This item was sent to me by an old Thomain, Leon Keegel, who lives in Adelaide. The article is online and entitled Humanity, Equality and Destiny? — see http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/40104.html. Graeme Innes is Australia’s Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner. The article has attracted a wide raneg of comments, some acerbic and some supportive. Thus it illustrates thatw hich one might antiticipate, viz., the diversity of public opinion and political viewpoint. I insert below some arbitrary selections to display this variety for the benefit of Sri Lankans and Indians who do not reside in Australia. The range of reactions remidns me of the sharp diversity of blog-comments to my article on “Crude Reasoning,” a critical review of print and TV coverage in late 2009 of the Sri Lankan scenario and the asylum seekers from the island. Once time eprmits i may present a collage of these comments for the edification of those who visit this site.
I: Peli Cann : 15 Oct 2010 11:25:01am
Graham, you appear to be complaining about what the media dished up for us stay-at-home Aussies as our only source of info regarding what was happening at the games.
We are just the passive recipients. If we had all switched off our coverage of the Delhi Games in protest, I suspect you would now be citing that as your proof of Aussie discrimination against India instead. The real reason journalists zero in on trivialities like plumbing faults in non-public buildings, is their intense competition for stories. There are so many of them, and their job is to keep an insatiable media machine back in Australia fed with stories twelve hours a day. ****************** ***************
II: Pedro : 15 Oct 2010 9:53:34am
I was in the UK a couple of weeks ago and the Poms put Australia to shame with their level of jingoistic, racist, and negative reporting on the games.
I note that most of the ex British colonies that are struggling are those that were artificially divided then expertly screwed to suit British colonial needs.
Singapore is a great example of how ineffective the British were in developing broad based economies.
When the British left Singapore the coffers were absolutely empty with the Poms saying “its all going to fall to bits old chap without we superior beings running the show.”
Singapore was lucky as it was an integrated society in a great spot with good government – India not so but eventually succeeding anyway.
I note there are plenty of negative posts here which supports my view which has formed after living in a number of cultures over the past 50 years and that view is that 75% of Australians are genuine racists.
************** *********************
III: ardy, 18 Oct 2010 10:02:36am
What a great pot boiler to work up Australian angst about living here. This ‘lucky country’, must be the worst description of Australia ever, was built by men of great strength guts and vision, features I suggest the writer lacks.
Take this comment ‘The days when those with the fattest wallets got to decide who would get respect and who would not are over.’ this is so twee as to get a 40% exam score to a school child. As if the Chinese don’t know that it is the money that is turning them into the largest economy and therefore eventually respected on the planet.
I wonder what sort of a pathetic apologist for being a white human being this Graeme is?
