R
E
V
I
E
W
London’s Burning
Sammy and Rose Get Laid,
written by Hanif Kureishi,
directed by Stephen Frears.
Showing at the Dendy, Sydney
and Kino Cinema. Melbourne.
Reviewed by Sheridan Linnell.
y am m y and R osie G et L aid is a
big step onward from H anif
k J Kureishi and Stephen Frear’s
earlier film M y BeautifulLaundrette.
The later film again uses com edy and
the edge between social realism and
surrealism to explore contradictions
between and within race, class,
gender and sexuality, and is both
more com plex and m ore selfconscious than its predecessor.
W
While both films use the social
fabric in part as a backdrop, in
Sam m y and Rosie Gel Laid, there is
an acute self-consciousness o f the
voyeurism involved in this kind of
endeavour.
Stephen Frears, the director,
describes the film as having “ A much
better script. Mind you, I've no idea
if it is such a charm ing m e ta p h o r .”
My Beautiful Laundrette revolves
a ro u n d “ laundering”
of dirty
money, dirty politics, violence,
whitewashing, racial hatred and
difference. But it?s difficult to find
such a central symbol in Sam m y and
Rosie Gel Laid. The centrality of
fucking seems too satirical to be
described as a m etaphor. Rather, it is
at once a confronting visual focus
(for the characters watching each
other and the audience watching the
movie) and the means of displacing
o ther concerns.
In one scene Rosie walks in oldfashioned a n d stylish hat and coat
through the riot-torn Lon do n streets
a t night to meet her lover, an image
which captures the trem endous
c o u r a g e a n d th e a w f u l s e lf­
centredness of her sexual radicalism.
Having accused her husband Sam m y
o f turning his back on reality by
staying at hom e on a night of
such political significance, Rosie
goes out to “affirm the hum an spirit"
in a very different m anner to angry
and grieving Black people who are
avenging the police m u rder of a black
woman. (Later in the film, Rosie has
an affair with tha t w o m a n ’s foster
son, D anny.) The film connects these
diverse struggles (against racism,
against moral sanctions on female
sexuality) and questions Rosie's
rom antic priorities.
It is, in fact, her father-in-law.
Rafi. the Pakistani statesman with a
reputation for brutal tactics who, |
inspired by the flaming portrait of
Virginia W oolf (!), goes out onto the
streets to see what is actually
happening, reluctantly followed by a
coked-out Sammy. And so it is that
th e r e l a t i o n s h i p t h a t develops
between Rafi and D anny has more
basis in reality th a n that which
develops between Rosie and Danny, j
No relationship is exempt from
irony, however — Danny follows
Rafi to ask him, the torturer, how he
should choose between non-violence
and violence.
It is typical of the film that any 1
attem pt to place or evaluate one of its
characters will be thwarted by some |
c on tradictory aspect. Their multi­
faceted nature is reflected in the
ac to rs’ feelings about their roles, the
AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW
possible differences in interpretation.
Frances Barber, who plays Rosie,
sees her as “a very sympathetic
c h a ra c ter”, “strong and d eterm in ed ”
but caught in a "m aelstro m " of
events. W ithout this partisan view, 1
doubt she would have been able to
play Rosie with the supreme
confidence the part ap pears to
dem and. Yet, for all Rosie’s strong
points, she does not escape the
critical eye of the camera. She,
a white w om an, sexually objectifies
Danny, a young black man. He, on
the other hand, deftly escapes
objectification.
Roland Gift, who plays D anny,
describes how he, Kureishi and
Frears all have subtly different
interpretations o f the part. “ It's just
opinions you form a b o u t people and
their experience o f D a n n y is different
to m ine.” Even Anna, the white
N orth American ph oto g ra p h er who
e m b o d i e s v o y e u r i s t i c la c k o f
c o m m i t m e n t (a s h o t h ere a t
mainstream US Filmmaking?) is
allowed her m om ent o f grandeur
w hen
she d a n g le s
Sam m y
dangerously above the w ater and
dem ands c o m m itm ent from him.
Rafi is perhaps most complex of
all, and th ro u g h him the film engages
with the anguish, necessity and risks
of trying to do som ething in a
com plex an d imperfect world. A
ruling class Pakistani, he has fought
white imperialism and racism, yet
imprisoned and tortured the workers
of his own country in the nam e of
democracy. Strongly committed to
family values, he has deserted his
young son in the pursuit o f power.
Incurably rom antic (is this his
connection with Rosie?), he has for
years ab a n d o n e d the w om an he loves
in o rder to em brace a Pakistani
identity and m arry within his own
culture.
R a f i ’s b r u t a l i t y is n e v e r
condoned. At the same time we are
not allowed to forget th a t white
imperialism and racism played a
m a j o r r o le in f o s t e r i n g h is
Machiavellian altitu de to politics.
The film at times allows him great
stature an d dignity while, at oth e r
times, he is reduced to a comic or
pathetic, feeble and confused old
man. His self-consciousness, in the
shape of an inescapable conscience,
is more fully an d frighteningly
dramatised than that of any other
c h aracter in the film.
T hrough its self-conscious and
sometimes surrealistic form, Sam m y
and Rosie Get Laid evokes a
complexity of characterisation and
s i t u a t i o n w i t h o u t d e n y in g th e
in h eren t c o n tra d ic tio n s o f a
p r e t e n d e d o b j e c tiv i ty . It th u s
reapproaches what used to be called
“the universal” without glossing over
difference, o r privileging a particular
cultural viewpoint. It emphasises,
rather than denies, the active role of
43
the au d ie n c e /rea d e r in creating the
experience of the film.
As an audience, we are a w are of
watching; often we are watching
characters watching other characters
(for
instance,
R a f i ’s
f a s c i n a t i o n / r e v u l s i o n w ith th e
blatant sexuality of the two black
lesbians, Vivia and Rani, which will
have diverse effects on different
mem bers of a n audience), The film
poses but offers no answ er to the
question o f how to move beyond the
spectator role w ithout losing one's
perspective, into an activism that is
neither narrow no r brutal.
Glasnost Snapshots
Soviet Freedom, by Anthony
Barnett (and Nella Bielski).
P i c a d o r , 1988. $ 1 2 . 9 5 .
Reviewed by Denis Freney.
riting a book on peres­
troika and glasnost is a
h a z a r d o u s o c c u p a tio n .
Things are changing so rapidly in the
U SSR that anything written today
will almost certainly be outdated a
month later.
Readers of M oscow News, that
e x trao rdinary window on Soviet life,
know this only to o well. Each week
its jo urnalists push the limits of
glasnost to previously unsuspected
limits.
A n tho ny
Barnett
arrived
in
Moscow on a private visit in Ju n e
1987 with co-autho r Nella Bielski, a
Soviet citizen living in Paris. The
shock waves of Chernobyl were still
echoing th ro ug h the corridors of
power. C om ing so soon after
G o rb achev had launched glasnost on
a cynical public, Chernobyl was a
critical test. G lasnost was slow to
move into gear. In the meantime, the
M oscow jo ke machine took over: “ It
is p ro o f of the advance of socialism
tha t we have had the w o rld ’s greatest
accident ... ”
Up to a point, glasnost passed
the Chernobyl test.-T he picture of
utter incompetence and the “c ru d e ”
W
phallic vainglory o f e n orm ous
triu m p h s” (Barnett) were exposed —
but the responsibility was placed
with scapegoats. And the U krainian
party empire headed by Shcherbitsky, a Brezhnev appointee and
Po litb u ro member, remains. ,
C h e rno by l’s fallout, however,
continues — in more ways th a n one.
R e c e n t l y , in M o s c o w News ,
Professor Popov, a c h am p io n of
radical perestroika, wrote o f a
distant relative w ho was diagnosed
with radiation sickness. Even now,
no strict m onitoring o f foodstuffs for
radiation levels takes place.
Barnett is best when his
journalistic instincts get free rein. His
piece on the “ Russian economic
miracle” is consciously ironic; the
miracle is that anything works.
Q u o ting Pravda, he gives the
44
AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW
e x a m p le of new , ex p en siv e
refrigerated railway stock. M any of
the carriages go back and forth
em pty, "transpo rting a ir ”. "Their
efforts are measured according to
kilometres covered by the carriages
... The m ore kilometres the carriages
m ark up, the bigger the bonus ... ”
Paradoxically, then, for Barnett
the USSR is the most unplanned
society in the world, despite the
e n o rm o u s v o lu m e o f p la n s
“ organising” society from the to p
dow n to the last nuts and bolts of
each factory. Waste, cynicism,
c o rru ptio n — all are natural
products of such a system. Such
planning means, in the end, no
planning, as opposed to the very real
planning through indirect state
intervention that takes place even in
Mrs. T h a tc h e r’s England.
B a r n e tt lik e n s the S o v ie t
C om m unist Party (C P S U ) to the
British Establishment. It is not a
party as we understand the term, but
rather it “embodies the c o u n try ’s
social,
political and
economic
o r d e r”, through the nom enklatura
system. The C P S U is "the combined
Houses o f Congress a n d the White
H o u s e , a lo n g w ith all th e
D epartm ent o f State. Western-style
regimes d o not offer their people a
choice between alternative political
orders, even if they offer som e choice
within their given system".
But he does not use this last
argum ent, as it has often been used in
the past, to excuse the Soviet system.
O n the contrary, Barnett sees
perestroika and glasnost developing
tow ards the “civil society” of the
West and, implicitly, a m ore complex
system of rule. This may not mean
the existence o f com peting political
parties as such, but certainly it will
involve what was once called “right
of tendency”.
Already, in Estonia, a “ P eople’s
F ro n t" has been form ed, bringing
together C P S U members a n d n o n ­
mem bers on a platform o f support
for radical perestroika. The poet
Yevtushenko, in a recent M oscow
News writes of the need for such a
front nationally and, du rin g the
recent Soviet Parly Conference,
spoke to a dem on stration called to
the same end.
M ore generally, the independ­
ent political clubs provide ro om for
“dissidents" and party members
backing radical perestroika, alike,
There are thus, already, (at least)
two “ parties” in the C PSU .
Barnett sees as critical the
d e v e lo p m e n t o f a “civil society"
the a u to n o m o u s social and political
culture outside the official structures.
The concept o f civil society has a long
tradition in marxist thought but.
significantly, the editor of Moscow
jVewjand his interpreter, interviewed
by Barnett, did not know the Russian
translation. Only now is G ram sci’s
thought being studied by the most
radical supporters of perestroika.
in the West, Barnett notes, “A
political space exists outside state
processes and parties, a space in
which ‘public opin io n’ can play its
own role and have its own influence"
In the Soviet Union, however, it is
still (in Gramsci's phrase) prim ordial
and gelatinous. The development of
a healthy civil society is vital to
G orbachev's ability to enlist practical
p o p u la r support for his reforms.
But there is a very long road to
travel yet before the em bryonic civil
society developing under glasnost
becomes a nything but a shad ow of
what has developed in the liberal
democracies of capitalist Europe.
A ll t h i s h a p p e n s in a n
a tm o sp h e re
of c risis and
“ revolution”. G orb ach ev’s economic
reforms (self-financing, the costaccounting of enterprises) are being
sabotaged by the centralised plan
and by a bureaucracy which exploits
the latter’s legal status. Prices remain
so out of line with real costs tha t any
cost-accounting is a miracle of
invention. “ You c a n ’t cross a n abyss
in two steps,” Barnett quotes a saying
do ing the rounds in M oscow, “ We
are standing before an ab yss.” The
Soviet leadership has little choice
when the Soviet infant mortality rate
is 53rd in the world
at the level of
“developing” countries.
D em ocratisation is a n essential
part o f the process, despite the
d ream s of some Soviet technocrats
that econom ic reform can be
achieved by a "strong leader”. Simple
fact: the Soviet office w orker rarely
has access to a photocopier. Any
control is strictly guarded — after all.
someone may run of a samzidat on
one! The answer increasingly is:
W hat if they do? W h a t’s the
problem? The cost of not having
photocopies at o n e ’s right hand is
immense. Remember carbon paper?
P e r s o n a l c o m p u t e r s are
“d ang erous” too, if your main
concern is unauthorised publicat­
ions, PC technology and use is
woeful by western standards. Even at
such a basic level the cost of
squeezing out dissent is enormous.
Barnett is ultimately optimistic
ab ou t glasnost and perestroika's
prospects because he sees no
alternative tlwn for the USSR to sink
further behind, economically and
militarily, into the position of a
second-rate power. He is also
o p tim is tic b e c a u s e , d e sp ite
everything, there is a socialist
tradition, the sad remnants of
O ctober 1917. But he also recognises
the dangers: “some already see
S o l z h e n i t s y n a s t h e R u s s ia n
A yatollah”, waiting in exile to lead
the forces of Russian primaeval
o rth o d o x y and chauvinism, now
appearing in the cracks opened by
glasnost.
One often hears socialists in
Australia say that perestroika and
glasnost will make the spread of
socialist ideas here easier. Barnett’s
book suggests th at the opposite is so.
The Soviets are now exposing all the
p r o b l e m s o f “ r e a l l y e x is tin g
socialism”. It is not a pretty picture.
In the realm of social provision
even the most critical socialists had
thought the U SSR was ahead of the
West. T he facts suggest the contrary.
O f course, glasnost and perestroika
d o help lessen anti-Soviet phobias
and open the way to further
disarm am ent.
But that is not
the same as presenting a positive
image o f “socialism”. Perhaps in a
decade or so, the buds of perestroika
may bear fruit in the west. But the
crimes o f Statin and Brezhnev will
rem ain miJlstones a ro u n d the necks
o f western socialists fo r m any years
to come. If perestroika means more
socialism, as G orbachev claims, then
we must ensure that the essence of
socialism here is m ore democracy. .
AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW
women in S o uth Australia in 1894.
In these days of the M ovem ent
to O rdain W omen, how m any people
k no w that, in 1927, Winifred Kiek
was the first w om an to be ordained in
any church in Australia? Kiek, a
Congregationalism campaigned for
peace an d for legal rights for women.
Redressing
History
Students of the fight for equal
pav can learn from the biography of
Muriel Heagney who devoted her life
to the labour m ovem ent an d died in
poverty at the age of ninety. When
w om en form ed the W om en and Girls
P r i n t i n g T r a d es U n i o n , M el
C a sh m a n joined and lost her job.
Doris Beeby was a n o th e r relatively
u n k n o w n trade union activist who
was in the forefront of the struggle
for better conditions fo r women.
200 Australian Women; A
R ed ress A n t h o l o g y , Ed.
H e a t h e r R a d i. W o m e n ’s
Redress
Press,
1 988.
R e v i e w e d by C a r l o t t a
McIntosh.
hat’s the difference between
Nellie Melba and Kitty
Gallagher? M elba was a
famous Australian opera singer,
while Kitty was an obscure Irish
patriot who led an uprising against
the English in 1798. The young Kitty
was transported to N ew South
Wales where, during her turbulent
life, she drove a bullock team and
fought off attacks by bushrangers
with flintlock muskets.
But Gallagher's con trib utio n to
Australian women's history is no less
significant
than
M elba’s.
This
anthology of 200 Australian women
puts Gallagher and other unknow n
wom en w ho b a ttle d a g a in st
tremendous odds into the history
books that have been traditionally
written by men.
W o m e n ’s Redress Press is a
fe m in ist p u b lis h e r w ith the
grassroots and academic networks
necessary for such a comprehensive
collection o f women's biographies.
An earlier in c a rn a tio n of
Redress Press foundered on the
c o n t r a d i c t i o n s b e tw e e n f e m a le
practices and self-imposed male
structures not eighteen m onths after
it was b o m with much promise back
in 1983.
The new Redress has produced
eight new titles since its reformation
on a very small budget and with the
devotion and sacrifice of a small
group of women w ho edit, typeset,
distribute and publicise the books
themselves.
The edito r o f this anthology.
Heather Radi, has been a pioneering
45
W
w omen's historian at the University
of Sydney. As section editor of the
Australian Dictionary o f Biography
she was concerned that too many
significant women were being left
out.
Radi says that although
w omen's history is now on the
curriculum in senior schools, good
reference books are few and far
between. This a nthology should help
to fill the gap.
The Nellie Melbas, Margaret
Prestons and Caroline Chisholms are
there, but it’s the lives o f previously
hidden or forgotten women which
surprise and delight the reader.
A short entry under the name of
Bill Sm ith shows how far the
w omen's struggle has come in recent
years. Female jockeys were not given
recognition by the A ustralian Jockey
Club until 1974, so Wilhelmina
Smith became Bill Sm ith, hid her
femaleness behind a barrage of foul
language and an odd habit of
refusing to change with other
jo c k e y s.
S m a ll, to u g h and
singleminded, she won the St. Leger
Quest in 1902, the Jockey Club
D erby in 1903 an d the Victorian
Oaks in 1909-10. How would the
Australian Jockey C lub have coped
with the discovery? W e ’ll never
know.
A nd th e re ’s the long forgotten
struggle of M ary Lee, suffragist and
trade unionist, whose untiringefforts
led to the parliam entary vote for
, S ad ly , R o saleen N o rto n ,
painter, writer and witch is left out,
while the queen of Sydney bohemia.
Dulcie D eam er. does not rate an
entry. And while literary w om en are
usually over-represented in such
collections, it seems strange to find
a n entry on Charlotte Sargent of
S a rg e n t’s Pies fame.
The anthology traces a co m m on
thread of Aboriginal women like
Louisa Briggs who led a protest in
Victoria against the abolition of
A boriginal reserves in 1876, and
Pearl Gibbs who organised strikes
a m o n g Aboriginal pea pickers at
N ow ra, N S W in the early 1930s,
I showed my review copy to a
friend who lives n ext d o o r to the
house Bessie G uthrie rented in Glebe,
in S y d n e y ’s i n n e r - w e s t . S u e
Bellamy’s entry describes how
abused and homeless children found
their way into Bessie's backyard in
the 1950s when she ran what
a m o u n te d to a half-way house in her
own home. In 1939 Bessie established
Viking Press, publishing anti-w ar
material a n d poetry m ainly by
wom en. W hen Bessie died in 1977, a
small plaque was placed on the front
wall o f her house. I t’s gone now and
the house is being renovated by the
D ep artm ent of Housing. My friend
has asked the d e p a rtm e n t to replace
it. They have assured her they will.
C A R LO TTA M clN T O SH is a Sydnry radio
journalist.
46
AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW
Booknotes
Social Volcano: Sugar Workers in the
Philippines, by L arry Ja g a n a n d J o h n
C u n n in g to n . L o n d o n 1987, W a r
W ant, $4.95 p ap erb ack .
on
T he island of Negros in Ihe
Philippines is know n to Australians as
the place of F a th e r Brian G ore's arrest
a n d im p ris o n m e n t. T h is re p o rt
d ocu m en ts the causes an d n ature o f the
social unrest which led to the charges
against him. It describes a region where
the entire e con om y is d epen den t up on
one crop — sug ar — with so much
con cen tra tion o f the land in the h and s of
the feudal hacie nda ow ners that 98.5
percent of the p o pu latio n is totally
landless. H ow th at has com e a b o u t, and
what is now ha ppening to the people o f
the island as a result of declining
i n t e r n a t i o n a l m a r k e ts a n d th e
incom petence and co rru p tio n o f the
M arcos regime is graphically portrayed.
So also is the struggle o f the National
Federation of S u gar W orkers to build c o ­
operative farm ing ventures. Extensively
illustrated and tersely w ritten. Social
V o lca n o s h o w s h o w d e e p l y th e
Philippines need radical social change
an d how unlikely it is to com e th ro ug h
yet m o re gov ernm ent by the landowners.
Our Founding Murdering Father: A ngus
McMillan and the Kurnai Tribe o f
Gippsland 1839-1865, by P eter D ean
Gardner. Self-published, E nsay, 1987.
controversies are covered in excessive
detail, but he provides a n im p o rtan t
model o f w hat local history can and
should be.
decision of the A ustralian government.
How lar can we ignore moral ;md
political implications fo r the sake of
boosting our e conom y th ro ug h military
exports, an d how m uch do they work to
preserve First W orld d o m in a tio n of the
region? The pam phlet provides some
clues.
Available from A C F O A. Box 1562,
C a n b e rra 2601,
Available from P.D . G ardn er, C / - Post
Office, Ensay. 3895.
Life After Debt: A ustralia and the Global
D ebt Crisis — A Report by the
Development Issues Study Group.
Canberra 1987, A u stralian C ouncil fo r
M ay D a y E x h i b i t i o n
O verseas A id. $6.SO p ap erb ack .
Despite the title, the causes, nature
an d consequences of Australia's own
indebtedness take up only part of this
study.
Most o f it looks at the
international situation, with case studies
o f several African an d Asian countries,
an d at the structure a n d policies of the
in ternational financial institutions like
the I M F a n d W orld Bank. It then
proceeds to a series of re c o m m e n d ­
ations, mainly centring o n the role the
A ustralian gov ernm ent could play in
pushing for debt reform th ro u g h its
m em bership of various in ternational
organisations and institutions. It is not a
radical do cum en t, b ut it do es adv ance
som e im p o rtan t arg u m e n ts a b o u t the
n atu re o f to day's international econom ic
order, a n d it does provide som e
interesting a n d im p o rta n t inform ation
a b o u t th e c o m p a r a t i v e size a n d
com p o sition o f Australia's foreign debt.
■M m
M ay Day Exhibition Catalogue. State
L ibrary o f V ictoria, M elb o u rn e 1988
$5.95 p a p e rb a c k , 28 pp.
$9.00 p ap erb ack .
F.very year in every co rn e r of
A ustralia, people are writing histories of
their locality o r region. Most are
c o m f o r t a b l e c e l e b r a t i o n s o f th e
achievements of friends, neighbours, and
fellow citizens. Som e, however, try to go
beyond uncritical m yth -m ak in g. Peter
G a r d n e r ’s a cco u n t of the career of Angus
M cM illan, the " f o u n d e r” of G ip psland,
falls into the second category. His
in tro du ctio n says “perhaps in this
Bicentennial year it is ap p ro p r ia te th at at
least som e w orks such as this s ho w some
o f th e d a r k e r s i d e o f w h a t is
euphemistically called while settlement".
This he h as d o n e with care and
de term ina tio n, presenting a description
o f M cM illan's role in the m u rd er and
e x p ro p riatio n o f G ippsland's A boriginal
p o p u la tio n th at d raw s on every available
source. P erhaps some o f the local
Disarming Poverty: Disarmament fo r
Development in Asia-Pacific, edited by
Ja n e t H u n t, C a n b e rra 1987, A u stra lia n
C ouncil fo r O verseas A id , 55.00
p ap erb ack .
This p am p hlet, one of the A C F O A
series o f D evelopm ent Dossiers, looks at
the relationship between militarism and
econom ic developm ent (or lack of it).
Richard T a nter, Ted Wheelwright,
Lyuba Z arsk y a n d a n u m b e r o f others
have co ntrib ute d chapters on various
aspects of the regional arm s race an d its
effects, o r case studies o f particular
countries, including V ietnam . Indonesia
an d K am puch ea. Effects on dem ocratic
rights, on the grow th o f trade unionism ,
a n d international alliances are all
exam ined. T h e essay on A u stra lia ’s arm s
ex p o rts to the Third W orld is particularly
topical at the m om ent, given the recent
L o o kin g at an exhibition catalogue
can be a frustrating experience, especially
for people who have not had an
o p p o rtu n ity to see the actual display.
However, this cata logue is worth
ob tain ing bo th for the reproductions it
provides o f some o f the exhibition, and
for a quite substantial essay on the
history of May Day in Melbourne by
C harlie Fox. As a ny on e w ho has looked
f o r i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t A ustralian
celebrations o f May Day will know, like
so m an y o th er parts of la bour history,
there is alm o st no thin g available. This
booklet is a step tow ards filling the gap. I:
also provides a short b iography of Sam
Merrifietd, from whose collection most
of the material is draw n , and »
description o f the collection.
K en Norlingl