posted or faxed to: opposition into power and ensure a this conference. This will take the fo rm ofguest ABR, Suite 3, 21 Drummond Pl ace, Carlton, Vic. 30 53 landslide defeat for the CPP. speakers, with presentations by both adults and Ph (0 3) 9663 8657 Fax (03) 9663 8658 Hun Sen is no fri end of due process. young people. The day, sponsored by the Centre But Ranarriclh and Funcinpec are for Adolescent Health and Eureka Street, wiU certainly not the innocent victims they be an enlightening time of discussion and claim to b e e ither. It was the exploration. n egotiations between Funcinpec and Date: Sat 11 October, 1997 Three Personal Stories the Khmer Rouge leadership who Tim e: 9.30 am - 4. 00 pm you are invited to hear ousted Pol Pot that triggered a pre (registration 9.00 am) emptive strike from Hun Sen. Venue: O ld Pathology Theatre, joan Healy RSJ, All this transpired in an atm os University of Melbourne at present working in Ca mbodia phere of escalating tension which Ranariddh had done little to ease. His Cost: Adu lts: $50.00pp Jim Steynes call to Hun Sen to recognise that the Students: $20.00pp (incl ud es lun ch and refres hmen ts) AF L Footballer, motivational speaker King, Ranarridh's father, must play a role in securing peace, is constitution For furth er information and boo kings: with young people ally valid, but impractical, given that Fel icity Sloman Vicki Walker Hun Sen has already rejected outright Ph : 03 9345 6673 Descendant of the Mutthi M utthi Tribe, any role fo r King Sihanouk. Fx: 03 9345 6502 Yet in spite of these concerns, Pim emai l: sloman@cryp ti c. rch.un im elb. edu.au co-ordinator of the Samkhon and his fellow journalists Aborigina l Catholi c M inistry, are confident tha t stability will return, and along with it, freedom of the press. COUNSELLING Speak of their Spiritual journeys The 1998 election, according to Pim stres s, gri ef, relationships, Samkhon, is the key. workplace iss ues fac ilitated by Elaine Canty 'If the international community can M ediati on Writer, broadcaster, AF L Commissioner provide an environment for a free and divorce/sepa rati on workplace fair election, then I think we have no contact Tu esday, 18 November 1997, at 7.3 0pm, problem and next January we will be in WINSOME THOMAS Xav ier College chapel, Bark ers Road, Kew. Phnom Penh. B. A. (Psych) Grad .Dip. App.Psyc h. Supper w ill fo llow. In the meantime the journalists will M.Ed . Admin, AIMM, AHRI. stay where they are, garnering support Entry: Donati on ($5 suggested) at door. Tel 0418 380181 Enquiries: Kate McKenzie, 0412-365-705 where they can- from the UN or or 9690 7033 or 98 183960 (bus); 0853 6453 (ah) philanthropic agencies. Their visas are due to expire soon. Yet even in these CO NFIDENTI ALI TY ASSURED 14 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 Federal government cuts to the ABC threaten the future of Australia's only independent national media organisation. uThis is the most serious crisis of them all", says Ken Inglis, historian of the ABC, Media International Australia, February 1997. Funding to the ABC has been cut by $66 million (12%). The government plans to narrow the Charter which governs the ABC. Staff losses and program cuts are taking place in arts and entertainment, documentary programs, news, current affairs and sport. Radio Australia has been slashed and the Symphony Orchestras corporatised. There are strong rumours of a possible merger between Radio National and ABC Classic FM . There is pressure to contract out all ABC television productions (other than news and current affairs), and sell most television production locations. The ABC could become merely a 'buyer' of commercial style and imported television programs. The Australian public would lose quality broadcasting which reflects Australian life. Our democracy depends on the maintenance of a well resourced ABC which is independent of government and commercial interests. SUPPORT YOUR ABC JOIN FRIENDS OF THE ABC NOW r------~-, Name: 1 Address: I Post Code: Telephone: ACT 06 295 7451 Victoria 03 9525 0655 South Australia 08 8278 6101 Northern Territory 08 8941 1080 PO Bo x 2625 Canberra 2601 GPO Box 4065MM Melbourne 3001 GPO Bo x 203 Ad elaide 5001 PO Box 554 Parap 0804 0 Cone $10 0 Cone $10 0 Cone $10 0 Cone $10 0 Single $20 0 Other $20 0 Single $15 0 Other $20 0 Organis $50 0 Family $20 Queensland 07 3870 7718 Tasmania 03 6228 4284 PO Box 1658 Toowong 4066 New South Wales 02 9960 5542 Western Australia 08 9299 6974 P.O. Box 368 North Hobart 7002 0 Cone $10 PO Box 139 1 North Sydney 2069 PO Box 179 Darlington 6070 Cone $10 0 Single $15 0 Cone $10 0 Cone $10 0 0 Family $20 0 Single $20 0 Single $15 0 Single $15 0 Family $25 0 Family $20 0 Family $20 0 Organis $50 0 Organis $50 Friends of the ABC is a non party-political community organisation which has no financial relationship with the ABC Members receive 10% d1scount at :4BC sho~ V OLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 15 MEMOIR In at the death In the early eighties Tracey Leonard worked as a volunteer at Mother Teresa's Kolighat Hostel for the dying. The experience was unforgettable. T ,""" '"'"G TH" H'" Mt " the look at the cargo in the back of a council in the makeup of Kalighat is Sister Luke, smell. Death, decay and despair mix in a ambulance is usually enough reason to pass the sister in charge of the whole operation. pungent cocktail. Beside my feet lies a man them on as a hopeless case. The sisters and Nurses trained in the hospital system can on a narrow bed. He is placed under a shrine brothers also bring people here that they easily identify Sister Luke as a fearsome to Mary. I know that he is alive because I have found lying in the streets. Another charge sister: the type who, if you poke your see his chest rise and fall. His eyes are way to gain admittance is for the person to head up might just shoot it off. As with partially open and staring blankly. Every get themselves to the front door and pray most charge sisters, she has a voice which bone in the man's body seems to be trying that there is a spare bed and that the sister carries its blunt message to the person to pierce through his skin. in charge considers them sick enough for receiving it and to any one else in a half The ward is set out in rows. The left and admission. mile radius. The loud speakers of the temple right sides are elevated about two feet above Malnutrition is at the root of every are no match in volume. floor level. Each side holds about fifteen disease seen at Kalighat. Tuberculosis is Sister Luke has run Kalighat for the past beds. Beds also stretch down the middle endemic and complications arising from ten years. She and another sister are the area with a small aisle at the left hand side. this disease are a common cause of only professed, or blue-bordered sisters here, Altogether the male section has fifty-one admission. Dysentery in all its many forms all the others are young novices. This is beds. The beds themselves are made of is another leading contender. Malaria and their learning experience and part of their metal and are almost six feet long and about countless other fever-related conditions are training. Sister Luke runs everything, from two feet across. A plastic-covered mattress plentiful. Intestinal parasites, viral administration, diagnosis and treatment, of about two inches' thickness completes infections and good old-fashioned trauma stores and supplies, admissions and the basic makeup. About eighteen inches account for several other . Each discharges to the workers' wages and family disputes. She is barely tolerant of volunteers and will only speak to you if you survive a couple of weeks and she has assessed you as genuine. Any volunteer stupid enough to waltz into Kalighat and give Sister Luke the benefit of their wisdom is u ually given an earful and told of the great benefits in emptying bedpans. These types don't hang around for long. I'm more than happy to keep my head down and mouth shut and work quietly in the cleaning and feeding department. No special skills are required and the close contact with the individual patients remove the fear and intimidation I separates each bed and above each is a patient has a cocktail of these complaints had first felt. number. This is the physical and clinical with some m ore severe than others. layout of the ward. Describing each and The female ward is set out exactly like ••• every person on these beds is the hard part. the male side. Blue is the colour of choice The m onsoons are nearly upon us. I The men range in age from twelve to on this side and all the women wear check hope it provides som e relief from this stifling sixty, although Weil informs me that the gowns. There are fifty-seven female beds. humidity. Overhead fans provide little average age is around thirty. Admission to All are occupied and the women seem more assistance and each morning I wake up Kalighat can occur in several ways. The robust than their male counterparts, covered in sweat. Volunteers are leaving in most constant admissions are the people although several are just skin and bone and droves, heading out for the cooler climes. A that are picked up from the street by the obviously not long for this world. The mid h andful remain, scattered around the Calcutta City Council. These people must dle section of Kalighat comprises the water various homes. I am spending most of my have been refused admission to all of the storage tanks, a wash area and the morgue. time at Kalighat these days and am even city hospitals to qualify for a bed here. One Probably the most important ingredient acknowledged by Sister Luke. She is from 16 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 Singapore originally and is a trained nurse. Escaping to the roof for a cigarette, I run that only hours previously other people had She would have to be somewhere in her into John, a Canadian volunteer. Dragging walked over him and around him without a ea rly fifties. deeply on each calming breath of sm oke, I second glance, is enough to make you won As I continue to work with her, the relate my problems to John. Inexplicably he der if this society deserves to survive. But burdens and complexities of running this collapses into fits of laughter. Several min the philosophy of the Missionaries of home becom e more apparent. This morning utes later he informs m e that Sister Luke Charity centre on the man and not the Sister Luke is screaming her head off as I found the missing Muslim ages ago. He was cause, and his care and comfort are the walk in the door. Apparently a patient is in the wrong bed, semiconscious and cov reasons for their existence. missing. What is even more disturbing is ered with blankets. I storm back down the Since m y foray into the morgue som e the possibility that this Muslim man has stairs. Sister Luke is crouched beside one of time ago, I have often been deputised to been inadvertently mixed up with a Hindu. the beds and as she stands, hands me a inspect the inhabitant and make sure that Nobody seems sure about the status of this white sheet and says, 'Here is our missing all are present and correct. Today as I check man, that is, whether he is dea d or alive. As I try to pass by Sister Luke she grabs my ann and tells m e to check the morgue. In Malcolm Muggeridge 's Son1ething beautiful for God 'How am I supposed to find him? Ask him to stand up? ' I ask. he uses inwges such as a divine light streaming through 'Don't be stupid,' she yells. 'Check the dead bodies and make sure that the Muslims the windows. I can only believe that he nnzst have been and Hindus are not mixed up.' 'And how am I going to accomplish there on one of the many days when the stove blows up that?' I ask. 'Muslims are circumcised,' she informs and Lhe entire place is shrouded in smol V OLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 17 patience than I ever knew I possessed, I swarms upon m e as I try to reach Kaligha t's carefully explain the rudimentary function front door. There are hundreds and hundreds of both the heart and lungs. They find this of children clamouring for attention and a highly amusingandinformme that of course place in t he picnic. Sma ll bodies have at they know all about these things. I take tached them selves to m y legs and back them all back down to the man in question while several others try to dislocate m y and with aid of a stethoscope ask the m to arms. I am rescued by a large Indian poli ce ch eck his heartbea t. As fate would have it, m an brandishing a large wooden baton. H e one look a t the man tells m e that we arc obviousl y enj oys his work a nd lays into m y already too late. However, the first brother escorts with relish . Safely inside Kalighat I happily reports a h eartbeat. There is no rctrea t to the roof with a calming cigarette heartbeat. H e is supplying the answer he and survey the several hundred thinks I want. Once again I give a detailed children massed below m e. list of the signs of death and demonstrate each one. I will only find out how success· B ACKDOWNSTAIRS in the hub of Ka[ighat, ful this lecture has been when n ext I am on Sister Luke is organising the battle plans. morgue patrol. The only person rem otely Four hundred children will be allowed inside pleased with this turn of events is the man and these will the n be bathed and given selected for discharge. His eyes are glowing new cloth es. Part two of the exercise is to THE CONCISE COMPANION TO with the prospect of regaining his bed. board buses and drive to the picnic area. The siste rs are the sam e as the brothers. Once the instructions have been given, we THEATRE IN AUSTRALIA They are all young girls mainly from the all man our posts. I ha vc the dubious honour Revised and abridged from th e South of India a nd a a result speak no of front-door selection duty. The custom Companion to Th ea tre in Australia Bengali and onl y a little Eng! ish . They com e ary m ethod of selection seems to be the this edition includes forty new to Kalighat on a rotation basis in three ability to pass between two arbitrary m arks artists & additional contemporary month blocks. Ju st w hen I can see myself m ade on the door frame. The lower of these materi al to provide an up-to-date making headway with one group, their time m arks is around the two foo t six inches reference guide fo r th e th eatre is finished a nd the n ext incompetent lot level and the high er is about four feet. lover and student. arrive. The innocence and nai:vete of the There arc well over seven h u ndrcd children 0 86819 499 9 RRP $29.95 sisters is compounded w ith their religiou facing us, all de termined to be a m ong the instruction into a philosophy of 'leave it to picnickers. I a m rem indcd of rural Aus jesus'. Unfortunately, Jesu s is not the one tralia as the fr ont door is used in a similar giving out the m edications and drawing up fashion to a gate when drafting sheep. injections for the pa tients. Whenever I yell Several older children try to gain admis at them and accuse them of murdering the sion but the h eight rules arc ferociously patients they simply s mile and tell m e that adhered to by the brother on the door. I get it is all in God 's hands. sucked in by an older boy who carries a young cripple, only to drop him on ce in the ••• door. Within half an hour the quota has Sister Luke a nd all at Kalighat arc in a been reached, a sister yells 'Enough' and the frenzy yet again. The cause of the mayh e m doors a rc locked shut. this time is the annual street-children's 1l1e scene in ide Kalighat is as if a plague picnic. This yearly event requires weeks of of locusts had descended on the patients planning a nd preparation. The sisters en little bodies are perched wherever they can THE LA MAMA COLLECTION tertain about fo ur hundred children from find space. The wash area is a frenzy of activity as old and fi lthy clothes are Six new plays for the 1990s the general Ka li ghat area. During the past several days the lady on the sewing machine discarded, small brown bodies are soaped, EDITED BY LIZ j O N CS has been busily making a few h undrcd scrubbed and rinsed. T h ese bedraggled Published to commemorate La dresses in various sizes. I have n o idea as to figures are then passed down the line to be Mama's 30th ann iversary thi s the purpose of the n ew clothes and have powdered and dressed in their sm art new coll ection includes work by Sam discovered tha t any questions about them clothes. Waifs of the streets go in on e door Sejavka, Elizabeth Coleman, Daniel are m et with a m a nic scream from Sister a nd clean little angels appear out the other Lillford , julie Gooda ll , Raimondo Luke and the inevitable clip around the side. The children, s isters and workers take Cortese & Ross Mue ll er. head. I take refuge with the patients and everything in their stride. It is onl y the poor 0 86819 532 4 RRP $24.95 continue the norm al running of the hom e. bloody volunteers who flounder th ro ugh The sisters have becom e totally focused on the absurdity, trying to find rational expla )~..r TEL: (02) 9332 1300 the picnic preparations and we volunteers nations for this dramatic transformation. (V~t FAx: (02) 9332 3848 are left to the daily work of patient care. Stage Two of this exercise is to escort '"' . www.currency.com.au Seven a.m . h as m e wandering down fifty children at a time onto each bus. In ~ DISTRIBUTION: CUP, MELBOURNE Kalighat Road still half a Jeep. I am soon their new pristine state the chance of any violently awakened when a sea of children interloper joining the group is impossible. 18 EUREKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 One or two volunteers and a couple of As the afternoon draws to a close, we try no interest in these happenings and of course sisters join each bus. As I board our bus I and work out if today's picnic was a success. these are the only ones that make it onto notice several empty five-gallon biscuit There is no general consensus and many the film.) There was, however, one director drums strategicall y placed up the aisle. The different views on the definition of success. who indulged all the patients in their use of the biscuit tins becomes painfully I have no idea whether the children enjoyed thespian aspirations and he did more for obvious within fifteen minutes of travel. the day or not. As we collect our bags and their well-being than we ever could. Excitement and the novelty of bus travel prepare to leave Kalighat, the only real As fate will have it my mother meets combine to produce a potent display of measure of the day is gained from Sister Mother Teresa before I do. Mother T. went vomiting. We arc kept busy while several Luke as she thanks us all for our work and to Australia and opened the new Mater children relieve themselves of whatever is smiling from ear to ear. children's hospital and as my mother is a they last had to cat. past nurse there she also attended the open In another piece of baffling logic we are ••• ing. She met Mother Teresa and told her trapped in the sweltering buses as they Sister Luke has decided that I must meet that I was working in Calcutta and Mother make their way through the center of Mother Teresa before I leave. It doesn't worry nodded and said, 'Oh, yes I know her'. It Calcutta all the way to the other side of the me one way or the other. It was because of her certainly m ade my mother feel better even city: Kalighat is only minutes from name and notoriety that I first came here, but if it wasn't the truth. Even living saints tell Tollygunge and some lovely rural settings. I have discovered that it is the people here and the occasional white lie! Our destination proves to be the grounds of the work which are the more important to Sister Luke eagerly informs me that one of the Catholic schools. With undis me. Mother is like a magnet that draws people Mother T. is coming for a visit. As any nurse guised relief the children make a hasty exit in and many come just because of her fame. will know, theimmi..nentarrivalofthematron from the bus. I've been at the Mother House and seen can send many charge sisters to unimagined The food for today has been donated by dozens of foreigners surround her waiting to heights of cleanliness and patient prepara local people and some businesses. Large get her autograph. She obliges all these people tion. When she finally has all of us reduced to tables have been erected and are laden with and dispenses blessings and words of comfort emotional and physical exh austion she even sweets and pastries. The children have their but I can't help but feel sorry for the poor old tually stops shouting. Mother Teresa starts minds set on one thing only, and that is to lady and wish that they'd just leave her in the visit with a prayer to Mary and then she eat as much as possible. Another exercise peace. This is thepriceoffameandsheis treated seems to ignore her surroundings and Sister in military planning has the children march in much the same way as any famous star. Luke and spends her time talking to the ing in single file past each of the different The price of this type of fame extends to patients. It is during this time that I realise tables and collecting their food. They then all the homes and it is not unusual to have that the trappings of fame and expansion form small groups and sit on the barren and groups of tourists come to have a look. have denied her the real joy that only work- dusty sports fi eld to consume this remark able feast. The richness and amount of food is confounding the capacities of many small bellie to cope. As soon as all the food and drink is eaten or hidden, the children start retuming to their buses. E YEN THE ENTHUSIASTIC CAJOLLNG of SOme of the volunteers can not persuade these children to participate in any games. It seems that the one and only purpose has been achieved and the idea of fun and games is secondary to a quick return to their envi ronment. We are back on the buses by 1.30 p.m. and rolling back into the traffic. I work overtime on bi cuit bucket duty, not al Awareness of the plight of the poor is one ing with these people can give. A day of ways reaching my target in time. Several thing but the voyeuristic attitude of a lot of anonymous feeding and cleaning would be little explosions certainly don't miss me as these tourists brings my blood to the boil. for her a golden dream. She certainly has a target. The traffic is even more congested They neither ask permission of the sisters a presence, and all the patients seem to find on the return journey and it is close to 4 nor of the patients before taking some comfort from the time she spends p.m. when the Kali T emple comes into photographs. The other group that regularly with them. Sister Luke finally grabs me by view. There is no more welcome sight in all invades the homes in Calcutta is the the arm and introduces m e to Mother. She the world. Within moments of stopping, documentary film group. As with all things offers m e a blue-bordered sari and I tell her the children have disappeared and the only to do with human beings, there are the good that they don't make them in my size and evidence of the day 's activity is the and the bad. Films are the most important that is the end of the conversation, much to technicolor interior of the buses. A dozen pastime in India and when the patients see Sister Luke's annoyance. • smelly and bedraggled volunteers emerge the lights and cameras they mistakenly like survivors of a bomb blast and make believe they too are headed for the big Tracey Leonard is a freelance writer based their way into the relative sanity of Kalighat. screen. (It is only the seriously ill that have in Toowoomba. VOLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 19 T HE R EGION M ARGARET C OFFEY Indonesia's global warnings 0 N' mN,NG 'N j AKARTA, in themes they render are broad and tribal name. (I m et a young man the week of Mohammad's birthday, intersecting: on the one hand the call ed 'Yarra', as testimonial to his I sat in the hotel room tran sfixed by role of Islam in Indonesia, on the father's students days by its murky prime-time TV. Three main channels other, Indonesia's experien ce of waters.) were all broadcasting the final event globalisation. In Jakarta, of course, there were of the 18th annual Koranic recitation W e u sed t o the air-conditioned shopping competition. speak of 'western malls where one can feel at Ranks of regionally garbed isation ' or 'inclus hom e in fro nt of a Ben etton young people stood on a fi eld trialisa tion ' but store or before a n Italian behind banners announcing th e n ew term coff ee- making m achine. In a We used to thei r a rc hipelago- wide 'gl o b a li sa ti o n ' m agazine office an editor origins. Rows of middle-aged displaces them. It described a burgeoning read speak of dignitaries and their wives s u bsumes the ership: Muslim, middle-class, were arranged on a dais, the notion of 'devel W es t er n -e du ca t e d , 'westernisation' or women chatting with that opment', imply professi on al, 'very wel l mannered politesse of the ing the rise of a acquainted with cyberspace 'industrialisation' official classes. The T V n ew econ o mic and with CN N' and relishing presentation duo pattered m a n /wo m a n the opportunities proffered but the new term and the speeches hammered equipped with by Indonesia's seven per cent on: desperately long lists of mov e abl e growth rate. 'globalisation' sponsors and prizewinners. technical and In Central Jakarta, Meclan, Then the female announcer intellectual skills. Surabaya, the banks stood forth; displaces them. and the great hauled-i n T he ben efits of globalisation 'trickle the rupiah is a tiger (or even a breaths of the finalis ts' down'. There are some who believe colossus), declare the ban k build n erve- wrack ing perform that democracy rides on its tail, but ings, but word from the headquar It subsumes the ances. It went on and on. that's theextent to which globalisa tion ters of the global finance markets Awful television . talk invokes human values as dis was giving the lie to that. The rupiah notion of So was the TV on the tinct from economic benefits. Even and little brother Malaysia's ringgi t aft ernoon train fr om then, it is assumed that dem ocracy were shrinking and even the Indone 'development', Yogyakarta to Surabaya. has econ omic purpose and advan sian government was saying that There was no avoiding this, tage. Inevitably, the scale of unfet some of those edifices must, m eta implying the rise fo ur h ou rs of h orror, tered globalising change-for all the phorically speaking, come clow n. violence and obscenity from glorious infras tructure and service In a south Jakarta slum they of a new video screens strung along development-is su ch that fo r som e talked about demolition to make way the train corridor. American people it is an experience of violation. for development: at the Jakarta Social econom1c m ade horror, violence and I began my trip in Sumatra so the Institute a priest and a lawyer showed obscenity. T he paddy fi elds complexities gathered as I m oved photographs of a woman on her knees man/woman fl ew by. east. On my first day in Meda.n, young before the police. A child tugged at I have a m odest graduates, still jockeying for jobs six her, the security police an d the equipped with acquaintance with Indonesia m onths to a year after leaving military stood by. Behind them her -a m ere three weeks this university, described their ideal shack burned. The settlem ent had m oveable time and a less focused stay futures in marketing, tourism, on been torched. The shock was too twenty years ago. This time television and in the timber indus try. m uch for the wom an 's husband, the technical an d I went to hear people talk In the m eantime they yearned for lawyer said. He was ta ken about religion, democracy, s cholarships ove rseas, s tudied to hospital, where he di ed. intellectual skills. pluralism and the future, and English, watched TV, n ever read I heard enough to make my books, and, as Bataks whose tribal PR I EST WAS Sa ndyaw a n State-spon ored and quasi identities determ ine whom they Sumardi SJ, who faces trial for com p uls ory t elevisual might m arry, were always careful to sh eltering you ng pro-democracy experien ces em blematic. T h e enquire after a new acqu aintance's demonstrators in the aftermath of 20 EUREKA STREET • O c T OBER 1997 the 27 July, 1996 Jakarta 'incident'. collecting for what seemed an move away when they need As we talked, young people wandered impossiblycostlywater supply. With to. But the food vendor is in and out-students, dropouts, $Al0,000 to go, it was hard to always there, traversing the On my first day activists. Some of their pro maintain the villagers' confidence, neighbourhood, the fo cus of democracy peers arrested after 27 but if the women did not have to a community and a kind of in Medan, young July will be in jail for a very long walk for water at the end of each day, parliament of the people. time. The perpetrators of church they would have more time with Even the Catholic graduates, still burnings, in Surabaya, Situbondo, their children who were running bishops, historicall y wary of Tasikm alaya, haven 't made it to jail. wild. The factory wages were Rp3000 rocking the boat, have found jockeying for jobs 'The army generals say they know per day. No, it was not enough to a prophetic voice. Their who is behind these movements but survive on (not quite $A2) and no, Lenten pastoral letter this six months to a they do nothing.' there was no trade union- not yet. year, 'Concern and Hope', In the last two years m ore than The l eader of SBSI, the noted 'the weak, unjust and year after leaving 200 churches have been destroyed. independent trade union, is in prison. inconsistent enforcem ent of Add to that the flare-ups of inter He incited riots and mass hysteria the law, disregard of the university, ethnic violence. It is violence created against the government, say the rights and dignity of man; by political en gin eering, said authorities. I write one year after his where justice is, as it were, described their omeone in Yogyakarta. There are arrest and Muchtar Pakpahan is at only for the strong, the rich real feelings, real resentments last on trial, for s ubversion. and the powerful; ... corrup ideal futures in abroad, but the mystery is the way Meanwhile he has been in hospital, tion, collu ion and m anipu they are translated into particular prohibited by the government from lation ... '. People told m e marketing, tourism, kinds of violence. 'They are playing seeking m edical treatment overseas. about the letter, thrilled. gam es', said Professor On the plane to Jakarta I sat next to For many p eopl e in on television and in Sahatapy in Surabaya. Spencer Zifcak who was on his way Indon esia, religious faith from Melbourne to enquire after provides the frame within the timber industry. H E DIDN'T EXPLAIN WH O 'they' Muchtar Pakpahan's case, and which they can articulate are but why, he asked, after a riot in others, on behalf of the International ideas a bout justice, Banjarmasin were over a hundred Society of Jurists. It was his first democracy and pluralism. In the meantime people found dead huddled in a corner visit to Indonesia . Professor Zifcak Religious tradition is the of a building. 'People just keep quiet. was detained on arrival, questioned foundation and the resource they yearned for How come their families don't make for two hours and put on the next for discussions of tolerance, statem ents: my brother, my husband, plane home. human dignity, human scholarships my child is killed?' This is why I retain in my mind rights. I met women activists with an that train journey to Surabaya: it But it is especially the overseas, inter-religious feminist group who stands for a certain, even case among Mus described the contraception pervasive, force or vio lims that reli studied English, m echanism used to quell Indonesia 's lence which is part of gion, rather than population growth. If women do not the Indonesian people's its re jection, is watched TV, accept this 'family-planning' their experience. the m ean s of husbands will not climb the job However, I heard the envisioning a just never read books. ladder or gain credit for business, lan guage of human society. they said. Canada produces these values from the village Amien Rais, implants for the Third World poor. elders, I heard it from who chairs Indo- eventy-five per cent of u sers the feminists, from n esia's second largest experience problems-hypertension, Muchtar Pakpahan and Islamic organisation, is varicose veins, excess fluid. Sandyawan Sumardi. fond of remarking that In Central Java the elde rs The village elders, who Muslims form 88 per cent complained that the new textile are Catholic, spoke of of the population and factories brought to their rural village 'sacrificing oursel ve for ought to be given thatlevel a 'proletarian' work force-people others'. The feminists of representation in Par- who belonged nowhere and owed found in their diverse liament. 'Islam must be obligation s to noone, and who religious bac kgrounds common given a fair, honest and just repre indulged in 'fr ee sex' and alcohol. elem ents than can liberate women. sentation. The only way to trans The village was poor, they said, there Pakpahan's language is the Biblical form our society into a harmonious, was no choice but to a cept the language of justice for the people peaceful, stable and decent future i factorie and prepare their young he was formed as a Batak Protestant. of course by establishing justice for people morally. Every week for five Sandyawan speaks of a theology of all people-where there is no major years they had collected a glass of the warung tigal-the treet food ity dictatorship over the minority rice from each household; the money vendor- to whom everyone may and there is no minority dictatorship they earned by selling the rice come, especially when they are over the majority.' At the same time, financed a road. Now they were afraid, stay as long as they wish and 'Muslims do not feel neglected or V o LUME 7 N uMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 21 discounted any more.' Gestures like the frightening, sa idAbdurrahman Wahid, who I WANT TO INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE compulsory broadcast of the Koranic recita leads the N ahdlatul Ulama, the larges t tion competition are designed to contribute Islamic orga nisation, 30 m illion strong. Al l STRALIA~ to that sense of recognitio n. People like himself would like to ce 'a A mi e n Rais' organisa tion , modern Indones ian society where M uslims ethical Muhammadi ya, is heir to Masyum i, the would implement the tC 22 EUREKA STREET • O CTOBE R 1997 people (those who are 'well-acquainted with who wants to live in Indonesia. We see cyb rspace'), hence the emphasis on them as equal to Muslims. It is our Islamic MELBOURNE 'rationality'. Sometimes there are hiccups. opinion in LKIS '. These young Islamic When I listened to a conversion discussion democrats disseminate their ideas through UNIVERSITY going on in a back room I discovered that, publishing and through leadership train from one Paramadina associate at least, ing courses. Some of them have links with PRESS there was deeper analysi of political and Interfidei, an organisation made up of economic aspects of Islam than social ones. people of different faiths who come to Witchcraft and The ' teacher', a businessman involved in geth er voluntarily and not as official Paganism in Australia multi-level selling, remained certain that representatives of their re ligious by LYNNE HUME there was in Islam a place for the jilbab institutions. (Th ey are keen on the (veil), for polygamy, for female distinction between fa ith and religion). An absorbing and accessible circum cision. Interfidei is equ ally vigorous in its anthropological study th at exam in es I didn't find the same kind of incoherence educational acti vi ties-distributing books paganism as a case study of religious among those Islamic organisations serving through a wide network, holding seminars difference and its place in modern the poor. Amongst them, the issue of gender and m onthly discussions, doing field society. The book poses such qu estions as: Is Paganism a religion? equality was intrinsic to discussion of research (what really h appen e d, for What do its practitioners believe and dem ocracy and economic developm ent. example, when the churches were burned do? What are its historical roots? Is From LKPSM, a Nahcllatul Ulama 'Institute in Situbondo7). Democracy, human rights, it dangerous? Is it legal? How do for D eveloping Human Resources', the tribal religion, how to live together in a people learn about it? Why is it m embers go out to rural communities tak pluralistic society, h ow to achieve clean adopted as a belief syste m? ing Islamic teachings as the basis for grass government- these are the topics roots training in gender perspectives. 'The they discu ss. Paperback, $29.95 question may be, who owns the buffalo? The man or the family? We ask, what is E VEN AT T H E LEVEL of the Majlis, justice? What is equality in Islam?, and we Muhamm adiyah's law-making body, there reinterpret the teachings step-by-s tep. At is busy reinterpretation from its only female first the people are shocked. But after that, m ember, appointed in 1991 . She is Ruhaini, they are eager to deconstruct and reconstruct a n academi c a t a Muhammadiyah again.' university (she studied social theory at At Kalyanamitra, an inter-faith wom en's Monash) who has the grea t advantage of organisation in Jakarta, the Muslim activist fluent Arabic. H er way of going about wore a veil. On her feminist head, she said, achieving change is to look closely at the it was a symbolic rejection of both Muslim Arabic religiou s texts, including the Koran, patriarchy and the cooption of Islam by the to extricate the gen eral m eaning rather State. In order to change society in Indonesia than the cultural m eaning Indonesian Tradition and Dissent it was necessary to start with religion. Islamic tradition teaches. She was also by DAVIS M cCAUGHEY Religion was not m erely a personal belief instrumental in the setting up oflndonesia's In this collection of superbly written but a way of being active to change society first women's crisis centre in Yogyakarta essays and speeches, Davis and the struggle was not to reject Islamic in response to a high rate of dom estic McCaughey argues that the preser law but to reinterpret it. viol ence, '70 per cent from Muslim vation and maintenance of tradition In Yogyakarta, at an Islamic institute families!' In Yogya, she said, there were on the one hand, and the freedom which 'researches the response of religion many groups training people, alerting them to dissent from the prevailing to social, political and economic problem s', 'to the way culture moulds perspectives, tradition on the other hand, are two young intellectuals spoke about introducing including the way we interpret a Bible or a fundamental principles for the a 'variety of thought, even extrem es of Koran.' preservation of a healthy society. He thought' on Islam . They listed issues of I retain that image of the Koranic believes strongly that appreciation human rights, equality between m en and recitation competition on television not as of this 'two-eyed' principle is a prac women, the dem ocratisation of political a pro forma one but rather as a complex tical and moral necessity for all of us. life in Indonesia. It wasn't an attempt to image. It seem s to m e that there is a tension Paperba ck, $29.95 reject their elders they said, but again a in it, between the young people set cheerily 75 YE ARS question of reinterpretation. out on the field and the earnest officials on Democratisation was their key concern. the dais. On the dais they are going through 'In our opinion, the old interpretation of the the motions. They are paying their dues in Koran put the people as servant to the all the appropriate directions. There is no f~ King-in Javanese, kowala-so in Indonesia certainty that they even m ean what they 268 Drummond Street the important thing is to dem ocratise say. There is only hopefulness and pride on Carlton South 3053 political life by reinterpreting Al Koran and ilie&W. • Tel 9347 3455 reinterpreting fiq (law)'. Fax 9349 2527 In their group, they said, 'we do not Margaret Coffey is a program-maker with MUP 192.2 19.7 reject the Chinese. We do not reject anyone Radio N ational. V OLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 23 The Uncritical Culture Tim Bonyhady I s ANY AusTRALIAN scuLPTURE SADDER? Even when we know that Truganini was not 'The Last Tasmanian', Benja1nin Law's bust of her is profoundly melancholy. The downcast eyes, the furrowed brow, are full of foreboding. Although cast by Law in 1836, 40 years before Truganini died, her death-and that of so many of her people-see1ns before her. Bernard Smith made the most of Law's bust when he put it on the cover of his Boyer Lectures for 1980. The white bust against the black background is 'The Spectre of Truganini'-the title Smith gave his lectures. It can also be seen as a manifestation of Smith's interest in the characterisation of Australia as a land of contrarieties-of antipodean inversions and apparent freaks and oddities of which the kangaroo was long the most notorious example. What could be more contrary than an albino Aborigine? S MITH's BOYER LECTURES REVEAL HIM at his most political. While most of his successors have been either pedestrian or portentous, Smith delivered the Boyer lectures when they still mattered. The anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner had delivered 'After the Dreaming' in 1968; Nugget Coombs 'The Fragile Pattern' in 1970; Hugh Stretton 'Housing and Government' in 1974. Smith matched this company despite the ABC's denying him his first choice of subject. When Smith suggested he discuss illegitimacy, the ABC refused because it mistakenly feared he would examine the origins of the Fraser Government in Whitlam's sacking. As a result, 'the lucky young bastard' deferred examining his own status until his autobiographical Boy Adeodatus and explored instead what it m eant for Australian culture to have its roots in invasion and conquest. Smith argued that by trying to forget all the violence Europeans had done to Aborigines, white Australians had not only skewed their understanding of the past but also corrupted the present, because there is 'a close connection between culture, place and morality'. As Smith put it, 'in order 24 EUREKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 to develop and survive' a culture has to 'put down firm ethical roots in the place from which it grows'. He maintained that white Australians needed to come to terms with 'the story of homicide, rape'-and all too pertinently for 1997-'the forcible abduction of children from their parents'. Smith also argued that it was not enough for white Australians to acknowledge these crimes; they needed to give Aborigines inalienable title to land and adequate reparations for their debasement and degradation over 200 years. Smith predicted that, if Aborigines gained these political and economic rights, a 'mature' culture would follow in which there was 'effective cultural interchange' between white and black Australians. But if white Australians denied Aborigines these rights, not just Aborigines but all Australians would be the losers. Smith was exceptionally well equipped to develop these arguments. Just as John Mulvaney instiga ted the academic discipline of Australian prehistory and Manning Clark brought unprecedented substance to the study of Australian history, so Smith created Australian art history. Before him, it was chronicle. Smith not only made it intellectually exciting through his reading of Marx and Lenin, Toynbee and Wofflin, but also recast its empirical base through ferocious research. The result is a powerful set of cultural arguments written with unusual clarity. More than fifty years on his earliest writing has hardly dated. Smith first showed how exciting Australian art history could be in Place, Taste and Tradition which was published in 1945 when he was 29 and yet to enrol as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney. He followed in 1960 with European Vision and the South Pacific, a revi ed version of his doctorate from the Australian National University. Two years later came Australian Painting, which art hi torians and curators now like to dismiss in conversation, though not print, as dull, even m echanical. Yet their criticism ignores the depth of Smith's research, his command of his material and the customary verve of his writing. If only we had Australian Painting's equal exploring Australian photography, printmaking or urban design. A RT HISTORY, HOWEVER, IS JUST A SLICE OF BERNARD SMITH. Like Mulvaney and Clark, he has never been confined by the discipline he established. Instead he has made major forays into anthropology and architecture, Aboriginal history and autobiography; he has been almost as at home in the rest of the South Pacific as in Australia. Even in his 'retirement' since 1977 when he stepped down as the first Power Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Sydney, he has covered greater intellectual ground than any academic art historian in Australia. Like Mulvaney and Clark, Smith has also been an exceptional academic in his commitment both to writing books of enduring A more 'mature' culture ... would not importance and to engaging with the culture and politics of today. Between writing and editing more than a dozen major books, he just acclailn the theoretical facet has been an effective urban activist and an incisive newspaper art critic. Significantly he has almost never bothered with articles in of his writing. Nor would it just refereed journals, let alone the international refereed journals, given such excessive credence by modern university managers and their honour the remarkable depth and breadth counterparts in the Australian Research Council. For all these reasons, it is more than time Smith himself was of S1nith's books. It would also show the stuff of a book. Until now, the only substantial essays about Smith have been written by Humphrey McQueen in the its adn1iration for Sn1ith's worl< Independent Monthly and 24 Hours. Nancy Underhill's Making Australian Art includes a fine account of how it was that Sydney by giving it the criticism it deserves. Ure Smith of Art in Australia published Place, Taste and Tradition even though Ure Smith was a 'King, Empire and Menzies man' and Bernard an active member of the Communist Party. But Australian Art and Architecture, the 1980 festschrift in Smith's honour, The busts of Truganini and is characteristic of so much of this genre in almost ignoring Smith's work. Smith's own award Woureddy, by Benjamin Law, winning autobiography The Boy Adeodatus stops in 1940 when he was just 24 and had abandoned are reproduced from the cover his own painting but was yet to publish his first article. Smith's book on the artist Noel Counihan of Bernard Smith's 1980 often suspected of being his vehicle for writing more of his own life-is no such thing. Smith's Boyer lectures, 'The Spectre of Truganini ', published by the regard for Counihan is too great for him to abuse his memory in this way. ABC, and from Bernard Smith 's Now Peter Beilharz has begun giving Smith the extended attention he deserves, in The European Vision And The South Antipodean Imagination, alias 'Culture, Theory and the Visual in the Work of Bernard Smith' Pacific, published by Oxford, Whereas Smith considers himself a cultural historian and Humphrey McQueen has cast him much 1960. The photograph more broadly as Australia's greatest living historian, Beilharz identifies him as a social theorist of of Bernard Smith is from international importance. He maintains that Smith is 'best read ... as ... a theorist of peripheral The Boyer Lectures. vision' who has understood that the antipodes is not a place but a relation. The key to Smith, for VOLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 25 Beilharz, is his recognition that for all the impact of metropolis on periphery, 'the subordinate, or colonial partners in the global relation of master and slave al o affect the dominant culture, however opaquely'. This argument is seductive on several counts. It is perfectly conceived for current academic fashion which can imagine no greater achievement than to be judged a major theorist. Beilharz also writes with panache: his book is a remarkably fast read for a book about theory. Not least The Antipodean Imagination offers us a sensible nationalism. Situated 'down here' we cannot hope to be the centre of the world, yet we are not just dominated by London, Paris, New York. The traffic is two-way- and Smith (perhaps more than Beilharz) might add that, for all the irritation of often being ignored, there are sometimes advantages in the freedom which comes from being on the periphery. Beilharz's blunder is to elevate this argument into a governing, sustaining vision rather than treat it as one major aspect of Smith's work. The result is disturbingly reductionist. While there probably aTe som e people who are best explained in terms of a single idea even though they Ji ve beyond 80 and write and edit a good shelf of books and countless significant articles, Smith is not one of them. By trying to explain Smith in terms of just one grand thesis, Beilharz either distorts or ignores much of what he has to offer. Beilharz is eq ually remiss in being utterly uncritical of Smith's work. Instead his book is a confusing mouthpiece for Smith: it repeatedly blurs where Smith's ideas stop and Bcilharz's own start. While robust in defending Smith against Richard Haese's Rebels and Pmcmsms, as well as The Necessity of Austwlian ATt by Ian Burn, Nigel Lendon, Charles Merewether and Ann Stephen, Beilharz fa ils to engage with the extraordinary empirical base on which Smith has built such rich theoretical foundations. As a result, Beilharz is in no position to analyse, let alone question, the validity of Smith's rnajor arguments. L E SPECTt 26 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 of Glebe in which they sought 'to create a better informed and more appreciative public for the Australian architecture of the second half of the nineteenth century' and by doing so encourage its preservation both in Glebe and elsewhere. At the sam e time, the Smiths emphasised that Glebe was more than just buildings because there were groups such as pensioners who had lived most of their lives in Glebe, wished to remain there and had 'a special social and even moral stake in the area'. BYTHE TIME THE A ncH/TECTunAL CHAnACTEn OF GLEBE APPEARED IN 1974, the Smiths had helped to render it partly superfluous by working to secure fe deral intervention in Glebe. Encouraged by a range of organisations, including not just the Glebe Society but also the Leichhardt Council and the Anglican Church, the Whitlam government cleciclecl to buy the Church's Glebe Estate. As described by the Melbourne architect N eil Clerehan, 'On the clay the review copies were posted, the Governm ent announced that it had bought the central area of Glebe with the admirable if impracticable intention of preserving its present social mix and maintaining, which is easier, its original character.' In fact, the fe deral government's unprecedented decision not only preserved Glebe's buildings but also went some way to maintaining its diversity because the 700 dwellings within the G lebe Estate were increased by careful infill to 1100 and retained as public housing. The m ost far-reaching fruit of Smith's architectural writing was, however, his discussion of Australian domestic building between the late 1880s or perhaps the micl-1 890s and the First World War. Until then, houses of this period were typically dubbeci 'Queen Anne': a reference both to English dom estic architecture of the first decade of the eighteenth century and the British revivals of this style in the 1860s ancl1 870s. The implication was that the Australian buildings characterised in this way were typically derivative; they were mere foreign imports. Smith argued that this view was mistaken, although his reasoning shifted markedly between essay and book. In The Architectural Character of Glebe he accepted that Australian houses from the turn of the century had possessed links with Wren's England such as their 'partiality for red bricks and terracotta ornam ents'. But he maintained that they also revealed French, American and distinctively Australian influences. The result, he argued, was buildings of 'a character that is unique to Australia and deserves therefore an Australian name'. His suggestion was 'Federation' because 'it flourished throughout Australia from Fremantlc to Bondi during the years immediately before the federation of the Australian colonies into the Australian Comm onwealth in 1901 '- Smith's manifestly nationalist suggestion caught on. The prominent architectural historian Morton Herman embraced 'Federation style' in 1974. Soon it was in general currency-a linguistic feat on Smith's part which changed the way Australians understood their suburbs, naturalising what had previously seem ed foreign, and leading them to look with more regard on their own surroundings. Beilharz is no more alive to the significance of this aspect of Smith's work than he is to Smith's literary foray into the sources of Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. While making no claim to ' any new explanation of the profound moral and spiritual experi ence' conveyed by Coleridge, Smith argues that a key source of its naturalist base was William Wales, the astronomer and m eteorologist on James Cooks' second voyage, who taught mathematics at Christ's Hospital when Coleridge was a pupil there. Smith maintains that both the course of the Ancient Mariner's voyage and much of Coleridge's imagery grew out of Wales's stories. In particular he argues that 'the precision and clarity of Coleridge's atmospheric imagery derives much from the precision and clarity of Wales's astronomical and m eteorological observations'. This argum ent is significant because so much of what Smith has written about in both European Vision and its successors-whether the paintings of the still to be identified 'Port Jackson Painter' or even those of the Royal Academician William H odges-occupies little or no place in accounts of European culture written with a metropolitan lens. The' Ancient Mariner' is very different because it is a cornerstone of high culture-part of the international literary canon. If one wants to demonstrate what Smith has described as 'the relation of regional content to the universal forms of art', it is an essential example. Just as Beilharz's omission of Wales's influence on Coleridge weakens his account of the two way relation between centre and periphery in the eighteenth century, so his failure to consider the impact of Smith's work on the study of Coleridge over the last 40 years weakens his analysis of the antipodean relationship today. This issue is significant because m ost of Coleridge's biographers, as well as literary critics writing detailed studies of his work, have ignored Smith's study even though he first published it in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute in 1956, republished it in The Antipodean Manifesto in 1976 and then again in his Imagining the Pacific in 1992. One of V OLuME 7 N uMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 27 the few books to make anything of Smith's account is Ian Wylie's Young Coleridge and the Philos ophy of Nature published in 1989-and then Wylie's acknowledgement of Smith's work is scant. Why has Smith's work on Coleridge had so little impact? As Humphrey McQueen has sug gested, one reason is 'the unfashionableness of Smith's anchoring of febrile fancy to the crafts of seafaring'. Most literary critics are loath to credit any source as mundane as Coleridge's school teacher. The places where Smith has published his essay are also significant since, for all the prestige of the Warbmg Journal, most literary critics would never think to open a periodical primarily devoted to the visual arts, let alone a book of essays about the Pacific or a collection titled Th e Antipodean Manifesto. Yet their oversight is also a consequence of Smith's antipodean position. Had he held a chair at Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Stanford, his discovery would by now have been taken up in the mainstream of literary history. B EJLHARz's FAILURE T O TAKE UP su c H ISS UES both diminishes and misrepresents Smith, yet evaluating Smith's work is not easy because there have been few attempts either to extend or to challenge his arguments. Take European Vision and the South Pacific, generally regarded as Smith's seminal book. When first published in 1960, it attracted some thoughtful reviews. For example, Bob Brissenden suggested in Meanjin that some of the key concepts discussed by Smith, such as the 'noble savage' and the 'primitive', were much more complex than Smith acknowledged. In the Journal of Polynesian Studies a less charitable Peter Tomory challenged Smith's argum ents about the em ergence of 'typical' or 'regional' landscape suggesting that Pacific topographers were not a major force in the regionalisation of landscape painting in Europe because 'the topographical instinct was fully exercised in Europe from the seventeenth century'. There the discussion stopped. When Smith published a second edition of European Vision in 1985, he had good reason for lamenting the dearth of debate of his work. The 'lack of critical comment', he wrote, was 'understandable but regrettable'. This critical silence has not always been helped by Smith's own interpretation of the significance of his own work, particularly his attachment to 'The Antipodean Manifesto' which accompanied an exhibition of paintings in Melbourne in 1959 by Charles Blackman, Arthur and David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh. Although it also bore the names of all seven The Tasn1anian artists, the Manifesto was primarily Smith's work. In draw ing on notes written by four of the contributing artists, he Museum and Art created a tract very different from its constituent parts. The Manifesto argued that, while figurative painting Gallery in Hobart represented 'some form of acceptance of, and involvement in life', abstract art was not just meaningless but danger exhibited Law's bust ous. According to the Antipodeans, abstraction was destroy ing art in the west just as socialist realism was crippling of Woureddy in a art in the East. 'Wherever we look', they declared, 'New York, Paris, London, San Francisco or Sydney, we see young showcase which had artists dazzled by the pageantry and colour of non-figura tion'. Smith's dismissive view of 'the great Tachiste Em as its centrepiece peror' was that he 'has no clothes- nor has he a body. He is only a blot- a most colourful, elegant and shapely blot-' Truganini's skeleton Although it was less than 1500 words and occupied just two pages, Smith has cast the Manifesto as central to both Australian art history and his own writing. It provid ed the conclusion in 1962 to the first edition of his Aus tralian Painting in which, without adequately acknowledging his own role in writing the Manifesto, he used it to legitimate his view of Melbourne as a centre of highly original figurative expressionism and Sydney as a centre of derivative abstraction. The Manifesto equally provided him with the title to his first volume of selected essays published in 1976. He republished it again in 1988 in his second selection of essays, The Death of the Artist as Hero. A year later he published his speech opening the Antipodean Exhibition in The Critic as Advocate. Why does Smith see the Manifesto as so important? The answer must in part be personal. The Antipodeans made for one of those occasions when Smith shifted from commentator to participant. H e did not appear just as joint author of the Manifesto; he was chairman of the new group; his name appeared on the exhibition poster and on the back cover of the exhibition catalogue as an 28 EUREKA STREET • O CTOBER 199 7 equal with his 'brother' Antipodeans who were showing paintings and sculptures. Smith's involve ment, in other words, made him an artist again for the first time since he stopped painting in 1940. As he subsequently has explained, he saw the Manifesto as being his 'special contribution to the show', it was his 'work of art if you like'. Yet Smith also values the Manifesto as a work of international significance. In an essay in 1983 lamenting that the 'wrong questions' had always been asked about the Antipodeans, he asked rhetorically: 'Who were the first group of artists to publicly challenge the aesthetic values of the New York hegemony: were they Italians, French, Mexicans, Australians?' In 1993 he was even bolder, claiming that the Manifesto 'substantially asserted' what Serge Guilbaut argued in 1983 in How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art and rebuking Australian art historians for failing to consider the Manifesto's global setting. According to Smith, the Manifesto was 'at bottom ... an attack on the policy of the State Department of USA to use abstract art as a political instrument in opposition to the Soviet Union's use of social ist realism as a political instrument'. Law's casts were I should say that I like the Manifesto. I think that it was right to warn against too ready acceptance of the latest ism; it 'the first atten1pt was as well directed as polemics are likely to be, and our culture would be all the richer if there were more such writing. But at sculpture in the Smith's recent claims for the Manifesto go too far. While he may have intended to attack the State Department and the US colony'. Others Information Service, he neither identified them as his targets nor developed any explicit arguments about American cultural saw them as imperialism. As a result, it is as unconvincing for Smith to cast the Manifesto as the pioneer of these arguments as it is ethnography. characteristically uncritical of Beilharz to repeat this claim without evaluation in Imagining the Antipodes. A m ore profitable way of considering the Manifesto's significance is to ask what would have happened had Smith published it, like so many of his essays, under his own name in Meanjin. Had he done so, I suspect that even Smith would regard it as just a restatement of his humanism. In other words, the Manifesto largely owes its significance to the fact that it also carries the signatures of seven of Australia's best post-war artists, even though Bob Dickerson resigned during the second week of the exhibition, while Clifton Pugh was quick to explain to members of the Contemporary Art Society that 'all sincere directions of art are valid'. A NOTHER WAY OF EVALUATING THE MANIFESTO is to COntrast it with the weekly reviews Smith wrote from 1963 until1966 after the Melbourne Age broke with convention and chose him, rather than a practising artist, as its critic. While Beilharz devotes one of his seven chapters to the Manifesto and ignores Smith's journalism, he might have reconsidered had he read A Quiet Revolution, Christopher Heathcote's account of Australian painting from 1946 until 1968, which recognises Smith's significance without being deferential. Unlike so many Australian art historians, Heathcote does not simply throw up his hands and say that Smith has been everywhere first, done it impossibly well and that in any event the days of big books and grand narratives have passed. Heathcote argues that the Antipodean exhibition only seems to hold a central place in Australian art history because Smith has made it so. He quotes John Brack, 'The artists involved in that episode do not regard it .. . in such a light.' By way of contrast, Heathcote argues that the benefits of Smith's criticism 'remain inestimable'. As described by Heathcote, 'On occasion his weekly column was stretched beyond pragmatic reviewing into criticism proper, a consideration of subject matter, cultural history, politics, philosophy ... Ruminating over an exhibition, Smith could see beyond the immediate visual debt to Picasso, to the intellectual legacy of Aristotle, Kant or the Platonists. Many viewers started to look at exhibitions in a new light, expecting m ore of artists than m ere craftsmanship or decorative diversion.' The Quiet Revolution provides one example of how Smith's engagements with contemporary culture can be cast in new light. Heathcote's deep understanding of Melbourne in the 1950s and 1960s enables him to reassess Smith's significance. The Quiet Revolution-unlike Beilharz's Antipodean Imagination-reveals how the world can be made to look different, and infinitely more interesting, by som eone ready to engage with more than a few readily accessible texts. V oLUME 7 NuMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 29 But what of Smith's other writing, particularly his books? Truganini offers another way of examining Smith-and not just because of the impact of Benjamin Law's bust on the cover of his Boyer Lectures. Law's sculpture is also central to Australian art history; it is of manifest anthropo logical interest and its significance extends beyond the cultural to the political. Not least, Truganini's place in Smith's work over the last 40 years provides a vehicle for exploring how Smith's ideas have changed over time and how he has responded to new social and intellectual developments. When Law sculpted Truganini and her 'husband' Woureddy in 1835-36, he was so confident of contemporary interest in Tasmania's Aborigines that he cast about 30 pairs. Each was available in two versions. One was 'stone coloured', the usual colour for plaster casts of Europeans, which Art history, however, is just a slice of offered the pretence of marble. The other was 'bronze' which suggested metal. Almost all Law's contemporaries preferred the Bernard Srnith. Lil<.e Mulvoney ond Clarke, bronze, most likely because they could not imagine Aborigines other than dark. For some colonists, these busts were important as he has never been confined by the discipline art. The Hobart Town Almanack recorded (not quite accurately) that Law's casts were 'the firs t attempt at sculpture in the colony'. he established. Instead he has 1nade nwjor Others saw them as ethnography. T he Polish scientist John Lhotsky observed, 'As the race of the natives of th is island is nearly foray!:> into anthropology and architecture, extinguished, these casts will retain a constan t historical va lu e.' Within a few years, this view had triumphed. Nearly all the Aboriginal history and autobioguzphy; known versions of Law's work ended up in ethnographic collections ranging fro m the Royal An thropological Institute in London to the he has been ahnost as at hmne in the rest Musee de l'Homme in Paris and the Anatomy Department of the University of Edinburgh to its counterpart in the University of of the South Pacific (IS in Austrolia. M elbourne. Until 1947, the Tasm anian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart exh ibited Law's bust of Woureddy in a showcase which had as its centrepiece Truga n ini's skeleton which had been articulated, fo llowing its burial and exhumation, by Professor Baldwin Spencer of the N ational Museum of Victoria. L IS DIVISION BETWEEN ART AND ETHNOGRAPHY did not trouble Bernard Smith when he published European Vision and the South Pacific in 1960. Had he confined himself to what was then considered art, he would have had little to write about. Even so, he considered Law's work only at second hand. Instead of reproducing Law's busts, Smith included lithographs of them published in the 1840s in the anthropological atlas of the French explorer Dumon d'Urville's Voyage to the outh Pole. In doing so, Smith identified the lithographer Leveille but not Law. His only comment was that D umon d'Urville thought that the Tasmanian Aborigines 'were somewhat worse off than the beasts'. This observation fi tted perhaps Sm ith's best-known thesis in European Vision about how Europeans began by seeing the people of the Pacific as noble savages. Smith argued that when Jam es Cook visited Australia in 1770, his compan y fitted the Aborigines into this classica l m ould. They looked on them as 'hard primitives' distinguished by their courage. But while this image of the Aborigine as 'an idealized figure possessing proportions, attitudes, and expressions derived from classical art' survived the arrival of the First Fleet, it collapsed in the mid-1790s as Aborigines were degraded by contact with Europeans. Instead the Aborigine was 'depicted as a monstrous and comical absurdity'- This argument about the transformation of the noble savage into the ignoble sa vage is flawed because it takes no account of the many sympathetic portraits of New South Wales Aborigines from the 1830s-particularly those by Charles Rhodius. It also ignores all representations of Tasmanian Aborigines in the 1830s except for John Glover's Aboriginal landscapes. In doing so, Smith omitted Thomas Bock's portraits of the Aborigines and Benj amin Duterrau's portraits, h istory paintings and large-scale ethnographic paintings of them . N ot least he ignored Law's casts of Truganini and Woureddy. These omissions distorted the place of Aborigines in colonial art. As Law's neo-classical busts amply dem onstrate, there was no straight trajectory fro m noble to ignoble savage. Instead the noble savage flourished in Tasmania in the 1830s just as the Black War was being won by the settlers and the Aborigines brought in by George Augustus Robinson were being transported to Flinders Island. While Sm ith was probably right to suggest that conflict over land inspired nega tive portrayals of Aborigines, he did not recognise that as this threat disappeared, at least some colonists were happy to restore Aborigines to a classical mould. 30 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 Smith implicitly recognised something of this continued significance of the noble savage in 1962 in the first edition of his A ustralian Pain ting. While he made nothing of Bock's Aboriginal portraits and ignored Duterrau's Conciliation beyond identifying it as Australia's first history painting, Smith wrote incisively about Robert Dowling's Aborigines of Tasmania of 1859. As Smith recognised, Dowling cast the Aborigines as a doomed race. Smith argued that Dowling 'identified himself with the subject and succeeded in evoking an atmosphere of tragic melancholy ... The natives are seated-emblematic of their situation-around the dying embers of a burnt-out log near a grea t blackened stump, and in the far left corner there is a leafless tree with shattered branches.' As part of this analysis, Smith broke new ground when discussing the noble savage. Rather than casting this ideal as just an expression of fa shionable eighteenth-century taste, as popular in romances as philosophy, he presented the noble savage as a projection of an inner state. According to Smith, D owling had succeeded in executing 'a history painting in the full sense of the word [which] not only provides a valuable record of the last members of ' the most primitive people in the world' but also serves to celebrate yet another death of the noble savage-that enduring symbol of the civilised m an's guilty conviction that he is at heart far more savage than the savages.' SM IT H H AD PARTICULAR CAUSE. TO T HINK about Truganini around this time because David Boyd made her the subject of a series of his paintings, som e of which were first shown in 1959 in the Antipodean Exhibition. These paintings not only prompted Smith to develop his ideas about white guilt still further but also, arguably, stimulated Smith's Boyer Lectures 20 years later. If so, they are a rare example of weak art inspiring great writing. They are also an example of Smith failing to maintain his aesthetic judgm ent as a result of his friendship for Boyd, his admirations for Boyd's intentions and his own status as a m ember of the Antipodeans. The weakness of David Boyd's paintings was a commonplace in the late 1950s. Already in 1958 critics castigated his paintings of explorers, accusing him of attempting grand m oral them es when he lacked the technical skill if not also the visual imagination to do so. John Brack was most damning when he declared, 'Boyd has nothing like the equipment necessary for such tasks. He relies heavily on his brother and on N olan for his images, but has curiously m anaged to borrow only their faults'. Franz Philipp, one of Smith's colleagues from Melbourne University, was almost 'In order Lo as dismissive about Boyd's Truganini series. Philipp warned: 'Mythmaking is not a light-hearted adventure. There have develop and survive' been m any wrecks on the cliffs of melodra ma'. In Philipp's judgm ent, only one of Boyd's paintings escaped this fa te. a culture has to Smith focused instead on the significance of Boyd's subject-matter which he applauded. From the outset, he 'put down (inn recognised that Boyd was trying to break what Starmer later called 'The Great Australian Silence'. In an essay on 'The ethical roots Antipodeans' published in A ustralia Today already in 1959, Smith fi rst developed one of the key them es of The Spectre in the place of Truganini as he acclaim ed Boyd for probing 'into the more hidden parts of the national consciou sness' by 'giving from which it grows.· expression to certain deep-rooted guilt feelings which the majority of Australians possess towards the contemporary -Bernard Smith remnant of Australia's native peoples'. Had Smith st opped there, his views would be unremarkable. But he went on to argue that Boyd's paintings were great art. With an excess of fervour, Smith applauded Boyd in the fortnightly Nation and then in his A ustralian Painting for turning 'the Tasmanian tragedy ... into a universal expression of the conflict between white and coloured. The paintings belong to the world of N otting Hill riots, Little Rock, Sharpeville and the trial of Albert N amatjira. They are concerned with human conflict, guilt, love, compassion and forgivenessi and what they express they express as paintings, not as literature or propaganda.' N ot least, Smith identified Boyd's work as an embodiment of the Antipodean ideal. Again the question of white guilt was paramount as Smith declared Boyd's 'image of Truganini raped and dead, clinging to her sealer lover in a timeless agony of hate and love' as' an inverted image containing a cl ark truth which Dante (who placed purga tory down here in the southern hemisphere) would have understood'. In a characteristic swipe at abstract painting, he applauded Boyd for showing V OLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 31 that it was 'still possible for an artist to express the moral conscience of his time and assert his own freedom and the dignity of painting as one of the liberal arts.' By 1980 when Smith returned to Truganini as the symbol of his Boyer Lectures, there was a new Tasmanian Aboriginal politics which resulted from the descendants of Tas manian Aborignal women and white sealers on Cape Barren Island asserting their Aboriginality. In 1973 an Aboriginal Legal Service (later known as the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre) opened in Hobart and Launceston with Commonwealth funding. In 19 77 Michael Mansell became renowned, if not notorious, for presenting the Queen with a claim for Tasmanian Aboriginal land rights at a ga la reception at the 'Her uncle had been Wrest Point Casino in Hobart. The fo llowing year there was intense controversy over Tom H aydon 's film The Last shot by a soldier, Ta smanian which documented the removal of Truganini's skeleton from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, her her sister stolen cremation and the scattering of her ashes at sea. As posters for this 'Story of Genocide' went up, Aborigines responded by add by sealers, ing stickers which dubbed the film racist because it denied Tasmanian Aborigines their land rights. her n1other stabbed. Smith remarkably ignored these developments in The Spectre of Truganini. Instea d he relied on The Black War, Clive Her 1nan Turnbull's account of 'The extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines' first published in 1948, which had also been David had his hands Boyd's primary source for his paintings of Truga nini in 1959-60. At the start of his lectures, Smith quoted Turnbull on Truganini: cut off in life ... ' 'Her uncle had been shot by a soldier, her sister stolen by sealers, her mother stabbed. Her man had his hands cut off in life (and [was]left to drown) and her last compatriot had his hands cut off in dea th .... Her last years were comfortable, it seems, but there was a shadow over them- her fear of the body-snatchers and mutilation after death .. . "Don't let them cut me up", she begged the doctor as she lay dying. "Bury me behind the mountains".' W ERE TRUGAN INr's wrsHES RESPECTED' While Smith implied that Truganini had not escaped the body-snatchers, he failed to explain that her remains had finally been laid to rest two years before his lectures. Smith also ignored both recent political events and Lyndall Ryan's first writings on Aboriginal survival in Tasmania when he stuck to Turnbull's view that the Black War had involved 'The extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines'. Smith declared of Truganini: 'When she died in 1876 the last of the original Tasmanians died. It was the end of a war, the only war that, unaided, Australians have ever won. But it was a complete victory. None of the original Tasmanians survived.' In doing so, Smith added to the greatest problem of the Tasmanian Aborigines identified by Michael Mansell on the ABC's Monday Conference in 1978: 'We are the only race of people that I know of on earth, the Tasmanian Aborigines, who have to daily justify our existence.' Smith equally failed to weigh new curatorial and art historical interest in Benjamin Law's busts of Truganini and Woureddy when Yale University Press republished European Vision in 1985. Perhaps Smith should have let his text stand and simply written a new preface for this lavish new edition, as he did when Oxford University Press republished Pla ce, Ta ste and Tradition in 1979. Instead he claimed to have taken account of 'a good deal of original work' published since 1960, particularly where it bore 'upon major theses and topics considered'. But Smith did not live up to this promise. Even though art galleries across Australia had finally recognised Law's importance by including his sculptures in their displays and the Sydney art historian Mary Mackay had written the first substantial article on Law, Smith still ignored the implications of Law's busts for his thesis about the fall of the noble savage. These omissions matter because, far from being just questions of detail, they undermine Smith's arguments. They affect both his analysis of the past in European Vision and his treatment of contemporary art and politics in Australian Painting and The Spectre of Truganini. They are also the kind of issues which a more vigorous culture would have pursued long before Smith turned 80. A more 'mature' culture-to take Smith's own term from his Boyer Lectures- would not just acclaim the theoretical facet of his writing. Nor would it just honour the remarkable depth and breadth of Smith's books. It would also show its admiration for Smith's work by giving it the criticism it deserves.• Tim Bonyhady is a m ember of the ANU's Urban Research Program . 32 EUREKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 T HE R EG ION: 2 PETER BROWN Singapore stands trial INcAT< M AY TH V OLUME 7 N UMB ER 8 • EUREKA STREET 33 actions and parliamentary hearings career in opposition politics. Jeyaretnam la unched by the government since 1981, helped revive the Workers Party back in AUGUSTINIANS when Jeyaretnam became the first 1971 , and became its first post opposition politician to sit in the independence MP in 198 1. He has been Sharing life and ministry together Singapore Pa rliament in well one of the targets of the dozen or more in .friendship and in community over a decade. defamation actions launched over the as religious brothers and priests. years by Lee Kua n Yew. And, as the I T WAS T HE PRESENCE of the international video-taped evidence showed in court, he observers and the unusually large foreign is a skill ed performer on the hustings. media contingent that helped give the From the British m edia's point of trial its special character. Indeed, at one view the attraction of the trial was the point in particular-Gob Chok Tong's presence the two London QCs, especially three hours in the witness stand- the the 69-year-old George Carman who, the foreign coverage of the trial becam e an Straits Times reported, is paid up to issue within the trial itself. $10,000 a day back in the UK. As well as ' Yo u and I tire nothing hut the Church ... It Although it occurred on only the bringing publicity for the case, Carman is by love that we belong to the Church.' second of five days of hearings, Carman's showed his remarkable advocacy skills St Augustine cross-examination of Goh Chok Tong on throughout the hearings. His right to Please send me information about behalf of Jeyaretnam was the climax of appear for Jeyaretnam was contested by the Order of St Augustine the trial. Carman's argument hinged on the plain tiffs in a preliminary hearing; NAME ...... two main themes: that Gob had suffered once he had been given permission to no real distress a a result of Jeyaretnam's take on the case, the plaintiffs appointed AGE ...... PHONE ...... words, and that the actions against his Shields as their counsel. ADDRESS ...... •...... client were motivated simply by the In the absence of a jury, Carman's ...... P/CODE ...... desire to drive him from political life. He strategy was partly to appeal to the court showed how Goh himself, with Lee Kuan by challenging Gob's case, and partly to T he Augustinians Tel: (02) 9938 3782 Yew, had released th e contentious police appeal to international opinion (and to 1'0 Box 679 Brook vale 2100 Fax: (02) 9905 7864 reports to the press on election day, and liberal opinion within Singapore) by he gained from Goh the admission that a setting the case in the con text of the confidential letter to the Speaker of the pattern of the government's dealings with Singapore parliament had been given to the opposition figures. According to Carman, HEAI 34 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 But the real source of those awkward and economically, and the internal moments in court is the PAP ideological and racial tensions that had New from government, till in the grip of Lee Kuan hastened the split from Malaysia added Yew's take-no-prisoners style. Post to the threat of instability. Edmund colonial Singapore adopted many of the Vulnerability became one of the institutions of the British system great themes of Lee Kuan Yew's Campion parliament, the legal system and the government. The feeling of economic Great Australian Catholics judiciary-but those institutions have vulnerability translated into policies to Here is a book that restores been distorted by one-party rule. create a disciplined, cooperative workforce the laity, especiall y women, As we heard during Goh's testimony, and promote export-oriented industrial to their place in the Catholic this means that complaints made to the isation. The fear of internal unrest brought story. It is recounted through police about government figures can be on measures calculated to suppress the lives of over 70 people. in the hands of the subj ects of the parliamentary opposition, as well as tight Few were famous in their complaint within a couple of hours. It control of the media and an obsessive I ifetimes, and often they were means that confidential parliamentary intolerance of dissenting opinion. forgotten afterward s. Now documents are freely distributed by the Oddly, despite Singapore's great Edmund Campion, master executive. And it means-as Gob freely economic success and its internal of the Catholic anecdote, admitted in court-that voters can be orderliness, these fears still seem to restores them to life. threatened by a brutal choice: vote for the motivate the leaders of the PAP. Or Great Australian Catholics opposition or vote for improvements to perhaps the theme of vulnerability has is a novel grassroots your apartment block, but become a way for the PAP to express its approach that offers today' s don't expect both. distrust of the electorate. There were generation a lively signs of a thaw in 1991, when Lee moved appreciation of th eir past. A ROUND THE CORNER from the High into the new position of Senior Minister Court, at the N ational Museum of and Goh C hok Tong became Prime 224 pages paperback Si ngapore, is a new exhibition called Minister, promising 'a more accomm RRP $19.95 From Colony to Nation, a celebration of odative and participatory style of govern Avai lable through the island's often-extraordinary history ment'. But with a new generation of voters the Jes uit Bookshop, since 193 7. When I made a quick visit to showing increasing signs of interest in the or in your loca l bookstore. the museum during an ad journment of opposition partie , Goh showed during the the trial, I was pulled up by one striking election campaign last D ecember and exhibit. A television screen shows Lee January that he was prepared to use the E Kuan Yew weeping in response to techniques refined by his predecessor. ~ PUBUCAllONS Singapore's expulsion from the The personal attacks on opposition Tomorrow's Catholic Malaysian Federation in August 1965; candidates and the threats to voters took TOMORROW'S challenges an fi nally he asks the interviewer, 'Would their toll. The editor of the Straits Times, CATHOLIC outdated worldview you mind if we stopped for a while?'. a paper that almost invariably supports the MICfi,\U MORWOOD-< that haS Shaped mUCh of Catholic thinking. Repeated over and over, the footage governm ent, is among those who have It outlines a offers a puzzle to the visitor: are we being written about the implications of Gob's contemporary invited to consider a different side of the brutal appeal to voters' material interests. cosmology that tough Senior Minister, the man whose Although it's impossible to trace a si tuates the message of Jesus in a modern fingerprints, nearly forty years after he direct relationship with the government's horizon of meaning becam e Prime Minister of an i land still conduct, one in five Singaporeans told a and spirituality. controlled from London, can still be seen recent survey that they would like to live ISB 0867862 122 rrp $14.95 all over Singapore? som ewhere else. The PAP's tactics will pb 146pp. One of the m essages coming from only aggravate the sense of alienation that television screen is the sam e one suggested by that figure, and will work To re-fashion Catholicism to meet the that Lee Kuan Yew repea ted, over and against Singapore adapting itself to a challenges of this new era requires over, during his prime ministership. m ore difficult economic environment in imagination and courage, and Marwood demonstrates both. Written Singapore is physically small, has few Southeast Asia. • in very readable language and with a n atural resources and a population conversational style, Tomorrow's smaller than Victoria's. Union with Peter Brown is producer of ABC RN's Th e Catholic invites us to take some bold Malaysia back in 1963 offered the National Interest. steps in the right direction. ecurity of size. 'N obody in his senses believes that Singapore alon e, in The judgment in this case was delivered THOI\MS H. GROOME Pmb.\Or ofThc..'ology and Rchgiou'l Ed u<.':l uon, &.~!tln Colkogc isolation, can be independent,' remarked as this issue went to press. Although PM a Ministry of Culture booklet in 1960. Goh received $520,000 in damages, the Posta l Adcll-ess: PO Box 75 Richmo nd Victoria Telepho ne: (61) 3 9 429 1404 Singapore (or at least Lee Kwan Yew and judge described his case as 'overstated ', Facsimile: (61) 3 9 428 9407 his upporters) felt vulnerable, politically and was critical of the PM's solicitors. e-mail : [email protected] VOLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 35 Silence about the lambs DO YO U PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN from SeX offenders? hypocrisy. Despite myriad reports and promises, every single T each them they have rights; that their body may be touched only agen cy responsible for managing child sexual abuse in N SW had with respect, and their permission. Treat them so they expect to be m ealy- mouthed, and failed to deliver on, a commitment to inter taken seriously, and listened to. Do not assume that fam.ily, friends, agency cooperation. and pillars of the community would not harm your child. Do not Wood recommended, and the Carr government is expected to discipline your children by force or fear. Train them to obj ect to announce in mid-September that it will crea te a new, powerful, b ing hit, hurt, or subjected to unwanted caresses, from anyone Children's Commission to deal with this. The resources of the police, priest or principal. NSW Community Service Commissioner, and the Child Protection At most, only about 20 per cent of known sexual exploiters of Council, will be used to support it. children are 'strangers'. Most are fathers, siblings, extended family Let us consider the mission of this new Commission. To begin, and people known and trusted by both the child and usually her, it should be recalled that Roger West, NSW's Community Services (much less often his), parents. Predophiles are oft en kind, respect Commissioner, was charged by Premier Carr, in early 1996, with able people whom children are taught to obey. They are not gay men, the job of informing every State ward of his/her rights to complai n who are attracted to other gay men, nor dirty-old -men-in-raincoats about sexual abuse. He was given no additional resources fo r this, very fe w pre doph.iles loiter around playgrounds and public lavatories. didn't complete the job, and incurred the Minister's displea ure for They ea t dinner at your table, teach Sunday School or swimming, drive publicly raising both fac ts. buses and baby-sit. They are yo ur friends. N either West's Commission nor the Child Protection Council We would prefer not to believe this. Evil strangers and predophile will have the role Wood describes: rings pro tected by high personages are easier to deal with than the to monitor and advise on the perfo rmance of the relevant depart worm in our hearts. So it was that many, including the prurient and ments and agencies in volved in child protection, to assist in policy conspiracy theorists, were upset and disappointed when Ju stice development, to coll ec t intellige nce, to assist in the dissemination Wood released his Pcedophile Report, on 26 August, and fail ed to of in for mation co ncerning suspected child abu se and offenders, and name names. There was noone to pillory but ourselves. to perform an importa nt role in making adminis trative decisions as Woods warned at the start of the public hearings of his Inquiry to whether persons worki ng, or seeking work in positions involving into corruption in the NSW Police, in March 1966, that we would close con tact with child ren, are sui tabl e for that pu rp ose.IPara 20 .1 7) be shocked by the pre dophile evidence. We were m ore shocked abo ut offi cial callousn ess. Police didn't charge a Catholic because, according to Wood, the Community Services schoolteacher, though they possessed video tapes of his squalid Commission 'covers other matters than child protection,' (w hy activities with crying little boys. Child pro tection authorities couldn't a specialist division be established and resourced ?) and didn 't dismiss 'T7', a senior welfare officer, accused by ex-wards of because the Council 'lacks statutory authority' (w hich it sexual misconduct, because they respected his industrial rights. He could have been given) . told the Inquiry that by accessing Departm ent of Community Services files, he had tracked down a former ward and paid him for I NSTEAD, WEST'S JURISD ICTION INCHILD PROTECTION, and his resources, sex: he was also running a pornographic mail order business. are proposed to be handed to the Children's Commission. The The ReporL was scathing. Children were unprotected because Child Protection Council's secretariat would be shifted to the officials were careless, jealous, defensive and cowardly. Services for Commission l' to preserve its special expertise'), but the Council abused children were grossly under-resourced. Their staff were will disappear, as will the Community Services Commission if it untrained. Agencies with child protection and investiga tion appears to lack sufficient residual responsibility to justify its responsibilities were inept, aloof, fought over 'turf', and largely retention . Wood suggests its remaining functions-disabil ity refused to admit their staff could do any wrong. Mandatory reporting services, particularly-and budge t should pass to the Ombudsman. laws were large ly ignored by teachers and principals- not that That offi ce seems remarkably unsuited to such investiga tions. reporting to a fl abby child protection service would have done The relatively new (April 1996) Office of Children and Yo ung much good. People, close to the Premier, will apparently rem ain and perform Worst of all, deference to authority fi gures both discouraged its policy advisory role. Given reputed disagreem ents over 'turf' children from complaining, and ensured that the abusers of their between that Off ice and the Child Protection Council, and the trust were protected, especially within church authorities, by 'less Children 's Commission's broad-ranging responsibilities-set out than thorough or impartial' police investigators. below- this could result in border skirmishes between the two Th e Report's 140 recommendations were scrappily reported. young agencies. Many journalists highlighted a fe w controversial, and largely The proposed C hildren 's Commission would report to symbolic, proposals, such as a national 'predophile register' (very Parliam ent. Its three divisions would be: popular in the tabloids); lowering the age of consent to homosexual •a Centre for Child Protection, which woul d coordinate child act between m ales, and the civil liberties implications of checking protection agencies' activities, carry out research, training and employm ent records of workers with children. community awareness programs; Disgracefully, the most damning finding dropped off the front •an Employm ent Information Centre. T his would issu e pages within 48 hours, testimony to community and institutional 'unacceptable risk' certificates in relation to offenders wishing to 36 EUREKA STREET • OcTO BE R 1997 work with children (the Commission's own staff would be subject to an external checking process); and •an Investiga tion and Review Unit Hidden seeds of destruction would monitor systemic issues, complaints about children's care and protection, and U NLIKE sOME OTHERS OF ITS ILK, the school had not rushed headlong into review foster or substitute care as well as computers. Sure, there were several computers around for the students to use, backing up the Employment Information but until the last year or two there seemed little serious effort to introduce all Centre's work. students to the information revolution. One of the reasons became clear at a As well, a Children's Commissioner recent speech night. During the evening-at which considerable expenditure on would lead the new body: a 'Special a network of computers for the school was announced- the principal m ade her Guardian' for children in care; with the disquiet about computers clear. It was not a simple, Luddite distrust of technology. right to take matters to the Children's Court, The reasoning was much more profound. She found the cold, solitary, and to report to Parliament if police unambiguous world of interaction with computers strangely out of place in a commitment to child protection flagged, or school community which unashamedly worked at civilising and humanising if inter-agency cooperation or resources were students. In short, she felt that the old virtues of teaching the humanities had been inadequate for child protection. too easily discarded for the vocational advantages of teaching technology; that This prescription does not quite fulfil computer skills were easily acquired by educated people, social skills were not. the hopes of those who have long advocated She has a point. Too easily in last gasp of the twentieth century, we have lost for a 'Children's Commissioner'. Children have more than a right to be rescued and sight of the fact that science is a tool, rather than an end in itself. We can use science to acquire and provide us with information and knowledge to make helped to recover from exploitation or abuse. Their interests must be first in government decisions, and technology to give us the power to put those decisions into action. priorities. But though Australians hold dear But we still have to make those decisions. a warm and fuzzy vision of 'the family' we In April1993, more than 400,000 people in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin do not care to commit sufficient resources became ill with diarrhoea. About 4,400 were admitted to hospital. And at least 69 to protect its most vulnerable members. We people, most of whom were HIV positive, died. It was the largest outbreak of love children but fear that to acknowledge, waterborne disease in US history. The finger was pointed at poor operation of a and teach them that they have, 'rights', will water treatment plant which becam e overloaded with dirty, contaminated water take away parental authority: yet without from an unusually large spring thaw into Lake Michigan. Less than a year later, such self-confidence any child is a sitting 103 people in Las Vegas contracted severe diarrhoea. By May 1995, at least 41 of duck in a sexual predator's sights. them had died. Once again, almost all were HIV positive. Once again, studies The Pa edophile Report recommenda linked the disease with drinking water. But this time, there was no obvious reason tions posit a Children's Commission for what had happened. The water supply authority was using the latest equipment, preoccupied with sniffing out that tiny and drawing its water from a relatively clean reservoir. proportion of potential sexual abusers of Both outbreaks were caused by an enigm atic, microscopic, single-celled children who are strangers to them. It would animal or protozoan, known appropriately as Cryptosporidium ('hidden seed'). be primarily concerned with children At present, there is no simple, straightforward, unequivocal test for it, either in already damaged by sexual exploitation, water or people. It is a parasite of the gut and infects people by means of its tiny with less emphasis on the far more common eggs which can pass through all but the finest filters and survive in a chlorinated physical and emotional maltreatment, and swimming pool. They can also be encountered in food or in nappies at the daycare neglect. centre as well as in water. Noone knows for sure what the most common source is. Our moral obligation is to prevent child For the vast majority of people Cryptosporidium is not much of a problem. It is a bug abuse by promoting child and family well that makes life unpleasant until the immune system eradicates it within five to 10 being. The proposed Commissioner has no days. But in those severely affected by HIV or who are undergoing treatment, such as explicit responsibility to persuade chemotherapy, which suppresses their immune system profoundly, it's a different governments to give primacy to every child's story. Cryptosporidium can become chronic and lethal. There are no known antibiotics right to a decent life, and to see that this is not denied by niggardly community services; and no vaccine against it. At present, according to the experts, the number of people poverty, homelessness, isolation, lack of at risk in Melbourne amounts to about one in 5,000. support, or inadequate parenting skills. To eliminate Cryptosporidium from drinking water is expensive. At the very The integrity and personal qualities of least, you have to pass large volumes of water through very fine filters. Just last that Commissioner will determine whether year, for several reasons (not just Cryptosporidium) Sydney installed such a system the Commission is for children or, five at a cost of $500,000,000. Melbourne's catchments are more highly protected years down the track, just another child than those supplying Sydney, and its water is largely unfiltered. So there you protection scandal. have the science of what we know. But someone still has to make a decision. Commission with care, Mr Carr. • Should Melbourne filter its water supply for the one in 5,000? Ultimately humans have to decide when the benefits outweigh the costs. Scientific method is only a Moria Rayner is a lawyer and freelance tool to help us make that decision. • journalis t. H er internet address is: VoLUME 7 NuMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 37 BooKs JiM DAVIDSON Four just men Brother~ To U s: Thl' Story oi a Remarkable famil) · ~fight A).:airht Apartheid Kn~11n \\ ' IIIIam~un , Vtklllg 1')9-, I'W' 06 7 01-Po'io') IUU' S24lJ'i C HRI STI ANITY IN SouTH AFR ICA has a now ardently espouses .) Black farmhands explicit, small-business type obj ective, but complex record. For a long time the Dutch were not only treated decently, but given a so too was the injunction to set an example Reformed Church endorsed apa rtheid, while share of the profits, much to the intense to others. In a country soaked with Christian the former regime always claimed to uphold dislike of the neighbouring Afrikaners. The rhetoric, firm insistence on that faith could religious values and promoted what it four boys leamed Xhosa even before they had som e times stop evil in its tracks. A termed Christian National Education. But mastered English, and in an inchoate way real- menacing phone caller threatening the well before the end, even Afrikaner clergy ised as soon as they left the fa.tm for boarding children was bravely told by one of the such as Beyers Naude turned round and school that they were out of joint with society. wives that they would come to no harm, attacked the system. Some people in the Their bonding as brothers seems to have since they were covered by the bl ood of English-speaking churches had been doing grown enormously in consequence. Thanks Christ. There was no answer to that. so for years: Desmond Tutu represents a to their gifted rugby- playing, they almost Such deeply-felt C hristianity, black modulation of a tradition of political cam e to run Graeme College as though it Williamson shows, is the explanation for dissent which goes back a century or more, were a one-party state, and as schoolboy the conundrum which seems to have via Trevor Huddlestone to Bishop Colenso. heroes, developed the inspiriting quality sustained her interest. What was it that led These figures are all Anglicans: the they took with them wherever they went. these four brothers, who 'had everything essentiallycivic natureof thatcreed, which In th e Army, Valence Watson was white South Africa had to offer- wealth, in South Africa as elsewhere could lead to eventually able to persuade his platoon not fame, good looks, female adulation and its enfeeblem ent, could also under the to take up arms against the blacks, while male respect', to side so emphatically with apartheid regim e ins ist on a direct when much later they were jailed in one the blacks, and at such grea t cost connection between personal faith and room with 2.6 others, including three w to themselves? public citizenship. A residual Gladstonian murderers and the inevitable security liberalism could becom e applied Christian policemen, they were soon organising prayer LLLAM SON PACES H ER NARRAT IVE well, ethics. meetings. As successful businessm en, they and drawing on extensive interviews, It was not always enough, of course. In were reputed to pray before opening and reveals how there was also a transparent South Africa the word 'liberal' is as much a closing their shop. Their faith was rock quality about the Watsons' faith. It was so smear-word as 'intellectual' can be in solid,andgavethemcertaintywhereothers ardent and so defined it could be Australia. Indeed the Watson brothers, the fea red to tread; som e saw it as arrogance. manipulated, and was. An ANC activist, subject of Kristin Willia m son 's book, Getting to heaven may even have been an Mono Badela, had been watching them fo r dis miss white liberals 1 som e time, wh en one day, after unequivoca lly: 'When push having been to their store a fe w comes to shove', said Valence times, h e threw out a Watson, 'they back down. They chall enge- to their faith and all act as if they are anti- their skills. Why didn't they government because of the com e totheAfricantownships, wrongs committed, but when and coach teams there? It was you ask them to do som ething som ething they could do. concrete abou t it, they back Na"ively believing that much away.' co uld be absolved by s uch The Watson s' faith was Christian ges tures, the fiercer, more linear, perhaps Watsonsagreed. SoonBadelawas even m ore autochthonous, suggesting they watch games, and germinated on the veld on a then that they play in one. property run by God-fearing par- I11 evitably they agreed to that too. ents, one of whom was a lay Although there were no preacher. (Williamson has the rep ercussion s from an up- c ha racteristic Australian country mixed-ra ce rugby impulse to m arginalise religion, match, the first ever played in so we do not know the denomi- South Africa, the apartheid nation, and are left to assume it state was not prepared to toler- was more traditional than the Ronnie Watson and Archie Mkele outside court after Valence's conviction ate one in a city like Port Eliza- Pentecostalism Cheeky Watson for arson and fraud. 1987. Photo: Colin Urquhart, Weekend Post. beth. There was an attempt to 38 EU REKA STREET • OcTOBER 1997 bribe Cheeky Watson, the star among the local security head reveals his closed values, Her book, as John Pilger implies in his brothers, with a soft job as an army rugby his sometimes surprising and sophisticated foreword, is a good example of journalism instructor. On the appointed day, a cabinet calculativeness, and his persistent grubby as the first draft of history. It may not have minister came on the radio to warn white certain ties. breadth, and there are a number of small players against participating, while the This book originated in a film proposal mistakes. But Brothers To Us does have police turned up in armoured cars. The a number of film proposals, in fact. It is a clarity and urgency. At times it reads like a Watsons managed to avoid them and duly great pity that none of them got up, since thriller, and should prove of lasting va lue to played. Their lives would never be the same this is less likely now. Since it is such a anybody interested in South Africa. • again. striking example of the radicalisation of Cheeky had been all set up to become a ordinary people, Williamson understandably Jim Davidson teaches a course on the Rise member of the Springbok team; that could not let the story go. and Fall of Apartheid at Victoria University prospect now vanished. But that was merely of Technology. the beginning of it. Friends, even relatives, melted away; so too did a good deal of white B OOKS : 2 custom. Black custom went too, in the GREG DENING second big boycott against white-run businesses. There was also to be the whole repertoire Beside the seaside of threa ts and minor persecutions, together with arson and all-out murder attempts Kostka: Xavier by the sea. Helen Penrose an d Catherme Waterhouse, The Eldon against the brothers. If one says it was a Hogan Trust, Me l bourn~:, ll)lJ7. Jsf\'\ 0 6-l(> U-l44 (> miracle they came through alive, the word is not used altogether loosely: they were subjected to every conceivable trial (in F ATHER WILLI AM H ACKETT left two gifts to altar, in the beautiful bay window of the cluding a trumped-up one). Their faith, Catholic Melbourne. One was the Central parlour at Maritima, he would have enjoyed supplem ented by family solidarity, kept Catholic Library. The archives of its lend the ironies of the Introit- Hoc est locum them going. ing cards, displaying who read what through terribile, 'This is a terrible place'. He had As did an increasing commitment to the 1930s and 1950s, show how rich a gift it searched high and low for this place and felt the liberation struggle. The brothers becam e was. It was apologetic, of course, but, like he had triumphed in securing Maritima, ANC activists, a fact they withheld for a Father Hackett himself, adventurous in 'By the Sea', the long-time residence of the long time even from their wives. While exploring the broadest heritage of Catholic famous Professor of Natural History at The they still had it, they poured their money thought. University of Melbo urn e, Professor into the cause, hid people on the run, even I remember once riding a bicycle with Frederick McCoy. Father Hackett's long used their shop as a fi eld hospital to remove others beside Father Hackett, he in a horse time friend, Archbishop Daniel Mannix shotgun pellets from people wounded in and-trap, from Corpus Christi to the top of would have enj oyed his triumph too. Kostka demonstrations. Yet the government did the You Yangs. It was after Christmas would raise the Catholic flag in rich not charge them with being m embers of a Midnight Mass and he had agitated us to go Protestant Brighton. He would have been banned organisa tion, even though it could with him to see the sunrise over Port Phillip sure to have had som ething sharp to say have put them away for ten years. It was Bay from the m ountain top. He talked G.K. over another possible site, overlooking known how popular they had been, and it was Chesterton, Dorothy Day and Irish history Caulfield race-course. not seen to be advantageous to reveal to the all the way. William Hackett was a maverick Rector public that prominent whites were Father Hackett left another gift, a special of Xavier College. He had little time for the ~ now active members of the ANC. sort of Jesuit school, Kostka Hall. Kostl VOLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 39 That is my prejudice at least, take it for it with a brilliant selection of visual records. that the location, the character of the what it's worth. They tended to think that More importantly they weave into the origin al and continuing Jesuits, the primary education was just secondary narrative of their research the m emories of humanity of the lay staff, the freedom that education writ small. Their energies were hundreds of boys and teachers. By a simple distance from the 'big school' allowed th em, too exhausted with discipline and institu device of setting the rn em ories in a distinc gave a familial, n ot an institutional, tional face to be patient and imaginative tive font, they create a sense of immediacy character to the school. I am su re that with the really young. Where the priest and presence for those they interviewed. characterisation is a compliment any school hood was an asset of extraordinary value These two women 's skills in re-creating would like to have made about it. For Kostka among older boys because it allowed them the school obviously does not come from it is well deserved. to counsel understandings of how morality experiencing it. They are not 'old boys' I have another thesis to add to theirs, and spirituality really work, the simplicities after all. It is patent that they are good though: from the beginning William of small boys were just too complex. listeners. Oral history is a tough task. The Hackett's spirit hovered over the school, At Kostka it was different. One of the int erviewees easily s tiffen w i th the impishly no doubt, always ensuring that m any graces of H elen Penrose's and expectancy of what should be said, or of there was no contradiction between faith Catherine Waterhouse's history is that they what is 'true' history. It is a good oral and humane educa tion. • show how Kostka was different. There are historian who allows the interviewees to be not many school histories that capture a themselves. Greg Dening is Em eritus Professor of sense of place as well as they have. They do Their essential thesis about Kostka is History at the University of Melbourne. B OOKS: 3 JAMES GRIFFIN The great incorrigible Abiding lntl·rc~ts . Gough WhitL1m, Uni\crsity of Queen-,J,md l'Jt:<,s, '>t Lucia, Quecnsi 40 EUREKA STREET • O c TOBER 1997 independence and that annexation was or metropolitan, ecumenical, uniate or quoted in the 'End-Notes' on the inevitable. Mercifully, he no longer calls autocephalous, ex cathedra in partibus or incompatibility of som e 'female' and 'male' the Fretilin elite 'mixed breeds' with an filioque which arc basic to the understand apparatus until Malcolm Fraser 'toys with anti-Iberian prejudice that goes back to his ing of Europe between the Baltic and the a n h ermaphrodite coupling'. Carm en anti-Franco, anti-Salazar youth. Balkans. Lawrence's Attorney-General in Western Whitlam's bias against small polities is Australia in 1990, Joe Berinson, is 'Carmen's all too evident in his glib referen ce to the Somehow, however, his insight into the Jose'. Bougainville 'problem' to which he believes Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) let Abiding In terests will become a source he had a solution. He seems to believe that him down in 1974, when he recognised, book of Whitlamania, a supplem ent to his Bougainville was somehow not an integral without consulting Cabinet or Caucus, their apologia, The Whitlam Government 1972- part of German N ew Guinea over which de iure incorporation in to the USSR. 1975 (1 985 ). A psycho-biographer will have Australia was granted a mandate after World Apparently there were three reasons: their fun. The marvellous thing is that every War I. He prides himself on having raised size; they were 'all fascists', he said, in the thing hangs out, th e quirks and the 'the possibility of amalgamating the British 1930s (cf the Portuguese in Timor); and h e 'clarities'. Could any professed egalitarian Solomon Islands Protectorate and PNG' wanted reel carpet treatment in Moscow be less of a literary leveller than our Gough, with (Sir) Michael Somare in forever airing arcane genealogies, and January 1973, thereby apparently knowledge of titles, honours, ord ers solving the 'problem' ofBougainville of precedence a nd h istorical secession. Without prejudice to corrigenda. Our Queen's grand Whitlam's judgment in precipitating mother, on the basis of one mention early independence in PNG, this in an 'End note', is indexed as: incident illustrates his sciolism in Mary (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise matters Melanesian. If there was a Olga Pauline Cla udia Agnes), Queen facile solution to the Bougainville Consort of the United Kingdom of 'problem' it lay in transferring Great Britain, Ireland and British Do Bougainville to a separate Solomon minions beyond the seas, Empress of Islands archipelagic state, not in India. overextending PNG further. At the time Whitlam was also And did you know that Amanda saying that Bougain ville was Eloise Vanstone's 'first [sic J 'ethnically' part of the Solomons stepfather' was a certain J. F. Bra zel archipelago when this is true only who assisted the Rupert Max Stuart of the Western Solomons. The Royal Commission in 1959? The zest substantial population of Malaita, for gossip is stupefying. More reward for example, are as distinct in ing are the japes and pleasantries. culture and col ou r from Geoff Muntz, a former Minister for Bougainvilleans as any Corrective Services, represented PNG mainlanders. Queensland before the World Heritage Bureau. He was not 'a subtle lobbyist': W HAT WHITLAM 1S suggestion, he invited the Muslim members out repeated in London in April 1973, for a beer. His description ofWhitlam did was to stir up nationalism in as 'th e Castro of the Pacific' also fell BSIP. Not so s t ran gely, its flat. When a decision affecting him The Chief Ju stice and the Prime Minister politicians did not want to be part at the High Court site, September 29, 1975. was m ade he was ' out to a long lunch'. of PNG but Whitlam had not Gough notes that Muntz returned to bothered to consult them. His misconceptions (See Australian Journal of Politics and His Corrective Services after being convicted were corrected in Australian Outlook tory, April19 79) . This decision was reversed for misappropriating funds. (December 1973) but he continues to repeat by Fraser soon after his election and re And then there was the time Gough and them. jected by Labor as soon as Whitlam retired Margaret entertained the Prime Minister of The chapter on Europe deals with the in 1977. How silly would we have looked Swaziland to dinner. Returning from break-up of Yugoslavia. Quoting Colin today with the breakup of the Soviet empire! farewelling him, they found his press Powell he sees 'the biggest mistake' there The rest of the book is a m edley of secretary had 'passed water in full view' of in the 'recognition of all these little advocacies relating to the United N ations the guests. Gough dismissed the solecism countries when they started to decide they as our best guarantor of 'national independ 'as another press leak'. were independent' . Multicultural ence and national identity', land rights, Whatever about his corrigenda, Gough Australia's opinion-makers failed 'to make labour standards, the environment, health himself is incorrigible; he deserves to have a positive contribution' to Yugoslavia's standards, the republic, the fl ag, the national the last word. • dilemmas because only: infrastructure, equal suffrage, rail way gauges and even inters tate fire-hose James Griffin is an historian and Professor The merest handful of them would have couplings. Inevitably for a fellow of salaciou Emeritus of the University of Papua N ew understood words such as patriarch, exarch wit 'a straight-faced Liberal minister' is Guinea. VOLUME 7 N UMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 41 THEATRE G EOFFREY MIL E Tix in the sticlzs M AN< nom might h've the Arts Centres), these are essentially receivers impression that professional theatre in of other peopl e's goods. The richly Australia is entirely a major metropolitan refurbished Civic Theatre in Newcastle, phenomenon. It is true that the majority of for example, runs a subscription season professional theatre activity occurs in the correctly boasting ' the best of Sydney main capital cities, but there have been, theatre', while the GeelongPerformingArt since the late 1970s, professional theatre Centre offers its subscribers the pickings of companies in many of our larger non-capital the annual season s of Playbox, the cities, especially in ew South Wales. Melbourne Theatre Company, the Sydney In fact, during the heyday of the devel Thea tre Company, Company Skylark and opment of professional regional theatre in so on. This is not a new thing: as early as the mid-1980s, there were fifteen more or 1978, the new Townsville Civic Thea tre less full-time professional companies, offered its traditionally theatre-hungry stretching from Townsville in the north to citizens a ttractions as diverse as the Geelong in the south and as far west as the Queensland Ballet, Brian May and the Anthony Simcoe and Jenny \ Eyre Peninsula. There were a further eight Melbourne Show band and Rolf Harris, plus Riverina Theatre Comp1 yo ung people's theatre companie in non theatre productions from Nimrod and the capital cities. Some have since folded, but Adelaide Festival. maintain a full-time core acting company, there are still about ten regional adult As Raymond Omodei once remarked, but it was bedevilled by every possible co mpanies, at least nine young people's 'those outside the metropolis are entitled problem . The HVTC had no hom e theatre, companies and a further three or four to their share of the entertainment/arts tax insufficient funding for a full year's work, organisations, such as Thea tre North in dollar', but the question is how to provide no clear sense of how to be a regional La unceston and North ern Rivers them with that share. The touring-from company, little support from local business Pe rforming Arts in Li s m ore, which h ead-office model seems to be increasingly or the City Council-and a community occasionally create their own productions favoured at present, but in the 19 70s there perception that the company was imposed but mainly host shows under the auspices was a strong mood in favour of upon it by a Sydney entrepreneur with of Playing Australia or the states' various rr regional production . Sydney actors, money and director. In 1977 arts touring programmes. it had to lay off the company after only its These don't include the numerous .1. HE FIRST PROFESS IO AL thea tre COmpany third production, following losse on the regional arts centres or civic theatres in of any longevity to be established outside first two. cities s u ch as Bunbury, Townsville, an Australian capital city was the Hunter In 1979, the City Council gave it the N ewcastle, Geelong and Renmark. Through Valley Theatre Company (HVTC) which Wintergard en of the Civic Thea tre to their various networks like N ARPACA began in N ewcastle in March 19 76 with convert into a 190-seat theatre of its own (N orthern Australian Regional Performing Terence C lark's production of Jo hn (known as the Playhouse) 42 EUREKA STREET • 0 TOllER 1997 audiences and product-and the company name (HotHouse Theatre) and a move into apparently disappeared in 1995. However, a fixed theatre venue for the first time. with the appointment of Ray Scanlan as The new venue is the old Butter Factory Artistic Director last year, the HVTC seems in the Gateway Village site on Lincoln to have made a shaky comeback, with a Causeway, just on the Wodonga side of the revival of Th e Venetian Twins in the Civic border. It will seat about 200, and in a rare and yet another of Essington Lewis. example of interstate co-operation, Arts Other companies of slightly different Victoria and the Ministry for the Arts in kinds followed in NSW in the ensuing years. NSW combined to award HotHouse an out Victoria also joined the act when the Mill of-round capital grant to acquire and instal Community Theatre, a community activity the seating, lighting and other equipment of Deakin Univer ity, was established in from the just-closed Napier St Theatre in Geelong in 1978; community/young South Melbourne. Both arts ministries people's touring companies Crosswinds and and the Theatre Fund of the Australia Four's Company began operations in Benalla Council-continue to subsidise the and Ballarat respectively in 1979 and the company's artistic programme as well. Local Woolly Jumpers (a TIE company) followed support is also invaluable. suit in Geelong in 1980. The broadly-based artistic directorate South Australia had Harvest Theatre seems a good idea; artistic directors of Company, which began on the Eyre Penin regional companies have rarely lasted more sula in 1982 but later toured the state. than a couple of years before isolation and Queensland's first regional company, New burn-aut take over. A fixed home, however, Moon, was also a prolific tourist; it began in is a mixed blessing. It certainly gives an Townsville in 1982, but its brief was to tour organisation a clear identity, it enables it to annuall y through Mackay, Rockhampton develop far stronger production values and and Cairns. After it folded in 1990, more it can generate useful income from other stationary organisations like Just Us Theatre hirers, but venue-management and Ensemble, Tropic Line and others have taken maintenance can soak up creative root in the far north. energy and cash. For many reasons, the enthusiasm for regional companies has receded, especially C HAJ~LES PARK INSON and Fiona Barber in Victoria where Geelong's Back to Back share the task of HotHouse's general and the MRPG are the only survivors. manager. Both are old hands at community Competition from the head-office touring and regional theatre and show energy and organisations is one reason; increased costs commitment to the new company. On the is another (it's a long time since any of these strength of its August production, Double companies maintained a full-time acting Deception, the new HotHouse vision looks troupe); a third is the old 'if it's local it can't pretty plausible. Double Deception was a be as good' syndrome. Those remaining well-organised double bill of Sarah Vincent's companies have been forced to reinvent 'uletic in Double Deception for extremely funny comedy of mistaken my and Hothouse theatre. themselves in various ways, one of which is identity, revenge and deception, Hey Ja ck, the practice of co-production, which gives and Kate Herbert's poignant drama of self where the company had to do its bigger each production additional life and deception, Hit and Run. 'money-making' musicals. The same year helps amortise costs. Barber and Parkinson conducted it had a promising hit with Cabaret, but it intensive audience research in the lead-up was not until1981 that it could feel secure. BUTTHE 18-YEAR-OLD MRPG has sought to the change of identity. Respondents The main reason for this optimism was a different route. As a community thea tre, persistently said that they wanted to see the world premiere of local writer John rather than a repertoire company, it has productions their peers in Sydney and O'Donoghue's mighty play about the usually created its own works, often on Melbourne could see every night of the founder of BHP, Essington Lewis: I Am local issues and identities, and presented week-and to the sam e standa rd of Work. The play has been revived with them in community halls, clubs, on the production values. They were tired of seeing enormous success many times and has since road, in parks and gardens, and even on a group-devised shows about themselves, and been performed Australia-wide. And though Murray Riverboat. But its recent radical the dangers of blue-green algae, in draughty the HVTC was in its usual state of financial restructure has replaced a single artistic halls. On the strength of Double Deception, crisis at the end of 1982; the fourth artistic director with a 12-m ember directorate, who I look forward with relish toTes Lys iotis's director, Brent McGregor, managed to turn will each over ee one production over a Hotel Bonegilla in the Butter Factory at the the company's fortunes around from 1983 three-year cycle. It also countenances some end of September. • onwards. But financial problems and some co-production with other regional of the old problems of identity recurred in companies, increasing reliance on extant the mid-1990s- its landlord in the Civic and commissioned plays rather than the Geoffrey Milne is head of theatre and drama Theatre was also its competitor for ensemble-devised shows of the past, a new at LaTrobe University VOLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 43 of The Blues Bwthers. There two awkward women and their unlikely is a n obviou s effort to friendship. They have reach ed thirty in reproduce Blues Bws cult reasonable shape. Hannah has gained better status without its depth of control of her wit, which she uses brilliantly wit, observation and fabulous against a coke-addict who has made money mu sic. But it wou ld be in futures and wants to sell them his churlish to say there was apartment. Annie's skin has cleared up and nothing of value in MiB, it's her allergies are less dominant in her life. ·· just that its artistic and Career Girls uses a technique fa miliar perceptual levels are closer from Leigh's Secrets and Lies: the camera to that of Ghostbusters than often stays m ore still than the people in anything else: mostly som e focus. Shots linger at the end of a scene; the good belly laughs and plenty camera often holds a single position rather of slime. Nothing wrong with than follow characters. The result is a more that, and a great relief to have gentle and thought-provoking experience something to take the ten- than Hannah and Annie at first seem likely year-olds to. to offer. The best part of the whole film is the -Michael McGirr SJ Not boys in blue witty final coda, where the theme of the tiny ga laxy is revisited in our terms: do we Men in Black dir. Bob Sonnenfeld; (cinemas feel safe knowing that our entire universe is To bee or not to bee everywhere). Men in black are the stuff of nestling in a bag of super-Brobdingnagian urban myth, paranoid conj ecture, of fears marbles? Ulee's Gold dir. Victor Nunez (independent that were once of demons and witches, but -Juliette Hughes cinemas). The quiet guts and determination are n ow of aliens a nd governm ent of the lead character are this pic's heart and conspiracies. Tales about them pop up from soul. Peter Fonda brings to Ulee's Gold an time to time in the Fartean Times, the Past imperfect enigma tic strength that, although a American supermarket tabloids (wh ose perversion-he is emotionally withdrawn investigative quali ties are given mock Career Girls dir. Mike Leigh, (independent and stubborn- provides the anchor for the deference by Men in Black's script) and of cinemas). It takes a long time to get to like fi lm and a family in turmoil. course Th e X-Files: if you are careless Hannah and Annie. When they start sharing Ulysses Jackson (Fonda) is a grandad left enough to be abducted by aliens, you can flats together as students in the late eighties, alone to support twoyow1ggirls, the daughters expect a visit from them, with their it's pretty clear that they each have a chip of his jailed son, Jimmy (John Wood). The trio m ysterious memory-va porising ga dget. on their shoulder. Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) are deeply divided, the result of individual Agents of the New World Order, black ops comes from a troubled family and Annie responses to personal loss: a man minus his and dirty tricks, shielding the public from (Lynda Steadman) has been scarred by wife, children abandoned by erratic parents knowledge that would be disruptive- it all appalling de rmatitis. They develop and clearly without each other. They co sounds as familiar as your morning cuppa alienating defence m.echanisms; they are habit, submerged in the relative isolation of now. nervy, temperamental and fractious. They their distinct worlds: Ulee within a dogged Men in Blacl< is a bit of fun that takes all have aggressive ways of coping with the work ethic; Penny in teenage rebellion; Jimmy the detritus of this popular semi -conscious future, one way being to ask questions of confined by iron bars; his wayward wife, ness concerning UFOs, alien abduction, 'Ms Bronte, Ms Bronte' and open a copy of Helen, lost to the elem ents, and Casey, to bodysnatching etcetera and gives us a few Wuthering Heights at random. For all that, chuckles about it. It portrays these figures Hannah and Annie take under their wing EUREKA STREET of fear and loathing as likeable, in much the an obese and equally nervous student of THE FINAL fiLM COMPETITIONS same way Clint Eastwood made you start psychology called Ricky (Mark Benton) The winner of the July/ Augu s t cheering for trigger-happy cops in DiTty w hose response to an y emotional demand competition, who remembered Elvis' Harry: government agents are well -mea ning is to go downstairs to the Chinese fast food cowboy career, was Bill Rouse, of Manly, and caring about the m ental health of the shop for more curry and chips. NSW. The winner of the September gen eral populace, no Cigarette-Smoking The film tells the story of Hannah and competition was Pat Martinelli ofToorak Man here. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith Annie's student days against their reunion Gardens, SA, who named Alfred Molina play the eponymou s heroes, searching six years Ia ter when Annie spends a weekend and Mia Kirshner as the actors playing against the clock for a tiny missing ga laxy in London. Mike Leigh's script does com e Levin and Kitty in Bernard Rose's Anna to appease hostile aliens who will otherwise up with one or two coincidences too many: Karenina. Next month: a new ga me. destroy the earth. (Maybe we can find one the real estate agent who shows Hannah to give to native forest loggers.) through a house happens to be a form er T he movie h as been tailored very boyfriend, they return to their old fl at and obviously to its lucrative PG rating: no find Ricky sitting there, still in emotional swearing, overt violence (though plenty is disa rray. Leigh 's characterisation suggested), no sex. The costumes, with their occasionally has a cruel edge, but the point waycool black sunglasses, make you think of this film is to celebrate the survival of 44 EUREKA STREET • O cTOBER 1997 the seeming powerlessness of childhood confess. 'I kill men,' she says. 'That's what While Muriel gleefully transcended observation. I do.' genres and tore up ideas of modern white But the demands of cultivating Ulee's Kiss or Kill is a funny film, but the weddings, My Best Friend is a little more Gold- tupelo honey, the traditional Jackson humour shares the same desperation as the traditional in its approach to this maddest trade which sustains what's left of the family characters whose story this film tells with of modern rituals. But be a guest at this and Ulee's sanity-brings a slight bond limited compassion. Nikki and AI have a event-even the most hardened cynic will between Ulee and his youngest grandchild. moment's triumph, but the triumph sees titter. Seeds of friendship also take root when them cut adrift again with nowhere to go -Siobhan Jackson their neighbour-tenant breaks through the and, as the last scene makes abundantly staunchly self-reliant Jackson unit. clear, noi:ine to trust. I may be taking the Paying dues The drama of the story unfolds when a whole jaunt too seriou sly: Kiss or Kill is call from prison sets the reluctant Ulee a certainly worth more stars than the motel Doing Time for Patsy Cline dir. Chris task of blood-ties and obligation, to rescue on the plain. Kennedy, (independent cinemas). Ralph Jimmy's drug-riddled wife from the clutches -Michael McGirr (Matt Day) is an innocent boy from a far of 'bad men'. Those 'bad men' and the loot away farm. His good old dad buys him an air from Jimmy's last heist give this small White trash ticket to fulfil his life-long dream of going town film its edge and tension. Their to Nashville and making it big as a country increasing proximity to danger forges som e My Best Fri end's Wedding, dir. P.J. Hogan. and western performer. His good old mum renewed family coh esion, previously (All cinemas). P.J. Hogan (of Muriel's gives him some good old advice. His dad frustrated by pain, though their recovery is Wedding fame) has chosen to head down cranks up the good old truck to take him as subj ect to cinematic time constraints. the aisle one more time, marching lightly far as the road. From there, Ralph has to Ulee's Gold is a gritty portrayal of a but hilariously to the strains of Burt hitch to the airport. family in crisis: intense, believable and Bacharach. It is hard to underestimate the Ralph doesn' t need to get as far as moving. Ignore the boring title and poten popular power of a good Burt Bacharach Nashville to lose his innocence. He only tial bleakness. Take this journey: it is its number. Do You Know The Wa y To San has to get beyond the farm gate. He gets a own reward. Jos e is certainly a hearty snack for the lift with a shifty-looking pair in a smart -Lynda McCaffery greediest and most discerning trash Jaguar. Boyd (Richard Roxburgh) and Patsy consum er. So, I might add, is My Best (Miranda Otto) are running drugs. They are Friend's Wedding. not the wholesome company Ralph is A pub with no peer Julianne (Julia Roberts) and Michael accustomed to keeping. The threesome (Dermot Mulroney) have been best friends stays for the night in an out of the way Kiss or Kill dir. Bill Bennett (Independent since college. Making blood oaths, indulging roadhouse which has run out of coffee Cinemas). This is not a comfortable fi lm to in late-night phone marathons and sharing because they've had a 'run on it.' This is a watch. Nikki (Frances O'Connor) and AI one another's daftest secrets has kept their different establishment from the one that (Matt Day) have a routine going whereby friendship comfortably exclusive-until hosted Matt Day's performance in Kiss or they lure businessmen into a trap, drug Michael decides to marry. News of the Kill, but roadhouse proprietors must be them and rob them. One time they impending union plays merry hell with nervous these days about when their turn accidentally kill their target. Wasting no Julianne's heart and sh e responds by will come to be hit by an Australian film time on sympathy, nor even on thinking appointing herself head wedding-wrecker. crew. During the night, Patsy and Ralph through their predicament, they take to the But the bride-to-be, Kimmy Wallace discover a strange rapport as musicians. road and head across the Nullarbor. Their (Cameron Diaz), despite looking remarkably The next day, the police have been tipped only protection is the fact that they found a like a butterfly cake, is far from being a off and Ralph and Boyd are taken into cus video in the hotel room of their victim pushover. tody while Patsy makes her escape. Ralph which shows the legendary football star, My Bes t Fri end's W edding is a takes the rap for Patsy. Try and work out Zipper Doyle (Barry Langrishe) engaged in wonderfully lightweight film, obstinately why. child pornography. Doing little to cover refusing to be dragged down by any feel This is a difficult film to categorise their tracks, they put up at one of those good nonsense. Despite being upstaged by because the motivations of the main outback motels which rates negative three her improbably gorgeous (not to mention characters are always just beyond the reach stars on the day the bathrooms get cleaned enormous) hair, Julia Roberts manages to of your understanding. It is made even more and negative four the rest of the time. It's put in a very serviceable performance. But elusive by what I took to be a recurring lucky for the proprietor, Stan (Max Cullen), as is so often the case in roman tic comedies, fantasy of Ralph's that he and Patsy make it that most of his patrons are unfussy ea ters the finest performances are to be found as stars in Nashville. I could well be limited who don't mind their cheese fondue a little outside the main coupling. In this case it's by my lack of appreciation of C& Wand am rough. Unluckily for him, the following Rupert Everett as Julianne's gay friend happy to testify that a group in suede behind morning finds his throat cut. The police are George, and Cameron Diaz as Kimmy who m e in the cinema certainly enjoyed all the narrowing in. So is Zipper. really liven up proceedings. Given that both in-jokes. It is a good-natured and clever film For much of the film, the audience is left actors corner the opportunity to belt out a in which Ralph is neatly returned to his to wonder whether Nikki or Al is a killer. Bacharach classic it's hardly fair to compare original innocence. He consoles himself Nikki wants to be. H er life has been them with those actors confined to speak that at least h e spent longer behind bars traumatised by an experience as a child. As ing- roles. Everett's rendition of I Say A than Johnny Cash. the number of bodies pile up, she is ready to Little Prayer is all but sublime. -Michael McGirr SJ V OLUME 7 NUMBER 8 • EUREKA STREET 45 WATCHING BRIEF Parading a reign T ,eHONE eANG on the was jubilant: 'He handed us the promo on a silver platter.' sunny September Saturday Two of Neighbour's interviewees, ex-premier Sir Rupert afternoon. 'Turn on Channel Hamer, and David Edwards, CEO of the Victorian Employers' Nine now!' hissed my sister and Chamber of Commerce and Industry, went into print and onto hung up. Wondering if a relative radio in the ensuing days to claim they had been quoted out of was suddenly up for fifteen context. It's a pity, because Sir Rupert's statement on ethical minutes' infamy, I switched on business standards for people in political life was truly that of an and understood immediately. A shellac-smooth Miss America elder statesman, redolent of the man's own wisdom and probity. contestant was ululating enthusiastically, if inaccurately, through Used as a counterpoint to an examination of Mr Kennett's share Una voce poco fa. Like the Oscars, Emmys, ARIAS (what a dealings it was dynamite, as was David Edwards' opinion that schemozzle that was), Baftas, Logies and Christmas, Miss (never too much democracy was inefficient. Both men complained that Ms) America comes but once a year, thank God. But unlike the there hadn't been enough on the earlier Kennett years, that there award shows, however, which beat Mogadon hands down, Miss was too much negativity, that the share dealings affair was old America was fascinating and ought, like Ricki Lake, to be news. But they were wrong: Four Corners' perspective was es watched whenever we get too uppity about Western civilisation sential viewing, including as it did a major scoop and a crucial being the pinnacle of evolution. follow-up to the aftermath of the share deals controversy and its Watching Miss North or South Dakota or Carolina assaulting implications for free comment. Rossini reminded me of the famous saying about a dog talking; The scoop was Stephen Mayne's willingness to talk on the you marvel, not at what's said, but rather at its being said at all: record about what he had observed as a trusted member of the a sop of middle-browery thrown into the stew of tat. Here be girls Premier's staff. This was important: whistleblowers are few and in their late teens and early twenties all got up like Ivana before more necessary here than in, say, the US. Australia's libel laws she detrumped and got herself a stylist and some placcy surgery. are draconian and not always conducive to the free flow of Not that there wasn't a lot of silicon and collagen pouting one information that is in the public interest. In an age where the way or another on the stage. It reminded me of Dolly Parton's phones and bedrooms of the Prince and Princess of Wales were immortal words: 'It takes a whole lotta money to look this cheap.' bugged and the resulting tapes used with impunity by the Another contestant flourished and fangled through some short Murdoch press, it can often be extraordinarily difficult to obtain and showy Chopin. She was twenty-four and didn't have Big Hair. information about politicians' use of our taxes. So full Not a chance, we thought, and we were right. m arks to Neighbour, Cohen and their researchers. In the end the title was won by young amazon Kathy Shindle, who had bellowed 'Don't Rain On My Parade' with a hubristic C OUP NUMBER TWO WAS THE IMPORTANT follow-up to the brio that made Streisand's seem like the Christopher Hagwood original Today Tonight program that had tried to break the version. La Shindle had a notable lack of eye contact with her news of the Guangdong share deals. (Seven did eventually show gushy co-finalist as they waited for the decision-basic etiquette it, but only after the newspapers broke the story.) It was for the last two is to clasp like long-lost sisters as they await the illuminating, given how anodyne that program has become verdict that consigns one of them to the mightabeen bin and the since then, to see that almost everyone involved in the story other to the Sultan of Brunei. Then it turned out in the papers has been 'let go'. Jill Singer and the production staff at Seven next day that Poppa Shindle was on the board of Miss America, were under enormous pressure not to offend Premier Kennett. something that made his video clip wishing his daughter good Their small rebellion in announcing that the pulling of the luck seem more interesting in retrospect. No-one was ever gon story's was due to a 'senior management' decision rather than na rain on her parade. legal advice was met, one can only conclude, with sanctions Big Events that drag you to the screen can have a cathartic that spelt the end of their careers on the channel. When one effect: you totter away, your brain a referential maelstrom, ready remembers what happened to ]ana Wendt, it seems as though for the gentler stimulus of the regular commentators on our the last twelve months has been hard for investigative reporters society. on Seven . 'This country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have So Neighbour and Cohen showed us more than a look at the you riches? Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? actions of a very powerful politician; they showed us what happens Let them be brought forward. They are mine!' when you try to be a tough investigative reporter anywhere but -Wilkins Micawber, on his imminent remove to Australia. on the ABC. If you try on the commercial channels, the wages Four Corners, that indispensable regular commentator, may be bigger, but it looks as though you're always going to run continues to do its job well after 3 7 years of tough investigative up against the agendas and interests of powerful proprietors who reporting. Sally Neighbour's September 22 documentary (produced do business with the elected powers. At a time when the Freedom by Janine Cohen) considering the five years of Kennett rule in of Information legislation is being tightened even further in Victoria caused a furore. Victoria, programs like Four Corners are even more valuable. Mr Kennett himself guaranteed good ratings when he went Someone has to keep raining on their parade. • on Neil Mitchell's morning program on 3AWand called the forth coming episode 'an hour of slime'. A spokesperson at the ABC Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer and reviewer. 46 EUREKA STREET • O CTOBER 1997 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 57, October 1997 Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1. Double current I at firs t thought led to a tree. (6) 5. The vegetables should be stored in a cool crib, perhaps. (8) 9. On holiday on a Greek island, let us sound out who wants to produce a Caesar salad. (3, 7) 10. Call the m essage boy! (4) 11. Som e like to take a pot at old English servants fo r a start ... especially when they are in their jackets at table! (8) 12. Inducem ent for Bluey to m ove cart or dye hair another colour. (6) 13. Leaders of indigenous mobile people invade territory of Bantu warriors. (4) 15. South American capital has head related to 16-down. (4,4) 18. Unexpectedly the Cranes, involved with their bridge partners, were surveyors of the scene. (8) 19. Gem stone fo und on two unknown quantities. (4) 2 1. The fact that you could eat it belied unreal expectations. (6) 23 . Gathering up livestock to find the approximate number. (8 ) 25. Fruit a mile away! (4) 26. Often a companion to 11 -across-rather bitter but the best there is. (4,5) 27. Carries on remorselessly to press its som ewhat dubious point. (8) Solution to Crossword no. 56, September 1997 28. It's important for him to be sincere without a doubt! (6 ) D OWN 2. Choice vegetable is a knock -out, without ice. (5) 3. Serve a light m eal to that numero uno, tall, commanding offi cer, returning over there. (9) 4. Throw coin at busker, for example, for his performance. (6) 5. City's growth's an ingredient, of course! (8,7) 6. Arrive after a spell of bowling, deeply affected by it all! (8) 7. Recap mad frolic round the shrub. (5) 8. A line under many a Rom an soldier. (9) 14. I once m ade a mixture of diced vegetables. (9) 16. Inferior route could be an acceptable choice for the course. (5,4) 17. Setbacks experienced about the poem s. (8) 20. Who in France would invite a revolutionary to eat this? N ot a real m an, surely! (6) 22. Sounds superior to the red or silver varieties. (5) 24. 'Rings' possibly m eans 'calls' in Am erica. (5) SALARY $0k Terrific opportun ities exist to work with a Donations collected go towards Amnesty 's global organisation . goal of setting free victims of human rights abuse worldwide . Amnesty International is seeking enthusiastic people to give up 2 hours of their time , No experience is necessary. To apply for on the street , collecting donations lhis opportunity to make a real difference , on Candle Day. please contact: In addition to street collecting , volunteers are Amnesty International also needed for other tasks prior to the event. Jt. 1800 808 157 toll-free ctt:' These tasks include contacting media organisations , preparing trays for street Candle Day October 24 collectors , and arrangi ng publicity activities . www.amnesty.org.au Special book offer & HarperCollinsRe ligious TRAVELS Travels in Sacred Places Geoffrey Robinson When Geoffrey Robinson, Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, survived a serious operation in 1992, he began to re-examine the foundations of his beliefs. Two years later, travelling through the Sinai Desert, Turkey and Israel, he made discoveries about his faith. Travels in Sacred Places is the result. This month, thanks to HarperCollinsReligious, we have 10 copies of Travels in Sacred Pla ces to give away. Just put your name and address on the back of an envelope and send GEOFFR..E Y R.. O BI NSON to Eureka Street, Sacred Places October Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121. Look what we're talking about at the Melbourne Writers' Festival lionel Murphy Hunters and Collectors Imagining the Antipodes A Political Biography The Antiquarian Imagination in Culture, Theory and the Visual in JENNY HOCKING A ustralia the Work of Bernard Smith The first political biography of barrister, TOM GRIFFITHS PETER BEILH ARZ poli tician and High Courr judge Lionel T he most awarded non-fiction Australian Parr intell ectual hi story, parr bi ography M urphy. Traces his role within the Labor book of 1996 and recent winner of the and parr interpretive argument, this is the Pa rry, hi s work as a Senator and as the Ernest Scott Prize for 1997. fi rst book-length analysis of Bernard most re formist Attorney-General in February 1996 432 pages Smith's wo rk. It is Australi an his tory, to hi s rise to the 0 521 4828 1 X Hb $90.00 both an introduction bench of the High Courr until his tragic 0 521 48349 2 Pb $34.95 to his thinking and a death in 1986. new way of thinking Includes many Land prints about Australia. photos, and inter Reflections on Place and Landscape July 1997 views with friends GEORGE SEDDON 196 pages and coll eagues. A coll ection of essays from one of 0 521 58355 1 October 1997 Australia's foremost thinkers. George Hardback $39.95 320 pages :>eddon brings his 26 halftones uniquely broad per Artful Histories 0 52 1 58108 7 specti ve to the ways Hardback $39.95 in which landscape Modern Australian Autobiography is constructed, man DAVID McC OOEY W inner of the 1996 New South Wales aged and des igned. Premier's Literary Awards G leebooks Prize August 1997 for Literary/Cultural Criticism. ~CAMBRIDGE 314 pages • UNIVERSITY PRESS 20 colour plates May 1996 248 pages 0 521 56101 9 Hb $90.00 0 521 58501 5 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh , Victoria 3 166 0 521 56790 4 $29.95 Hardback $39.95 Pb ISSN 1036-17 58 08 9 771 036 175017