I am going to quote Australias leading literary critic, Kerryn Goldsworthy, on this piece, because she exposes the widespread problem of Australian expats commenting on Australia as though their knowledge of the country remains perpetually current. More of the usual self-aggrandising, self-righteous, distorted, ideologically driven Pilger horseshit, written for an international audience that doesnt know any better. Thank Christ this generation of expat Australians (Pilger has lived in the UK since 1962) who relish the role of Professional Australian Performing Seal for the Entertainment of Condescending Poms is slowly dying out. Regular conversations with someone who has worked closely with remote Indigenous communities, and has lived in two or three of them, have given me quite a different and far more complex picture of these matters. For once, the comments (the Guardian ones not the Facebook ones), from various perspectives including those of people who actually have some detailed knowledge of the situation, are an excellent corrective, and are the only reason I am sharing this. While it is true that things are indeed pretty terrible and that the problems lie mostly with government (but are deeply intractable and have been 200+ years in the making), things are also quite different from - and infinitely more complex than - the way Pilger depicts them here. In his sensationalism and his determination to whip up righteous indignation in his audience, he is no better than A Current Affair or Today Tonight.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 11:21:30 +0000
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