1 - Eureka Street

The Vatic-Edmund Campion on the AustraliaWhat price Australiannaway and An r ami Ir fugees, 'illegals'

AUSTRALIANBOOK REVIEWSEPTEMBER:Chris wattace~-GraDorothy Porter,Michael Hofmann,Fay Zwicky,Anthony Lawrence,Anita Heiss,Merlinda Bobis,Tien Hoang Nguyen,Deb Westbury,MTC Cronin,Geoff Goodfellow and many mo reImelbournefestivalHumphrey McQueen onthe Chinese connectionRolling Column by Mark DavisKerryn Goldsworthy on Thea Astley' sDry landsMarilyn Lake on Beryl BeaurepajreMari on Halligan onAndrew Ri emer's new memoirofpoetrySubscribers $55 for ten issues plus a free bookPh (03) 9429 6700 or Fax (03) 9429 2288chapelseptember1999offchapelprahran9522 3382r;"t.,~;:;:;::::;-;;;;;::rn!l:;n~..r.w,,.,;::;;=rr-""""IIPIIOff ChapelinHiativesupportedby ArtsVictoriaArt MonthlyAUSTRALIAIN THE SEPTEMBER ISSUEPeter Hill interYiews Liz Ann Macgregor,new Director of the Museum ofContemporary Art•Daniel Thomas talks about being a curatorArtRage - Mat Gallois onbeing an emerging artist in SydneyThe Immigration Museum and theMillionth Migrant exhibitionOut now _S-1.9.'i, .fimn good boohlwps and ncii'Sagcnls.Or plu111c ()] 62-19 3986 jin· your mbsaiption

A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theologyVolume 9 Number 7September 1999'He loved tospeculate,sometimes almostdangerously,from everyexperiment heperformed,seeking to derivegeneral n1eaningfrom resultswhich, in the firstinstance at least,are always highlyparticular andspecialised.'- Gustav Nossal onMacfa rl ane Burnet, see p22Cover design by Siobhan Jackson.Photograph of Sir MacfarlaneBurnet courtesy The Wa lter andEliza Hall Institute of MedicalResearch, Melbourne.Graphics pp5, 16, 18, 19, 20, 28,3 1, 43 by Siobhan Jackson.Photographs ppl0- 13 courtesyJon Green away.Photographs pp22- 27 courtesyThe Wa lter and Eliza HallInstitute of Medical Research,Melbourne.Photograph p35 by Barbara Leigh.Eureka Street magazineJesuit PublicationsPO Box 553Ri chmond VIC 3 12 1T el (03)9427 73 11Fax (03)9428 4450CoNTENTS4COMMENTWith Mark McKenna andFrancis Sullivan.7CAPITAL LETTER8LETTERS10TRAFFICKING IN PEOPLEJon Greenaway investigates thesupply side of illegal immigration.Andrew Hamilton questions Australia'sreception of 'illegals' and asylum seekers.16THE MONTH'S TRAFFICWith Edmund Campion, Hugh Dillonand Kathy Laster.17SUMMA THEOLOGIAE19ARCHIMEDESOur man turns the microscope onscientists, sex and boxer shorts.20THE STATE OF VICTORIAAs Victoria heads for elections,Moira Rayner takes stock.22SIR FRANK MACFARLANE BURNETSir Gustav Nossal on the science andcentenary of a distinguished Australian.28BLACK AND OTHER ARTSJim Davidson on what the GrahamstownFestival tells us about the newSouth Africa.3 1OBITUARYLinda McGirr salutesJennifer Paterson.32AFTER THE BIG WAVEPhotographic essay by Peter Davis.34INDONESIAN WITNESSPeter Mares interviews Ibu Sulami,activist, feminist and political survivor.37THE MANY ANXIETIES OFAUSTRALIA AND ASIADavid Walker's Anxious Nation:Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939shows how complex Australia-Asiarelations have always been, saysPeter Cochrane.40BOOKSPeter Craven reviews William Maxwell'sreissued novel, The Folded Leaf;Peter Pierce makes a m eal of ThomasHarris' Hannibal (p41 ).43THEATREAustralian theatre needsnatural therapy, argues Peter Craven.Geoffrey Milne surveys som e ofAustralia's winter offerings.45POETRY'Tadpoles' and 'Norfolk Island Pine'by Kate Llewellyn.48FLASH IN THE PANReviews of the films Tea With Mussolini;Eyes Wide Shut; Two Hands; My Nameis Joe; Playing by Heart andBedrooms and Hallways.50WATCHING BRIEF51SPECIFIC LEVITYV OLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 3

EURI:-KA srru:-erA magazine of public affairs, the artsand theologyGeneral managerJoseph HooEditorMorag FraserAssistant editorKate MantonGraphic designerSiobhan JacksonPublisherMichael McGirr SJProduction manager: Sylvana ScannapiegoAdministration manager: Mark DowellEditorial and production assistantsJuliette Hughes, Paul Fyfe SJ,Geraldine Battersby, Chris Jenkins SJCon tri bu ting editorsAdelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ, Perth: Dean MooreSydney: Edmund Campion, Gerard WindsorQueensland: Peter PierceUnited Kingdom correspondentDenis Minns orSouth East Asia correspondentJon GreenawayJesuit Editorial BoardPeter L'Estrange SJ, Andrew Bullen SJ,Andrew Hamilton SJPeter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJMarketing manager: Rosanne TurnerAdvertising representative: Ken HeadSubscription manager: Wendy MarloweAdministration and distributionLisa Crow, Mrs Irene HunterPatronsEvrelw Street gratefully acknowledges thesupport of C. and A. Carter; thetrustees of the estate of Miss M. Condon;W.P. & M.W. GurryEureka Street magazine, ISS N 1036-1758,Australia Post Print Post approved pp349181/003 14,is published ten times a yearby Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd,300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Vi ctoria 3 121T el: 03 942 7 73 11 Fax: 03 9428 4450em ai l: eure ka@jespub.jesuit.org.auhttp://www .openplanet.com.au/eureka/Responsibility for editorial content is accepted byMichael M cGirr SJ, 300 Vi ctoria Street, Richmond.Printed by Do ran Printing,46 Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3 195.© jesuit Publica ti ons 1999Unsolicited manuscripts, including poetry andfi ction, will be returned only if accompanied bya stamped, self-addressed envelope. Requests forpermission to reprint material from th e magazineshould be addressed in writing to:The editor, Eurelw Street magazine,PO Box 553, Ri ch m ond VIC 3 12 1COMMENT: 1M A RK M c KENNARein ember,remeinber the 6thof N oveinberIN MA' 1888, the edi tonal-wdte< of the C andelo and EdenUnion, a small bi-weekly n ewspaper on the far South Coastof NSW, posed the following question to his readers: 'Whenwill the Australian republic come?' His answer was sure andswift.'The Australian republic will come quickly ... As wegrow more important and our population increases we thinkless and less of that old country from which we have come... We like to call ourselves Australian and feel happy thatAustralians can grasp each others' hands in the true bond ofcitizenship ... on the platform of the country's commonwealth.'If it was easy to be optimistic in 1888, it seems muchharder in 1999. Only a lit tle over two m onths out from therepublic referendum on 6 November, the prevailing mood inthe republican camp is hardly one of confidence. After weeksof negotiations in Canberra, it is now clear that Australianswill face two questions in November.The first question will ask voters whether they approveof establishing Australia as a republic 'with the Queen andGovernor-General being replaced by a President appointedby a two-thirds majority' of Federal Parliament. The secondquestion, in the words of John Howard, will present voterswith 'an opportunity to unite the country on an aspirational[sic] issue in a very positive way', by approving the PrimeMinister's revised Constitutional Preamble.The new Preamble is infinitely superior to the PrimeMinister's previous draft, but still fail s on many counts. Thereis an irony in asking the people to approve an 'aspirational'Preamble when the people were not consulted in the processof its drafting. After consulting poet Les Murray, historianG eoffrey Blainey, and others who happened to hold thebalance of power in the Senate at the right time, Mr Howardproduced the final version of his Preamble on 11 August,two days before the legislation was due to be passed byParliament in time for the November referendum. 'ThePreamble can't be changed because w e need to pass thelegislation this week,' said Mr Howard.The Prime Minister's understanding of deliberativedemocracy is novel. When asked why the new Preambleincluded reference to those who defended Australia duringtime of war he replied-'We decided last night to put that in.'The Prime Minister also believes that the Preamble willserve' as a great contribution to reconciliation ' . He describeshis effort as a 'positive, honourable, pro-active, contemporaryreference to indigenous people in our Constitution'. The word' kinship', says Howard, ' doesn ' t carry any particularconnotations of ownership, it speaks of their lands not of4EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

the landi therefore, by definition it is something thatrelates to land that is owned by indigenous people.'In other words, the white man can relax. Aboriginesdon't own 'the land', they own 'their land'. These arethe words Howard thinks are 'generous'.But where is the generosity in failing to negotiatewith Aboriginal people? The truth is that Mr Howard'sPreamble is, as he says, 'a reference to indigenouspeople' (my emphasis), rather than a document whichbelongs to indigenous people. Does this mean thewhitefella should feel'honourable' simplybecause Mr Howard h as decided tomention indigenous people in a Preamble '. ' ·which is designed to have no legal effect ? .·;,:·_::Perhaps there is a more important 'question to be answered on 6 November:'When will the Australian republiccome?'The outcome of the question on the republic willhinge largely on the ability of republicans who supportthe bipartisan appointment model to convince thosewho are sympathetic to direct election to vote Yes.To win, republicans must find cause for commonground. But there is another, and perhaps even moredifficult, task ahead-a successful defence of theproposed model against scaremongers who willmislead in an effort to defeat the republic.This campaign has already begun. In the interestsof informed debate, those who call for a more'participatory democracy'-Pet er Reith and TedMack-endeavour to frighten the electorate bychanting 'Sixty-nine changes to the Constitution I' andaccusing the Australian Republican Movement of'ethnic cleansing'. Add the old favourites such as'more power to Canberra' and the high fence that isSection 128 (which requires at least four states and anational majority if the referendum is to pass), and itis easy to appreciate the difficulty of the challengewhich faces republicans in November.The referendum will ask voters to continue thetradition of Australia's gradual evolution to independence.The proposed bipartisan appointmentmodel is entirely consistent with themaintenance of our existing politicalinstitutions. It offers no radical break withthe past. The m odel's flaws are all presentin the current system. Australians willeither approve this last conservative step\:7 \J in the process of decolonisation or continuewith the British monarch as their h ead of state.For this writer at least, the thought of voting toretain the monarchy as the symbol of modernAustralian democracy is n either ' positive' nor'honourable'. Nor does it make sense. The 'historicachievem ent'-in-waiting is n ot the insertion of amonarchist's Preamble in our Constitution, butthe declaration of an Australian republic on1 January 2001. •Mark McKenna is a post -doctoral fellow in thePolitical Science Program at the Research School ofthe Social Sciences, Australian National University.C oMMENT: 2F RANCJS SULLIVANThere's nothing surer• • •S TATe AND Tc.moRY mom w•nted 'notion•!health inquiry. The Prime Minister didn't. They gota Senate committee. The inquiry comes as the broaderissue of welfare reform challenges m ost Westerndemocracies.Whether it's in health care, pension support, aged,disability or unemployment services, reform iscomplex. On the one hand, the bleak forecast is forageing populations and diminishing numbers oftaxpayers. The community's capacity to sustainsafety-net services, pension levels and e n~itl ementschem es (like M edicare) becomes questionable. Onthe other hand, the gap between the fortunate andthe rest is gradually widening. Prosperity for manyfamilies is transitory, if not elusive. Many are solelyreliant on safety-n et services, like public health careand income support, just to get by. In this context,universal health cover is a social good-wage supplement and family assistance package rolled into one.The latest income distribution figures are stark.The top 20 per cent of households receive nearly SOper cent of all incom e. Social security dependency hasrisen. Over 60 per cent of sole-parent families havewelfare as their principal source of income. Over 40per cent of single people between 15 and 44 have nowork or are underemployed.The group of Australians existing above theselevels, without any welfare assistance, are likewisevulnerable to the potentially enorm ous financialdamage that sickness and chronic illness can do tohousehold budgets. Their capacity to purchase privateh ealth insurance as a safety n et is limited. Theinflationary rate of h ealth insurance h as averagedaround 8 per cent. Real wage growth has not kept pace.In this context, the economic value of Medicareis that it spreads the financial risk of sickness across theentire community. It ensures that access to essentialcare is not restricted by one's capacity to pay. ThisVOLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 5

system only remains effective if everyone contributes,regardless of their health status, age or income.Medicare's critics label this 'middle- classwelfare'. They contend that the well-off are the mainbeneficiaries of public hospital expenditure and access.Recent research debunks this myth.When the distributional impacts of publichospital funding are measured on income levels, theMedicare system is found to be biased towards theless w ell-off. H o useholds with incomes up to$130,000 receive only 20 per cent of the benefits thathouseholds earning less than $20,000 receive frompublic hospital funding. Also, when actual hospitalisationwas examined, high-income people receivedaround 11 per cent of the public expenditure benefits asopposed to the 17 per cent received by low-incomepeople.Medicare's impact on equity is compelling. Yetthis doesn't dissuade some state premiers from callingfor the introduction of means testing for publichospital patients. Means testing, or user charging, ispromoted as a way to add money to the system andsend 'price signals' to those who use public h ospitals.In other words, its supporters want to stop people fromtaking a 'free ride'.Even a cursory examination reveals the flaws inthis argument. For m eans testing to raise sums of anysignificance, the level at which the test would applyis far too low. On the Prime Minister's own figures,single incom es of $45,000 and family earnings of$75,000 would attract increased charges.Before the reform zealots get too excited, it'simportant to note that a large percentage of publichospital beds are used by people over 65 years of age.Most fall within these income levels. Thus the peoplewho most need the care will carry the greatestfinancial burden. Reputable research demonstratesthat of those in the highest income grouping, only 6 percent are over 55 years old. Of those in the lowes tincome groupings, up to 44 per cent are over 55. Hardlya fair approach for access to an essential service.Moreover, introducing fees for hospital care isalmost m eaningless. These 'price signals' are effectivewhere the consumer has a degree of discretion overpurchasing a commodity. Being obliged to enterhospital under medical advice leaves little discretion.M eans testing merely becomes another form oftaxation on the sick.Undoubtedly, the health system needs moremoney. The efficiency and social equity benefits oftaxation-funded health care are difficult to refute. Justas others call for increased equity contributionsthrough means testing, an increased levy on thebeneficiaries of tax reform would deliver substantiallymore funding without undermining universal access.A m ere one per cent levy increase delivers an extra$2 billion.Furthermore, the Federal Government sold theGST on the grounds that it would help fund hospitals,welfare and aged services. This new growth tax willcome directly from households and should rightly bedirected at bolstering essential public services.The Commonwealth and the states should bepressed to drop ineffective solutions for the healthsystem and demonstrate how the GST monies willbe directed towards improving waiting lists and accessto other essential services.•Francis Sullivan is Executive Director of CatholicHealth Australia.tendering in the community sector, 'Contestingwelfare' (December 1998, see left, withphotograph by Bill Thomas), was highlycommended in the ACP A Best Social Justicecategory.AwardsCongratulations to writer John Honner andEureka Street's design and production team,Siobhan Jackson and Kate Manton, for theirsuccess at the recent Australian Catholic PressAssociation and Australasian Religious PressAssociation Awards. Eureka Street won theACP A Best Magazine Layout & Design Awardand was highly commended for design byARPA. John Hanner's article on competitiveWinnersWe are pleased to announce the winners ofthe Jesuit Publications Raffle, drawn on12 July 1999. The first prize-overseas travelfor two from Harvest Pilgrimages-goes toEureka Street subscriber Marian Devitt fromCasuarina, Northern Territory. Second prizegoes to P. Dalziel!, Randwick, NSW; thirdprize to B. Jensen, Clontarf, NSW; fourth prizeto Josie Osborne, Ryde, N SW; and fifth prizeto Sr Margaret O'Brien, Darlinghurst, NSW.Many thanks to everyone who participated.The raffle continues to be an importantsupport to our publications.6EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999

I 1! I 1Defence losing itsr~uARY Mi~ THffi Ym, the•~ ~u~~~~n~yg

Taxing the truthFrom Evan WhittonMoira Rayner rightly complains that'lawyers don't learn legal history anymore' ('What Lawyers Don' t Read',Eureka Street, November 1998). Theywill find, if I may say so, my littlebook, The Cartel: Lawyers and Th eirNine Magic Tri cks, a useful introduction.I don't know where yourproprietors stand on Lotario di Segni,Pope (as he became in 1198) InnocentIII. Perhaps he was too militant evenfor the Jesuits but, as the man whoinvented a legal system based onrational investigation of the truth, heis, or should be, the hero of all whobelieve in justice.Our system, by contrast, derivesfrom a medieval craft guild, or cartel,whose product unfortunately happenedto be law. Its major aim was (andis) to enrich senior lawyers and theirdescendants. Having made their pile,they can retire to the status andunutterable boredom of an untrainedjudiciary; Lord Thankerton knitted onthe bench. After November 1215, a fewlawyers and judges in London'sembryo guild rejected Innocent'ssystem, partly on the time-honouredground that wags begin at Calais. Oursystem was thus able to develop intowhat it is today: a lucrative game basedon a lie: that truth does not matter.Ms Rayner says sh e is a lawyer andfreelance journalist. This must get abit tricky; the press has traditionalobligations to seek the truth, tointerest and amuse the customers, andto serve the community by exposingwrongdoing, particularly that whichsubverts democracy, e.g. corruption,organised crime and the legal system.She says I wrote 'a diatribe againstdemocracy, based on lawyers' "takeover"of lawmaking-and perversionof parliament' in Th e Australianbefore last year's election. It is truethat I noted that lawyers got controlof parliament in the 14th century andthat the common law world still hasgovernment of the lawyers, by thelawyers and for the lawyers. But thepiece, a short history of censorshipfrom Pope Alexander VI to JohnHoward, was surely in favour ofdemocracy, not against it.In Dangerous Estate, FrancisWilliams says the press is 'the oneindispensable piece of ordnance in thearmoury of democracy'. When Defoeinvented modern journalism at thebeginning of the brazenly corrupt 18thcentury, guildsmen on the ben ch andin parliament instantly perceived it tobe a threat to their power andcorruption. To silence the press, judgesdefined seditious libel as 'writtencensure upon any public man whateverfor any conduct whatever or uponany law or institution whatever', andin 1 712, politicians put a tax onnewspapers. It immediately wiped outseveral London journals, includingAddison and Steele's Th e Spectator.The tax on information was liftedin 1855; in 1998, Prime MinisterHoward threatened to reimpose it.I wrote: 'Howard's motive may not bethat of the corrupt Whig oligarchs, butthe effect is the same. Welcome to1712.' Courtesy of some Democrats,Australia will shortly regress to thatinglorious year; we may hope youradmirable journal of ideas does not gothe same way as The Spectator.Evan WhittonGlebe, NSWA shot in the armFrom Ken O'HaraWhat should be done to overcome thehospital crisis quickly and for sure?It seems there's a need to changetrack fundamentally, and start budgetingfor each hospital's actual needs,from the bottom up, rather thancontinuing the current practice ofgovernments allocating a neversufficientamount from top centralfunds, trickling slowly down.This way, the amount actuallyneeded for maximum hospitalefficiency will be clear, with thegovernment then acting to get it.And with the existing MedicareLevy only providing 10 per cent of totalhealth costs, expanded revenue is vital.So the ball is now in the court ofthe politicians and their top h ealthadministrators to overcome thisdeficiency quickly, or our hospitalwill surely be continuing to limp alongas if on crutches.Ken O'HaraGerringong, NSWTo advertise in Eurek

H """" -"'""' " tho mouth of 'side-alley that juts out of 'Little Arabia', arabbit-warren-like collection of bars andcafes that cater to Bangkok's substantialMiddle Eastern community. Somehow hehad walked down the narrow lane withoutmy noticing, as he had the first time we meta week earlier, when he appeared in front ofa Bangladeshi restaurant a few hundredm etres away, begging for help. He is wearingthe same rough cotton T-shirt and fadedblue jeans.Agitated, he hops from foot to foot as heagain explains thatheisin trouble. He reachesinto his money belt and pulls out the identitycard that proves he deserted SaddamHussein's army. 'If I step one metre out ofmy country, they will kill me/ h e says,chopping down with his hand like an axe.Nonetheless, Hussein is still alive. InPakistan three years ago, he paid agents(whose trade is to smuggle people acrossborders) to take him to Australia by boat.Three weeks later, after a detour via China,he was caught in Malaysia when the boatran aground, and was taken to an immigrationdetention centre outside of KualaLumpur. There he spent the next two yearsof his life, selling cigarettes and soft drinksto other detainees for profit after buyingthem himself from the guards for an alreadyinflated price. He made enough money tobribe someone in Malaysian immigrationto drop him across the border into Thailand.He had no passport- that was takenfrom him when he was arrested, along withUS$3000 he had with him to pay the pricesasked by smugglers- so he went to theoffice of the United Nations High Commissionerfor Refugees in Bangkok. Theyrej ected his claim for 'Person of Concern'status and rejected it again on appeal. Bothtimes he received the pro forma UNHCRletter that states, in an English clipped ofemotion, that he docs not qualify as arefugee. No reasons are given, no suggestionsoffered.Hussein is not alone. Ask a few questionsof any of the people smoking hookahs anddrinking sweet, grainy coffee on the side ofthe streets behind where Hussein standsand you will hear similar stories. Some arefleeing persecution in Iraq, others are drawnby the prospect of a better life in Australia,free of economic sanctions and militarism.Eith er way, m ost of them are caught inBangkok. They have paid smugglersthousands of US dollars for safe passage toAustralia and been clumped in Thailand,the easiest part of the route. They havemanaged to get out of Iraq via Jordan orSyria and are waiting to buy, from asmuggler, a passport that will get them onto a plane bound for Sydney or Perth. Theyhave applied to UNHCR, waited severalmonths for the decision, or, if they havealready been granted refugee status, theyhave waited up to two years for embassyofficials to decide whether they should beresettled in Australia.These are the people who have scaredthe Australian government into spending$124 million beefing up our coastalsurveillance operations and Department ofImmigration and Multicultural Affairspresence at key points of departure aroundthe world. In announcing these initiatives,plus the tougher penalties for smugglersand increased fines on airlines which bring'illegals' to Australia, Immigration Minister,Philip Ruddock, stressed that each 'illegal'costs Australian taxpayers about $50,000on average.Alarm at the idea of Australia's beinginvaded by boat-people carried to its shoresby an armada of leaky tubs was raised againwith the discovery of a new route down10 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

through the Pacific islands. Landings onthe east coast where most Australians liveprompted the government's response.Howeve r, while the debate over'illegals' is driven by this issue, theDepartment of Immigration and MulticulturalAffairs estimates thataround 70 to 80 per cent of thoseresiding in Australia illegallyarrived on a Boeing rather than aboat, and of those, most wouldhave passed through Bangkok atsome point. Thailand's relativelyeasy visa requirements (designedfor its tourism industry), its largeinternational airport, and itsability to absorb over one million'illegals', have made it a majorstaging point for the traffickingof people to Australia, Europeand North America. Whatevertheir reasons for leaving theircountry, n early all will havecontact with a smuggler at som estage. Smuggling is veryn big business.L oFESSOR Ron Skeleton is amigration specialist, h avingtaught at the University of HongKong's Geography Department form any years before m oving toBangkok. His position there gavehim a good view of the exodusfrom China in the early 1990s.The liberalising of the economygave Chinese people both expectationsbeyond life in the village,and the money to pay' snakeheads'to smuggle them into the US,which all this decade has beenable to absorb illegals into theworkforce. He says that migrationfollows a pattern that smugglersthem selves foster and exploit.'Migration, in whatever form,comes with n etworks: peoplecome from one province, town oreven village and when they havemoved they send informationba ck which allows friends and relatives tocome across. It is a sort of multiplier effect.'Over the last decade, Australia hasbecome established as a priority destinationfor Assyrians, Kurds, other minority groupsand political dissidents leaving Iraq. Theyare the largest group-apart from theBurmese-looking to be resettled fromBangkok, and at the moment are causingthe D epartment of Immigration andMulticultural Affairs most concern.'Alan' is a Kurdish doctor who workedwith a non-government organisation in Iraqbefore he fled earlier this year. He says heleft Iraq because NGOs are looked on bySaddam Hussein's regime as part of theinternational conspiracy against his rule.Australian govermillion beefing upoperations and Deand Multicultural Apoints of departure aThey have been the subject of attack as aconsequence of internecine fighting amongKurdish groups in Northern Iraq.Alan has been interviewed by UNHCRand is waiting for their decision. He knowsthat, had he managed to get to Australia, hewould have stood a better chance of asylum,as only a few of the 10-20 Iraqi casescurrently adjudicated by UNHCR inBangkok each month are recognised. Forhis own reasons, he preferred to try to getthere through more legitimate means. Hehas quickly discovered that the system isfar from perfect.'I know many people here who do notbother to apply with UNHCR because theythink it is useless,' he explains.'I know it is difficult for them because,with so many people applying, how do youknow who is genuine? But if they recognisedmore people, and resettlem ent to Australiadid not take so long, not so many peoplewould try to get there illegally.'Some of them pay $7000 US, m aybe$8000, for a passport or to be trafficked.Wouldn't it be better if this m oney wasspent in Australia ?'UNHCR in Bangkok is often criticisedfor not doing enough to fulfil its mandate toprotect refugees. In recent m onths it hasbeen conducting a review of the refugeestatus of Cambodians who fl ed the July199 7 violence. According t o JaneWilliamson, the termination of the refugeestatus of som e of these people who remainin Bangkok i too hasty, even going byUNHCRguidelines, and is based on a flawedanalysis of the p ermanence of theCambodian peace. Williamson is workingwith other lawyers for the Jesuit RefugeeService in Bangkok in appealing thesedecisions and can see that this is part of abigger trend in the UN's refugee agency.'There is a shift going on within UNHCRaway from permanent protection towardstemporary protection of refugees. Currentthinking is that it is better to keep peoplecloser to home in the hope that they canreturn when peace com es.'Williamson can see the benefits of thisapproach. It is part of a more durableV OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 11

esolution to the conflicts that producemass exodus, rather than m erely copingwith refugee problems as they arise. Shefeels the downside is that it works againstthose w ho come to Thailand in search ofasylum in a third country. She can also see,however, that UNHCR is under pressurefor tight interpretations of the RefugeeConvention.'UNHCR does not want to annoyWestern embassies in Bangkok by producinga constant stream of persons of concernwho then have to be considered forresettlement. Nor do they want to get theThai Government offside by turningBangkok into an even greater hub forillegals through a higher rate of~ recognition.'.1. HE ABILITY smugglers have to get theirhuman cargo past immigration and check-inat Bangkok's Don Muang airport has led toa colla boration between immigrationofficers from the US, Canadian, UK, N ewZealand and Australian embassies. Sincethe beginning of May they have beenworking in shifts out at the airport,collaborating with airline staff, who refersuspicious cases to them. From 6am to lamevery day, there is a compliance officer onhand to intercept illcgals travelling to anyof th ese countries. In the first two monthsthat the roster was in place, 450 illegalswere stopped. The Canadian embassyestimates that around 150 got through .'A good smuggler knows everything,'says a Sri Lankan refugee who prefers not tobe named. 'If you don't have a visa, they canorganise for Thai Tm migration to give you astamp and they also have contacts workingfor the airlines as well who will issue aboarding pass, maybe for $2000-3000.'He has lived in Thailand for eight yearswithout official status because Thailand isnot a signatory to the 1951 Conventiongoverning refugees. His applications forresettlement to anum ber of embassies havebeen rejected as attitudes towards Tamilasylum seek ers have h arden ed. In· cated by'cials from peopleard flights toers, sometimes itdesperation, he tried to get to N ew Zealandby buying a duplicate Belgian passport andarranging a boa rding-card swap with alegitimate Belgian passport holder.'What happens is he has a ticket for N ewZealand, I have one for Singapore whereI don' t n eed a visa,' he explains. 'Ourpassports are the same except for the photoevenhis initial was the sam e as mine.'Once we get through we swap boardingcards and tickets. He goes to Singapore andI go to N ew Zealand.'He go t as far as buying the fake passportfor US$500 before the holder of the originalpassport pulled out.To the naked eye, fake pa ssportsconfiscated by embassy officials from peopletrying to board flights to Australia looknear to perfect. Produced with the use ofscanners, sometimes it is only the paperquality that gives them away as fakes.Embassies organise training of airline staffto help them detect bogus passports, butdespite this, and the risk of punitivedamages, it is easy for busy check-in staff tomiss picking up a good fake.The Department of Immigration admitsthat it is impossible to stop everybody tryingt o get to Australia by illegal m ean s,particularly as the smugglers seek out thepaints of least resistance. Already theDepartment suspects that the improvementin surveillance at Don Muang airport isshifting traffic to regional ports not watchedas closely as Bangkok's. 'Ill ega ls' fly fromBangkok to Seoul, Taipei or Singapore, forexample, before heading to Australia.And n ew routes into Australia areconstantly being found. In the last week ofJuly, two undocumented Iraqis arrived inPerth on a Thai airways flight that departsfrom Don Muang but stops in Phuket onthe way.An Australian journalist, based inBangkok for many years, says that he wasapproached late at night in a hostess bar inBangkok's Patpong by two men claiming tobe Sri La nkan.'They asked if I was Australian and thenwanted to know ifl was in teres ted in makingsom e money. Naturally I was interested, soI asked what they had in mind.'They told m e that I would have a ticketfor Perth bought in m y name while anotherperson wanting to go to Australia wouldhave a ticket for Phuket on the same flight.After boarding the flight in Bangkok, wewould som ehow swap boarding cards andI would leave the pl ane in Phuket as adomestic passenger w hile the other guywould head on to Perth.'They assured m e that they had a contactin Thai immigration who would stamp meback into the country a couple of clays late r.For that they said they would pay US$300plus $100 to live on in Phuket while waitingto get the stamp.'I asked if the other guy was some sort ofcriminal, but they assured me he was agenuine refugee.'The name of an Australian passportholder appeared on the fli ght list on bothdays the illegal Iraqis arrived.A highly placed official in the ThaiImmigra tion Department recognises thatpeople will always get through. Don Muangairport hosts 20,000 passengers every clayand it is difficult, he argues, to ask Thailandto control the outflow to Australia whenAustralia cannot control its own border .So much money is made by the smugglersthat it is natural to presume, he suggests,that immigration officials who might earnthe equivalent of A$600 a month would betempted by bribes. In the last two yearsThai authorities have broken two counterfeitrings, only a fraction of those involved,according to diplomatic sources.While all the parties concerned in thetraffic of illega l migran ts acknowledge thepresence of Bangk ok-based smuggli ngoperations, it is difficult to find people who12 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

will talk about who they are and where theyoperate. Alan says it is wrong to think ofthese people as having a barber-shop shingleout the front and a fake passport factory outthe back.'They do not work out of any one place.Maybe they will meet in a hotel lobby or ina coffee shop and then they will go elsewhereto organise their business.'They might show off their wealth butthey do not want to show off how theymake it.'Not only do Middle Eastern operatorswork out of Sukhumvit Soi 3 (LittleArabia), but reportedly out of the GraceHotel that fronts it-Thai immigrationdescribes it as the centre of most of thisactivity. Other areas exist as well, such as'Soi Karachi' near the GPO, where Pakistanigroups organise passage to JapanK andtheUS.HAO SAN RoAD, the street famed forbeing patronised by backpackers, is also aplace where passports and visas can bebought, according to 'Andy', another Iraqiexile. Andy worked in Jordan as a mechanicfor three-and-a-half years to raise the moneyto buy an original Maltese passport that gothim to Bangkok. He has been here for sixmonths and is now working for traffickersas a courier.'I pick up the passport here and thenI take it there and collect the money, 200baht (A$8) for the taxi and 300 baht (A$12)for me. I am illegal so this is what I have todo to live.'Andy has worked for Iranians, Pakistanisand Palestinians. Som etimes he meets themat the Grace Hotel, sometimes Khao San.He believes they can organise anything,because they have the money.'In Bangkok all of us are poor, or aresaving our money, but they have so muchmoney. Everything is money and you can'tstop them.'Andy also suggests that their anonymityis protected by fear.'Everybody knows everybody in thisplace,' he says, pointing towards the line ofrestaurants, 'but not so well they can trusteach other. These men are very bad ...very bad.'The smuggler for whom Andy workshas an original Dominican Republicpassport with an Arabic name on it. Andy isthinking he might be able to buy it forunder US$1000 and, with a scalpel,substitute his photo for the original. Thenhe will fly to China and then from there tothe Dominican Republic before going overlandinto the US. He shows me the passportand asks me to translate the personal detailsfrom the Spanish. He will go in the hopethat no-one bothers to question him.'People trust the smugglers because theyare desperate, they are on the run, they arescared, and they come here with all theirmoney ready to spend,' Alan observes. 'Afriend of mine is here. He does not knowwhere his wife and children are. He didn'tknow anybody in Bangkok.'A Pakistani who knew some Arabicoverheard him talking on the phone oneday and promised to helphim get to Australia. Hehanded over US$4000 andhis passport and that wasthe last he saw of him.'Those in search of abetter life are ripe pickingsfor gifted con men.Twelve months ago,Thailand changed visaregulations for arrivalsfrom the People's Republicof China. The requirementthat a visa had to beobtained prior to arrivalwas repealed and nowPRC Chinese are givenvisas on arrival. This wasdesigned to bring in moretourists to boost the cashstrappedThai economy.It has, however, started aflow from China of peoplewishing to settle andwork in Thailand's extensive Chinesecommunity.When an ethnic Chinese with anAustralian passport was apprehended inBangkok in mid July for falsely advertisingworking visas for the Olympics, it wassuspected that recent PRC Chinese arrivalswere his target. He ran an advertisement forthe first two weeks of June in a Chineselanguagenewspaper published in Bangkok.The ad called for applicants to work infields as varied as broadcast media and foodpreparation. It also asked for US$2600 for avisa and intensive English training.When police arrested him h e hadUS$3500 in his possession and around 200names on his books. He has since beencharged with misrepresentation, whichcarries a maximum penalty of five yearsimprisonment and/or a 10,000-baht fine.Once they get on to a flight to Australiapeople with false documents most often ripup and dispose of what they have so as notto be sent back to their last port of call forhaving improper documentation. If theyclaim asylum yet do not have any papers,the Department of Immigration must firstprove that they are not refugees beforeturning them around. But even with thistactic in operation, the Department hasfound cause to send some back within twodays of their arrival. After spending theirlife's savings and dodging and weavingtheir way on to a plane bound for Australia,they end up in a holding cell at an Asianairport. Without any papers, they have noway forward or back. Currently anunknown number of Iraqis sent back fromAustralia are being held at Don Muangairport with no clarification of their status.One is reported to have been therefor six months.ITIS NOT ONLY IN AU STRALIA that the wallsare going up. Every Western country ismaking it more difficult for 'illegals' toarrive. But the more that barriers are erected,the more the opportunities for humantraffickers.Ron Skeldon is doubtful that thegovernment's recent initiatives will havetheir desired effect.'Illegal migration is in fact a function ofinadequate legal channels available forpeople to migrate. You are never going tostop the movement of people. We are nowmore mobile than we have ever been before,'he says.'One would expect that Australia willsee more illegal arrivals rather than less.What is more sensible is to allow the flowVOLUME 9 NU MBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 13

of migration but to control it with shorttermvisas and the like.'If the migration is legal then it can bemonitored; it is visible. If it is illegal thenthey are invisible-they just disappear.'A decision by Britain's High Court inearly August recognised that asylum seekerswere being dealt with unfairly underm easures designed to stop illegal entries.The ruling on three test cases decided thatthe UK governmen t, in jailing somewherebetween 500 and 1000 asylum seekers forusing forged docum ents since 1994, was incontravention of article 31 of the RefugeeConvention. T his article states that noasylum seeker should be penalised forentering a country illegally.In the crackdown on illegal migration(on asylum seekers, in particular), the urbanrefugee-who is not part of a mass movementof people such as that witnessed outof Kosovo-is becoming unwelcome byassociation. And they are trying to com e toa country that is both scared and angry.Scared by a new influx of boat-people andan gered by spurious appeal s in theAustralian courts by people trying to delayeviction. In this clima te the government ismore and more viewing asylum seekers asonly illegal entrants and overstayers.But a world away from the argumentabout na tiona! integrity versus in terna tiona!obligations, are people like Hussein, Alanand Andy. Three very different m en withdifferent pasts, yet all caught between somewhere and somewhere else.I asked Alan what he would do if hiscase was rejected by UNHCR. 'Som ethingillegal,' he said with a shrug.•Jon Greenaway is Eureka Street's SouthEast Asia correspondent.What price hospitality?L TWO me Au"'"li'n ""d" 'boutrefugees this year have been the arrival ofKosovo refugees and the coming of people byboat to populated regions of Australia.T h e governm ent had originallyannounced that it would not be givingsh elter in Australia to Kosovo refugees, butwas immediately forced, by a massive publicreaction, to offer them temporary residence.During their stay, they have been welcomedby the Australian public and particularly bythe communities surrounding the facilitieswhere they have been housed. Apart fromoccasional official defensiven ess in the faceof complaints abo ut conditions, orsuggestions that they might be allowedpermanent residence, the response to themhas been unfailingly warm.In the first half of this year, boa ts for thefirst time brought people seeking residencein Australia to the populated eastern coastof Australia. Public response has beenhostile to these people, who are perceivedas invaders breaching Australian territorialintegrity. Com menta tors have not discussedthe conditions in the nations they left, norany need they may have for asyl um; theyhave focused o n the commercial andcriminal involvement in their travel. Theboats have been said to have been charteredby criminal gangs, and the people to havebeen drawn by fra udulent advertising.T he very different response perhapsindicates that in the public mind, refugeesare not defined by their danger or theirneed, but by whether they have been invitedto come to Australia.If that is the case, Australian attitudesto refugees and im.migrants are notunrepresentative. Australia, indeed, is oneof the few nations that accepts immigrants.Most nations admit people only on working,tourist or other temporary visas. But theattitude of the present government toimmigration has been unenthusiastic; ithas been criticised for its narrowness byboth state governments and by businessgroups. Immigration is seen as undesirableboth for its short-term economic costs andfor the social pressures which it is perceivedto entail at a time of relatively highunemployment.Accordingly, the number of immigrantsadmitted to Australia is low. Theemphasis on economic factors, too, has ledto an increased emphasis on businessmigrants, and to a smaller quota of familymembers. In personal terms, this m eansthat immigrants wait longer before theycan be reunited with their spouses orparents.As is the case elsewhere, the emphasisof the Department of Immigration andMulticultural Affairs in Australia hasshifted from welcoming immigrants toexcluding unwelcome residents. Whenissuing visas, the Department takes intoaccount the likelihood that people willoverstay their visas or apply for permanentresidence. Given that these categories willinclude many people from poor or troublednations, applicants from these parts areoften refused visas. Those who do overstayvisas are s ubj ect t o detention and topenalties which will make it m ore difficultfor them to return to Australia.The human consequences of this policysurface only occasionally at times of publiccontroversy about the face w hich Australiapresents to the world. Many Third Worlddelegates to a conference for the deaf, forexample, were recently refused admissionto Australia.When v isitors and applicants forresidence are evaluated on the economicbenefits they bring and by their readiness toreturn without trouble, on-shore asylumseekers will be strongly discouraged and alllegitimate administrative m eans will beused to exclude and deter them. They willeffectively, if not legally, be regarded aslawbreakers. The initial popular reactionto the detention of asylum seekers is often,'They broke the law, and so theydeserve to be in jail. 'EOR ASYLUM SEEKERS in Australia, the arrivalof the Kosovo refugees has been a mixedblessing. The efforts to make them feelwelcome, particularly by local communitygroups, have been exemplary, and havedrawn attention t o Australia's oftenneglectedaltruistic urge. But the Kosovorefugees have also drawn attention andresources away from oth er needy groups.Indeed, the argument behind the government'sinitial decision not to receive Kosovorefugees had some validity. To offer shelterat such distance is massively expensive,and, in principle, resources would be moreeffectively spent closer to Kosovo.14 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

Perhaps the group mostforgotten are the East Timoreseasylum seekers, m any of whomhave been waiting for certaintyabout their status for six years.While they are no longer anirritant in Australian relationshipswith Indonesia, the chan gein Indonesia and in East Timor,together with the focus on Kosovorefugees, has taken them out ofthe public spotlight. But theyrem ain no less needy or anxious,and their claim for residence isno less pressing than before.The arrival of Kosovorefugees also led the government hurriedly to introducelegislation allowing temporaryresiden ce for refu gees. Thelegisl a tion , w hich did n o treceive the ben efit of communitycon sultation , m ayadversely affect future asylumseekers. While the legislationwas occasioned by the Kosovocrisis, it refl ects a growingin t ern a tiona l inter est inrestricting refugees' access top erman ent residence. Thehuman consequences of suchlegislation lie in the anxiety andlack of motivation that breedwhen people cannot plan fo rtheir future because they maybe sent back to their own landswhen the situation is deem edto have changed. The legislationis therefore of concern.T h e situation of m ostasylum seekers in Australiaremains precarious. Detentionis entrenched, despite its m ani-fest destructiveness. After a few m onths indetention, m ost asylum seekers complainof depression and difficulty in sleeping.This is inevitable when people dealing withloss are deprived of freedom and of thenormal interchanges that ordinarily distractu s from our problem s. In the last twom onths, incidents at Port Hedland andMelbourne have received publicity. In bothcases, the pressures caused by prolongeddetention were a significant factor in theincidents. T he response-transferring thoseresponsible to prison- treats the symptomand not the cause. It also further confirmsthe assumption that asylum seekers arecriminals who have broken laws by comingto Australia and have only to return to theirown lands to be free of their hardship.Inside informationThe following is an extract from a letter by refugee claimants at the MaribyrnongDetention Centre. in which they describe their situation:'The Australian Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs maintains a policywherein those requesting refugee status and asylum seekers arc placed in mandatorydetention. If this policy implied an initial period (e .g. three months), during whichthe Department began or completed the process of determination of each case then,we believe, this period of waiting could be sustained by most without psychologicaldamage. However, for the majority of detainees, the waiting time is much, muchlonger. For some, it extends more than two years and the outcome of such confinementis clearly destructive. Those who formulate these policies rarely, if ever, comeinto contact with any of the people living undcrthcsc conditions. As you know, refugeeshave experienced tragedy, trauma and dispossession of family, friends and country.Consequently, detention places enormous stress on each person with the imposedinactivity, with the outbursts (at times violent) which occur from built-up tensionand with 'flashbacks', reminders from past trauma.'We came to Australia with healthy minds, aware of the upheavals and injusticesin our native countries. We came desperate to find hope for our future. Yet we see thatthe Australian Department of Immigration policy brings about the gradual destructionof our hope. Our world is very much aware of what unemployment can do to peopleof working age. Our question: "Is the Immigration Department aware of whatinactivity in confinement can do to a person?"'The detrimental effects of detention can be verified by officers, doctors, nurses,lawyers, visitors and others who have contact with detainees. The common symptomsarc stress, migraine, depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, inability to concentrate.These arc usually treated with medication and some residents arc sedated, but themajority of detainees refuse to resort to this. While we get medical treatment, theenclosure of the detention centre can only increase the pain and suffering.'A major concern for us is the children. Women have given birth while here andyoung children spend their lives confined within barbed wire fences. We have askedourselves again and again, "Is this the democratic country we thought we werecoming to? " or "Is this a country where the abuse of human rights and the rights of thechild is ignored?" The Department seems to have no understanding of the suffering theycontinue to inflict upon us who arc in fact seeking sanctuary.' -4 August 1999Criminals, how ever, are senten cedbefore they are detained and can lookforward to a defin ed day of release.Meanwhile, the government continues topropose legislation that would limit asylumseekers' access to the courts, a proposalthat has n ot so far won the support of theOpposition .Where asylum seekers are regarded asobjects of control rather than as subjects ofrights, it is to be expected that they will betreated in inhumane ways. The deportationto China of a pregnant wom an who facedforcible abortion on return was the m ostpublicised recent case. Sedation, forcedfeeding, rem oval without warning, and theuse of private security firms to get detaineesback to their country of origin, are som e ofthe other practices that the government hasdefended. Su ch practices have understandablybeen m ade the subject of awide-reaching Senate Inquiry.To com e close to people affected byAustralian refugee policy is often to bedistressed on their behalf. But refugees arethe symptom of the lack of an effectivewill to en sure the equitable distribu tion ofthe world's resources. Refugees normallycome from nations whose share of thew orld's wealth i s diminishing. Theharshness of their reception in developedcountries reflects the desire to protectprivilege.•Andrew Hamilton SJ teaches at the UnitedFaculty of Theology, Melbourne.V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 15

negotiate with Sinn Fein over power-sharingarrangements. And, on the proviso that theIrish Constitution was amended to abolisha (symbolic) territorial claim over the sixcounties, they agreed to the Irish Government'staking on a limited role in relationto the province's affairs.All this was done on the premise thatthere would be som e concrete evidencethat, as far as the IRA was concerned, thewar was over. The evidence in that regard ismixed.The British Weekly Telegraph newspaperreported on 7 July that significantIRA members are defecting to splintergroups committed to hiding their weaponsand continuing the violent struggle. TheTelegraph stated that British and Irishsecurity forces (Special Branch, MIS and theIrish Gardai) had intelligence that the IRAhas enough weapons to conduct a full-scalewar for about six months. On 4 August, itreported the seizure of eight consignmentsof gu ns from the US to Ireland, apparentlyheaded for the Northern Irish republicans.Retired Canadian General, John deChastelain, has been appointed to head thedecommissioning body, but in early July hewas able to report to negotiators at StormontCastle that the only paramilitaryorganisation willing to commit itself todisarmament was a splinter Loyalist group.Little if any progress has been made sincethat time. But there has been no reversionto terrorist campaigns by para militaries ofeither side (despite the odd, aberrant acts bybreakaway die-hards).In an attempt to break the deadlockbetween the Unionists and Sinn Fein/IRA,British and Irish PMs, Blair and Ahern,drew up a blueprint, 'The Way Forward', forthe implementation of the Good FridayAgreement. Sinn Fein was to be allowed tojoin the government on 15 July; the IRAwas to commence disarming within weeksand to complete that process by May 2000;the Internati onal Commission onDecommissioning was to set a timetablefor and confirm the commencement ofdecommissioning; and, most significantly,the new government and assembly were tobe suspended by the UK Government ifdecommissioning was not carried outsatisfactorily.There are obvious problems with thisplan. First, it ransoms the future of NorthernIrish elf-government and power-sharing tothe IRA. Second, even if the IRA gi ves anunequivocal pledge to disarm, the dissidentsand splinter groups are not parties to theagreement. Third, there is no fail-safeW .Seeking a way•1 a eALL HAVE DOG-DAYS WHEN, even if we do not go so far as longing to be delivered fromthis body of death, we at least dream of other forms of employment. Accordingly, my hopeswere temporarily raised recently by an article by Gerald Bray in Themelios, a solidperiodical from the Conservative Evangelical school. It was entitled 'Rescuing Theologyfrom the Theologians'. If the prisoner is set free, I mused, its kidnappers might also be freeto do something more interesting.It was an enjoyable read: Bray echoed my prejudices. He wants theologically informedpreaching that decently conceals its academic plumbing: 'I have a personal rule aboutthis-if a preacher refers to the "meaning of the Greek" during the sermon, there is troubleahead.' His main concern, however, was to insist that the task of theology is to articulatethe faith of the church, and not to present a smorgasbord from it or to make compost outof it for a secular flower bed.So far, so good. The difficulty comes, however, when we try to say with any precisionhow theologians will serve the church properly with their work. Recent periodicals, whichdisplay multifarious ways of doing theology, underline the difficulty.Some theologians, for example, are concerned to speak out of the Gospel to theirculture. The most recent copy of Interpretation (April 1999), with the resounding title'Apocalypse 2000' takes up the way in which the structure and imagery of the Book of theApocalypse has helped shape cultural expectations and political rhetoric in the UnitedStates. It has provided a language and imagery for reflecting on the social hopes anddiscontents of different ages. The article shows, incidentally, how malign can be the resultswhen churches assume that they have access to the meaning of Biblical texts withoutrecourse to critical enquiry.In contrast to this work of exposition, the notable Croatian-born theologian MiroslavVol£ reflects from a Christian perspective on the formative metaphors of social life(Concilium 1999/2). In his work, Volf has built a theology around the great them es ofreconciliation and inclusion. In this article he examines the metaphor of the contract, onewhich emphasises freedom of individual choice. But it also encourages a view of ocialrelationship as shallow and impermanent. Vol£ is more enthusiastic about the recent useof covenant as a central metaphor, but points out that in Christian terms covenant isinseparably linked to sacrifice and costly love. These extend beyond inclusion to embrace.Other theologians reflect on life within the churches. They meet the paradox that tobuild and understand life within a tradition, you need to go outside it. In Studio Liturgica(1999/lL for example, Eugene Brand discusses Lutheran liturgical reform in the UnitedStates. He makes the obvious but easily missed point that in developing liturgy in English,the Lutherans inevitably had to draw on the experience, ritual and language of otherchurches. He shows, too, how more recent liturgical reform in the Catholic Church hasnecessarily been done ecumenically.Nevertheless, theologians properly reflect on the practice of their own churche . In theNew Theology Review (May 1999), Michael Lawler presents ten theses on divorce andremarriage. He is concerned with the sad exclusion from communion of so many divorcedand remarried Catholics. Since Luther's time, theses, whether nailed to doors or not, havehad a combative and controversial edge. These are no exception, for Lawler addresses headonthe theological justifications for exclusion. These include the arguments that the handsof the church are tied because Jesus forbade divorce and remarriage, that the practice of thechurch has always excluded it, and that the risk of scandal forbids the divorced and remarriedfrom being admitted to communion. Lawler argues that in the N ew Te tament there arediverse teachings about marriage and divorce, that early church practice shows no sign ofhands being tied, and that the current Catholic attitudes have developed through historicalcontingency, and sometimes inconsistently. On this base, he argues for pastoral flexibility.I would argue that in his theses Lawler perhaps overplays his historical hand. But hisarticle provides an example of a theologian properly at work articulating the faith of thechurch. The evils caused by exclusion from the sacraments are so great that conventionalwisdom needs to be sifted in robust discussion.•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'sweaponry, so that there can be no realconfidence in the disarmament processunless large amounts of ordnan ce arepublicly exposed and 'decommissioned'.The plan was rejected by the Unionists.But to focus on the problems is to denythe reality that for two years the IRA/SinnFein position on cease£ ire has demonstrablybeen that they are committed to thecons ti tu tiona! process-all republicanterrorism since the ceasefire was announcedhas apparently been committed bybreakaway groups.It is too much to expect that loyalistsand republicans will embrace each other, atleast for the foreseeable future. But, as thepeople of Northern Ireland become used topeace, they will surely demand constitutional,democratic solutions to theirproblems, rather than a resumption oflow-grade civil war. The benefits of peaceare already being experienced. There is nofuture in armed struggle. It is hard to trustand compromise with an armed enemytheIRA should take the high moral groundand begin to disarm. -Hugh DillonCold comfortL ERE WAS AN AIR of expectancy on the daythe first Kosovo refugees were due to arrivein Australia. The hourly radio news serviceupdated their progress through the skiesfrom the other side of the globe. Sensitiveto the health needs and cultural beliefs ofour gu ests, Qantas served no fruit juice oralcohol on the trip. The movies shown onboard were carefully selected to be light andfunny- no drama or war scenes.Preparations on the ground seemed noless considerate. The reception was thoughtfullylow key-a short informal welcome atthe airport by the Prime Minister and hiswife, without intrusion from the press.Local communities were briefed abouttheir new neighbours. Halal m eat wasarranged. Community interpreters wererecruited and trauma counsellors provided,not only for the refugees but also to debriefthe interpreters coping with too many talesof human misery. Australia might be faraway, but could be relied upon to hostpeople deserving of the world's care andsupport.But then radio news bulletins began toreport on negotiations with Kosovo'protesters' refusing to leave the buses whichhad transported them to the Singletonbarracks in NSW. Their unequivocaldegree winter temperaturesof 'sunny Australia'. And topeople from Kosovo with awell-founded fear of perilouscold, the heating arrangementsseemed remarkablycasual. Then there was theproblem of privacy-paperthinwalls made a nightcough a shared event and thecommunal shower blocksoffended reasonable requirementsof modesty.A cynical interpretationof these makeshift arrangementswould be that itcommunicated the nonetoo-subtlemessage thatAustralia was a 'temporarydemand was to return to the more congenialSydney reception centre. For a nation whichhad recognised and defended the right tostrike as a legitimate form of political action,our response was remarkably punitive. The'rebels' were refused food and water whilethey stayed on the buses. After a torrid 31hours, only a small family of three, includinga frail 74-year-old grandm other, remainedsteadfast, refusing to budge.The list of grievances about conditionsat the Singleton camp were, by any objectivecriteria, reasonable. The army had longceased housing its robust young 18- 21-yearoldrecruits there except for weekendbivouacs-the living conditions were tooprimitive. The toilet and shower blockswere some 100 metres from the barracks,too far for the elderly, young and sick totrek, especially at night-time in the tworeciprocityhere preserve the form, but notthe spirit, of hospitali ty-you 'shout' around of drinks in the expectation that yourmates will do likewise imm ediately. Theunderstanding is that you might 'bring aplate', but always 'grog', if invited to dinner.Such rigid co-obligations are surprising forso affluent a society where there is littlerisk of eating (or drinking) your hosts 'out ofhouse and h ome'.Australians are not deliberately coldhearted.But we set cultural store by puttingup with hardship. Floods, fire and droughtare meant to be borne with stoicforbearance.With obvious machismo, Senator JohnTierney rushed to the Singleton army base,bounced up and down on the beds anddeclared that he found the room so hot hehad to turn the heating down. 'The showersare outside, all right,' he chuckled. 'It's a bitlike a caravan park.' TheAustralian standard is theable-bodied bloke, not the--~~t Q h .~rtilhaven', not a comfortable permanent'hom e'. The government's generosity wasalso politically cautious-the refu geesshould not be seen to be queue-jumping forresources inadequately provided to disadvantagednationals. There was a 'budget'for this humanitarian venture. Dollars, notthe needs of people, determined the qualityof services and facilities.How do we make sense of this publicmean-spiritedness in a culture which pridesitself on its friendliness and willingness tohelp others? An anthropologist, for example,might conclude that, judged by worldstandards, Australian culture is notparticularly hospitable. In many societies,the obligation of the 'host' is to provide thevery best to a 'guest', even at considerablepersonal sacrifice. The honour of the host,the family and 'tribe' depends upon it. Bycontrast, Australians have cultivatedindividualist self-sufficiency. The rules ofweak and vulnerable.Some of these dominantcultural ideals might havebeen functional in a harshnew environment. Othersmay even be understandableas part of the value system ofa former (and predominantlymale) penal colony. Thepersistence of such normsdespite massive immigration,however, says much aboutthe superficiality of ourmuch-lauded cultural fl exibility.Positive values suchas the long-standing Austral­ian concerns with social justice and equityare imperilled if our generosity is arbitrarilyconfined to helping those we define as'mates' because they share our own values.There was som ething shameful and uglyin our unsympathetic response towardpeople forced into the unenviable role ofreluctant gu ests. We have cause to beembarrassed. But there is a positive in allthis: as our multicultural experiencerepeatedly demonstrates, encounters withother ways of seeing the world provideuseful opportunities to learn a little moreabout ourselves.-Kathy LasterThis month's contributors: Edm undCampion is an emeritus professor of theCatholic Institute of Sydney; Hugh Dillon'spaternal grandfather claimed to be an IRAvolunteer in the 1920s; Kathy Laster teacheslaw and legal studies at LaTrobe University.18 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

Of fertility, Inotility and abilityA NY UNG,

The state of VictoriaIVictoriaAmid football fina ls, the spring racing carnival and the opening of the new tollway system,is heading for elections. Moira Rayner looks at the condition of democracy andcivil 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 labelledhigher, especially among young voters and democratic liberalism of Hamer and Cain. disloyal, selfish and un-Victorian, andyoung males in particular, in the newer Victoria was the cradle of a liberalism which dismissed. His government's willingnessouter suburbs of Melbourne. His has been a used state intervention to achieve equality to seek out major events, such as the Grandremarkable metamorphosis. Even as he led of opportunity, so important to liberal Prix, and create new projects, such as thethe coalition to its massive landslide into philosophers such as John Stuart Mill. Since Docklands stadium, City Link and Crowngovernment in 1992, Kennett was widely 1992 that public infrastructure, established Casino, has invigorated business (and aseen as a clumsy, impulsive politician, pronecertain chauvinism). The Victorian premierto gaffes, personal abuse and intemperatehas also embraced multiculturalism (one ofgestures. (He would rather we forget hishis most attractive acts was his genuineinfamous mobile phone conversation withrejection of One Nation policies), supportedAndrew Peacock in which he described hismoves to liberalise laws to allow the termipoliticalcolleague, John Howard, in four-nally ill to die with dignity, and (off and on)letter words, and his repeated interjectionsadvocated drug law reform. He is,when Joan Kirner, then Minister, spoke inT of course, a minimalist republican.the Victorian parliament, that she was a'stupid woman'.) Even as her LaborEMOSTPROFOuNoeffectsofthe Kennettadministration was definitively rejected byreign, however, strike at the heart of goodthe people, in 1992 Joan Kirner was still bygovernance. These transformations arefar the people's preferred premier.complete and probably cannot be undone.Now, as the celebrity premier, with hisIn the name of small government, freecarefullycrafted 'rough-diamond' mediamarket policies, and individual choice, noimage, heads into his third electoral contest,area-not even justice-h as been leftand an undoubted third win, it is hard tountouched. Paradoxically, the effect has beenrecall (and younger voters simply don't)an increase in central government controlthat this was the man dismissed as aand regulation, largely under the personal'boofhead' in the '80s and a buffoon in thecontrol of the premier himself. Even the'90s. The Teflon premier personifies hisheads of the departments report not to theirgovernment, thriving despite scandals,ministers, but to the premier, personally.professional opposition and popular protestThe greatest changes came quickly, asat the wholesale changes wrought, in justthe new administration cashed in on theseven years, in the structures of govern-atmosphere of 'crisis' which it could blameance. He has effectively silenced his critics, over 150 years of conservative administra- on Labor. But benefits-such as theboth within and outside his government tors (Labor governed for just 19 years in all) minimisation of state debt through publicandhisparty.Hehasnoheirapparent:there has been dismantled. The 'conservative' asset sales and the efficiencies ofis no sign that he has any plans, or another social and political culture which saw privatisation, corporatisation and restrucplace,to go . Jeff Kennett's face is an icon, as Melbourne described as 'grim city', the turing of the public sector-have come atNicholas 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 toRevolution (UNSW Press, 1999), of 'the It is timely to review what Kennett has industrial relations have been immense. Inmost robust example of the way the Liberal wrought. reframing the employment market, forParty of Australia's approach to govern- The most obvious change is the example, Victoria abolished the old awardment and politics altered under the personification of government in one man. system and Industrial Relations Commisinfluenceof neo-classical liberalism'. Victoria has a new verb: to be ' jeffed'. Jeff's sion in 1993, then simply handed over itsAs Costar and Economou write, the foibles, now he is so powerful, seem amusing, own new system to the Commonwealth inVictoria of 1999 has thoroughly cast off reportable, and almost endearing. The 1997. In the process, it abolished its owntraditionalliberalism, both the paternalism bullying tone has softened into cajoling and (not particu lar! y tame) creature, the20 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

Employee Relations Commission, anddismissed its Commissioners, for a secondtime. ERC President, Susan Zeitz, was notappointed to the federal body-a breach ofthe doctrine which requires judicial officersto be appointed to equivalen t office in orderto maintain tenure and the public interestin judicial independence. But th e Kennettgovernment has been characterised by awillingness to eliminate statutory andjudicial watchdogs on its activities.The government has dealt with 'justice'with the same policies it has used in all itsother reform s. It has abolished independentoffices, such as the Law Reform Commission,and removed the inconvenien t powers(and sometimes the incumbents) of officessuch as the Director of Public Prosecutions.It has privatised 'justice' m echanisms, suchas prisons (leading to a 1999 coronia! inqueston excessive deaths in custody in the PortPhilip prison), chipped away the jurisdictionof the Suprem e Court (and cut out access tojudicial review entirely, in some notoriouscases), and in creased access costs andobstacles to administrative tribunals.But the greatest change is to Victoriansociety. The introduction of a gamblingculture has had a detrimental effect both onthe econom y (now reliant on its gamblingrevenue) and on social well-being, as therecent Productivity Commission Report hasrevealed. The restructuring of local government, and ch anges in the n ature andavailability of community services-healthcare and state education, particularlychan ged the r ole of n on-governmentorganisations and their capacity to advocatethe interests of the disadvantaged.This has all been possible because of the1992 election, which handed over controlof both houses of parliam ent to the executive.Without an effective opposition, withlimitation s on freedom of info rmation andthe right to seek judicial review of administrativeaction, with the growing use of'commercial-in-confidence' exemptions tothe duty to disclose public expenditure, andwith the gutting of the office of Auditor­General, there is now virtually no check onexecutive power in Victoria. This isunhealthy for representative dem ocracy,and is certain, over time, to lead to abuse.One of the greatest casu alties of the lastseven years has been the status and influenceof t h e m edia. Politician s m ust b eaccountable and not just through elections.Since the Victorian parliam ent no longerprovides a check on administration, the'watchdog' role of the m edia, scrutinisinggovernment's daily activities and thepolitical process, b ecomes far moreimportant. But in this, Victoria's mediah ave been remarkably ineffectual. Them assaging of th e message through publicrelations, entertainment and the advertisingfocus of the administration-the premierused to be in advertising-has been brilliant.As the new premier, Jeff Kennett justrefused to deal with journalists he regardedas not on side. In one 1994 ABC televisionreport, ABC journalist Ian Campbell shotfootage of a sad little group of reportersreduced, in their search for comment onm atters of the day, to h anging out in th eanteroom of commercial radio station3AW, scribbling notes as a loudspeakertransmitted a Kennett interview withthat station's N eil Mitchell-a scenereminiscent of Queensland premier JohBjelke-Petersen's 'chooks' scrabbling for afew grains of news. T h e media's impotencewas perhaps sym bolised by the very publiccollapse on Channel 7 by an upset anchorwoman,Jill Singer, imm ediately after sheannounced that a profiled story on MrKennett's share-dealings had been pulledm om ents before she went on air. She latergave sworn evidence that this was afterdirect intervention from the premier withstation m anagem ent.Both the m ajor Melbourne daily papershave broken stori es which, if the peoplehad reacted, could have destroyed theKennett government. Each has revealedscandals at the h eart of governmentprobity-the tendering process fo r thecasino, the detrimental effects of the newgambling culture, child protection scandals,ministerial m isuse of government creditcards, extraordinary share-dealings, andeven gross, person al ministerial m isbehaviour.Yet whatever they reported, thepublic either wasn't listening, or couldn'tbe influenced.This was a true achievem ent, within sosh ort a time. It h as been t emporallyassociated, perhaps coincidentally, withchanges in The Age, once a quality broadsheetwhich has seen several changes ineditorial direction and today has a ' tabloid'feel, a 'lifes tyle' em phasis, and a sinkingcirculation .What are we left with? A can -do,ideologically driven, undoubtedly efficien t,cen tralised, authoritarian an d, for th em om ent, unchallengeable executive whoseethos is wrapped up in the personalitypackaging of just one m an .•Moira Rayner is a lawyer and freelancejournalist.+The Inaugurallgnatian Forumconducted byJ esuit Social ServicesMelbourne's Drug Dilemma:Harm Minimisation orControl?The Lord Mayor of MelbourneThe Rt. Hon. P e t e r CostiganandBernie GearyJ esuit Social Services Program DirectorPremier's Drug Advisory Council MemberArchbishop Pel/'s Drug PolicyCommittee MemberThursday, 16 September 19997.30 pm-9.30 pmSt Ignatius School Hall326 Church Street, Richmond(Parking available behind church)Entr ance by donation:$10 adult, $5 concession/studentFor furth er infor mation, contact:John AllenDevelopmen t ManagerJ esuit Social ServicesTel: (03) 9427 7388The Centre for ChristianSpiritualityPrincipal: Bishop David WalkerAssociate Member institute of the SydneyCollege of DivinityDistance Education Programs inTheology and Spiritualityincluding:Certificate in Theology (SCD)Bachelor of Theology (SCD)Gradu ate Diploma in Chri sti anSpirituali ty (SCD)Master of Arts in Theological Studies(SCD)The Centre also offers casual Bed/Breakfast accommodati on and confere ncefac ilities in the heart of Randwick.Further Information:The AdmjnistratorPO Box 20 1,Rand wick, 203 1Ph: (02)939822 1 I,Fax: (02)93995228Email : centre@ intern et-australi a.comVoLUME 9 NuMB ER 7 • EUREKA STREET 21

C ENTENARYSir Franl

Burnet became pathology registrar atThe Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in1923, thus beginning an association thatwas to last over 42 years . C h arlesKellaw ay was appointed the seconddirector of the Hall Institute in that year,and immediately set about planning thefurther training of someone he im m ediatelyrecognised as a m ost significantprotege. In 1925, Burnet set sail for Londonto work for two years at the fa m ousLister Institute under the directorship ofC. J. Martin . T he only other interruptionto Burnet's work in Melbourne was a twoyears tin t ( 1932-34) at the Nation alInstitute for Medical Research in Londonunder th e great Sir Henry Dale.Burnet became Assistant Director ofthe Hall Institute in 1927 and Directorin 1944. Kellaway declined to backBurnet for the top job, believing thatadministrative responsibilities wouldtake away from Burnet's laboratory benchtime and worrying that his shyness andabsence of obvious leadership skillsmight set the Hall Institute back. TheBoard ruled otherwise and Burnet provedhimself to be an outstanding and inspiringDirector for a full 21 years. After hisretirement in 1965, Burnet moved to asuite in th e Microbiology Department ofThe University of Melbourne, where hedevoted himself to scientific, popular andphilosophical writings. During the next15 years, there was a phenomenal yieldof 16 books an d coun tless lectures andarticles, attesting to th e extraordinaryrange of his sch olarship an d industry.Burnet died on 3 1 August 1985, just threedays short of his 86th birthday.Let m e close this sharply truncatedcurriculum vitae by referring to SirMacfarlane's fa mily. H e became engagedto Linda Druce, a young teacher, in 1926and they married in 1928. It was a closeand enduring partnership, Linda throwingh er considerable intelligence and energyinto supportin g Burn et 's career andsharing in both his trials and triumphs,until her death in 1973. The Burnets hadthree children, Elizabeth, Ian andDeborah, who took a keen interest in hiswork and in the Hall Institute. Deborah(tragically no longer with us) in factworked as her father's research assistantin the early 1960s. In later years, Burnettook great joy in his seven grandchildren.In 1976, Burnet married H azel Jenkin, awidow ed volunteer librarian in theMicrobiology Sch ool and a form erconcert singer. They spent a companion ­able decade together in her com fortablehom e in Canterbury.T o u n derstand Burnet 's scientifi ccontribution, we must project ourselvesback to 1923, a much simpler time inm edical science. The differences betweenviruses and bacteria were u n derstoodonly in the m ost shadowy way. The genewas a theoretical concept. DNA as theGraduation, 1918genetic material was still three decadesaway, as was the polio vaccine. Scientificequ ipment was simple an d ch eap: amicroscope, som e pipettes, test tubes,syringes and n eedles, bacterial growthmedia, an incubator, a centrifuge and am odest supply of laboratory animals. Inm ost fields, what was needed was notsom e sm all increm ental addition toknowledge but a blazing insight toilluminate the darkn ess.Burnet and the Secret of Life, 1923-33Burnet 's scientific w ork can be brokeninto three phases, though these overlapand the strands intertwine. We can termthem 'Burnet the searcher after the secretof life' ( 1923-1933); 'Burnet the microbehunter'( 1933-195 7); and 'Burnet theexplorer of the body's natural defencesystem ' (1957-1965).In a sense, Burnet stumbled on hisfirst research field. Doin g a routinebacterial culture on the urine of a patientw ith a kidney infection, Burnet noticedtwo large clear areas on the otherwiseu n iform lawn of bacterial growth . Herealised that these must have representedthe growth of what d'Herelle haddescribed a few years earlier-bacteriophages,literally eaters of bacteria. Burnetworked out m ethods by which a singlebacteriophage infected a single bacterium.Nothing happened for 40 minutes butthen, all of a sudden 50 bacteriophageswere released. There could be only oneexplanation. A virulent organism musthave multiplied in the host bacterial cell,finally killing it and releasing 50 progenyin a single burst. Burnet further workedout that there were instances where thephage did not kill the bacterial cell.Instead it slipped unnoticed into thehereditary constitution of the bacterium,that is, into what we would now call thebacterial genome.The ability of the bacterial cell tocarry the genes of an extrinsic virus wasa truly novel concept. The amazing thingabout Burnet's probing the secrets ofphage behaviour was that, a decade later,Luria, Delbrl.ick and others were to pickup the findings and build on them theskeletal structure of the new sciences ofmicrobial genetics and molecularbiology. Not for the only time in his life,Burnet was years ahead of the field in histhin king.Burnet the Microbe-Hunter, 1933-57Bu rnet t h e microbe-hun ter emergedduring his second stint in London. By theearly 1930s, the critical differencesbetween bacteria and viruses werebecom ing apparent. T h e NationalInsti tute for Medical Research wasprominent in the field. There inHampstead viruses were visualised forthe firs t time, and their size measuredm ore or less accu rately by passagethrough graded filters.But on e bad bottleneck rem ained.Viruse could not be grown in the testtube and in fact m ost had not beenisolated in pure form at all. Top priorityin Ham pstead was given to influenza, forV oLUME 9 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 23

Portrait bySir William Dargic,circa 196 1.the good reason that the 1918-19pandemic of flu had been devastating,causing far more deaths than WorldWar I. Burnet records the excitementwhen the breakthrough came. Nasalwashings from influenza patients hadbeen inoculated into all kinds ofexperimental animals. One day, Burnet'scolleague, Laidlaw stopped him on thestairs. 'The ferrets are sneezing,' h etrumpeted. Fabulous though the isolationof the pathogen in a ferret was, this washardly the most practical way to learnmore about the flu virus' habits, let aloneto grow enough virus to make a vaccine.Burnet set about finding a better way,growing viruses in embryonated hen'seggs. To this day, his methods remain thepreferred technique for growing enoughof both the influenza virus and the yellowfever virus for the manufacture and massproduction of vaccin es.Returning to Melbourne in 1934,Burnet worked on poliomyelitis, makingthe crucial observation that there wasmore than one strain, an essential preludeto later vaccine developments. H estudied herpes, the agent for cold sores;psittacosis or parrot fever; scrub typhus;a slightly different kind of organism thatcame to bear his own name, Rickettsiaburneti, the causative organism of Qfever; canarypox; and, largely throughguidance of others, Murray Valleyencephalitis and myxomatosis.Indeed, an argument could be madefor Burnet's having become, by 1950, theworld's leading animal virologist. Buttime and again h e turned back t oinfluenza. His interests in this organismwere both practical and theoretical. Froma practical point of view, he attemptedto make a live, attenuated influenzavaccine given as a nasal spray and in facthe got permission to test this on 20,000army personn el, but unfortunatelywithout uccess.The theoretical work centred on themysteries of viral replication. Burnetaddressed himself to three questions.How did the virus get into a cell? Whathappened when it got in? How did thevirus get out before infecting the nextcell I He answered these and many relatedquestions of a fundamental nature. Inmedical science, basic research andpractical application are never far apart.Knowing about specific receptors forvirus entry opens up the possibility ofblocking the receptor and preventinginfection. Knowing that viruses canrecombine genetically inside a cell affordsthe opportunity of designing strainswhich lack virulence but retain thecapacity to provoke an immune response,thus constituting an ideal vaccine.Knowing that an enzyme may be requiredfor viral release and spread suggests thatan inhibitor of such an enzyme may bean anti-viral drug. The exciting n ew drugRelenza-developed by Peter Colman,Mark von Itzstein and colleagues inconjunction with Biota and Glaxo­Wellcome for prophylaxis and treatmentof influenza-rests heavily on Burnet'swork of 40 years previously, as Colmanhas generously acknowledged.Burnet the Explorer of the Body's NaturalDefence System, 195 7-65Burnet had flirted with immunologysince the 1930s. He struggled to understandtwo basic points. First, how doesan animal distinguish between 'self' and'not-self', mounting a vigorous immuneresponse against the latter but naturallytoleratin g the former? This applies,among other things, to foreign cells ortissu es. Mismatch eel red blood cellsprovoke strong antibody formation, thebody's own red blood cells do not. Akidney graft from an unrelated donorcau es a massive, destructive immuneattack unless halted by drugs, but thewhite blood cells which serve as thebody's policemen do not invade a person'sown kidneys. How do the white cellsknow the difference?In 1949, Burnet, in a monographco-authored with Frank Fenner, made abold prediction. The capacity to distinguishself from not-self was not innate,it had to be learned by the immunesystem during embryonic life. If onecould introduce a foreign substance orcell into an embryo, while the immunesystem was still in this immature,learning phase, one might be able to trickthe body into accepting the foreign24 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

material as self. Burnet attempted to gainevidence for this theory but failed.Stimulated in part by Burnet's theory,Billingham, Brent and Medawar inLondon introduced living cells from onestrain of mice into embryos of anotherstrain. In later life, the treated micehappily accepted skin grafts from the celldonor strain but not from a third,irrelevant mouse strain. The treated micehad been rendered specifically immunologicallytolerant, and Burnet's theorywas vindicated. While that particularprotocol was obviously not applicable tohumans, Medawar's experiment hadshown that successful transplantation oforgans and tissues was possible inprinciple. For their discovery of immunologicaltolerance, Burnet and Medawarshared the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine.The second aspect of immunology topuzzle Burnet was the fact that animalsseemed to be able to form antibodies toalmost anything. Imagine how manydifferent bacteria and viru es there mustbe in the biosphere. Choose to inject anyone of them and a mammal formsantibody specifically targeted to thatparticular microbe. Furthermore, animalscan form antibodies even to syntheticorganic chemicals that have never existedbefore in nature.The generally accepted theory for thespecificity of antibodies was the so-calleddirect template theory. A foreignmolecule, technically termed an antigen,enters the cell and the antibody moleculeforms itself in direct contact with thattemplate, much as plastic or metal canbe moulded against a die. Burnet was notsatisfied with this direct template theorybecause it failed to explain manyfascinating features of the immuneresponse. For example, why did a boostershot of a vaccine evoke much moreantibody than the first injection? Andwhy did the quality of an antibody, thatis the tightness with which it bound tothe target antigen, improve withsuccessive imm unisa tions? Burnetpicked six or seven such holes in thedirect template hypothesis and struggledto find an alternative overall theory.Burnet built on J erne' idea thatantibodies were in fact natural substances,present in minuscule amountseven before antigen entered the body, andthat somehow antigen merely acceleratedthe formation of the right, pre-existingantibody. Burnet added the essentialelement that the diverse natural antibodieswere present as receptors on thesurface of very diverse lymphocyte whitecells. Each lymphocyte was pre-committedto the formation of only one antibody.When an antigen entered, it sooner orlater found the rightlymphocyte and triggeredit into extensivemultiplication andmass production of theright correspondingantibody. Thus antibodyformation wasclue to clonal selection.Furthermore, the correctlyselected cellscould mutate, and laterinjections of antigencould stimulate improvedvariants, thusexplaining why antibodiesgot better afterrepeated immunisation.Immunological toleranceresulted becauseexposure of immaturelymphocytes to selfantigens de troyedrather than stimulatedthe relevant cell .Finally, auto-immunedisease was the result of inappropriatedivision of a forbidden anti-self clone.This new clonal selection theory ofantibody formation was published in195 7 and in expanded form as a monographin 1959. Research of the nextdecade substantially verified its essentialelements and it became the centralparadigm of immunology. Burnet thetheoretical explorer of the body's naturaldefence system had achieved his ultimatedestiny as Australia's and one of theworld's greatest medical biologists.Nobel Laurea te, 1960: At th e Nobel Pri zeceremony with joint-prizewinnerSir Peter M edawar (on th e left).Burnet as a Scientific GeneralistThis skeletal outline of scientificdiscovery fails to do justice to Burnet thescientific generalist. He had a most unusualcapacity for taking scientific data ofdiverse kinds and finding associationsthat no-one else had ever thought of.This capacity for synthesis was feel bywide and disciplined reading. A newfinding somehow had to be integrated intohis scientific Weltanschauung. Heloved to speculate, sometimes almostdangerously, from every experiment heperformed, seeking to derive generalmeaning from results which, in the firstVoLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 25

ins tance a t least, are always highlyparticular and specialised.Burnet took real joy from scientificdiscovery. While on e's own findingsn ecessarily have a special emotionalGestalt, Burnet could also get a real thrillfr om som eon e else's breakthrough,always believing that it might help himto see the big picture. In a sense, thewhole world was his laboratory. But hewas also a gifted and industrious experimentalist spending endless hours at thelaboratory ben ch, fr equently performingrepetitive and routine manipulations. Hisoscillation from the particular to thegeneral was, in my experience, almostunique. It served him well in his role asa director of an institute. Burnet was nota natural administrator. I am sure thatover the 21 years of his reign at the HallInstitu t e all the st aff, visitors andstu den ts thought of him primarily as ascientist an d only incidentally as theperson who controlled the purse-stringsor bired and fired the staff. Burnet speltout the Institute's main research them e,bu t it was left to the individual scientiststo position t hem selves within th a tumbrella. Each scien tist was given greatfreedom in research and also total andsole credit for any discoveries madeBurnet was never at his best in opendebate. Man y scientists sh arpen theirwits during the thrust and parry of avigorou s discu ssion with a giftedcolleague. Burnet always preferred toattack ideas in the quiet of his study withpencil and paper, returning the next daywith some new insight. He played littlepart in the open discussion sections ofmajor international m eetings . He statesin his autobiography: 'I have spent myworking life on the periphery of the worldof science. I have always retrea ted to thesmaller cou n try where I could be lesssubject to the two pressures of competitionand co nformity.' I fa ncy that Burnetrather enjoyed his role as a sligh tou tsider. This solitary way of workingallowed his originality to fl ower, untram ­melled by passing scientific fas hion .Burnet and GotterdammerungD id th is scientific paragon have n oAchilles heel, no fla ws in his scientificmakeup? There are a couple which wemust record . Burnet had a mistrust,almost a fear, of technology. The mostcom plex scientific apparatus he ever usedwas a microscope. H e gravely overestimatedthe difficulties in twotechniques essential to virology, namelytissue culture and molecular biology.I believe his switch from virology toimmunology arose at least in part becausehe saw virology coming to requiretechnically more demanding approaches.Towards the end of his reign, the HallInstitute, by international standards, wasridiculously short of space, equipment,facilities and finances . As m edicalresearch became more complex and as itscentre of gravity therefore shifted intodom ains that Burnet could not understand,much less control, he entered intoa Gbtterdammem ng phase which, givenhis great prestige, could have been quitedamaging to his successor. Pared clownto its essentials, this claim ed that all thegrea t discoveries capable of h elpinghumanity had been made, that the timeof grea t elucidation had com e and gone.Thus he stated: 'The likelihood that newknowledge will be applicable to an ymatter of human significance or broadintellectual interest is becomingprogressively sm aller ... It is becomingmore evident in biology that beyond acertain level of theoretical know ledgethere is no useful applica tion to m edicineor any other practical m atter.' Thispessimism led to some extraordinarycomments about molecular biology:'Molecular biology as now practised is ...very largely a laboratory artefact that hasnever been brought into useful relationwith biological realities.' So much for theDNA industry and the wonderfulproducts, including vaccines, m ade bygenetic engineering! 'The human geneticequipment in every cell is of a complexity-~~,··~ ··/ .Portrait by Clifton Pugh, 1966and order which is completely beyond anapproach at the chemical level.' So m uchfor the human genome project, destinedto complete that very task over the nextfiv e years.Of the m an y books written postretiremen t, on e of the m ost though t­provoking is the las t, Credo andComment, publish ed in 1979 w henBurnet was 80. In it he re hearses the 'bigbang' theory of the origin and evolutionof the universe, asserts the cen trality ofthe life process, considers the key tenetsof sociobiology, and speculates on the'strange urgency on the part of nature thatevery possible combina tion should betried lest som e desira ble combinationshould never find opportunity to emerge'.~.26 EUREKA STREET • S EPTEMBER 1999

This implicit assertion of purpose inDarwinian evolution is surprising in on ewho had formerly been a militant atheist.H e supposes tha t 'God, n ature orevolution is so constituted that theremust be a constant searching for andachieving of creativity, a progressivelyhigher level of complexity, understandingand control of significant areas of theuniverse'. He states that 'th e biologicalscientist can go no further than God asthe sh adowy personification of theunknowable principle of constantlyem erging novelty' . Such a God may beomnipotent and omniscient 'but h e haslimited himself to a single way ofattaining the divine desire by providinginfinite opportunities for an infinitelyimprobable event to occur'. Thus does thegreat biologist bend just a little in thedirection of religion .Influenced by Alfred North Whitehead,Burnet seem s to be groping for aview not too distant from that of Teilhardde Ch ardin, so trenchantly derided byBurnet's fellow N obel Laureate, PeterMedawar. Burne t once told DavisMcCaughey that som e of the things aChristian theologian was concerned withexpressed his thought in another idiom .The powerful humanism of Credo andComment m ay show that Burne t 'sPresbyterian upbringing exerted acontinuing effect.Honours and AwardsBoth the scientific peer group and thecivil sector showered Burnet withhonours. He won the Royal and CopleyMedals of The Royal Society. H e servedas President of the Australian Academ yof Science. In the United States, h e was aForeign Associat e of the N ationalAcademy of Sciences and won the LaskerAward. He received countless h onorarydoctorates, including those from Oxford,Cambridge and Harvard. He was knightedin 195 1 and received the Order of Meritin 1958. The N obel Prize in 1960 couldhave been won three times over.The Burnetian LegacyThe Burnetian legacy can be examinedat three levels: personal, institutional andglobal. At the personal level, he was ahuge influen ce on every scientist whoworked within his orbit. Many of thesehave gone on to be leaders of Australianm edical science. Names like Ada,Fazekas, Fenner, French, Gottsch alk,Mackay, M etcalf, White and Wood tomention just a few, are surely ones toconjure with.The Institute which he dominated forso long becam e in his time one of thatsmall handful of medical research centreswhose n am e is instantly recognisedaround the globe as making a pre-eminentcontribution t o the m arch of worldscience. It is for others to judge the Nossalyears, but the fifth Director, ProfessorSuzanne Cory, is surelyenhancing the Hall Institute'sreputation while leading itinto n ew and excitingdirections.But the global legacy is themost important. Burnet's threephases of research involvedthe three threads bein gwoven into a unique andbeautiful tapestry through ablending of separate disciplines.Concepts were borrowed frommicrobiology, bioch emistry,immunology, genetics, oncologyand epidemiology tosynthesise a holistic view ofinfectious diseases and thehost's immune response.Burnet saw the centrality ofimmunology before anyoneelse. This discipline hasexpanded dramatically, yet many ofBurnet's ideas remain paradigmatic. Ofcourse it has m oved in differentdirections and is exploring new depths.This is how it should be, must be. Despitehis gloom y prognostications, Burne twould have been the first to delight inthe n ew approaches to auto-immunity,allergy, transplantation, immunisationand cancer which the subsequent 30years have brought. He would also havemarvelled at our understanding of thegenes, molecules and cells of the immunesystem, so much more profound than heor anyone else could have imagined.I would like to think that in less gloomymoments h e would also have revelled inthe challenges of how much more thereis to know, and in the power of thetechniques of the new biology.Burnet stated that incursions from theoutside world, such as infection ortrauma, were easier to deal with thanchronic degenerative diseases ofuncertain and complex causation. Whatwould h e have thought of the aggressiveand so often successful treatment of heartattacks by angioplasty, clot-busting drugsor biologicals, and st ents to prop theart eries open ? What would h e havethought of severe rh eumatoid arthritisbeing materially ameliorated by injectionof antibodies against powerful inflammatorymolecules? What would he havemade of cures of adult leukaemia throughnew forms of blood cell transplantationu sing CSFs, gen etically en gineeredBurnet with hi s successor at th e W alter and Eli za Hall Institute,Gustav Nossa l, circa 1965.m olecules discovered in his own belovedHall Institute?These and other stunning advancesare blunting the attack of many chronicdiseases. Were h e able to revisit us on3 September 1999, his lOOth birthday,and were I to tell him all that, I fancy hewould stand with eyes downcast and halfclosed, brow puckered in concentration,curled right forefinger held to his lips ina characteristic gesture of deep puzzlement, then gradually his face would relaxinto a self-conscious little smile. 'Gus,'he would say, 'I think I'll have to developa new working hypothesis! ' •Sir Gustav Nossal is Professor Emeritusat the D epartment of Pathology, Universityof Melbourne. He was Director of theWalter and Eliza Hall Institute from 1965to 1996.This article is an edited version of the20th Daniel Mannix Lecture organisedby the students of N ewman College,University of Melbourne.V O LUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 27

SOUTH AFRICABlacl< andother artsNelson Mandelaagreed to becomepatron, giving hisblessing from theportal of thecathedral. 'I welcomeyou to the Festival,'he said, 'if you arepoor or rich, if youare black orwhite, if you arelocal or foreign .'The rhetoric thesedays is one ofinclusion.Jim Davidson goes to the Grahamstown Festival and discovers SouthAfrica in microcosm.IBallarat transposed to Bacchus Marsh, only with theMAG INE A PLAC E with half the Victorian buildings of policies that could not be criticised overtly, because ofh eavy censorship, might be attacked through playssurrounding housing estates replaced by African shanties written about contemporary situations. People still talkand matchbox dwellings, and you have something rather about one which dealt with the return of a raw Afrikanerlike Grahamstown. Even so, for the 50 years to 18 70 this youth from military service in Angola to his traditionalwas South Africa's second-largest town. Kneecapped by rural family: as they listened to the dialogue, the audiencethe 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 withby the Cape government to a branch railway protest, and there is a feeling abroad that it needs a newline, its clays of greatness ended abruptly. But a guiding vision: numbers attending have slipped in recentlingering sense of entitlement continued-and years. Rumours have spread that the Standard Bank, thecontinues still-to hang about the place. main sponsor, is likely to scale clown or withdraw itsIn the 1960s it was realised that the town support. In fact the bank was particularly generous inhad two great assets. It was the nodal place of enabling a very full program to be mounted for this 25thEnglish colonisation in South Africa, a place festival. From the rest of Africa were brought dancewith tap roots: at least a quarter of a million companies and an orchestra, while from Europe camepeople could be claimed as descendants of the (among others) baroque musicians, flamenco dancers, a1820 Settlers. Moreover, in the full flush of Cambridge choir, the Philippe Genty Company and thecivic pride, the pioneers had started three or Neclerlancls Dans Theater. These, combined with localfour of South Africa's most famous schools (to offerings-some 200 on the Fringe alone- gave thewhich 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 sayings. Perhaps the town, small though it was, nothing of open air markets and houses turning intocould be made the site of an annual festival. temporary restaurants, meant that the whole town wasAnd so, with the blessing of the Nationalist effectively taken over. Students from the university'sgovernment (delighted that the local English journalism department assumed their usual role ofwere earthing themselves in South Africa, producing a daily festival newspaper, and also got up arather than pining for the mother country) a satellite television channel. Nelson Manclela agreed tolarge monument with a theatre and various become patron, giving his blessing from the portal of thehalls soon arose above the town.cathedral. 'I welcome you to the Festival,' he said, 'if youcThe result is not a thing of beauty; indeed it are poor or rich, if you are black or white, if you arecould be described as a cross between a schlosslocal or foreign.' The rhetoric these clays is oneand London's Festival Hall. But it functions splendidly asof inclusion.the focal point for a festival.The early ones, like the Shakespeare Festival of 1976,ERTAINLY AN OUTSIDER was struck by the appropritencleclto be eurocentric and-within the context of ately African emphasis of much of the program. ButAfrikaner hegemony-were concerned to maintain some of the biggest set pieces of the Festival, whileEnglish-languagecultureinSouthAfrica,completewith addressing themes such as life in contemporaryits manifestation in new works. This emphasis on Johannesburg, or the return of a community to theirlanguage meant that blacks would come to be included traditional land, chose to do so partly with music. Thistoo (as eventually were Afrikaners), if not in the Main may reflect the contemporary urge towards more fluidprogram 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 elementan important site of protest. Nationalist government of celebration does not come simply from being staged28 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

for a festival, and from being able to draw from unaccustomedpots of money. It stem s even more from people notyet being used to hearing the sound of their own voiceson stage. When speech does occur, it often runs the riskof becoming a declaration; of not being shaped sufficientlyto enmesh with the lines of other characters.One production which used musical elements verytellingly was that by Third World Bunfight, as they areengagingly called, in The Prophet. This dealt with theappalling story of the Xhosa cattle killing of 1856-7, acargo cult movement which spread through these partsas blacks hearkened to the prophecies of an 11-year-oldgirl.They destroyed all their corn and cattle so as to readythemselves to be rejoined by warrior ancestors, whereuponthey would be able to drive the white man into thesea. The results were calamitous: anything up to 100,000people may have died in the famine which followed,while white conquest of the region was accelerated. Howthen might such a painful set of events be restaged?Previously the company had taken up another outbreakof hysteria, based on contemporary witchcraft; thatproduction had, from all accounts, rawness and urgency.But this one dealt with a national cataclysm, albeit a longtime ago. A path therefore had to be found w hich, whileallowing a convincing dramatisation, might also havesomething of the character of a requiem, cauterising thewound even as it re-examined it.The drama therefore unfolded liturgically. On enteringthe vast space of the old power station, one noticedseven figures like statues of Rameses seated at intervalsaround the hall; their eyes were sealed. When the Xhosacame on and made for the central podium, they werechildren; the statue figures intoned a monotonous chant.Grown men exchanged roles as ancestors, as warriors,and even as doomed cattle, their path always a circularone trailing through the audience. The prophecies, thanksto amplification and a drooping intonation, were eerie intheir effectiveness, all the m ore so for the massed chantin the background. Later, the steady pace of the piece waspunctured by two bold theatrical m oments. The first waswhen a symbolic sun rose, and the Xhosa held theirbrea th in expectation that it would stop in the middle ofthe sky, as foretold; this Sun did stop, but then moved on.Later, when a second date for the miracle had been given,and more intensive preparations made-echoed here in arising crescendo joined in even by the statue figures- thesun rose again, but this time, before having the chance tomove on, it was knocked sideways. These were realcoups de theiitre, since the intensity of each m om enteclipsed both common sense and historical knowledge.Of course the production was not faultless: often thevoices did not carry sufficiently. But it had a notablesoundness of structure, even if some allusions wereobscure, while the detail could be impeccable. Threewhite children were used as redcoats: as they picked overthe bodies of the dead Xhosa, the tentative character ofnea t, ten-year-old boys suggested nothing so much asvultures.There was not much sense of contemporary issu esbeing addressed. Southern Africa has the world's worstAIDS rates, but so far as I could see the disease wasrepresented only as a gay white problem. Cape Town isprobably the rape capital of the world; but rape too seemsto have been rarely confronted. Even in the cheekyVagina Monologues-a one-woman show put on in thehall of the prim Diocesan School for Girls-it wa largelytransposed to Bosnia. Perhaps the all-pervasive issues ofrace and the need for transformation effectively crowdout all others.Excepting crime, that is. Despite a notable (and rare)police presence at the Festival, a critic was pick pocketedon the very first day-leading to squawking of analtogether different kind-while a visiting dance troupewere rudely awoken by a gang of thieves. The NewYorkers were shocked; but Pieter-Dirk Uys, SouthAfrica's Barry Humphries, would have said: You'rein the Eastern Cape, and this is the provincewhere they've even stolen the deficit. Criminalitywas constantly referred to in the Festival's stageworks. A character in Love, Crime andJohannesburg, a musical with a thin plot strungaround a real-life poet who was jailed for robbinga bank, nihilistically observed that 'There's nohis tory. There's no past. There's no right or wrong.'The show ended with talk of a general amnesty forcriminals, businessmen and politicians (almostinterchangeable commodities), the audiencebeing com forted with the assurance that'Everything will be all right-in a hundred years'time.' M eanwhile, the young black comedianDavid Kau ended his show saying that som epeople would have realised he wasn't a stand-upcomic-and yes, they were right. The smallaudience then found them selvesReaching out, alas,is still fairlysymbolic. Theprograms have beensubstantiallyAfricanised, and tosome degree so havethe performers. Butit must bedepressing for ablack stand-upcomic like David0 confronting a glinting gun. Kau to find himselfplaying to entirelyNE EXP LANA TI ON for the contemporaryomission s is that the past is still there, just beneath white audiences.the surface-and that bits of it still project intothe landscape of South African life. In a m ovingmonologue on the Fringe, Woman in Waiting, MannieManim dealt with the life of a black servant woman . Herconstant marginalisation, as an incidental consequenceof a white madam's capricious change of plans, wasbrought out forcefully. But more theatrically effectivewere the scenes drawn from childhood, when she hadaccompanied her m other (represented by a huge dress) toDurban . There one day she had gone with her to worksinceotherwise they rarely saw each other- and then,when abandoned, went looking for the loo. She found it,only to be bawled out by the white master. Worse, hermother came running, and to the child's consternation,fell into an apologetic heap. When the scene was over,the little girl turned round and said, 'You must be a veryimportant person, Mr Toilet, to be treated in this way.'Then sh e opened the lid. Inside was a dress; of normaldimensions now. Her mother had been cut down to size.It is not only blacks who bear the scars of the past. Itcomes as a bit of a shock to find a m an not yet 30 oldenough to have been conscripted into the old SouthAfrican army. As a morale booster, he and his mates wereVOLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 29

Despite a notable(and rare) policepresence at theFestival, a critic waspickpocketed on thevery first dayleadingto squawl

physical confidence into art. The program moved on toconclude with a collective item from all three groups,giving the festival one of its moments of epiphany. Atone point a black dancer cam e on stage alone, danced afew steps, and was joined by a fair-haired Queenslander.The two men shook hands, African style, then pulledaway from each other and lean t back in tandem. Thecrowd wildly cheered, for it was at once a vision of awhite Australia purified of racism and of aconfident, multicultural South Africa.REACHJNG ouT, alas, is still fairly symbolic. Theprograms have been substantially Africanised, and tosom e degree so have the performers. But it must bedepressing for a black stand-up comic like David Kau tofind himself playing to entirely white audiences. Thecharge of elitism is therefore to some degree justified,since ticket prices are such that many people, certainlymost blacks, are simply excluded from attending. At thesam e time, there are reports of complimentary ticketsfor blacks having gon e unclaimed: the whole ambienceremains intimidating. It is quite otherwise with whites.For them, the National Arts Festival becomes the idealway to take their culture: on a binge, away from thecrime-infested streets of the big cities, where manypeople do not feel safe at night. As in so many respects,South Africa exemplifies postmodernism; Festivalaudiences also to som e degree differentiate them selves.The young people who stayed away from the Monteverdiopera comprised almost the entire audience for TheVagina Monologues.Crowds may have been slightly down for this year'sfestival, but ticket sales for the Main were up. TheGrahamstown Festival n eeded this boost, for it isincreasingly under competition from up to a dozenfes tivals elsewhere in the country. Indeed, two rathermore folksy ones have sprung up on either side of it, inplaces on the way. More serious is the effect of thenewish Oudtshoorn Festival which, now that Afrikaansspeakersfeel besieged, is drawing away Afrikaans writers,performers and audiences.But the Festival, even should it be scaled down, isunlikely to die-indeed other gatherings now supplement it. The ANC is aware of how important it is for theGrahamstown economy, and as a showcase for the town;the experience can encourage white people to send theirkids there to be schooled. With less than 30 per cent ofthe town's workforce in full employment, the placeneeds all the help it can get. Burnt-out buildings stand inthe m ain street, and have for m onths; there is not enoughmoney or confidence to restore or rebuild. Meanwhile,the annual vision of Camelot has fa ded. For the moment,the street kids, having huddled in groups bus king outsideFestival venues, have vanished. But any day now theywill be back, begging.•OBITUARYLINDA M c GIRRJennifer Paterson1928-1999W ALL SAY WE ADMJRE someone who dancesto her own tune, yet we rarely see anyone whodoes, rarer still on TV.We are bombarded with endless interviewswith soapie starlets, sex symbols and songstresses.Even our women newsreaders areindistinguishable from catwalk models.Curious then that we ever had the pleasureof Jennifer Paterson on our screens-fat ,bespectacled and, worse still, well over 60. Sheappeared, not as someone's grandmother, butin her own right as a chef with years of culinaryexperience following on from a successfulcareer backstage in theatre and television.Witty, well-read and remarkable in hergenuine interest in people and places, she tookus from convents to breweries, scout camps toThe Ritz, lunching with cricketers, choirboysand bikies, travelling from place to place onher much-loved motorbike with hercollaborator Clarissa Dickson-Wright in sidecar.With Clarissa, she rejected the pretensionsof foodies who prepare m eals with the sterilityand precision of micro-surgery.Her funeral was a Requiem Mass in theBrompton Oratory. At Jennifer's request, theMass was in Latin, and h er motorbike helmetwas placed on h er coffin, remaining therethroughout the service.•Jim Davidson, who is currently researching in SouthAfrica, teaches a course on the Rise and Fall of Apartheidat Victoria University of T echnology. He attended theStandard 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 songs are now about fami ly theylost to the big w ave. 'Everybody here has lostsomeone,' says Eddi e Romere,the school headmaster.the big waveHe I icopters became acommon sight and a lifelineduring the months of theemergency response.Ben Amaal, Manager of the Care Centrein Yakoi Village, smokes a hand-rolledcigarette ca lled a spear. 'Australiannewspapers make the best spea rs,' hesays. 'The print doesn't get mi xed upw ith the tobacco.' Amaal says it will beanother two years before th e disasterreg ion returns to anything near normal.

TH E REGION : 2P ETER MARESIndonesian witnessIbu Sulami spent 20 years in Indonesian jails. Now 74, the formerGeneral Secretary of the Indonesian Women's Movement was oneof many imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1965 coup.Peter Mares interviewed her in Tangerang, West Java.T. HIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, on the night Tangerang Detention Centre there was Since Suharto's fall in May last yearof 30 September 1965, there was a a period when between two and four there have been constant calls for amutiny in Jakarta. Army units led by prisoners died every clay. The same was thorough investigation into the wealthLieutenant-Colonel Untung murdered true at Salemba Prison. The prisoners' of the former president and his family andsix top Generals, ostensibly because they reserves of strength were sa pped by the corruption, collusion and nepotismwere plotting against Indonesia's found- forced and co nstant hungeri the end that characterised his 32-year dictatoringPresident Sukarno. The rebellious result was bereberi and aJI the ship (a term which even Foreign Ministerofficers then captured a radio station and complications that ensued .. . Downer now uses to describe the regimedeclared 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 theMajor-General Suharto, 44-year-old labour th ey were forced to do, required calls for Suharto to be prosecuted for hiscommander 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 thatquickly 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 thoroughmost 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 20sideline, then eventually replace, Sukarno. intestines ruptured. years in Suharto's jails. When the killingsThe coup attempt is known astook place, Ibu Sulami was on the run,Gestapu (Gerakan September Tiga Pramoedya and most of his fellow moving from house to house in JakartaPuluh, 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 killingsIndonesian Communist Party, the PKI. former detainees had their identity cards with my own eyes,' sh e told me. 'ButA ruthless military-backed crackdown on stamped with the code 'ET' (el

esponsibility for the killing. She is not Communistdriven to avenge her own suffering; atleast there is no trace of bitterness in herwords. Rather, Ibu Sulami is seekingjustice so that ghosts can be laid to rest.She wants to soothe souls through aproper and public accounting ofhis tori cal events.Five years ago, Ibu Sulamibegan touring the provincesand talking to the families ofvictims, especially the wives ofm en who disappeared withouta trace: 'Often they were stillwaiting for their husbands tocome back,' she says. 'A lot ofthem have never remarriedsince that time and they arevery anxious to know whathappened to their husbands.They wonder, if their husbandsare still alive, why have theynever com e back? Are they injail or were they killed? And ifso, who killed them and whereare they buried? That sort ofknowledge is veryimportant to them.'AT THE TIME of Gestapu,Ibu Sulami was the GeneralSecretary of Gerwani ( GerakanWanita Indonesia, the IndonesianWomen's Movement)which had been established in1950 to fight for equal rights:'I grew up in a village and youknow there were so many casesof discrimination between menand women,' she says. 'Boys atthat stage could continue withtheir education as far as theirmeans allowed, but for girls, aslong as they could read and write, wellthat was it. Like me, for example. Myolder brother was able to go to highereducation, but my younger sister and Iwere only able to go to primary school.'I was very attracted to Gerwanibecause I felt it was working to elevatethe dignity of women and overcome theinequality and the discrimination.'Gerwani established kindergartensand ran courses in midwifery and literacy.The organisation also campaigned forequal rights in marriage and for strongerrape laws. By 1961, Gerwani claimed ninemillion members and had becomeincreasing! y close to the IndonesianParty, although the organisationwas never formally affiliated withthe PKI.After the coup attempt of 30September, Suharto made Gerwani a keytarget of his crackdown on the left. Lieswere spread through newspaper and radioreports saying that Gerwani women had'In truth, there were no weapons inthe office,' says Ibu Sulami. 'All we hadwere bamboo musical instruments calledanldung. We had lots of them because wewere preparing to celebrate Gerwani'sanniversary and w e had about 500anklung ready for people to play in astreet procession.'The military suggested tothe people round about that theGerwani office was stacked withhuge stores of money, sugar, riceand other things. So the peoplelooted the place, but there wasnothing there, just a little bitof food, nothing at all. And thecrowd outside were all screaming,there's no money, there'sno food, we were being lied to!'Ibu Sulami fled from theoffice to a friend's place and forthe next 18 months she livedas 'a hunted person', movingfrom house to house and neversleeping in the sam e bed twonights running.Eventually, during a sweepcalled Operation Vampire, sh ewas arrested by the Jakartamilitary command.'It was really terrible,' sherecalls. 'I was beaten for aboutt en days and they kept oninterrogating us during thattime. I was asked questionsagain and again and I did notwant to answer.Today Ibu Sulami lives in a simple housein Tangerang, an industrial cityin West Java, that runs into the urbansprawl of Jakarta. She looks frail, but hermemory is sharp and she has summoned the'They asked whetherenergy to delve into the most sensitiveperiod in Indonesian history.castrated the six murdered generals,gouged their eyes out and then dancednaked in celebration before the chairmanof the communist party. In his HistoricalDictionary of Indonesia, Robert Cribbwrites that 'special attention was givento the destruction of Gerwani, on thegrounds that it allegedly encouragedwomen to abandon their duties within thefamily and promoted sexual promiscuity'.Nothing happened at Gerwaniheadquarters for the first three days afterGestapu. Then on the fourth day a groupof soldiers arrived at the office anddemanded that Gerwani m emberssurrender, with their weapons.Gerwani was involved inkilling the generals. ButGerwani had nothing to dowith it, so I kept my silence.'They were also askingwhether I knew someone called Sam,who was one of the figures involved inthe coup and who was a friend of theleader of the communist party, BrotherAidit. But I'd never met the man, I didn'tknow him at all, so I just couldn't answerthe question. They kept beating me up.They'd wake me up at one in the morningto destabilise me, to put my n erves onedge so that I would answer theirquestions. Many other women were alsotreated like that.'Th e interrogations eventually got soferocious that the women were strippedand it was absolutely inhuman what washappening to them at that time.'VoLUME 9 NuMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 35

Ibu Sulami says that a lot of girls werearrested at the same time as her. Theywere just 14, 15 and 16 years old, tooyoung even to join Gerwani, but undertorture they were forced to 'confess' toGerwani's role in the coup attempt.'Th e young girls who were arrested atthe time were really very badly trea ted,they were beaten almost to death in theGuntur military police headquarters inJakarta,' she recalls.The girls were also used to furtherSuharto's propaganda campaign againstGerwani: 'There were prostitutes whowere forced into sayin g that theseyoung women h ad been recruited byGerwani to provide sexual services to thetroops who were supporting thecoup attempt.'AS A LEADING FI G URE on the left, IbuSulam i was one of the relatively smallnumber of political prisoners eventuallybrought to trial. In 1975, she was sentencedto 20 years' jail after being found guiltyof slander. The charge had nothing to dowith t he coup attempt, but with h erinvolvem ent, while on the run, with alegitimate organisation called 'SupportersI I WANT TO INVEST WITH CONFIDENCEAUSTRALIANe-thica.lAgribusiness orreafforesta tion .Mining or recycling.Exploitation orsustain ability.Greenhou se gasesor solar energy.Armaments orcommunityenterprise.TRUSTSInvestorscan chooseThrough the AE Tru sts youcan invest your savingsand superannuation inover 70 differententerprises, each expertlyselected for its uniquecombination of earnings,environmentalsustainability and socialresponsibility, and earn acompetitive financialreturn. For full detailsmake a free call to180002122711ll 1eslments in tbe Austrahan Etbical Trusls ca noil II' be marie through the current prospecl!tSregistered lllitb tbe Australian SecuritiesCommissiou aud C/1'{/i/ab/e.from:Australian. Ethical Investment LtdI 'nil 66. Cauberra Busiuess Centre/3rarl(ield Sf. IJOII'II er ACT 1601of the Command of President Su karno'.'The treatment was awful for the firstyears while I was in military detention.Later, Amnesty International and the RedCross took up my case and I was thengiven a blanket and a mattress andconditions go t a bit better. But it was stillpretty terrible.'It was a deliberate policy to lock usup with ordinary criminals and I shareda cell with ordinary criminals virtuallythe whole time I was in prison. The ideawas to prevent us from communicatingwith other political prisoners, but this didhave a positive side because the ordinaryinmates were willing to share their foodwith us and so we never starved.'Criminal prisoners enjoyed greaterrights and privileges than the politicalprisoners and they helped Ibu Sulami tokeep h er brain occupied by slipping herpaper and pencils so that she could writeduring the night. Then in the earlymorning the other inmates would takethe writing materials back again and hidethem for her.In this way, Ibu Sulami was able tocomplete a novel, a n ovella, a collectionof short stories and som e poem s. All are inthe process of being published in Jakarta.Ibu Sulami was eventually releasedfrom jail in 1986. She had been given twoyears off her sentence, but only on thecondition that she report each m onth tothe Attorney-General's office.Slowly she began to investigate themass killings of 1965. She research ed thelocations of mass graves and made listsof the names of people killed, the namesof people arrested and jailed, the namesof people sacked from the jobs or disadvantagedin other ways for decades becauseof their links, or suspected links, to thebanned Indonesian Communist Party.The work had to be carried out in asecretive, conspiratorial way: 'We visiteda lot of areas, 19 districts in fact, mainlyin East and Central Java, to look for gravesand we actually found a lot of evidence.It was not just the bones we found, but alot of eyewitnesses who could talk indetail about the killings that took placein their own villages.'We went to a lot of the burial grounds,which were often quite difficult t oreach, but we were helped by a lot bypeople who lived nearby, who were quitehappy to show us where these burialgrounds were. They weren't afraid eventhough Suharto had not yet been toppledfrom power.'Ibu Sulami has now set up a foundationto continue the work, with Pramoedyaas patron. It is staffed mostly by bereavedrelatives of the victims of 1965. Bu t eventhough Suharto is no longer President,the work remains extrem ely sensitive,difficult and dangerous. The Indonesianmilitary has no interest in seeing its pastcrimes uncovered. N eith er do civilianswho took part in the bl ood-letting.Indonesia's National Human Rights Commissionalso turned down an invitation tosupport the foundation's research, eventhough it is investigating numerous othermassacres and abuses from the Suharto era.Ibu Sulami rejects suggestions thatthe massacres represent such a traumaticmoment in history that they would bebes t left alone, and that revisiting thekillings will only stir up painfulm em ories and invite conflict andreprisals at a time when the people ofIndonesia are striving to rebuild theirdamaged nation and to reconcile competingethnic, religious and class intereststhrough a reformed political system.'It is very easy for people who havenot suffered a loss to say these mattersshould be left alone, but for the peoplewho were involved and who suffered theloss of loved ones, they are continuallyhaving nightmares and are worryingabout what happened. So I think it is veryimportant for them that this matter iscontinually talked about. There needs tobe a lesson for people also. The killing ofjust one person is already a crime. So howmuch more terrible is it when more thanone person is killed? T h e murder ofhundreds of thousands of people must betalked about and accounted for.'The resolution of this matter is likea struggle for a civilisation, to ensure thatthings like this will not recur in the future.The past is the past, but these matters mustbe resolved for coming generations, forposterity. It's in no-one's interest to keepit covered up any longer. '•Peter Mares is presenter of A sia Pa cificon Radio Australia and Radio National(weekdays at 8.05pm, Saturdays at8.05am ). Peter would lil

R EVIEW ESSAYPETER CocHRANEThe many anxieties ofI N I s A usTRA LIA A N A siAN C ouNTRY!Australia and AsiaAnxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850-1939, Dav1d Walker, Umvers1ty of Queensland Press, 1999.lSBN 0 7022 3 132 2, RRP $29.95manners, cohesion, artistry and(1997), Stephen FitzGerald argued 'cultivated women'. Walker tracesthat the Australian commitment totheir impact on European taste andAsia is still not a commitment of thecultural sensibility throu gh tomind. N ot bein g an intellectual Australia. Monet's Ja pan eseengagem ent, it is 'therefore almostfootbridge is matched by theincapable of sensitivity to subtlety or'A u s tral-japonaiserie' that wassub-text or silence ... ' FitzGeraldevident in the '9x5 Impression s'emphasised the necessity of becom- Exhibition of 1889.ing Asia-literate as an exercise ofIn the same year, the remarkablegreat urgency. The alternative is toJam es Murdoch, novelist, scholarrisk being left behind by an Asiaand Japanophile, reported thatwhich is simultaneou sly a 'Australian popular opinion is'cosmopolitan jostling of countrieswonderfully, favourably inclinedand cultures and peoples m oretowards Japan and the Japanese'.distinct from one another than anything we India, allegedly the testing ground of British This was overstatem ent, but Japan washave 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. Walkerexclude a failure to the south. begun there encouraged the view- Deakin documents how both the cultural andDavid Walker's Anxious Nation: was an expopent- that to know about commercial appeal of Japan presented aAustralia and the Rise of A sia is a 'commit- civilisation one had to know about India. worrying challenge to the advocates of racem ent ofthe mind'.Walkerexploresourreal For a time, the conception of an purity.Onesidethoughtagrowingexchangeand imagined encounters with Asia over aggressive Asia bent on conquest was of goods and culture would enrichthe period 1850- 1939. A further volume rivalled by 'a golden, aestheticised Orient', Australian civilisation; the other said itwill 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 ' awakeningof the role history can play in correcting the other qualities might equally have changed East ', a phrase that signalled an Eastfailure identified by FitzGerald. our history. In the year 1877, the missionary transformed from a languid, unchangingIn the mid 19th century, travel writing and theosophist, Wilton Hack, was st a t e into som ething active, mobile,on the subject of the East began to generate sufficiently impressed by the industry and mili tarised and threatening. Anxiousa keen readership. Journalists, traders, frugality of the Japanese to invite them to Nation traces this shift in language. Theintellectuals, missionaries and tourists colonise the Northern Territory, with the book's originality and importance hingesfound a responsive audience in the backing of the South Australian govern- on the interaction it documents betweenAustralian colonies. The curiosity of the m ent. The Japanese government, not overly Australian contemporary perceptions ofaudience 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 edconstructed 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, andand motifs are matched by a string of more particularly for Japanese fabrics and art N ENTERTAINING short chapters, Walkersympathetic perspectives. objects, had already engulfed the elites of covers some of the hottest topics of theHeightened Australian interest in Asia Europe and Australia. By the 1890s there period- the nature of the Australian landwassparked by the sudden arrival of were two books published on the subject of mass, the moral and practical imperativesChinese goldseek ers, by Commodore Japan for every three books published on of settling the 'Empty N orth', the m eaningPerry'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. The1857- 58, and by a sustained fascination constructed as the 'ideal foreigners', not sustained interplay of these themes makeswith the glories and trials of British rule in unlike the British in their enterprise, good the book's readability, lightness and humour1V O LUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 37

all the more remarkable. Walker showshow opinion was constructed with an eyeto geopolitical consequences. Thus, forexample, if the Australian land mass waspotentially rich all over-one of the fondestfantasies in our history-then it had to bequickly claimed by vigorous white settlement.If, on the other hand, it was largelydesert, then this fact had to be proclaimedloud and clear, to dissuade invaders fromthe north. Every argun"lent, it seems, had its'anxious' corollary.An awakening East powerfully affectedthe way British-Australians saw themselvesand their country. They knew they were asmall, mostly coastal and urban populationand that translated into an anxiety aboutthe future and a fear that, as lazy and languidcity folk, they might be surpassed by moredispossession/ Answer, yes and no.The idea that Australia might be anAsian land accidentally settled by Britonsunsuited to both climate and regionalculture was a disturbing undercurrent.Asia's carefully noted energies w erematched by new concerns about malignintelligence and 'inscrutability', bestembodied in the fictional Dr Fu Manchu.'The Doctor', writes Walker, 'infiltratedChapter 13 of this book one dark, mistshroudedmorning, enjoying, no doubt, thesuperstitious dread his presence there wouldcause.' Anxious Nation entertains.Some of the anxiety traced here isexplicitly gendered. Would the male or thefemale principle win out in Australian life?How to understand these principles at workto the north, not five days' steam away? InIn 1933, the Dean of Canterbury suggested thatAustralia should share the Northern Territory withJapan to help reduce international tensions.The local press had a field day.vigorous races to the north and become the'white Aborigines of the Empire' . Thedeclining birthrate became a focus of heavilygendered fears: city life was seen as drainingthe virile, masculine qualities of the race (atheme Walker has followed since his fineand funny essay, 'Seminal Loss and NationalVigour', appeared in Labour History in May1985). Enter 'Asia' as a kind of rhetoricaldevice to compel whites to do their dutyand fill the country. Enter the' sturdy buslunanas race hero', though here a key text in thediscussion of blood and the bush-C.E.W.Bean's Flagships Three ( 1913)-"'{ X T is missing.V VALKER ARGUES THAT the 'awakeningEast' accentuates the 'powerful masculinisingand racialising impulse in Australiannationalism'. This is not new. What is newand important is the way he ties this understandinginto a review of contemporarydebates about life and land in Australia.This is done with economy, style and wit.The best sentence in the book-'Narrativeloves danger'-has all three. By examininga range of literature, from scholarly papersto newspaper controversies to invasionnarratives, Wa lker documents thes urvivalist anxieties at the heart ofAustralian nationalism. Could Anglo­Saxons take the heat of the North? Couldthey contemplate the meaning of Aboriginal1900 the Town and Country Journal ran anarticle on 'The Contempt of Asiatics forEuropeans', in which gendered m eaningwas foremost: the encounter between the'Asiatic' and the European was likened tothat between 'a clever woman' and an'average and slightly stupid man', the latterno match for this female 'other'.Walker links the self-doubt at the heartof Australia's survivalism with a m isogynyevident in the fear both of Asia and of therise of the 'new woman' in Australia. Thatfeminist female was identified as selfseekingand sexual, a kind of racial betrayal.Some saw that betrayal confirmed in thedeclining birth rate. Says Walker: 'Womenwere viewed with great suspicion. Theywere given many of the elusive propertiesof water. They were gushing, tidal,uncontrolled, all-engulfing', like thefeminised 'bush spirits' of a Sydney Longpainting. An Asia enhanced by a femininecunning and cruelty, and the new womanin Australia, constitute one of the keyinterplays in the anxiety Walker documents.Amidst the many propaganda fictions aboutthe Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, one titlestands out: The Woman Who Commanded500,000,000 Men (1929).When the Japanese squadron came toAustralia in 1903, the Argus noted culture,order, efficiency and competence in thesevisitors. There were vast crowds andelaborate welcomes during the 1906 visittoo. In the wake of Japanese victory over theRussians, perceptions were shifting from'enchanting' and 'aesthetic' to 'disciplined'and 'soldierly', but the reception was stillrapturous, in one port after another. Thedissenting press blamed female weakness,among other failings, for this 'misguided'enthusiasm. Hospitable females weredubbed 'George Street Geishas' by Truth,which claimed their behaviour madecriticism of the debasement of wom en inJapan that much harder to sustain.Worse still, Japan was celebrated bysome as the embodiment of a newElizabethanism. For Australians who hadformed the idea that they would be the newElizabethans-creative, adventurous andh eroic, a racial inheritance-this wasparticularly galling. 'Here were the"imitative" Japanese, sh owered withadulation, at just the moment when theeyes of the world should have been occupiedupon the newly created Commonwealth ofAustralia', writes Walker. The dissentingpress, notably the Worl

and the loss of Asia as a colourful spectaclefor travellers like himself. N eedless to say,he despised W.H. Fitchett, the great late19th-century imperialist propagandist. Butthe greatest concern was focused on British'racial appeasem ent' as manifested in the1894 trade treaty with Japan and theimplications for a white Australia. Whatabout building trade with 'natural allies'?There was the suspicion that England sawthe White Australia policy, and its colonialprecedents, as national selfishness. In 1933,the Dean of Canterbury suggested that Australiashould share the Northern Territorywith Japan to h elp reduce internationaltensions. The local press had a fi eld day.Great anxiety fuelled plenty of crackpotthinking about the land. H ot climatesbecam e a worry. Sir Charles Dilkedenounced the 'labour-saving banana' asthe 'curse of the tropics'. Australiansworried about the problem s of 'languor' and'tropical neurasthenia' were not so sureabout the banana. On the other hand,Randolph Bedford was certain about thecarryin g capacity of dry country-h echallenged anyone who doubted it to golook at the green grass on Kalgoorlie's racecourse.H e said Lake Eyre could be theworld's greatest rice field. (Atomic idealistsafter World War II made similar claimsabout the multifarious benefits of nuclearpower, so we cannot be too hard on Bedford.)Dr Richard Arthur campaigned to fill thenorth with good white citizens. He told theeditor of the Australian World in London:'never a word about the Yellow Peril, orSocialism or strikes. And print everythingyou can lay your hands on to the detrimentof Canada.' H ow m any scheming lies canwe put down to 'anxiety'?In Walker's book, crackpot opinions andbig fibs are contextualised. They figured indialogues, driven by both fear and reason,which som ehow advanced our collectiveunderstanding of the land and ourselves. Bythe mid 1930s, the remarkable GriffithT aylor, speaking for 'scientific inquiry'against ignorant bombast from the likes ofBedford, had helped to shift the debatearound ' Australia Unlimited' fantasies to am ore sober estimate of Australia's diverseenvironments and the skills needed to settlepeople in them . Concerns about environmentaldegradation also played a part.Walker links the controversy that doggedGriffith Taylor's career to his insistencethat Australia had a classic Oriental desertat its very heart. The Orien tal associationsof 'desert' were an affront to his opponents,intent as they were on redeeming thewilderness, not herding camels or becomingArabs.A new problem followed from thecontroversy which the name Griffith Taylorsignified. The limits to Australia's carryingcapacity m eant that Australians had to thinkof new ways to keep Asia in Asia. While theGreat War refuelled fears of race debilitation,environmental realities shifted som ethinking from anxious speculation and itsmad schem es towards an understanding ofneeds in Asia and how they might be m et.Walker resurrects som e great moments. In1923, Griffith T aylor walked into the lion'sden: h e addressed a m eeting of the SydneyMillions Club. He challenged the stupidityof racial purism with a favourite party trick,showing the unhappy audience a slide ofRobert Louis Stevenson standing beside hisSamoan cook. He argued that, by ethnologicalstandards, 'the cook was a moreintellectual type than the famous author ofTreasure Island.' He called for 'accommodation'with the East, for inter-marriageof Australians and Mongolians (whom headmired) and thus a phasing out of WhiteAustralia.The strength of feeling against racialinter-marriage was r efl ected in popularfiction and films about doomed inter-raciallove. The idea of moving closer to Asia didnot win out. Even in commerce, whereopportunity beckoned, industrialists andm arketers seemed half-hearted. In a chaptercalled 'Money For Jam', Walker quotes aEuropean manager in Tsien tsin who wouldnot sell Australian jam to the Chinesebecause the tins looked so alarming. Theu se of icons in labelling was careless:' Asianconsumers often assum ed they were beingoffered tinned koala or platypus, delicaciesfor which they were unprepared.' AnxiousNation shifts from the realm of culture tothe world of trade and back again andconcludes with a chapter on the Institute ofPacific Relations, an organisation whichwas ahead of its time, well-informed onAsia and driven by a desire for understandingand accommodation. In the Cold War, asubject for the next volume, the IPR wassavaged.Walker is an editor of the AnnotatedBibliography of Australian Overseas TravelWriting (1996), so it is no surprise to findthat traveller's books provide a good bit ofthe scaffolding in this study, albeit interlacedwith literature on land, population,climatology and so on. My gripes are fewgiven the achievement here, but I do wonderwhether the reliance on travel writingthroughout Anxious Nation makes for som eproblems. In the case of the Indian mutiny,for example, commentary is drawn frombooks, mostly travel tom es, which appearedseveral decades after the event. In Sydney atthe time, there was open debate aboutBritish misrule and cruelty, and at least oneappeal to the ladies of England to comm endm ercy to their m en. Walker m erely quotesthe Argus on the 'ferociou s cruelty' of theIndians. What's missing is the contemporarymilieu, notably a colonial ambivalencetowards the British, which influencedd eb a t e ab out events in India . Thatambivalence h as a his tory fire d byexperience in other parts of Asia too,something which is acknowledged.Walker has mapped out an entire fieldand shifted the discussion of our relationshipwith multiple Asias nearer to the centreof historical debate. In diving parlance, thedegree of difficulty in his project is high. It'a triple som ersault with twist, pike, and atravel book under each arm. It is a greatcontribution to a 'commitment of the mind'to a future with or in Asia. Whichpreposition will it be?•Peter Cochrane is a freelance historian basedin Sydney.("l.1W/1-j :J ~\0Embracing the World:Women, Spiritualityand ChurchA conference exploring anthropology,sacratnentality, and a churchfit for women.O ctober 1-3, 199913urgmann Coll ege, ANUCanberra, AC TKeynote speaker: Elfriede HarthSpokesperson for the InternationalMovem ent W e are C hurch (IM WAC)spea king on 'Crea ting a Just C hurch'.Other spea kers in clude: Veronica Brady,M orag Fraser, Mari e Joyce,H ea th er Tho mso n, M ari e Louise Uhr.Brochures & Conference details from:Ordination of Catholic Women Inc.PO 13ox E41 8, Kin gsto n ACT 26 (J.thomepage: www. netconn ect. com. au I -ocwphone enquiries (02) 6251 45 13V o LUME 9 N uMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 39

BooKs: lIMacLehose of Harvill has been enabling thePETER CRAVENRevival ofthe heartThe Folded Leaf, William Maxwell , The Harvill Press, London, 1999 .ISBN l 86046 545 5, RRP $19.95N THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS, ChristopherIt's the story of Lymie, the physicallyweak, crypto-arty kid, and Spud, the athleteand physical beauty. Spud saves Lymie in aswimming pool when they're teenagers andthey subsequently become inseparable.Spud takes his friend home to his poor butaffectionate family's place (Lymie's motheris dead) and they become the kind of David-and-Jonathan duo in which the butch figure,Spud, is more openly physical, but it'sBritish and Commonwealth worlds todiscover the fiction of William Maxwell,the man who edited Updike and Cheeverand Eudora Welty. Maxwell was the authorof one novella, So Long, See You Tomorrow,as spare and sad as anything in Americanliterature, as well as a host of stories andnovels that reinforce the sense that theAmerican empire extends tolanguage and narrative.Last year Harvill publishedTime Will Darl

destructiveness, but it's also about theholiness of the heart's affections.It's a long time since I read a novel asconfident and modest and spaciously saneas this one. There is very little in the way ofsurface drama in William Maxwell's book,but the intensity of the style is remarkable.Maxwell's writing is for people who likethe traditional satisfactions of sophisticatedstraightforward fiction but who won'tcompromise on subtlety and do not wantthem cut-price. The cover of this bookshows two boys boxing by what looks likea lake, the latter shining through thechiaroscuro of the sepia photograph. Theboy on the right, narrow-waisted with broadshoulders, looks as if he will rapidly disposeof his opponent, who has his head down, hisgloved hands shielding his face; but theyare locked in a formal dance.BOOKS: 2PETER PIERCEIt is perfectly suited to this flawlesslywritten story of private life in a socialsetting. My only question mark about TheFolded Life was whether it didn't once ortwice head towards sentimentalism, butI don't think that is a judgment which canstand. The moments of greatest dramaticintensity are very stark moments indeed.Besides, Maxwell's novel is, among otherthings, a novel about growth, and it earnsits optimism. A novel as unambiguouslygood as this (never mind great) makes youwant to sit down and read the rest of thewriter's work . Readers who are justdiscovering William Maxwell should begrateful to Harvill for the 1200 pages or soof his work which are now in print. •Peter Craven is currently editing the BestAustralian Essays 1999.Hannibal leftoversAHannibal, Thomas Harris, William Heinemann, London, 1999 .ISBN 0 434 00940 7, RRP $39.95LREADY AN INTEMPERATE admirer of resources of language, imagination andRed Dragon (1981) when in 1988 I came to cunning are at the service of a nihilisticreview its sequel, Thomas Harris' The vision of a world of serial killers, victimsSilence of the Lambs, I called him 'the poet and hunters.of horror'. Peter Craven once went further, The latest of Harris' novels marketslikening Harris to Dostoevsky.itself with a single word title: Hannibal.But Harris' lineage is American. Like The front cover blurb adds what fans ofhis great contemporary, Cormac McCarthy, Harris have long desired but-in the 11heisanheirofHemingway, whose influence years since The Silence of the Lambsisapparent in the command of dialogue and began to fear would never happen: 'Theinarrestingpassagesofviolentaction.Harris Return of Hannibal Lecter'. Yet,has other distinctive strengths: insight into intriguingly, disturbingly, that is not exactlythe psychopathology of his murderers, what we get. Lecter has altered himselfintricate but plausible criminal investiga- physically, better to hide from a legion oftions and a wide and esoteric body of pursuers and his internet fans. Collagen hasknowledge that he deploys with pedantic changed the shape of his nose, surgeryrelish.removed the extra middle finger on his leftAll his books contain brilliantly drawn hand ('the rarest form of polydactyly', asminor characters, who live for us vividly, in Harris precisely notes).their terrible isolation: the scandal- Lecter is older, nearing 60 (although, asmongering journalist Freddy Lounds; the John Sutherland observed in the TLS offuneral attendant Lamar; the grieving, 18 June, Harris fudges the chronology),upright parents of murdered Frederica but for all that, he remains a genius whoseBimmell; Will Graham's wife Molly; the IQ and ego (as Harris is fond of telling us)autodidact Barney, erstwhile gu ard of are not measurable by any means knownHannibal Lecter, among many. These are to man. Lecter is a polymath, a lover oftheachievements,notofaformulaicthriller arcane knowledge, a gifted musician and awriter, butofarichlyskillednovelist, whose man apparently immune to emotion.Among literary portraits of genius,Sherlock Holmes' dark side is perhaps thenearest analogue.In her essay in Cannibalism and theColonial World (1998), Maggie Kilgourobserved that Lecter's name holds outtantalising clues: Hannibal was Freud'sfavourite general, while the surnamereminds her of Baudelaire's line, 'hypocritelecteur, man semblable, man fr ere'('hypocrite reader, my likeness, mybrother'). In the earlier novels, suchresonances were part of a mystery cultivatedin tandem by Harris and Dr Lecter. Now,and with chilling unexpectedness, Hannibaldispels the mystery. The novel does not somuch complete the trilogy that began withRed Dragon, as form a sequel to the film ofThe Silence of the Lambs (1991). This lastincarnation of Lecter (a figure now belongingmore to cinema than literature) owes muchto Anthony Hopkins' silky performanceand to the weight of expectationwhich the film created.EULLY TO APPRECIATE what has been lost,we need to backtrack. Red Dragon beginswhen stoic Jack Crawford of the FBI luresWill Graham out of retirement to catch akiller of two families of five, whom tabloidssuch as the National Tattler have dubbed'Th e Tooth Fairy' because he likes to bite.Graham is the man who caught Lecter, andwas almost fatally stabbed for his pains. Itis he who informs a colleague, and thereader, that Lecter is 'not crazy', that 'he didsome hideous things because he enjoyedthem'. 'He has no remorse or guilt at all.'Ultimately, 'he's a monster'. That wordreverberates through each book of thetrilogy. Lecter, whom Graham interviewsboth to seek help with the 'Tooth Fairy'case and out of a fearful curiosity of hisown, has the last word on his 'manhunter'(title of the very good film made of RedDragon in 1986, directed by Michael Mann):'The reason you caught me is that we're justalike.' Lecter's horrible revenge is to set themurderer on Graham and his family, justwhen we assumed that the horrors of thenovel were done.In the next instalment, The Silen ce ofthe Lambs, another investigator calls onLecter. FBI rookie, Clarice Starling, has alsobeen despatched by Jack Crawford. She isafter another serial killer, whom the papershave rechristened 'Buffalo Bill', 'because heskins his humps'. Both this man, (actuallyJame Gumb) and 'The Tooth Fairy' cum'Red Dragon' (Francis Dolarhyde) desire atransformation of themselves. DolarhydeVOLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 41

speaks of his 'Becoming', wherein he turnsinto the Red Dragon imagined by WilliamBlake. In one of the most shocking scenes ina truly frightening book, he en ters theBrooklyn Museum and eats the Blake paintingof 'The Great Red Dragon and the Wom anClothed with th e Sun'. More mundanely,Gumb seeks to becom e his lost m other, andth us is sewing a suit m ade of the skins ofthe women he has m urdered. Harris invested'A census tak.er tried to quantify me once. I ate hisliver with some fava beans and a big Amarone.'less energy in this portrayal, for in th esecon d novel, the infinitely m ore com plexfigure of Dr Lecter is also on the loose.When Starling asks Lecter what'happened' to him, he answers reprovingly:'Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling.I happened. You can't reduce m e to a set ofinfluences. You've given up good and evilfor behaviourism.' Then he offers her anadmonitory anecdote: 'A census taker triedto quantify m e once. I ate his liver withsom e fava beans and a big Amarone.' Thestory follows of how he served the sweetbreadsof his patient, Benjam in Raspail, tothe president and the conductor of theBaltimore Philharmonic. (Lecter, let usadmit, makes us laugh, if from a safedistance.) His courtesy-both in conversationand in the letters that the authoritiesimprobably do not censor-is also disarming.As no-one since Graham has managed,Starling will learn to imagine Lecter'sdesires and intentions. She will also learn,at the cost of some humiliations, never toseek to quantify, or to explain them .The more disconcerting then that Harris,returning to Lecter now, does reduce him toa person whose eating h abi ts can beexplained. Worse still, he bestows on his'm onster' a biograph y which, if h ardlyconventional, makes him m ore like all ofus than he had ever been before: born ofaristocratic lineage in Lithuania circa 1938,growing up on the fam ily estate near Vilnius,his fa ther was a count and his Italian mothera Visconti. This inform ation has beengathered for Mason Verger, one of Lecter'svictims who survived having his face eatenby dogs and who now plots revenge: he isarranging for Lecter to be devoured alive bypigs specially bred from savage varietiesaround the world by a fa mily of sadisticSardinians. Lecter also had a sister Mischa,'long dead and digested'. For once Harris isnot playing fair. We are led to suppose thatLecter did the digesting, when, in fact, afterthe estate was bombed and their parentskilled in 1944, Misch a and Hannibal weretaken by German army deserters. Plumperthan her bro th er, Mischa was the one eaten.Hannibal 'did see a few of Mischa's milkteeth in the reeking stool pit his captors used'.And that, we appear m eant to infer fromthis grisly detail, was the trauma thatexplains Lecter's subsequent career. Sincethen he has come to recognise 'how his ownm odest preda tion spaled beside those ofGod, who is in ironym a tchless, and inwanton malice beyondmeasure'. N o wonder- we are hardly preventedfrom reflecting- that Lecter becamea connoisseur and collector, in his richlystored 'memory palace', of the fatal collapsesof churches. We seem to be asked to acceptthat Lecter's past is the partial justificationfor his homicidal career. The problem isthat the last person likely to urge suchextenuation is the Lecter whom we used toknow, the villain of the firs t two novels. Inthe third, behind the endearingly familiartitle Hannibal, h e is no longer the sam e.This eponymous hero has becom e someonewho 'very much liked to shop'; who takeshis Fauchon lunch on a trans-Atlantic flightto avoid airline food. Most disconcerting,he lets himself be captured, because of thequixotic gesture of leaving Starling a $300+bottle of Ch ateau Yquem of the']1 vintage of her birth year..1. HI S I S A LECTER wh o invites ou rsympathy, rather than horror or reprobationor guilty laughter. Hannibal is not the Lecterwith whom the first two novels of thetrilogy were engrossed. To be sure, inHannibal, Harris puts Lecter through som efamiliar paces. After dazzling a sm all,irritable, self-important group of scholarsin Florence with his lecture on Dan te andJudas Iscariot, the linkage between avariceand hanging, Lecter escapes from the firstVerger-i nspired attem.pt to capture him. Heinform s Detective Pazzi (who t wigged,unfortunately for him, that th e distinguished Dr Fell was in fact the infam ousDr Lecter) that 'I'm giving serious thoughtto eating your wife.' Th en he arranges hisdeath in a m anner which recalls Botticelli'spainting of Pazzi's disgraced an d hangedancestor, Francesco de' Pazzi.Ghastly brio was always Lecter's longsuit. The problem, in Hannibal, is that helacks a fo il. There is n o Will Graham, northe younger Starling. Disillusioned anddisgraced by the FBI, she will, in effect,switch sides. Leaving Lecter on essentiallyuncontested ground (Sardinian assassins andpig-herders apart), the novel loses in tensity.Harris does not seem to mind. He preparesa last scene of excess. As Dr Chilton, directorof the asylum for the crim inally insane,hounded Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs(dooming himself to the edible fa te thatHopkins encourages audiences to smirkabou t at the end of the film ), so Starling ispersecuted by Depu ty Director Krendler.He is that stock 1990s villain, a would-bepolitician, and in Verger's pocket. In Lecter'swords, Starling is 'a warrior'. The conflictbetween the heroic realm and the realm ofpolitics that trammels and betrays it, is asold as N orse saga. Starling chooses at last toescape into a luxurious if dangerous exile.Impossible at first to imagine, she becomesLecter's companion and lover, offering himher breast, and then learning Italian betterto converse with him.Before then, Krendler has come to dinner.Kidnapped and drugged by Lecter, the FBIman has his skull neatly sawn off andwatches-h is a t tention necessarilydrifting-while Lecter and Clarice eat hisfron tal lobes with a sauce of caper berries.The dirty dishes are emptied into his vacantbrain pan.Thus Lecter avenges Starling, as earlierhe had revenged himself on the egregiousChilton. But what has Harris done? Thisculminating horror (the pigs have had theirfu n and Verger's lesbian sister has doneaway with him with the aid of a moray eel)makes unfilm able the novel that the successof the fi lm of The Silence of the Lambsdictated (perhaps to a reluctant and evennervous H arris). Evidently JonathanDemme, who directed, and Hopkins, whowon a Best Actor Oscar, do not wish to beinvolved in the cinem atic adaptation ofHannibal. But if not them , others will be.All the artistic compromises whichHarris has made, lessening the austerityand power of his art, his fidelity to comprehendingth e worst of what we might be,will m atter not at all when box office takingsare projected. Harris will be a beneficiary atthe expense of his own genius. There havebeen few sorrier circumstances to ponder inmodern American literature, or in the showbusiness that can attend its popular forms.This is especially so wh en the author is aseccentric, reclusive and imperiouslyindifferent to those who might have editedhim as Thomas Harris.•Peter Pierce is Professor of Au stralianLiterature at James Cook University.42 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

THEATRE: lStage businessPlaywright Jack Hibberd says Australian theatre is in crisis. Director Barrie Koskysays we mustn't do Shakespeare, or at least not the way we're doing it-give it toCircus Oz instead. Peter Craven takes heart from two recentAustralian productions and argues for a national style with nofrills and no aux-Shakespearean accents.E UGENE O'NEILL is the father of modern rv- consumption and told that he will have toAmerican drama. Without him, Miller andTennessee Williams are inconceivable.Without him, we would not have thetortuous psychodramas of Edward Albee orthe familial free-for-alls of Sam Shepard.He gave the American theatre its dialogueand its dilemma. The dialogue tended toconsist of how to kill a loved one, withactions or words. The dilemma was how totravel with this abiding premise ofheartbreak and horror without turning the/""'go into a sanatorium. It is the day whenMary Tyrone, the mother, loses her longbattle with narcotics and the day whenJames Tyrone, hack actor and raconteur,proves himself to be a miser and his elderson, James junior, twists himself into a coilof treachery and intelligence.One ofthe deeply American things aboutthis play is that the Tyrones are presentedas profoundly ordinary people even thoughthe family quartet constitutes four of theplay 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 LongLong Day's Journey Into Night is needs at the moment like Day'sJourneyintoNightisSidneyLum et'sO'N eill's masterpiece, and the towering a shot in the arm iS more film with Katharine Hepburn and Ralphnature of its authority is heightened by theRichardson as Mary and James Tyrone, andfact that its production was so long delayed of this naturalism and Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell as thethat it appeared in the midst of other playssons. It is a gift of a play for actors, bringingfrom the school O'Neill had spawned. this-for want of a better outthefullrangeofwhateverlight anddarkIt's the story of a family engaged in a WOrd-classicism. they have in their bag of tricks. People tendmoment of self-vivisection. Tolstoy saysto remember like beacons the performancesthat an unhappy family is unhappy in its It does not need pseudo- they have seen: Olivier at the N ational orown way, but the great family dramas are asJack Lemmon on Broadway. I once sawintimately familiar as one's own 'domestics' boulevardier hacks Prunella Scales (Sybil from Fawlty Towers)and are written in a language which is in noas a sturdy Mary Tyrone and then, a week orway beyond the level of our nightmares. We falling On their bottOmS so later, the great Bibi Anderson, ravishingfeel for these people and are appalled by pretending to be and ravaged, in a Swedish productionthem because they go for each other anddirected by Ingmar Bergman.continue to love each other in ways that Trevor Nunn. The first thing to be said about Michaelstare us out of thought, because what weEdwards' production of O'Neill's masterrecogniseare our own fears distorted or Allofthisgivesthe playan extraordinary piece with Robyn N evin and John Bell fortransfigured in some moment of violence warmth. Its very idioms seem so rooted in the Bell Shakespeare Company is that it isor agony of vehemence. universal habits of mind (self-delusion, self- up there with productions that peopleHamlet is famously the play in which revelation and pride, self-satisfaction, remember for the rest of their lives. This isthe 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 andof 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 theJoumeyislikea partforaquartetofHamlets, the postures through which we strut. Bell company do, it is one of the besteach haunted by his own ghost, each on a Long Day's Journey Into Night is as productions to be seen on the Australianvengeful 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 whopsychologi cal and self-destructive family on one not-uncharacteristic day of works in America, gets m ore imaginativecompulsion, inseparable from the bond of crisis. This is the day when the younger mileage than you would expect from thelove and the pieties of attachment. Tyrone son, Edmund, is diagnosed as having simple decision to dispense with AmericanV OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 43

accents almost entirely, and the effect ismarvellously liberating. Of the principals,only N evin has a faint touch of lace-curtainAmerican and the effect slightly weakens astrong characterisa tion. The decision todispense with twangs allows the cast roomto act and the upshot is to make the play allthe more immediate and intimate. Itremains an American play set in a particularperiod but the dominant absence of fauxAmerican highlights the reality of the worldof the play through every notation ofexpressionism and naturalism, so that thevoices of pre-World War I America and ofcontemporary Australia are fused withoutany self-consciousness or fakery.The play was staged in Melbourne undersom ething like ideal conditions at theFairfax and that intimate drama-friendlyspace sh owed an excellent production withmaximum light and shade and subtlety.It is a word-heavy play, of course, as wellas one in which the sorrows of the worldcatch fire in a whirl of adrenaline andbraggadocio and alcohol and drugs. Thetext is cut to a spare I!), calamitous threehours which seems not a moment too long.It is as deep and dark as a well whileremaining free and moody and improvised.Ridley CollegeEUniversity of MelbourneGlobalisation - Ethical andChristian ResponsesMonday 27th September, 5.30-9.30pmSTANWAY ALPHA l ECTURE THEATRE160 THE AVENUE, PARKVILLE"'""Registration 5. 15pmMax StackhouseProf. of Social Ethics, Princeton Seminary,and Ed itor of 011 1\lfora/ Business (whichMax will be speaking about on 28thSeptember, 7.30-9am, 470 Bourke St,City. Please ring for more detail s.David LyonProf. of Sociology, Queens University,Ontari o. and autho r of The SiliconSociety, Karl Marx, and j esus inDisJJey/aJtd.Cost $20, Cone $12.50 includes dinnerRSVP - (03) 9207 491 4 by 22 SeptemberBOOKINGS ESSENT IALJohn Bell as James Tyrone gives whatmay well be the performance of his career.This portrait of an ageing stager seems tome a deeper and less mannered thing thanhis famous Hamlet of a generation ago. It isa scaled-down, fine-grained portrait of anintelligent man baffled by pain and rage andpersonal weakness. It has been easy to forgetwhat a fine naturalistic actor John Bell is,because he is characteristically seen in ahaze of Shakespearean mannerism . Herethe residual actor's manner is given anironic distance and is played on shrewdly asthe true element of James Tyrone's longfarewell to his potential greatness. Theterrier-like, slightly Olivierish voice, ispulled back and the effect of the wholecharacterisation is likeable, bloodcurdlingand deeply poignant. I'd give John Bell allthe Green Room awards in the world forthis performance. It is a true vindication ofhis reputation as an actor.Robyn Nevin as Mary Tyrone is notquite so successful. The production allowsher to adopt a set of genteel mannerismswhich are appropriate enough t o thecharacter but which do not come across ascompletely natural to the actress. Nevinallows herself, as to some extent she must,to be dulcet and fey where her natural bentis fire and flint and wiriness.Her finest moment is when she raveson, stoned, to the Irish serving m aid: shesings with the relaxation the narcotic hasgiven her, all tears are wiped away and theworld of memory, of all small things, is fora moment enchanted. Nevin is brilliant inthe realism she brings to Mary Tyrone'saddiction, the wringing of the hands, thecompulsive giveaway talkiness and thesense of being insulted and injured andhaving no recourse.Both the sons are very fine indeed (eventhough one knows that they are being heldup and stimulated by the electricity andsheer histrionic stamina of Bell and Nevinat the height of their powers). BenjaminWinspear as the young, tubercular brotherEdmund, has an open, almost dazed,gentlen ess, a kind of boyish sense ofwonderment and irony that is exactly rightfor this character. H e is not, as som eEdmunds are, a passive witness to thisfestival of domestic horror, but adrift andwide-eyed in the whole sea of love-hatethat has overtaken him. Everything inMichael Edwards' production allowsWinspear to express his dramatic rangewithout impediment. No doubt as an actorh e has much to learn but he has masteredwhat he needs to play this 'nice' boy besetwith the stark ravaging phantoms of hisfamily.As the older brother, James junior, SandyWinton is da zzling. This is the kind of'supporting' acting one dreams of in thiscountry, though it is in fact wrong tosubordinate any of the main parts inO'Neill's play. Winton 's performa nce isfull of openness and easygoing humour, itsbluffness never overdone. But it hasmoments, too, of deep and laceratingnastiness that carry absolute conviction.He also carries off the quite formidabletrick of playing a character who is, at onepoint, quite drunk, without resorting tocaricature or stereotype. It's a performanceof penetrating intelligence and plausibilityand charm.This production of Long Day's Journ eyInto Night is a winner which should tourthe whole of the country and become partof the permanent repertoire of the BellShake peare Company. But not becausethere is anything particularly progressiveor flash about it- no dog would learn newtricks from it. It simply has a compellingdynamism, an extreme efficiency of action,and performances which look like a moralre vela tion simply b ecau se they arem eticulou and fully imagined and comefrom fine actors who fit their parts,more or less, like gloves.M ELBOURNE Theatre Company'sdouble Pinter bill, Th e Collection and TheLover, was a return to the seductive space ofthe Fairfax and in som e ways to theefficiencies and elegancies that underpinnedLong Day's Journey and gave it its sense ofuniversal emotion through commoncadence.The Fairfax is a splendid, intimate space,ideally suited to the sinister power plays,the black transfigurations of basic Englishlanguage- intimately familia.r and in tim a tel ysoiled- which are the stock-in-trade of thevintage Pinter of nearly 40 years ago .In Th e Collection, a young m anintimately but equivocally linked to a mucholder man is taxed by a stranger. The strangersays that he is the husband of a woman withwhom the younger m an has slept. On theother side of the stage we see the wife,preening with a kitten, dealing with theavenger as husband. In a crucial scene theolder man, the protector, talks to theputatively adulterous wife who has rompedit home (or has she?) with his young fri end.The play is a short masterpiece, full of aworld of complexly slippery but nakedlycomprehensible psychosexual nightmares,44 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMB ER 1999

POETRYso familiar they make the audience flinch.The repressive urbanity of the set of starchamber inquisitions in living rooms is sostark because commonplaces and civilitiesare wielded like whips.Jenny Kemp's production is terrific, fullof pace and portent. Again, the dropping ofany pretence at English accents (as with thedisavowal of stage American in the O'Neill)liberates the actors so they can stick, withmusicianly precision, to the rhythms ofPinter's pattering dialogue. There can havebeen few dramatists in any age soexperimental and 'original' who had at thesam e time such a massive naturalistic gift,such a microphone of an ear.The sweet scarifying nothings of Pinterproved adaptable to the cinematic masterpiecesof Losey and the laconic eloquenceof a range of film-makers. In The Collectionhe is served splendidly by his quartet ofactors. Robert Menzies, Bruce Myles, DavidTredinnick and Melita Jurisic have anensemble strength and sense of actuallyhitting the note (not swerving around it)which is rare in Australian theatre.Menzies in particular has a sharp, hecticquality which is in no way separate fromthis actor's classical strength. He can hearthe pauses in Pinter the way the Shakespeareanhears the rise and fall of the line.But each of the actors gets the necessaryknife-edge restraint to allow Pinter, thatpoet of intimidation, to sound like himself.Bruce Myles is as nasty and insinuatingas Donald Pleasance in the role of the olderart dealer in The Collection, and he directsThe Lover, which is rather more of a scherzo,though a masterly one, with considerableskill.The Lover is almost a two-bander-likeNoel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence inone of the subtler chambers of hell.Again Menzies' acting has a hecticbrilliance and precision. At times MelitaJurisic seem ed to me to be overplaying theJean Greenwood-like voice of deep honeyshe assum es for this role, but physically sheis marvellous, fiery and then disarrayed,torn, distracted.One had the strange illusion with thisPinter duo that these plays were beingperformed as they were written. It is anillusion, of course. Any achievem ent of thetheatre will be a victory of interpretation,but it was nice to see it working so tacitlyand implicitly without show or swank.I suspect what Australian theatre needsat the moment like a shot in the arm ismore of this naturalism and this-for wantof a better word-classicism. It does notTadpoles'One is very stillit may be shyor perhapsit's missing its mother.'he says peering into the bucket.We are digging a pondbeside the young fig treefrogs are what we want.What I've gotcannot be describedbut when I look at himmy heart'sa bucket full of tadpoles.need pseudo-boulevardier hacks falling ontheir bottoms pretending to be Trevor Nunn.It needs chamber style productions, perhapsespecially of the classic modern works or inthe classic modern style. Paradoxically thiswill be, if only as a whisper and a traceelement, a national style. What else wouldit be?If the Bell Shakespeare Company wouldlearn to do Shakespeare with the restraintKATE L LEWELLYNNorfolk Island PineThe pine tree standsa chalice full of sky.Beyond,the sea is also blueand is what the land sipsevery day.Birds are singingin the Tree of Heaven*which holds the feederfull of seed.The lawn is a green clothon this earth.All I need to dois prayto be a glass of poetry.*Ailanthus altissima. Also called Marryattville Tree.and intensity that they have done O'Neill;if the MTC could get on to its main stagethe feeling for words and fundamentaldramatic solutions- rather than extrinsichyperbole and declaration-that it showedin Pinter ... well, then we might have amainstream theatre worth spitting at. •Peter Craven is currently editing BestAustralian Essays 1999.VOLUME 9 NUMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 45

THEATRE: 2Grand toursI. SvoNev, I o.ught ooe of twoShakespeares, Neil Armfield's As You LikeIt for Company Bat Belvoir St; the other, aMacbeth with Colin Friels and Helen Budayfor the Sydney Theatre Company, openedafter I had moved on to Brisbane. Armfieldproductions have been all over Australiathis year. Most centres have seen Th e Juda sKiss, which finished its long tour in Brisbanein mid-July, while the superb Cloudstreetwas in Melbourne in July before travellingto Adelaide in August. So it was interestingto seeAnnfield at work back home at BelvoirSt Theatre; interesting, but ultimately a bitdisappointing.This As You Like It begins on a largewrestling mat covering the whole of thestandard Belvoir corner space, paddedunderneath for the match between Charlesand Orlando. At the end of the first actwhenhalf the cast are banished or planningto leave the court in sympathy-the mat iswinched up to reveal a greensward of forestlawn beneath it and a wonderful Elizabethan' h eavens' painted on its underside.Disarmingly simple, but powerfullyeffective, tricks of this kind are meat anddrink for Armfield.So is unorthodox casting, some of whichworks very well here and some lesseffectively. Rosalind and her father, theexiled Duke Senior, are played by Aboriginalactors Deborah Mailman and Bob Maza,which adds another layer to notions ofdispossessed status. On the other hand,casting Silvius (Bradley Byquar) as anAboriginal forest landowner seemssomehow at odds with this. Aaron Blabey,as a nerdy little Orlando, makes a fine contrastto Mailman's very butch Ganymede,while Jacek Koman's Jaques is a moodystudy in stoic resignation. DiminutiveKirstie Hutton is a smashing foil as Celiaand the wooing scenes surrounding theinterval are sexy, pacy and very, very funny.But there is some casting that is justplain dumb. It is hard to fathom whyIn Sydney and Brisbane in winter, Geoffrey Miln e unearthed some broadcontrasts in Australian theatre.Matthew Whittet's Touchstone is playedas a crotchety, cross-dressed governess orwhy Geoff Kelso's doubling duties includea vaudeville-tarty Audrey; the resultantcoupling of a 'female' Touchstone and a'male' Audrey thus ends up as an ideayielding bewilderingly little substance. TessSchofield's postmodern costuming (whilenot as silly as Judith Hoddinott's for therecent Bell Merchant of Venice) is also amixed blessing. Ganymede is suitablyboyish in a schoolboy suit of Ginger Meggsvintage, for example, but poor old Bob Mazalooks ill-at-ease in a Fijian chieftain's skirtwith flowers in his hair.In short, this is an incomplete blueprintfor a production. When Armfield's playfuldirection, personality-based casting andsimple but insightful stage tricks all geltogether (as in Cloudstreet or the 1983Twelfth Night), the whole isfar greater than the sum of aproduction's disparate parts.When they don't, the resultsuggests that here is a directorwho's doing too muchtoo distractedly.I also saw Kim Carpenter'sTheatre of Image atwork for the first time inSydney. This visual theatrecompany has been producingshows for adults and childrenfor a decade and this year'skids' show, in associationwith the STC at the Wharf,was a revival of a modernisedHansel and Gretel byCarpenter and RichardTulloch first seen at Belvoir St in 1991.Relocating the story to a Sydney family whosefather is summarily retrenched but whosenew stepmother likes to live the good life(which makes it hard to feed their kids) is asound enough idea, at least to begin with.And the visuals-some inspired puppetry,outstanding object manipulation andCarpenter's trademark colourfulproduction design-are mostly brilliant, ifa shade repetitive. But the dramaticdevelopment is too slow too often (it takesan age to set up the fabulous transformationwhich sends the Mother Hubbard-inspired'witch' into the fire, for example), the plotoptions are mostly soft, and promisingthreads remain frustratinglyunconnected at the end.SOFT OPTIONS also seem to be the order ofthe day at the Twelfth Night Theatre inBowen Hills, Brisbane. The long-servingpro-am company which built this theatrein the early 1970s and gave it its name sadlyno longer exists, but the pro-am traditionembraced by the current commercialmanagem ent under Gail Wiltshire sadlystill does. Going to Twelfth Night Theatre(especially to a Saturdaymatinee) is a reminder ofwhat commercial theatrewas like in the 1970s,when British TV starswere brought out to takeleading roles alongsidelocal TV person ali tiesand other amateurs inlightweight foreign plays.This year's July productionpaired Britt Eklandand lain Fletcher (betterknownas DC Skase inThe Bill) in Daphne duMaurier's 'spectacularstage romance', SeptemberTide, ahead of an'Australian Tour'-to theGold Coast Arts Centre and to His Majesty'sin Perth in August.This is one of du Maurier's rare attemptsat stage writing, apart from adaptations ofher own fiction like Rebecca ( 1939) withwhich Twelfth Night had great successseveral years ago. September Tide is set in1948 Cornwall, where theEkland character,Rod Quantock's la st stand46 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMBER 1999

Stella Martyn, is preparing her h om e for thearrival of her newly married daughter,Ch erry (who bears surprisin gly littleresemblance to her Scandinavian mum),and obnoxiou s, hard-drinking painterhusband, Evan (the Fletcher vehicle). Theyoung couple plan to holiday there beforemoving to America once Evan has created abankable body of work. One night, while heis busy painting (a portrait of mother-inlaw,as it happens), Cherry goes off to thepictures with a girlfriend but a big Septemberstorm erupts and Cherry can't get home.Meanwhile, Stella and Evan snuggle up infront of a palpably cellophane fire and scoffher last bottle of pre-war Burgundy-and apredictable love affair begins. In Act 2,things become strained between all parties(including Stella's old boyfriend, a yachtingtype who handily has access to plenty ofpost-war rationed Scotch), but luckilyCherry never finds outaboutwhathappenedon that night of the September tide andEvan (played here as a rather stolid beatnikprototype) has the decency to decamp withhis unloved wife before more irremediabledamage is done.A very conventional, if over-decorated,box set and acting hewn from the oldest ofEnglish wood make this tired old stuffanything but spectacular, while the utterpredictability of th e plot robs it of any realsense of romance. But it does take place ona stage, so at least a third of the promotionalslogan is in good faith. Twelfth Night'sOctober production is Kay Mellor's APassionate Woman, starring Onslow fromKeeping Up Appearances and Tracey fromBirds of a Feather. This seems to say it all,really.Across the Brisbane River at the QueenslandPerforming Arts Complex, there was astylish new Australian play called Vertigoand the Virginia, written by Melbourneemigre Sven Olsen for the QueenslandTheatre Company, which has been as visibleon n ational tours la t ely as Sydney'sCompany B. This is a classic Australianfamily drama set simultaneously in a cityin the present and in old Adaminaby in1949-50, when the Snowy MountainAuthority was ab out to fl ood it inpreparation for the new hydro-electric andirrigation schem e that becam e legendary inpost-war Australian engineering and socialhistory. In the contemporary timeframe,teenager Caylam plagues his mother Ruth(played with consummate edginess by CarolBurns, pictured) to tell him the truth aboutwhat happened in those fateful days whenshe was just a slip of a girl. The flashbackaction illustrates Ruth's and Adaminaby'spast via her mother Frances-and triggersrepressed m emories of events which Ruthis too disturbed to reveal without deepsoul-searching.Without giving away too much of anicely shocking plot, the past relationshipsbetween Frances, her husband (u nseen onstage) and a Yugoslav immigrant worker,Voya, have momentous impact on thosebetween Ruth, her father and (in the present)Carol Burns in Vertigo and the Virginia .h er inquisitive son. Olsen 's spare butaccomplish ed writing, and the simple buteloquent staging by director Tom Gutteridgeand designers Michelle Fallon (set) andDavid Walters (lighting), combine to drawcompelling drama out of this rich material.Through much of the action, Ruth andCay lam and Frances and Voya are all ons tageat once and both narratives mergeseamlessly into one discontinuous butultimately satisfying story. Memories arebeautifully refracted through theimaginative stage-set in the intimateCrem orn e Theatre, w hich takes them etaphoric form of a snowdome; themountain snows occlude the little houseinside it for a while, but when they recede(as the dam-waters did recently in a droughtto lay bare the skeleton of old Adaminaby)the truth comes flooding back.This is a terrific little play and it is verywell acted. Angela Campbell is gorgeou s asa late 1940s Frances; young Jason Gann issplendid as the (perhaps slightly formulaic)m odern interlocutor fi gure and Brisbanestalwart Eugene Gilfedder achieves thequerulous righteousness of Voya verystrongly. It's a production which wouldmake an excellent buy-in for Griffin,Play box or the Perth Theatre Company. If itdoes appear elsewh ere, don' tM missit.EANWHIL E, Melbourne in July andAugu st found itself in the grip of politicaltheatre (mostly of German-language origin)dealing with the rise of totalitarian rule.The Melbourne Theatre Company's newArtistic Director Simon Phillips' firstproduction in that role happened to be anever-less-than-competent and often quitetheatrically exciting production of TheResistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Bertol t Brecht'sparable play (written with MargareteSteffin,typically not credited in the program) aboutthe rise of Hitler in the guise of Chicagogangster. Poignantly, Phillips' productionoverlapped with the first American tour (ofthe same play) by the Berliner Ensemble; itwill also be the final tour of that legendarycompany, which is closing down after 50years. At the same time, allegories coveringsimilar terrain by the Swiss playwrightsMax Frisch (Th e Fire Raisers ) and FriedrichDiirrenmatt (The Visit) were also seen inrevivals of differing quality in fringe venueslike Wax Studios and the CarltonCourthouse.But the most confident and accomplishedAustralian purveyor of contemporarypolitical rh etoric in the Englishlanguage is longtime su rvivor of theMelbourne comedy scene, Rod Quantock.His most recent piece, A Major Event,sub-titled 'The Final Report of the ComedianGeneral on the State of the State', is abrilliant satirical version of an auditorgeneral'sreport focusing on social andaesthetic rather than finan cial issues.Coincidentally, the actual auditor-generalin Victoria, Ches Baragwanath, retired inthe week that Quantock's show, with trademarkblackboard, chalk and talk, opened atthe Melbourne Trades Hall, where it is torun until 4 September. Sadly, Quantock hasflagged this as his fi nal political comedysolo piece; he feels there is nothing left tosay about the ship of state as steered by J .G.Kennett.I think he's wrong. There will be moreto say and I hope Quantock-one of them ost gifted minds and mouths inAustralian comedy-will take the chan ceto say it.•Geoffrey Milne is head of theatre and dramaat LaTrobe University.V OLUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 47

English infusionsTea With Mussolini, dir. Franco Zeffirelli.You tend to forget that Zeffirelli has beenan anglophile for most of his lavishdirectorial career. From the early Taming ofThe Shrew( 196 7) through Romeo and Juliet(1968) to Jane Eyre (1996), he has minedEnglish writers-and to fine effect. Theyhave, after all, consistently turned in topdrawer,infinitely adaptable material anddon't get into a lather about copyright.For this channing but disappointing film,Zeffirelli has been loyal- h aving JohnMortimer write the screenplay with himbutnot wise. Mortimer does satiric surfacesrobustlyamusing, as in his Rumpole series.But for this loosely fictionalised account ofZeffirelli's own wartime boyhood and hisadoption by the ladies of the Englishcommunity in Florence during the fascistperiod, you need more than witty punchlinesand the patina of English eccentricity. ButZeffirelli is too fond and Mortimer toohearty to making anything more taxing thanan entertainment out of potentially richmaterial. Shakespeare does help them outthough: in one scene the young Luca/Zeffirelli is sent into exile in Germany toget the schooling his opportunist fatherthinks will benefit him. The ladies cushionthe child's departure by doing a chorus ofHenry V's St Crispian's speech: 'He that outlivesthis day, and comes safe home/Willstand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd ... 'The cinematography is delicate andhazy, doing justice enough to Tuscany tomake you understand why this odd littleband of time-warped English women mighthave risked themselvesto stay andhelp preserve it fromGerman explosivesand the juggernautof allied victory.The acting is alternatelychiselled andoutrageous: MaggieSmith (left) and JoanPlowright playladies, (Plowrightvery convincingly),while Cher and JudiDeneb let themselvesgo royally.The Italian actorsperform like stockItalian characters ina pre-war English Bmovie-oddly embarrassing in a film froma director who ought to know better.-Morag FraserKubrick veneerEyes Wide Shut, dir. Stanley Kubrick. I wentthere ready to like the film, to ditchreservations about the relentless publicitycampaign and its glossy stars, because itwas, after all, a Kubrick. Kubrick- whogave us Dr Strangelove, The Shining, AClockwork Orange,2001: A Space Odyssey,Full Metal Jacl

fe llow working as a tout ou tside a stripjoint. His luck is about to change. Pandooffers Jimmy a simple job. The job turnssour and Jimmy looks like he's in line totake an unpleasant camping trip with Pando,a large gun and no waffle-maker.Enter Alex (Rose Byrne), an angel withperoxide hair just arrived fro m the country.Her dairymaid blush sham es the nastinessof King Cross. She offers Jimmy a chance towork in a m stic trade som ewhere up north.I thought she was going to as k Jimmy towork on her dairy and m ake real money.But no, Jimmy has to shoot a few cops first,but the love ofa good woman seem s to ensurehe'll remain a good bloke-just as long as hecan find a paddle for his barbed-wire canoe.Two Hands has a couple of genuinebelly laughs; armed robbers who plan holdupsand childcare in the same conversationoffer the best laughs.The casualness w ith which people areblown away, drowned and mn over probablydoes make this a hip film. Even so, TwoHands might have som e real m eaning;som etimes we're made to wonder if placeshold mem ories of past wrongs.Maybe it will be flawed heroes likeJimmy who'll right the wrongs embeddedin the bush and benea th the city asphalt.Then again, Two Hands might ju st beanother film about nothing. It's worth goingand pending 103 minutes m aking yourmind up.-Paul SinclairExtraordinaryJoeMy Name is foe, dir. Ken Loach. There'ssomething incredibly beautiful about theplainness of this film. It covers fa miliarterritory for director Ken Loach, focusingon a community battered by mass longtermunemployment, dmgs and poverty.Despite the potential for blea kness andmisery, Loach offers us something m oredifficult to understand and to show: thepossibility of hope amid hopeless conditions.The Joe of the title (a wonderfulperformance by Pet er Mulle n ) is anunemployed alcoholic, with nothing toshow for his 37 years, and no prospectseither. All he has going for him is 11 straightmonths off the booze, the local unemployedworkers' soccer club which he coaches (whohave only won a ingle gam e, ever), and hisfri end Shanks, who took him to hi first AAmeeting. He m eets Sarah, a local communityhealth worker, and despite the gap in theirsocial class (sh e has a job you see), theybegin a tentative but hopeful rom ance.Each of them, in their own way, iscommitted to the battered community theylive in. They fi rst cross paths attempting tohelp Liain , an ex- junkie and dmg- dealertrying, like Joe, to stay straight. Unfortunately,Liain 's wife is still using, and hasracked up impos ible debts with the localdealers in doing so. The dealers, of course,will have their du e, on e way or another. Inhis attempts to protect Liam, Joe gets drawninextricably into an increasingly impossibleand desperate situation, where his desire todo the right thing by everyone around himbackfires tragically.This is a familiar plot- the good mancornered by fate is a classic formula fortragedy. What makes this story so affecting,however, is the simplicity of its telling. It'sas if, in offering us these chara cters' storiesin such an unadorned, straightforwardm anner, Loach is affirming his fa ith in thevalue and significance of their experiencejust as it is. Perhaps m ore importantly, bygiving it to us directly, he also gives usnowhere to hide from the rawness and theraggedness of that experience.-Allan James ThomasPlay to the endPlaying by Heart (dir. Willard Carroll ). It'sworth staying to the end of Playing byHeart to see how the seemingly separatestrands of the story all com e together. N otthat you 'll be bored in the m eantime. Formost of the film, we follow fiv e distinctrelationships. While each of them is vibrantand engaging, it's hard to find any point ofconnection between them, except for thefact that they all take place in Los Angeles.Indeed, you begin to su spect that thi issom ething like New York Stories, exceptthat these narratives mn concurrent! y ratherthan sequentially.You wonder if perh aps Willard Carroll,who wrote the film as well as directed it,has created a loose stmcture to fit theem otional claustrophobia he is exploring.But then, in the final 20 minutes, the strandscome together so easily and simply that theresult is delightful. Each strand of thenarrative has been strong. The final fit iswell nigh unbreakable.Paul (Sea n Connery) and Hannah (GenaRowlands) have been m arried fo r 40 years.They live in com fort. But Paul has beendiagnosed with a terminal disease and thereare som e issues which have been unresolvedin their marriage for 25 years. Meanwhile,Joan (Angelina Jolie) is cmising clubs andruns into the surly, withdrawn Keenan(Ryan Philippe).Meanwhile, Gracie (Madeleine Stowe)is having an affair with Roger (AnthonyEd wards). Mildred (Ellen Burs tyn ) is waitingby the bed side of her dying son, Mark (JayMohr). Meredith (Gillian Anderson ) is doingher best to fend off the attentions of Trent(Jon Stewart). Such stories are the bread andbutter of living in a western city. They aret old w ith humour and wit. Carroll'sdirection uses the talen t of his big-nameactors without allowing them to dominatethe large cast. This film surprises you byshowing how much these characters haveinvested in each other. Take your cynicalfriends. It will do them good.-Michael McGirr SfBubble and squeakBedrooms and Hallways, dir. Rose Troche.'Wild Men' weekends, the sexual fantasiesof London real-estate agents, screwball poppsychology and sharp domestic wit makesthis romp round London relationshipsenormou sly en gaging. Bedrooms andHallways is lightweight cinematic delight.The plot twists fa ncifully around thegorgeous gay Leo (Kevin McKidd), who ispersuaded to attend a N ew Age m en's groupby his open-minded but straight businesspartner. Som ewhere between the 'honestystone' and the group sauna Leo admits tofinding a fellow m ember of the grou pattractive-a revelation that unleashes afl ood of confused sexual sh en an iga ns,reassessm ents and aggressions. Everythingit seem s is up fo r grabs- literally.With the m en's group in a shambles andgay Leo in love with straight Brendan (JamesPurefoy), enter Sally (Jennifer Ehle), Leo'shigh-sch ool sweetheart and s t raigh tBrendan's ex-long- term girlfriend. What todo? Whom to turn to? Which team to batfor?Yes, this is soap, in fac t it's a bubblebath, but I enjoyed it fro m start to last.Hugo Weaving is ma terful as a gentlymenacing real-estate agent in lust with thesartorially outrageous Darren, while Si m onCallow and Harri e t Walter put inmischievously over-the- top performancesas the N ew Age group leaders. In fact, allthe film's players, big and small, are ripper.London itself puts in a handsom e, if heavilydisguised, performance- endless sunshineand pots of red geraniums add charminglyto the soapy fantasy of it all.- Siobhan JacksonV O LUME 9 N UMBER 7 • EUREKA STREET 49

Homage to catatoniaL "' w" A GRMT c•>toon inthe New Yorker about 20 years agoshowing a middle-aged, middleclassMidwest couple sitting in frontof their TV, in attitudes of greatdespondency. I can't remember thecartoonist's name, but he or shewas brilliant: the line-and-wash conveyed noble resignation andfortitude on the part of the husband who comforted his distraughtwife: 'Perhaps the viewing will be better tomorrow night, dear.'There have been many evenings lately where my beloved hashad to be strong and comforting and Mills-and-Boonish for me, asmy morale dipped to something between Blanche DuBois and MrsGummidge. 'When are they going to put on something decent on aTuesday?' I would wail, and people fearing for my reason's delicatebalance would hurry with cups of tea and concerned offers of StJohn's Wort. TV reviewing is not for the fainthearted, you know. Ibet you think it's all French etJ Saunders and Four Corners. Insteadone regularly risks apoplexy (watching that travesty of GreatExpectationsL nausea (This is Your Life), hives (A Current Affairand Today Tonight) and catatonia (ferry Springer, Rikl

Eureka Street Cryptic Crossword no. 76, September 1999Devised by Joan Nowotny IBVMACROSS1. They're top of the ladder, in a geographical sense, but will theybe 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. Howappropriate! ( 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 someonesuch 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'sundecided' (9)2 7. Those who hold a post when carrying skaters from the frozenriver, for instance. (6,7)DOWN2. Fee to hold a jockey, perhaps, for future races. Pity arena won't beready! (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' Theparticipants 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 moresuperficial 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 itsproblems with style. (5)Solution to Crossword no. 75, July/August 1999----------------------- ~ ----------------------This subscriptio n is:D New D Renewal D GiftYour Contact Details: Gift to: (Please also fill i11 your ou·n C071/acl details. leji)First Name1Mrs/M1ss/Ms/Mr F,-st Name IIMrs/MISs/Ms/MrLength of subscription:D One yea r (10 issues for$54, $49 concession forpensione rs, students andunemployed)D Two years (20 issues for$99, $89 concession)oue/;W-'as rates 0 11 application:tel +673 9427 73 71email. subs@jespubjesu it .org.auSend to:Eureka Street SubscriptionRep6' Paid 553POBox553Richmond VIC 3121.(No postage stamp required if posted inAustralia.)~S~ur=na=m~e================================~~S~ur=na=me~==============================~I Street No. Str-eet Name Street NameICity/Town/Suburb State Poslcode IIC,ty/Town/SuburbStatePostcode~~C~a~=, m~e~)~le~ph=o=ne~N~o=. ============~F~ax~/e~m~aii~======~ILIC_a~_·m_•_)_•'•_p-ho-ne_N_o _______________ Fax-/e_m_a,_l --------Payment DetailsD I enclose a cheque/ money order fo rI$ I made payable to j esuitDPublications.Pl ease debit my credit ca rd for1$ ID Visa D Bankcard D Masterca rdI I I I III Cardholder's nameI I I lr----r- 1 1-,--1 --,--,1 II I I I IExpwy dateID 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.II

HERMAN PRESSN S I 0 EASp >I I 0 ~ ll A Pi1 r I rR oss Bi ROSpecial Book OfferINSIDE OUT EAST TIMORPhotography by Ross Bird,Text by Xanana Gusmao,Jose Ramos Horta,Bishop Carlos Ximenes BeloMuch has been written about East Timor,but few images have been published.Inside Out East Timor is a personal photographicaccount of this country and its people.Having visited East Timor three times since 1995,Australian photographer Ross Bird n ow juxtaposescolour photographs of life in this country withblack-and-white portraits of Timorese who havefled their homeland since 1975.T£JIYJ o 5 ( RAM 0 l H 0 ~I"Thanks to Herman Press, Eureka Street has 4 copies ofInside Out East Timor to give away (2 hardcover worth$75 and 2 softcover worth $50). Just put your name andaddress on the back of an envelope and send it to:Eutel