The Vatic -Edmund Campion on the Australia

What price Australian naway and An r ami I r fugees, 'illegals' AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW

SEPTEMBER:

Humphrey McQueen on Chris wattace~-Gra th e Chinese connecti on Dorothy Porter, Michael Hofmann, Fay Zwicky, Anthony Lawrence, Rolling Column by Mark Davis Anita Heiss, Merlinda Bobis, Tien Hoang Nguyen, Deb Westbury, Kerryn Goldsworthy on Thea Astley' s MTC Cronin, Dry lands Geoff Goodfellow and many mo re Marilyn Lake on Beryl Beaurepajre I melbourne Mari on Halli gan on Andrew Riemer's new memoir festival

of Subscribers $55 for ten issues plus a free book Ph (03) 9429 6700 or Fax (03) 9429 2288 poetry

september Art Monthly 1999 AUSTRALIA

IN THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE chapel off Peter Hill interYiews Liz Ann Macgregor, new Director of the Museum of chapel Contemporary Art • prahran Daniel Thomas talks about being a curator

9522 3382 ArtRage - Mat Gallois on r;"t.,~;:;:;::::;-;;;;;::rn!l:;n~..r.w,,.,;::;;=rr-""""IIPII Off Chapel being an emerging artist in Sydney inHiative supported by Arts The Immigration Museum and the Victoria Millionth Migrant exhibition

Out now _ S-1.9.'i, .fimn good boohlwps and ncii'Sagcnls. Or plu111c ()] 62-19 3986 jin· your mbsaiption Volume 9 Number 7 September 1999 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology

CoNTENTS

4 COMMENT With Mark McKenna and 32 Francis Sullivan. AFTER THE BIG WAVE Photographic essay by Peter Davis. 'He loved to 7 speculate, CAPITAL LETTER 34 INDONESIAN WITNESS sometimes almost 8 Peter Mares interviews Ibu Sulami, dangerously, LETTERS activist, feminist and political survivor. from every 10 37 TRAFFICKING IN PEOPLE THE MANY ANXIETIES OF experiment he Jon Greenaway investiga tes the AUSTRALIA AND ASIA performed, supply side of illegal immigration. David Walker's Anxious Nation: Andrew Hamilton questions Australia's Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939 seeking to derive reception of 'illegals' and asylum seekers. shows how complex Australia-Asia general n1eaning relations have always been, says 16 Peter Cochrane. from results THE MONTH'S TRAFFIC With Edmund Campion, Hugh Dillon 40 which, in the first and Kathy Laster. BOOKS instance at least, Peter Craven reviews William Maxwell's 17 reissued novel, The Folded Leaf; are always highly SUMMA THEOLOGIAE Peter Pierce makes a m eal of Thomas Harris' Hannibal (p41 ). particular and 19 specialised.' ARCHIMEDES 43 Our man turns the microscope on THEATRE - Gustav Nossal on scientists, sex and boxer shorts. Australian theatre needs Macfa rl ane Burnet, see p22 natural therapy, argues Peter Craven. 20 Geoffrey Milne surveys som e of THE STATE OF VICTORIA Australia's winter offerings. As Victoria heads for elections, Cover design by Siobhan Jackson. Moira Rayner takes stock. 45 Photograph of Sir Macfarlane POETRY Burnet courtesy The Wa lter and 22 'Tadpoles' and 'Norfolk Island Pine' Eliza Hall Institute of Medical SIR FRANK MACFARLANE BURNET by Kate Llewellyn. Research, Melbourne. Graphics pp5, 16, 18, 19, 20, 28, Sir Gustav Nossal on the science and 3 1, 43 by Siobhan Jackson. centenary of a distinguished Australian. 48 Photographs ppl0- 13 courtesy FLASH IN THE PAN Jon Greenaway. Reviews of the films Tea With Mussolini; Photographs pp22- 27 courtesy 28 The Wa lter and Eliza Hall BLACK AND OTHER ARTS Eyes Wide Shut; Two Hands; My Name Institute of Medical Research, Jim Davidson on what the Grahamstown is Joe; Playing by Heart and Melbourne. Festival tells us about the new Bedrooms and Hallways. Photograph p35 by Barbara Leigh. South Africa. Eureka Street magazine 50 Jesuit Publications 31 WATCHING BRIEF PO Box 553 OBITUARY Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1 T el (03)9427 73 11 Linda McGirr salutes 51 Fax (03)9428 4450 Jennifer Paterson. SPECIFIC LEVITY

V OLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 3 EURI:-KA srru:-er COMMENT: 1 M A RK M c KENNA A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology General manager Joseph Hoo Reinember, Editor Morag Fraser Assistant editor remeinber the 6th Kate Manton Graphic designer Siobhan Jackson of N oveinber Publisher Michael McGirr SJ INMA' 188 8, the edi tonal-wdte< of the C andelo and Eden Production manager: Sylvana Scannapiego Union, a small bi-weekly n ewspaper on the far South Coast Administration manager: Mark Dowell of NSW, posed the following question to his readers: 'When Editorial and production assistants will the Australian republic come?' His answer was sure and Juliette Hughes, Paul Fyfe SJ, swift. Geraldine Battersby, Chris Jenkins SJ 'The Australian republic will come quickly ... As we grow more important and our population increases we think Con tri bu ting editors less and less of that old country from which we have come Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ, Perth: Dean Moore Sydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard Windsor ... We like to call ourselves Australian and feel happy that Queensland: Peter Pierce Australians can grasp each others' hands in the true bond of citizenship ... on the platform of the country's commonwealth.' United Kingdom correspondent If it was easy to be optimistic in 1888, it seems much Denis Minns or harder in 1999. Only a lit tle over two m onths out from the South East Asia correspondent republic referendum on 6 November, the prevailing mood in Jon Greenaway the republican camp is hardly one of confidence. After weeks Jesuit Editorial Board of negotiations in Canberra, it is now clear that Australians Peter L'Estrange SJ, Andrew Bullen SJ, will face two questions in November. Andrew Hamilton SJ The first question will ask voters whether they approve Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ of establishing Australia as a republic 'with the Queen and Marketing manager: Rosanne Turner Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed Advertising representative: Ken Head by a two-thirds majority' of Federal Parliament. The second Subscription manager: Wendy Marlowe question, in the words of John Howard, will present voters with 'an opportunity to unite the country on an aspirational Administration and distribution [sic] issue in a very positive way', by approving the Prime Lisa Crow, Mrs Irene Hunter Minister's revised Constitutional Preamble. Patrons The new Preamble is infi nitely superior to the Prime Evrelw Street gratefully acknowledges the Minister's previous draft, but still fail s on many counts. There support of C. and A. Carter; the is an irony in asking the people to approve an 'aspirational' trustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon; Preamble when the people were not consulted in the process W.P. & M.W. Gurry of its drafting. After consulting poet Les Murray, historian Eureka Street magazine, ISS N 1036-1758, Geoffrey Blainey, and others who happened to hold the Australia Post Print Post approved pp349181/003 14, balance of power in the Senate at the right time, Mr Howard is published ten times a year produced the final version of his Preamble on 11 August, by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Vi ctoria 3 121 two days before the legislation was due to be passed by T el: 03 942 7 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450 Parliament in time for the November referendum. 'The em ai l: [email protected] Preamble can't be changed because w e need to pass the http://www .openplanet.com.au/eureka/ legislation this week,' said Mr Howard. Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by The Prime Minister's understanding of deliberative Michael M cGirr SJ, 300 Vi ctoria Street, Richmond. Printed by Do ran Printing, democracy is novel. When asked why the new Preamble 46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VI C 3 195. included reference to those who defended Australia during © jesuit Publicati ons 1999 time of war he replied-'We decided last night to put that in.' Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry and The Prime Minister also believes that the Preamble will fi ction, will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests for serve' as a great contribution to reconciliation ' . He describes permission to reprint material from th e magazine his effort as a 'positive, honourable, pro-active, contemporary should be addressed in writing to: reference to indigenous people in our Constitution'. The word The editor, Eurelw Street magazine, ' kinship', says Howard, ' doesn 't carry any particular PO Box 553, Ri ch m ond VIC 3 12 1 connotations of ownership, it speaks of their lands not of

4 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 the landi therefore, by definition it is something that chanting 'Sixty-nine changes to the Constitution I' and relates to land that is owned by indigenous people.' accusing the Australian Republican Movement of In other words, the white man can relax. Aborigines 'ethnic cleansing'. Add the old favourites such as don't own 'the land', they own 'their land'. These are 'more power to Canberra' and the high fence that is the words Howard thinks are 'generous'. Section 128 (which requires at least four states and a But where is the generosity in failing to negotiate national majority if the referendum is to pass), and it with Aboriginal people? The truth is that Mr Howard's is easy to appreciate the difficulty of the challenge Preamble is, as he says, 'a reference to indigenous which faces republicans in November. people' (my emphasis), rather than a document which The referendum will ask voters to continue the belongs to indigenous people. Does this mean the tradition of Australia's gradual evolution to independ­ whitefella should feel'honourable' simply ence. The proposed bipartisan appointment because Mr H oward h as decided to model is entirely consistent with the mention indigenous people in a Preamble '. ' · maintenance of our existing political which is designed to have no legal effect ? .·;,:·_:: institutions. It offers no radical break with Perhaps there is a more important ' the past. The m odel's flaws are all present question to be answered on 6 November: in the current system. Australians will 'When will the Australian republic either approve this last conservative step come?' \:7 \J in the process of decolonisation or continue The outcome of the question on the republic will with the British monarch as their head of state. hinge largely on the ability of republicans who support For this writer at least, the thought of voting to the bipartisan appointment model to convince those retain the monarchy as the symbol of modern who are sympathetic to direct election to vote Yes. Australian democracy is n either 'positive' nor To win, republicans must find cause for common 'honourable'. Nor does it make sense. The 'historic ground. But there is another, and perhaps even more achievem ent'-in-waiting is not the insertion of a difficult, task ahead-a successful defence of the monarchist's Preamble in our Constitution, but proposed model against scaremongers who will the declaration of an Aus tralian republic on mislead in an effort to defeat the republic. 1 January 2001. • This campaign has already begun. In the interests of informed debate, those who call for a more Mark McKenna is a post-doctoral fellow in the 'participatory democracy'-Pet er Reith and Ted Political Science Program at the Research School of Mack-endeavour to frighten the electorate by the Social Sciences, Australian National University.

C oMMENT: 2

F RANCJS SULLIVAN

There's nothing surer • • •

S TATe AND Tc.moRY mom w•nted 'notion•! The latest income distribution figures are stark. health inquiry. The Prime Minister didn't. They got The top 20 per cent of households receive nearly SO a Senate committee. The inquiry comes as the broader per cent of all incom e. Social security dependency has issue of welfare reform challenges m ost Western risen. Over 60 per cent of sole-parent families have democracies. welfare as their principal source of income. Over 40 Whether it's in health care, pension support, aged, per cent of single people between 15 and 44 have no disability or unemployment services, reform is work or are underemployed. complex. On the one hand, the bleak forecast is for The group of Australians existing above these ageing populations and diminishing numbers of levels, without any welfare assistance, are likewise taxpayers. The community's capacity to sustain vulnerable to the potentially enorm ous financial safety-net services, pension levels and e n~itl ement damage that sickness and chronic illness can do to schem es (like M edicare) becomes questionable. On household budgets. Their capacity to purchase private the other hand, the gap between the fortunate and health insurance as a safety n et is limited. The the rest is gradually widening. Prosperity for many inflationary rate of health insurance has averaged families is transitory, if not elusive. Many are solely around 8 per cent. Real wage growth has not kept pace. reliant on safety-net services, like public health care In this context, the economic value of Medicare and income support, just to get by. In this context, is that it spreads the financial risk of sickness across the universal health cover is a social good-wage supple­ entire community. It ensures that access to essential m ent and family assistance package rolled into one. care is not restricted by one's capacity to pay. This

VOLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 5 system only remains effective if everyone contributes, who most need the care will carry the greatest regardless of their health status, age or income. financial burden. Reputable research demonstrates Medicare's critics label this 'middle- class that of those in the highest income grouping, only 6 per welfare'. They contend that the well-off are the main cent are over 55 years old. Of those in the lowes t beneficiaries of public hospital expenditure and access. income groupings, up to 44 per cent are over 55. Hardly Recent research debunks this myth. a fair approach for access to an essential service. When the distributional impacts of public Moreover, introducing fees for hospital care is hospital funding are measured on income levels, the almost m eaningless. These 'price signals' are effective Medicare system is found to be biased towards the where the consumer has a degree of discretion over less w ell-off. H o useholds with incomes up to purchasing a commodity. Being obliged to enter $130,000 receive only 20 per cent of the benefits that hospital under medical advice leaves little discretion. households earning less than $20,000 receive from M eans testing merely becomes another form of public hospital funding. Also, when actual hospitali­ taxation on the sick. sation was examined, high-income people received Undoubtedly, the health system needs more around 11 per cent of the public expenditure benefits as money. The efficiency and social equity benefits of opposed to the 17 per cent received by low-income taxation-funded health care are difficult to refute. Just people. as others call for increased equity contributions Medicare's impact on equity is compelling. Yet through means testing, an increased levy on the this doesn't dissuade some state premiers from calling beneficiaries of tax reform would deliver substantially for the introduction of means testing for public more funding without undermining universal access. hospital patients. Means testing, or user charging, is A m ere one per cent levy increase delivers an extra promoted as a way to add money to the system and $2 billion. send 'price signals' to those who use public hospitals. Furthermore, the Federal Government sold the In other words, its supporters want to stop people from GST on the grounds that it would help fund hospitals, taking a 'free ride'. welfare and aged services. This new growth tax will Even a cursory examination reveals the flaws in come directly from households and should rightly be this argument. For m eans testing to raise sums of any directed at bolstering essential public services. significance, the level at which the test would apply The Commonwealth and the states should be is far too low. On the Prime Minister's own figures, pressed to drop ineff ective solutions for the health single incom es of $45,000 and family earnings of system and demonstrate how the GST monies will $75,000 would attract increased charges. be directed towards improving waiting lists and access Before the reform zealots get too excited, it's to other essential services. • important to note that a large percentage of public hospital beds are used by people over 65 years of age. Francis Sullivan is Executive Director of Catholic Most fall within these income levels. Thus the people Health Australia.

tendering in the community sector, 'Contest­ ing welfare' (December 1998, see left, with photograph by Bill Thomas), was highly commended in the ACPA Best Social Justice category.

Winners We are pleased to announce the winners of the Jesuit Publications Raffle, drawn on 12 July 1999. The first prize-overseas travel Award s for two from Harvest Pilgrimages-goes to Congratulations to writer John Honner and Eureka Street subscriber Marian Devitt from Eureka Street's design and production team, Casuarina, Northern Territory. Second prize Siobhan Jackson and Kate Manton, for their goes to P. Dalziel!, Randwick, NSW; third success at the recent Australian Catholic Press prize to B. Jensen, Clontarf, NSW; fourth prize Association and Australasian Religious Press to Josie Osborne, Ryde, N SW; and fifth prize Association Awards. Eureka Street won the to Sr Margaret O'Brien, Darlinghurst, NSW. ACPA Best Magazine Layout & Design Award Many thanks to everyone who participated. and was highly commended for design by The raffle continues to be an important ARPA. John Hanner's article on competitive support to our publications.

6 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999 Defence losing its •

I 1! I 1 r~uARY THffi Ym, the Mi~ ~ ~u~~~~n~ygPapua New Guinea, the economic and political actively managing affairs. Barratt had flown to Brisbane to talk to changes in most of the South East Asian nations, in China and on his minister after his discussion with Moore-Wilton. He thought he the Indian subcontinent, bear little relationship to the benign had a frank discussion, and, certainly, Moore did not again mention environment of the early 1990s. The failure of Defence is seen not only any questions of his style. Barratt survived the Moore-Wilton in intelligence shortfalls in predicting such changes, but in adjust- lemon hunt of April and was confirmed in his position. ing its own structures and systems to deal with the new situation. But behind his back, the minister continued to bag him, and by Though the sharp end of active brigades has been increased, July had decided Barratt had to go. Moore had by then fallen for the more by direct political decision than by policy and programs charms of Malcolm Mackintosh, a can-do man of enormous self- coming from below, doubts about capacity remain. A major factor confidence and capacity for 'managing up', much more the type of in the government's unwillingness to involve itself in a military personality with whom Moore felt confident. peacekeeping operation in East Timor has been a frank doubt As the axe was being sharpened for a quiet execution, however, A about Australian capacity to maintain any effort there. someone leaked news of Barratt's imminent demise: Barratt dug in his heels, and the government is now being confronted with a usTRALIA HAS BY FAR the biggest defence budget in its region, very messy court case about whether departmental secretaries and an investment in military and intelligence capital which no have any expectations of natural justice or fairness in their other country in the region can match. And, over recent decades, it being sacked. has been able to turn a high proportion of its budget into capital For Canberra-watchers it's a delicious case, not only for the acquisition. But Defence has not been able to make much of an opportunities provided by the litigation to see chapter and verse of asset of this. It has locked itself into long-term major projects how this government manages relations between ministers and which, at the least, need modern rationales and which ought to bureaucrats, but also for watching some of the prophecies come true. have to compete against fresher priorities. The department is also The comments about the service culture for example: Defence accused of having been slow to adopt the wider cultural revolution is now leaking like a sieve-understandably, perhaps, when a part which Howard has imposed over the rest of the bureaucracy. It of the subtext of the ministerialleakings about its senior personnel certainly had not had the budgetary discipline. has been how hopeless and hidebound they are and about the need The politicians, in short, might be right in thinking that making for a new secretary to give the top structure a major shake-up. war is too important to be left to the experts. That leaking has involved not only the airing of some dirty linen Does this instinct justify a big shake-up? It justifies something, but also a few remarks about the capacity of the minister and his but just what is not so clear. The politicians themselves seem short own private office. Barratt's own judgment was that 'the problem on ideas, and some of their meddlings suggest that they too tend to with John Moore is that he does not do his homework and he will look backwards rather than forwards. Even if they are determined not listen'. on reorganisation into a system which has tl1e best thinkers and The government's embarrassment is compounded not only by managers in charge, the risk is that wholesale massacres tend to the fact that Barratt was its own political appointment, but also by produce higher casualties among the best and the brightest than the impossibility of negotiating any out-of-court compromise. If among the dross-witness the general public service after 10 years Barratt gets a penny more than the going term payout, the govern- of Keating and Howard. ment will never be able to get rid of any senior manager without One should not necessarily be against John Howard's wanting lawyers being present. a better service from Defence. But, frankly, if I wanted it, I would Those taking delight in the affair might wonder how much the not have John Moore in charge of delivering the goods. • investment the government has made in protecting John Moore will pay off. Moore is important in the Liberal Party's own networks, Jack Waterford is editor of the Canberra Ti m es.

VoLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 7 LETTERS

Eurelw S treet welcomes letters Mr Bonyhady, who has h ad the Maidenly from its readers. Short letter are benefit of a legal training, shoul d be more likely to be published, and m ore careful in the way he expresses standards all letters may be edited. Letters himself. I would suggest he takes must be signed, and should T.S. Eliot's advice and refrains fro m From Giles A uty, National A rt commenting on a writer until he has include a contact phone number Correspondent for The Australian read all of his or her work. That way Tim Bonybady's article in your last and the writer's name and address. his writing m ight acquire t he issue bas something of the tone of a If submitting by em ail, a contact au thority-and sub tlety-it now m aiden aunt doling out disapproval phone number is essential. Address: patently lacks. and peppermin ts to undeserving [email protected] Gary Catalano nephews. As one of three of these­ Clifton Hill, VIC Brian Kennedy and John McDonald were the others-! m erited only the broken peppermint from the bottom of t h e handbag fo r t he apparently Serious job sh ort-lived verve of my first fe w articles as art critic for The Spectator I ~ From Peter Timms back in 1984. Linda William s, in her review of the In short, th e sneering tone was Melbourne Biennial (Eureka Street, thoroughly familiar to an Englishman July I August 1999), accuses me of being accustom ed to living in Australia, but dismissive and claims that my review the grea t surprise was to encounter it in The Age was a 'denunciation' of that in a publication which goes out under exhibition. Ye t she is happy to dismiss the imprimatur of the Society of Jesus. m e, in turn, as 'a mild-mannered For the rest it was tut-tuts all the way, galleries-although exactly SOper cent conservative'. I've no idea what that as in : 'Auty bas indulged in ever m ore of m y a rticles fo r The Spectator mea ns but it's obviously intended as autobiographica l anecdotage.' fea tured these. a personal jibe. In all I wrote some 477 pieces of If, as an 'overpaid' journalist, I bad She says that I praised just four art criticism for The Spectator, whose to find all m y air fares fro m my own works (it was six actually), assuming edi tors and rea ders are widely held to pocket I would comfortabl y overspend from this that I 'reject' all the others. be am ong the m ore di scerning in the what I am actually paid. In fact, by a She fail s to mention that I cited only world. At the end of my time th ere little forethought and m anagem ent, six works in a negative context also. I w as informed I bad becom e their I arrange to give talks and workshops, Unfortunately, I am limited to less 'most rea d' columnist-not too bad, open exhibitions and judge art prizes than 800 words, so I can't mention perhaps, fo r som eone writing in the even in the more obscure corners of everything. weekly compan y of som e of the top this vast continent. Sin ce much of my My praise (which occupied almost journalists in the world. travel is covered by air fa res supplied exactly half of m y review) included While I m ay no t please Mr for these purposes, I do not feel myself phrases such as 'this is a magnificent Bonyhady's prim, maidenl y standards, t o be compromised professionally installation ', and 'lik e all the best I clearly enjoy the rather unusual when I write about exhibition s in works in this exhibi tion (C had advantage for an art critic of being those areas. McCall 's) is transformative .. . precise perused consistently by a gen eral But thanks for the slur anyway, and exquisitely detailed'. I said there readership. While he may think I do it Aunty Tim. were works in the show that 'will all wrong, evidence suggests other­ Giles Auty knock your socks off and make you wise. Before I became an art critic I was Sy dney, NSW believe that art might yet be capable a professional painter and thus had of re-enchanting the world' and so on. some experi ence, at least, of life in the Lacking This is Linda's idea of denunciation? trenches. Mr Bonyhady prefers to pour Even the Biennial's own advertising scorn, how ever, on m y entire life, subtlety included glowing quotes from my dredging out such obscure, hostile review. references to m e as be can find. From Gary Catalano But yes, I did thin k the exhibition This scorn extends to an experi­ I can 't recognise m yself in Tim as a whole failed, and I tried to explain ence I have written about with som e Bonybady's glancing reference to m e as best I could why I thought so. I'm candour and which eff ectively and my work in his article in the Ju ly I glad Linda had a diffe rent view, and converted m e from a confused young August issue. In the six years I was art I was interested to rea d her com ments. modernist to the artist and writer critic on The Age, I don't believe I once But her clear imputation that I was I s ubsequently becam e . Pe rhaps told my readers what they should or unprofession al and lazy and t hat on e of your Jesuits could counsel should not buy, and I certainly didn't I failed to take the exhibition seriously hi m o n the significan ce of su ch m ake a p oint of being outraged a t is, in a word, chea p. I m ight, in her experiences? contemporary art. What did irritate m e opinion, be wrong, but I do take my Reverting to a lower and m ore from time to time was the manner in job, and the exhibitions I review, very pragmatic plane, m y personal brief which certain curators and academics seriously indeed. fro m The A ustralian does not include wrote about contemporary art. The Peter Timms fr equ ent coverage of priva te art distinction is an important one. Fitzroy, VIC

8 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999 invented modern journalism at the beginning of the brazenly corrupt 18th The Catholic Diocese Taxing the truth century, guildsmen on the ben ch and of Da rwin and l in parliament instantly perceived it to The Catholic Elders and From Evan Whitton be a threat to their power and Moira Rayner rightly complains that corruption. To silence the press, judges Communities of th e Eastern 'lawyers don't learn legal history any defined seditious libel as 'written Arrernte People more' ('What Lawyers Don't Read', censure upon any public man what­ in vite expressions of interest in a Eureka Street, November 1998). They ever for any conduct whatever or upon will find, if I may say so, my little any law or institution whatever', and GREAT JUBILEE I HOLY book, The Cartel: Lawyers and Th eir in 1 712, politicians put a tax on YEAR PILGRIMAGE Nine Magic Tri cks, a useful intro­ newspapers. It immediately wiped out fi'om duction. I don't know where your several London journals, including CHARLES CREEK proprietors stand on Lotario di Segni, Addison and Steele's Th e Spectator. (A lice Springs) Pope (as he became in 1198) Innocent The tax on information was lifted III. Perhaps he was too militant even in 1855; in 1998, Prime Minister toARLTUNGA for the Jesuits but, as the man who Howard threatened to reimpose it. to LTYENTYE APURTE invented a legal system based on I wrote: 'Howard's motive may not be (Santa Teresa) rational investigation of the truth, he that of the corrupt Whig oligarchs, but This pilgrimage over several days traces the is, or should be, the hero of all who the effect is the same. Welcome to story of the people of the Little Flower believe in justice. 1712.' Courtesy of some Democrats, Miss ion who were removed, due to World Our system, by contrast, derives Australia will shortly regress to that War II , from Alice Springs to Arltunga from a medieval craft guild, or cartel, inglorious year; we may hope your w here they remained for ten years before whose product unfortunately hap­ admirable journal of ideas does not go settlin g at Santa Teresa. It is designed to be pened to be law. Its major aim was (and the same way as The Spectator. a journey of reconciliation with the past, is) to enrich senior lawyers and their Evan Whitton with the land and with the ancesto rs and descendants. Having made their pile, Glebe, NSW w ith the forces of histot·y which ha ve they can retire to the status and moulded the present. It is a journey in unutterable boredom of an untrained Faith and it is a journey in Hope for the judiciary; Lord Thankerton knitted on A shot in the arm next millennium. The Eastern Arrernte the bench. After November 1215, a few people arc sharin g their story with the lawyers and judges in London's From Ken O'Hara wider C hurch in a sign of trust and embryo guild rejected Innocent's What should be done to overcome the expectation of Grace in the H oly system, partly on the time-honoured hospital crisis quickly and for sure? Year 2000. ground that wags begin at Calais. Our It seems there's a need to change system was thus able to develop into track fundamentally, and start budg­ The event w ill rake place over the period what it is today: a lucrative game based eting for each hospital's actual needs, of the aftern oon of Thursday , September 7'" to the aft ernoon of M o nday, September on a lie: that truth does not matter. from the bottom up, rather than 11 '", 2000, though it will be possible for Ms Rayner says sh e is a lawyer and continuing the current practice of people to take part for a sho rter peri od of freelance journalist. This must get a governments allocating a never­ time. Ea ch day w ill in volve the Euchat;st, bit tricky; the press has traditional sufficient amount from top central listening to each other and celebrating our obligations to seek the truth, to funds, trickling slowly down. commo n faith, campfire meals together and interest and amuse the customers, and This way, the amount actually stOtytellin g, and sharing the journey. There to serve the community by exposing needed for maximum hospital will be some walking each da y through wrongdoing, particularly that which efficiency will be clear, with the bea utiful Central Australian countrys ide for subverts democracy, e.g. corruption, government then acting to get it. those w ho arc able. organised crime and the legal system. And with the existing Medicare She says I wrote 'a diatribe against Levy only providing 10 per cent of total Because the non- Arrerntc pilgrims will not democracy, based on lawyers' "take­ health costs, expanded revenue is vital. outnumber the Arrernte, numbers are over" of lawmaking-and perversion So the ball is now in the court of necessaril y limited and priority for those of parliament' in Th e Australian the politicians and their top h ealth joining the people wi ll be given to: a) any before last year's election. It is true administrators to overcome this of the separated generati on w ho were that I noted that lawyers got control deficiency quickly, or our hospital rem oved fi·om Charles reek or Arltunga; of parliament in the 14th century and will surely be continuing to limp along b) priests, reli gious, lay-missionari es, that the common law world still has as if on crutches. volunteers and staff-perso ns w ho have a connection w ith the Eastern Arrernte government of the lawyers, by the Ken O'Hara peopl e; and c) representatives of the lawyers and for the lawyers. But the Gerringong, NSW Austra li an Army and the Government. piece, a short history of censorship There will sti ll be room for other interested from Pope Alexander VI to John To advertise in Eurek<1 Strf'c>t parties. All are in vited to express their Howard, was surely in favour of contact Ken Head, interest by writing for further detail s to: democracy, not against it. tel: 03 'J427 7l ll In Dangerous Estate, Francis Fr Peter Wood, MSC i,1x: Ol 942B 44SO Pilgrimage oordinator Williams says the press is 'the one mobile: 04l'J 1B4 h.18 PO Box 476 eu [email protected] it .org.,lll indispensable piece of ordnance in the DAR..WIN NT 080 1 armoury of democracy'. When Defoe L

VoLUME 9 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 9 H """" -"'""'" tho mouth of ' to other detainees for profit after buying Australia and been clumped in Thailand, side-alley that juts out of 'Little Arabia', a them himself from the guards for an already the easiest part of the route. They have rabbit-warren-like collection of bars and inflated price. He made enough money to managed to get out of Iraq via Jordan or cafes that cater to Bangkok's substantial bribe someone in Malaysian immigration Syria and are waiting to buy, from a Middle Eastern community. Somehow he to drop him across the border into Thailand. smuggler, a passport that will get them on had walked down the narrow lane without He had no passport- that was taken to a plane bound for Sydney or Perth. They my noticing, as he had the first time we met from him when he was arrested, along with have applied to UNHCR, waited several a week earlier, when he appeared in front of US$3000 he had with him to pay the prices months for the decision, or, if they have a Bangladeshi restaurant a few hundred asked by smugglers- so he went to the already been granted refugee status, they m etres away, begging for help. He is wearing office of the United Nations High Commis­ have waited up to two years for embassy the same rough cotton T-shirt and faded sioner for Refugees in Bangkok. They officials to decide whether they should be blue jeans. rej ected his claim for 'Person of Concern' resettled in Australia. Agitated, he hops from foot to foot as he status and rejected it again on appeal. Both These are the people who have scared again explains thatheisin trouble. He reaches times he received the pro forma UNHCR the Australian government into spending into his money belt and pulls out the identity letter that states, in an English clipped of $124 million beefing up our coastal card that proves he deserted Saddam emotion, that he docs not qualify as a surveillance operations and Department of Hussein's army. 'If I step one metre out of refugee. No reasons are given, no suggestions Immigration and Multicultural Affairs my country, they will kill me/ h e says, offered. presence at key points of departure around chopping down with his hand like an axe. Hussein is not alone. Ask a few questions the world. In announcing these initiatives, Nonetheless, Hussein is still alive. In of any of the people smoking hookahs and plus the tougher penalties for smugglers Pakistan three years ago, he paid agents drinking sweet, grainy coffee on the side of and increased fines on airlines which bring (whose trade is to smuggle people across the streets behind where Hussein stands 'illegals' to Australia, Immigration Minister, borders) to take him to Australia by boat. and you will hear similar stories. Some are Philip Ruddock, stressed that each 'illegal' Three weeks later, after a detour via China, fleeing persecution in Iraq, others are drawn costs Australian taxpayers about $50,000 he was caught in Malaysia when the boat by the prospect of a better life in Australia, on average. ran aground, and was taken to an immigra­ free of economic sanctions and militarism. Alarm at the idea of Australia's being tion detention centre outside of Kuala Eith er way, m ost of them are caught in invaded by boat-people carried to its shores Lumpur. There he spent the next two years Bangkok. They h ave paid smugglers by an armada of leaky tubs was raised again of his life, selling cigarettes and soft drinks thousands of US dollars for safe passage to with the discovery of a new route down

10 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 through the Pacific islands. Landings on 'Alan' is a Kurdish doctor who worked there through more legitimate means. He the east coast where most Australians live with a non-government organisation in Iraq has quickly discovered that the system is prompted the government's response. before he fled earlier this year. He says he far from perfect. Howeve r, while the debate over left Iraq because NGOs are looked on by 'I know many people here who do not ' illegals' is driven by this issue, the Saddam Hussein's regime as part of the bother to apply with UNHCR because they Department of Immigration and Multi­ international conspiracy against his rule. think it is useless,' he explains. cultural Affairs estimates that 'I know it is difficult for them because, around 70 to 80 per cent of those with so many people applying, how do you residing in Australia illegally know who is genuine? But if they recognised arrived on a Boeing rather than a more people, and resettlem ent to Australia boat, and of those, most would did not take so long, not so many people have passed through Bangkok at would try to get there illegally. some point. Thailand's relatively 'Some of them pay $7000 US, m aybe easy visa requirements (designed $8000, for a passport or to be trafficked. for its tourism industry), its large Wouldn't it be better if this m oney was international airport, and its spent in Australia ?' ability to absorb over one million UNHCR in Bangkok is often criticised 'illegals', have made it a major for not doing enough to fulfil its mandate to staging point for the trafficking protect refugees. In recent m onths it has of people to Australia, Europe been conducting a review of the refugee and North America. Whatever status of Cambodians who fl ed the July their reasons for leaving their 199 7 violence. According t o Jane country, n early all will have Williamson, the termination of the refugee contact with a smuggler at som e status of som e of these people who remain stage. Smuggling is very in Bangkok i too hasty, even going by n big business. UNHCRguidelines, and is based on a flawed analysis of the p e rmanence of the L oFESSOR Ron Skeleton is a Cambodian peace. Williamson is working migration specialist, h aving with other lawyers for the Jesuit Refugee taught at the University of Hong Kong's Geography Department for m any years before m oving to Bangkok. His position there gave him a good view of the exodus from China in the early 1990s. The liberalising of the economy gave Chinese people both expec­ tations beyond life in the village, and the money to pay' snakeheads' to smuggle them into the US, which all this decade has been Australian gover able to absorb illegals into the workforce. He says that migration million beefing up follows a pattern that smugglers them selves foster and exploit. operations and De 'Migration, in whatever form, comes with n etworks: people and Multicultural A come from one province, town or points of departure a even village and when they have moved they send information ba ck which allows friends and relatives to They have been the subject of attack as a Service in Bangkok in appealing these come across. It is a sort of multiplier effect.' consequence of internecine fighting among decisions and can see that this is part of a Over the last decade, Australia has Kurdish groups in Northern Iraq. bigger trend in the UN's refugee agency. become established as a priority destination Alan has been interviewed by UNHCR 'There is a shift going on within UNHCR for Assyrians, Kurds, other minority groups and is waiting for their decision. He knows away from permanent protection towards and political dissidents leaving Iraq. They that, had he managed to get to Australia, he temporary protection of refugees. Current are the largest group-apart from the would have stood a better chance of asylum, thinking is that it is better to keep people Burmese-looking to be resettled from as only a few of the 10-20 Iraqi cases closer to home in the hope that they can Bangkok, and at the moment are causing currently adjudicated by UNHCR in return when peace com es.' the D epartment of Immigration and Bangkok each month are recognised. For Williamson can see the benefits of this Multicultural Affairs most concern. his own reasons, he preferred to try to get approach. It is part of a more durable

V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 11 resolution to the conflicts that produce for the airlines as well who will issue a Department suspects that the improvement mass exodus, rather than m erely coping boarding pass, maybe for $2000-3000.' in surveillance at Don Muang airport is with refugee problems as they arise. She He has lived in Thailand for eight years shifting traffic to regional ports not watched feels the downside is that it works against without official status because Thailand is as closely as Bangkok's. 'Ill ega ls' fly from those w ho come to Thailand in search of not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Bangkok to Seoul, Taipei or Singapore, for asylum in a third country. She can also see, governing refugees. His applications for example, before heading to Australia. however, that UNHCR is under pressure resettlement to anum ber of embassies have And n ew routes into Australia are fo r tight interpretations of the Refugee been rejected as attitudes towards Tamil constantly being found. In the last week of Convention. asylum seek ers have h arden ed. In July, two undocumented Iraqis arrived in Perth on a Thai airways fl ight that departs from Don Muang but stops in Phuket on the way. An Australian journalist, based in · cated by Bangkok fo r many years, says that he was approached late at night in a hostess bar in 'cials from people Bangkok's Patpong by two men claiming to be Sri La nkan. ard flights to 'They asked if I was Australian and then wanted to know ifl was in teres ted in making som e money. Naturally I was interested, so I asked what they had in mind. 'They told m e that I would have a ticket for Perth bought in m y name while another ers, sometimes it person wanting to go to Australia would have a ticket for Phuket on the same flight. After boarding the flight in Bangkok, we would som ehow swap boarding cards and I would leave the pl ane in Phuket as a domestic passenger while the other guy would head on to Perth. 'UNHCR does not want to annoy desperation, he tried to get to N ew Zealand 'They assured m e that they had a contact Western embassies in Bangkok by producing by buying a duplicate Belgian passport and in Thai immigration who would stamp me a constant stream of persons of concern arranging a boa rding-card swap with a back into the country a couple of clays later. who then have to be considered for legitimate Belgian passport holder. For that they said they would pay US$300 resettlement. Nor do they want to get the 'What happens is he has a ticket for N ew plus $100 to live on in Phuket while waiting Thai Government offside by turning Zealand, I have one for Singapore where to get the stamp. Bangkok into an even greater hub for I don' t n eed a visa,' he explains. 'Our 'I asked if the other guy was some sort of illegals through a higher rate of passports are the same except for the photo­ criminal, but they assured me he was a ~ recognition.' even his initial was the sam e as mine. genuine refugee.' 'Once we get through we swap boarding The name of an Australian passport .1. HE ABILITY smugglers have to get their cards and tickets. He goes to Singapore and holder appeared on the fli ght list on both human cargo past immigration and check-in I go to N ew Zealand.' days the illegal Iraqis arrived. at Bangkok's Don Muang airport has led to He go t as far as buying the fake passport A highly placed official in the Thai a colla boration between immigration for US$500 before the holder of the original Immigra tion Department recognises that officers from the US, Canadian, UK, N ew passport pulled out. people will always get through. Don Muang Zealand and Australian embassies. Since To the naked eye, fake pa ssports airport hosts 20,000 passengers every clay the beginning of May they have been confiscated by embassy officials from people and it is difficult, he argues, to ask Thailand working in shifts out at the airport, trying to board flights to Australia look to control the outflow to Australia when collaborating with airline staff, who refer near to perfect. Produced with the use of Australia cannot control its own border . suspicious cases to them. From 6am to lam scanners, sometimes it is only the paper So much money is made by the smugglers every day, there is a compliance officer on quality that gives them away as fakes. that it is natural to presume, he suggests, hand to intercept illcgals travelling to any Embassies organise training of airline staff that immigration officials who might earn of th ese countries. In the first two months to help them detect bogus passports, but the equivalent of A$600 a month would be that the roster was in place, 450 illegals despite this, and the risk of punitive tempted by bribes. In the last two years were stopped. The Canadian embassy damages, it is easy for busy check-in staff to Thai authorities have broken two counter­ estimates that around 150 got through . miss picking up a good fake. feit rings, only a fraction of those involved, 'A good smuggler knows everything,' The Department of Immigration admits according to diplomatic sources. says a Sri Lankan refugee who prefers not to that it is impossible to stop everybody trying While all the parties concerned in the be named. 'If you don't have a visa, they can to get to Australia by illegal m ean s, traffic of illega l migran ts acknowledge the organise for Thai Tm migration to give you a particularly as the smugglers seek out the presence of Bangk ok-based smuggling stamp and they also have contacts working paints of least resistance. Already the operations, it is difficult to find people who

12 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 will talk about who they are and where they Andy has worked for Iranians, Pakistanis work in Thailand's extensive Chinese operate. Alan says it is wrong to think of and Palestinians. Som etimes he meets them community. these people as having a barber-shop shingle at the Grace Hotel, sometimes Khao San. When an ethnic Chinese with an out the front and a fake passport factory out He believes they can organise anything, Australian passport was apprehended in the back. because they have the money. Bangkok in mid July for falsely advertising 'They do not work out of any one place. 'In Bangkok all of us are poor, or are working visas for the Olympics, it was Maybe they will meet in a hotel lobby or in saving our money, but they have so much suspected that recent PRC Chinese arrivals a coffee shop and then they will go else­ money. Everything is money and you can't were his target. He ran an advertisement for where to organise their business. stop them.' the first two weeks of June in a Chinese­ 'They might show off their wealth but Andy also suggests that their anonymity language newspaper published in Bangkok. they do not want to show off how they is protected by fear. The ad called for applicants to work in make it.' 'Everybody knows everybody in this fields as varied as broadcast media and food Not only do Middle Eastern operators place,' he says, pointing towards the line of preparation. It also asked for US$2600 for a work out of Sukhumvit Soi 3 (Little restaurants, 'but not so well they can trust visa and intensive English training. Arabia), but reportedly out of the Grace each other. These men are very bad ... When police arrested him h e had Hotel that fronts it-Thai immigration very bad.' US$3500 in his possession and around 200 describes it as the centre of most of this The smuggler for whom Andy works names on his books. He has since been activity. Other areas exist as well, such as has an original Dominican Republic charged with misrepresentation, which 'Soi Karachi' near the GPO, where Pakistani passport with an Arabic name on it. Andy is carries a maximum penalty of five years groups organise passage to Japan thinking he might be able to buy it for imprisonment and/or a 10,000-baht fine. andtheUS. under US$1000 and, with a scalpel, Once they get on to a flight to Australia substitute his photo for the original. Then people with false documents most often rip KHAO SA N RoAD, the street famed for he will fly to China and then from there to up and dispose of what they have so as not being patronised by backpackers, is also a the Dominican Republic before going over­ to be sent back to their last port of call for place where passports and visas can be land into the US. He shows me the passport having improper documentation. If they bought, according to 'Andy', another Iraqi and asks me to translate the personal details claim asylum yet do not have any papers, exile. Andy worked in Jordan as a mechanic from the Spanish. He will go in the hope the Department of Immigration must first for three-and-a-half years to raise the money that no-one bothers to question him. prove that they are not refugees before to buy an original Maltese passport that got 'People trust the smugglers because they turning them around. But even with this him to Bangkok. He has been here for six are desperate, they are on the run, they are tactic in operation, the Department has months and is now working for traffickers scared, and they come here with all their found cause to send some back within two as a courier. money ready to spend,' Alan observes. 'A days of their arrival. After spending their 'I pick up the passport here and then friend of mine is here. He does not know life's savings and dodging and weaving I take it there and collect the money, 200 where his wife and children are. He didn't their way on to a plane bound for Australia, baht (A$8) for the taxi and 300 baht (A$12) know anybody in Bangkok. they end up in a holding cell at an Asian for me. I am illegal so this is what I have to 'A Pakistani who knew some Arabic airport. Without any papers, they have no do to live.' overheard him talking on the phone one way forward or back. Currently an day and promised to help unknown number of Iraqis sent back from him get to Australia. He Australia are being held at Don Muang handed over US$4000 and airport with no clarification of their status. his passport and that was One is reported to have been there the last he saw of him.' for six months. Those in search of a better life are ripe pick­ I TIS NOT ONLY IN AU STRALIA that the walls ings for gifted con men. are going up. Every Western country is Twelve months ago, making it more difficult for 'illegals' to Thailand changed visa arrive. But the more that barriers are erected, regulations for arrivals the more the opportunities for human from the People's Repub­ traffickers. lic of China. The require­ Ron Skeldon is doubtful that the ment that a visa had to be government's recent initiatives will have obtained prior to arrival their desired effect. was repealed and now 'Illegal migration is in fact a function of PRC Chinese are given inadequate legal channels available for visas on arrival. This was people to migrate. You are never going to designed to bring in more stop the movement of people. We are now tourists to boost the cash­ more mobile than we have ever been before,' strapped Thai economy. he says. It has, however, started a 'One would expect that Australia will flow from China of people see more illegal arrivals rather than less. wishing to settle and What is more sensible is to allow the flow

VOLUME 9 NU MBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 13 of migration but to control it with short­ Convention. T his article states that no more and more viewing asylum seekers as term visas and the like. asylum seeker should be penalised for only illegal entrants and overstayers. 'If the migration is legal then it can be entering a country illegally. But a world away from the argument monitored; it is visible. If it is illegal then In the crackdown on illegal migration about na tiona! integrity versus in terna tiona! they are invisible-they just disappear.' (on asylum seekers, in particular), the urban obligations, are people like Hussein, Alan A decision by Britain's High Court in refugee-who is not part of a mass move­ and Andy. Three very different m en with early August recognised that asylum seekers ment of people such as that witnessed out different pasts, yet all caught between some­ were being dealt with unfairly under of Kosovo-is becoming unwelcome by w here and somewhere else. m easures designed to stop illegal entries. association. And they are trying to com e to I asked Alan what he would do if his The ruling on three test cases decided that a country that is both scared and angry. case was rejected by UNHCR. 'Som ething the UK governmen t, in jailing somewhere Scared by a new influx of boat-people and illegal,' he said with a shrug. • between 500 and 1000 asylum seekers for an gered by spurious appeal s in the using forged docum ents since 1994, was in Australian courts by people trying to delay Jon Greenaway is Eureka Street's South contravention of article 31 of the Refugee eviction. In this clima te the government is East Asia correspondent. What price hospitality?

L TWO me Au"'"li'n ""d" 'bout If that is the case, Australian attitudes penalties which will make it m ore difficult refugees this year have been the arrival of to refugees and im.migrants are not for them to return to Australia. Ko sovo refugees and the coming of people by unrepresentative. Australia, indeed, is one The human consequences of this policy boat to populated regions of Australia. of the few nations that accepts immigrants. surface only occasionally at times of public T h e governm ent had originally Most nations admit people only on working, controversy about the face which Australia announced that it would not be giving tourist or other temporary visas. But the presents to the world. Many Third World sh elter in Australia to Kosovo refugees, but attitude of the present government to delegates to a conference fo r the deaf, for was immediately forced, by a massive public immigration has been unenthusiastic; it example, were recently refused admission reaction, to offer them temporary residence. has been criticised for its narrowness by to Australia. During their stay, they have been welcomed both state governments and by business When v isitors and applicants for by the Australian public and particularly by groups. Immigration is seen as undesirable residence are evaluated on the economic the communities surrounding the facilities both for its short-term economic costs and benefits they bring and by their readiness to where they have been housed. Apart from for the social pressures which it is perceived return without trouble, on-shore asylum occasional official defensiven ess in the face to entail at a time of relatively high seekers will be strongly discouraged and all of complaints abo ut conditions, or unemployment. legitimate administrative m eans will be suggestions that they might be allowed Accordingly, the number of immi­ used to exclude and deter them. They will permanent residence, the response to them grants admitted to Australia is low. The effectively, if not legally, be regarded as has been unfailingly warm. emphasis on economic factors, too, has led lawbreakers. The initial popular reaction In the first half of this year, boa ts for the to an increased emphasis on business to the detention of asylum seekers is often, first time brought people seeking residence migrants, and to a smaller quota of family 'They broke the law, and so they in Australia to the populated eastern coast members. In personal terms, this m eans deserve to be in jail. ' of Australia. Public response has been that immigrants wait longer before they hostile to these people, who are perceived can be reunited with their spouses or EOR ASYLUM SEEKERS in Australia, the arrival as invaders breaching Australian territorial parents. of the Kosovo refugees has been a mixed integrity. Com menta tors have not discussed As is the case elsewhere, the emphasis blessing. The efforts to make them feel the conditions in the nations they left, nor of the Department of Immigration and welcome, particularly by local community any need they may have for asyl um; they Multicultural Affairs in Australia has groups, have been exemplary, and have have focused on the commercial and shifted from welcoming immigrants to drawn attention to Australia's often­ criminal involvement in their travel. The excluding unwelcome residents. When neglected altruistic urge. But the Kosovo boats have been said to have been chartered issuing visas, the Department takes into refugees have also drawn attention and by criminal gangs, and the people to have account the likelihood that people will resources away from oth er needy groups. been drawn by fra udulent advertising. overstay their visas or apply for permanent Indeed, the argument behind the govern­ T he very different response perhaps residence. Given that these categories will ment's initial decision not to receive Kosovo indicates that in the public mind, refugees include many people from poor or troubled refugees had some validity. To offer shelter are not defined by their danger or their nations, applicants from these parts are at such distance is massively expensive, need, but by whether they have been invited often refused visas. Those who do overstay and, in principle, resources would be more to come to Australia. visas are s ubj ect to detention and to effectively spent closer to Kosovo.

14 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Perhaps the group most forgo tten are the East Timorese asylum seekers, m any of whom Inside information have been waiting for certainty about their status for six years. The following is an extract from a letter by refugee claimants at the Maribyrnong While they are no longer an Detention Centre. in which they describe their situation: irritant in Australian relation­ ships with Indonesia, the chan ge 'The Australian Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs maintains a policy in Indonesia and in East Timor, wherein those requesting refugee status and asylum seekers arc placed in mandatory together with the focus on Kosovo detention. If this policy implied an initial period (e .g. three months), during which refugees, has taken them out of the Department began or completed the process of determination of each case then, the public spotlight. But they we believe, this period of waiting could be sustained by most without psychological rem ain no less needy or anxious, damage. However, for the majority of detainees, the waiting time is much, much and their claim for residence is longer. For some, it extends more than two years and the outcome of such confine­ no less pressing than before. ment is clearly destructive. Those who formulate these policies rarely, if ever, come The arrival of Kosovo into contact with any of the people living undcrthcsc conditions. As you know, refugees refugees also led the govern­ have experienced tragedy, trauma and dispossession of family, friends and country. m ent hurriedly to introduce legislation allowing temporary Consequently, detention places enormous stress on each person with the imposed residen ce for refu gees. The inactivity, with the outbursts (at times violent) which occur from built-up tension legisl a tion , w hich did n ot and with 'flashbacks', reminders from past trauma. receive the ben efit of com­ 'We came to Australia with healthy minds, aware of the upheavals and injustices munity con sultation , m ay in our native countries. We came desperate to find hope for our future. Yet we see that adversely affect future asylum the Australian Department of Immigration policy brings about the gradual destruction seekers. While the legislation of our hope. Our world is very much aware of what unemployment can do to people was occasioned by the Kosovo of working age. Our question: "Is the Immigration Department aware of what crisis, it refl ects a growing inactivity in confinement can do to a person?" in t ern a tional inter est in 'The detrimental effects of detention can be verified by officers, doctors, nurses, restricting refugees' access to lawyers, visitors and others who have contact with detainees. The common symptoms p e rman ent reside nce. The arc stress, migraine, depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, inability to concentrate. human consequences of such legislation lie in the anxiety and These arc usually treated with medication and some residents arc sedated, but the lack of motivation that breed majority of detainees refuse to resort to this. While we get medical treatment, the when people cannot plan fo r enclosure of the detention centre can only increase the pain and suffering. their future because they may 'A major concern for us is the children. Women have given birth while here and be sent back to their own lands young children spend their lives confined within barbed wire fences. We have asked when the situation is deem ed ourselves again and again, "Is this the democratic country we thought we were to have changed. The legisla­ coming to? " or "Is this a country where the abuse of human rights and the rights of the tion is therefore of concern. child is ignored?" The Department seems to have no understanding of the suffering they T h e situation of m ost continue to inflict upon us who arc in fact seeking sanctuary.' -4 August 1999 asylum seekers in Australia remains precarious. Detention is entrenched, despite its m ani- fest destructiveness. After a few m onths in Criminals, how ever, are senten ced the other practices that the government has detention, m ost asylum seekers complain before they are detained and can look defended. Su ch practices have under­ of depression and difficulty in sleeping. forward to a defin ed day of release. standably been m ade the subject of a This is inevitable when people dealing with Meanwhile, the government continues to wide-reaching Senate Inquiry. loss are deprived of freedom and of the propose legislation that would limit asylum To com e close to people affected by normal interchanges that ordinarily distract seekers' access to the courts, a proposal Australian refugee policy is often to be u s from our problem s. In the last two that has n ot so far won the support of the distressed on their behalf. But refugees are m onths, incidents at Port Hedland and Opposition . the symptom of the lack of an effective Melbourne have received publicity. In both Where asylum seekers are regarded as will to en sure the equitable distribu tion of cases, the pressures caused by prolonged obj ects of control rather than as subjects of the world's resources. Refugees normally detention were a significant factor in the rights, it is to be expected that they will be come from nations whose share of the incidents. T he response-transferring those treated in inhumane ways. The deportation w orld's wealth is diminishing. The responsible to prison- treats the symptom to China of a pregnant wom an who faced harshness of their reception in developed and not the cause. It also further confirms forcible abortion on return was the m ost countries refl ects the desire to protect the assumption that asylum seekers are publicised recent case. Sedation, forced privilege. • criminals who have broken laws by coming feeding, rem oval without warning, and the to Australia and have only to return to their use of private security firms to get detainees Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United own lands to be fr ee of their hardship. back to their country of origin, are som e of Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 15 The Month'sa Traffic,

There was one very bad moment during added more recent welcome evidence in his the evening. This came when Cardinal favour, while protesting at the emotional, The need to heed Cassidy, at his most engaging, was unhistorical prosecution of Pius. Again, it explaining that the Vatican document was was left to Rabbi Apple to put something L AST YEAR THE VATICAN putout a document a call for repentance, which means m ore into the balance. Yes, Pius did assist Jews in on the Shoah. Eleven pages, it had taken than an apology. Weare all-all Catholics­ various ways and at various times; but ll years to write. A few weeks ago, Edward caught up in the sins of the past, in a kind there were other times when he kept silent, Idris Cardinal Cassidy came to Sydney to of collective responsibility. There is a when conscience would surely have said, address some of the criticisms of We 'conventual' sense of collective sorrow and 'Speak'. And there were times too 'when he Remember: A Reflection of the Shoa h. Once shame, h e said, even though we may not be acted, spoke and wrote in ways which he an Australian bush priest, the cardinal is morally responsible for the past sins of our must have known would give comfort to ending his days in the leadership tea m at fellow Catholics. 'The members of the the forces of destruction'. the Vatican. About 600 people turned out church today cannot be considered N evertheless, some in the Vatican are to hear him speak at the Wesley Centre responsible individually for what happened today considering Pope Pius XII for (capacity: 900). Organised by Jewish and in past centuries, no more than Jews today canonisation, despite Jewish disquiet. If Catholic lawyers, the meeting's profile was they are serious about initiating a new era middle-aged, city-dressed and suited, with of Catholic-Jewish synergism, they should a sp rinkling of clerical collars and heed what Rabbi Apple said at the Wesley yarmulkes. Although it was midwinter, Centre. -Edmund Campion there was very little coughing through the evening. Beyond orange The main course came early. Crucial to the Vatican document is a distinction between anti -Judaism (theological LEIRI SH !~~ R~~:~~stalled. The negativity) and anti-Semitism (racial Unionist Party has refused to participate contempt). Over the centuries the church with Sinn Fein in the new devolved has taught anti-Judaism, the new T estament can be considered guilty for what happened Assembly until th e IRA commences superseding the Old Testament. But did to Jesus in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.' And disarming. David Trimble, leader of the this anti-Judaism slide across the so the bloody spectre of the Jews as Christ­ Ulster Unionist Party, has been under demarcation line and reappear as anti­ killers was allowed to walk the stage of the intense pressure from the hard Right of his Semitism? The cardinal didn't think so. Or, Wesley Centre; until Rabbi Apple dismissed party to stand by an uncompromising policy at least, it shouldn't have slid across- at it with courteous contempt. of 'No Guns, No Government'. Sinn Fein times he seemed to be walking carefully on If that was the bad moment of the has said that if the Assembly meets and it is eggshells. evening, the good moment came ten included in the power-sharing constitu­ Rabbi Raymond Apple wasn't wearing minutes later. Responding to criticism that tional arrangement, then disarmament will it. He was a good choice to respond to the Vatican document clucked church commence. Cardinal Cassidy: an elegant Sydney city responsibility by distinguish ing acts of ' the N either side has blinked so far. Neither man, he was a star at this year's Sydney church as such' (not so bad) and acts of 'the trusts the other. All parties have retired to Bloomsday readin g, givi ng Joyce's Christian world' (bad), the cardinal quoted their corners for the European summer to 'catechism ' episode a lively, stylish airing. the present pope that the church consider their positions. He understood the theory of the distinction; 'acknowledges as her own her sinful sons It would be easy to lay all the blame at but he knew his history too. He was able to and daughters'. Who are they, he asked? the Unionists' feet, but that would be a quote cases, like the bishops of Slovakia, Why, any member of the church, he mistake. In all the grim history of 'Home who would defend only Jewish converts to answered: 'From the pope of the day to the Rule' and the liberation of Ireland from C hristianity, or the papal nuncio in cardinals, bishops, priests and laity, and the British rule, it has been rare for the Union­ Bratislava, who, when asked to save the guilt is greater according to the respon­ ists to have made major co ncessions in the innocent blood of Jewish children, replied, sibility exercised.' Few seemed to notice interests of peace. In the Good Friday 'There is no such thing as the innocent what was going on h ere; yet this was a Agreement of 1998, however, they did so. blood of Jewish children. All Jewish blood remarkable statem ent by a Roman cardinal. They agreed that the nationalist parties is guilty, and the Jews must die.' Rabbi It may be all right for Dante to consign were to be over-represented in the Northern Apple was backed up by a seco nd popes to hell; it's news when a cardinal does Irish Assembly and government, when it respondent, Professor Colin Ta tz of a centre it. was devolved from Westminster. They for comparative genocide studies, with more If no-one noticed this, it may be because agreed to early release of political prisoners, fl agrant examples of epi scopal anti­ all minds were concentrated on Pope Pius the majority of whom were republicans. Semitism-although Tatz's demand that XII. The Vatican document had devoted a Despite the absence of any concrete the church rewrite the N ew Testament considerable footnote to post-war Jewish agreement by the IRA to 'decommission' may have been somewhat premature. encomiums of this pontiff; and the cardinal their weapons, they ultimately agreed to

16 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 • negotiate with Sinn Fein over power-sharing 1 a e arrangements. And, on the proviso that the Irish Constitution was amended to abolish a (symbolic) territorial claim over the six counties, they agreed to the Irish Govern­ . Seeking a way ment's taking on a limited role in relation W ALL HAVE DOG-DAYS WHEN, even if we do not go so far as longing to be delivered from to the province's affairs. this body of death, we at least dream of other forms of employment. Accordingly, my hopes All this was done on the premise that were temporarily raised recently by an article by Gerald Bray in Themelios, a solid there would be som e concrete evidence periodical from the Conservative Evangelical school. It was entitled 'Rescuing Theology that, as far as the IRA was concerned, the from the Theologians'. If the prisoner is set free, I mused, its kidnappers might also be free war was over. The evidence in that regard is to do something more interesting. mixed. It was an enjoyable read: Bray echoed my prejudices. He wants theologically informed The British Weekly Telegraph news­ preaching that decently conceals its academic plumbing: 'I have a personal rule about paper reported on 7 July that significant this-if a preacher refers to the "meaning of the Greek" during the sermon, there is trouble IRA members are defecting to splinter ahead.' His main concern, however, was to insist that the task of theology is to articulate groups committed to hiding their weapons the faith of the church, and not to present a smorgasbord from it or to make compost out and continuing the violent struggle. The of it for a secular flower bed. Telegraph stated that British and Irish So far, so good. The difficulty comes, however, when we try to say with any precision security forces (Special Branch, MIS and the how theologians will serve the church properly with their work. Recent periodicals, which Irish Gardai) had intelligence that the IRA display multifarious ways of doing theology, underline the difficulty. has enough weapons to conduct a full-scale Some theologians, for example, are concerned to speak out of the Gospel to their war for about six months. On 4 August, it culture. The most recent copy of Interpretation (April 1999), with the resounding title reported the seizure of eight consignments 'Apocalypse 2000' takes up the way in which the structure and imagery of the Book of the of gu ns from the US to Ireland, apparently Apocalypse has helped shape cultural expectations and political rhetoric in the United hea ded for the Northern Irish republicans. States. It has provided a language and imagery for reflecting on the social hopes and Retired Canadian General, John de discontents of different ages. The article shows, incidentally, how malign can be the results Chastelain, has been appointed to head the when churches assume that they have access to the meaning of Biblical texts without decommissioning body, but in early July he recourse to critical enquiry. was able to report to negotiators at Stormont In contrast to this work of exposition, the notable Croatian-born theologian Miroslav Castle that the only paramilitary Vol£ reflects from a Christian perspective on the formative metaphors of social life organisation willing to commit itself to (Concilium 1999/2). In his work, Volf has built a theology around the great them es of disarmament was a splinter Loyalist group. reconciliation and inclusion. In this article he examines the metaphor of the contract, one Little if any progress has been made since which emphasises freedom of individual choice. But it also encourages a view of ocial that time. But there has been no reversion relationship as shallow and impermanent. Vol£ is more enthusiastic about the recent use to terrorist campaigns by para militaries of of covenant as a central metaphor, but points out that in Christian terms covenant is either side (despite the odd, aberrant acts by inseparably linked to sacrifice and costly love. These extend beyond inclusion to embrace. breakaway die- hards). Other theologians reflect on life within the churches. They meet the paradox that to In an attempt to break the deadlock build and understand life within a tradition, you need to go outside it. In Studio Liturgica between the Unionists and Sinn Fein/IRA, (1999/lL for example, Eugene Brand discusses Lutheran liturgical reform in the United British and Irish PMs, Blair and Ahern, States. He makes the obvious but easily missed point that in developing liturgy in English, drew up a blueprint, 'The Way Forward', for the Lutherans inevitably had to draw on the experience, ritual and language of other the implementation of the Good Friday churches. He shows, too, how more recent liturgical reform in the Catholic Church has Agreement. Sinn Fein was to be allowed to necessarily been done ecumenically. join the government on 15 July; the IRA Nevertheless, theologians properly reflect on the practice of their own churche . In the was to commence disarming within weeks New Theology Review (May 1999), Michael Lawler presents ten theses on divorce and and to complete that process by May 2000; remarriage. He is concerned with the sad exclusion from communion of so many divorced the Internati onal Commission on and remarried Catholics. Since Luther's time, theses, whether nailed to doors or not, have Decommissioning was to set a timetable had a combative and controversial edge. These are no exception, for Lawler addresses head­ for and confirm the commencement of on the theological justifications for exclusion. These include the arguments that the hands decommissioning; and, most significantly, of the church are tied because Jesus forbade divorce and remarriage, that the practice of the the new government and assembly were to church has always excluded it, and that the risk of scandal forbids the divorced and remarried be suspended by the UK Government if from being admitted to communion. Lawler argues that in the N ew Te tament there are decommissioning was not carried out diverse teachings about marriage and divorce, that early church practice shows no sign of satisfactorily. hands being tied, and that the current Catholic attitudes have developed through historical There are obvious problems with this contingency, and sometimes inconsistently. On this base, he argues for pastoral flexibility. plan. First, it ransoms the future of Northern I would argue that in his theses Lawler perhaps overplays his historical hand. But his Irish elf-government and power-sharing to article provides an example of a theologian properly at work articulating the faith of the the IRA. Second, even if the IRA gi ves an church. The evils caused by exclusion from the sacraments are so great that conventional unequivocal pledge to disarm, the dissidents wisdom needs to be sifted in robust discussion. • and splinter groups are not parties to the agreement. Third, there is no fail-safe Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.

V oLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 17 system of accounting for the IRA's demand was to return to the more congenial reciprocity here preserve the form, but not weaponry, so that there can be no real Sydney reception centre. For a nation which the spirit, of hospitali ty-you 'shout' a confidence in the disarmament process had recognised and defended the right to round of drinks in the expectation that your unless large amounts of ordnan ce are strike as a legitimate form of political action, mates will do likewise imm ediately. The publicly exposed and 'decommissioned'. our response was remarkably punitive. The understanding is that you might 'bring a The plan was rejected by the Unionists. 'rebels' were refused food and water while plate', but always 'grog', if invited to dinner. But to focus on the problems is to deny they stayed on the buses. After a torrid 31 Such rigid co-obligations are surprising for the reality that for two years the IRA/Sinn hours, only a small family of three, including so affluent a society where there is little Fein position on cease£ ire has demonstrably a frail 74-year-old grandm other, remained risk of eating (or drinking) your hosts 'out of been that they are committed to the steadfast, refusing to budge. house and h ome'. cons ti tu tiona! process-all republican The list of grievances about conditions Australians are not deliberately cold­ terrorism since the ceasefire was announced at the Singleton camp were, by any objective hearted. But we set cultural store by putting has apparently been committed by criteria, reasonable. The army had long up with hardship. Floods, fire and drought breakaway groups. ceased housing its robust young 18- 21-year­ are meant to be borne with stoicforbearance. It is too much to expect that loyalists old recruits there except for weekend With obvious machismo, Senator John and republicans will embrace each other, at bivouacs-the living conditions were too Tierney rushed to the Singleton army base, least for the foreseeable future. But, as the primitive. The toilet and shower blocks bounced up and down on the beds and people of Northern Ireland become used to were some 100 metres from the barracks, declared that he found the room so hot he peace, they will surely demand constitu­ too far for the elderly, young and sick to had to turn the heating down. 'The showers tional, democratic solutions to their trek, especially at night-time in the two­ are outside, all right,' he chuckled. 'It's a bit problems, rather than a resumption of degree winter temperatures like a caravan park.' The low-grade civil war. The benefits of peace of 'sunny Australia'. And to Australian standard is the are already being experienced. There is no people from Kosovo with a able-bodied bloke, not the future in armed struggle. It is hard to trust well-founded fear of perilous -- weak and vulnerable. and compromise with an armed enemy­ cold, the heating arrange­ Some of these dominant ~ the IRA should take the high moral ground ments seemed remarkably cultural ideals might have ~ and begin to disarm. -Hugh Dillon casual. Then there was the t Q h . been functional in a harsh problem of privacy-paper­ ~ new environment. Others r thin walls made a night til may even be understandable Cold comfort cough a shared event and the as part of the value system of communal shower blocks a former (and predominantly L ERE WAS AN AIR of expectancy on the day offended reasonable require­ male) penal colony. The the first Kosovo refugees were due to arrive ments of modesty. persistence of such norms in Australia. The hourly radio news service A cynical interpretation despite massive immigration, updated their progress through the skies of these makeshift arrange­ however, says much about from the other side of the globe. Sensitive ments would be that it the superficiality of our to the health needs and cultural beliefs of communicated the none­ much-lauded cultural fl ex­ our gu ests, Qantas served no fruit juice or too-subtle message that ibility. Positive values such alcohol on the trip. The movies shown on Australia was a 'temporary as the long-standing Austral­ board were carefully selected to be light and haven', not a comfortable permanent ian concerns with social justice and equity funny- no drama or war scenes. 'hom e'. The government's generosity was are imperilled if our generosity is arbitrar­ Preparations on the ground seemed no also politically cautious-the refu gees ily confined to helping those we define as less considerate. The reception was thought­ should not be seen to be queue-jumping for 'mates' because they share our own values. fully low key-a short informal welcome at resources inadequately provided to disad­ There was som ething shameful and ugly the airport by the Prime Minister and his vantaged nationals. There was a 'budget' in our unsympathetic response toward wife, without intrusion from the press. for this humanitarian venture. Dollars, not people forced into the unenviable role of Local communities were briefed about the needs of people, determined the quality reluctant gu ests. We have cause to be their new neighbours. Halal m eat was of services and facilities. embarrassed. But there is a positive in all arranged. Community interpreters were How do we make sense of this public this: as our multicultural experience recruited and trauma counsellors provided, mean-spiritedness in a culture which prides repeatedly demonstrates, encounters with not only for the refugees but also to debrief itself on its friendliness and willingness to other ways of seeing the world provide the interpreters coping with too many tales help others? An anthropologist, for example, useful opportunities to learn a little more of human misery. Australia might be far might conclude that, judged by world about ourselves. away, but could be relied upon to host standards, Australian culture is not -Kathy Laster people deserving of the world's care and particularly hospitable. In many societies, support. the obligation of the 'host' is to provide the This month's contributors: Edm und But then radio news bulletins began to very best to a 'guest', even at considerable Campion is an emeritus professor of the report on negotiations with Kosovo personal sacrifice. The honour of the host, Catholic Institute of Sydney; Hugh Dillon's 'protesters' refusing to leave the buses which the family and 'tribe' depends upon it. By paternal grandfather claimed to be an IRA had transported them to the Singleton contrast, Australians have cultivated volunteer in the 1920s; Kathy Laster teaches barracks in NSW. Their unequivocal individualist self-sufficiency. The rules of law and legal studies at LaTrobe University.

18 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Of fertility, Inotility and ability

A NY UNG,T' A

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 19 The state of Victoria

Amid football finals, the spring racing carnival and the opening of the new tollway system, Victoria is heading for elections. Moira Rayner looks at the condition of democracy and civil liberties in Premier Jeffrey Kennett's 'Victoria on the Move'.

FF KENNETT' s popularity has never been of the Bolte years, and the small '1', social- cosying, though critics are quickly labelled Ihigher, especially among young voters and democratic liberalism of Hamer and Cain. disloyal, selfish and un-Victorian, and young males in particular, in the newer Victoria was the cradle of a liberalism which dismissed. His government's willingness outer suburbs of Melbourne. His has been a used state intervention to achieve equality to seek out major events, such as the Grand remarkable metamorphosis. Even as he led of opportunity, so important to liberal Prix, and create new projects, such as the the coalition to its massive landslide into philosophers such as John Stuart Mill. Since Docklands stadium, City Link and Crown government in 1992, Kennett was widely 1992 that public infrastructure, established Casino, has invigorated business (and a seen as a clumsy, impulsive politician, prone certain chauvinism). The Victorian premier to gaffes, personal abuse and intemperate has also embraced multiculturalism (one of gestures. (He would rather we forget his his most attractive acts was his genuine infamous mobile phone conversation with rejection of One Nation policies), supported Andrew Peacock in which he described his moves to liberalise laws to allow the termi- political colleague, John Howard, in four- nally ill to die with dignity, and (off and on) letter words, and his repeated interjections advocated drug law reform. He is, when Joan Kirner, then Minister, spoke in T of course, a minimalist republican. the Victorian parliament, that she was a 'stupid woman'.) Even as her Labor EMOSTPROFOuNoeffectsofthe Kennett administration was definitively rejected by reign, however, strike at the heart of good the people, in 1992 Joan Kirner was still by governance. These transformations are far the people's preferred premier. complete and probably cannot be undone. Now, as the celebrity premier, with his In the name of small government, free- carefully crafted 'rough-diamond' media market policies, and individual choice, no image, heads into his third electoral contest, area-not even justice-h as been left and an undoubted third win, it is hard to untouched. Paradoxically, the effect has been recall (and younger voters simply don't) an increase in central government control that this was the man dismissed as a and regulation, largely under the personal 'boofhead' in the '80s and a buffoon in the control of the premier himself. Even the '90s. The Teflon premier personifies his heads of the departments report not to their government, thriving despite scandals, ministers, but to the premier, personally. professional opposition and popular protest The greatest changes came quickly, as at the wholesale changes wrought, in just the new administration cashed in on the seven years, in the structures of govern- atmosphere of 'crisis' which it could blame ance. He has effectively silenced his critics, over 150 years of conservative administra- on Labor. But benefits-such as the both within and outside his government tors (Labor governed for just 19 years in all) minimisation of state debt through public andhisparty.Hehasnoheirapparent:there has been dismantled. The 'conservative' asset sales and the efficiencies of is no sign that he has any plans, or another social and political culture which saw privatisation, corporatisation and restruc- place, to go . Jeff Kennett's face is an icon, as Melbourne described as 'grim city', the turing of the public sector-have come at Nicholas Economou and Brian Costar home of Protestant wowsers and a bastion the cost of accountability. remark in their introduction to The Kennett of social conservatism, has gone with it. The changes to the public sector and to Revolution (UNSW Press, 1999), of 'the It is timely to review what Kennett has industrial relations have been immense. In most robust example of the way the Liberal wrought. reframing the employment market, for Party of Australia's approach to govern- The most obvious change is the example, Victoria abolished the old award ment and politics altered under the personification of government in one man. system and Industrial Relations Commis- influence of neo-classical liberalism'. Victoria has a new verb: to be ' jeffed'. Jeff's sion in 1993, then simply handed over its As Costar and Economou write, the foibles, now he is so powerful, seem amusing, own new system to the Commonwealth in Victoria of 1999 has thoroughly cast off reportable, and almost endearing. The 1997. In the process, it abolished its own traditionalliberalism, both the paternalism bullying tone has softened into cajoling and (not particu lar! y tame) creature, the

20 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Employee Relations Commission, and political process, b ecomes far more dismissed its Commissioners, for a second important. But in this, Victoria's media + The Inaugural time. ERC President, Susan Zeitz, was not h ave been remarkably ineffectual. The lgnatian Forum appointed to the fe deral body-a breach of massaging of th e message through public conducted by the doctrine which requires judicial officers relations, entertainment and the advertising J esuit Social Services to be appointed to equivalen t office in order focus of the administration-the premier to maintain tenure and the public interest used to be in advertising-has been brilliant. Melbourne's Drug Dilemma: in judicial independence. But th e Kennett As the new premier, Jeff Kennett just Harm Minimisation or government has been characterised by a refused to deal with journalists he regarded Control? willingness to eliminate statutory and as not on side. In one 1994 ABC television judicial watchdogs on its activities. report, ABC journalist Ian Campbell shot The Lord Mayor of Melbourne The government has dealt with 'justice' footage of a sad little group of reporters The Rt. Hon. P e te r Costigan with the same policies it has used in all its reduced, in their search for comment on and other reform s. It has abolished independent m atters of the day, to h anging out in th e Bernie Ge ary offices, such as the Law Reform Commis­ anteroom of commercial radio station J esuit Social Services Program Director Premier's Drug Advisory Council Member sion, and removed the inconvenien t powers 3AW, scribbling notes as a loudspeaker Archbishop Pel/'s Drug Policy (and sometimes the incumbents) of offices tran smitted a Kennett interview with Committee Member such as the Director of Public Prosecutions. that station's N eil Mitch ell-a scene Thursday, 16 September 1999 It has privatised 'justice' mechanisms, such reminiscent of Queensland premier Joh 7.30 pm-9.30 pm as prisons (leading to a 1999 coronia! inquest Bjelke-Petersen's 'chooks' scrabbling for a on excessive deaths in custody in the Port few grains of news. Th e media's impotence St Ignatius School Hall Philip prison), chipped away the jurisdiction was perhaps sym bolised by the very public 326 Church Street, Richmond of the Suprem e Court (and cut out access to collapse on Channel 7 by an upset anchor­ (Parking available behind church) judicial review entirely, in some notorious woman, Jill Singer, imm ediately after she Entrance by donation: cases), and in creased access costs and announced that a profiled story on Mr $10 adult, $5 concession/student obstacles to administrative tribunals. Kennett's share-dealings had been pulled For furth er infor mation, contact: But the greatest change is to Victorian m om ents before she went on air. She later John Allen society. The introduction of a gambling gave sworn evidence that this was after Developmen t Manager culture has had a detrimental eff ect both on direct intervention from the premier with J esuit Social Services the econom y (now reliant on its gambling station m anagem ent. Tel: (03) 9427 7388 revenue) and on social well-being, as the Both the m ajor Melbourne daily papers recent Productivity Commission Report has have broken stori es which, if the people revealed. The restructuring of local govern­ had reacted, could have destroyed the The Centre for Christian m ent, and ch anges in the n ature and Kennett government. Each has revealed Spirituality availability of community services-health scandals at the h eart of government care and state education, particularly­ probity-the tendering process fo r the Principal: Bishop David Walker ch an ged the role of n on-government casino, the detrimental eff ects of the new Associate Member institute of the Sydney organisations and their capacity to advocate gambling culture, child protection scandals, College of Di vinity the interests of the disadvantaged. ministerial m isuse of government credit Distance Education Programs in This has all been possible because of the cards, extraordinary share-dealings, and 1992 election, which handed over control even gross, person al ministerial m is­ Theology and Spirituality of both houses of parliam ent to the executive. behaviour. Yet whatever they reported, the including: Without an effective opposition, with public either wasn't listening, or couldn't Certificate in Theology (SCD) limitation s on freedom of info rmation and be influenced. Bachelor of Theology (SCD) the right to seek judicial review of adminis­ This was a true achievem ent, within so Gradu ate Diploma in Chri sti an trative action, with the growing use of sh ort a time. It h as been t emporally Spirituali ty (SCD) 'commercial-in-confidence' exemptions to associated, perhaps coincidentally, with Master of Arts in Theological Studi es the duty to disclose public expenditure, and changes in The Age, once a quality broad­ (SCD) with the gutting of the office of Auditor­ sheet which has seen several changes in General, there is now virtually no check on editorial direction and today has a ' tabloid' The Centre also offers casual Bed/ executive power in Victoria. This is feel, a 'lifes tyle' em phasis, and a sinking Breakfast accommodati on and confere nce unhealthy for representative democracy, circulation . fac ilities in the heart of Rand wick. and is certain, over time, to lead to abuse. What are we left with? A can -do, One of the greatest casu alties of the last ideologically driven, undoubtedly efficien t, Further Information: seven years has been the status and influence cen tralised, authoritarian an d, for th e The Admjnistrator of t h e m e dia. Politician s m ust b e m om ent, unchallengeable executive whose PO Box 20 1, accountable and not just through elections. ethos is wrapped up in the personality Rand wick, 203 1 Since the Victorian parliam ent no longer packaging of just one m an . • Ph: (02)939822 1 I, provides a check on administration, the Fax: (02)93995228 'watchdog' role of the m edia, scrutinising Moira Rayner is a lawyer and freelance government's daily activities and the journalist. Email : centre@ intern et-australi a.com

VoLUME 9 NuMB ER 7 • EUREKA STREET 21 C ENTENARY Sir Franl< Macfarlane Burnet OM, FRS, Nobel Laureate 1899-1985

On the centenary of Macfarlane Burnet's birth fellow scientist G. J. V. Nossal mflects on the life and work of this remarkable man-a life that ranged from beetle collecting to winning a Nobel Prize for Medicine, from heading up the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute to writing 16 boolzs in 15 years after 'retiring'.

E ANK MACFARLANE B URNET WAS BORN IN TRARALGON, a small Victorian country town, on 3 September 1899. Both his parents were of Scottish stock, his father a country branch manager of the Colonial Bank, who had arrived in Australia in 1880. Mac, as he was called from the beginning, was the second of seven children. In 1909, the family moved to Terang, and in 1912 young Mac won a state scholarship to attend Geelong College as a boarder. During school years, some of the key characteristics of the later scientist became manifest: a keen interest in nature, shown best by his avid passion for beetle collecting; clear academic excellence (he graduated dux of the school in 1916); and an innate shyness which was to dog him for most of his life. In 1917, Burnet won another scholarship, Above: Burnet, still working pos t-retirement this time to Ormond College, University of Melbourne, where he in th e mid 1960s, at th e Microbi ology Department, U ni vers ity of M elbourne. spent the whole of a war-accelerated m edical course.

22 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Burnet became pathology registrar at Microbiology Sch ool and a form er of life' ( 1923-1933); 'Burnet the microbe­ The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in concert singer. They spent a companion­ hunter' ( 1933-195 7); and 'Bu rnet the 1923, thus beginning an association that able decade together in her com fortable explorer of the body's natural defence was to last over 42 years. Ch arles hom e in Canterbury. system ' (1957-1965). Kellaway was appointed the second T o u n derstand Burnet 's scientifi c In a sense, Burnet stumbled on his director of the Hall Institute in that year, contribution, we must project ourselves first research field. Doin g a routine and immediately set about planning the back to 1923, a much simpler time in bacterial culture on the urine of a patient further training of someone he im m edi­ m edical science. The differences between with a kidney infection, Burnet noticed ately recognised as a m ost significant viruses and bacteria were u nderstood two large clear areas on the otherwise protege. In 1925, Burnet set sail for Lon­ only in the m ost shadowy way. The gene u niform lawn of bacterial growth . He don to work fo r two years at the fa m ous was a theoretical concept. DNA as the realised that these must have represented Lister Institute under the directorship of the growth of what d'Herelle had C. J. Martin . T he only other interruption described a few years earlier-bacterio­ to Burnet's work in Melbourne was a two­ phages, literally eaters of bacteria. Burnet year s tin t ( 1932-34) at the National worked out m ethods by which a single Institute for Medical Research in London bacteriophage infected a single bacterium. under the great Sir Henry Dale. Nothing happened for 40 minutes but Burnet became Assistant Director of then, all of a sudden 50 bacteriophages the Hall Institute in 1927 and Director were released. There could be only one in 1944. Kellaway declined to back explanation. A virulent organism must Burnet for the top job, believing that have multiplied in the host bacterial cell, administrative responsibilities would finally killing it and releasing 50 progeny take away from Burnet's laboratory bench in a single burst. Burnet further worked time and worrying that his shyness and out that there were instances where the absence of obvious leadership skills phage did not kill the bacterial cell. might set the Hall Institute back. The Instead it slipped unnoticed into the Board ruled otherwise and Burnet proved hereditary constitution of the bacterium, himself to be an outstanding and inspir­ that is, into what we would now call the ing Director for a full 21 years. After his bacterial genome. retirement in 1965, Burnet moved to a The ability of the bacterial cell to suite in the Microbiology Department of carry the genes of an extrinsic virus was The University of Melbourne, where he a truly novel concept. The amazing thing devoted himself to scientific, popular and about Burnet's probing the secrets of philosophical writings. During the next phage behaviour was that, a decade later, 15 years, there was a phenomenal yield Luria, Delbrl.ick and others were to pick of 16 books and coun tless lectures and up the findings and build on them the articles, attesting to the extraordinary skeletal structure of the new sciences of range of his scholarship and industry. microbial genetics and molecular Burnet died on 3 1 August 1985, just three biology. Not for the only time in his life, days short of his 86th birthday. Burnet was years ahead of the field in his Let m e close this sharply truncated Graduation, 1918 thin king. curriculum vitae by referring to Sir Burnet the Microbe-Hunter, 1933-57 Macfarlane's fa mily. H e became engaged genetic material was still three decades to Linda Druce, a young teacher, in 1926 away, as was the polio vaccine. Scientific Bu rnet t he microbe-hun ter emerged and they married in 1928. It was a close equipment was simple an d ch eap: a during his second stint in London. By the and enduring partnership, Linda throwing microscope, som e pipettes, test tubes, early 1930s, the critical differences her considerable intelligence and energy syringes and needles, bacterial growth between bacteria and viruses were into supportin g Burn et 's career and media, an incubator, a centrifuge and a becom ing apparent. T h e National sharing in both his trials and triumphs, m odest supply of laboratory animals. In Insti tute for Medical Research was until her death in 1973. The Burnets had m ost fields, what was needed was not prominent in the field. There in three children, Elizabeth, Ian and som e sm all increm ental addition to Hampstead viruses were visualised for Deborah, who took a keen interest in his knowledge but a blazing insight to the firs t time, and their size measured work and in the Hall Institute. Deborah illuminate the darkn ess. m ore or less accu rately by passage (tragically no longer with us) in fact through graded filters. Burnet and the Secret of Life, 1923-33 worked as her father's research assistant But one bad bottleneck rem ained. in the early 1960s. In later years, Burnet Burnet's scientific w ork can be broken Viruse could not be grown in the test took great joy in his seven grandchildren. into three phases, though these overlap tube and in fact m ost had not been In 1976, Burnet married Hazel Jenkin, a and the strands intertwine. We can term isolated in pure form at all. Top priority widow ed volunteer librarian in the them 'Burnet the searcher after the secret in Ham pstead was given to influenza, for

V oLUME 9 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 23 How did the virus get into a cell? What happened when it got in? How did the virus get out before infecting the next cell I He answered these and many related questions of a fundamental nature. In medical science, basic research and practical application are never far apart. Knowing about specific receptors for virus entry opens up the possibility of blocking the receptor and preventing infection. Knowing that viruses can recombine genetically inside a cell affords the opportunity of designing strains which lack virulence but retain the capacity to provoke an immune response, thus constituting an ideal vaccine. Knowing that an enzyme may be required for viral release and spread suggests that an inhibitor of such an enzyme may be an anti-viral drug. The exciting new drug Relenza-developed by Peter Colman, Mark von Itzstein and colleagues in conjunction with Biota and Glaxo­ Wellcome for prophylaxis and treatment of influenza-rests heavily on Burnet's work of 40 years previously, as Colman has generously acknowledged. Burnet the Explorer of the Body's Natural Defence System, 195 7-65

Portrait by Burnet had flirted with immunology Sir William Dargic, since the 1930s. He struggled to under­ circa 196 1. stand two basic points. First, how does an animal distinguish between 'self' and the good reason that the 1918-19 more than one strain, an essential prelude 'not-self', mounting a vigorous immune pandemic of flu had been devastating, to later vaccine developments. H e response against the latter but naturally causing far more deaths than World studied herpes, the agent for cold sores; toleratin g the former? This applies, War I. Burnet records the excitement psittacosis or parrot fever; scrub typhus; among other things, to foreign cells or when the breakthrough came. Nasal a slightly different kind of organism that tissues. Mismatch eel red blood cells washings from influenza patients had came to bear his own name, Rickettsia provoke strong antibody formation, the been inoculated into all kinds of burneti, the causative organism of Q body's own red blood cells do not. A experimental animals. One day, Burnet's fever; canarypox; and, largely through kidney graft from an unrelated donor colleague, Laidlaw stopped him on the guidance of others, Murray Valley cau es a massive, destructive immune stairs. 'The ferrets are sneezing,' h e encephalitis and myxomatosis. attack unless halted by drugs, but the trumpeted. Fabulous though the isolation Indeed, an argument could be made white blood cells which serve as the of the pathogen in a ferret was, this was for Burnet's having become, by 1950, the body's policemen do not invade a person's hardly the most practical way to learn world's leading animal virologist. But own kidneys. How do the white cells more about the flu virus' habits, let alone time and again h e turned back t o know the difference? to grow enough virus to make a vaccine. influenza. His interests in this organism In 1949, Burnet, in a monograph Burnet set about finding a better way, were both practical and theoretical. From co-authored with Frank Fenner, made a growing viruses in embryonated hen's a practical point of view, he attempted bold prediction. The capacity to distin­ eggs. To this day, his methods remain the to make a live, attenuated influenza guish self from not-self was not innate, preferred technique for growing enough vaccine given as a nasal spray and in fact it had to be learned by the immune of both the influenza virus and the yellow he got permission to test this on 20,000 system during embryonic life. If one fever virus for the manufacture and mass army personn el, but unfortunately could introduce a foreign substance or production of vaccines. without uccess. cell into an embryo, while the immune Returning to Melbourne in 1934, The theoretical work centred on the system was still in this immature, Burnet worked on poliomyelitis, making mysteries of viral replication. Burnet learning phase, one might be able to trick the crucial observation that there was addressed himself to three questions. the body into accepting the foreign

24 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 material as self. Burnet attempted to gain antibody. Burnet added the essential evidence for this theory but failed. element that the diverse natural anti­ Stimulated in part by Burnet's theory, bodies were present as receptors on the Billingham, Brent and Medawar in surface of very diverse lymphocyte white London introduced living cells from one cells. Each lymphocyte was pre-committed strain of mice into embryos of another to the formation of only one antibody. strain. In later life, the treated mice When an antigen entered, it sooner or happily accepted skin grafts from the cell later found the right donor strain but not from a third, lymphocyte and trig­ irrelevant mouse strain. The treated mice gered it into extensive had been rendered specifically immuno­ multiplication and logically tolerant, and Burnet's theory mass production of the was vindicated. While that particular right corresponding protocol was obviously not applicable to antibody. Thus anti­ humans, Medawar's experiment had body formation was shown that successful transplantation of clue to clonal selection. organs and tissues was possible in Furthermore, the cor­ principle. For their discovery of immuno­ rectly selected cells logical tolerance, Burnet and Medawar could mutate, and later shared the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine. injections of antigen The second aspect of immunology to could stimulate im­ puzzle Burnet was the fact that animals proved variants, thus seemed to be able to form antibodies to explaining why anti­ almost anything. Imagine how many bodies got better after different bacteria and viru es there must repeated immunisation. be in the biosphere. Choose to inject any Immunological toler­ one of them and a mammal forms ance resulted because antibody specifically targeted to that exposure of immature particular microbe. Furthermore, animals lymphocytes to self can form antibodies even to synthetic antigens de troyed organic chemicals that have never existed rather than stimulated before in nature. the relevant cell . The generally accepted theory for the Finally, auto-immune specificity of antibodies was the so-called direct template theory. A foreign molecule, technically termed an antigen, enters the cell and the antibody molecule forms itself in direct contact with that template, much as plastic or metal can Nobel Laurea te, 1960: At th e Nobel Pri ze be moulded against a die. Burnet was not ce remony with joint-prizewinner satisfied with this direct template theory Sir Peter M edawar (o n th e left). because it failed to explain many fascinating features of the immune response. For example, why did a booster Burnet as a Scientific Generalist shot of a vaccine evoke much more antibody than the first injection? And This skeletal outline of scientific why did the quality of an antibody, that disease was the result of inappropriate discovery fails to do justice to Burnet the is the tightness with which it bound to division of a forbidden anti-self clone. scientific generalist. He had a most unusual the target antigen, improve with This new clonal selection theory of capacity for taking scientific data of successive imm unisa tions? Burnet antibody formation was published in diverse kinds and finding associations picked six or seven such holes in the 195 7 and in expanded form as a mono­ that no-one else had ever thought of. direct template hypothesis and struggled graph in 1959. Research of the next This capacity for synthesis was feel by to find an alternative overall theory. decade substantially verified its essential wide and disciplined reading. A new Burnet built on Jerne' idea that elements and it became the central finding somehow had to be integrated into antibodies were in fact natural sub­ paradigm of immunology. Burnet the his scientific Weltanschauung. He stances, present in minuscule amounts theoretical explorer of the body's natural loved to speculate, sometimes almost even before antigen entered the body, and defence system had achieved his ultimate dangerously, from every experiment he that somehow antigen merely accelerated destiny as Australia's and one of the performed, seeking to derive general the formation of the right, pre-existing world's greatest medical biologists. meaning from results which, in the first

VoLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 25 ins tance at least, are always highly was a microscope. H e gravely over­ there is no useful applica tion to m edicine particular and specialised. estimated the difficulties in two or any other practical m atter.' This Burnet took real joy from scientific techniques essential to virology, namely pessimism led to some extraordinary discovery. While on e's own findings tissue culture and molecular biology. comments about molecular biology: n ecessarily have a special emotional I believe his switch from virology to 'Molecular biology as now practised is ... Gestalt, Burnet could also ge t a real thrill immunology arose at least in part because very largely a laboratory artefact that has fr om som eon e else's breakthrough, he saw virology coming to require never been brought into useful relation always believing that it might help him technically more demanding approaches. with biological realities.' So much for the to see the big picture. In a sense, the Towards the end of his reign, the Hall DNA industry and the wonderful whole world was his laboratory. But he Institute, by international standards, was products, including vaccines, m ade by was also a gifted and industrious experi­ ridiculously short of space, equipment, genetic engineering! 'The human genetic m entalist spending endless hours at the facilities and finances . As m edical equipment in every cell is of a complexity laboratory bench, fr equently performing repetitive and routine manipulations. His oscillation from the particular to the general was, in my experience, almost unique. It served him well in his role as a director of an institute. Burnet was not a natural administrator. I am sure that over the 21 years of his reign at the Hall - ~~ Ins titu t e all the st aff, visitors and studen ts thought of him primarily as a ,·· ~ ·· / . scientist and only incidentally as the person who controlled the purse-strings or bired and fired the staff . Burnet spelt out the Institute's main research them e, bu t it was left to the individual scientists to position t hem selves within that ~. umbrell a. Each scien tist was given great freedom in research and also total and sole credit for any discoveries made Burnet was never at his best in open debate. Man y scientists sharpen their wits during the thrust and parry of a vigorou s discu ssion with a gifted colleague. Burnet always preferred to attack ideas in the quiet of his study with pencil and paper, returning the next day Portrait by Clifton Pu gh, 1966 with some new insight. He played little part in the open discussion sections of major international m eetings . He states in his autobiography: 'I have spent my research became more complex and as its and order which is completely beyond an working life on the periphery of the world centre of gravity therefore shifted into approach at the chemical level.' So m uch of science. I have always retrea ted to the dom ains that Burnet could not under­ for the human genome project, destined smaller cou n try where I could be less stand, much less control, he entered into to complete that very task over the next subject to the two pressures of competi­ a Gbtterdammem ng phase which, given fiv e years. tion and conformity.' I fa ncy that Burnet his great prestige, could have been quite Of the m an y books written post­ rather enjoyed his role as a sligh t damaging to his successor. Pared cl own retirem en t, one of the m ost though t­ ou tsider. This solitary way of working to its essentials, this claim ed that all the provoking is the las t, Credo and allowed his originality to fl ower, untram ­ grea t discoveries capable of helping Comment, published in 1979 w hen melled by passing scientific fas hion . humanity had been made, that the time Burnet was 80. In it he re hearses the 'big of grea t elucidation had com e and gone. bang' theory of the origin and evolution Burnet and Gotterdammerung Thus he stated: 'The likelihood that new of the universe, asserts the cen trality of D id th is scientific paragon have no knowledge will be applicable to an y the life process, considers the key tenets Achilles heel, no fla ws in his scientific matter of human significance or broad of sociobiology, and speculates on the makeup? There are a couple which we intellectual interest is becoming 'strange urgency on the part of nature that must record. Burnet had a mistrust, progressively sm aller ... It is becoming every possible combination should be almost a fear, of technology. The most more evident in biology that beyond a tried lest som e desira ble combination com plex scientific apparatus he ever used certain level of theoretical know ledge should never find opportunity to emerge'.

26 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999 This implicit assertion of purpose in Fazekas, Fenner, French, Gottschalk, would he have thought of the aggressive Darwinian evolution is surprising in one Mackay, M etcalf, White and Wood to and so often successful treatment of heart who had formerly been a militant atheist. mention just a few, are surely ones to attacks by angioplasty, clot-busting drugs H e supposes that 'God, nature or conjure with. or biologicals, and st ents to prop the evolution is so constituted that there The Institute which he dominated for art eries open ? What would h e have must be a constant searching for and so long becam e in his time one of that thought of severe rheumatoid arthritis achieving of creativity, a progressively small handful of medical research centres being materially ameliorated by injection higher level of complexity, understanding whose nam e is instantly recognised of antibodies against powerful inflam­ and control of significant areas of the around the globe as making a pre-eminent matory molecules? What would he have universe'. He states that 'the biological contribution t o the m arch of world made of cures of adult leukaemia through scientist can go no further than God as science. It is for others to judge the Nossal new forms of blood cell transplantation the shadowy personification of the years, but the fifth Director, Professor u sing CSFs, genetically en gineered unknowable principle of constantly Suzanne Cory, is surely em erging novelty'. Such a God may be enhancing the Hall Institute's omnipotent and omniscient 'but he has reputation while leading it limited himself to a single way of into n ew and exciting attaining the divine desire by providing directions. infinite opportunities for an infinitely But the global legacy is the improbable event to occur'. Thus does the most important. Burnet's three great biologist bend just a little in the phases of research involved direction of religion . the three threads bein g Influenced by Alfred North White­ woven into a unique and head, Burnet seem s to be groping for a beautiful tapestry through a view not too distant from that of Teilhard blending of separate disciplines. de Ch ardin, so trenchantly derided by Concepts were borrowed from Burnet's fellow N obel Laureate, Peter microbiology, bioch emistry, Medawar. Burnet once told Davis immunology, genetics, oncol­ McCaughey that som e of the things a ogy and epidemiology to Christian theologian was concerned with synthesise a holistic view of expressed his thought in another idiom . infectious diseases and the The powerful humanism of Credo and host's immune response. Comment m ay show that Burnet's Burnet saw the centrality of Presbyterian upbringing exerted a immunology before anyone Burnet with hi s successor at th e W alter and Eli za Hall Institute, continuing effect. else. This discipline has Gustav Nossa l, circa 1965. expanded dramatically, yet many of m olecules discovered in his own beloved Honours and Awards Burnet's ideas remain paradigmatic. Of Hall Institute? Both the scientific peer group and the course it has m oved in different These and other stunning advances civil sector showered Burnet with directions and is exploring new depths. are blunting the attack of many chronic honours. He won the Royal and Copley This is how it should be, must be. Despite diseases. Were he able to revisit us on Medals of The Royal Society. H e served his gloom y prognostications, Burnet 3 September 1999, his lOOth birthday, as President of the Australian Academy would have been the first to delight in and were I to tell him all that, I fancy he of Science. In the United States, he was a the new approaches to auto-immunity, would stand with eyes downcast and half Foreign Associat e of the N ational allergy, transplantation, immunisation closed, brow puckered in concentration, Academy of Sciences and won the La sker and cancer which the subsequent 30 curled right forefinger held to his lips in Award. He received countless honorary years have brought. He would also have a characteristic gesture of deep puzzle­ doctorates, including those from Oxford, marvelled at our understanding of the m ent, then gradually his face would relax Cambridge and Harvard. He was knighted genes, molecules and cells of the immune into a self-conscious little smile. 'Gus,' in 195 1 and received the Order of Merit system, so much more profound than he he would say, 'I think I'll have to develop in 1958. The N obel Prize in 1960 could or anyone else could have imagined. a new working hypothesis! ' • have been won three times over. I would like to think that in less gloomy moments he would also have revelled in Sir Gustav Nossal is Professor Emeritus The Burnetian Legacy the challenges of how much more there at the D epartment of Pathology, Univer­ The Burnetian legacy can be examined is to know, and in the power of the sity of Melbourne. He was Director of the at three levels: personal, institutional and techniques of the new biology. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute from 1965 global. At the personal level, he was a Burnet stated that incursions from the to 1996. huge influence on every scientist who outside world, such as infection or This article is an edited version of the worked within his orbit. Many of these trauma, were easier to deal with than 20th Daniel Mannix Lecture organised have gone on to be leaders of Australian chronic degenerative diseases of by the students of N ewman College, m edical science. Names like Ada, uncertain and complex causation. What University of Melbourne.

V O LUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 27 SOUTH AFRICA Blacl< and other arts Jim Davidson goes to the Grahamstown Festival and discovers South Africa in microcosm.

I MAGINE A PLAC E with half the Victorian buildings of policies that could not be criticised overtly, because of Ballarat transposed to Bacchus Marsh, only with the h eavy censorship, might be attacked through plays surrounding housing estates replaced by African shanties written about contemporary situations. People still talk and matchbox dwellings, and you have something rather about one which dealt with the return of a raw Afrikaner like Grahamstown. Even so, for the 50 years to 18 70 this youth from military service in Angola to his traditional was South Africa's second-largest town. Kneecapped by rural family: as they listened to the dialogue, the audience the gold and diamond discoveries to the north, didn't know whether to laugh or cry. and then (for previous impertinence) relegated But the Festival can no longer grab the spotlight with Nelson Mandela by the Cape government to a branch railway protest, and there is a feeling abroad that it needs a new agreed to become line, its clays of greatness ended abruptly. But a guiding vision: numbers attending have slipped in recent lingering sense of entitlement continued-and years. Rumours have spread that the Standard Bank, the patron, giving his continues still-to hang about the place. main sponsor, is likely to scale clown or withdraw its In the 1960s it was realised that the town support. In fact the bank was particularly generous in blessing from the had two great assets. It was the nodal place of enabling a very full program to be mounted for this 25th portal of the English colonisation in South Africa, a place festival. From the rest of Africa were brought dance with tap roots: at least a quarter of a million companies and an orchestra, while from Europe came cathedral. 'I welcome people could be claimed as descendants of the (among others) baroque musicians, flamenco dancers, a you to the Festival,' 1820 Settlers. Moreover, in the full flush of Cambridge choir, the Philippe Genty Company and the civic pride, the pioneers had started three or Neclerlancls Dans Theater. These, combined with local he said, 'if you are four of South Africa's most famous schools (to offerings-some 200 on the Fringe alone- gave the poor or rich, if you which was later added a small but reputable Festival an unusual depth of field. Moreover, lectures, university), together with other public build- film shows, poetry readings and exhibitions, to say are black or ings. Perhaps the town, small though it was, nothing of open air markets and houses turning into white, if you are could be made the site of an annual festival. temporary restaurants, meant that the whole town was And so, with the blessing of the Nationalist effectively taken over. Students from the university's local or foreign .' government (delighted that the local English journalism department assumed their usual role of The rhetoric these were earthing themselves in South Africa, producing a daily festival newspaper, and also got up a rather than pining for the mother country) a satellite television channel. Nelson Manclela agreed to days is one of large monument with a theatre and various become patron, giving his blessing from the portal of the halls soon arose above the town. cathedral. 'I welcome you to the Festival,' he said, 'if you inclusion. The result is not a thing of beauty; indeed it are poor or rich, if you are black or white, if you are could be described as a cross between a schloss local or foreign.' The rhetoric these clays is one and London's Festival Hall. But it functions splendidly as c of inclusion. the focal point for a festival. The early ones, like the Shakespeare Festival of 1976, ERTAINLY AN OUTSIDER was struck by the appropri- tenclecl to be eurocentric and-within the context of ately African emphasis of much of the program. But Afrikaner hegemony-were concerned to maintain some of the biggest set pieces of the Festival, while English-languagecultureinSouthAfrica,completewith addressing themes such as life in contemporary its manifestation in new works. This emphasis on Johannesburg, or the return of a community to their language meant that blacks would come to be included traditional land, chose to do so partly with music. This too (as eventually were Afrikaners), if not in the Main may reflect the contemporary urge towards more fluid program then certainly on the Fringe. And almost from art forms; but the effect was to dampen clown urgency, its beginning, the Grahamstown Festival functioned as and to turn elrama into pageant and display. This element an important site of protest. Nationalist government of celebration does not come simply from being staged

28 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 for a fe stival, and from being able to draw from unaccus­ AIDS rates, but so far as I could see the disease was tomed pots of money. It stem s even more from people not represented only as a gay white problem. Cape Town is yet being used to hearing the sound of their own voices probably the rape capital of the world; but rape too seems on stage. When speech does occur, it often runs the risk to have been rarely confronted. Even in the cheeky of becoming a declaration; of not being shaped sufficiently Vagina Monologues-a one-woman show put on in the to enmesh with the lines of other characters. hall of the prim Diocesan School for Girls-it wa largely One production which used musical elements very transposed to Bosnia. Perhaps the all-pervasive issues of tellingly was that by Third World Bunfight, as they are race and the need for transformation effectively crowd engagingly called, in The Prophet. This dealt with the out all others. appalling story of the Xhosa cattle killing of 1856-7, a Excepting crime, that is. Despite a notable (and rare) cargo cult movement which spread through these parts police presence at the Festival, a critic was pick pocketed as blacks hearkened to the prophecies of an 11-year-old on the very first day-leading to squawking of an girl. altogether different kind-while a visiting dance troupe They destroyed all their corn and cattle so as to ready were rudely awoken by a ga ng of thieves. The New themselves to be rejoined by warrior ancestors, where­ Yorkers were shocked; but Pieter-Dirk Uys, South upon they would be able to drive the white man into the Africa's Barry Humphries, would have said: You're Reaching out, alas, sea. The results were calamitous: anything up to 100,000 in the Eastern Cape, and this is the province people may have died in the famine which followed, where they've even stolen the deficit. Criminality is still fairly while white conquest of the region was accelerated. How was constantly referred to in the Festival's stage symbolic. The then might such a painful set of events be restaged? works. A character in Love, Crime and Previously the company had taken up another outbreak Johannesburg, a musical with a thin plot strung programs have been of hysteria, based on contemporary witchcraft; that around a real-life poet who was jailed for robbing substantially production had, from all accounts, rawness and urgency. a bank, nihilistically observed that 'There's no But this one dealt with a national cataclysm, albeit a long his tory. There's no past. There's no right or wrong.' Africanised, and to time ago. A path therefore had to be fo und w hich, while The show ended with talk of a general amnesty for allowing a convincing dramatisation, might also have criminals, businessmen and politicians (almost some degree so have something of the character of a requiem, cauterising the interchangeable commodities), the audience the performers. But wound even as it re-examined it. being com forted with the assurance that The drama therefore unfolded liturgically. On enter­ 'Everything will be all right-in a hundred years' it must be ing the vast space of the old power station, one noticed time.' M eanwhile, the young black comedian depressing for a seven fi gures like statues of Rameses seated at intervals David Kau ended his show saying that som e around the hall; their eyes were sealed. When the Xhosa people would have realised he wasn't a stand-up black stand-up came on and made for the central podium, they were comic-and yes, they were right. The small comic like David children; the statue figures intoned a monotonous chant. audience then found them selves Grown men exchanged roles as ancestors, as warriors, confronting a glinting gun. Kau to find himself and even as doomed cattle, their path always a circular playing to entirely one trailing through the audience. The prophecies, thanks 0 NE EXP LANA TI ON for the contemporary to amplification and a drooping intonation, were eerie in omission s is that the past is still there, just benea th white audiences. their effectiveness, all the m ore so for the massed chant the surface-and that bits of it still project into in the background. Later, the steady pace of the piece was the landscape of South African life. In a m oving punctured by two bold theatrical m oments. The first was monologue on the Fringe, Woman in Waiting, Mannie when a symbolic sun rose, and the Xhosa held their Manim dealt with the life of a black servant woman. Her brea th in expectation that it would stop in the middle of constant marginalisation, as an incidental consequence the sky, as foretold; this Sun did stop, but then moved on. of a white madam's capricious change of plans, was Later, when a second date for the miracle had been given, brought out forcefully. But more theatrically effective and more intensive preparations made-echoed here in a were the scenes drawn from childhood, when she had rising crescendo joined in even by the statue figures- the accompanied her m other (represented by a huge dress) to sun rose again, but this time, before having the chance to Durban. There one day she had gone with her to work­ move on, it was knocked sideways. These were real since otherwise they rarely saw each other- and then, coups de theiitre, since the intensity of each m om ent when abandoned, went looking for the loo. She fo und it, eclipsed both common sense and historical knowledge. only to be bawled out by the white master. Worse, her Of course the production was not faultless: often the mother came running, and to the child's consternation, voices did not carry sufficiently. But it had a notable fell into an apologetic heap. When the scene was over, soundness of structure, even if some allusions were the little girl turned round and said, 'You must be a very obscure, while the detail could be impeccable. Three important person, Mr Toilet, to be treated in this way.' white children were used as redcoats: as they picked over Then sh e opened the lid. Inside was a dress; of normal the bodies of the dead Xhosa, the tentative character of dimensions now. Her mother had been cut down to size. nea t, ten-year-old boys suggested nothing so much as It is not only blacks who bear the scars of the past. It vultures. comes as a bit of a shock to find a m an not yet 30 old There was not much sense of contemporary issu es enough to have been conscripted into the old South being addressed. Southern Africa has the world's worst African army. As a morale booster, he and his mates were

VOLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 29 trooped into a hall to hear the State President open can't bring herself to speak their language. That still left parliament. But it was the wrong year: 1990, when De three for m e to go and see. Only one of them I thought a Kl erk announced the release of Mandela and the bit thin, Going Down Gorgeous, a series of sketches­ unbanning of the ANC. Greig Coetzee, in his show written over 20 years-in the life of a lmgel, a South White Men with Weapons, notes the effect on the African Jewish princess. But the character is herself Afrikaner officers, and milks it for all the comedy it is shallow, milking the system while professing to oppose worth. But the sense of futility he detects it. Indeed the old Jewish refu gee lady in Oekaffimated, a first in them he has come to experience collection of sharp sketches, was a much more ful ly Despite a notable himself. There they were, 'at the bottom of realised character. No black characters appeared, although Africa with our arses on the line'. And what Uys does do them; instead it was a cavalcade of fig ures (and rare) police was it all for? N obody can say, but all bear fr om the present and the recent past. At first the audience its mark. 'Living dinosaurs are what we've felt indulged, for there are some very good jokes at presence at the become, white men in Africa.' everybody's expense. But then just before the end of the Festival, a critic was Another show, Th e Story I Have to Tell, program , on came Uys as a CNN reporter in the year bravely brings these black and white 2004, giving a horror scenario of how the country might pickpocketed on the perspectives together. The phrase comes have gone under black rule. If the audience hadn't been very first day- from the proceedings of the Truth and jolted already, it had to take this blow quite manfully. Reconciliation Commission, and three More agreeable for them was the focus of the fifth show, leading to squawl

30 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 physical confidence into art. The program moved on to conclude with a collective item from all three groups, OBITUARY giving the festival one of its moments of epiphany. At one point a black dancer cam e on stage alone, danced a LINDA M c GIRR few steps, and was joined by a fair-haired Queenslander. The two men shook hands, African style, then pulled away from each other and lean t back in tandem. The crowd wildly cheered, for it was at once a vision of a white Australia purified of racism and of a confident, multicultural South Africa.

R EACHJNG ouT, alas, is still fairly symbolic. The programs have been substantially Africanised, and to som e degree so have the performers. But it must be depressing for a black stand-up comic like David Kau to find himself playing to entirely white audiences. The Jennifer Paterson charge of elitism is therefore to some degree justified, since ticket prices are such that many people, certainly 1928-1999 most blacks, are simply excluded from attending. At the sam e time, there are reports of complimentary tickets for blacks having gone unclaimed: the whole ambience remains intimidating. It is quite otherwise with whites. W ALL SAY WE ADMJRE someone who dances For them, the National Arts Festival becomes the ideal to her own tune, yet we rarely see anyone who way to take their culture: on a binge, away from the does, rarer still on TV. crime-infested streets of the big cities, where many We are bombarded with endless interviews people do not feel safe at night. As in so many respects, with soapie starlets, sex symbols and song­ South Africa exemplifies postmodernism; Festival stresses. Even our women newsreaders are audiences also to som e degree differentiate themselves. indistinguishable from catwalk models. The young people who stayed away from the Monteverdi Curious then that we ever had the pleasure opera comprised almost the entire audience for The of Jennifer Paterson on our screens-fat , Vagina Monologues. bespectacled and, worse still, well over 60. She Crowds may have been slightly down for this year's festival, but ticket sales for the Main were up. The appeared, not as someone's grandmother, but Grahamstown Festival needed this boost, for it is in her own right as a chef with years of culinary increasingly under competition from up to a dozen experience following on from a successful fes tivals elsewhere in the country. Indeed, two rather career backstage in theatre and television. more folksy ones have sprung up on either side of it, in Witty, well-read and remarkable in her places on the way. More serious is the effect of the genuine interest in people and places, she took newish Oudtshoorn Festival which, now that Afrikaans­ us from convents to breweries, scout camps to speakers feel besieged, is drawing away Afrikaans writers, The Ritz, lunching with cricketers, choirboys performers and audiences. and bikies, travelling from place to place on But the Festival, even should it be scaled down, is her much-loved motorbike with her unlikely to die-indeed other gatherings now supple­ collaborator Clarissa Dickson-Wright in side­ m ent it. The ANC is aware of how important it is for the car. With Clarissa, she rejected the pretensions Grahamstown economy, and as a showcase for the town; of foodies who prepare m eals with the sterility the experience can encourage white people to send their and precision of micro-surgery. kids there to be schooled. With less than 30 per cent of Her funeral was a Requiem Mass in the the town's workforce in full employment, the place Brompton Oratory. At Jennifer's request, the needs all the help it can get. Burnt-out buildings stand in Mass was in Latin, and h er motorbike helmet the m ain street, and have for m onths; there is not enough was placed on h er coffin, remaining there money or confidence to restore or rebuild. Meanwhile, throughout the service. • the annual vision of Camelot has fa ded. For the moment, the street kids, having huddled in groups bus king outside Festival venues, have vanished. But any day now they will be back, begging. •

Jim Davidson, who is currently researching in South Africa, teaches a course on the Rise and Fall of Apartheid at Victoria University of Technology. He attended the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (29 June- 11 July).

V OLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 31

School children at Wauroin village . Some of their so ngs are now about fami ly they lost to the big w ave. 'Everybody here has lost so meone,' says Eddi e Romere, the sc hool headmaster.

the big wave

He I icopters became a common sight and a lifeline during the months of the emergency response.

Ben Amaal, Manager of the Ca re Centre in Yakoi Village, smokes a hand-rolled cigarette ca lled a spear. 'Australian newspapers make the best spea rs,' he says. 'The print doesn't get mixed up w ith the tobacco.' Amaal says it will be another two years before th e disaster reg ion returns to anything nea r normal. TH E REGION : 2 P ETE R MARES Indonesian witness

Ibu Sulami spent 20 years in Indonesian jails. Now 74, the former General Secretary of the Indonesian Women's Movement was one of many imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1965 coup. Peter Mares interviewed her in Tangerang, West Java.

T.HI RTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, on the night Tangerang Detention Centre there was Since Suharto's fall in May last year of 30 September 1965, there was a a period when between two and four there have been constant calls for a mutiny in Jakarta. Army units led by prisoners died every cla y. Th e same was thorough investigation into the wealth Lieutenant-Colonel Untung murdered true at Salemba Prison. The prisoners' of the fo rmer president and his family and six top Generals, ostensibly because they reserves of strength were sa pped by the corruption, collusion and nepotism were plotting against Indonesia's found- forced and co nstant hungeri the end that characterised his 32-year dictator- ing President Sukarno. The rebellious result was bereberi and aJI the ship (a term which even Foreign Minister officers then captured a radio station and complications that ensued .. . Downer now uses to describe the regime declared a revolutionary council. Most of the fir st men to di e were with which Canberra was once so cosy) . The coup attempt was short-lived. farmers who, because of th e physical Less prominently reported are the Major-General Suharto, 44-year-old labour th ey were forced to do, required calls for Suharto to be prosecuted for his commander of the army Strategic Reserve larger rations of food - rations that were role in crimes against humanity, (Kostrad), mustered loyal troops and not given to them. After suffering a particularly the 1965-66 massacres that quickly crushed the rebellion. With the month of ncar starvation, when their accompanied his rise to power. Generals dead, Suharto emerged as the fami li es were all owed to visit and Leading the push for a thorough most powerful military figure in Jakarta. brought with them baskets of boiled investigation into the killings is 74-year- He used his new strength gradually to cassava, they wo uld eat until their old Ibu Sulami, who spen t almost 20 sideline, then eventually replace, Sukarno. intestines ruptured. years in Suharto's jails. When the killings The coup attempt is known as took place, Ibu Sulami was on the run, Gestapu (Gerakan September Tiga Pramoedya and most of his fellow moving from house to house in Jakarta Puluh, The September Thirtieth inmates were eventually released in 1979, to evade arrest. Movement) and it was blamed on the but their freedom was conditional. All 'I did not see very much of the killings Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI. former detainees had their identity cards with my own eyes,' she told me. 'But A ruthless military-backed crackdown on stamped with the code 'ET' (el

34 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 responsibility for the killing. She is not Communist Party, although the organi­ 'In truth, there were no weapons in driven to avenge her own suffering; at sation was never formally affiliated with the office,' says Ibu Sulami. 'All we had least there is no trace of bitterness in her the PKI. were bamboo musical instruments called words. Rather, Ibu Sulami is seeking After the coup attempt of 30 anldung. We had lots of them because we justice so that ghosts can be laid to rest. September, Suharto made Gerwani a key were preparing to celebrate Gerwani's She wants to soothe souls through a target of his crackdown on the left. Lies anniversary and w e had about 500 proper and public accounting of were spread through newspaper and radio anklung ready for people to play in a his tori cal events. reports saying that Gerwani women had street procession. Five years ago, Ibu Sulami 'The military suggested to began touring the provinces the people round about that the and talking to the families of Gerwani office was stacked with victims, especially the wives of huge stores of money, sugar, rice m en who disappeared without and other things. So the people a trace: 'Often they were still looted the place, but there was waiting for their husbands to nothing there, just a little bit come back,' she says. 'A lot of of food, nothing at all. And the them have never remarried crowd outside were all scream­ since that time and they are ing, there's no money, there's very anxious to know what no food, we were being lied to!' happened to their husbands. Ibu Sulami fled from the They wonder, if their husbands office to a friend's place and for are still alive, why have they the next 18 months she lived never com e back? Are they in as 'a hunted person', moving jail or were they killed? And if from house to house and never so, who killed them and where sleeping in the sam e bed two are they buried? That sort of nights running. knowledge is very Eventually, during a sweep important to them.' called Operation Vampire, she was arrested by the Jakarta A T THE TIME of Gestapu, military command. Ibu Sulami was the General 'It was really terrible,' she Secretary of Gerwani (Gerakan Today Ibu Sulami lives in a simple house recalls. 'I was beaten for about Wanita Indonesia, the Indone­ t en days and they kept on sian Women's Movement) in Tangerang, an industrial city interrogating us during that which had been established in in West Java, that runs into the urban time. I was asked questions 1950 to fight for equal rights: again and again and I did not 'I grew up in a village and you sprawl of Jakarta. She looks frail, but her want to answer. know there were so many cases memory is sharp and she has summoned the 'They asked whether of discrimination between men Gerwani was involved in and women,' she says. 'Boys at energy to delve into the most sensitive killing the generals. But that stage could continue with period in Indonesian history. Gerwani had nothing to do their education as far as their with it, so I kept my silence. means allowed, but for girls, as 'They were also asking long as they could read and write, well castrated the six murdered generals, whether I knew someone called Sam, that was it. Like me, for example. My gouged their eyes out and then danced who was one of the figures involved in older brother was able to go to higher naked in celebration before the chairman the coup and who was a friend of the education, but my younger sister and I of the communist party. In his Historical leader of the communist party, Brother were only able to go to primary school. Dictionary of Indonesia, Robert Cribb Aidit. But I'd never met the man, I didn't 'I was very attracted to Gerwani writes that 'special attention was given know him at all, so I just couldn't answer because I felt it was working to elevate to the destruction of Gerwani, on the the question. They kept beating me up. the dignity of women and overcome the grounds that it allegedly encouraged They'd wake me up at one in the morning inequality and the discrimination.' women to abandon their duties within the to destabilise me, to put my nerves on Gerwani established kindergartens family and promoted sexual promiscuity'. edge so that I would answer their and ran courses in midwifery and literacy. Nothing happened at Gerwani questions. Many other women were also The organisation also campaigned for headquarters for the first three days after treated like that. equal rights in marriage and for stronger Gestapu. Then on the fourth day a group 'The interrogations eventually got so rape laws. By 1961, Gerwani claimed nine of soldiers arrived at the office and ferocious that the women were stripped million members and had become demanded that Gerwani m embers and it was absolutely inhuman what was increasing! y close to the Indonesian surrender, with their weapons. happening to them at that time.'

VoLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 35 Ibu Sulami says that a lot of girls were of the Command of President Su karno'. though Suharto had not yet been toppled arrested at the same time as her. They 'The treatment was awful for the first from power.' were just 14, 15 and 16 years old, too years while I was in military detention. Ibu Sulami has now set up a foundation young even to join Gerwani, but under Later, Amnesty International and the Red to continue the work, with Pramoedya torture they were forced to 'confess' to Cross took up my case and I was then as patron. It is staffed mostly by bereaved Gerwani's role in the coup attempt. given a blanket and a mattress and relatives of the victims of 1965. Bu t even 'The young girls who were arrested at conditions go t a bit better. But it was still though Suharto is no longer President, the time were really very badly trea ted, pretty terrible. the work remains extrem ely sensitive, they were beaten almost to death in the 'It was a deliberate policy to lock us difficult and dangerous. The Indonesian Guntur military police headquarters in up with ordinary criminals and I shared military has no interest in seeing its past Jakarta,' she recalls. a cell with ordinary criminals virtually crimes uncovered. N either do civilians The girls were also used to further the whole time I was in prison. The idea who took part in the bl ood-letting. Suharto's propaganda campaign against was to prevent us from communicating Indonesia's National Human Rights Com­ Gerwani: 'There were prostitutes who with other political prisoners, but this did mission also turned down an invitation to were forced into sayin g that these have a positive side because the ordinary support the foundation's research, even young women had been recruited by inmates were willing to share their food though it is investigating numerous other Gerwani to provide sexual services to the with us and so we never starved.' massacres and abuses from the Suharto era. troops who were supporting the Criminal prisoners enjoyed greater Ibu Sulami rejects suggestions that coup attempt.' rights and privileges than the political the massacres represent such a traumatic prisoners and they helped Ibu Sulami to moment in history that they would be A S A LE ADING FI G URE on the left, Ibu keep her brain occupied by slipping her bes t left alone, and that revisiting the Sulam i was one of the relatively small paper and pencils so that she could write killings will only stir up painful number of political prisoners eventually during the night. Then in the early m em ories and invite conflict and brought to trial. In 1975, she was sentenced morning the other inmates would take reprisals at a time when the people of to 20 years' jail after being found guilty the writing materials back again and hide Indonesia are striving to rebuild their of slander. The charge had nothing to do them for her. damaged nation and to reconcile competing with t he coup attempt, but with h er In this way, Ibu Sulami was able to ethnic, religious and class interests involvem ent, while on the run, with a complete a novel, a novella, a collection through a reformed political system. legitimate organisation called 'Supporters of short stories and som e poems. All are in 'It is very easy for people who have the process of being published in Jakarta. not suffered a loss to say these matters I I WANT TO INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE Ibu Sulami was eventually released should be left alone, but for the people from jail in 1986. She had been given two who were involved and who suffered the AUSTRALIAN years off her sentence, but only on the loss of loved ones, they are continually condition that she report each m onth to having nightmares and are worrying e-thica.l the Attorney-General's office. about what happened. So I think it is very Agribu siness or Slowly she began to investigate the important for them that this matter is rea fforesta tion . TRUSTS mass killings of 1965. She researched the continually talked about. There needs to Mining or recycling . Investors locations of mass graves and made lists be a lesson for people also. The killing of Exploitation or can choose of the names of people killed, the names just one person is already a crime. So how sus tain abi lity. Th rough the AE Tru sts you of people arrested and jailed, the names much more terrible is it when more than Gree nhou se gases ca n invest your saving s of people sacked from the jobs or disad­ one person is killed? T h e murder of or solar energy. and superannuation in vantaged in other ways for decades because hundreds of thousands of people must be Armaments or over 70 different of their links, or suspected links, to the talked about and accounted for. community enterprises, each expertly banned Indonesian Communist Party. 'The resolution of this matter is like en terprise . selected for its uniqu e The work had to be carried out in a a struggle for a civilisation, to ensure that co mbination of earnings, secretive, conspiratorial way: 'We visited things like this will not recur in the future. environmental a lot of areas, 19 districts in fact, mainly The past is the past, but these matters must sus tainability and social in East and Central Java, to look for graves be resolved for coming generations, for responsibility, and earn a and we actually found a lot of evidence. posterity. It's in no-one's interest to keep co mpetitive financial It was not just the bones we found, but a it covered up any longer.' • return. For full details lot of eyewitnesses who could talk in make a free call to detail about the killings that took place Peter Mares is presenter of A sia Pa cific in their own villages. on Radio Australia and Radio National 1800021227 'We went to a lot of the burial grounds, (weekdays at 8.05pm, Saturdays at 11ll 1eslments in tbe Austrahan Etbical Trusls ca n oil II' be marie through the current prospecl!tS which were often quite difficult t o 8.05am ). Peter would lil

36 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 R EVIEW ESSAY

PETER CocHRANE The many anxieties of Australia and Asia Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939, Dav1d Walker, Umvers1ty of Queensland Press, 1999. lSBN 0 7022 3 132 2, RRP $29.95 I N I s A usTRA LIA A N A siAN C ouNTRY! manners, cohesion, artistry and (1997), Stephen FitzGerald argued 'cultivated women'. Walker traces that the Australian commitment to their impact on European taste and Asia is still not a commitment of the cultural sensibility throu gh to mind. N ot bein g an intellectual Australia. Monet's Ja pan ese engagem ent, it is 'therefore almost footbridge is matched by the incapable of sensitivity to subtlety or 'A u s tral-japonaiserie' that was sub-text or silence ... ' FitzGerald evident in the '9x5 Impression s' emphasised the necessity of becom- Exhibition of 1889. ing Asia-literate as an exercise of In the same year, the remarkable great urgency. The alternative is to Jam es Murdoch, novelist, scholar risk being left behind by an Asia and Japanophile, reported that which is simultaneou sly a 'Australian popular opinion is 'cosmopolitan jostling of countries wonderfully, favourably inclined and cultures and peoples m ore towards Japan and the Japanese'. distinct from one another than anything we India, allegedly the testing ground of British This was overstatem ent, but Japan was have in Europe', and also an emerging character.' Antique' India had other claims doubtless perceived as an 'enchanted land' community of states with potential to too: the belief that Aryan civilisation had before it was seen as a threat. Walker exclude a failure to the south. begun there encouraged the view- Deakin documents how both the cultural and David Walker's Anxious Nation: was an expopent- that to know about commercial appeal of Japan presented a Australia and the Rise of A sia is a 'commit- civilisation one had to know about India. worrying challenge to the advocates of race m ent ofthe mind'.Walkerexploresourreal For a time, the conception of an purity.Onesidethoughtagrowingexchange and imagined encounters with Asia over aggressive Asia bent on conquest was of goods and culture would enrich the period 1850- 1939. A further volume rivalled by 'a golden, aestheticised Orient', Australian civilisation; the other said it will bring the story up to the present. At the manifested principally in a fascination with would bring destruction. heart of Walker's project is a demonstration Japanese aesthetics, though the appeal of Threat was embodied in the ' awakening of the role history can play in correcting the other qualities might equally have changed East', a phrase that signalled an East failure identified by FitzGerald. our history. In the year 18 77, the missionary transformed from a languid, unchanging In the mid 19th century, travel writing and theosophist, Wilton Hack, was sta te into som ething active, mobile, on the subject of the East began to generate sufficiently impressed by the industry and mili tarised and threatening. Anxious a keen readership. Journalists, traders, frugality of the Japanese to invite them to Nation traces this shift in language. The intellectuals, missionaries and tourists colonise the Northern Territory, with the book's originality and importance hinges found a responsive audience in the backing of the South Australian govern- on the interaction it documents between Australian colonies. The curiosity of the m ent. The Japanese government, not overly Australian contemporary perceptions of audience was probably as diverse as the keen on the N orthern Territory and beset Asia and Australian self-understanding. opinion s of the travel writers. Both by its own problems, declined. This sort of Asian 'others' were always defin ed constructed many Asias: the most powerful reticence did no harm to Japan's popularity. against notions of the racial self. fears and phobias, the scariest caricatures The rage for Japan ese culture, and and motifs are matched by a string of more particularly for Japanese fabrics and art 1N ENTERTAINING short chapters, Walker sympathetic perspectives. objects, had already engulfed the elites of covers some of the hottest topics of the Heightened Australian interest in Asia Europe and Australia. By the 1890s there period- the nature of the Australian land- was sparked by the sudden arrival of were two books published on the subject of mass, the moral and practical imperatives Chinese goldseek ers, by Commodore Japan for every three books published on of settling the 'Empty N orth', the m eaning Perry's action in forcing Japan open to the Fran ce, according to the US Library of of the word 'desert', race degeneration, West in 1853-54, by the Indian Mutiny of Congress catalogu e. The Japanese were blood, sex and m ixed marriage. The 1857- 58, and by a sustained fascination constructed as the 'ideal foreigners', not sustained interplay of these themes makes with the glories and trials of British rule in unlike the British in their enterprise, good the book's readability, lightness and humour

V O LUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 37 all the more remarkable. Walker shows dispossession/ Answer, yes and no. elaborate welcomes during the 1906 visit how opinion was constructed with an eye The idea that Australia might be an too. In the wake of Japanese victory over the to geopolitical consequences. Thus, for Asian land accidentally settled by Britons Russians, perceptions were shifting from example, if the Australian land mass was unsuited to both climate and regional 'enchanting' and 'aesthetic' to 'disciplined' potentially rich all over-one of the fondest culture was a disturbing undercurrent. and 'soldierly', but the reception was still fantasies in our history-then it had to be Asia's carefully noted energies w ere rapturous, in one port after another. The quickly claimed by vigorous white settle­ matched by new concerns about malign dissenting press blamed female weakness, ment. If, on the other hand, it was largely intelligence and ' inscrutability', best among other failings, for this 'misguided' desert, then this fact had to be proclaimed embodied in the fictional Dr Fu Manchu. enthusiasm. Hospitable females were loud and clear, to dissuade invaders from 'The Doctor', writes Walker, 'infiltrated dubbed 'George Street Geishas' by Truth, the north. Every argun"lent, it seems, had its Chapter 13 of this book one dark, mist­ which claimed their behaviour made 'anxious' corollary. shrouded morning, enjoying, no doubt, the criticism of the debasement of wom en in An awakening East powerfully affected superstitious dread his presence there would Japan that much harder to sustain. the way British-Australians saw themselves cause.' Anxious Nation entertains. Worse still, Japan was celebrated by and their country. They knew they were a Some of the anxiety traced here is some as the embodiment of a new small, mostly coastal and urban population explicitly gendered. Would the male or the Elizabethanism. For Australians who had and that translated into an anxiety about female principle win out in Australian life? formed the idea that they would be the new the future and a fear that, as lazy and languid How to understand these principles at work Elizabethans-creative, adventurous and city folk, they might be surpassed by more to the north, not five days' steam away? In h eroic, a racial inheritance-this was particularly galling. 'Here were the "imitative" Japanese, sh owered with In 1933, the Dean of Canterbury suggested that adulation, at just the moment when the Australia should share the Northern Territory with eyes of the world should have been occupied upon the newly created Commonwealth of Japan to help reduce international tensions. Australia', writes Walker. The dissenting The local press had a field day. press, notably the Worl

38 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999 and the loss of Asia as a colourful spectacle wilderness, not herding camels or becoming problems. In the case of the Indian mutiny, for travellers like himself. N eedless to say, Arabs. for example, commentary is drawn fr om he despised W.H. Fitchett, the great late A new problem followed from the books, mostly travel tom es, which appeared 19th-century imperialist propagandist. But controversy which the name Griffith Taylor several decades after the event. In Sydney at the greatest concern was focused on British signified. The limits to Australia's carrying the time, there was open debate about 'racial appeasem ent' as manifested in the capacity m eant that Australians had to think British misrule and cruelty, and at least one 1894 trade treaty with Japan and the of new ways to keep Asia in Asia. While the appeal to the ladies of England to comm end implications for a white Australia. What Great War refu elled fears of race debilitation, m ercy to their m en. Walker m erely quotes about building trade with 'natural allies'? environmental realities shifted som e the Argus on the 'ferociou s cruelty' of the There was the suspicion that England saw thinking from anxious speculation and its Indians. What's missing is the contemporary the White Australia policy, and its colonial mad schem es towards an understanding of milieu, notably a colonial ambivalence precedents, as national selfishness. In 1933, needs in Asia and how they might be m et. towards the British, which influenced the Dean of Canterbury suggested that Aus­ Walker resurrects som e great moments. In d eb a t e ab o ut events in India . That tralia should share the Northern Territory 1923, Griffith Taylor walked into the lion's ambivalence h as a his tory fire d by with Japan to h elp reduce international den: h e addressed a m eeting of the Sydney experience in other parts of Asia too, tensions. The local press had a fi eld day. Millions Club. He challenged the stupidity something which is acknowledged. Great anxiety fuelled plenty of crackpot of racial purism with a favourite party trick, Walker has mapped out an entire field thinking about the land. H ot climates showing the unhappy audience a slide of and shifted the discussion of our relation­ becam e a worry. Sir Charles Dilke Robert Louis Stevenson standing beside his ship with multiple Asias nearer to the centre denounced the 'labour-saving banana' as Samoan cook. He argued that, by ethno­ of historical debate. In diving parlance, the the 'curse of the tropics'. Australians logical standards, 'the cook was a more degree of difficulty in his project is high. It' worried about the problem s of 'languor' and intellectual type than the famous author of a triple som ersault with twist, pike, and a 'tropical neurasthenia' were not so sure Treasure Island.' He called for 'accom­ travel book under each arm. It is a great about the banana. On the other hand, modation' with the East, for inter-marriage contribution to a 'commitment of the mind' Randolph Bedford was certain about the of Australians and Mongolians (whom he to a future with or in Asia. Which carrying capacity of dry country-h e admired) and thus a phasing out of White preposition will it be? • challenged anyone who doubted it to go Australia. look at the green grass on Kalgoorlie's race­ The strength of feeling against racial Peter Cochrane is a freelance historian based course. H e said Lake Eyre could be the inter-marriage was r efl ected in popular in Sydney. world's greatest rice field. (Atomic idealists fiction and films about doomed inter-racial after World War II made similar claims love. The idea of moving closer to Asia did about the multifarious benefits of nuclear not win out. Even in commerce, where power, so we cannot be too hard on Bedford.) opportunity beckoned, industrialists and Dr Richard Arthur campaigned to fill the m arketers seemed half-hearted. In a chapter ("/1-j :J ~\l.1W0 north with good white citizens. He told the called 'Money For Jam', Walker quotes a editor of the Australian World in London: European manager in Tsien tsin who would Embracing the World: 'never a word about the Yellow Peril, or not sell Australian jam to the Chinese Socialism or strikes. And print everything because the tins looked so alarming. The Women, Spirituality you can lay your hands on to the detriment u se of icons in labelling was careless:' Asian and Church of Canada.' H ow m any scheming lies can consumers often assum ed they were being A conference exploring anthropology, we put down to 'anxiety'? offered tinned koala or platypus, delicacies sacratnentality, and a church In Walker's book, crackpot opinions and for which they were unprepared.' Anxious fit for women. big fibs are contextualised. They figured in Nation shifts from the realm of culture to dialogues, driven by both fear and reason, the world of trade and back again and O ctober 1-3, 1999 which som ehow advanced our collective concludes with a chapter on the Institute of 13urgmann Coll ege, ANU understanding of the land and ourselves. By Pacific Relations, an organisation which Canberra, AC T the mid 1930s, the remarkable Griffith was ahead of its time, well-informed on Keynote speaker: Elfriede Harth T aylor, speaking for 'scientific inquiry' Asia and driven by a desire for understanding Spokesperson for the International against ignorant bombast from the likes of and accommodation. In the Cold War, a Movement W e are C hurch (IM WAC) Bedford, had helped to shift the debate subject for the next volume, the IPR was spea king on 'Crea ting a Just C hurch'. around ' Australia Unlimited' fantasies to a savaged. m ore sober estimate of Australia's diverse Walker is an editor of the Annotated Other spea kers in clude: Veronica Brady, environments and the skills needed to settle Bibliography of Australian Overseas Travel M orag Frase r, Mari e Joyce, people in them . Concerns about environ­ Writing (1996), so it is no surprise to find H ea th er Tho mso n, M ari e Louise Uhr. mental degradation also played a part. that traveller's books provide a good bit of Walker links the controversy that dogged the scaffolding in this study, albeit inter­ Brochures & Conference details from: Griffith Taylor's career to his insistence laced with literature on land, population, Ordinati on of Catholi c Women Inc. that Australia had a classic Oriental desert climatology and so on. My gripes are few PO 13 ox E41 8, Kin gsto n ACT 26 (J.t at its very heart. The Orien tal associations given the achievement here, but I do wonder homepa ge: www. netconn ect. com. au I -ocw of 'desert' were an affront to his opponents, whether the reliance on travel writing phone enquiries (02) 6251 45 13 intent as they were on redeeming the throughout Anxious Nation makes for som e

V o LUME 9 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 39 BooKs: l

PETER CRAVEN landlords of boarding houses and academic parties and boxing rings. It comes from some intimately familiar lost continent of Revival of human representation. It is pretty clearly in the 'Come back on the raft, Huck honey' tradition which Leslie Fiedler was so leering about when he dubbed the American the heart tradition a homoerotic tradition of Boys' Books, but Maxwell has no overt truck with The Folded Leaf, Willi am Maxwell , The Harvill Press, London, 1999. the notion that love is reducible to sex. The ISBN l 86046 545 5, RRP $19.95 Folded Leaf is a very adult, old-fashioned book which is a million miles from Death I N THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS, Christopher It's the story of Lymie, the physically in Venice (although its account of obsession MacLehose of Harvill has been enabling the weak, crypto-arty kid, and Spud, the athlete is brilliant and electric) and it is far more British and Commonwealth worlds to and physical beauty. Spud saves Lymie in a assured than the early fiction of Gore Vidal, discover the fiction of William Maxwell, swimming pool when they're teenagers and for which it may or may not have served as the man who edited Updike and Cheever they subsequently become inseparable. some kind of precedent. and Eudora Welty. Maxwell was the author Spud takes his friend home to his poor but It would be anachronistic to describe A of one novella, So Long, See You Tomorrow, affectionate family's place (Lymie's mother Folded Leaf as a gay book. It is in this as spare and sad as anything in American is dead) and they become the kind of David- respect far less gay than Brideshead literature, as well as a host of stories and and-Jonathan duo in which the butch figure, Revisited, which traces something like the novels that reinforce the sense that the Spud, is more openly physical, but it's same ambivalence and which has a American empire extends to comparable trick of focusing on love language and narrative. between young men, as if sex were an Last year Harvill published impossibility or an irrelevance. It does this Time Will Darl

40 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 destructiveness, but it's also about the It is perfectly suited to this flawlessly Among literary portraits of genius, holiness of the heart's affections. written story of private life in a social Sherlock Holmes' dark side is perhaps the It's a long time since I read a novel as setting. My only question mark about The nearest analogue. confident and modest and spaciously sane Folded Life was whether it didn't once or In her essay in Cannibalism and the as this one. There is very little in the way of twice head towards sentimentalism, but Colonial World (1998), Maggie Kilgour surface drama in William Maxwell's book, I don't think that is a judgment which can observed that Lecter's name holds out but the intensity of the style is remarkable. stand. The moments of greatest dramatic tantalising clues: Hannibal was Freud's Maxwell's writing is for people who like intensity are very stark moments indeed. favourite general, while the surname the traditional satisfactions of sophisticated Besides, Maxwell's novel is, among other reminds her of Baudelaire's line, 'hypocrite straightforward fiction but who won't things, a novel about growth, and it earns lecteur, man semblable, man fr ere' compromise on subtlety and do not want its optimism. A novel as unambiguously ('hypocrite reader, my likeness, my them cut-price. The cover of this book good as this (never mind great) makes you brother'). In the earlier novels, such shows two boys boxing by what looks like want to sit down and read the rest of the resonances were part of a mystery cultivated a lake, the latter shining through the writer's work. Readers who are just in tandem by Harris and Dr Lecter. Now, chiaroscuro of the sepia photograph. The discovering William Maxwell should be and with chilling unexpectedness, Hannibal boy on the right, narrow-waisted with broad grateful to Harvill for the 1200 pages or so dispels the mystery. The novel does not so shoulders, looks as if he will rapidly dispose of his work which are now in print. • much complete the trilogy that began with of his opponent, who has his head down, his Red Dragon, as form a sequel to the film of gloved hands shielding his face; but they Peter Craven is currently editing the Best The Silence of the Lambs (1991). This last are locked in a formal dance. Australian Essays 1999. incarnation of Lecter (a figure now belonging more to cinema than literature) owes much to Anthony Hopkins' silky performance BOOKS: 2 and to the weight of expectation PETER PIERCE which the film created. EULLY TO APPRECIATE what has been lost, we need to backtrack. Red Dragon begins when stoic Jack Crawford of the FBI lures Hannibal leftovers Will Graham out of retirement to catch a killer of two families of five, whom tabloids Hannibal, Thomas Harris, William Heinemann, London, 1999 . such as the National Tattler have dubbed ISBN 0 434 00940 7, RRP $39.95 'Th e Tooth Fairy' because he likes to bite. Graham is the man who caught Lecter, and A LRE ADY AN INTEMPERATE admirer of resources of language, imagination and was almost fatally stabbed for his pains. It Red Dragon (1981) when in 1988 I came to cunning are at the service of a nihilistic is he who informs a colleague, and the review its sequel, Thomas Harris' The vision of a world of serial killers, victims reader, that Lecter is 'not crazy', that 'he did Silence of the Lambs, I called him 'the poet and hunters. some hideous things because he enjoyed of horror'. Peter Craven once went further, The latest of Harris' novels markets them'. 'He has no remorse or guilt at all.' likening Harris to Dostoevsky. itself with a single word title: Hannibal. Ultimately, 'he's a monster'. That word But Harris' lineage is American. Like The front cover blurb adds what fans of reverberates through each book of the his great contemporary, Cormac McCarthy, Harris have long desired but-in the 11 trilogy. Lecter, whom Graham interviews heisanheirofHemingway, whose influence years since The Silence of the Lambs- both to seek help with the 'Tooth Fairy' is apparent in the command of dialogue and began to fear would never happen: 'The case and out of a fearful curiosity of his inarrestingpassagesofviolentaction.Harris Return of Hannibal Lecter'. Yet, own, has the last word on his 'manhunter' has other distinctive strengths: insight into intriguingly, disturbingly, that is not exactly (title of the very good film made of Red the psychopathology of his murderers, what we get. Lecter has altered himself Dragon in 1986, directed by Michael Mann): intricate but plausible criminal investiga- physically, better to hide from a legion of 'The reason you caught me is that we're just tions and a wide and esoteric body of pursuers and his internet fans. Collagen has alike.' Lecter's horrible revenge is to set the knowledge that he deploys with pedantic changed the shape of his nose, surgery murderer on Graham and his family, just relish. removed the extra middle finger on his left when we assumed that the horrors of the All his books contain brilliantly drawn hand ('the rarest form of polydactyly', as novel were done. minor characters, who live for us vividly, in Harris precisely notes). In the next instalment, The Silence of their terrible isolation: the scandal- Lecter is older, nearing 60 (although, as the Lambs, another investigator calls on mongering journalist Freddy Lounds; the John Sutherland observed in the TLS of Lecter. FBI rookie, Clarice Starling, has also funeral attendant Lamar; the grieving, 18 June, Harris fudges the chronology), been despatched by Jack Crawford. She is upright parents of murdered Frederica but for all that, he remains a genius whose after another serial killer, whom the papers Bimmell; Will Graham's wife Molly; the IQ and ego (as Harris is fond of telling us) have rechristened 'Buffalo Bill', 'because he autodidact Barney, erstwhile gu ard of are not measurable by any means known skins his humps'. Both this man, (actually Hannibal Lecter, among many. These are to man. Lecter is a polymath, a lover of Jame Gumb) and 'The Tooth Fairy' cum theachievements,notofaformulaicthriller arcane knowledge, a gifted musician and a 'Red Dragon' (Francis Dolarhyde) desire a writer, butofarichlyskillednovelist, whose man apparently immune to emotion. transformation of themselves. Dolarhyde

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 41 speaks of his 'Becoming', wherein he turns the estate was bombed and their parents switch sides. Leaving Lecter on essentially into the Red Dragon imagined by William killed in 1944, Misch a and Hannibal were uncontested ground (Sardinian assassins and Blake. In one of the most shocking scenes in taken by German army deserters. Plumper pig- herders apart), the novel loses in tensity. a truly fr ightening book, he en ters the than her bro th er, Mischa was the one eaten. Harris does not seem to mind. He prepares Brooklyn Museum and eats the Blake painting Hannibal 'did see a few of Mischa's milk a last scene of excess. As Dr Chilton, director of 'The Great Red Dragon and the Wom an teeth in the reeking stool pit his captors used'. of the asylum for the crim inally insane, Clothed with th e Sun'. More mundanely, And that, we appear m eant to infer from hounded Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs Gumb seeks to becom e his lost m other, and this grisly detail, was the trauma that (dooming himself to the edible fa te that th us is sewing a suit m ade of the skins of explains Lecter's subsequent career. Since Hopkins encourages audiences to smirk the women he has murdered. Harris invested then he has come to recognise 'how his own abou t at the end of the fi lm ), so Starling is m odest preda tion s persecuted by Depu ty Director Krendler. 'A census tak.er tried to quantify me once. I ate his paled beside those of He is that stock 1990s vill ain, a would-be God, who is in irony politician, and in Verger's pocket. In Lecter's liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone.' m a tchless, and in words, Starling is 'a warrior'. The conflict wanton malice beyond between the heroic realm and the realm of less energy in this portrayal, for in th e measure'. N o wonder- we are hardly pre­ politics that trammels and betrays it, is as secon d novel, the infinitely m ore com plex vented from refl ecting- that Lecter became old as N orse saga. Starling chooses at last to figure of Dr Lecter is also on the loose. a connoisseur and collector, in his richly escape into a luxurious if dangerous exile. When Starling asks Lecter what stored 'memory palace', of the fatal collapses Impossible at first to imagine, she becomes 'happened' to him, he answers reprovingly: of churches. We seem to be asked to accept Lecter's companion and lover, offering him 'Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. that Lecter's past is the partial justification her breast, and then learning Italian better I happened. You can't reduce m e to a set of for his homicidal career. The problem is to converse with him. influences. You've given up good and evil that the last person likely to urge such Before then, Krendler has come to dinner. for behaviourism.' Then he offers her an extenuation is the Lecter whom we used to Kidnapped and drugged by Lecter, the FBI admonitory anecdote: 'A census taker tried know, the villain of the firs t two novels. In man has his skull neatly sawn off and to quantify m e once. I ate his liver with the third, behind the endearingly familiar watch es-h is a t tention necessarily som e fava beans and a big Amarone.' The title Hannibal, h e is no longer the sam e. drifting-while Lecter and Clarice eat his story fo llows of how he served the sweet­ This eponymous hero has becom e someone fron tal lobes with a sauce of caper berries. breads of his patient, Benjam in Raspail, to who 'very much liked to shop'; who takes The dirty dishes are emptied into his vacant the president and the conductor of the his Fauchon lunch on a trans-Atlantic flight brain pan. Baltimore Philharmonic. (Lecter, let us to avoid airline food. Most disconcerting, Thus Lecter avenges Starling, as earlier admit, makes us laugh, if from a safe he lets himself be captured, because of the he had revenged himself on the egregious distance.) His courtesy-both in conversa­ quixotic gesture of leaving Starling a $300+ Chilton. But what has Harris done? This tion and in the letters that the authorities bottle of Ch ateau Yquem of the culminating horror (the pigs have had their improbably do not censor-is also disarm­ ']1 vintage of her birth year. fu n and Verger's lesbian sister has done ing. As no-one since Graham has managed, away with him with the aid of a moray eel) Starling will learn to imagine Lecter's .1. HI S I S A LECTER wh o invites ou r makes unfilm able the novel that the success desires and intentions. She will also learn, sympathy, rather than horror or reprobation of the fi lm of The Silence of the Lambs at the cost of some humiliations, never to or guilty laughter. Hannibal is not the Lecter dictated (perhaps to a reluctant and even seek to quantify, or to explain them . with whom the first two novels of the nervou s H arris). Evidently Jonathan The more disconcerting then that Harris, trilogy were engrossed. To be sure, in Demme, who directed, and Hopkins, who returning to Lecter now, does reduce him to Hannibal, Harris puts Lecter through som e won a Best Actor Oscar, do not wish to be a person whose eating h abi ts can be familiar paces. After dazzling a sm all, involved in the cinem atic adaptation of explained. Worse still, he bestows on his irritable, self-important group of scholars Hannibal. But if not them , others will be. 'm onster' a biograph y which, if h ardly in Florence with his lecture on Dan te and All the artistic compromises which conventional, makes him m ore like all of Judas Iscariot, the linkage between avarice Harris has made, lessening the austerity us than he had ever been before: born of and hanging, Lecter escapes from the fi rst and power of his art, his fidelity to compre­ aristocratic lineage in Lithuania circa 1938, Verger-i nspired attem.pt to capture him. He hending th e worst of what we might be, growing up on the fa m ily estate near Vilnius, inform s Detective Pazzi (who t wigged, will m atter not at all when box office takings his fa ther was a count and his Italian mother unfortunately for him, that th e distin­ are projected. Harris will be a beneficiary at a Visconti. This inform ation has been guish ed Dr Fell was in fact the infam ous the expense of his own genius. There have gathered fo r Mason Verger, one of Lecter's Dr Lecter) that 'I'm giving serious thought been fe w sorrier circumstances to ponder in victims who survived having his face eaten to eating your wife.' Th en he arranges his modern American literature, or in the show by dogs and who now plots revenge: he is death in a m anner which recalls Botticelli's business that can attend its popular forms. arranging for Lecter to be devoured alive by painting of Pazzi's disgraced an d hanged This is especially so wh en the author is as pigs specially bred from savage varieties ancestor, Francesco de' Pazzi. eccentric, reclusive and imperiou sly around the world by a fa mily of sadistic Ghastly brio was always Lecter's long indifferent to those who might have edited Sardinians. Lecter also had a sister Mischa, suit. The problem, in Hannibal, is that he him as Thomas Harris. • 'long dead and digested'. For once Harris is lacks a fo il. There is n o Will Graham, nor not playing fair. We are led to suppose that the younger Starling. Disillusioned and Peter Pierce is Professor of Au stralian Lecter did the digesting, when, in fact, after disgraced by the FBI, she will, in effect, Literature at James Cook University.

42 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 THEATRE: l

Stage business Playwright Jack Hibberd says Australian theatre is in crisis. Director Barrie Kosky says we mustn't do Shakespeare, or at least not the way we're doing it-give it to Circus Oz instead. Peter Craven takes heart from two recent Australian productions and argues for a national style with no frills and no aux-Shakespearean accents.

EUGENE O'NEILL is the father of modern rv- consumption and told that he will have to American drama. Without him, Miller and go into a sanatorium. It is the day when Tennessee Williams are inconceivable. Mary Tyrone, the mother, loses her long /""' Without him, we would not have the battle with narcotics and the day when tortuous psychodramas of Edward Albee or James Tyrone, hack actor and raconteur, the familial free-for-alls of Sam Shepard. proves himself to be a miser and his elder He gave the American theatre its dialogue son, James junior, twists himself into a coil and its dilemma. The dialogue tended to of treachery and intelligence. consist of how to kill a loved one, with One ofthe deeply American things about actions or words. The dilemma was how to this play is that the Tyrones are presented travel with this abiding premise of as profoundly ordinary people even though heartbreak and horror without turning the the family quartet constitutes four of the play itself into a carou sel of m elodrama and What Australian theatre richest parts in modern drama. m asochism. The most widely seen version of Long Long Day's Journey Into Night is needs at the moment like Day'sJourneyintoNightisSidneyLum et's O'N eill's masterpiece, and the towering a shot in the arm iS more film with Katharine Hepburn and Ralph nature of its authority is heightened by the Richardson as Mary and James Tyrone, and fact that its production was so long delayed of this naturalism and Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell as the that it appeared in the midst of other plays sons. It is a gift of a play for actors, bringing from the school O'Neill had spawned. this-for want of a better outthefullrangeofwhateverlight anddark It's the story of a family engaged in a WOrd-classicism. they have in their bag of tricks. People tend moment of self-vivisection. Tolstoy says to remember like beacons the performances that an unhappy family is unhappy in its It does not need pseudo- they have seen: Olivier at the N ational or own way, but the great family dramas are as Jack Lemmon on Broadway. I once saw intimately familiar as one's own 'domestics' boulevardier hacks Prunella Scales (Sybil from Fawlty Towers) and are written in a language which is in no as a sturdy Mary Tyrone and then, a week or way beyond the level of our nightmares. We falling On their bottOmS so later, the great Bibi Anderson, ravishing feel for these people and are appalled by pretending to be and ravaged, in a Swedish production them because they go for each other and directed by Ingmar Bergman. continue to love each other in ways that Trevor Nunn. The first thing to be said about Michael stare us out of thought, because what we Edwards' production of O'Neill's master- recognise are our own fears distorted or Allofthisgivesthe playan extraordinary piece with Robyn N evin and John Bell for transfigured in some moment of violence warmth. Its very idioms seem so rooted in the Bell Shakespeare Company is that it is or agony of vehemence. universal habits of mind (self-delusion, self- up there with productions that people Hamlet is famously the play in which revelation and pride, self-satisfaction, remember for the rest of their lives. This is the leading actor has licence to play himself criticism of others, castigation and calamity a supple, intelligent, ferociously invigor- (orsom eextrovertedandconfiguredversion and attack with long knives) that it now ated representation of O'N eill's drama and of the gestures of that self), but Long Day's appears almost comic in its exhibition of it's not only the best thing I have seen the Joumeyislikea partforaquartetofHamlets, the postures through which we strut. Bell company do, it is one of the best each haunted by his own ghost, each on a Long Day's Journey Into Night is as productions to be seen on the Australian vengeful quest to break down the spirit of freshandasblackasthedayEugeneO'N eill stage in years. the others, as if revenge had becom e a wrote it. It is the confabulated story of a Michael Edwards, an Australian who psychologi cal and self-destructive family on one not-uncharacteristic day of works in America, gets m ore imaginative compulsion, inseparable from the bond of crisis. This is the day when the younger mileage than you would expect from the love and the pieties of attachment. Tyrone son, Edmund, is diagnosed as having simple decision to dispense with American

V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 43 accents almost entirely, and the effect is John Bell as James Tyrone gives what with the stark ravaging phantoms of his marvellously liberating. Of the principals, may well be the performance of his career. family. only N evin has a faint touch of lace-curtain This portrait of an ageing stager seems to As the older brother, James junior, Sandy American and the effect slightly weakens a me a deeper and less mannered thing than Winton is da zzling. This is the kind of strong characterisa tion. The decision to his famous Hamlet of a generation ago. It is 'supporting' acting one dreams of in this dispense with twangs allows the cast room a scaled-down, fine-grained portrait of an country, though it is in fact wrong to to act and the upshot is to make the play all intelligent man baffled by pain and rage and subordinate any of the main parts in the more immediate and intimate. It personal weakness. It has been easy to forget O'Neill's play. Winton 's performa nce is remains an American play set in a particular what a fine naturalistic actor John Bell is, full of openness and easygoing humour, its period but the dominant absence of faux because he is characteristically seen in a bluffness never overdone. But it has American highlights the reality of the world haze of Shakespearean manneri sm . Here moments, too, of deep and lacerating of the play through every notation of the residual actor's manner is given an nastiness that carry absolute conviction. expressionism and naturalism, so that the ironic distance and is played on shrewdly as He also carries off the quite formidable voices of pre-World War I America and of the true element of James Tyrone's long trick of playing a character who is, at one contemporary Australia are fused without farewell to his potential greatness. The point, quite drunk, without resorting to any self-consciousness or fakery. terrier-like, slightly Olivierish voice, is caricature or stereotype. It's a performance The play was staged in Melbourne under pulled back and the effect of the whole of penetrating intelligence and plausibility som ething like ideal conditions at the characterisation is likeable, bloodcurdling and charm. Fairfax and that intimate drama-friendly and deeply poignant. I'd give John Bell all This production of Long Day's Journ ey space sh owed an excellent production with the Green Room awards in the world for Into Night is a winner which should tour maximum light and shade and subtlety. this performance. It is a true vindication of the whole of the country and become part It is a word-heavy play, of course, as well his reputation as an actor. of the permanent repertoire of the Bell as one in which the sorrows of the world Robyn Nevin as Mary Tyrone is not Shake peare Company. But not because catch fire in a whirl of adrenaline and quite so successful. The production allows there is anything particularly progressive braggadocio and alcohol and drugs. The her to adopt a set of genteel mannerisms or flash about it- no dog would learn new text is cut to a spare I!), calamitous three which are appropriate enough to the tricks from it. It simply has a compelling hours which seems not a moment too long. character but which do not come across as dynamism, an extreme efficiency of action, It is as deep and dark as a well while completely natural to the actress. Nevin and performances which look like a moral remaining fr ee and moody and improvised. allows herself, as to some extent she must, re vela tion simply b ecau se they are to be dulcet and fey where her natural bent m eticulou and fully imagined and come is fire and flint and wiriness. from fine actors who fit their parts, Her finest moment is when she raves more or less, like gloves. on, stoned, to the Irish serving m aid: she "'"" sings with the relaxation the narcotic has M ELBOURNE Theatre Company's given her, all tears are wiped away and the double Pinter bill, Th e Collection and The E world of memory, of all small things, is for Lover, was a return to the seductive space of Ridley College a moment enchanted. Nevin is brilliant in the Fairfax and in som e ways to the University of Melbourne the realism she brings to Mary Tyrone's efficiencies and elegancies that underpinned addiction, the wringing of the hands, the Long Day's Journey and gave it its sense of Globalisation - Ethical and compulsive giveaway talkiness and the universal emotion through common Christian Responses sense of being insulted and injured and cadence. Monday 27th September, 5.30-9.30pm having no recourse. The Fairfax is a splendid, intimate space, Both the sons are very fine indeed (even ideally suited to the sinister power plays, STANWAY ALPHA l ECTURE THEAT RE though one knows that they are being held the black transfigurations of basic English 160 THE AVENUE, PARK VILLE up and stimulated by the electricity and language- intimately familia.r and in tim a tely Registration 5. 15pm sheer histrionic stamina of Bell and Nevin soiled- which are the stock-in-trade of the Max Stackhouse at the height of their powers). Benjamin vintage Pinter of nearly 40 years ago. Prof. of Social Ethics, Princeton Seminary, Winspear as the young, tubercular brother In Th e Collection, a young m an and Ed itor of 011 1\lfora/ Business (which Edmund, has an open, almost dazed, intimately but equivocally linked to a much Max will be speaking about on 28th gentlen ess, a kind of boyish sense of older man is taxed by a stranger. The stranger Sept ember, 7.30-9am, 470 Bourke St, wonderment and irony that is exactly right says that he is the husband of a woman with City. Please rin g for more detail s. for this character. H e is not, as som e whom the younger m an has slept. On the David Lyon Edmunds are, a passive witness to this other side of the stage we see the wife, Prof. of Sociology, Queens University, festival of domestic horror, but adrift and preening with a kitten, dealing with the Ontari o. and autho r of The Silicon wide-eyed in the whole sea of love-hate avenger as husband. In a crucial scene the that has overtaken him. Everything in older man, the protector, talks to the Society, Karl Marx, and j esus in Michael Edwards' production allows putatively adulterous wife who has romped DisJJey/aJtd. Winspear to express his dramatic range it home (or has she?) with his young fri end. Cost $20, Cone $12.50 includes dinner without impediment. No doubt as an actor The play is a short masterpiece, full of a RSVP - (03) 9207 491 4 by 22 September h e has much to learn but he has mastered world of complexly slippery but nakedly BOOKINGS ESSENT IAL what he needs to play this 'nice' boy beset comprehensible psychosexual nightmares,

44 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMB ER 1999 POETRY

KATE L LEWELLYN so familiar they make the audience flinch. The repressive urbanity of the set of star chamber inquisitions in living rooms is so stark because commonplaces and civilities are wielded like whips. Jenny Kemp's production is terrific, full Tadpoles of pace and portent. Again, the dropping of any pretence at English accents (as with the 'One is very still disavowal of stage American in the O'Neill) it may be shy liberates the actors so they can stick, with or perhaps musicianly precision, to the rhythms of it's missing its mother.' Pinter's pattering dialogue. There can have he says peering into the bucket. been few dramatists in any age so experimental and 'original' who had at the sam e time such a massive naturalistic gift, We are digging a pond such a microphone of an ear. beside the young fig tree The sweet scarifying nothings of Pinter frogs are what we want. proved adaptable to the cinematic master­ What I've got pieces of Losey and the laconic eloquence cannot be described of a range of film-makers. In The Collection he is served splendidly by his quartet of but when I look at him actors. Robert Menzies, Bruce Myles, David my heart's Norfolk Island Pine Tredinnick and Melita Jurisic have an a bucket full of tadpoles. ensemble strength and sense of actually The pine tree stands hitting the note (not swerving around it) a chalice full of sky. which is rare in Australian theatre. Menzies in particular has a sharp, hectic quality which is in no way separate from Beyond, this actor's classical strength. He can hear the sea is also blue the pauses in Pinter the way the Shake­ and is what the land sips spearean hears the rise and fall of the line. every day. But each of the actors gets the necessary knife-edge restraint to allow Pinter, that Birds are singing poet of intimidation, to sound like himself. Bruce Myles is as nasty and insinuating in the Tree of Heaven* as Donald Pleasance in the role of the older which holds the feeder art dealer in The Collection, and he directs full of seed. The Lover, which is rather more of a scherzo, though a masterly one, with considerable The lawn is a green cloth skill. on this earth. The Lover is almost a two-bander-like Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in one of the subtler chambers of hell. All I need to do Again Menzies' acting has a hectic is pray brilliance and precision. At times Melita to be a glass of poetry. Jurisic seem ed to me to be overplaying the Jean Greenwood-like voice of deep honey *Ailanthus altissima. Also called Marryattville Tree. she assum es for this role, but physically she is marvellous, fiery and then disarrayed, torn, distracted. One had the strange illusion with this Pinter duo that these plays were being need pseudo-boulevardier hacks falling on and intensity that they have done O'Neill; performed as they were written. It is an their bottoms pretending to be Trevor Nunn. if the MTC could get on to its main stage illusion, of course. Any achievem ent of the It needs chamber style productions, perhaps the feeling for words and fundamental theatre will be a victory of interpretation, especially of the classic modern works or in dramatic solutions- rather than extrinsic but it was nice to see it working so tacitly the classic modern style. Paradoxically this hyperbole and declaration-that it showed and implicitly without show or swank. will be, if only as a whisper and a trace in Pinter ... well, then we might have a I suspect what Australian theatre needs element, a national style. What else would mainstream theatre worth spitting at. • at the moment like a shot in the arm is it be? more of this naturalism and this-for want If the Bell Shakespeare Company would Peter Craven is currently editing Best of a better word-classicism. It does not learn to do Shakespeare with the restraint Australian Essays 1999.

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 45 THEATRE: 2 Grand tours In Sydney and Brisbane in winter, Geoffrey Miln e unearthed some broad contrasts in Australian theatre.

I. SvoNev, I o.ught ooe of two Matthew Whittet's Touchstone is played Carpenter's trademark colourful Shakespeares, Neil Armfield's As You Like as a crotchety, cross-dressed governess or production design-are mostly brilliant, if It for Company Bat Belvoir St; the other, a why Geoff Kelso's doubling duties include a shade repetitive. But the dramatic Macbeth with Colin Friels and Helen Buday a vaudeville-tarty Audrey; the resultant development is too slow too often (it takes for the Sydney Theatre Company, opened coupling of a 'female' Touchstone and a an age to set up the fabulous transformation after I had moved on to Brisbane. Armfield 'male' Audrey thus ends up as an idea which sends the Mother Hubbard-inspired productions have been all over Australia yielding bewilderingly little substance. Tess 'witch' into the fire, for example), the plot this year. Most centres have seen Th e Juda s Schofield's postmodern costuming (while options are mostly soft, and promising Kiss, which finished its long tour in Brisbane not as silly as Judith Hoddinott's for the threads remain frustratingly in mid-July, while the superb Cloudstreet recent Bell Merchant of Venice) is also a unconnected at the end. was in Melbourne in July before travelling mixed blessing. Ganymede is suitably to Adelaide in August. So it was interesting boyish in a schoolboy suit of Ginger Meggs SOFT OPTIONS also seem to be the order of to seeAnnfield at work back home at Belvoir vintage, for example, but poor old Bob Maza the day at the Twelfth Night Theatre in St Theatre; interesting, but ultimately a bit looks ill-at-ease in a Fijian chieftain's skirt Bowen Hills, Brisbane. The long-serving disappointing. with flowers in his hair. pro-am company which built this theatre This As You Like It begins on a large In short, this is an incomplete blueprint in the early 1970s and gave it its name sadly wrestling mat covering the whole of the for a production. When Armfield's playful no longer exists, but the pro-am tradition standard Belvoir corner space, padded direction, personality-based casting and embraced by the current commercial underneath for the match between Charles simple but insightful stage tricks all gel managem ent under Gail Wiltshire sadly and Orlando. At the end of the first act­ together (as in Cloudstreet or the 1983 still does. Going to Twelfth Night Theatre when half the cast are banished or planning Twelfth Night), the whole is (especially to a Saturday to leave the court in sympathy-the mat is far greater than the sum of a matinee) is a reminder of winched up to reveal a greensward of forest production's disparate parts. what commercial theatre lawn beneath it and a wonderful Elizabethan When they don't, the result was like in the 1970s, ' h eavens' painted on its underside. suggests that here is a direc­ when British TV stars Disarmingly simple, but powerfully tor who's doing too much were brought out to take effective, tricks of this kind are meat and too distractedly. leading roles alongside drink for Armfield. I also saw Kim Carpen­ local TV person ali ties So is unorthodox casting, some of which ter's Theatre of Image at and other amateurs in works very well here and some less work for the first time in lightweight foreign plays. effectively. Rosalind and her father, the Sydney. This visual theatre This year's July produc­ exiled Duke Senior, are played by Aboriginal company has been producing tion paired Britt Ekland actors Deborah Mailman and Bob Maza, shows for adults and children and lain Fletcher (better­ which adds another layer to notions of for a decade and this year's known as DC Skase in dispossessed status. On the other hand, kids' show, in association The Bill) in Daphne du casting Silvius (Bradley Byquar) as an with the STC at the Wharf, Maurier's 'spectacular Aboriginal forest landowner seems was a revival of a modern­ stage romance', Septem­ somehow at odds with this. Aaron Blabey, ised Hansel and Gretel by ber Tide, ahead of an Rod Quantock's la st stand as a nerdy little Orlando, makes a fine con­ Carpenter and Richard 'Australian Tour'-to the trast to Mailman's very butch Ganymede, Tulloch first seen at Belvoir St in 1991. Gold Coast Arts Centre and to His Majesty's while Jacek Koman's Jaques is a moody Relocating the story to a Sydney family whose in Perth in August. study in stoic resignation. Diminutive father is summarily retrenched but whose This is one of du Maurier's rare attempts Kirstie Hutton is a smashing foil as Celia new stepmother likes to live the good life at stage writing, apart from adaptations of and the wooing scenes surrounding the (which makes it hard to feed their kids) is a her own fiction like Rebecca (1939 ) with interval are sexy, pacy and very, very funny. sound enough idea, at least to begin with. which Twelfth Night had great success But there is some casting that is just And the visuals-some inspired puppetry, several years ago. September Tide is set in plain dumb. It is hard to fathom why outstanding object manipulation and 1948 Cornwall, where theEkland character,

46 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Stella Martyn, is preparing her h om e for the action illustrates Ruth's and Adaminaby's querulous righteousness of Voya very arrival of her newly married daughter, past via her mother Frances-and triggers strongly. It's a production which would Ch erry (wh o bears surprisin gly little repressed m emories of events which Ruth make an excellent buy-in for Griffin, resemblance to her Scandinavian mum), is too disturbed to reveal without deep Play box or the Perth Theatre Company. If it and obnoxiou s, hard-drinking painter soul-searching. does appear elsewh ere, don' t husband, Evan (the Fletcher vehicle). The Without giving away too much of a missit. young couple plan to holiday there before nicely shocking plot, the past relationships moving to America once Evan has created a between Frances, her husband (u nseen on M EANWHIL E, Melbourne in July and bankable body of work. One night, while he stage) and a Yugoslav immigrant worker, Augu st found itself in the grip of political is busy painting (a portrait of mother-in­ Voya, have momentous impact on those theatre (mostly of German-language origin) law, as it happens), Cherry goes off to the between Ruth, her father and (in the present) dealing with the rise of totalitarian rule. pictures with a girlfriend but a big September The Melbourne Theatre Company's new storm erupts and Cherry can't get home. Artistic Director Simon Phillips' first Meanwhile, Stella and Evan snuggle up in production in that role happened to be a front of a palpably cellophane fire and scoff never-less-than-competent and often quite her last bottle of pre-war Burgundy-and a theatrically exciting production of The predictable love affair begins. In Act 2, Resistible Rise ofArturo Ui, Bertol t Brecht's things become strained between all parties parable play (written with MargareteSteffin, (including Stella's old boyfriend, a yachting typically not credited in the program) about type who handily has access to plenty of the rise of Hitler in the guise of Chicago post-war rationed Scotch), but luckily gangster. Poignantly, Phillips' production Cherry never finds outaboutwhathappened overlapped with the first American tour (of on that night of the September tide and the same play) by the Berliner Ensemble; it Evan (played here as a rather stolid beatnik will also be the final tour of that legendary prototype) has the decency to decamp with company, which is closing down after 50 his unloved wife before more irremediable years. At the same time, allegories covering damage is done. similar terrain by the Swiss playwrights A very conventional, if over-decorated, Max Frisch (Th e Fire Raisers ) and Friedrich box set and acting hewn from the oldest of Diirrenmatt (The Visit) were also seen in English wood make this tired old stuff revivals of differing quality in fringe venues anything but spectacular, while the utter like Wax Studios and the Carlton predictability of th e plot robs it of any real Courthouse. sense of romance. But it does take place on But the most confident and accom­ a stage, so at least a third of the promotional Carol Burns in Vertigo and the Virginia . plished Australian purveyor of contem­ slogan is in good faith. Twelfth Night's porary political rh etoric in the English October production is Kay Mellor's A h er inquisitive son. Olsen 's spare but language is longtime su rvivor of the Passionate Woman, starring Onslow from accomplish ed writing, and the simple but Melbourne comedy scene, Rod Quantock. Keeping Up Appearances and Tracey from eloquent staging by director Tom Gutteridge His most recent piece, A Major Event, Birds of a Feather. This seems to say it all, and designers Michelle Fallon (set) and sub-titled 'The Final Report of the Comedian really. David Walters (lighting), combine to draw General on the State of the State', is a Across the Brisbane River at the Queens­ compelling drama out of this rich material. brilliant satirical version of an auditor­ land Performing Arts Complex, there was a Through much of the action, Ruth and general's report focusing on social and stylish new Australian play called Vertigo Cay lam and Frances and Voya are all ons tage aesth etic rather than finan cial issues. and the Virginia, written by Melbourne at once and both narratives merge Coincidentally, the actual auditor-general emigre Sven Olsen for the Queensland seamlessly into one discontinuous but in Victoria, Ches Baragwanath, retired in Theatre Company, which has been as visible ultimately satisfying story. Memories are the week that Quantock's show, with trade­ on n ational tours la tely as Sydney's beautifully refracted through the mark blackboard, chalk and talk, opened at Company B. This is a classic Australian imaginative stage-set in the intimate the Melbourne Trades Hall, where it is to family drama set simultaneously in a city Crem orn e Theatre, w hich takes the run until 4 September. Sadly, Quantock has in the present and in old Adaminaby in m etaphoric form of a snowdome; the flagged this as his fi nal political comedy 1949-50, when the Snowy Mountain mountain snows occlude the little house solo piece; he feels there is nothing left to Authority was ab out to fl ood it in inside it for a while, but when they recede say about the ship of state as steered by J.G. preparation for the new hydro-electric and (as the dam-waters did recently in a drought Kennett. irrigation schem e that becam e legendary in to lay bare the skeleton of old Adaminaby) I think he's wrong. There will be more post-war Australian engineering and social the truth comes flooding back. to say and I hope Quantock-one of the history. In the contemporary timeframe, This is a terrific little play and it is very m ost gifted minds and mouths in teenager Caylam plagues his mother Ruth well acted. Angela Campbell is gorgeou s as Australian comedy-will take the chan ce (played with consummate edginess by Carol a late 1940s Frances; young Jason Gann is to say it. • Burns, pictured) to tell him the truth about splendid as the (perhaps slightly formulaic) what happened in those fateful days when m odern interlocutor fi gure and Brisbane Geoffrey Milne is head of theatre and drama she was just a slip of a girl. The flashback stalwart Eugene Gilfedder achieves the at LaTrobe University.

V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 47 have risked them­ No director is perfect, and if Kubrick selves to stay and was brilliant at broad-brush narrative, help preserve it from pushing boundaries of slow observation to German explosives the limit, then his limitation was that his and the juggernaut female characters were always secondary. of allied victory. In Eyes Wide Shut, the women are all The acting is alter­ objectified to a degree that does not accord nately chiselled and with a truly contemporary exploration of outrageous: Maggie sexuality. Women are sexually reckless and Smith (left) and Joan impulsive (read 'frail' ), Kubrick is saying. Plowright play When Harford's wife reveals that she has ladies, (Plowright fantasised about another man, it sends very convincingly), Harford on an obsessive quest for revenge, while Cher and Judi As you would, says the film, without a Deneb let them­ milligram of irony. selves go royally. It is all lushly contrived, every scene The Italian actors tweaked into perfect shape, not a bibelot perform like stock amiss. But the narrative falls to pieces as Italian characters in Harford cons his way into a high-society a pre-war English B orgy, only to be discovered and threatened movie-oddly embarrassing in a film from with all sorts of nasties if he tells anyone. a director who ought to know better. But what is there to tellZThe orgy is like the English infusions -Morag Fraser film itself- pompous, self-conscious and rather old-fashioned: people dress up in Tea With Mussolini, dir. Franco Zeffirelli. cloaks and masks so that they can have it You tend to forget that Zeffirelli has been Kubrick veneer away on coffee tables and sofas in front of an anglophile for most of his lavish each other. (Yawn.) The idea of People In directorial career. From the early Taming of Eyes Wide Shut, dir. Stanley Kubrick. I went High Places needing to go to some Chateau The Shrew( 196 7) through Romeo and Juliet there ready to like the film, to ditch de la Rumpy-Pumpy to have anonymous (1968) to Jane Eyre (1996), he has mined reservations about the relentless publicity sex is, again, a strange one. Why botherl English writers-and to fine effect. They campaign and its glossy stars, because it (Maybe they're all Republicans- it's well have, after all, consistently turned in top­ was, after all, a Kubrick. Kubrick- who known that conservative politicians are drawer, infinitely adaptable material and gave us Dr Strangelove, The Shining, A impotent without a scuba suit, a bunch of don't get into a lather about copyright. Clockwork Orange,2001: A Space Odyssey, dahlias and a small llama. No wonder they For this channing but disappointing film, Full Metal Jacl< et-has been one of the hated Clinton.)It was meant to be disturbing Zeffirelli has been loyal- h aving John most profound of directors, one of the few and frightening but it's not-it is actually Mortimer write the screenplay with him­ (along with Scorsese and Coppola) with rather funny because the film takes itself so but not wise. Mortimer does satiric surfaces­ gravitas. lethally seriously. The soundtrack is full of robustly amusing, as in his Rumpole series. Eyes Wide Shut promises much in the portentous semi tones here, a seam that was But for this loosely fictionalised account of first few minutes. The fact that Nicole surely mined out by Jaws: DAA-DER, DAA­ Zeffirelli's own wartime boyhood and his Kidman and Tom Cruise are married adds a DER, etc. Or perhaps a slowed-down Pinl< adoption by the ladies of the English tinge of authenticity to the mild bickering Panther ... community in Florence during the fascist of the film couple-the William Harfords­ If you want a great film about sex and period, you need more than witty punchlines getting ready to go to a ball at the preposter­ death and obsession and grief, get out the and the patina of English eccentricity. But ously opulent mansion of an influential video of Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. Zeffirelli is too fond and Mortimer too friend. Harford is a N ew York GP, doing -Juliette Hughes hearty to making anything more taxing than very nicely, but not in the plutocratic an entertainment out of potentially rich leagues his friend Ziegler inhabits. Two hands material. Shakespeare does help them out The longueurs begin at the ball, with though: in one scene the young Luca/ exhaustive takes of endless platitudinous clapping Zeffirelli is sent into exile in Germany to conversations as both Harfords flirt with Two Hands, dir. Gregor Jordan. I've always get the schooling his opportunist father strangers. So far, so good. Kidman does a wanted to go camping with Bryan Brown. thinks will benefit him. The ladies cushion very good tipsy scene with a smarmy He looks like the sort of bloke who'd know the child's departure by doing a chorus of Lothario. But when the dialogue turns to what to do if it rained. In Two Hands, Henry V's St Crispian's speech: 'He that out­ why she won't go upstairs with him, the taking a trip into the bush with the lives this day, and comes safe home/Will script loses its grip. She says, 'Because I'm unsavoury Pando (Brown) would probably stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd ... ' married', and he replies that women only mean you were going to be shot. The cinematography is delicate and marry to lose their virginity because then Pando is a big bad man in Kings Cross, hazy, doing justice enough to Tuscany to they can do what they want. This must who cruises the streets in a low-slung, make you understand why this odd little come straight from the 1901 novel from hotted-up Ford Falcon accompanied by his band of time-warped English women might which the film was adapted. goons. Jimmy (Heath Ledger) is a young

48 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 fe llow working as a tout ou tside a strip Each of them, in their own way, is runs into the surly, withdrawn Keenan joint. His luck is about to change. Pando committed to the battered community they (Ryan Philippe). off ers Jimmy a simple job. The job turns live in. They fi rst cross paths attempting to Meanwhile, Gracie (Madeleine Stowe) sour and Jimmy looks like he's in line to help Liain , an ex- junkie and dmg- dealer is having an affair with Roger (Anthony take an unpleasant camping trip with Pando, trying, like Joe, to stay straight. Unfortu­ Ed wards). Mildred (Ellen Burs tyn ) is waiting a large gun and no waffle-maker. nately, Liain 's wife is still using, and has by the bed side of her dying son, Mark (Jay Enter Alex (Rose Byrne), an angel with racked up impos ible debts with the local Mohr). Meredith (Gillian Anderson ) is doing peroxide hair just arrived fro m the country. dealers in doing so. The dealers, of course, her best to fe nd off the attentions of Trent Her dairymaid blush sham es the nastiness will have their du e, on e way or another. In (Jon Stewart). Such stories are the bread and of King Cross. She off ers Jimmy a chance to his attempts to protect Liam, Joe gets drawn butter of living in a western city. They are work in a m stic trade som ewhere up north. inextricably into an increasingly impossible told w ith humour and wit. Carroll's I thought she was going to as k Jimmy to and desperate situation, where his desire to direction uses the talen t of his big-name work on her dairy and m ake real money. do the right thing by everyone around him actors without allowing them to dominate But no, Jimmy has to shoot a few cops first, backfires tragically. the large cast. This fi lm surprises you by but the love ofa good woman seem s to ensure This is a familiar plot- the good man showing how much these characters have he'll remain a good bloke-just as long as he cornered by fate is a classic fo rmula for invested in each other. Take your cynical can find a paddle for his barbed-wire canoe. tragedy. What makes this story so affecting, friends. It will do them good. Two Hands has a couple of genuine however, is the simplicity of its telling. It's -Michael McGirr Sf belly laughs; armed robbers who plan hold­ as if, in offering us these chara cters' stories ups and childcare in the same conversation in such an unadorned, straightforward off er the best laughs. m anner, Loach is affirming his fa ith in the Bubble and squeak The casualness w ith which people are value and significance of their experience blown away, drowned and mn over probably just as it is. Perhaps m ore importantly, by Bedrooms and Hallways, dir. Rose Troche. does make this a hip film. Even so, Two giving it to us directly, he also gives us 'Wild Men' weekends, the sexual fantasies Hands might have som e real m eaning; nowhere to hide from the rawness and the of London real-estate agents, screwball pop som etimes we're made to wonder if places raggedness of that experience. psychology and sharp domestic wit makes hold mem ories of past wrongs. -Allan James Thomas this romp round London relationships Maybe it will be flawed heroes like enor mou sly en gaging. Bedrooms and Jimmy who'll right the wrongs embedded Hallways is lightweight cinematic delight. in the bush and benea th the city asphalt. Play to the end The plot twists fa ncifully around the Then again, Two Hands might ju st be gorgeous gay Leo (Kevin McKidd), who is another film about nothing. It's worth going Playing by Heart (dir. Willard Carroll ). It's persuaded to attend a N ew Age m en's group and pending 103 minutes m aking your worth staying to the end of Playing by by his open-minded but straight business mind up. -Paul Sinclair Heart to see how the seemingly separate partner. Som ewhere between the 'honesty strands of the story all com e together. N ot stone' and the group sauna Leo admits to Extraordinary that you 'll be bored in the m eantime. For finding a fellow m ember of the grou p most of the film, we follow fiv e distinct attractive-a revelation that unleashes a Joe relationships. While each of them is vibrant fl ood of confused sexual sh en an igans, My Name is foe, dir. Ken Loach. There's and engaging, it's hard to find any point of reassessm ents and aggressions. Everything something incredibly beautiful about the connection between them, except for the it seem s is up fo r grabs- literally. plainness of this film. It covers fa miliar fact that they all take place in Los Angeles. With the m en's group in a shambles and territory for director Ken Loach, focusing Indeed, you begin to su spect that thi is gay Leo in love with straight Brendan (James on a community battered by mass long­ som ething like New York Stories, except Purefoy), enter Sally (Jennife r Ehle), Leo's term unemployment, dmgs and poverty. that these narratives mn concurrent!y rather high-sch ool sweetheart a nd s t raigh t Despite the potential for bleakness and than sequentially. Brendan's ex-long- term girlfriend. What to misery, Loach off ers us something m ore You wonder if perh aps Willard Carroll, do? Whom to turn to? Which team to bat difficult to understand and to show: the who wrote the film as well as directed it, for? possibility of hope amid hopeless conditions. has created a loose stmcture to fit the Yes, this is soap, in fac t it's a bubble The Joe of the title (a wonderful em otional claustrophobia he is exploring. bath, but I enjoyed it fro m start to last. performance by Peter Mulle n ) is an But then, in the fi nal 20 minutes, the strands Hugo Weaving is ma terful as a gently unemployed alcoholic, with nothing to come together so easily and simply that the menacing real-estate agent in lust with the show for his 3 7 years, and no prospects result is delightful. Each strand of the sartorially outrageous Darren, while Si m on either. All he has going for him is 11 straight narrative has been strong. The final fit is Callow and Harri e t Walter put in months off the booze, the local unemployed well nigh unbrea kable. mischievously over-the- top performances workers' soccer club which he coaches (w ho Paul (Sea n Connery) and Hannah (Gena as the N ew Age group leaders. In fact, all have only won a ingle gam e, ever), and his Rowlands) have been m arried fo r 40 years. the fi lm's players, big and small, are ripper. fri end Shanks, who took him to hi first AA They live in com fo rt. But Paul has been London itself puts in a handsom e, if heavily meeting. He m eets Sarah, a local community diagnosed with a terminal disease and there disguised, performance- endless sunshine health worker, and despite the gap in their are som e issues which have been unresolved and pots of red geraniums add charmingly social class (sh e has a job you see), they in their marriage for 25 years. Meanwhile, to the soapy fantasy of it all. begin a tentative but hopeful rom ance. Joan (Angelina Jolie) is cmising clubs and - Siobhan Jackson

V O LUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 49 Homage to catatonia

L "' w" A GRMT c•>toon in again (the remote control batteries wear out fast) and there are the New Yorker about 20 years ago repeats of That Girl. Yes, at other times, there are Peter Gunn, Th e showing a middle-aged, middle­ Avengers, The Saint, The Persuaders, Rhoda, Saturday Nigh t Live. class Midwest couple sitting in front But always when you're asleep or at work. Only nocturnals, shift of their TV, in attitudes of great workers and anally retentive types who are both organised despondency. I can't remember the enough to remember to buy video tapes and know how to cartoonist's name, but he or she program the video ever get to watch the real goodies. The prime was brilliant: the line-and-wash conveyed noble resignation and example of this lunacy is arena's programming of Th e Games fortitude on the part of the husband who comforted his distraught at 4pm every day. wife: 'Perhaps the viewing will be better tomorrow night, dear.' There have been many evenings lately where my beloved has I T's TIMES LIKE THESE you want Good News Week or Media Watch had to be strong and comforting and Mills-and-Boonish for me, as all the time. Channel Ten is sailing pretty close to the wind with my morale dipped to something between Blanche DuBois and Mrs GNW because it is only a matter of time before they'll get tired, Gummidge. 'When are they going to put on something decent on a doing two shows a week. They haven't yet, but they need really Tuesday?' I would wail, and people fearing for my reason's delicate good guests to keep things flowing. Rod Quantock always delivers balance would hurry with cups of tea and concerned offers of St on GNW, as do Greg Fleet and Peter Berner. Lately, however, John's Wort. TV reviewing is not for the fainthearted, you know. I they've been starting to put on some girlies who are only there for bet you think it's all French etJ Saunders and Four Corners. Instead looks, unlike Kate Fischer, who was edgy and funny. Bring her back, one regularly risks apoplexy (watching that travesty of Great I say. Mikey Robbins and Julie McCrossin can usually cover for the ExpectationsL nausea (This is Your Life), hives (A Current Affair comic deficiencies in their teams, but when you see guests really and Today Tonight) and catatonia (ferry Springer, Rikl

50 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999 Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 76, September 1999

Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVM ACROSS 1. They're top of the ladder, in a geographical sense, but will they be 20 with pride? (8,5) 10. Scandalising people, painting the town red? (9) 11. Parisian speaks to the aforementioned in the same way. (5) 12. Hearing about first test for 100 dinars in Iran. (5) 13. Worked out how queen, being inside, was cut out. (9) 14. With a change of leader, could be on the other side. How appropriate! (8) 16. Part-time tenor is on duty for evening prayer. (6) 19. Tiers of battery hens, perhaps. (6) 20. Jeff and Bob, possibly, go to the MCG to see them play. (8) 22. Proceeds, we hear, with propensity to benefit someone such as a 27. (9) 24. At this point, we hit the bull's eye. (5) 25. My friend in Paris takes a turn with my friend from Barcelona. (5) 26. Temporary accommodation at 4, East Avenue' It's undecided' (9) 2 7. Those who hold a post when carrying skaters from the frozen river, for instance. (6,7) Solution to Crossword no. 75, July/August 1999 DOWN 2. Fee to hold a jockey, perhaps, for future races. Pity arena won't be ready! (6,3) 3. Which theatre seat do you want' Why beat about the bush? (5) 4. It's not customary to have a teaset in use for a liqueur. (8) 5. Excellent golf holes played by some footballers. (6) 6. Unseemliness of peculiar sort of art in back of gallery. (9) 7. 'Them', in other words! (3,2) 8. Bear the cost of the dance for the end is nigh' The participants hope to be 20. (8,5) 9. The sort of medals Peter didn't have. (Acts, 3) (4,3,6) 15. Rots in limbo, maybe, in its crater. (9) 17. Draw Van Gogh's missing appendage, say, in a more superficial way. (9) 18. Quiet about number in front of church-what a charade! (8) 21. What a nuisance the French are, pounding away with this. (6) 23. Cook I introduced to the boss. (5) 24. American state in receivership to begin with, solves its problems with style. (5)

------~ ------This subscriptio n is: Your Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill i11 your ou·n C071/acl details. leji) D New D Renewal D Gift 1Mrs/M1ss/Ms/Mr F,-st Name IIMrs/MISs/Ms/Mr First Name

Length of subscription: ~S~ur=na=m~e======~~S~ur=na=me~======~ D One yea r (10 issues for $54, $49 concession for IStreet No. Str-eet Name Street Name pensione rs, students and unemployed) D Two years (20 issues for $99, $89 concession) ICity/Town/Suburb State Poslcode IIC,ty/Town/Suburb State Postcode

oue/;W-'as rates 0 11 application: tel +673 9427 73 71 ~~C~a~=, m~e~)~le~ph=o=ne~N~o=. ======~F~ax~/e~m~aii~======~ILIC_a~_·m_•_)_•'•_p-ho-ne_N_o______Fax-/e _m_a,_l ------email. subs@jespubjesu it .org.au

Send to: Payment Details D Visa D Ban kcard D Masterca rd Eureka Street Subscription D I enclose a cheque/ money ord er fo r I I I I II I I I lr----r-1 1-,--1 --,--,1II I I I I Rep6' Paid 553 I$ I made payable to jesuit Publi cati ons. ICardholder's name I POBox553 D Pl ease debit my credit ca rd for Richmond VIC 3121. Expwy date (No postage stamp required ifposted in 1$ I I I Australia.) D Ma iling list: l wou ld like to remove m y name from the mailing list w hen it is u:;ed for outside advertising. Special Book Offer

INSIDE OUT EAST TIMOR Photography by Ross Bird, HERMAN PRESS Text by Xanana Gusmao, Jose Ramos Horta, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo N S I 0 E Much has been written about East Timor, but few images have been published. Inside Out East Timor is a personal photographic AS account of this country and its people.

p >I I 0 ~ ll A Pi1 r I r Having visited East Timor three times since 1995, Australian photographer Ross Bird n ow juxtaposes R oss Bi RO colour photographs of life in this country with black-and-white portraits of Timorese who have fled their homeland since 1975.

T£J IY Thanks to Herman Press, Eureka Street has 4 copies of Inside Out East Timor to give away (2 hardcover worth $75 and 2 softcover worth $50). Just put your name and J o 5 ( RAM 0 l H 0 ~I" address on the back of an envelope and send it to: Eutel

A DIARY FOR ALL SEASONS ••• DISCERNING THE AusTRALIAN SociAL CoNSCIENCE A diary to take you through the coming Year of Great Some of Australia 's most Jubilee. prominent poets and jurists, • Weekly gospel verse and the artists and edu ca tors, researchers psalm response for each day. and politicians gathered over six • Catholic lectionary details for weeks to address so me of the Sundays; dail y liturgical rea dings. burning issues that confi·ont the • Feasts and holy days--Catholic, Australian conscience. Anglica n, Uniting Church, Eastern H ere is th e text of all th e Rite, Orthodox,Jewish, Muslim. prese ntations plus edited • Runs from Advent 1999 to th e transcripts of th e lively end of calendar yea r 2000. di sc uss ions th ey provoked. Practical, easy to use, beautifully illustrated. The principal speakers: • Double-page sp rea d, with week to view. Sir Gerard Brennan, Ms Morag Fraser, Dr Patricia • Dail y planner. Brennan, Prof Kevin Hart, Dr Peter McCullagh, • Calendar of public holidays and sc hool holidays. Sr Elizabeth Hepburn, Dr Bernadette Tobin, • Hardbound for durability and protection. Mr Fred Chaney, Justice Sue Kenny, Sr Deirdre • Section-sewn for easy opening. Rofe, Prof Kevin Lee, Dr Bruce Dawe, • Illu strated with in spiring Australian religious art. Sr Rosemary Crumlin. Hardcover ISBN 1 86355 072 0 $21.95* Paperback ISBN 0 9586796 2 2 $24.95* Available from THE JESUIT BOOKSHOP 300Victoria St Richmond 3121 Tel (03) 9427 7311 Fax (03) 9428 4450 (*packing & post: $5.50 for first item; $1.50 for each additional item)

ISSN 10 36-1758 07

9 771036 175017