Postgraduate Studies in New scholarship Public Advocacy and Action for the new world A transdisciplinary global initiative Learn to teach and serve the in postgraduate education Church of the future- in a East Timor's Foreign Minister, Nobel Peace Laureate, community that values pas Jose Ramos Horta recently launched a new postgraduate sionate debate, original program in Public Advocacy and Action at Victoria University research , and vital ministries. in Melbourne, Australia. Our rigorous programs This innovative postgraduate program is specifically will prepare you to be an designed to en hance the skills and knowledge of agent of change, in word profess ionals working in international an d loca l advocacy, and deed. community, human rights and environment al areas. Master of Arts (GTU Developed with support of Green peace, Oxfam Common MA) Community Aid Abroad and Amnesty International Licentiate in Sacred Australia, and in ongoing consultation with other Theology international and local civil society organisations Doctor of Sacred Theology Fully articulated program offering Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Masters degree. Individual customised program. Starts February 2003. JESUIT SC HOOL Masters program involves four core subjects: The Challenges of Transformation, Negotiating OF THEOLO G Y Advocacy: Context, Strategies and Actions, at Berkeley Approaches to Globalisation, and Building a member of the Capacity and Mobilising Civil Society; VICTORIA o an internship, management and finance Graduate Theological Union subjects, electives an d a minor thesis UNIVERSITY 1735 LeRoy Avenue (or professional project). Berkeley, CA 94709 For more information, (800) 824-0122 contact Teah Farrugia (51 0) 549-5000 ~ Phone: (03) 9365 2240 Fax (51 0) 841-8536 Email: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] www.jstb.edu Victoria your University www.vu.edu.au
-- Tl1c HIV/AIDS MELBO RNE ------AWARENESS Human ex istence "is a continuum which begins at Left for dead? the embryonic stage- it seems arbitrary to draw We know the feeling, a line at any point and say we can do research." Eyes Wide Shut! lsmo Rama, speaking in a debate on stem cell research at the Melbourne Anglican Synod. Positive people need positive support! "None of us would doubt that it is true to claim that we should decide who comes here and Vis!t under what circumstances. What is in clear \N\N\N. I • et.au doubt. .. is whether our compassionate heart and our commitment to a fair go has shrivelled up The Australian AIDS Fund Inc beyond all recognition or has all but died." PO Box 1347, Frankston Vic 3199 The Revd Stuart Soley, speaking in a debate on Email [email protected] the detention of asylum seekers.
" .. t h a nk you for your en ormo us
LETTERS < OVFR STORY 8 Cassandra Oliver, Peter Graves, 14 Peace on ea rth Katrin Lee Photographic essay by Daniel Loughlin
THE MONTH'S TRAFFI C 12 Ben Fra ser The long road home THEATRE 16 fohn Rickard Aria for Azaria 39 A Dickens ca ravansera i
Publisher Andrew Hamilton 51 Peter Craven takes in Oliver' and Editor M orag Fra se r COLUMNS Simon Callow's The Mystery of Charles Editorial assistant Susa nnah Buckley Dickens Graphic designer Siobhan jackson 7 Ca pital Letter General manager M ark Dowell Marketing & advertising manager Kirsty Grant facl
Lyre and wheel
L ,NK>NG ot CHR'5TMAS, •nd ,iffling thwugh lyre, for instance. Perhaps music is always in some some postcards, I found two of them claiming degree mysterious, but if it is so it is our mystery attention. The first, improbably perhaps, was of a too; whenever it is more than formulaic, it is a way silver ten-stringed lyre from Ur, in Babylonia-or, as of searching as well as a way of saying. The figure of we say nowadays, southern Iraq. It dates from about David playing the harp, whether to solace a tortured 2500Bc, and it comes from the Great Death Pit, Saul or to celebrate things found good, is an emblem excavated in the twentieth century. It has an inlaid of the mind about its work as well as of the fingers in front, and a bull's head adorns one edge. The second their dexterity. card shows a painting, from about 1531, by Maarten And of more than the mind. Music from the Van Heemsberck, of a woman spinning. Her left hand death-pit cannot but challenge sentiment and atti trains the raw fibre towards the spinning wheel, tude-all that we call 'the heart'. At the end of the
which she turns with her right hand: the wheel, Second World War, among ruins, ad hoc orchestras balanced on her knees, is supported by an orna began their work in devastated cities, as indeed they mented dolphin. had tried to keep going while the bombs were falling. Versions of the Bible which are arranged accord And before and after that cataclysm, at countless ing to an historical logic begin with Abraham's funerals, music and song have attended both the dead departure from Ur, and on that exodus all that fol and the grieving. It is a way of saying that our mortality lows is supposed to turn- the bitter and the sweet is not only insult, and it is at least a fo reshadowing of alike have their roots in that ancient culture. After something beyond mortality. much investigation, a great deal about those Sum In the Gospel story, Christ's birth is greeted with erian people is still opaque, but the Pit has given us song, and thousands of portrayals of the event have things we can certainly understand, things like the been rich in musicians, some of them fledged and
4 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 some not: 'Gloria' is their watchword. But the context exertions hung behind her, the textiles of her cap and of the singing also embraces those socially marginal her costume-all of these speak of the work of gen figures, the shepherds, and its sequel includes mas erations, indeed of millennia, all the way back to the sacre and refugeedom; the child in the straw is needles of reindeer bone found in archaic caves, long already a figure of confrontation. The dying John before the lyre was made in Ur. But their colours, and Donne, envisaging heaven, believed that he would the band of tapestry enclosing the fibre, and above all becom e part of a divine music, but was still learning the swish dolphin, an ornament to its ocean, applaud the hard way how onerous the attuning could be in the human taste for the abundant and the beautiful. our present orchestral pit. He would, I think, have John Dryden said of Chaucer's work, 'Here is contemplated the silver, inlaid lyre, smothered so long God's plenty', which is as accurate as it is generous. and then disclosed, with instinctive understanding. In the same vein, it is essential to Christian belief that And Van Heemsberck's spinner? Inescapably she Jesus embodies God's plenty-that he both is, and is shadowed by the motif of life as thread, a notion lives out, a divine lavishness on behalf of humanity. kept modern by the gauging line to be seen, oscillat Represented often enough in the past and the present ing or stilled, on life-support system s. But I see her under the sign of a fish, he might be seen here in the too as a m eeting point of the practical and the orna token of the dolphin, who is locked to a task, but who m ental-'the useful and the beautiful', as was said in displays a plenitude which makes fo r joy. Perhaps the the past of certain of the arts, including the arts of two pictures before me could be encompassed with a the mind. She gazes with a direct seriousness out of music for dolphins: if so, and in spite of the labours the picture, handsomely but not extravagantly clad, and the pit, it would not be standing only for Christ. • patently geared to work for a long time, her wheel turning at the snout of the stylish dolphin. Peter Steele SJ has a personal chair at the University The wheel, the fibre, the trappings of other of Melbourne.
COMMENT:2 MORAG FRASER Portents
/'I .CH ' LD m THE STRAW is •l«•dy ' figm e of reasons, and in so doing help you understand the confrontation', writes Peter Steele SJ in the Christmas complex weave of actor and event. He would have editorial above. His words bring you up sharp as you had som ething to say about the photographs (by make your way through the festoons and gilt stars that Daniel Loughlin) on this m onth's cover and on pages are already (in N ovember) tizzying up our streets and 14-15, of children whose apprenticeship is war. shopping m alls. Christmas is a paradoxical season: The Palestinian child on the cover, in cadet joy fraught with anticipation . What will com e next ? cam ouflage gear, is being led towards a dem onstra After the birth, how soon the death? tion in the West Bank city of Ramallah . The pro It's a time when you look for reassurance, for the test is against the sale of US weapons to Israel. The comfort of friends and fa mily. Listening over the past youths in the photographs inside carry with them the m onth to so much reductive and warlike rhetoric, eloquent symbols of might and reckless determina from all sides, I've turned often, as though to a friend, tion- gun and slingshot. The echoes of the David and to hear som ething wiser, more m easured. The friend Goliath story are strong but they are not sufficient to in mind has been Graham Little, Melbourne writer elucidate this particular confrontation. Both of these and academic whose psychological acuity and broad young m an m ay well spend their lives in a struggle grasp of political m oods were such a gift to anyone m arked m ore by the intransigence of old m en than by wanting to understand where we are, how we got the pursuit of justice. here and where we might be going, politically and Eureka Street wishes for all our readers that the m orally. blessings of the Christmas season will turn our minds Graham Little (who died in 2000) counted the to peace, and to one another-wherever we live. • cost of political manoeuvring. He would delve where others would pronounce, look for patterns, influences, -Morag Fraser
DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STRE ET 5 yet permitted to work and are ineligible score. But then they had to endure. In their for social security or assistance through second innings, both bowlers and fielders Medicare. A number of CPs around town of the opposing team took consistent aim already provide pro bono services but there at their heads. This team had nothing to is little they can do when medication, tests learn, and much to teach its seniors. or specialist opinions are required. Wily The Sisters of Charity Foundation, words together with North Yarra Community Health, has opened a clinic for asylum seekers in Melbourne. Under the lead Here's a Christmas gift idea, much more ership of physician Dr Tim Lightfoot, fun than a tie or stockings, and par the clinic will provide (at no cost to the ticularly apposite if your uncle/father/ patient) access to pathology and pharmacy Water mother/sister is a politician. It's the new services, interpreters and referrals to other levels Oxford dictionary of euphemisms, with pro bono specialists. a one-legged (lame) duck on the yolk-col To support the clinic contact Dr You know things are getting desperate oured cover, and well titled How Not To Lightfoot. Tel. 03 9419 2477 or email when the mouth of the great Murray River Say What You Mean. Some of the explana ligh tft@sv hm. org.a u closes over. Seen hom the air it looked tory contents, predictably, are not fit for a like nature saying an emphatic 'no'. family magazine (euphemisms are euphe With salt sitting like malign manna misms for a reason). But there's plenty here on the surface of the land, you might, to delight the connoisseur of evasion. on a better-late-than-never policy, like to 'Terminological inexactitude' is an keep an eye on the government inquiry oldie-but-goodie. It might take Winston into future water supplies, headed by 2001 Churchill (who coined the phrase) to carry Environmentalist of the Year, Professor it off these days, but the practice is thriv Rules of Peter Cullen. Website: www.aph.gov.au/ ing. 'Population transfer' is useful again, the game house/committee/primind/index.htm as is 'downward adjustment'. There is a nifty thematic index from which you can Cricket offers a variety of metaphors for discover that politics requires more cir life, and commentators reflect their own cumlocution even than war-by a clear national metaphors. In Australia, cricket half page. But modern warfare does pro is work, and wide balls and loose shots are vide some of the more diverting entries. treated as lax work practices. In England, Try 'pre-dawn vertical insertion'-para where cricket is play, idiosyncracies offer chuting with the larks, in other words. opportunity for boyish conversation. In Sri Private 'Regime change' hasn't made it into the Lanka, cricket displays manners. Players tracks lists yet. But it will. And Hirohito's term receive praise for neatly buckled pads and for military defeat-'coming of peace' are chided for any display of feeling. All Mid-morning-the time of young chil could prove handy for dictators here and commentators, however, worry about the dren, elderly couples and drifters. A four there any day soon. effect of senior cricketers' behaviour on year-old stomps up the steps, stands in the junior competitions where metaphors the middle of the half-empty tram and are learned. looks around in wild surmise. Then tips In fact, junior cricket has its own his head back and howls, 'I don't like this robust metaphors, often to do with the tram. I want our tram!' kind of trickery associated mythically As we lurch forward he stumbles and with Odysseus-that Homeric admixture falls to his knees, banging the floor with of wiliness and endurance. Our club's saga clenched fists. Tears and snot drip onto Still seeking celebrated a premiership won against the the floor. His mother, with furtive glances asylum odds. On the first day we were dismissed at the rest of us, tries comfort, reason, cheaply on a good pitch. After a long ses bribes. He won't be distracted. Beyond the rhetoric of legal and illegal sion at the pub, the team devised a wily I get off at one of the new 'superstops' asylum seekers and border protection is way to change the odds. They bought a that is evidence that Steve Bracks is the reality of life for som e asylum seekers block of ice, laid it down on a good length, indeed 'Growing Victoria'. A bright green in Australia. Department of Immigration leaving plenty of time for it to melt. The notice informs me that this is now the and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs night was cold. When the home team 'Melbourne Transport System'-the 'pub (DIMIA) bureaucracy has given birth to arrived next day to practice for its innings, lic' gone th way of the conductors and a new underclass of poor in Australia the ice had done its work, but had not their soft pouchy leather bags. those whom DIMIA recognises as having quite melted. Our heroes exploited the And as the tram trundles past the a likely claim to asylum, but who are not wet pitch to bowl them out for a losing screams drift back: 'Where's our tram?'
6 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 The Wh itlam way
0 NcY Two
DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 7 LETTERS
I UI!'CJ './f(•t•l ""'' (HlH'' This would also benefit nearly half of Go, NGOs l<'llt '' tmm our rl',Hit" Short the 1.2 billion people living in absolute lr·llt'l' ,lfl' lll<>rt• lrkt·h to hl' poverty. One of the UN's Millennium Congratulations on a very stimulating and puhi"IH'd ,111rl .dllr•ltr•r' r11.11 Development Goals is to cut absolute balanced special on the non-government lw r·rlrtt'd I t·llt'r' rnu't lw world poverty in half by 2015. and not-for-profit sector (Eureka Street, ''gnr•d ,111d ,houlrl IIH lwlt ,t Our foreign aid shines a light on world November 2002). As a one-time worker in t He could be in school if his community wasn't impoverished Ca riras Ausrra li a helps so me of rhe mosr margin ali sed communiri es around th e globe by addressing rhe iss ues of pove ny Through long rerm developmenr progra ms we enab le people ro rake gre Caritas Australia The Catholic Agency for Overseas Aid and Development 8 EUREKA STRE ET DECEMBER 2002 VIEWPOINT BILL UREN Federal Government and other State Government might decide, N ew South Wales would welcome scientists engaged in destructive experimentation on human embryos. Once he did this, all the other State The ethics of stem premiers abandoned whatever hesitations they might previously have had, and shuffled obediently into cell research the line that the State premier of the premier State had drawn. Basically, they were afraid they might Five arguments and a critique miss out on their share of the financial and prestige rewards which, they believed, would be associated with embryonic stem cell research. Continuing the car/garage analogy, we might call this the 'Show room' argument. The fourth argument is the one, I suspect, that carried most weight with John Howard. Whatever status we accord the 70,000 embryos in storage, some of them are going to die anyway. Should we not 'redeem their dying' or 'make a virtue out of necessity' by using them, albeit to their destruction, in embryonic stem cell therapeutic If curing research? I am tempted to call this the 'Hannibal Lecter' or 'Concentration Camp' argument: 'You disease at all ONFRmAv, 5 Mm 2002, the Pdme Ministe>, are going to die anyway; may I not sup on your John Howard, gave the green light for federal brains?' or 'You are going to die anyway; may we costs is the legislation to be drafted authorising, with parental not use you as a human guinea pig for the ben- consent, destructive experimentation on some of the efit of the master race?' But lest that may seem end in view, we 70,000 human embryos presently stored in Australian prejudicial, let us continue the car analogy and vaults and deemed surplus to IVF needs. call this the 'Wreckers' argument: 'These cars/ are only a short It has been suggested that a Liberal Prime Min embryos are destined for the scrap heap in any ister, embattled at that time by the Hollingworth event. Let's just cannibalise their useful parts!' step certainly and 'children overboard' affairs, had little choice but The final argument is one that has emerged to capitulate to the assembled might of the Labor only in the course of the debate, and after the from therapeutic State premiers at the Council of Australian Gov COAG decision. Since 5 April there has been ernment (COAG) meeting. However that may be, increasing evidence of the pluripotency of cloning and then, the legislation has been drafted-'a strict regula adult stem cells both in animal models and in tory regime'-and has been passed in the House of some clinical applications. At the same time inevi tab y from Representatives by a substantial majority. At the the immunological problems associated with time of writing it is anticipated that the vote of the embryonic stem cells have been highlighted. reproductive Lower Hou e will be endorsed in the Senate, albeit So has their teratogenic expression in clinical by a narrower majority. contexts, and there has emerged a growing con- cloning. There are five main arguments supporting the sensus about the risks associated with therapeu- COAG decision that have enjoyed currency over the tic cloning. The bets (and the pharmaceutical past seven months. money) seem to be moving from embryonic to First is the 'small' argument. How could any adult stem cell research. 'But,' so the argument goes, thing so small as an embryo be accorded the special 'we need to study both to get the best results. Once status that would exempt it from destructive experi we understand how the embryo works, we will be mentation for therapeutic purposes? I will call this able to complement and advance the work being done the 'Mini Minor' argument (its major exponent is with adult stem cells.' NSW Premier Bob Carr). This is obviously a fallback position from the The second argument is also out of the Bob Carr hype that surrounded embryonic stem cells at the garage. It too is cast in quantitative terms, and focuses time of the COAG decision. But it is advanced even on the extensive powers to cure human trauma and by those whose focus of research is on adult stem disease that human embryonic stem cells are reputed cells, all in the name of scientific solidarity: 'If I to have. I will call this the 'Rolls Royce' argument support your research, you promise not to inhibit acknowledging the 'horsepower' that embryonic stem mine.' Hence we have the 'Salesmen's Solidarity' cells are reputed to generate. argument. The third argument is one apparently espoused The first and third arguments-'Mini Minor' by all the State premiers. Very soon after 5 April, Bob and 'S howroom'-need not delay us long if ethics and Carr announced that, come what may, whatever the morality are what we have in view. Since when has. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 9 'small' been a moral category? And were we not all with horror to the possibility of cloning. If the basic small embryos once? The earth is a very small planet principle of utilitarianism holds- the end justi compared to the size of the universe. Mini Minor fies the means- then, I suggest, despite the solemn owners have as much right to the road as those who asseverations of scientists and politicians, if curing drive Toorak tractors. The mere fact that some disease at all costs is the end in view, we are only a thing is small should not disqualify it from moral short step certainly from therapeutic cloning and then, consideration. inevitably, from reproductive cloning. The 'Showroom' argument-focusing on the The slippery slope is already greased! financial and prestige rewards that may be associated with the commercialisation of embryonic stem cell L E SECOND QUESTION relevant to the 'Rolls research-is no more ethically sophisticated. One Royce' argument concerns the notion of potential. might well hope that financial and other em oluments Supporters of this argument emphasise the potential might follow upon ethically acceptable research, but of embryonic stem cells to cure disease. They admit, they are hardly a substitute for it. Scientific integrity however, that it may be five to 15 years before this ------has, at least traditionally, put commitment to eth- potential can be realised in clinical applications. But ical standards ahead of prestige, power and profit. presently we value embryonic stem cells precisely Either the 'Showroom' argum ent admits this prec because of their potential. How, then, can we be Since when has edence and becomes recognised at best as a sup dismissive of one of the strongest argum ents against plementary, rather than an ethical, consideration, the destructive experimentation of human embryos, 'smal l' been a or we have a totally new standard of what consti namely their inherent potential, despite their small tutes ethics. 'Greed is good, and the devil take the ness ('Mini Minor' again), to become human beings moral category? hindmost in research competition.' like ourselves? If potential is sauce for the goose, The second argum ent-'Rolls Royce'-focus why isn't it sauce for the gander? To be sure, for the And were we not ing on the 'horsepower' embryonic stem cells potential of a human embryo to become a human per have to cure disease, is a genuinely ethical argu son requires a considerable 'work up' in the human all small embryos ment. It is certainly a morally good thing to try to reproductive system . But even the most en thusias cure disease, and there are at least som e in prin tic proponents of embryonic stem cell research will once? The earth ciple reasons to believe that embryonic stem cells hardly deny that before the potential of these cells to may have this potential. I have said 'in principle' cure disease is realised, an extensive laboratory 'work is a very small advisedly. Some distinguished scientists have up' is also required. Why, then, is potential ('Rolls cast doubt on whether there really is as much Royce' horsepower!) so esteemed in one case, and so planet compared 'horsepower' as has been claimed. They would dismissed in the other? then ask a further question: even if there is any 'I'll tell you why,' you will reply. 'It is because, to the size of likelihood of a cure for any of the suggested dis short of supplying surrogate wombs, the only real eases, then surely a prerequisite for working with potential which some of these embryos in storage the universe. human embryonic stem cells is that such a safe have is death.' This leads us to the fourth argument, cure, with prolonged effect, should be demonstra the 'Wreckers' argument: 'Some of these embryos, bly achieved in the appropriate animal model of irrespective of their moral status, are destined to suc at least one of those diseases? Such preliminary cumb in any event. Isn't it better to "redeem " their evidence is required both on scientific and ethical dying by using them in stem cell research?' Before grounds in other human research. Why not in this answering this question (and laying aside the 'Han research? nibal Lecter' and 'Concentration Camp' implications But even presuming this likelihood can be of answering in the affirmative), perhaps we should established with an appropriate animal model, two reflect for a moment on the initially agreed moral further questions immediately arise. If it is a good status of these embryos. When they were put into thing to cure disease even at the expense of destroy storage they were presumably regarded by all who ing embryos, why isn't it also a good thing to cure participated in the IVF process-parents, techni disease by cloning embryos? Why not both thera cians, specialists-as potential human beings. They peutic cloning and reproductive cloning? It does were stored precisely in such a way as to maintain not require much imagination to contemplate sce that potential against the possibility that they might narios where therapeutic or reproductive cloning be required, and be suitable, for a second or further would seem to offer the best chance to cure disease, embryo transfer by the parents. What transforms particularly in the case of children. Admittedly, at them overnight, then, into m ere 'laboratory mate present there are considerable safety issues in clini rial'? A decision of the parents that they are no longer cal practice. But cloning seems to have been repu required? A decision of COAG? Hardly! diated not just in practice but also in principle by Of course, we do this sort of thing with cars. A our politicians as totally morally repugnant. I have model becomes obsolete, and we cannibalise it or som e problem s adjusting to the m entality of those consign it to the wrecker's yard. What motivates this? who would quite blithely destroy embryos but react The market. It's not that the car no longer functions, I 0 EU RE KA STRE ET D ECEMBER 2002 or that there aren't examples of the same model out hand, the utilitarian principle underlying this version on the roads. But it's all part of the way in which leads logically to therapeutic and reproductive cloning, we treat 'products' in a market economy-that is, conclusions apparently to be repudiated by scientists commodities designed by us for our use, and obsolete and politicians alike. On the other hand, it gives when a better model comes along. But we do not treat more than a little further colour and substance to the human beings in this way-not life-term prisoners, argument of those who oppose destructive research not even the criminally insane, not the demented, on embryos because they are viewed not just as a not those affected by Alzheimer's, not the dying. Even potential resource for curing disease but as potential though organ transplants might be more effective human beings in their own right. Finally, as I have if the organs were harvested from living donors, we indicated, the 'Wreckers' argument ('irrespective of would not contemplate visiting this indignity on the the moral status of the embryo, some of them are dying, even on prisoners on death row. How then can going to die anyway') leads to the commodification we contemplate doing this to embryosz Embryos are of human life. It also leads to the acceptance of a very the resources that modern reproductive science has questionable and arbitrary overnight change in the formed, cultivated and so carefully frozen and stored moral status of embryos in storage-from potential with the view to their being required-and remaining human beings to m ere 'laboratory material'. suitable-to be transferred to the maternal uterus Once again, in this 'Salesmen's Solidarity' argu and develop their full potential as mature human ment, we have an example of the classic utilitarian beings? Have we so commodified human life that argument that a good end-in this case, assisting we can treat it m erely as a product in the market? adult stem cell research-justifies a morally tenden Rather than 'making a virtue out of necessity' by tious means: destructive research on embryos. It using these embryos in destructive experimentation would, I believe, be a matter of considerable regret or 'redeeming their dying', aren't we visiting on should this be enshrined as a principle of scientific them the final indignity? The 'they are going to die research. anyway' argument only obtains purchase if we treat An eminent member of the scientific com embryos as commodities in the market rather than as munity has spoken out strongly against what he potential human beings. For those involved in IVF, in claims are the absolutist attitudes of the 'Catholic particular, this seems, at the very least, paradoxical. Taliban'. I believe that what we are seeing in the The final argument that has emerged in the context of the current debate is the emergence of a course of the last seven months is the 'Salesmen's 'Scientific Taliban' no less absolutist in its dogmas Solidarity' argument. As I have suggested, this is a than its Catholic counterpart. Its cardinal axiom is fallback position from the pre-eminence originally the utilitarian principle enunciated above: 'The end claimed for the therapeutic applications of embry justifies the means.' And associated with it, virtually onic, as opposed to adult, stem cell research. How as a corollary, is the following creed: 'The ends to be ever, while in theory embryonic stem cells may have pursued at all costs are scientific power and prestige wider clinical application, in practice it would seem and the commercial rewards consequent upon them. there are significant complications and difficulties. It follows, then, that if anything can be done to There are, of course, also difficulties in adult stem realise these ends, it must be done. If this quest cell clinical applications, and unequivocal clinical requires that human life be treated no differently trial results-even in animal models-are yet to be from other animate or inanimate existents, then so established. The argument, then, is that both lines of be it. And finally, in this particular context, whatever research should be pursued until more the consequences, Australian research in the area of definitive results are forthcoming. stem cells must not fall behind overseas research in exploring all possible avenues of scientific and N ow, IF IT COULD be established by independent commercial success.' moral argument-for example, by 'Rolls Royce' and Like all absolutist dogmas, this combination 'Wreckers' discussed above-that there was nothing of axiom and corollaries appeals in its simplic to choose from a moral point of view between embry ity and directness. But also like most dogmas, as I onic and adult stem cell research, then it could be have indicated, it is both flawed and paradoxical. argued that both forms of research should proceed Rather than subscribing to this creed and visiting apace. But while there has never been any moral the final indignity of destructive experimentation objection to adult stem cell research, the moral force on these embryos which we have abstracted from of the arguments for embryonic stem cell research are their proper environment, proliferated, frozen and at best tendentious. The argument from smallness generally commodified, may we not redeem our ('Mini Minor') is not only specious in itself, but is at own humanity by allowing them to succumb with odds with the second argument ('Rolls Royce'), which dignity? • stresses the great potential that embryo-derived stem cells have for curing disease. Arguing from potential, Bill Uren SJ is Hospital Ethicist at Mater Health however, is not an unmixed blessing. On the one Services in Brisbane. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 11 ~ - -- ~ THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC government, which has begun to exhibit persecuted for their involvement in the The long road symptoms of compassion fatigue. Aid fallen Taliban regime. packages and travel grants have proven a Years of devastating drought have home powerful incentive for many families cur undermined Afghanistan's agricultural LETTER FROM AFG HAN ISTAN rently living below subsistence level. In capacity. As a consequence, there are major addition to primary assistance, returnees food-security issues for returning refu have been offered information and coun gees. With much of the country's farming INA MAKESHIFT classroom at the peak selling from refugee assistance agencies. infrastructure rendered useless by con of the day, the children are laughing. The Many now make the cross-border journey. flict or neglect, the need for widespread teacher, Jamila, is mimicking the actions The UNHCR has declared the of an elderly gentleman and the students repatriation process a 'durable scream out in their best English, 'Old man, solution'. old man.' Enthralled by these games of In past years, when repatri words and meaning, the children watch ation levels were substantially attentively until a broken fan brings the lower, the UNHCR facilitated class to a premature halt. Clutching their group repatriations. Families tattered books, they scurry off into the were organised according to dusty afternoon, punching the air with their preferred area of reset phrases and sounds. tlement. In this way, rehabili (/0 For Jamila, the classes form part of a tative services could be better schedule that often encroaches on nights targeted, making sustainable and weekends. As well as the conver economic growth in commu fY~ 11 ') sational English lessons, she conducts nities more likely. In the cur advanced literary classes and offers voca rent enviromnent, however, / 7J / tional training in tailoring and embroidery. emphasis has been on the Constrained by a lack of resources and the process of repatriation. There uncertainties of life inside a refugee camp, has been scant attention paid Jamila nonetheless believes implicitly in 'the self-dependency of Afghans through :~~e~:~::~~:~~~t~~~~~!~itation 1 ~~~ ~ the light of education'. The bleak realities The UNHCR has rightly ~~ of the sprawling Kacha Chari camp do not identified the most vulner- puncture her optimism and hope. able groups for assistance. i~J The prospects for peace under the But their prospects for gain- -~ lN newly formed Karzai government have ful employment remain grim. greatly accelerated the process of repatri Half of the returnees possess ation to Afghanistan. From Peshawar, in no vocational skills. Often the fa bled North-West Frontier Province they have grown dependent (NWFP) of Pakistan, families board over on favourable conditions for burdened trucks on the passage across business-circumstances they tribal lands and onwards through the Khy had to some extent enjoyed ber Pass. Many have not set foot on their through their interaction with native soil since fleeing the brutal Russian the Pakistani economy. Sporadic outbursts rehabilitation is particularly critical, given invasion of 19 79. Instead, they have lived of violence and lingering ethnic tensions Afghanistan's dependence on the agricul in proximate exile, within sight of their have also made conditions for resettlement tural sector. cherished homeland. less than ideal. In response to ongoing eth These uncertainties have led the major The United Nations High Commission nic-based violence in parts of Afghanistan, ity of refugees to settle just over the bor for Refugees (UNHCR) has actively encour Anmesty International and Human Rights der from Afghanistan, in the provinces of aged refugee returns, arguing improved Watch recently called on the UNHCR to N angahar and Kabul. Many refugees are security and better prospects of a sustain cease its promotion of voluntary repatria travelling simply to collect food provi able livelihood inside Afghanistan. The tion. Their concerns are particularly rel sions and cash handouts, distributed at repatriation process has also been hastened evant to refugees in the NWFP, most of various checkpoints inside Afghanistan. by the more forceful policy of the Pakistani whom are ethnic Pashtuns- a group still Consequently, thousands are massed nearthe 12 EUREK A STREET DECEMBER 2002 capital, attempting to eke out an existence until conditions improve. These communi ties are placing an enormous strain on food services: the World Food Program recently announced a huge funding shortfall. Even with the glut of humanitarian agencies currently inside Afghanistan, the risk of archimedes famine is frighteningly real. While the UNHCR has underscored the Carbon queries 1.4 million refugee returnees since March, there has been little analysis of the num A NYONE WHO THOUGHT that tackling global warming would be a straight bers coming back to Pakistan, often under forward matter of tree-planting and energy-efficient technology is in for a rude the protection of people smugglers. These shock. New Scientist recently reported three detailed studies of the activity of 'recyclers' (a term coined by the UNHCR greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If the substance of these is confirmed, to identify returnees illegally seeking sec some of the scientific pillars of the Kyoto Protocol are looking decidedly ondary assistance) are believed to number wobbly. more than one third of all refugees proc essed under the repatriation scheme. The The first results from CarboEurope-a continent-wide program pioneering UNHCR has recently introduced stricter research into where carbon ends up-show that new forests actually release more criteria for eligibility, which has done little carbon into the atmosphere than they absorb for at least the first 10 years, and to ease the burden on the vulnerable refu sometimes forever, depending on the environment. The problem is that clearing gee population. Prospective returnees must land for planting stimulates the soil to release a surge of carbon dioxide (C0 2) from now give an assurance that they will not rotting vegetation into the atmosphere. And contrary to conventional wisdom, return to their country of exile. To ensure old forests accumulate more carbon than young plantations. So it makes sense compliance, families have to destroy their to conserve natural forests, rather than chop them down and replace them. mudbrick homes within the refugee camp But the Kyoto Protocol is based on countries offsetting increased C02 emis as a final, compelling test of their commit sions by planting trees. It even makes it profitable in some cases to tear down ment to a new life in Afghanistan. Women old growth and replace it with new. While there are other benefits of planting must remove their veils to be photo trees, such as decreased erosion and long-term carbon absorption, the terms of graphed, in order to satisfy new standards the Kyoto Protocol might have to be adjusted. of verification. This causes significant dis Meanwhile, the relative worth of petrol and diesel engines is being re tress in a country with strong (and often thought. European countries (except Britain) have been encouraging the more pragmatic) cultural traditions. The initia efficient diesel. But diesel engines pump out soot, which recent research shows tives are apparently designed to strengthen may be vastly more greenhouse-active than C02, because it absorbs heat. A the will of 'genuine' refugees. They also recent American model shows that in the short term it might be better to stick have the potential to jeopardise the legiti with petrol engines-until we switch to a genuinely clean alternative, such as mate rights of individuals to claim asylum hydrogen. in cases of 'genuine' persecution and dep And again, long-haul aircraft fly through the thinner atmosphere at high rivation. altitudes because less fuel is used, pumping out less C02. But high-level flight In logistical terms, the repatriation causes planes to form contrails of water vapour and ice in their wake. These process has been carried out swiftly and are greenhouse-active, trapping heat and reflecting radiation. We are now at the effectively, with no serious disruptions point where the C0 saved by flying high is more than balanced by the increase to the operation. However, in humanitar 2 in contrails-it may soon be better for the environment to fly at a lower altitude ian terms the benefits are harder to judge and emit more C02. and quantify. You could say that the refu Does this mean that Kyoto is all wrong and founded on a fallacy? Well, yes gee problem has been shifted rather than and no. Things are a little more complex in the atmosphere than we thought. solved, and there is now little scope for long-term, integrated development. But global warming is a reality, and the aims of Kyoto and the strategy of get Last week, the Kacha Chari school ting countries to work together on climate change are still the best ways of was demolished. The newspapers carried alleviating the problem. pictures of young children pounding the This experience is typical of the way science works. The initial research re1ru1ants of their homes with sledgeham wasn't wrong-just preliminary. The goal of scientific investigation is not mers, obliterating all signs of their meagre really to provide right or wrong answers, but a model of how the world works, existence. The fate of the children, many so we can predict what's likely to happen. Every new piece of research, success of whom are orphans, is as yet unknown. ful or unsuccessful, refines our working model. The atmosphere works differ As winter approaches, Jamila's optimism is ently from the way we thought, but that doesn't mean that a dramatic decrease beginning to wane. A cold wind blows hard in greenhouse gases is unnecessary. We just have to update our approach. • against the light of education. -Ben Fraser Tim Thwaites is a freelance science writer. DEC EMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 13 Aria for Azaria 1 a e LIND't THE CWER1\ M ANY OF us who lived through the 1980s in Australia still experience twinges of guilt for the relish with which we all followed the case of the disappearance of Down to the bone baby Azaria at Uluru and the subsequent trial-and trials-of her mother, Lindy Chamberlain. It was such a tantalising, enjoyable mystery which, as composer R Eucwus ARTHACTS ARE •lw•ys nowswo 16 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 particularly as slabs of evidence given at interests of vocal balance) is warm-voiced the trial and the final inquiry are sung. and sympathetic. The cast of sixteen Although the rock painting of Kurrpanggu, (including two children as Aidan and Rea YARRA the devil dingo, contributes to a mythic gan) work hard to bring the piece alive. framework, the opera remains firmly The first-night audience gave it an THEOLOGICAL anchored in the world of courtroom drama. enthusiastic reception (particularly for There is no exploration of the relationship Cole and Henderson ) and, before the per UNION between Lindy and husband Michael formance, that other key player in the indeed, there is minimal dialogue between history of the opera, Simone Young, was them-and, while one appreciates the given a standing ovation when she entered reason for this, it points to the essential the theatre. Four performances were sched limitations of Lindy as a piece of operatic uled, at least putting it ahead of Richard storytelling. The sacred presence of Uluru Mills' Batavia which last year had to make is important at the beginning of the opera, do with two. but we lose sight of it as the courtroom Speaking of Lindy Chamberlain drama takes over. Creighton, Henderson concludes her pro Social Justice Studies An essential element in the dram a is gram note with the words 'LINDY LIVES!' 2003 at Diploma, the role of the 'Media Mongrels', repre But what of the opera? Will it live to see sented by a chorus of up to eight singers another day? Is there any chance of it trav- Graduate Diploma and who jeer from the sidelines. The almost jokey nature Master of Arts levels of this commentary is sug gested by the program notes For those with a degree other than that describe the beginning in theology, students can undertake of the trial: 'The Media Mon a Graduate Diploma in Theology grels are all lined up in the specialising in Social Justice. This courtroom. They give Lindy Graduate Diploma, or a degree in heaps.' At another point they cavort around the stage, theology, provides the basis for the obscenely imitating the Master of Arts degree. now-pregnant Lindy. These grotesque interventions Course offerings include may be designed to unsettle • History of Catholi c social movemenrs the audience (according to • Justice and social teaching Henderson, 'there's a little • Christiani ty and economics bit of dingo in all of u s') but, • Can war be just? for m e at least, they lack any sense of sus elling to Melbourne in 2004 or of being • Bibli cal Justice/Reign of God tained m enace; and the libretto as a whole revived in Sydney? Knowing the record of • T heologies of Liberation is so busy that Moya Henderson's music Opera Australia, we should not hold our • Human Rights never quite breaks free of its constraints. breath. • Bioethics Yet Henderson has provided her char But it would be a pity if this were the • Educating for peace and justice acters with very singable vocal lines, and end of it all. According to Deborah Jones Joanna Cole as Lindy rises to the occasion in her review for The Australian, the 1997 with a developing performance that did version of Lindy had three acts, two inter Enrolments close 19 February the work proud. Her clear, authoritative vals and m ore than two-and-a-half hours of 2003. YTU does not offer soprano seem s absolutely right for the part, music. and her characterisation is assured. The Perhaps thought should be given to correspondence courses. opera concludes with Lindy on stage alone, restoring some of that narrative weight to vindicated at last, as she 'walks out of the the opera, to give the music more room to For further information, contact stifling darkness into the light'. grow. If the story of Lindy's em ergence on The Registrar, It may seem appropriate that David to the stage proves anything, it is that an Yarra Theological Union, Hobson's much lighter tenor voice is opera is not made in a day. PO Box 79, overshadowed by Lindy's soprano: while -John Rickard Michael is an essential part of the Azaria Box Hill VIC. 3128. story, the opera gives him little scope for This month's contributors: Ben Fraser Phone: (03) 9890 3771; character development. Barry Ryan is suit works with Australian Volunteers Inter Fax: (03) 9890-1160 ably hostile as the prosecuting counsel, and national and is currently based in Kabul, Email: [email protected] Elizabeth Campbell as the defence counsel Afghanistan; John Rickard is an honorary Web: http:/www.rc.net/ytu (a bit of gender reallocation here in the professorial fellow at Monash University. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 17 THE NATION:l e an M OST AuSTRAUANS bcHcvc thcce is a cdmt minimum-security cell comes in at about $30,000 per wave in this country. We have been manipulated by annum, a top-security cell at $120,000. Nationally, the headlines of tabloid newspapers, the shock tactics the recurrent expenditure on corrective services of talkback radio hosts, and the false advertising and totalled $1.5 billion for 2000-2001, with $1.3 billion posturing of political parties anxious to achieve or being spent annually on the operation of the country's maintain power. The result is that many Australians 96 prisons. Such costs do not reflect the quality of now think there is only one way to deal with offend the accommodation, but rather the costs of security ers: lock them up and throw away the key. installations, including wages of prison officer . The pre-election debate about crime and punish It is also clear from the most reliable sources that ment in Victoria mirrored closely what has happened there has not been a significant increase in serious in recent years in State election campaigns all around crime across Australia, despite repeated assertions Australia. Political leaders, supported by popular to the contrary, and the presentation of misleading commentators, have suggested that crime has risen figures by groups who have a clear partisan agenda. dramatically and that criminal sanctions are not Certainly there has been no increase commensurate tough enough. with the 52 per cent increase in the national prison There is little room in this popular debate for reasoned argument, accurate knowledge or reliable statistical information. Everyone is an expert in the field, and few bother to look at the facts. Crime and imprisonment rates population recorded during the last decade. Already there has been a dramatic increase in the It is instructive to note that the majority (52 per national adult imprisonment rate, according to the cent) of those imprisoned in Australia today have Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the most reli not been convicted of a violent offence (ABS 4517.0, able source of data available on this area. 'Prisoners in Australia', June 2001). In the decade from 1999 to 2000, there was a 32 Nationally, there has been a significant increase per cent increase in the rate of imprisonment-from in assaults, but this increase reflects the increasing 112 to 148 per 100,000 of the adult population. This rate of reporting of incidents of domestic violence represented an increase of 52 per cent in the total and sexual assault in recent years. Indications are prison population-from 14,305 in 1990 to 21,714 that it is not the offences that have increased, but in the year 2000 (ABS 4517.0, 'Prisoners in Australia' rather the preparedness of victims to report them to June 2001 ). This rate of increase has been sustained the authorities. over the last two years. Most Australians would be amazed to learn that Within the national prison population, there there has not been a significant increase in the homi is a shocking over-representation of disadvantaged cide rate in Australia for over 100 years (ABS 4510.0, minority groups, including Indigenous people. Cur 'Recorded Crime, Australia', May 2002). In 1915, the rently Indigenous Australians make up 20 per cent homicide rate was 1.8 per 100,000. In 1998 it was 1.6 of our total prison population. That amounts to an per 100,000. During the intervening years, it hit a low imprisonment rate 15 times the non-Indigenous of 0.8 during 1941, and a high of 2.4 in 1988 ('Crime rate (ABS 4512.0, 'Corrective Services, Australia', and Justice', Adam Graycar, Year Book Australia, September 2001). 2001). The cost of imprisonment continues to increase Small increases in the last few years in the homi year by year, as does the cost of every form of institu cide rate are explained by the increase in charges of tional care or residential service. Imprisonment costs attempted murder and culpable driving resulting in vary according to the level of security of the facility-a death. Between 1993 and 2001, while the number 18 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 • unts Austra lia should move from retributive justice to restorative justice, argues Peter Norden. of victims of murder increased slightly- from 296 and practical, useful outcomes from government to 306-there was a slight decrease in the rate per services in almost every area of civil society 100,000 of the population-from 1. 7 to 1.6 victims except the prison system. (ABS 4510.0, 'Recorded Crime, Australia', May It is not possible to have such dramatic and 2002). costly increases in the use of imprisonment over a In some areas serious criminal activity has decade and still maintain other essential community increased. Robberies more than doubled between services, particularly in the areas of health, education 1993 and 2001. This increase, and the higher rates and welfare. in crimes such as theft from motor vehicles, can It is about time we left behind our penal heritage, be clearly linked to the increased use of illegal sub with its focus on retribution through punishment, and stances during the last 10 years. raised our expectations of the correctional services in the various States and Territories of Australia. Value for m oney! Recently, the US Department of Justice released The question to be asked of the State and Territory figures that indicated that the current American Governments around Australia is this: if there has prison population had reached a total of 2.1 million . ' 'L,~· C1.-- not been a proportionate increase in serious crime citizens. More than four times that number were in the last decade, why should the Australian com on some other form of supervisory order within the munity be prepared to pay for a 52 per cent increase community. The highest rate of imprisonment was in the prison population, at an average annual cost of in the State of Louisiana-SOD for every 100,000 around $50,000 per person? citizens-indicating that one in every 125 citizens It appears that the majority of those incarcerated was in prison at any one time. At the recent national have at least one previous period of imprisonment. conference of Catholic Charities USA, held in Of those prisoners who were serving a sentence when Chicago, one of the papers documented a disturb the 2000 Australian Prison Census was taken, 56 ing development: the Louisiana Department of per cent had previously served a prison sentence. For Corrections has begun using the reading score of Aboriginal prisoners, the proportion was 76 per cent grade five and six students in public schools to pre (ABS 4517.0, 'Prisoners in Australia', June 2001 ). dict the growth in the number of prison cells needing So what the ordinary taxpayers should be asking to be constructed in 10 years' time. their State and Territory Governments is this: if our Citizens in Louisiana might be prepared to sup correctional system is so disappointing in terms of port expansionary prison policies rather than invest deterrence, and if the vast majority of those sent to in the future prospects of primary-school children, prison reoffend fo llowing their release, why as a com but are Australian citizens going to be led into such munity are we spending an increasing percentage of misguided social policy? Are they ready to be manip the government dollar on constructing and operating ulated by vested interests, including the private new prisons? Why do we not, as a community, exam prison industry? ine the effectiveness of our prison systems to ensure At the moment Victoria, for example, has the that we are getting the required results? If we saw highest rate of private prison cells of any jurisdic equivalent poor results in the education or health tion in the world, with more than 40 per cent being systems, we would demand a better deal. Austral operated by private interests, largely owned by ian people, it seems, want value for their money, shareholders in the United States. If there were any DECEMB ER 2002 EU RE KA STR EET 19 place in the world where private prison firms might the criminal justice system, and the prison system in be prepared to lobby governments and media outlets particular, has changed. The ideal of treatment and for an expansionary prison policy, it would be the rehabilitation has lost much of its public support, State of Victoria. displaced by an increased emphasis on punitive sanc tions. Public debate about crime and punishment has Incarceration of the mentally ill taken on a strong emotive tone. Compassion for the The National Survey of Mental Health and Well needs of the less fortunate has been replaced by an Being, conducted by the ABS in 1997, found that almost exclusive concern for the needs of the victim almost one in five Australians aged 18 years or more and a determination to punish the offender. met criteria for a mental disorder at some time dur The new emphasis on victims' rights (itself a ing the 12 months prior to the survey. It also found reaction to neglect) and the growing sense of personal that only 38 per cent of people with a mental disorder fear and insecurity has led to such draconian legisla had used health services. These results suggest a large tion as indeterminate sentencing, even for juvenile and unmet need for mental health services. Among offenders. In the United States we have seen the re this group, young Australians are the most highly emergence of such punitive m easures as the death represented. • penalty, chain gangs and corporal punishment, and in Throughout Australia today, those with a mental Britain, the publicly available paedophile register and illness compounded by a problem of substance mis the requirement that those doing community service use are usually excluded from treatment when they wear uniforms and undertake demeaning labour. finally approach either a mental health service or a Not only has crime policy taken on an emotional drug treatment unit. Mental health services say that tone, it has also now become highly politicised. The they cannot deal with the substance use; drug serv earlier bipartisan political approach has disappeared, ices explain that they are not equipped to deal with and opportunistic political leaders now engage in a the symptoms of mental illness. In consequence, populist debate that does not recognise the need to many young Australians are now the victims of what refer to statistics, costs or actual outcomes. Expert is called 'ping-pong therapy'-because our existing and professional opinion is now relegated to a lower health services do not have the capacity to respond place on the scale of influence, behind so-called 'pub in an effective way. lic opinion', as expressed on talkback radio shows Policy makers at all levels of government have and in newspaper vote lines. many reasons to be concerned about young peo In such a social climate, intensified by the events ple with such a dual disability. They are at risk of of September 11, fears and insecurities, particularly of becoming homeless and of being incarcerated within the elderly (who are always the least likely to become criminal justice institutions. Once within those the victims of crime), can be orchestrated into a perpet institutions, their condition is rarely diagnosed, and ual state of anxiety and a false sense of public crisis. only a very small percentage ever receives any drug treatment or behaviour-change therapy. Restorative justice Recent comparative studies of mental health The issue of crime and punishment occupied the expenditure found that Australia spends about half mind of society long before Dostoyevsky wrote the amount that equivalent Western countries spend. his famous novel. Australians have continued this Poor community mental health services inevitably debate, sometimes basing their reflections on knowl lead to an increase in self-medication by a grow edge and experience, guided by statistical research ing number of young Australians. The consequent and information. But increasingly, their responses are increase in illegal substance use in turn leads to a based in raw emotion following the publicity given to rapid inflation of the prison populations in all States a notorious crime. and Territories of Australia (NSW Parliamentary The call for increased police numbers and harsh Inquiry into Mental Health Services, Sydney 2002). penalties does not appear to be moderated by the fact Much of the recent dramatic increase in the Aus that such approaches have little impact on crime. tralian prison population can be explained by recog Twenty years ago in New Zealand, the sentence of nising this nexus between untreated mental health corrective training was introduced to take the place needs, subsequent illegal use of drugs as a form of of borstal and other forms of youth prison. It was self-medication, and the eventual intervention by designed as an alternative to longer-term impris instrumentalities of the criminal justice system. onment, a 'short, sharp shock' for young offenders Imprisonment is much more expensive than between the ages of 16 and 19. It was a style of boot community mental health care, and-more impor camp in which young criminals were pulled out of tantly-it is less effective. their beds at an early hour, worked hard, and at the end of the three months were automatically released. Public preoccupation with punishment It emphasised discipline, health and fitness. There has been a significant shift in the public psyche The Justice Department evaluated this form of in recent years. Public understanding of the role of sentencing in 1983 and found that 7l per cent of the 20 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 trainees were re-convicted within a year of release community who could be regarded as stakeholders (R estore, N o 21, Christchurch, N ew Zealand). A fo llowing the report of a criminal offence. fiv e-year fo llow-up study in 1997 fo und that, of all Restorative justice seeks personal accountabil persons convicted in 1988, 92 per cent had reoffended. ity, notable by its absence in our present criminal One would expect that findings of this nature would justice system . It also seeks to create opportunities convince people that prison of this kind does not work. fo r better human interaction, and for the healing of Equally, increasing police numbers will not auto wounds, especially the wounds of victims, who often m atically reduce the crime rate. Dr Don Weatherburn, feel unrecognised and unsupported in our existing the Director of the N ew South Wales Bureau of structures. Crime and Statistics, was quoted in The A ustralian, Restorative justice m akes reparation, rather than 30 September 2002, as saying: 'Police can't control punishment, a central concern. Where it is being the rise in child neglect and abuse, the growth in implem ented, restorative justice has brought about long- term unemploym ent, the fall in school reten a reduction in the rate of offending and in prison tion rates, the grow th in portable consumer goods or numbers. the spatial concentration of poverty. Yet, there's good How refreshing it would be to discover an Austral reason to believe all of these factors are contributing ian politician with responsibility for shaping criminal significantly to Australia's crime problem s. ' (S ee also justice policy, who was also committed to implement 'Unequal In Life: the Distribution of Social Disadvan ing reform that incorporated restorative justice princi tage in Victoria and N ew South Wales', Jesuit Social ples. Restorative justice is a positive approach to the Services, 1999.) complex issue of crime and punishment and it could There is another approach that the Australian enhance the quality of life of all Australian citizens. • community and our political leaders could take. It is called 'restorative justice'. Peter Norden SJ is the policy director of Jesuit Social Restorative justice is concerned with bringing Services (JSS) and the convenor of the Victorian about reconciliation and healing and ensuring that Criminal Justice Coalition . the views of all parties are heard. It seeks the views *Fo r m ore info rmation see 'Heroin Use as a Form of Self of the victim, the offender, and other members of the Medica tion ', on the [SS website: www.jss.org.au TH E W O RLD SARA H LO W E ""T""' Contemporary myths and working w ith women .1. HE wo MEN's soNG is almost deafening, echo- goldmines to the rest of the continent. It is a conduit ing off the concrete walls. 'This AIDS is killing, ' they for workers, goods and- like highways everywhere- sing as they file in from the dusty yard, 'but together sexually transmitted disease. we can make a change.' Many people here survive by working as farm More than 40 women press into the tiny hall, labourers, but the wages are low and the work sea- lining the walls three deep. They are resplendent in sonal. A lot of men work in the mines or other red pleated skirts and white T-shirts that proclaim industries around Johannesburg, and return home 'Community against AIDS'. The singing shifts into just once a year. Under apartheid, Thoyandou was prayer, call-and-response style, before stopping the administrative capital of the Venda homeland. abruptly for the reports to begin. Women step to the There were m any m ore Afrikaners here then, living front, holding up butcher's paper that records their in the pleasant suburbs that ring the busy town cen- week's work: the number of AIDS patients cared tre. These days there are few white faces, and usually for, the number of clinics and townships visited, the they belong to farmers who are holding on grimly to number of condoms distributed. Then the women their acreage. Most other Afrikaners m oved to Pie- pack into a minibus hired for the occasion. We follow tersburg or Jo'burg- or left South Africa altogether, to a nearby township to see them in action . often for Australia-som e time in the past decade. We are in the Thoyandou valley, in Limpopo Their former hom es and overgrown gardens are now province, South Africa. Just north of these blue hills occupied by the sm all Venda middle class, and by lies the Zimbabwe border, and through them cuts non-government organisations like the Centre for the main highway linking South Africa's lucrative Positive Care (CPC) . DECEMBER 2002 EU REK A STR EET 21 It is CPC's coordinator, Mashudu Madadzhe, one family member to AIDS. In the cities every sec who now steers the four-wheel drive ute around ond billboard seems to feature Nelson Mandela urg curves in the dusty red road. As she drives, she talks ing parents to talk to their kids about AIDS. But the about these women, her peer education team, most disease itself is complex. You can have it for years, of whom were once sex workers. Sex work, she and never be sick. You can pass it on to someone else explains, has long been accepted as part of the local in several ways, and they may sicken and die while culture. It is one of the few options for poor women you remain healthy. There is not just one way to die during high unemployment. It is also a major factor of AIDS; the most common AIDS-related causes of in the spread of AIDS. Labour migration is another death here are tuberculosis and pneumonia. fac tor, Mashudu says, because men will often have Understanding HIV I AIDS requires a basic-level other partners in the city. understanding of germ theory, viruses, the autoim When I ask why CPC deliberately recruits sex mune system, blood-to-blood and mother-to-child workers, Mashudu's answer is surprising. 'I think sex transmission, safer sex and drug use and more. In workers are the most powerful women in any com areas like Thoyandou, literacy levels are low, basic munity-the way they negotiate. They don't mind health services and information are in short supply, going to the bars to talk to men. When you build their and there are strong cultural beliefs about the spir morale, you will see they are very strong women.' itual dimensions of illness. So it is unsurprising that The program insists that if peer educators want many remain ignorant about the epidemic decimat to help spread the message about safer sex, they need ing their communities. There is also a strong streak to lead by example. 'When we started, we were not of resistance to the science of HIV I AIDS here, and to even allowed to enter people's homes,' Mashudu drugs like anti-retrovirals, which are not only beyond says. 'We targeted bus stops, shops and workplaces. the economic reach of most Africans, but seen by We'd do street theatre, and people would come.' some as too 'Western'- Every week there is a new Now, she says, the peer educators are women of high traditional healer, or witch doctor, in the local news, status in their communities, and people clamour for claiming to have found a miracle cure. South African them to visit their homes. President Thabo Mbeki has only just began moving f; -)"ft 'fQ gl JJ >h ~.1 5I t: jiJC to ulq -5n_.i:H~c 5rb .wp' Jd C' • ~6 3rl1 ~t· ~b I ms 'lH j 32' '1,Q:J_ 'lO~.hi '(II' ~III ,2::.JIJ11l:J£ .f3IIrrt r \q r,. •• 0 LJG ~ Ira,~~~ ,5:J! 2- uhf~5v, 15n )b 3 rwr ' We arrive in the township-a grid of steep, rocky away from a stated policy position that it is poverty streets lined with identical two-room brick houses, rather than HIV that causes AIDS. each with a tap out front and a pit toilet behind. The When I ask Mashudu about the impact of women pile out, singing already, and a crowd soon Mbeki's position, she grimaces. 'It is so frustrating. builds. The melodies are church songs and freedom It does our work so much damage, because of course songs from the anti-apartheid era, adapted for a safer people believe what the President says.' sex message. 'Condomise, condomise,' they sing-a It is certainly true that the epidemic is caused new verb to me, but the meaning seems clear to their partly by poverty, she says. Poverty, unemploy audience. Some of the women pull on trousers and ment, gender inequality, illiteracy: all these things hats, others flowery dresses, to act out a play explor make people much more vulnerable. AIDS in turn ing issues including alcohol abuse, domestic violence increases people's poverty, because unlike other epi and HIVIAIDS. demics, this one hits the most economically-active The basic facts about HIV I AIDS in South Africa members of a community first. Infection levels peak are shocking: around one in five adults lives with the in the 15 to 45 age group; in other words, those who virus; the number rises to one in three in the worst grow the food, work in the mines, or care for the chil hit areas. After the dislocation, poverty and brutal dren. It has a particular impact on women, who do ity of the apartheid years has come this devastating most of the care for the sick, even when epidemic, the full force of which is yet to hit. South they are sick themselves. Africa has the world's highest number of HIV-posi tive people, but the lag between acquiring the virus L ILLIAN TIPS HER FACE to the sky as she talks about and getting sick, plus the lack of testing or treatment the most painful times. 'I was feeling miserable,' she facilities, means that many people do not recognise says. 'I didn't know how I could find life.' Her hus their HIV status. And despite the growing number band was working in Johannesburg, far from their of deaths-people here speak of weekly funerals tiny rural village outside Thoyandou. She travelled to silence, denial and stigma persist, depriving people of see him when his visits back home became less and the support of their communities and families. less frequent, and found that he had another partner The persistence of denial seems extraordinary and child in the city. The child had recently died of when every person here is likely to have lost at least AIDS, so he made Lillian take the test. When she told 22 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 him the result, he went to his girlfriend, leaving Lil of power to negotiate safer sex, and cultural factors, lian alone. 'I couldn't take it,' she says. 'I took all the like the accepted practice of men having multiple sleeping pills, I didn't care how much. When I woke sexual partners. One organisation is tackling the gen up, I was feeling so sick.' der dimension of the epidemic from the other side by That was almost four years ago. Lillian returned working to change men's attitudes and behaviour. to her mud-walled house overlooking the valley, and Targeted AIDS Interventions (TAl) began work to her four children, now aged 14, 11, 9 and 5. She's ing in KwaZulu Natal with young women, aiming to seen her husband twice since, but he rarely sends empower them in their relationships with men. But money. 'What can I say?' she asks. 'I'm just living it soon became apparent to TAl founder, Gethewana my life. I can't say I'm looking after myself, because Makhaye, that if heterosexual relationships were to sometimes I don't have the right food, like vegeta change, men needed to help make it happen. TAl set bles. Most of all I make sure that I never get a head up an innovative program with the National Football ache [one sign of AIDS-related illness]. If I do, I go Association, working through soccer clubs to involve straight to the clinic.' young men in AIDS prevention. South Africa is a Lillian's life changed when she confided her soccer-mad nation, as I discovered when travelling troubles to a woman at her church two years ago. there during the World Cup. Young men who excel The woman worked for a local AIDS organisation at soccer are respected by their communities, so they called TVAAP, or Tivoleni. She invited Lillian to a are ideal recruits for peer education. workshop, where Lillian met Mama Cecelia for the Jerome, 17, has high hopes of playing for South first tim e. Lillian was very thin and sick. 'She has Africa in the next World Cup final. Meanwhile, he's no mother and father,' says Mama Cecelia. 'She was involved in theatre work and workshops at district thinking about who will look after her children when soccer matches, helping spread the word about she dies. Her husband is giving no support, and the behaviour change. m other-in-law the sam e.' Mama Cecelia is a gener The program was recently extended into schools ous wom an . In addition to giving counsel, Mam a on the outskirts of Durban, to boys like Andile, 15, Cecelia helps Lillian carry water, wash and cook, a student at Telelegau Primary School. As Andile ~ ·~ J _...... - ::r --- f te~ 1g C~ - ~ )tit .::> bE een 'lUil .) thf' ..lS .sett-ing plu 1e 1. , :acil;t-;Pc me th< 11y peo· JT ~co~r~~3e t ... HI' atu 1 de ~ the gr~.. lUll f de .S- lie· ak vvef', r Tlerc.. -s 1ce. aenj::~l '>tlgma r- and buys food with her own m oney when there is explains, the program helps participants to identify nothing to feed the children. their hopes for the future, and to learn about HIV I Tivoleni's support has changed Lillian's attitude AIDS as one of the obstacles that m ay stand in their to living with HIV I AIDS. 'At first I couldn't even talk way. With infec tion rates in KwaZulu N atal province about it,' she says, 'even when people said "look at at almost one in three- the highest in South Africa those people who are HIV-positive: it's because they it seem s likely that AIDS will steal the future of run around". But now I argue with them .' Lillian has many of Andile's classmates. told just a few fri ends of her HIV status, fearing dis In traditional Zulu culture, sex is not openly crimination against both her kids and herself. 'I live discussed, especially between young people and for my children,' she says, even if I have a bad day, adults. Andile: 'At hom e, if you talk about sex, it's they just make m e smile. ' like "shhhh", it's som ething scary. But now, even on Across Southern Africa, AIDS is leaving increas TV the president is emphasising that parents should ing numbers of children to fend for them selves. There speak to their kids about this killer disease, they are predictions of one million South African AIDS should give information to their kids. They must not orphans by 2005. When I ask Mama Cecelia about run away from this now.' the likely future of Lillian's children, it becom es Andile says that there are a lot of myths in his clear how few resources there are, even in the region's community about HIVIAIDS, but because there are wealthiest country. 'We shall pray to God to take care increasing numbers of deaths, people are finally learn of her children,' she says, 'but I'm not guaranteeing ing m ore about the disease. Students at his school are we can, because we have nothing.' asking him m ore questions. 'Kids feel that this thing There are many HIVIAIDS organisations in is killing,' he says. 'But they also think that we must South Africa. Some provide hom e-based care for not discriminate against people who are HIV-positive. AIDS-sick people, som e do prevention work on the Maybe someday it will be your m other or fa ther-' • street, others fight for the rights of people living with the virus. Many, like CPC and Tivoleni, fo cus prima Sarah Lowe is a writer and editor for Oxfam Com rily on working with wom en, because wom en are the munity Aid Abroad. CPC, Tivoleni and TAl are sup most vulnerable to the disease. They are aff ected by ported by Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, part of an poverty, isolation, domestic and sexual violence, lack Oxfam program tackling HIVIAIDS in South Africa. DECEMB ER 2002 EU RE KA STREET 23 THE LAW MOI RA RAYNER Law v Law When fundamental human rights and immigration decisions collide B , CAU>e AmTRAUA h>' no human because it was certainly not in the best sympathy, but inexorably, he ruled in rights act there is no way to challenge the interests of her baby to be deprived per favour of DIMIA. legitimacy of laws that are intended to be manently of his natural mother. DIMIA's The Migration Act is a clear, detailed cruel. argument was that the Family Court did code for the efficient removal of unsuccess Take the instance of a Family Court not have the power to make orders-even ful migration applicants from Australia. order, made in Sydney on lO October in a 'child's best interests'-that would Had the mother's argument succeeded, 2002, that allowed a baby to lose his effectively prevent DIMIA officers from it would have significantly undermined a mother, the mother to be deported, and carrying out a positive duty under the consciously heartless scheme. migration laws that were designed to Migration Act 1958. Chisholm's judgment is larded with protect our sovereignty to triumph over According to the United Nations signs that the case could have been run laws designed to protect the best interests Convention on the Rights of the Child another way. He seems repeatedly to have of Australian children. (UNCRC), children are entitled not to reframed the mother's arguments and The parties were 'Alexandrine be separated from their parents without pleadings to put her case in the best light. Nevsky' and 'Damien Scott' (false names their (the child's] consent, and then only He lamented not being directed to even to preserve their identity), and one Australian case which would the Secretary of the Department have allowed a 'child's best interests' of Immigration and Multicultural to override deportation decisions. He and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). himself was aware of 40 years' worth Justice Richard Chisholm was the of English cases that had gone the unlucky Family Court Solomon, other way (not to mention European come to judgment. jurisprudence ). It did not help. The The mother was a Russian asy worst result possible was arrived at. lum seeker who had tried and failed Had the woman had a visa, the to persuade Australia that she had court would have taken a very differ a well-founded fear of persecution. ent approach. If she had to go back to Russia she Just four weeks earlier, the High would, she claimed, be murdered, Court had ruled on whether it was an having already been threatened, unacceptable infringement of a moth assaulted and raped there, with er's rights of m ovement to restrain what she claimed was official her from taking her child back to connivance, because she witnessed her native land- in this case, India. a crime. She was detained in In U v U, the Indian-born mother's Villawood detention centre and was await if it is in the child's best interests. But wish, when her marriage broke down, to ing repatriation, 'as soon as reasonably under common law interpretative tradi take her eight-year-old daughter 'home' practicable'. tions, a child's internationally guaran to Mumbai where her family and social Her baby, conceived and born in Aus teed rights do not come into play unless supports were, was denied. The grounds: tralia, is nine months old. His Austral they are part of an Australian law, or that the child's best interests required that ian-born father was caring for him and there is some ambiguity or loophole that she stay in Sydney so that the father could bringing him in to visit the mother three the UNCRC would m ake clear. Justice have frequent access. times a week. She wanted more access, Chisholm had to sort out what Parliament The mother had argued that this and also asked for an order preventing m eant when it made the 'best interests of breached her human rights under the immigration authorities from removing the child' the paramount consideration International Covenant on Civil and her from Australia, arguing that it was not under the Family Law Act, but not even Political Rights. The majority of the High 'reasonably practicable' to send her away, relevant to a Migration Act decision. With Court dismissed that argument saying 24 EUREKA ST RE ET DECEMBER 2002 that '[A] right of freedom of mobility of a parent ... must defer to the expressed par amount consideration, the welfare of the child if that were to be adversely affected by a movement of a parent.' Even so, two judges disagreed: soon-to retire Justice Gaudron and Justice Michael Dead end Kirby. Kirby said that the best interests of the child are the paramount, not the sole consideration, and that '[T]he economic, cultural and psychological welfare of the THE STORY of a poo' man. I will call him MichaeL I knew him only parents is also to be considered, because T .s .s posthumously. His story emerged during a committal hearing involving two they are human beings and citizens too men charged with murdering him. Murder cases are solemn and melancholy and because it is accepted that their wel affairs, but this was unusually desolating. If you are a celebrity, half the journal fare impacts upon the welfare of the child.' ists in town will cover your minor driving case, but this was a case to which no Both dissenting judges emphasised the gendered discrimination against mothers one came. hidden behind the 'best interests of the I don't know anything about Michael's early life. In court we explored only child' argument. The mother will his last few weeks. He was a homeless man with an intellectual disability and stay unwillingly in Australia. he suffered from alcoholism. It seems that he had been 'adopted' by, or had attached himself to the two men, also alcoholics, who were charged with his murder. They lived in a block of Housing Commission flats and occasionally A USTRALIA'S FOUNDING fathers deci ded not to create a bill of rights in the allowed Michael to sleep there, sometimes in their rooms but often only in the new Constitution but to leave their pro communal laundry where the dogs lived. tection to the common law. The common There was evidence that Michael gave the accused men control over his law tradition leaves it to judges to 'find' pension moneys in return for their 'hospitality'-some food and flagons of or develop the law when old rules or wine. At first, the relationship between the various parties was friendly. After a statutes have to be applied to novel time, however, it became abusive, probably because Michael was a petty thief. situations, deciding 'what Parliament And 'petty' is precisely what I mean-the evidence was that his friends had meant'-when Parliament clearly hadn't accused him of stealing part of a loaf of bread and about a dollar in change. meant much at all. The retribution for these misdemeanours was severe. Several witnesses Parliament wished to protect our gave evidence of seeing Michael being battered with fists, iron bars and wooden borders and enacted a comprehensive code broom handles over a three-week period before his death. An autopsy revealed to do so. Quite separately it also acted to that he had suffered multiple wounds to the head, some of which had become protect the 'best interests' of Australian gangrenous. To complicate matters, he had also been suffering from a massive children when family relationships break chest infection. The forensic pathologist's opinion was that he had died from down. But Parliament did not anticipate sepsis-blood-poisoning, which had overwhelmed his immune system. In his the probability that the one regime could opinion, the sepsis had been caused by the introduction of various dangerous affect the implementation of the other, bacteria through the head wounds and into the bloodstream. The bacteria had and judges have different approaches then colonised his lungs. to how the law 'is' or should be found. To prove a murder the Crown must show that a person has died and that Because we have no national overview of the accused attacked him or her either intending to cause grievous harm or the rights of children, they are scrappily death, or with reckless indifference to human life. In this case, there were two protected by a patchwork of laws in eight legal points to resolve: had the accused caused Michael's death? And had they jurisdictions that deal with family and attacked him intending to cause him grievous bodily harm or death, or with criminal law, equity, child protection and fa1nily violence regimes. Even the federal reckless indifference to whether or not he died? On the pathologist's evidence judiciary cannot agree on what a child's I thought that causation could be proved. I was also satisfied that battering rights mean, without an international someone on the head with bars and broomsticks was sufficient to persuade yardstick. a jury of an intention to inflict grievous harm. I committed the two to the If Justice Chisholm had been Solomon Supreme Court for trial. he could have made the right decision Postscript: Before trial, the defence obtained further scientific evidence about the care of a nine-month-old baby from a microbiologist. His opinion-that the organism that killed Michael by testing the relative selflessness of those was very unlikely to have migrated from the head wounds-contradicted the who claimed her custody. pathologist's opinion. The Director of Public Prosecutions withdrew the mur In modern Australia, this is not a der charges. The accu ed pleaded guilty to eriou assault charges. Michael justiciable principle. • died, it seems, of neglect and the accumulated disadvantages of poverty. Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer. Seamus O'Shaughnessy is a Sydney magistrate. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 25 Huli-doolall y I KNOWn SOUNDS ODD •nd I'll t 26 EU REKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 PROFILE KRISTIE DUNN & ALEX McDERMOTT Sti I Life a conversation with Don Watson The historian, sat1nst, speech-writer and author talks to Eureka Street about myths, contradictions and life after political death. I N DoN WATSON's HOUse thm is a bunch of mange calendula mmmed into a white teapot on the coffee table. Next to it, a pile of books. There are more piles on the mantelpiece and the other three coffee tables; on the shelves that line the walls, books lie stacked in front of the upright rows. Among them are his wife's most recent (Hilary McPhee's Other People's Words) and Watson's own Keating tome, the cover of which is a respectful maroon, the lettering on its spine gold embossed, misleading in its suggestion of a heavy, humourless political biography. They are there, it seems, like the others-to be picked up and dipped into, facts checked, phrases remembered, then put aside again, back into the pile. We set up a couple of tape recorders, notes and, as it happens, Watson's first book, Brian Fitzpatrick: A Radical Life. It is a study of the radical liber tarian, historian, journalist, scholar and drinker, published in 1978 and dedi cated to Watson's parents. The cover is a flush and revolutionary red. Watson stands a little adrift in the middle of the room, looking down at the Fitzpatrick cover, as though it were Banquo's ghost. 'My God, what are you going to do to me?' he intones gravely. It's hard to know whether he's serious or mock ing and, if the latter, whether the mockery is reserved chiefly for him or for us. Then he sits down on a large sofa as we continue to set up, and looks at the painting opposite, a 6' x 4' Jan Senbergs oil that hangs above the orange DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STR EET 27 flowers. It shows enormous hillsides swelling up like yourself to examine what you think to stave off men bulbous growths, a road disappearing into them, the tal rigor mortis. You sit somewhere between this state ocean to the left, rendered chiefly in greys and black. and the equally soft and unhappy option of right-wing The painting catches that ghost light you get at dusk, fogeydom. Both sides chorus away and you're forever in winter, with clouds massing overhead, the ocean in danger of submitting to one of them, not because brooding and night fast closing in. their sounds seduce, but because you want an easy Outside of the painting we are in midday light life and hope to silence them .. . so you really do, you in the heart of Fitzroy, just off Melbourne's Bruns look around for someone who's got a different view.' wick Street. The room is very still. When Watson And after almost three hours of being in the con finishes a sentence and pauses to think, it is quite, versational car we're taking the bends with gusto, quite silent. At first he speaks quietly, slowly, listing talking about who you want to win the football the achievements of the Keating government: 'It was tomorrow, about what going to the football was like the story of a virtuous government doing what was 20, 30 years ago (you drank beer and stood on the tins required by necessity for the good of the country for for the view, back when tins were tins and not alu the long term.' His tone is weary. Why is he telling us minium). Then he kicks us out because he's about to this? Why are we asking him about it? Will Colling drop from hunger, poor bugger. And we leave, walking wood win tomorrow? Imponderables, imponderables. down the middle of the street in broad mid-afternoon He is giving us a retrospective version of those sorts light, wondering how you turn 15,000 words of this of 'annual report' speeches that he will bemoan later man's conversation into 3000 words of in the conversation and which are so beloved of article. Imponderables, imponderables. many State governments: we spent this much on this and this much on that; we were growing Australia D ON WATSON's CV should be distributed to together. angst-ridden 15-year-olds as an example of how very We ask him about history, about Paul Keating varied life's course can be. And to angst-ridden 20-, and Don Quixote, about the visceral side of politics 30- and 40-year-olds for that matter. Childhood on a and human life, and gradually, like an old car that dairy farm in Poowong, Gippsland. (Poowong, now begins to remember its love for the road, he warms that you've asked, means carrion, or putrefaction, up and starts to purr. He gets going, engages the gears, in the local Aboriginal language, at least according and the words start to fly. No matter how quick they to a highly reputable tourism website. Someone got the last laugh there.) Undergraduate degree at LaTrobe, back when it was young, treeless and 'Some of us know that it's not enough to be perfectly well funded. Honours there, and a PhD thesis at comfortable and relaxed. It's just not enough. You need Monash. Taught history for ten years at Monash and Melbourne Universities and at Footscray to connect to something else in this world. It is not Institute of Technology. Then the Fitzpatrick book in 1978, and in 1984 two books-one for enough to build [your life] around an ironing board children, The Story of Australia, and one for grown-ups, Caledonia Australis: Scottish High and a kitchen table and watching your shares go up landers on the Frontier of Australia. Plus the writing of consistently wicked satire for The and down. I confess, it doesn't satisfy me.' Gillies Report in the '80s, co-writing Manning Clark's History of Australia: a musical that pre come the words have flow, no matter how rapid-fire miered (and flopped) in 1988, speeches for Premier the rain of ideas they come out well-measured, just John Cain, and speeches for Paul Keating PM from so. Then he starts asking us questions. 'What gen 1992- 1996. Poowong boy makes good. eration are you?' he wants to know, squinting quiz Caledonia Austwlis is not just about the set zically. 'X?' What do we think? 'I am actually sick tlement of Gippsland by Watson's Highland ances of the boomers. I am sick of my own generation,' he tors, and how they visited upon the Kurnai people tells us. Not the people, but the received wisdom. a destruction of similar or greater magnitude to the 'We've got people coming to dinner tonight and I one that had been wrought on their own Celtic ances know that everyone will take exactly the same view tors by the British; it's about the making of a frontier and I'll end up doing imitations of John Carroll again, society. 'Because I grew up there, it became terribly try to sound as right-wing as I possibly can, just to interesting [to me] how a sense of normality and a irritate them. But all you need to say is, "Well, you story of history was created,' he says. 'And when you know, there is a case for bombing Iraq" and they just dig a little bit you find under the surface all sorts of go ... ' [facial pantomime of inchoate shock and moral people wandering around with contrary views.' Later outrage]. What Watson is describing, he says later, is he goes on to say, 'A world without contradiction essentially a scrap with oneself: 'You reach an age, or and paradox is tedious. The essence of life is para your generation does, when you must keep forcing doxical.' Little wonder then, that he describes as 'the 28 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 wonderful, most self-indulgent quote of all time' Walt speak to us, and that conceal the people, the doubts Whitman's line, which he paraphrases thus: 'Do I and the contradictions. And the myths, he maintains, dare contradict myself? So-l am multitudes.' keep the people from him. His project in Caledonia Studying Australian history in the late '70s and Australis is 'to make a crack in the deep encrusta early '80s seemed like one of the great gifts that was tion of myth which surrounds the settlement of Aus given to you, he tells us. 'You could be paid to study tralia', not because he loathes the people, he writes, and teach Australian history. And it was infinite-so but because the myths 'are inadequate to what I much to be looked at.' This widening sense of the know or imagine about them'. fields of possibility is apparent in his early work. Replace the phrase 'settlement of Australia' with There is a leap that takes place somewhere between 'Keating government' and in that revised sentence Fitzpatrick and Caledonia Australis. Fitzpatrick you have an apt description of the rationale of his is about as close as you imagine Watson could or most recent book. Not at all the usual political mem would ever want to get to a 'straight' history of the oir, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of mostly public life of a mostly public intellectual, Paul Keating PM is a fascinating mix of reflection, despite its assertion that 'there was much irration homage and frustration. It is, as Drusilla Modjeska ality in his universe'. In Caledonia Australis the net is cast wider and the approach more nuanced: 'There is a role that politics can play which is to Watson uses periodicals, diaries, newspapers, religious sermons and reformist tracts to explore articulate for people in their everyday lives those sorts the cultural realm that these people, his ances tors, occupied. The irrationality of their uni of things which are usually reserved for funerals. You verse is given time in the sun, taken to pieces and put back together again. And he tries to get are actually trying to get not just to the realm of behind the pioneering myths that such societies create to iron out the obvious contradictions common sense ... you are also trying to get to the involved in the colonial project, where 'in a new environment old habits of mind realm of feeling.' attached to new objects'. has described it, 'a book driven by the "grip of ideas" ... and tethered in human weakness and foible'. It is W TSON HAS WRITTEN recently of Geoffrey also obsessed by the paradox of an historian alive to Blainey's The Tyranny of Distance that 'there are contradiction and ambiguity occupying the rabbit remarkably few people in Blainey's book, few moral burrow that is the prime minister's office. dilemmas, few minds and fewer doubts.' In contrast, Life in the rabbit burrow of politics is a strange in the 1997 introduction to Caledonia Australis, place for Watson to have ended up, as he readily Watson writes that he sets out 'to give a more sym acknowledges, for politics, after all, is about trying to pathetic portrait of the pioneers than any I had ever 'iron out the paradox and get everyone thinking the encountered.' 'I wanted,' he writes, 'to give them same way'. It's a 'problem for someone who's an his blood as well as bones; religion, motive, choices, torian and in some ways whose whole state of mind memories, identity, ancestors, an inheritance of their is suffused with doubt as a daily event, to work in an own.' environment where doubt must never be revealed. Which all perhaps helps to explain how and why Little question marks appear above your head, car the so-called 'culture wars' of the last decade-'that toon-like, and you have to--'. He makes a gesture awful period when even to look at Australian history of pushing them aside. as something that was ambiguous, divided, poly But Watson found a kindred spirit in Keating, glot, endlessly fecund and possible ... all got stood whom he describes as a 'vivid paradox'. In Bleeding on'-has come to Watson as such a personal affront. Heart, Watson recalls the overwhelming impression 'I think the black armband thing is one of the really of melancholy that marked his first meeting with wicked things that's happened in this country,' he Keating. It was this, he says, that persuaded him to says to us bluntly. 'I don't think anyone's woken up take the job. Here was a man who interested him. to how damaging and plain bloody rotten that cam And in becoming his speech-writer Watson became, paign was. I think Blainey and Howard and the rest of according to Keating, a sort of alter ego. Watson: them have done real damage.' 'He always said that I was a surly mad bastard and Watson responds succinctly to this view of his I thought that he was the surly mad bastard. But as tory in the 1997 introduction: 'If we don't confront we're nearly always wrong about ourselves, perhaps the possibility of evil as well as the good in creation we were both wrong, which makes us equally right we are left with a moral and aesthetic void-a great I guess.' Then there is Keating's description from his hole where a drama should be.' This void is con speech, at the launch of Bleeding Heart, of Watson as cealed, he goes on to argue, by myths that no longer a fruit bat, always returning to feed on the darkness. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STR EET 29 e took the tr and smas edt o if e br ohol. 'He hasn't read Freud on projection and he should,' to break windows as a matter of principle.' Watson laughs drily. 'He knows who was feeding on Not only were Keating and Watson linked by darkness.' their refusal to accept the circumscriptions of lifei Perhaps what Keating and Watsonshare(and what they also shared a distinctive view of Australia's the current political culture lacks) is an awareness and trajectory as a nation. So how did the urban, politi imagination nourished by a sense of the visceral. 'Vis cal Irish Catholic Keating and the rural, historian, ceral' is a word that occurs and reoccurs in Watson's Protestant Watson come to this shared understand writing and conversation. It is against the viscera, ing? Watson explains it as an intellectual attachment Watson writes in Caledonia Australis, that the born of a common affection for the place. But perhaps official myths of the singular, depopulated history it is also psychological. 'I think you can draw a lot of oppose themselves. In the mythical universe the hero lines in politics between those with healthy Oedipal must be disembowelled to be preserved: 'the doubt impulses and those where they didn't function. In my ful and ambiguous portions must be taken out along case it might have functioned a little bit excessively, with any other matter which might compromise his I don't know. But I think that put me in conflict with virtue or complicate the lesson his life is meant to the Anglophile view of the world which Paul was teach'. The bones made bloodless. natively in conflict with.' It is an Oedipal rebellion Importantly, mind is not opposed to body here. against the history of his childhood that he has, it Perhaps Watson would concur with Whitman's bald seems, never shaken. And it is in contrast to the con announcement that 'having pried through the strata, servatives, who 'just want to be like Dad from the analysed it to a hair, counselled with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones'. For it seems we need gutsi we 'You can actually deal with quite complex ideas, and need to love our own bones and sinew to have genuine thought, not because we are islands unto ambiguities in life, and people will be intrigued by ourselves, but because we seem to need to start with a sense of what's vital if we are to connect them. They want to read about them ... they don't with others. Otherwise words are just empty mouthings of air. want everything simplified, or brought down to things Keating knew this, according to Watson. It is what made him such an effective communicator. about which there can be no apparent dispute.' For Keating 'represents a sort of visceral approach to life, which a lot of us feel ... We know it, our • culture knows it, it's in the culture, it's in every great time they're born ... You could tell, the back[s] of their book or work of art we've ever seen.' Keating got heads were a different shape. You'd see them in the to the guts of things. Remember his threat to John cafeteria, sitting there with their Dad's haircut, their Howard-that he would 'drive an axe into his chest Dad's briefcase, their Dad's everything ... all fate holds and lever his ribs apart'. 'There is also,' Watson con for them is which character in Wind in the Willows tinues, 'a need in people sometimes to make a bloody they're going to grow to be most like. It's a big noise, just shout, say something savage, not be kind of anthropomorphological fate. ' reasonable. And I think Keating understood that, and I think so do-strangely enough-millions of people INBleeding Heart, Watson states that politics and in this country.' Watson has had, if not millions, cer history are linked by the craft of storytelling. Reading tainly hundreds of people coming up to him to say, the Placido Domingo speech that Keating wrote and 'God I miss him, how I wish we had somebody in delivered to the National Press Club in December our lives that made our hearts beat just a bit faster 1990, long before Watson came onto the scene, it is and made our brains race, even if it was anger or striking how Watson-esque some of the themes are. disappointment, or whatever ... ' Watson agrees. 'Anyone who thinks that Keating got Watson sits upright. 'I sometimes think that his ideas beyond economics from Manning Clark, or the divide in politics is really a psychological one from me, or from whatever, wants to read the Placido ultimately, between people who can live with the Domingo speech.' In that speech, Keating describes circumscriptions of life and ... ' he trails off. And leadership as being 'about having a conversation begins again: 'Some of us know that it's not enough with the public', and exhorts the media to join with to be perfectly comfortable and relaxed. It's just not him in 'spinning the tale, the great tale of Australian enough. You need to connect to something else in economic change, and wrapping it up in interesting this world.' 'It is not enough,' he says to us urgently, ways, with interesting phrases and interesting words, 'to build [your life] around an ironing board and a which can communicate all these very complex ideas kitchen table and watching your shares go up and to our population'. down. I confess, it doesn't satisfy me. I actually feel As speech-writer, Watson became chief story sometim es I have to restrain myself from wanting teller. 'In a way what a speech is always ... trying DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 31 to say ... is "you're part of the story", ' he tells us. in their everyday lives those sorts of things which are And 'the worst thing that can happen to you in usually reserved for funerals. You are actually trying politics is that people think you're writing your own to get not just to the realm of common sense ... you story'. Watson's conclusion in Bleeding Heart is that are also trying to get to the realm of feeling.' ultimately this was the key to the rejection of the It is this quality that marks the great speeches, Keating government-it failed to find a place for the like the Gettysburg address. And it is a quality people in the story. 'Part of the massive irony of this achieved, according to Watson, by the choice of is that it ends with him unable to have a conversation one word. 'The Gettysburg address is really taking with the people, no longer able to spin his tale and the bodies and lifting them up to the abstract ... the media not listening to him, or working avidly But there's a line in there, the visceral line in there, against him. And all the nice little themes which which could only be written by a man who has a begin with the web of the family and spread out into higher sensibility, and a sense of what these people the continent have all got tangled horribly in the went through, when he actually says "the men who centre ... a great big hole in fact.' struggled here". And it's the word "struggle" that's so And we are, it seems, yet to emerge from the important. That's a writer's word; it's a writer's sen hole. In his 2001 Quarterly Essay, Rabbit Syndrome: sibility; he's imagined-here you have 20,000 bodies. Australia and America, Watson gives us a scathing Fresh really, only a few months old, and he doesn't polemic on the Australian identity crisis. He argues say "who fought here" or "who fought this battle that unlike America, Australia no longer has a sacred here" but "who struggled here". Hear that read and story to connect us, as sacred stories must do. Too it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up; many of us are excluded from the story of Anzac it makes your eyes go a little bit glassy and you think mateship and empire loyalty. And yet John Howard, "God". And it's because Lincoln imagined himself that 'Crocodile Hunter in miniature' as Watson into their lives, and thought, "this was a struggle".' describes him to us-wandering around 'in a big hat Watson sits forward in his chair. 'It's where a talking about mateship all the time'-continues to man's empathetic imagination meets a political need, try 'to stuff a pluralist, postmodern bird into a pre if you like, or finds a human need, and he finds it in modern cage' with stories and myths a good 50 years a word ... If you're the mother or father or brother or out of date. sister of one of the men who fell at Gettysburg and So is his bleak assessment of the Australian psy you hear those words of Lincoln, you'd cry, you'd cry, che in Rabbit Syndrome a 'fuck you' to the Australian but you'd go away feeling enlarged by it, because he's people for their rejection of the story he and Keating actually done what I think words are meant to do tried to weave? We put this to him. There is a pause. he's actually given a voice to your feelings.' 'That's a very cynical reading,' he says quietly, with And it's at that point, he says, sitting back, a faint smile. It was a pamphlet, and pamphlets are that politics and politicians and working in politics meant to provoke. And sometimes 'it's good that peo interest him. It's where, he says, he becomes 'a mad ple write the extremes'. While he rejects our analysis, humanist'. 'Where politics connects itself to the he acknowledges it is a reaction against the 'present human condition in a way that ennobles it, if you regime' of things, which has permeated public debate like. Gives it a proper meaning. Rather than its being with eulogies to the 'aspirationals', who Watson the management of things.' describes as 'the end of history people'. 'What they're This sense of the importance of the marriage of talking about is like the gold rush without the sense words and feeling marks Watson's most well-known of collectivity. Everyone's an aspirational, like a gold speeches. Not only do they ask us to imagine our digger; but the gold-diggers banded together. Even if selves differently, but they bring us together in a way it was just against the Chinese sometimes, they had a that the rhetoric of Howard's mateship or Bracks' sense of esprit de corps.' It was different in the Men 'Growing Victoria' fails to do. Not that Watson is zies era, in which, Watson says, there was a tradition averse to rhetoric. As he points out, the Gettysburg that 'you could connect to the lives of people who address is pure rhetoric. So too is perhaps his best were less well off. Whether it was noblesse oblige, or known speech, the Redfern speech, which exhorts Christianity, or whatever, those sorts of non-Aboriginal Australians not only to put ourselves things connected you to someone else.' in the shoes of Indigenous Australians, but to 'enter into their hearts and minds'. T HIS SENSE OF connection is a theme we return Despite the crafting that goes into their prepa to again and again. When people listen to politicians ration, speeches, Watson maintains, belong to the speak, Watson says, 'they want to know, "how does speaker, not the writer. An example from Bleeding what you're doing connect with my life1" and they Heart supports this view. Watson was surprised that also want, although they may not be aware of it, to be a section of a speech in which Keating symbolically a bit thrilled by things. You know-oo!', and his eyes handed over the republic debate to the people had not widen. And there is something more. 'There is a role been reported. He then discovered that Keating had that politics can play which is to articulate for people decided on the spot to cut out that whole section. He 32 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 wasn't ready on the day to do it, Watson says, and no said, "The music's there, you just have to find it on amount of careful scripting can change that. the page" ... It feels to me like a bit of a parallel with try The process of writing a speech is similarly ing to write about complex events-that it's there some unpredictable. 'Because, really, you don't know: what where, and you can probably never find it, and you can are the implications of the thought you are having never do it the same way twice. Literally you can't.' when you begin this speech ? You don't know until When pushed to say why he thinks his book, the words take you there, in a way.' Watson felt Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, has been such a privileged to be given freedom to write without being success, Watson points first to the public's ongoing expected m erely to follow direction. 'It's in the writ fascination with Keating: 'Keating is a fantastic sub ing that you discover what you're trying to say, and I ject. And there is an enormous amount of interest in think Paul understood that.' him .. . I had a very good subject to work with.' But it But what of the conversation with the public is also, he muses, the way the story is told. While it is that Keating spoke of in the Placido Domingo readable, it resists the temptation to simplify. It shows speech ? Does a scripted speech written by a speech that 'you can actually deal with quite complex ideas, writer distance a leader from the public? Watson and ambiguities in life, and people will be intrigued by agrees that Keating, like other leaders, was concerned them . They want to read about them ... they don't want that reading a scripted speech doesn't engage in the everything simplified, or brought down to things about same way-'it's not like having a real conversation'. which there can be no apparent dispute.' It 'necessarily removes intimacy', Watson says. He concludes: 'Because it doesn't have clean 'The fact that it's a scripted speech is somehow like lines. That would be my answer.' And he points drawing a screen down, and because it's coming to the canvas on the wall. 'It's a bit like that paint from som eone who's unknown and unseen, m akes ing there-the Great Ocean Road going into, into it all the more mysterious and remote-if you like, nowhere.' But, we remind him, we know where this suspect.' On the other hand, a scripted speech can story ends, and that's part of the fascination. Watson strike more of a chord than an off-the-cuff ramble. laughs. 'It's a bit like a hanging. Why do you read 'Som eone in the background who can write toler to the end of books about hangings? But you do. ' ably well, and has time to think about what should Because you wonder, How will be take the drop! be said, might actually engage the public better than the politician who simply gets up there 'He [Keating] always said that I was a surly mad and thinks, "Can I say the same things to these people that I've said before?".' bastard and I thought that he was the surly mad W IT I NG A BOOK about Keating was som e bastard. But as we're nearly always wrong about thing Watson decided to do as soon as he took the job. In the four years he worked for Keating, ourselves, perhaps we were both wrong, which Watson collected an enormous amount of mate rial. But when it came to writing it up, he was con makes us equally right I guess.' fronted with the dilemma of how to make it work. 'What I was trying to do with the Keating book was write an unheroic history. It didn't make sense It's like a slow death, we say. He agrees. 'That's where to me, having been in the mix, to then sit at the top it's go t a bit of the Ned Kelly in it. And the Ronald and write it as if you could see that all these things Ryan as well.' had logical sorts of antecedents and everything was But of course the story doesn't really end here. done according to a plan-the way a straight polit The final sentence of Bleeding Heart says it well: ical history is nearly always written. That would have 'Political death is like the other kind- the body keeps m eant leaving out an enormous amount of value .. . twitching after the head is cut off.' 'I wasn't thinking Paul was a vivid paradox in a way, both the public about a hanging man then/ he tells us thoughtfully. 'I persona and the private, and I somehow wanted to was actually thinking of a chook. But it does .. . ' tease that out.' There is silence. He sits back in his chair and we all He compares writing about complex events to breathe out. Then his stomach rumbles. The game is up. • playing music. 'I listen to Richter playing Schubert all the time/ he says, 'and you hear him teasing these Kristie Dunn is a lawyer and freelance writer. things out, and he might take five minutes longer to Alex McDermott is completing a PhD in history at play a sonata than any other pianist, and he's really La Trobe University and is the editor of Ned Kelly's just sort of pulling at what the essence of it is, and 'manifesto', The ferilderie Letter (Text Publishing, what truth is sitting there in the notes. And it's 2001). funny because [Richter] said before he died that in Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, which won the Age Book of the last years of his life he just played from the music. the Year and the Courier-Mail Book of the Year awards, is pub It wasn't about playing it from memory, because he lished by Random House. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STRE ET 33 An essential ambivalence 'The publicati on of Broken Song seems to me a landmark event/ sa id Robert Manne at the launch of Barry Hill's epi c account of th e life ofT.G.H. Strehlow. T E SUBJECT OF Broken Song is in people into the higher truth of Christianity or shame-the priggish young Lutheran part the life of Theodor George Henry while also recording and even celebrating resolutely turned his back. By the time Strehlow and, in part, his great life-work, aspects of their traditional culture- that he went to Adelaide to complete his The Songs of Central A ustralia- or per- Carl Strehlow bequeathed his son. schooling and to university, following haps, to be more exact, the complex rela- Because of the remoteness of the horrible death of his father, he had tionship between the life and the book. Hermannsburg, all five of Theo's elder also apparently turned his back on the Let me outline a little of Strehlow's brothers and his sister were taken home to landscape of his Central Australian hom e, life, as I have come to understand it Germany. Theo alone remained, to become with its terrible heat and aridity, and its through Barry Hill's book. Theo was the what he called 'the silent presence' at the insufferable plagu es of insects and flies. youngest son of the Lutheran missionary, Strehlow hom e. At Hermannsburg young In the first half of the twentieth Carl Strehlow, who settled with his wife Theo grew up with the German language century, university English departments at Hermannsburg, in Aranda territory but, with Aboriginal nursemaids, was often provided a kind of decompression in Central Australia, in 1894. At fi rst, 'cradled in Aranda', in Barry Hill's lovely chamber fo r intellects destabilised by the Pastor Carl's purpose was to draw the phrase. Although as an infant Thea transition from a religious to a secular Aranda to Christianity and to sever the knew the touch of Aranda women and world. At university Thea read English- connection with their heathen past. With as a growing child the companionship of and Classics. He becam e a literary man, time, fascination and respect for Aranda Aranda children, against the pull of the who considered writing a thesis on A.C. culture ambushed him . It was this highly erotic Aranda culture-where sexuality Bradley and Shakespearean tragedy. ambiguous legacy-to draw the Aranda was regulated by taboo and not by guilt Fortunately for him and fo r his country 34 EU REK A STREET DECEMBER 2002 he was convinced by an academic adviser Strehlow's masterwork, Songs of Songs can be analysed in two distinct that, because of his unique knowledge Central Australia, was published in 1971, ways. of an Aboriginal language, a return to although it was completed many years In coming to an assessment, one Central Australia to study the phonetics before. Discussion of this work's meaning vital theme is Strehlow's attitude to and grammar of Aranda might be a wise is at the heart of the complex and sinuous Aboriginality and Aborigines. This is one career move. argument of Broken Song. Nothing I can of the most complex strands in this book. At Hermannsburg Strehlow initiated, say can convey the richness of Hill's There is no reason, first of all, to doubt that with his studies in Aranda, a more or less multi-layered analysis. In part there is in it Strehlow felt strong bonds of attachment conventional academic career which was, an Oedipal theme: Strehlow's intellectual to the Aranda people. At times of rejection however, punctuated by a fascinating victory over his powerful father through or imagined academic slight, it is the interregnum as the Northern Territory's the clearly superior quality of his work. Aranda to whom he turns as his only true first patrol officer for Aborigines, during In part Hill wrestles, like Jacob with the friends. On the other hand, concerning which time he fought bravely against the Angel, with the question of translation-of the Aranda, Strehlow always believed physical and sexual abuse of Aborigines how far Strehlow's literary transformation that the people with whom he formed while displaying a high-level capacity for of the songs, where music was claimed attachments were the last generation of a what Hill calls 'political suicide'. to be at the service of the words, was an dying race, who belonged to a culture on Following his return from Adelaide to act of colonial appropriation. And in part, which the sun was setting once and for all. Hermannsburg, Strehlow embarked upon as an alternative, there is the question of His attachment to traditional Aborigines what turned out to be the two whether in Songs of Central Au tralia was often an extension of his own rather great enterprises of his life. which Barry Hill likens to Homer and the arch and ordinary cultural despair. In his Torah- Strehlow had provided us with a mind he championed the spirituality of FIRST-the systematic collection gift of a book in which black and white the Aborigines against modernity but of the most sacred objects possessed by Australians might one day discover the thought of this as a cause already lost. the Aboriginal men of Central Australia, material both for spiritual sustenance and Unlike the genuinely great anthropologist, the tjurunga-began almost accidentally. reconciling myth. Bill Stanner, Strehlow seemed incapable Concerning this collection, as Hill makes Judgment about the nature of Strehlow's of seeing Aborigines as a people with a clear, many difficult questions arise. achievement, and of the relationship of the future, despite the fact that they belonged The surrender of the tjurunga involved achievement to the We, lie at the centre of to a culture under threat. Stanner's essay the relinquishment not merely of sacred the questions asked in Broken Song. on the state of mind of an Aboriginal objects but of an entire metaphysic, cul Hill's own judgment on these matters, friend pondering the unmaking of his ture and way of life. Why were the objects it seems to me, rests on a profound world-'Durmugan-A Nangiomeri'-is, in surrendered to Strehlow? Was it an act of ambivalence, which he refuses to my opinion, one of the greatest Australian free will, as Strehlow believed, an eman cipation of the individual to Christianity, or perhaps a conscious choice to leave in Strehlow's hands knowledge of secrets that were certain, without him, soon to pass away? Or were the surrenders-for money or rations-a sign, rather, of simplify or resolve. Towards the end of essays ever written. Strehlow was conquest, of a culture now saturated in his life Strehlow received the award of incapable of empathetic understanding unutterable despair? And why, Barry Hill Doctor of Letters from the University of of such a kind. For him the transitional asks, did Strehlow cling to his collec Adelaide. One referee spoke of Songs of Aboriginal culture was 'decadent'; its tion- which eventually included twelve Central Australia as a book which would members 'soft' and 'lazy' 'parasites'. While hundred tjurunga and extraordinary be remembered when the linguistics of Songs of Central Australia was written photos and ceremonial film-as a vital Chomsky and the anthropology of Levi as an epitaph, the Arnhem Land song dimension of his being and identity, for Strauss were gathering dust. A second cycle recorded by his friends, Ronald and the remainder of his life? Dark questions referee claimed, rather differently, that Catherine Berndt, belongs unmistakably, hover over Hill's account of Strehlow the as with all Strehlow's work, Songs of as Hill points out, to a living present. collector, or the hunter as he sometimes, Central Australia revealed what he called The following subversive thought with heavy irony, described himself. As 'a consistent failure to make the most occurs to Barry Hill in Broken Song the Aranda people began to interrogate the of unparalleled opportunities'. Between more than once: that because of his sense circumstances surrounding the collection, these positions Barry Hill occupies a kind that he is recording the songs of a dying the questions became clouds in the final of tentative middle ground. [Strehlow's] culture, Strehlow's role was essentially years of his life. 'work', he writes, 'would monumentally that of the embalmer. Even more importantly, from the time stand forever, as would the imprint of his This points to the second dimension of his return to Hermannsburg, Strehlow personality in that work, the long river of Above left: Strehlow's translation committee, 1938. found his life's vocation-the collection, himself that we have been following .. . ' From left: Strehlow, Conrad, Zacharias, jakobus, translation and transformation into a kind In my reading of Hill, the impression Nathaniel and Moses . Above: newlyweds, Ted and of Western poetic, of Aboriginal songs. of that long river on the achievement of Berth a Strehlow, ready for th eir ca mel trek, 1936. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 35 of the link between the biography of manufactured many bitter disputes over has eliminated his contradictions as the Strehlow and his book- the impact of his the ownership and management of his one who makes use of them and drags them strange personality on his work. Because collection. There was in him, too, when to his vital labours.' How far did Strehlow of Barry Hill's access to Strehlow's diary, passion died, a frightening coldness. After use his contradictions to complete his a privilege which he understands and han falling into the anns of a young woman, he Songs? How far did his contradictions, dles with great delicacy, we learn almost flatly informed his wife of more than 30 or perhaps, fatal flaws- to move from too much here about his inner life. There years that he could never love a city girl. Karl Marx to Manning Clark-limit what was in Strehlow volcanic sexual passion Above all there was in him an appalling might have been accomplished? seen in his first, great unrequited love for egomania. Strehlow believed that with Barry Hill's book has interested me Sheila and his second marriage, to Kath his passing the voice of the Aranda would greatly, and in many ways. It is a venture leen. There is also in him its opposite die; he believed that he was the last both audacious and uncompromising. In the capacity for violent, uncontrolled Aranda man. Rather than moderating his the history of Australian high culture rage, seen in the floggings of his children egomania, his second wife seems, to judge that is to say, of the application of serious when life was not going well. There was in by Barry Hill's book, to have fanned the and critical intelligence to the questions him, throughout his life, tormenting self flames. In his last days Strehlow railed of greatest moment in the spiritual life of doubt, self-pity and self-loathing; and an against the world like an un-self-knowing this country- the publication of Broken almost grotesque capacity to ra tionalise King Lear, to whom his wife played the Song seems to m e a landmark event. • wrongdoing, like the grubby sale to Stern role of a goading Lady Macbeth. In this tale magazine of many photographic images there could be no Cordelia, because all his Robert Manne is Professor of Politics at of sacred, ceremonial significance, which adult children had been dispossessed. LaTrobe University. The above is an edited cast a shadow over the last months of his In the beginning of the penultimate version of his November launch speech for life. There was in him, as life went on, a section of his book, called 'Possession', Barry Hill's Broken Song: TG.H. Strehlow growing paranoia, especially in relation Hill quotes Maurice Merleau-Ponty: 'The and Aboriginal Possession (published by to academic authorities, with whom he healthy man is not so much the one who Random House). TRAVEL Taking Turkey H istori cally one of the w orld's great cities, Istanbul is a reg ister of th e tre mors of our times. Ro bin Gerster vi sits a city that is geologica ll y, geographica lly, economical ly, cultura ll y-and now politi ca lly-on the edge. 'I,SOCURm AT letanbul'' Atatu 36 EUREKA STR EET DECEMBER 2002 vigorous secular culture. chorus just before dawn. Staying at the design of the Australian War Memorial in But now all I wanted to do was to go 'Empress Zoe' hotel, deep in the bowels Canberra-is the most obvious reminder hom e. So why the hell was my plane tak of the old town, Sultanahmet, I copped a that Constantinople was a Christian city, ing so long to get m oving? The whiff of full blast from the tiny mosque located under Rom e, for more than 1100 years. cigarette smoke was the first indication across the road. The cacophony from the After the city's sacking in 1453, it was con that som ething was amiss. A passenger loudhailers perched on its solitary mina verted to a m osque. In 1935, Ataturk had had been detected sm oking in the toilets. ret shook me from the deepest of jetlagged it reconverted into a museum. This was a Before long, a solitary male passenger was sleeps on my first m orning in the city. typically far-sighted move by the so-called escorted off the plane by security people The call to prayer from the stupendous 'father' of modern Turkey, whose image is furiously m outhing into walkie- talkies . Blue Mosque, which looms over the 'Zoe' everywhere to be seen in Turkey today. If The darkest fears of the air traveller, post as it loom s over all of Sultanahmet, was a you subscribe to the 'Great Man in His September 11 , were instantly activated. whisper by comparison. By Day Three in tory' theory, Ataturk fi ts the bill as well (This was 6 October 2002: a week before the city I found myself waking early to as any. As the Ottom an general Mustafa the Kuta bombings .) 'Did you get all his prepare fo r the onslaught. Kemal, he was the hero of Gallipoli, and bags?', I half-jokingly inquired of a stew But it was my only discomforting later led the Turkish Nationalist Forces in ard who was wearing a frown rather than brush with Islam during my time there. defeating various fo reign invaders in the the trademark Singapore Airlines smile. Infi del that I am, it was impossible not Turkish Wars of Independence in the early The heart was pounding a bit harder than to be impressed by the elegance of the 1920s. He was integral to the abolition of usual as we even tually took off for the Islam ic architecture that dominates Istan the decadent sultanate in 1923 and was three-hour hop to Dubai, taking a flight bul's skyline. The aesthetics are devastat the first president of the new republic. As path that decorously skirted Iraq. 'So you ing-and I'm not only talking about the president, he committed his country to a got rid of that guy just for smoking, that's vast domed contours of the exteriors. secular path and determined that it would good! ,' I later quipped to the same steward, The graceful painted arabesques of the not be enslaved to strict Islamic law. He cocky now that I had a Bloody Mary under interior of the Blue Mosque, for example, abolished polygamy and made civil m ar my belt and the plane had levelled out make the iconography of most Christian riage mandatory, introduced surnam es, in the beautiful deep blue of a harmless churches look tacky by comparison. It is and replaced the Arabic alphabet with Middle Eastern sky. 'There was another a breathtaking cityscape, dominated not the Latin script. He changed Constanti reason, which I can't tell you about,' he merely by classic Ottoman religious struc nople's nam e to Istanbul. He even got rid grimly replied, scurrying down tures like the Suleym aniye Mosque, but of the fez. It is largely because of him that theaisle. an eclectic mix of East and West, includ Turkey has not gone the way of some of its ing synagogues, European-style palaces neighbours. A N ALARM CLOCK in Istanbul is about and a surprising sprinkling of Byzantine One of the great sites of Istanbul is as pointless as a hearty appetite in Britain. buildings. actually out of sight- the 'Sunken Cis It never gets put to proper use. The duel Aya Sofya, the celebrated basilica com tern', an unappealing nam e for the vast ling muezzins of Istanbul begin their daily pleted in 537-its dome echoed in the underground Byzantine water-storage tank DECEMBER 2002 EU.REKA STREET 3 7 constructed during Justinian's reign in the reasonable modus operandi and we jauntily are going broke, and a flood of rural 6th century. Elevated, lamp-lit walkways ventured inside its domed depths. We soon immigrants (many of them conservative take you through a kind of vast Cistern found ourselves prostrate on a marble Muslims) is gravitating to already bloated Chapel-apparently the 'tank' was con slab, alongside a young Spanish woman Istanbul. structed from the columns, capitals and from Andalucia and her Swiss boyfriend, While Turkey negotiates its own deli plinths of ruined buildings. There is a being worked on by two hirsute, mus cate internal balance of modernity and cafe located in the ambient gloom where cular Turks. The Andalucian must have traditionalism, secularism and fundamen one can soak up the atmosphere over a been unimpressed at sharing the pleasures talism, it is bordered by countries-Iraq, coffee, though the constant drip from the of the bathhouse with two middle-aged Syria, Iran- who abhor its courting of the vaulted ceiling is disconcerting. Back out Antipodean interlopers, but bore up well. West and its good relations with Israel. in the sunlight, there is a m esm erising list She was in no danger from her mas The landslide electoral victory of a mod of attractions to take in-that is, if one is seurs, whom I suspect were men's m en erate but essentially conservative Islamic able to fight off the battalions of touts who in the classical mould. 'My' man pounded government (a stunning result guaranteed roam Sultanahmet. and pummelled, soaped and sluiced with to get under the skin of Turkey's powerful Istanbul's touts are among the most an immodest gusto, throwing in an affec military elite, which sees itself as guardian insistent that I have come across. One tionate grunt or two for effect. Just when of the nation's secularism) has added to a of them even offered m e the shirt off his thoughts of T.E. Lawrence's bodily travails pervasive sense of instability. To top things back. I'd commented favourably on the at the hands of a bunch of lascivious Turks off, its greatest city lies directly on one of shirt in an attempt to distract him from were coming unpleasantly to my mind, he the world's most active fault lines and is his obj ect- luring m e into his carpet shop rolled m e over onto my back and went to overdue for a catastrophic earthquake. N o to spend large amounts of money. He work on m y chest, his hairy claws then wonder the people of Istanbul are edgy. proceeded to unbutton the sweat-stained running up and down my throat in a And no wonder people say Turkey 'lies at the crossroads'. My own fathe0 for example, ventured abroad just twice in his A USTRALIAN WO RLDLY expen ence life, in the early 7940s, both tin1es to Bougainville and both has historically been linked with involve times with the aim of killing as many japanese as possible. m ent in overseas conflicts. Indeed, for several generations of Australians, travel Some of the original Anzacs would never have even heard meant war. My own father, for example, of Turkey before lobbing there in 79 75 . And /Constantinople/ ventured abroad just twice in his life, in the early 1940s, both times to Bougainville would have signified an almost unimaginable object of desire. and both times with the aim of killing as many Japanese as possible. Some of the orig garm ent and offer it to m e, if only I'd pincer movement. Strangling, I remem inal Anzacs would never have even heard of com e inside and drink some apple tea and bered from my Lonely Planet, was a Turkey before lobbing there in 1915. And meet his family. favoured Ottoman method of executing 'Constantinople' would have signified an The presence of the touts is signifi one's enemies, including Grand Viziers almost unimaginable object of desire. cant, for today's Istanbul is crawling with and even princely heirs apparent ... Now that the once-circumscribed foreign tourists, cashing in on the calami The 'Unspeakable Turk': old stereo activity of 'war service' has broadened into tous collapse of the Turkish lira, which types die hard. Long despised as 'the sick a m ercilessly random threa t that knows has made the city laughably inexpen man of Europe', Turkey is a repository no quarter and respects no boundaries, sive even for exchange-rate paupers like of negative connotations. T he European human or geographical, it is apposite that Australians. Taking Constantinople and Union has once again rejected its appli present Australian fears are located most knocking Turkey out of the war was, of cation for m embership on grounds that acutely in travel-in getting on a plane, course, the major ambition of the abortive include the lack of free speech and the in venturing into the foreign, or simply in Gallipoli campaign as Churchill conceived imprisonment of dissidents. These are leaving home. it. Tourists have succeeded in Turkey aspects of a sprawling nation likely to After the 'incident' at Ataturk, my where the Allied invaders of 1915 could be hidden from the tourist beguiled by Singapore Airlines jet arrived back safely, not. the urbanity of contemporary Istanbul, to the customary relief one feels these In Istanbul, Islam seeks an easy as especially evident in the largely 19th days at arriving home in one piece. It accommodation with Western hedonism. century Beyoglu district just over the was early October: end of term was com Indeed, it capitalises on it. The hamam Galata Bridge from Sultanahmet. ing, and Christmas with the family was (traditional bathhouse) attached to the This latest rejection has depressed a just around the corner. The flight was Suleymaniye Mosque-designed by the country that has striven hard for accept long but uneventful, with the only real great 16th-century Ottoman architect ance by abolishing the death penalty and turbulence south of the equator. Its route Mimar Sinan-advertises itself with adopting a new civil code, and has started went directly over Bali. • the slogan 'Men and Women Together to deal more tolerantly with its Kurdish For Tourist'. My travelling companion minority. The lira is a joke, unemploy Robin Gerster is a Monash University for the day (a male) and I thought this a ment is skyrocketing, small businessmen academic and author. 38 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 THEATRE PETER CRAVE A Dickens caravanserai I T'S STRANG' TO «fleet how well Dick It was as if the culture you lived in had of Welsh actor Emlyn Williams, who had ens, in a thousand shadowy forms, holds read Dickens long before you had, and written such staples of stage and screen in the stage or the various kinds of screens therefore you experienced the storylines the '30s and '40s as Night Mu st Fall and that substitute for it. and the smog-laden, half-lit atmospherics The Corn Is Green. Simon Callow's The My own generation inherited the kind whether you went on to read the books or Mystery of Charles Dick ens is clearly in of feast of Dickens that overtook Britain not. Often we did not; or not in any hurry. this tradition, and is a smart career move and the Commonwealth after the war, I suspect Dickens should be read as young on the part of the actor, who has also and led to the famous David Lean films of as possible, when the reader is not yet recapitulated Michael MacLiammoir's Oliver Twist and Great Expectations and consciously distinguishing between the The Importance of Being Oscar and to the first spate of BBC television adapta romantic and the real, so that he can be made spoken-word recordings of Proust tions. One of the first things I remember rediscovered like a lost treasure of far-off and Anthony Powell. Callow played seeing on television was a 26-part drama childhood, bottomlessly wise and poetic. the title role in Amadeus on stage, and tisation (in half-hour episodes) of David If he is looked at in late adolescence (with went on to play vicars in Merchant-Ivory Copperfield, with that fine actor Robert the backlog of all the dramatic versions) adaptations of E.M. Forster, and a suave Hardy in the title role. My mother reread he is liable to come across-he certainly gay in Four Weddings and a Funeral. He the book in small chunks to keep up did in the age of Bob Dylan and Mick is the biographer of Charles Laughton and with the adaptation and see what it was Jagger-as hopelessly is clearly interested in the point at which highlighting. antiquated, corny the world of acting connects with the The upshot of all this, for a midd and unreal. The world of the larger culture. He is almost ling Anglophile child growing up in eye of childhood a character actor, though with a star's the Antipodes in the 1950s, was knows better: it presence and amour propre. that you had experienced the loves Dickens His one-man Dickens show is a tri dramatised shadow of Dickens and ever will. umph of theatrical wit and elan. This long before you had read a All of which is Dickens mediated, of course, through word of him. Pickwick and was encouraged the lens of Peter Ackroyd's biographical Nicholas Nickleby and David 40 or more years vision, and it's Dickens the possessed Copperfield and Fagin and Pip ago, a period when man-his works so many animate frag and all that endless troupe of the Poms and their ments in his mind's eye- that the show grotesque beauties were part "' loyalists across the takes as it subject. Mercifully, The Mys of the air we breathed. seas saw Dickens as a tery of Charles Dickens doesn't preserve mirror of a more egalitarian the aspect of Ackroyd's biography that world, or at least as embodying has the biographer in perfervid dialogue the liberal anger and the liberal with Dickens himself. However, both the romance of a world that had a script and Callow's performance stream moral destiny in that direc line Dickens into a figure somewhat more tion. This was the period of histrionic and, in modern and psychologi the Welfare State in Brit cal mode, rather more melodramatic than ain, of protectionism the giant whom history discloses. and one of the world's But where there is tension and con highest standards of tradiction, where there is the action of a living in Aus man who seems possessed, there is drama, tralia. and Callow is consummate in his ability It's this period to juggle and twist and conjure round the that produces looming spectres of Dickens' nightmares. Oliver! and the There is the blacking factory and the shame at the fact of home, the two evoked with a wondering pathos, fish-mouthed, DECEMBER 2002 EU REKA STREET 39 with an 'oh' beyond words. There is the pure grandeur of the ventriloquial. But Oliver! there's none of the countervailing desolation of Dickens' marriage, the brick it also follows a logic of melodrama and glamour of Higgins' tin-god misogyny wall down the middle of the bedroom, and showmanship. or Ascot or the Ball. When Oliver falls the affairs-at least of the heart-with the None of which is meant to diminish among thieves he falls from the world stepsister and with Ellen Ternan. Simon Callow's art. His metamorphoses of the child-starving hypocrites into the Throughout all this, Callow moves like of face and voice are extraordinary, and magical world of the Artful Dodger and a thing of magic (and does a couple of literal every so often that impossible thing hap Fagin. Of course this is also the murder magician's tricks), with a kind of irre pens in the theatre and we finding our ous, woman-bashing world of Bill Sikes sistible theatrical brio that keeps the eye selves staring into the eyes of ... Fagin. (one of the most gruesome worlds Dick riveted even if the mind is backing away. That kind of transfiguration is not to be ens ever evoked). But the way in which It is a tirelessly energetic performance, sneezed at. This is a complex, engrossing Oliver! makes the melodrama fizz is to the detached narrator's voice alternately performance, a trouper's tour de force, and give it a maximum comic rollick, and to plummy and whip-like, the Dickens voice it deserves the praise that it has received, present that comedy in the most commu neutral-sometimes heroic and some although it cannot by definition equal the nitarian form possible-as a set of music times abashed with fear-and then all glow of what it would be like to hear Simon hall routines. around him the great waves of Cockney Callow read 50 consecutive pages The Londoners are among the more and caricature. It's so resplendent that you of a Dickens novel. easygoing people on earth, particularly don't know whether to laugh or cry at this the Cockneys. This is a self-portrait writ stalking ghost of British theatrical glory. EFFECT OF Oliver! on any audi ten (or translated) at just the point where Of course, Callow has you laughing quite ence (in any half-competent version) is they were enjoying a maximum relaxation a bit at Dickens and, at times, with a catch so much an effect of charm it's enough and self-confidence, let's say a few years in your throat. to make you doubt the function of criti into the career of Tommy Steele, and just Perhaps because it is so much a per cism. Lionel Bart's 1960 musical (one of before Michael Caine's first films. Oliver! formance of its time, I wondered some the last of the classics) still comes across is also, of course, a musicalising of the times if Simon Callow wasn't milking like a folk masterpiece. Bart had trained common person's possession of Dickens. Dickens a bit much, as if somehow there with Joan Littlewood and made his money Oliver Twist had been filmed a dozen were too many smoky dreams from child writing songs for Tommy Steele, but with years before, with Alec Guiness' famous hood in his conception of the novelist and this tremendously cheery re-statement of portrayal of Fagin and with Anthony his characters (or in Patrick Garland's, his Dickens' Oliver Twist he seems to have New ley (another Cockney songster) as the director). penetrated some deep strain of the popu Artful Dodger (just as the Leslie Howard/ Sometimes the characterisations are lar that wanted to sing forever of glorious Wendy Hiller film of Pygmalion had led clairvoyant; they captivate the attention food, and pledge itself to do anything for the way for Lerner and Loewe). and seem to come from a deep well of you, dear, anything, because it considered And the upshot in Oliver! is terrifi literary memory. His Miss Havisham is itself your mate. cally Dickensian, even though it is not on the edge of this, and even his Sidney Oliver! can be taken as the East End's dominated by the horrific vision of Oliver Carton-despite being interspersed with revenge on My Fair Lady, that other musi Twist. It's as if the musical releases the oom-pah-pah guillotine noises-has an cal with a high-toned source, which also side of Dickens that delights rather than unearthly quality. Callow can flex his plays on a storyline of artistic complex appals: the gusto, the comedy and the face to turn into the chinless judge in ity while preserving a fairy-tale structure. weirdly ambiguous image of the child, so Pickwick, as well as Sam Weller, and the Like the Lerner and Loewe reanimation of innocent and so much an apple of temp effect is marvellous, even if the surround Shaw's Pygmalion, Oliver! has a leading tation to every adult eye that beholds ing contour of the script is staid. Callow's role for an actor who can patter his way it. Nothing in Oliver! is more brilliant terrific at the kind of hectic that rages in through Sprechgesang. It has the icono than the knockabout Huck Finnism of Dickens' blood, although Ackroyd's out clastic charm of Cockney music hall songs the 'Consider Yourself' duet between the line inclines him in advance to present in a canonical context. It is also genuinely Dodger and Oliver, or the parody of upper Dickens as a kind of cavalcade of incanta operatic, as My Fair Lady is, in telling the class courtliness in 'I'd do anything', tory sadness and mania. The effect is dra story through the music: the workhouse which is further parodied, with dark irony, matic-a kind of suite for Great Man with waifs rhapsodising food, Bumble's cry of in Nancy's love for the brutal Bill Sikes. Dancing Skeletons. We believe absolutely 'More!' and the rollicking sadism of the And yes, Oliver! does have its darker in the power and glory of Simon Callow's song that follows-Fagin's demonstration Dickensian hues too. But it has them histrionics, and we're also moved by of pickpocketing to the delicious strains of with a taut economy, and places them in them. We even believe they are a genuine the music of the yiddisher theatre. These a predominant context of great fun, even window through which to look at Dick translate Dickens' story into the universal if much of that fun is of imagining a 'fine ens. But you do feel as though you have language of a rough music that reshapes life' somewhere else. been in the presence of a powerfully real that story as a form of 20th-century folk Oliver! was the one wildly successful ised cartoon rather than a human being. experience. home-grown British musical of a period It's all very complex, this mirroring It's arguable that Shaw and Dickens were that was obsessed by Britishness in every and mimicking; it's also very like Dickens, always of the Cockneys' party. Certainly thing from Camelot to Mary Poppins. with his indelible sense of line and his the musicals are, though in the case of It's earthier than any of them and far 40 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 more intent on, and glorying in, low-life. of a good-hearted, attractive woman who even if he lacks the effortless comic brio It was fi rst performed in London, with the has no illusions about her ruined love and to make the old Jewish master crim into benefit of a magnificent design by Sean her ruined world. This is the kind of musi the figure of incessant delight. Waters has Kenny, and a revolve that transfigured cal theatre performance one longs fo r, and a natural authority. With his m oulder the stage with shreds of fabric and colour. fo r once you do feel, as Cameron Mackin ing, leading-man fea tures he looks good N ow we have the Cameron Mackintosh tosh says, that she is going to be a star. in the role, but there's a missing streak revival of Oliver!-nearly eight years after Elsewhere, the production is a bit of geniality or com ic timing that m akes its London resurrection-directed by Sam blurry when it comes to detail, even if the him seem a bit like a smothered prophet. Mendes, of American Beauty fa m e, pre overall Mendes-vision has a kind of royal On the other hand, he registers moodi served by a team of Mackintosh assistants seal of approval that pretty consistently ness and humanity, and the performance without an Aussie am ong them . entrances the eye. Steve Bastoni is grows in stature with a dramatic rendi It's a lush, globalised creature effective as Bill Sikes. tion of 'Reviewing the situation'- In a this Oliver!-dominated by the But Stuart Wags taff slightly distracted way Waters does have Anthony Ward design, which uses is the merest bit his own m agnetism. great m esh 'trucks' running side of fluff and fu ss as So this is a fair enough production of ways above the stage, and hoisting Oliver Twist, the comic book, for massed 50 fee t in the air. It's a kind of elabo choir and raggedy-tail cub patrol. Yes, it's rate cut-out production, sometimes tenorish and approx- Dickens as a child might delight in him. literally so, with its glaring card board renditions of fa mous London buildings, which should delight children's eyes. But it has plenty of swirl and smog and chiaroscuro made vivid with a fl ash of crimson or scarlet. All very handsome, if a bit consciously so, occasionally making the spectator hunger for the litheness of Sean Kenny. The kind of painting-box postmodernism that is one aspect of the production reaches its zenith in the cenes when Oliver is briefl y with Mr Brownlow. These are too artificial for words in their two-dimensional Prince Charlesism. Otherwise this is an energised, state of-the-art production, which does every thing it can with a splendid old vehicle without actually landing planes on stage or crashing chandeliers. Kids, in particu lar, should be exposed to it because Oliver! is a child's-eye view of Dickens. It works imate Mr Bumble even if his other half, All that oom-pah and play, but there are pretty much like a dream, even with the Sally-Anne Upton, packs a punch. If the shadows here as well as wonders. I would residual consciousness that things are cast lapse fr om their Cockney into broad have liked more of a Pied Piper of a Fagin, a bit bigger than they need to be. The Australian- and they do-nobody's going but there's a place too for these flickers of crowds of kids (some black and brindle to take too much notice. I remember, worry, this suggestion of a bright man sink to summon up today's multicultural years ago, C arrie Hutchinson reviewing ing. And yes, there'll always be a Dickens London) are splendidly choreographed by an Oliver! with Garry McDonald as Fagin while they keep belting out Oliver!. Matthew Bourne, and restaged by Geoff and asking, 'In what sense is this British The theatre itself, that tired old pick Garrett. They also sing well, while look theatre?' Obviously Oliver!- and perhaps pocket and receiver of stolen goods, ing appropriately raggedy. even Dickens-com es out of an aspect of doesn't look half bad when its m oney The night I went, Oliver was Sam England for which the land of convicts bright priorities are intent on this still Larielle, and he managed to look like an and castaways and gold-diggers has a glittering prize. • angel while also evincing lots of glee. The special affinity. After all, Australia was Mr Artful Dodger, Ben Nicholas, was a snappy Micawber's destination, wasn't it? Peter Craven is the editor of Quarterly dancer and m anaged his songs with ebul Accent is not a problem fo r John Essay and Best Australian Essays. lience. Tam sin Carroll is terrific as Nancy. Waters, who emigrated 35 years ago She belts out her songs with energy and from Britain, in the supposedly 'bad' old Photographs above: John Waters as Fagin and with a grand torchy voice, acting with her days when we imported 'lead' fo r shows. Tamsin Carroll as Nancy, with the 'raggedy- tail whole body to create a marvellous image He has no problem s with a Fagin voice, cub pa trol'. DECEMB ER 2002 EU REKA STREET 41 [H EsHoRrLIS] A History of Islamic Societies (2nd t:d). h ,J M. on them reveal a surprising amount about the culture, economy Lapi dus. C:amhmlgt: Univt:rsJty l'rt:ss, 20()2. and status of the towns which produced them. I'>BN ll '12 1 779.)) 2, IUU' S'llJ l)'-, It is not the writers' fault that their surmises about what A 100-word analysis of a 1000-page book is a Paul may have thought when he handled the coins seem a little nonsense. But this review is simply to celebrate strained. Compared to the stories of Jesus, whose parables are full a gift. Ira Lapidus has brought his encyclopae of references to money and to the significance of particular coins, dic account of the Islamic world up to date, and Paul's letters show less interest in how you make money than in leaves us indebted to him. His History became what you can do with it-support the impoverished Jewish church, an indispensable reference tool when first pub for example. Being like Paul in that respect, I found only one thing lished fourteen years ago. Now that it is open lacking in this book: an account of how much you could buy with season for every ancient anti-Islamic prejudice, this factual and each coin. -A.H. evenly written history is a precious resource. He describes the his tory and geographical spread of Islam in detail, and concludes with Understanding Deleuze, Clant: Colebrook. All t: n judicious treatment of selected themes. -Andrew Hamilton &. Unwin, 2002. I\B'\ I H()..,Qk 7')7 I , HR!' S.1'1 .00 French philospher Gilles Deleuze is the subject Recognizing Spirituality: The interface between of this admirably clear, explanatory work. faith and social work, Rat: Lmdsay. UnivnsJty Trained in classical philosophy, with its ideal of o! Wt:stt:rn Australia Prt:ss, 2002. I\B'I I 1-\ 762()1-l dispassionate reason, Deleuze accepted Marx's 7-, I IUU' ') )~ l)-, insight that our theories mask and sustain power If m any ordinary people experience and heal relationships, and Foucault's more radical their discontents through religious symbols, but assertion that theories produce and are produced the education of experts trained to help them do by power relationships. D eleuze argued even so excludes discussion of religious faith, what more radically that no real world or universal theory underlies is gained? This is the issue that Ra e Lindsay The 1nterface between the play of desire, the life force of the world. The task of the addresses in this modest and well -p lanned tanh and soc1al work philosopher is to think of the new possibilities that this life force discussion . can take, and not to be captured by images of a stable humanity The challenge that she faces is to find a way through the preju and of pre-existent laws declaring what it m ea ns to be human. dice that religious faith, particularly when studied from inside, is This view of the world, as one in which the life force con not a suitable topic for academic discourse. Her response is to focus tinually produces different possibilities, i profo undly counter on spirituality- the consideration of the deeper, and not necessar intuitive. Hence, Deleuze's vocabulary is full of neologisms and ily explicitly religious, values by which human beings live. She of words used in new senses. He is a difficult writer because his offers a coherent account of spirituality and its development, and thoughts are difficult to think. He tries to evoke a recognition of of spiritualities represented in Australia. She points to widespread the life force which produces identities, societi es and persons. His dissatisfaction among both teachers and students of social work m ethod led him to look at the rhetoric of creative writing and of that such an important area of human experience is neglected, and art, to see the new questions and possibilities which style creates. summarises the body of thought reflecting on how social work Deleuze's work is valuable as a correction to an excessively students can appropriately be introduced to it. rationalist philosophy. He is less attractive as a stand-alone guide. Recognizing Spirituality also offers material for broader reflec For, if he undermines the ideal of the infallible detached observer, tion by those concerned that religious voices are not adequately he also weakens the solidity and claim of the other in need. He heard in society. Better than pulling up the drawbridge, or hurl offers a needed rem edy against arrogance, but few resources against ing m olten lead fro m the ramparts onto the secular head below, barbarism. -A.H. is Lindsay's quiet exploration of what precisely religious faith has to contribute and how it can best be incorporated into particular The Many-Coloured Land: A Return to Ireland, ( hn~topho Koch, conversations. -A.H. ~f 1 ..._ P1cadm, 2002. ~~HN o 330 ~6 . )'-\) 2, 1uu• $.'\o.oo ~- f When a fine writer returns to Ireland aft er 40 The Pocket Guide tn Saint Paul: Coins years, and ponders his Irish convict ancestors, we encountered by the Apostle on his Travels, Pt:tt:r would expect som e sharp insights. Christopher Lt:wJs c Ron BoiLk n Wakefield Prt:ss, 2mll. Koch provides them , especially in his laconic ISil'..; I X02."i4'1()26, IUU'S2 42 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 BOOKS:1 JO H N BUTTON The good and faithfu I servant Nugget Coombs, A Reforming Life, Tim Rowse, Cambridge Un tver~lty Press, 2002. ISBN 0 Sll Xl7H3 X, RltP $S9.9S D R H . C . 'NUGGET' COOM BS, the sub- colour, was the one guarantee of probity in Whitlam were elected to government. ject of this biography, was something of an government.' Coombs' career spanned the golden enigma. The author quotes the journalist Menzies was not disappointed. Twenty age of the Commonwealth public service Dominic Nagle writing in The A ustralian, years later, Coombs suffered the 'irrita- headed by a group of talented mandarins when Coombs was made Australian of tion' of Billy McMahon describing him who were both powerful and influential. the Year in 1971: 'He behaves in such a as 'a kind of guiding philosopher' and the 'Government' comprised m inisters and confident way. When he moves, it's like mild embarrassm ent of the congenitally bureaucrats. According to the late Allan a piston: well-oiled, regular, got a job to self-effacing when, prior to the 1972 elec- Davies (in Australian Democracy) more do, no mucking about please, pow pow ... tion, Whitlam announced (by agreem ent) than 70 per cent of substantive legisla- Even when he sits down, it's all go ... like that Coombs would becom e his adviser if tion emanated from the public service. a teacher or a general he ticks things In Coombs' words the bureauc- off with the forefinger of one hand racy held a 'substantial m onopoly'. on the palm of the other. ' It was a system that seemed to Perhaps that was the secret: the work, but by the mid-1970s (when complete public servant, the con- Coombs chaired the Royal Com- summate if restrained public intel- mission on Australian Governmen t lectual, the workaholic identifying Administra tion ) he was concerned things to be done and ticking them about the proliferation of lobby off as he went. He had much to tick groups and new notions of par- off-a lifetime of achievem ent. ticipatory dem ocracy. He observed As a public servant, Coombs that 'if, despite the form al struc- served under seven prime ministers, ture of representative and ministe- from Curtin to Whitlam . As Direc- rial government, decision-making tor of Rationing (1942), Director- is to become the function of a wider General of Post-war Reconstruction range of groups, the exclusiveness of (1943-9), Governor of the Reserve the relationship between bureauc- Bank (1 949-1968) and in numer- ra cy and ministers will be signifi- ous advisory roles, he remained for cantly eroded'. nearly 30 years at the centre of the The Royal Commission report elite of Australia's public service. called for increased 'responsiveness' For another 20 years he was active from public servants to outside in public life, involved in the institu- views and interests. Arguably, they tions of the arts, science, education were ill-equipped to adapt-one and Indigenous affairs. alleged justification for the rapid They were different times, rise of a new class of ministerial when the traditions of public serv- advisers, said to be more 'politically ice professionalism and independ- astute' than public servants. ence were alive and well, respected As Rowse points out, there and relied on by politicians and the is considerable nostalgia for the community. In 1949, according to golden age, articulated by Coombs Menzies' biographer, Allan Martin, himself in his 1993 R.D. Wright a number of Menzies' colleagues Lecture, and reflected by others wanted to 'cleanse' the public serv- such as Hugh Stretton, who rightly ice of Coombs and others who had lam ent the demise of the broadly favoured the 'socialistic' ideas of educated Mandarins imbued with the previous government. 'Menzies an innovative and humane public refused, on the grounds that under policy ethos. Certainly somewhere the Westminster system a penna in the changes which began in the nent public service that served 'Tall Poppies' come in different sizes: Coombs with 1970s too many babies have been every administration whatever its Gough Whitlam (left) and Dav id W illiamson (right) in 1973. thrown out with the bathwater and DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 43 something important has been lost Coombs was first and foremost an ideological economics seem intractable. from Australia's public institutions and economist, whose views on public policy As Tim Rowse puts it: 'The mission of government. were undoubtedly influenced by the Great the economist was not to promote growth; In spite of his great and diverse achieve Depression, his experiences of a wartime that was a "heresy" into which too many ments, Nugget remained famously self economy and the widespread enthusiasm economists had fallen. To be an economist effacing and modest. He cherished his to create a more just society and a better was to present conscientiously to the privacy, so by agreement this book is about world which followed those two cata public answers to the question: how to his public life. Tim Rowse made diligent strophic events. revalue the resources we have so as to use attempts to find out what made his subject Rowse identifies Coombs as an 'eco them sustainably and equitably?'. tick. In answer to this question the philos nomic rationalist' in the sense that 'eco Coombs' view of the interaction opher John Passm ore, who knew Coombs nomic rationalism' is a 'way of thinking between politics and economics seems now well, replied: 'I never knew. I just saw about public policy in which "politics" to belong peculiarly to the last century. him as a series of admirable projects.' The is viewed from the standpoint of "the Rowse makes an interesting analysis of author's interviews with Coombs himself economy" '. The point is elaborated and the continuities, if any, between now and don't reveal much either. well made, distinguishing true 'economic then by critically considering journalist Rowse is acutely conscious of the dif rationalism' from current popular usage, Paul Kelly's book, The End of CertainLy, fic ulty. 'The resulting book is more imper in which the term is associated with neo and particularly Kelly's description of 'The sonal than most readers of biography would classical economics and its ideological and Australian Settlement' which, he argued, wish.' This seems an understatement. Most essentially right-wing political orientation. endured from Deakin until the 1980s. Kelly biographies have a tantalising and elusive Coombs' economic rationalism dic is a great chronicler of political events, a quality. Here it's as if, having ordered fil tated opposition to inflation and policies of master of broad-brush descriptions of what let of sole in the Fawlty Towers restaurant, Labor Governments which he perceived as took place. the enthusiastic customer is served with conducive to inflation [for example, under But Kelly, according to Rowse, 'has the backbone instead of the flesh. Curtin and Whitlam), and opposition to ignored any alternatives to the Australian So the author makes' a virtue of imperson those interests favoured by conservative Settlement other than those now proposed ality' and explores 'som e themes in Austral governments which risked 'Australia's by nco-liberal intellectuals in the 1980s. ia's twentieth century'. Nugget, however, is hard-won social cohesion'. He constantly His story takes Australia from "immatu always there like the central figure sought a reasoned dialogue about eco rity" to "maturity", without raising the in a crowded Caravaggio painting. nomic policy and its purposes, and from his question of whether there could be alter Australian context no doubt envied 'the natives to the market-orientated maturi ty L.EEXPLORATION OF themes is m eticu rapport between government, economists to which we are being pulled . . . by global lously researched and amounts to a com and entrepreneurs' which he had found in forces -' prehensive history of Australia's public Sweden in a pre-war study of the Swedish Coombs had, as Rowse points out in intellectual life from the 1920s until the economy. some detail, made valiant attempts to end of the century. It deals with the guided Coombs' rational and disciplined moderate the Whitehall/Westminster [a nd sometimes misguided) development of approach included a commitment to paternalism of the Australian Settlement a nation. But the thematic approach com accountability and good management which might, if adopted, have resulted in a bined with the 'virtue of impersonality' which sometimes led him into conflict more palatable antipodean response to so detracts from the narrative aspect of a biog with the arts constituents of the Australia called global imperatives. Among Coombs' raphy to which many readers of 'lives' are Council and other cultural bodies. His successors as public-policy makers there are accustomed. However, for those interested rationalism, however, embraced a critical not many prepared to concede, as Coombs in the public dialogues and initiatives relat view of the assumptions of many of his always did, the possibility that on occasions ing to issues such as trade policy, banking, economist colleagues, and when he was they might have been wrong. This, in arbitration, external relations, the widen considering public policy on issues such as spite of the book's flaws as a biography, is ing role of government and the foundation Aborigines, the environment and quality the reason why Nugget Coombs is such and development of some of Australia's of life, it allowed him to explore how the an important piece of work. It's not only great institution , this is a fascinating and economist's craft could help resolve some an insightful piece of Australian history; invaluable book. of the problems which in today's world of it poses the questions that an enquiring Imprints Booksellers- Adelaide's leading independent bookshop committed to justice, equity, peace, reconciliation ... Imprints an active contributor to the culture. BOOKSELLERS 107 Hindley St, Adelaide ph. 8231 4454 fax 8410 1025 email [email protected] www.imprints.com.au 44 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 intellectual and committed Australian such quality which has slipped from public m assive loans. By doing so he managed to as Coombs might have asked if he were life and been replaced by the tyranny of lever apart, at least for a time, the cosy rela alive today. Nugget described himself as opinion polls. • tionship between the two institutions whose an 'enabler'. What are today's policy gurus headquarters face one another enabling? Coombs was always a listener John Button was a minister and senator in across a Washington street. as well as an enabler. Listening is another the Hawke and Keating governments. G LOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS brings together the arguments Stiglitz BOOKS:2 made when at the World Bank. It is based on two central observations: first, the )ON GREENAWAY policy prescription foisted on countries as varied as Argentina, Indonesia and Cote d'Ivoire is unyielding to the demands presented by their particular contexts. To have and have not Secondly, the IMF is failing to fulfil its mis sion, articulated by John Maynard Keynes Globalization and its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz. at its establishment in 1945, of promoting Allen Lane, 2002. ISBN 0 393 05124 2, RRP $29.95 growth and employment in member coun tries by mitiga ting market failure and fiscal 'IE TERM 'GLOBALISATION' has made Until there are changes to the standard rem- crises. Stiglitz argues that the IMF, urged a rapid transition since its omission from edy handed down to poor countries when along by US policy makers, has come full the 1997 edition of the Macquarie Diction- their economies nosedive, Africa, Asia, circle. It now acts for the benefit of m arkets ary. The once awkward bit of jargon that South America and the former Soviet Union above the interests of developing countries rolled heavily off the tongues of protesters will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis. and their peoples. and PhD students of development This is not a dry argument-fig finance is now a term with 21st-cen ures stacked up against benchmarks, tury clout and currency. We under illustrated by parabolas and graphs. stand what it denotes-the closer Stiglitz draws conclusions from what integration of national economies he has seen in the countries he has via the removal of trade barriers. visited and suggests reforms so that But do we understand its connota globalisation spreads wealth rather tions, given that it is used to explain than poverty. He describes, for exam a variety of phenom ena-everything ple, the frustration of a competent from currencies disappearing under post-civil-war Ethiopian administra the weight of massive betting by cur tion over IMF high-handedness. The rency speculators to watching Sex in IMF demanded that Ethiopia main the City broadcast in Turkish ? tain a budget surplus even if that For Joseph Stiglitz, globalisation meant schools and hospitals could is about the developing world's being not be built. The government was denied the opportunity for greater chided for not clearing an early loan prosperity because of vested inter repayment with the fund beforehand, ests in the global institutions that an attitude Stiglitz brands as neoco govern it. Stiglitz, former chief economist Joseph Stiglitz left his position as a lonialist. Despite near-zero inflation and at the World Bank and joint Nobel Laureate White House adviser to work at the World slow but steady growth, Ethiopia had to for 2001 (with George Akerlof and Michael Bank in 1997. It is tempting to think he fight against suspension of its IMF pro Spence), is one of a rare breed of economists was offered the job as chief economist gram. It had to risk its ranking by reject who looks past the slide-rule m entality of at the World Bank as part of a strategy ing the IMF's recommendation that it open classic economic theory and judges the per to muzzle him. He had already roughed up its banking system to competition formance of markets by the public good. As up a few egos in the Clinton admin this at a tin1e when the indigenous banks a lauded academic, his prime achievement istration with his occasional, but strident, had fewer assets than could be found in a lies in studies that show how the amount criticism of economic policy set by Treas middle-income suburb of Sydney. of information possessed by participants ury and the Federal Reserve. But if it was To be fair to the IMF, it is not the only determines whether a market functions hoped that the stirrer would get lost in the institution that can be accused of bureau as it should. The urgency in this critique World Bank/IMF nexus-well, no go. Along cratic fussiness and attaching unreasonable of the global financial architecture con came the Asian financial crisis and, follow conditions to aid. Debt relief campaign structed by the International Monetary ing on its heels, the 1998 Russian m elt ers claim that some administrations in Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation down. Stiglitz began to warn against the sub-Saharan Africa spend more time writ and Washington, seem s born of a desire to austerity measures enforced by the IMF on ing reports to direct donors than making make sure people know what is going on. the countries they were bailing out with sure the m oney is put to good use. Even DECEMBER 2002 EUREK A STREET 45 in extreme emergencies, such as post-ref to sell at market. The public enterprise that hardly the kind of instruction on how to erendum Timor, the UN must conduct distributed the chicks was shut down after operate in the free market to give a coun lengthy competitive tendering processes the IMF told the government it shouldn't try emerging from communism. Recent for the most basic of items. (A few years be in the chook business. decisions protecting the US steel industry ago at a meeting in Bangkok an aid official But dealing with major fisca l crises is from cheaper imports, and providing huge with the Australian embassy justified cut the most important mandated responsi subsidies for American agribusiness, give ting funding to a remarkable project run by bility of the IMF, and it is here, according scant reason to believe that Washington a Burmese medico on the Thai side of the to Stiglitz, that the most damage has been will prove its words by deeds any border, on the grounds that the facilities done. After the collapse of currency values time soon. were not hygienic. Brave souls took on the in East Asia in 1997, the institution's econ Herculean task of unpacking the remark.) omists were more concerned with keeping N ATURALLY Globalization and its According to Stiglitz, the IMF is posi inflation down than with managing it. Discontents has drawn flak from its main tively dangerous when it promotes priva It failed to take account of the impact of target. Kenneth Rogoff, who fills a simi tisation and market liberalisation before this policy on economies, and on employ lar position at the IMF to the one Stiglitz adequate regulations, associated infra ment. The high interest rates demanded held at the World Bank, has been leading structure and competitors are in place. of countries in the letters of agreement the IMF charge, posting an open letter on The nadir of this approach was seen in signed with the IMF kept inflation under the institution's website after the book Russia when Yeltsin cronies were buying control but sent indebted companies to was published in America. His liverish up all the state monopolies they could at the wall, particularly in Thailand. There, response (made strange by some feeble prices way under the odds while the IMF the contraction of gross domestic product minded humour) fails to nail Stiglitz as lent billions of dollars to fund the 'shock was near 10 per cent in the year follow the mad professor. Rather, it makes his therapy'. The IMF is also ill-informed ing the devaluations. In Indonesia it was a argument all the more compelling. Rogoff when it dismisses the role governments staggering 17 per cent. Recalling the riots does make a valid point, however, when in poorer countries can play by husbanding that followed the slashing of food and fuel he argues that the book was written with projects and developing markets. Stiglitz subsidies as part of the austerity measures the benefit of hindsight: the IMF has learnt recounts seeing the wreckage of a scheme required under the IMF agreement, Stiglitz how to do things better after some of the in Morocco, in which villagers supple asks whether the nature of the 'regime most turbulent years in its history. mented their income by growing chickens change' that took place under their watch Argentina is now the focus of IMF con could have been any worse. cern. The riots, the run on bank savings, An alternative approach was taken in and the creation of a clutch of currencies Malaysia, where Dr Mahathir ignored IMF by regional governments to replace the SPIRITUAL advice-more from habit than judgment near worthless peso, have happened since COMPANIONING and introduced capital controls and short the IMF caused panic by withholding pay term freezing of foreign-held holdings to ments of a loan last December. This was FORMATION 2003 prevent speculation by 'hot money' and a despite austerity measures in Argentina rush of capital out of the country. Though to curb public spending and repay over US Malaysia is perhaps nwre vulnerable now $100 billion of inherited debt. to another dip in regional growth and inves Are they learning indeed? • A course for those exploring tor confidence, it emerged from the crisis of spiritual companioning/direction the late '90s in far better shape than some Jon Greenaway is a freelance writer, curr and the skills required. of its IMP-advised neighbours. ently based in London. Stiglitz notes the crossover of key IMF ([email protected]) staff to large investment banks and the This ecumenical course is offered close relationship between the institution as part of the ongoing program and the captains of US economic policy. Little wonder the IMF insists on policies of the Australian Network f or high interest rates, budget surpluses, liber Spiritual Direction. It is a part alised financial capital markets-that best time program which comprises a suit the interests of US investors. He calls residential school, a guided read this the Washington consensus. ing program in small groups and Yet when the principle of fr ee trade To advertise in opportunities for supervision. obliges US administrations to hold their nerve against vocal domestic lobbies, Applications close 15th February 2003 EUREKA they so often revert to protectionism. In STREEI Full details are available from : 1994, aluminium prices dropped to a level where Russia had a competitive advantage The Registrar (Mr John Stuart), contact Kirsty Grant 398 Nepean Highway, Parkdale, Vic, 3195 over US producers. Anti-dumping tariffs were imposed on Russian aluminium and phone (03) 942 7 73 11 or e-mail to [email protected] the establishment of a cartel followed- 46 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 BOO KS:3 ANDREW H AM ILTON Making a meal of reform From Eternity to Here: Memoirs of an Angry Priest, Jo hn Hanrahan. Bystander, 2002. ISBN 0 9577978 2 6, RRP $24.99 Take Back the Truth: Confronting Papal Power and the Religious Right, Joanna Manning. Crossroad, 2002. ISBN 0 8245 1976 0, RRP $39.95 Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church, Donald Cozzens. John Garratt Publishing, 2002. ISB 1 875938 94 X, RRI' $29.95 The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests, Dean Hogc. The Liturgical Press, 2002. ISBN 0 8146 2804 4, RRP $54.95 Aquinas and His Role in Theology, Marie-Dominique Chenu. Liturgical Press, 2002. ISBN 0 8146 5079 1, RRP $44.95 BOO KS ABO UT REFORM are a bit like to the place of women in society and to a barium meal. They are usually heavy the role of the laity in the church. She going and can cause dyspepsia. So we only attributes these attitudes to Pope John Paul read them if we believe that they will help II and to many reactionary lay and clerical our condition. They must persuade us that movem ents which he favours. To support there is something wrong with us, provide her argum ent, she draws on a wide variety an attractive picture of a healthy state, and of Catholic writing and telling anecdotes. persuade us that we can realistically expect Manning, who describes herself as hav- to pass from sickness to health. Otherwise, ing moved beyond the Catholic Church, why bother? focuses on pathologies. N evertheless, she As there was in the late medieval world, offers an implicit picture of health, pointed there is now so much interest in reform of in a summary wish list at the end of the the church that you could spend much of book. She wants the Catholic Church to your time reading about it. So, I chose fiv e welcome the postmodern construction of books that approach the condition of the truth. In the conversion entailed in this, church from different perspectives, and Catholics would recognise that insistence subjected them to the barium test. on certainty in m oral and doctrinal issues John Hanrahan's account of the church refl ects a passion for power and not for is autobiographical. It was published post- truth. Once Catholics accepted that the humously, and would have benefited from church should be both plural and inclusive, stronger editing to eliminate repetition. It they would naturally dismantle coercive diagnoses a pathological church. institutions and practices. Hanrahan joined a religious congrega- Tal DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 47 with the result that many Catholics can reflections by many people responsible for who emphasise the difference between not receive the Eucharist. It is also impos the spiritual development, placem ent and clergy and laity, and want it strength sible to talk freely, he argues, about the mental health of priests. ened. The tension between ideal and real number of gay seminarians, the alienation The recommendations made by the par ity is not resolved, but the book suggests of women, the extent of sexual abuse in the ticipants in the study are not sensational that a high theological and spiritual rhet church, and about wom en 's ordination. In but they bear reflection. All the young oric is of limited value unless it is firmly some cases silence is imposed by sanctions. priests and former priests recommend that grounded in the human reality of the can Cozzens explores the reasons why silence there should be more openness about sex didate. Where Christian or priestly identity and denial flourish. uality in the teaching and curriculum of is founded on a vision of difference from He also offers a better way: a contem their formation, a realistic seminary for others, the path to disillusion plative form of living, which would coun mation that introduces students to what ment is already signposted. teract the fear and the brutal pragmatism awaits them in their ministry, better men in which silence and silencing breed. In taring of the newly ordained, and more I N THE FINAL BOOK reviewed, Marie addition, he attributes to the whole church opportunities for them to speak honestly Dominique Chenu, a French Dominican the task of preserving the truth of the Gos together of their experiences. priest, writes on Thomas Aquinas in a pel. As a result, teaching naturally takes Tllis program is minimal when com work which is over 40 years old, but only the form of dialogue that is based on trust. pared to the larger agenda of church reform newly translated. Chenu was a theologian Trust, in turn, will be reflected in the con espoused by others. It has to do with the and pastoral theorist who was constantly sultation of laity in the appointment of small satisfactions and local relationships of harassed by the Roman authorities. His bishops, and of theologians and of women parish ministry. The critical challenges here studies of medieval philosophy and theol in matters concerning them. A program are how to deal with a heavy burden of work ogy were influential in Catholic theology, based on truth will also require m ore open and how to accept loneliness and appropri leading to an appreciation of the impor ways of forming priests. ately find intimacy after moving from the tance of historical context in theology. His Sacred Silence is more narrowly focused more communal world of the seminary. Cer account of the m edieval world is not one of than Take Back the Truth, and the exam tainly Cozzens' analysis of the denial and serene agreement on faith, but of passion ples which he gives of a church behaving silence endemic in church affairs illuminates ate difference about central questions. badly are more telling. Cozzens' suggested som e of the factors that contribute to dis His Aquinas, too, is not the authori changes accept the existing framework of satisfaction in ministry. But Hoge does not tative official theologian, but the contro Catholic belief and discipline, and so it detect a cancer in the church. He identifies versial thinker who incorporated into his is not inconceivable that they might be less dran1atic ills: sprains, strains, instances theology the secular philosophy of Aristo adopted in a less fearful climate. But as of undernourishment and infection. No one tle and insisted on giving secular answers with Manning and Hanrahan, his image of form of treatment will heal them all. to secular questions. He struggled against a the church is idealised. The church is the In the responses to the study, there theology that simultaneously claimed too most important show on earth, as well as is one telling difference of emphasis. A much knowledge of the world, and was too in heaven. The pressure of such an ideal is bishop notes the individualism of the incurious about it. less likely to create reform than a resist young priests and their emphasis on needs, In som e respects Chenu's work shows ance to it that will be masked by the co calling for more evangelical zeal. A psy its years. In 1959, Thomism was dominant option of the language of reform. chiatrist distinguishes between needs and in philosophy and theology, and Chenu Dean Hoge's sociological study of desires, saying that people will not func could assume general familiarity with his Catholic priests in their early years after tion well pastorally unless their emotional ideas and language. What then was a popu ordination is as narrowly focused as the needs, no less than their physical needs for larising work will now be demanding for reflections of Manning and Cozzens are food and shelter, are adequately addressed. most readers. But the conditions within the broad. He presents the results of question This is one of the few times in the book church that Chenu implicitly addresses, naires and interviews both with priests when the difference between the present namely an unreflective and uncritical who have rem ained in ministry and those state of the church and the imagined ideal appeal to au thority and evasion of the who left within five years of their ordina is handled. But an idealised church and challenges the world addresses to us, tion. His study-impressive in the m odesty ministry seem also to be reflected in the are still with us. His account of Aquinas of its goals and findings-concludes with surprisingly high percentage of priests offers an imaginative, confident vision FAUSTAS SADAUSKAS SKULPTURA A.B.N. 37 695 031 330 Contemporary sculpture, design and consultation by studio artist-Faustas Sadauskas * . Devotional objects made from stone, timber and metal in both abstract and figurative form. For catalogue and inquiries: Tel/Fax: (03) 9555 0403 or E-mail: [email protected] ·winner of the Hugh Ramsay Award for Religious Art. Melbournme (1997) 48 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 and an unpolemical trust in reality. bility, that needs to be addressed. The myth Although there is something divine and Of these books which I have reviewed, has to do with overcoming death and limi lasting in it, this quality inheres neither in those by Hoge and Chenu were the most tation, a condition addressed subtly by Saint its good reputation, its hierarchy, the weight satisfying. Paradoxically, although less con Augustine in his refl ections on the death of of its teaching authority nor in the security cerned than the others with the pathology his friend when both were adolescents: conferred by m embership. These things are of church, they were m ore helpful in envis passing. But even critics of the church are For the grief I fe lt for the loss of my friend aging what reform might look like. Perhaps attracted to the myth of a powerful and had struck so easily into my inmost heart this is becau se the literature of reform, by much loved church, even while they wish simply because I had poured out my soul, focusing on the corruption within organi to build it on different foundations. upon him, like water upon sand, loving a sations, tends to m ake the corruption Hoge's study is refreshing because he man who was mortal as though he were gargantuan, and the organisation itself restricts him self to the small and half never to die. My greatest comfort and appear powerful beyond measure. Those measurable realities of the human heart. relief was in the solace of other friends who corrupt the organisations by abuse of Out of these, m yths are not easily built. who shared my love of the huge fable power are usually driven by an exaggerated Chenu presents a large picture of the which I loved instead of you, my God, sense of the importance of the organisa church whose institutions help us while the long-drawn lie which our minds were tion . Their critics unwillingly collude with we are on our journey to engage with the always itching to hear, only to be defiled them in confirming both the importance God who is at work in the world. But the by its adulterous caress. But if one of my and power of the organisation, and the church, as we know it, is for travellers. It is friends died, the fable did not die with him. conviction that it is under threat. not their rest. • (Confessions, IV. S) It is precisely this myth of church as an institution of unalloyed achievem ent, of The myth which Augustine identifies Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United unassailable reputation, of total indispensa- in friendship can also attach to the church. Faculty of Theology, Melbourne. BOOKS:4 HUGH D ILLON The perennial observer Orwell's Victory, Christopher Hitchens. Faber, 2002. ISBN 0 713 99 584 X, RRP $29.95 WHY D O WE continue to read George democratic socialism, as I understand it ... Orwell? N ot only, I believe, because h e What I have most wanted to do through- was so insightful about totalitarianism out the past ten years is to make political and other aspects of the politics of the writing into an art. My starting point is 20th century. Although Orwell (b orn Eric always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of Blair) was fam ously suspicious of saintli- injustice ... ness ('Saints should be judged guilty until proven innocent,' he said of Gandhi), Susan It was this almost unique combination Sontag's observations in her 1963 essay on of elem ents in him- how m any others can the French philosopher Simon e Weil seem you think of like him?-that lent Orwell som ehow apt for him: his serious quality, made his life exemplary and m akes him still an essential writer. Some lives are exemplary, others not; and It is also why he has been either attacked of exemplary lives, there are those which purpose. As he himself identified in his or shanghaied ruthlessly or simplistically invite us to imitate them, and those which essay 'Why I Write', and Hitchens under since he died in 1950 by many who refuse we regard from a distance with a mix scores, he had 'a facility with words and a or fail to understand him. ture of revulsion, pity, and reverence. It is power of facing unpleasant facts.' He also For many years Christopher Hitchens roughly the difference between a hero and had a determination to reject the life of has m ade clear his fierce and protective a saint (if one may use the latter term in a middle-class gentleman, as it had been admiration of Orwell. I don 't have a full an aesthetic rather than a religious sense) prescribed for him, and to live on his own bibliography of Hitchens' references to and ... No one who loves life would wish to terms for good or ill. And why did he write? articles on Orwell, but my own random imitate her dedication to martyrdom, or As familiar as we think we are with him, it collection of Hitchens' works shows that would wish it for his children or for anyone is worth refreshing our mem ories: he returns again and again to Orwell, like a else whom he loves. Yet so far as we love rabbi to the Talmud. seriousness, as well as life, we are moved Every line of serious work that I have writ As readers of Hitchen s will know, by it, nourished by it. ten since 1936 has been written, directly or h e is witty, combative and stylish . They Orwell was, above all, a writer of seriou s indirectly, against totalitarianism and for will also know that he is rhetorical, has a DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 49 tendency to smugness and supercilious Hitchens' essay 'Orwell and the Left' is tory. Hitchens, for reasons which elude me, ness, and honours Orwell's austere rules for a broadside against those whose 'sheer ill seems to have felt obliged to defend Orwell plain English m ore often in the breach than will and bad faith and intellectual confu as though he were living today. He died the observance. He writes vivid, senten sion ... ignite spontaneously when Orwell's nearly twenty years before Germaine Greer tious, sometimes ornate prose. But-agree nam e is mentioned'. He selects various tar published The Female Eunuch. He was not with him or not-he is always provocative gets, but it is Raymond Williams, the doyen a feminist but nor were most Englishmen reading. of British cultural studies, for whom he in 1950. While he shows that Orwell was Orwell's Vi ctory is neither biography reserves his deadliest venom. In criticising not a misogynist, Hitchens does not empha nor balanced exegesis of Orwell's work. It Williams' Modern Masters book on Orwell, sise adequately that much modern feminist is polemic (against those whom Hitchens he accuses Williams (among other things) criticism of Orwell fails to treat him in the regards as Orwell's enemies) and apologia. of 'ingenious dishonesty and evasion'. context of his times. The book has obvious strengths. As well Williams' admirers will cringe or bridle, so The best of the rest are Hitchens' intro as being immensely readable, Hitchens well-struck are Hitchens' blows. duction and the essays on Empire and the knows his Orwell. Until Sonia Orwell died, Hitchens also takes a swipe at the novels, which are excellent. The piece many of George Orwell's collected papers Right's attempted ann exation of Orwell. on the novels is an especiall y perceptive were kept from researchers. Peter Davi (This, I think, is the best piece in the book.) engagement with Orwell. T he others strike son's 20-volume collection of the papers Here he brings out something of the real me as underdone. Anyone well-versed in is a marvel of editing, and Hitchens has Orwell, the 'rather gruff English Home Hitchens' prolific output will find some clearly invested much time studying it. He Counties Tory' who 'spent his entire adult familiar ideas repeated. But this is a small has also, over the years, immersed himself life in conscious repudiation of this fate sin- Hitchens' best ideas always bear in Orwell's critics-of various stripes. and this identity'. His target is, again, intel reconsideration- and, in any case, the Hitchens subdivides his 'apologia pro lectual dishonesty. He makes plain that book may well encourage a new generation George Orwell' into ten essays: an intro Orwell was the all y of the Right only in to read Orwell. • duction, Orwell and Empire, the Left, the also opposing Stalinist totalitarianism. The Right, America, 'Englishness', feminists, essay on Orwell and feminism is unsatisfac- Hugh Dillon is a Sydney magistrate. the novels, language, and Orwell's notori ous list of communist 'fellow-travellers'. It is difficult now, given the apparent triumph of liberal democracy in so many BOOKS:S political and economic spheres, to recall STEPH EN HOLT how little confidence most Europeans and, indeed, Americans- had in democracy during the Thirties. By the time war broke out in September 1939, most European countries were either led by dictators or helpmeet had large, popular Fascist and Communist parties dedicated to the overthrow of parliamentary democracy. The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell, Hilary Spur! mg. Orwell was no supporter of the Church Hamtsh Hamilton, lOCll I'll" 0 24 1 14165 6 RtU' Sl 50 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 mother married an alcoholic and, after befriended Angus Wilson and Anthony their divorce, had to survive by running a Powell, both of whom portrayed her in boarding house in the 'grey, sick wilder their fiction. ness' of London. Sonia's supreme act of homage went Rejecting religion and seized by mild out to George Orwell, who shyly recipro bohemian longings, Sonia gravitated to cated her regard. In Nineteen Eighty-Pam the literary mini-universe of Spender and he depicted her as Julia, the fearless 'girl Auden and also mixed with the pre-war from the Fiction Department' in the Min Euston Road school of painters. This group istry of Truth. Orwell loved her boldness, (including William Coldstream, her first bossiness and vivid independence. lover) was subsidised and given studio Sonia married Orwell exactly a hundred space by Virginia Woolf and other members days before he died, in 1950. She had of the Bloomsbury set. yearned to minister serenely to a disem Sonia, though somewhat liberated, still bodied literary spirit, and was consequently had to contend with uncongenial attitudes. not prepared for the physical and mental London's highbrows, while claiming to be shock occasioned by Orwell's death. free spirits, remained in thrall to main For two-and-a-half decades Sonia was stream notions. To be a praiseworthy artist Orwell's literary executor. She became or writer was, it was assumed, a male role. unpopular in literary London because she Women had to be content with maintain enforced her husband's puritanical ban on ing domestic peace and order for the phal anyone engraving his image in an author locentric genius or, at best, with typing, ised biography. Money was also a painful editing or inspiring his creative work. They bore for Sonia but it was a problem that could only hope to flutter on the fringes steadfastly refused to go away. The royalties of art during the brief interlude between multiplied in the 1950s once readers were We work with communities , families and school and marriage. able to buy paperback editions of Nineteen young people in critical need . During World War II British cultural Eighty-Pam and Animal Farm. • Some of Austra li a's most disadvantaged life responded, if a trifle unwillingly, to the Sonia was respon sible for establishing communities in Newcastle, Collingwood , seriousness of the times-a situation that an Orwell archive in 1960. With Ian Angus, Fitzroy and Richmond benefited the ardent Sonia. Under the critic she helped prepare a four-volume selection • Migrant families , refugee youth and Cyril Connolly, whom she revered as an of his writings that switched attention to asylum seekers authoritative champion of literary civilisa the essays and journalism and away from • Homeless young people just released tion, the magazine Horizon emerged as the her husband's pre-war fiction. But in 1977, from prison nation's leading exponent of critical dis locked in dispute with the sinister-sound • Long term unemployed with serious cernment. For a while it operated as a port ing George Orwell Productions Ltd, she disabilities of entry to the wider intellectual world of decamped to France. Litigation followed. French existentialism . Even before it started, Sonia was convinced You can help b1J forwarding It was Sonia, a born manager and no that things would turn nasty (her notions a ta..T-deductible donation! nonsense literary factotum, who kept of the legal system were derived from Horizon ticking over during the frequent Bleak House). The prophecy was bound to periods when Connolly lapsed into imprac be self-fulfilling. Indeed, Sonia was fated to ticality. But young woman that she was, live in literary scenarios until the day she Jesuit Social Services PO Box 271 , Richmond VIC 3121 she was expected not to get uppity. At the died. Her final years (she died in 1980) were Tel : (03) 9427 7388 www.jss.org .au start of the magazine's existence Connolly's spent down and out in Paris and London, I enclose my Christmas co-editor Peter Watson (whose father's dossing in grim apartments and the spare donation of $ ...... margarine business profits funded Horizon) bedrooms of friends and in public hospital Cheque/Money order enclosed vetoed a plan for her to edit a special issue wards. Orwell was young when he under Please debit my 0 Bankcard on n ew British art. went the same experience but Sonia was Mastercard 0 Visa Spurling plausibly suggests that lack of ageing and tired. In her unworldliness, she ;..:.=.;.-,--.-. ,--,--,-..:;::Ex..,ir Date ...... I ...... self-esteem induced by highbrow misogyny had let her husband's hard-earned royalties L...._.L__L_L_j L___J__j__j_J l_L_L___J__j I I I I I led Sonia to settle fo r the role of nurse to slip through her fingers. heroic male authors and thinkers. But During 2003 we can expect to see the intellectuals and writers whom Sonia more books published about Orwell as the encountered never lost the capacity to dis celebrations of his centenary year become appoint her. The gracious Merleau-Ponty more frequent. Some will be all too forgetta turned out to be too much of an anglo ble. Hilary Spurling's well-imagined world of phile for her tastes, and Arthur Ko estler George Orwell and his widow will not. • ...... Po stcode ...... was a fearsome predator. There were hap pier experiences elsewhere, though-Sonia Stephen Holt is a Canberra author. DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STREET 51 ladders, chairs, mirrors, and a long-haired woman with a menacing smile (standard art-school stuff in fact, but no-one warns you that installation art can be as lethal as it is pointless). The American version of Splatter movie and the scenes of Harris actually tackling this stars Naomi Watts as a single mother the canvases are genuinely breathtaking. journalist with an old-for-his-age little Pollock, dir. Ed Harris. Why do impossible This film is more glorious craft than boy. When her niece dies after watching a people fascinate us so? Jackson Pollock it is perfect film-making (losing the story strange video, she intrepidly goes alone to was by all accounts about as unpleasantly every now and then to virtuoso acting) the remote mountain motel where it all took impossible as a person can be. Sure, his but it is an impressive debut for Harris as place. Then she wa tches the video, and the painting had a massive influence on post director, and an appropriately unsympa rest of the film is a race against time. (Day war art-making, but you have to have a lot thetic portrait of a very difficult man. 1, you see a ladder. Oh dear. Day 2, I think more than just talent to influence the way -Siobhan Jackson you see a housefly and get a nosebleed. Day people turn up their jeans legs. His iconic 3, I forget.) Anyway, this wonderful mother status (proved by his continuing sartorial leaves the video where her kid can get it sway) is matched perhaps by the stretch of Beyond disbelief and since the father has also watched it the his canvases but not by the love he shared whole family is up for the chop. The video with man (nor woman, neither). The Ring, dir. Gore Verbinski. Remem switches itself on at odd times just to let Pollock is a bio-pic of sorts, and in ber that very dark and disturbing 1988 them know who's boss. But you know the truth could just as well have been called Dutch thriller The Vanishing (SpoorloosL one thing they never do? They futilely take Krasner (his wife and an Abstract Expres directed by George Sluizer? Some years the plug out of the wall, but they don't ever sionist herself)- but of course that is not later in 1993 Sluizer allowed a Hollywood consider getting rid of the telly. how we record history, particularly the remake complete with tacked-on happy - Juliette Hughes history of modernism. But my wee his ending and a total lack of the sinister torical quibble aside, Ed Harris has pulled force that drove the plot in the original version. Well, The Ring is doing just that Dream factor with a dark and disturbing 1998 Japanese thriller called Ringu, except that, having Donnie Darko, dir. Richard Kelly. If theatre borrowed its main plot and premise, it grew from religious ritual, film has its thought it might as well rummage around roots in the subconscious. We love the in videos of The X-Files, The Shining, cinema because it's as human as dreaming. The Sixth Sense and Psycho (yes indeed, Neophyte American director, Richard a shower scene and a high-backed chair Kelly, obviously thinks so. that swings around to reveal its occupant Though only 26 and fresh out of in what Peter Wimsey's sidekick Bunter UCLA, Kelly didn't want to make a pre used to describe as a very imperfect state dictable 'calling card movie' designed to of preservation). The make-up specialist impress Hollywood with its box office gets a whole line in the credits and well potential and subtle product placement; deserves it, the tireless chap, unless of he wanted to make a strange film about off something almost marvellous. The course he has shares in the manufacture the apocalypse and teenage angst. The film has some of the problems associated of corpse-green maquillage, in which case result, Donnie Darko, comes across as a with the dreariest of bio-pics-Val Kilmer it's sheer insider trading. Philip K. Dick rewrite of 'The Catcher in looking as though he's dipped into a dress The story of the original is riskily sim the Rye'. up box to prepare for his role as Willem ple and requires considerable athleticism The eponymous Donnie Darko (Jake de Kooning, and the odd over-anxious in one's credulity: the Japanese version Gyllenhaal) is an intellectually gifted, inclusion of dates and place names-but pulls it off by being uncompromisingly but disturbed, teenager at odds with the not much else really gets your goat. strange and crazy and, well, thoroughly values of small-town America. And if non Harris' decision to concentrate almost Japanese. You have to believe that if you conformism isn't burdensome enough, exclusively on the relationship between watch a certain video, the phone will ring he's also experiencing 'daylight hallucina Pollock and Krasner was a wise one, allow and you will be told you have seven days tions'- These feature Frank, a man-sized ing us to see the inextricable connections to live. After the set time your heart stops rabbit, who tells him the world will end in between the production of a man's work and you are found dead and with a terri precisely 28 days, five hours, 52 minutes and a couple's domestic reality. (In this ble expression on your face. The Japanese and 12 seconds. case, not a domestic reality anyone would version is subtler and scarier by far: the Before the arrival of Judgment Day, envy, but certainly one to acknowledge.) Hollywood version has to add the ooga however, Donnie has time to romance the Marcia Gay Harden (above) and Ed booga factor. new girl at school, Gretchen Ross (Jena Harris (right) are painfully good (if a little The video in question is about five MaloneL burn down the house of the local too handsome) as Pollock and Krasner, minutes long and consists of mysterious self-help guru, Jim Cunningham (Patrick 52 EUREKA STR EET DECEMBER 2002 Swayze), discuss time travel with his basically a 'star' vehicle for Molloy, you'd Jones-Vardalos is able to convince as teacher (Noah Wyle) and riff about the sex also have to think his bumcrack fla shing, someone who really needed a makeover, a life of Smurfs with his buddies. bad-boy persona was funny before you'd true iolie-laide. Kelly propels this eccentric narrative put the commas away. Some people do, The story is a simple one: Toula by jumping fr om one genre to another I think, but surely not enough to build a Portokalos (Vardalos), a plain, clever high-school com edy, teenage slasher film, whole film around? Given that Molloy has Greek-American girl, meets Ian Miller Lynchian paranoia-but som ehow his been described as the 'brains trust' behind (John Corbett of Sex and the City fa me), a rampant eclecticism never gets annoy the film (a scary idea, that one), writing sensitive, clever WASP. They fall in love. ing-mainly due to his witty screenplay and co-producing as well as starring in it, How they negotiate the cultural differ and the charm of Gyllenhaal's perform it shouldn't com e as too much of a sur ences is the plot and the extended joke. an ce. prise that he features heavily. You'd have Parentsf come in or a fair bit of fun-poking. Donnie Darko might have been a better and more accessible film if Kelly had halved his ambitions and pursued the more predictable story of a family scarred by mental illness, but where's the bravery in that? After all, if dream s don't m ake much sense, why should the 'daylight hallucinations' we know as the movies ? In the end, Kelly got to m ake the film he wanted to, and that's a major achievement in itself. - Brett Evans Bowled under Cracker;ack, dir. Paul Moloney. There's something sinister going on in Austral ian film, a conspiracy lurking in the back room s and corridors of power, a secret cabal of obsessed fanatics surreptitiously pushing their secret agenda: how else can you explain the number of films about lawn bowls in recent years? Greenkeep to wonder, though, about who the film Michael Constantine plays the fa ther as ing (1992), Road to Nhill (1996 ), and now makers are trying to reach with this one. a beleaguered traditionalist whose real Cracker;ack-surely this particular niche Certainly, the only people in the world benevolence means that he is smoothly of the market has been grossly over-rep who will get the 'champagne bowling' joke and continuously outmanoeuvred by the resented? It's not as if there's something towards the end of the film are D-Genera wom en he thinks he rules. His eccentrici inherently cinem atic about the gam e (the tion fans. And if you don't know what I'm ties are hilarious: his home rem edy for any latest rendition is certainly one of the least talking about already, you're probably not skin ailment is Windex; he tries to find a cinem atic fi lms I've seen in ages)-and it's the person this film was made for. Greek deriva tion for every word im agi not as if any of the earlier contributions to -Allan James Thomas nable, including kimono. Lainie Kazan's the genre were international smash hits. extravagant, opulent Jewishness trans I know I'd be happy never to see another mogrifi es beautifully into Greek-mother quirky Australian 'comedy' for as long as Graeco-Romantic of-the-bride. That fine, elegant actor I live. Andrea Martin is m arvellously sharp yet The plot is pretty basic: obnoxious lout My Big Fat Greek Wedding, dir. Joel nutty as Toula's Aunt Voula. (played by Mick Molloy) is rude to old Zwick. When you 've sung at countless The cinema was choctop-full of vari people (the lawn bowlers), but fi nds Mediterranean weddings, you view My ous ethnicities besides Greek, including redemption in their traditional ways Big Fat Greek Wedding with a sense of this Irish-English bitzer and Dutch-Irish (beer at 1972 prices) and helps save their familiarity that borders on ownership. friend. Italians in particular were lov club from a fa te worse than death (poker It doesn't disappoint. N ia Vardalos is a ing it, claiming the experience as well, machines). Given that there are at least Greek-American stand-up comic whose screeching with recognition and celebra three comics in the cast (Mick Molloy, routine covers territory fa miliar to Aus tory validation. Judith Lucy and John Clarke), som e of tralians who enj oyed the Wags Out of Like Wags Out Of Work, it's damn whom are actually capable of pulling a Work phenom enon. It's great that the pro funny, perpetrating its stereotypes in such laugh, you'd have hoped there'd be no need ducers decided to go with her as the star a benign yet sharp way that you just laugh to put the inverted commas around the instead of unimaginatively casting som e and laugh. It's joyous. Go. word 'com edy'. However, since the film is one like Penelope Cruz or Catherine Zeta -Juliette Hughes DECEMBER 2002 EUREKA STR EET 53 The audio gets visual W ,N I WAS vmnNG my mum h" week, she showed tripthonged, gigathonged, I baulked: he couldn't be real; it had to me her nice new widescreen telly packed with what the be parody. (How would teletext do his 'croikey1'?) I watched with catalogues call features. But the most amazing thing it does is critical fangs bared, much as a taipan might regard him, as he give you subtitles if you press one of the buttons on the remote. risked a m auling from my incredulity. But, li ke the mesmerised I believe it's called teletext. reptile, I was charmed. He is more than a showman-he is aware It was an epiphany. I'd popped in late one evening while of the socio-political pressures that threaten animals. In late she was catching the end of a Jackie Chan movie. She loves October Channel Ten showed him in East Timor, rescuing two Jackie Chan, just as she loves Mel and Harrison and Sean and horribly neglected captive crocodiles. I was sceptical, because especially Bruce. It's one of the things I share with her: nei it seem ed there was so much more to do in that country. But he ther of us can sit through Brief Encounter (what a pair of big was well ahead of m e. He and his wife Terri funded a medical soft sawnies, she'll say) but give us an action £ella and we can centre for the local population as well as transferring the ani appreciate the efforts he's making. All that trembly-voiced mals from the cesspits they were confined in to more humane whingeing reminds us too much of family character analysis, enclosures. The Irwins both spoke intelligently of Timorese something that is a hazard where there are five sisters with big beliefs (the crocodile is sacred to them) and argued that you lives and wide vocabularies. Anyway, while making cups of can't expect people who have been starving and under threat of tea, wandering in and out of her boudoir, chatting to the sister violent death for so long to be able to care for difficult captive at whose house Mum lives, I noticed that there were subtitles animals that can't be released without threat to themselves and on even though the film was in English. others. In other programs Irwin speaks passionately against the I was entranced when I took notice of what they were say hunting of whales in the Southern Pacific (he's trying to get ing. By that time there was a Jean-Claude VanDamme movie it banned; he wept openly as beached sperm whales died on on and it was obvious that the writers either have a wicked a beach in Tasmania). He is fierce against the 'sustainable sense of humour or are so earnest that it makes no odds, be use' doctrine that would turn all wildlife into farmed com cause the inspired composers of teletext don't just give the modities for handbags, chess sets and suchlike. He argues dialogue, dear me no: Van Damme walked into a bar and the that it is a cynical ploy by powerful men who want to destroy legend appeared: World-weary heroic music. Thieatening mu diminishing wild habitats. Well, he's convinced this fa mily of his sic heralded the advent of three swaggering toughs, mere Van bona fides. Merry Christm as to him and his £ami! y, and crikey, I'm Damme thump-fodder (flying tackle coming up ); Van Damme glad he's so h yperactive because you need a lot of gets the girl: Romantic music (wedding tackle ditto). Sneaky energy to fight the fight he's fighting. music (speaks for itself); Triumphant music (see Sneaky music) and assiduously recorded sighs, sarcastic laughs, groans and L is CHRI STMAS WE won't be watching the telly, texted or other non-verbal sounds. I've drawn the line at Van Damme not. There will be turkey, carols, mince pies and really good in the past (Mum doesn't) but these subtitles make him so Christmas trees. We'll have people coming from overseas, and watchable now: the man's craft is broken open for the dis we'll do the Kris Kringle because only Bill Gates could buy cerning. What more joys await? That's it. Sell the dogs and more than a packet of chewy for everybody in this extended children and buy a new telly-conspicuous consumption, family which includes armies of friends. And on Boxing Day here I come. I now understand why there are so many quite we're going to treat ourselves to the second episode of The Lord respectable-looking TVs on nature strips all over town, put out of the Rings. I want to book seats in that Gold Pass cinema for the hard rubbish collection. where they have recliner chairs and a bar. Frodo, Gandalf and a However, I'm not sure whether teletext will be able to do ginger shandy-perfect felicity. And the same to you all. • justice to one of my new favourites, Steve Irwin aka the Croco dile Hunter. When I first heard those vowels, diphthonged, Juliette Hughes is a freelance writer. 54 EUREKA STREET DECEMBER 2002 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 109, Decen1her 2002 ACROSS 1. How you act towards the share m arket, perh aps, when there is a slump. Boring? (4,8,2) 8 & 9. Santa Claus in Europe- he gives presents to children in the first week of December. (5,8) 11. Old fluid container- use it to colour thoroughly. (3 -4) 12. Being confused, hated to m ake a pledge that would last this long. (2,5) 13. Wolf down in the canyon ? (5) 15. Fill the gaps with it, maybe, when one wants to 13-across. (9) 17. Proprietor on vessel has title, by right. (9) 20. Trace out the story but m ark the insertion with this. (5) 2 1. N o. 1 current fl ows back in this issu e. (7) 23 . In plant, found sm all ant- an adapted species. (7) 25. Quote the reference for this commendation . (8) 26. Concede that the harvest provides revenue. (5) 27. With good reason, on e m ay gather skilfully. (14) DOWN 1. Continuing electricity supply needed to be able to complete the m arathon race, for instance. (7,5) Solution to Crossword no. 108, 2. Be quiet! Annoy th e boss? Get out of it! (5) November 2002 3. Trailing along the Rhine, tear out the guide sh eet, perhaps. (2,3,4) 4. H as goose-pimples, possibly, just from w earing a torn singlet. (7) 5. Girl in bed, the other w ay round, enjoys Italian cheese. (7) 6. Got up and put up with it. (5) 7. U sing flexible can e, train the h orses; that's how to go down the traight! (2,1 ,6) 10. In Australia, 8 & 9, called by a differen t name, m ay give presents on a date in midsu mmer. (9,3) 14. What a performance! Perhaps ask Ron: 'Indite it for us, please'. (9) 16. Journalist on th e carriage- his writing is so dull and stereotyped! (9) 18. Tissu es often replace them today; that is, in coils of yarn, for instance. (7) 19. European has crush ed ant for m eal. (7) 22. Some people train in an eccentric outfit. How daft! (5) 24. Not in ch arge, but sour just the same! (5) This subscription is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill in your own contact details, left) D New D Renewal D Gift IMrsiMISs/Ms/Mr F1rst Name II Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mr F1rst Name ~======~ Length of subscription: ISumame II Sumame D One yea r (1 0 issues for ~~======~~~======~ $63, $5 4 concess ion for IStreet No. Street Name II Street No. Street Name pensioners, students and unemployed. Inc. 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EUREKASTRE Bread for the Journey B read for the Homilies by Peter Steele SJ } ourney It is no accident that some of the great sermons have been written by poets-those shapers of language and thought. In this tradition, but distinguished by his particular verve and insight, is Peter Steele SJ, poet, Jesuit priest, scholar and wordsmith. Bread for the Tourney is a collection of his Sunday homilies, given over many years, in N ewman College at the University of Melbourne, in the chapel of Georgetown University in Washington, or wherever else he has found both himself and time for reflection. These homilies, as practical and accessible as they are inspiring, cover an extraordinary Peter Steele SJ range of subjects, from Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons and Neil Armstrong stepping on to the moon, to St Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, the nature of heaven, and a small travel agency called 'Please Go Away'. Peter Steele SJ has a Personal Chair in English at the University of Melbourne. He was Provincial Superior of the Australian Jesuits from 1985 to 1990, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. This new collection of words for the people reflects Peter Steele's depth of vision, his wisdom and his broad humanity. Thanks to David Lovell Publi shing, Eureka Street has 10 copies of Bread for the foumey to give away. Just put your name and address on D L ' the back of an envelope and send to: Eureka Street December 2002 Book Offer, PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3121. See page 8 for winners of the October 2002 Bool< Offer. AuABRsT RA LI AN Boo K RE V I EW SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS On Books, Libraries and Writing An Essay by Clive James Indonesia's Protean Politics Jolm Monfries Barry Humphries' Second Life Peter Rose Malcolm Fraser's Common Ground Robert Manne 2002's Outstanding Books Our Critics Have Their Say give to the Subscribers save 20% christmas bowl Subscribe no"! $63.50 for ten issues (incl. GST) Ph: (03) 9429 6700 or E-mail: abr(a 'icnet.net.au Also available at select bookstores and newsagents 1 0