Vol. 3 No. 7 September 1993 $5.00 The Year of Living Expectantly What Aboriginal leaders are saying Why we say the things we do Margaret Simons Rowan Gallick Republican visions States of the nation The state of liberty Terry Monagle Philip Pettit Melbourne Writers' Festival: Peter Craven reviews the work of Vikram Seth An intervieV#, not a point of vieV#. Paul Murphy presents a balanced interview. His questions show background knowledge, not personal opinion. So you can make up your own mind. For reliable current affa irs six nights a week, watch Paul Murphy. Paul Murphy. Dateline. Monday - Saturday 7pm. IT'S fi HUGE A USTRALIAN C HURCH D lARY CHfiLLEHGE 1994 There is a big challeng e ahead or us - a challenge Beautifully bound which has pretty well de reo ted us ror zoo years_ and illustrated, the For my port. I om absolutely committed to this. diary begins with It s o huge challenge. and hugely signili"cont in the the First Sunday in de termination orAustral ia s ruture. Advent 1993, and The Prime Minister. serves for both the T he Hon P J Keating. I??Z liturgical and cal­ endar years till the The Australian Council of Churches agrees end of 1994. With Christian, Jewish that t his chall e nge must be faced. and Muslim feasts I"DIGE"OUS PEOPLES and commemorations, public and school holidays for all tates, double- page spread for each week, year O"E WORLD KIT 1991 planner, lectionary details and much more. Thi s education and action kit is now availabl e fr om your state ecumenical Terrific value al 519.00 council o r ring the Australian Council of (Normal retail price: $22.95) Churches on (0 2) 299 22 15 Available at this price exclusively from Jesuit Pub­ lications, PO Box 553 Richmond VIC 3121. Include $3.50 per book for postage and handling. Volume 3 Number 7 EUAI:-KA srm::-er September 1993 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology C oNTENTS 4 32 COMMENT SPORTING LIFE Ross Fitzgerald finds a feast 6 of football in Bali. LETTERS 33 9 TEASING OUT THE TEXTS CAPITAL LETTER Robin Gerster reports on the public face of Australian literary studies. 10 THE REPUBLIC 34 Terry Monagle discusses the strains BOOKS of federalism; Philip Pettit traces the Michael McGirr scythes through a crop of roots of the republican understanding criticism from MUP; Morag Fraser profiles of liberty (plS). Margaret Simons, author of the prize­ winning novel The Ruthless Garden (p36); 13 Owen Richardson reflects on the life and ARCHIMEDES work of Philip Larkin (p39); David Glanz For some, the future still rates and Leon Gettler take a look at two books a smile: girl from Cherbourg 14 on Jewish radicals in Australia (pp41-42); Mission Station, Murgon, QLD. COUNTERPOINT Mark Skulley speculates on the fate of Other Aborigines are not so sure. junk-bond king Michael Milken (p43). -'The Year of Living Expectantly', 18 ppl8-25. THE YEAR OF LIVING EXPECTANTLY 45 Aboriginal leaders talk to Margaret Simons THEATRE about the Year of Indigenous People; Jack Donna Sue Robson meets the cast of Bran Cover: Arthur Panbegan, Aurukun leader, Waterford talks about the terms of debate Nu Dae; Geoffrey Milne reviews John performing a 'Bora' (initiation) bird dance ritual at Laura, Cape York Peninsula. (p20); and Rowan Callick talks about the Sumner's contribution to Australian thea­ Photo by Emmanuel Sa ntos. motives and motifs of debate (p22). tre (p46). Photos pp3, 5, 18, 22-23 and 45 also by Emmanuel Santos; 26 47 Graphics pplO, 12, andl 5 by ESSAY FLASH IN THE PAN Tim Metherall; Peter Craven explores the writing of Reviews of the films Jura ssic Park, This Is Graphs pp10-11 by Paul Fyfe S); Vikram Seth. My Life, Children of Nature, Peter's Friends, Cartoon p16 by Dean Moore; Photo p3 7 by Bill Thomas. Reservoir Dogs, Passion Fish and Wittgen­ 30 stein. QUIXOTE Eureka Street magazine 50 Jesuit Publications 31 VOICEBOX PO Box 553 STRAINING TO SEE THE LIGHT Richmond VIC 3 121 Tel (03) 427 73 11 David Glanz reports on power failures and 51 Fax (03) 428 4450 political failures in the Philippines. SPECIFIC LEVITY EUREKA SJREEr C OMMENT agazine of public affairs, the arts and theology A NDREW H M1IL TON Publisher AND E DMUND CAMPION f Michael Kelly SJ Editor Morag Fraser Production editor Ra y Cassin Design consultant The Year of John van Loon Production assistants John Doyle SJ, Paul Fyfe SJ, Juliette Hughes, Indigenous Peoples Siobhan Ja ckson, Chris Jenkins SJ. Contributing editors Adelaide: Frances Browne IB VM Brisbane: Ian Howells SJ Darwin: Margaret Palmer Perth: Dean Moore Sydney: Edmund Campion, Andrew Riemer, S oMmMcs wu Mt STAmm when you he" the penny dmp. Gerard Windsor. I was attending an Aboriginal Mass at the beginning of the European correspondent: Damien Simonis national liturgical music conference in Melbourne. U correspondent: Thomas H. Stahel SJ The Mass was celebrated on a pontoon by the World Editorial board Trade Centre, and to look across the Yarra was to be Peter L'Estrange SJ (chair), played into gentle ironies of time and place. Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey, The backdrop was the Spencer Street Bridge: a Madeline Duckett RSM, Tom Duggan, no-nonsense affair built for horses and trams. Just be­ Trevor Hales, Christine Martin, yond it, in shocking pink, was a full frontal advertise­ Kevin McDonald, Joan Nowotny IBVM, m ent for strippers, over which crawled the fly overs Lyn NoSS<ll, Ruth Pendavingh, from the Kings Street Bridge and the Westgate Bridge, John Pill FSC, monuments to the car and to utility. In the distance Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ stood Emerald Hill and its colonial town hall. Business manage r: Mary Foster In the foregro und was the Yarra. On its far side Advertising representative: Tim Stoney was moored the John Batman, named for the man who Editoria l assistant: Jon Greenaway bought Victoria from the Aboriginals for a handful of Patrons trinkets. This boa t, like the nearby Polly Woodside, is Eurel<a Street gratefully acknowledges the now a tourist attraction. As descendants from the Yarra support of C.L. Adami; the trustees of the esta te tribe welcomed the p<lrticipants to their land, pleas­ of Miss M. Condon; A.J. Costello; D.M. Cullity; ure boats, among them the Blacl<bird, plied up and F.G. Gargan; R.J. and H.M. Gehrig; clown the river, men with tinnies leaning against the W.P. Gurry; J.F. O'Brien; rails enj oying the sun and booing the proceedings in A.F. Molyneux; V.J. Peters; cmcle friendliness. Meanwhile conference-goers polite­ Anon.; the Roche family; Anon.; ly clapped the singers and dancers, especially when Sir Donald and Lady Trescowthick; land was mentioned. Mr and Mrs Lloyd Williams. It was a sunny cla y, ideal for relishing ironies. But when the Torres Strait Islanders began to sing, the pen­ Eurelw Street magazine, ISSN 1036-1758, Australia Post registered publication VAR 91- 0756, ny dropped. For the tone and cadences of their singing recalled is pub! is heel eleven times a yea r exactly the singing of Guatemalan Indians with whom I had by Eureka Street Magazin e Pty Ltd, spent a previous Christmas in Mexico. They had been driven 300 Victo ri a Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121. out of Guatemala by massacre, starvation, torture and indigni­ Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by ty. Both Campeche and the Yarra were suddenly the places, Michael Kelly, 300 Victoria Stree t, Richmond. and this the year, of indigenous peoples. Printed by Doran Printing, The similarities now stood out. Tlus ceremony was cele­ 4 Commercial Road, Highett VIC 3 190. brated in awkward English instead of awkward Spanish, and © jesuit Publications 1993 the tunes were mostly North American rather than Latin; but The editor welcomes letters and unsolicited manu­ in both the ritual was something to be clone, with space for a scripts, including poetry and fic tion. Manuscripts will chat or a smoko, and not something to be thought; both found be returned on ly if accompanied by a stamped, self­ room within the western liturgy for symbols from their own addressed envelope. Requests for permission to reprint cultures, and shared a common delight in making something m<lterial from the magazine should be addressed in out of the totally inadequate materials allowed them. These writing to: The editor, Eurelw Street magazine, were liturgies appropriately celebrated on a raft while others PO Box 553, Richmond VIC 3 121. had taken over the land. 4 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1993 But the ironies were now sharp-edged. For in Mex­ can no longer read Australian history along denomina­ ico I had come to the Guatemalan Indians as a friendly tional line . The very first paper gave a Sydney visitor. Here I had inherited, and would hand on, a evangelical perspective on 19th century dispensation by which this land by the Yarra had been convents. The Reformation is over. taken from the natives, and been made fit for strippers, boozers and cars. These ironies are hard to bear. But N OTHING HAS SPEEDED this process so much as the perhap the Mass did enable them to be endured, and protestantising of Catholicism. When Rome shows saved the need to articulate them. For at the Mass the herself willing to learn from Geneva and Canterbury, sound of clapping by the complicit was the sound of then we are in a new age. Con ider the evidence of recent nails being hammered: the hands into which they were decades: the Bible at the centre of Catholic theology, hammered were those of the Aboriginal and of those liturgy and spirituality; Catholic liturgy in a language from any race who would follow Jesus.