Australia in the press

Showing Aussies as they are?

One of my pet lines when Yankee bashing is the fact that their newspapers commit dozens of pages to events within the US and usually manage to treat the rest of the world with less than a column. The same is true - to a certain extent - for Australia although they probably cover a bit more of what is going in in England. Yet while I boast with the regular couple of pages of international news - more if current affairs require it - of the Swiss papers I have to admit that international news in Switzerland do not seem to be all too concerned about the great big southern land.

Amazingly enough it is not just blotted out completely from our consciousness but does appear in the papers every once in a while. The astonishing thing is that when that happens the news are bound to cast a pretty dim light on Australia. I have joked about that for some time but over the past few days I thought it might be worth my time to follow up on my impression.

Just to see whether I was biased I tried a web search in the archives of the Tages Anzeiger between August 31st 1999 and the same date in 2001. During those three years more than 500 articles referred to Australia - so maybe I was wrong and we're not ignoring the antipodes after all. On closer inspection I noticed that a lot of these articles just mentioned Australia in passing - being it the country of origin of some actor or sportswoman or the place where a movie played. Knowing Australians I know of course that nothing concerning sport is ever considered in passing down under but as our focus back here is slightly different that is all the importance these refernces got.

Trying to recall what those articles I so fondly recall bashing Austrlia's image had all been about it seemed to come down to politics and current affairs. Now the only problem left to solve was to find a search pattern that would weed out the brief sports messages and bring up the articles about Aussie affairs of the last three years. Can you guess what name I came up with? Naw, I discarded Pauline Hanson since that would rightly made this article unduly prejudiced. As I was not feeling to benevolent I settled for a pattern of Australia Howard and pressed the search button.

The result were 58 articles that had appeared over the past 3 years. Four of those I had to discard as they were sports results and Howard's name had snuck in without refering to the real guy. Of the remaining articles 2 covered the olympics purely from the sports point of view.

From August to October 1999 Australia did not appear in our news to make a quick entrance when they voted against becoming a republic only to disappear again into obscurity until John Anderson made his speach advertising "monogamy for politicians". What kind of reaction do those articles cause in Swiss readers? A shake of the head? A raised eyebrow? Maybe. Probably a slight grin of thankfulness over a kind soul trying to spare us from another Monicagate. And hey, who cares about republics considering that we've been laying claim to being the foremost republic of them all. One less contender, fair enough.

Australia stays in our mocking minds through the first half of 2000 due to the GST. Declaring sanitary articles for women as luxury might cause an uproar down under. Back here all we can do is to roll on the floor laughing about the dimwit who dared voice such an opinion. Where has he been living? If you know Australia you'll understand that the desperate outcry of a couple of million sheila's won't scare good old Howard enough to step back. It's when he's taxing the blokes' beer that the real danger starts. The main sentiment in Switzerland seems to be curiousity. How on earth is Howard going to live trhough breaking his promise of 'never, absolutely never' introducing taxation on consumer goods. How fast can you say "Read my lips". That's 3 articles on the GST. Ranging from teasing to mocking.

While expecting the olympics to take up a lot of room in the paper's the use of 'Howard' in the search expression seems to leave out the favourable hits that occur when pairing 'Australia' with 'Sports' or 'Travel'. The only two articles covering the 2000 olympics in Sydney that belong to the selection of 58 only mention the olympics in passing, saying that while Australia tries to paint a modern and progressive picture of itself before then going on to focus on the difficulties the country has with its minorities such as aboriginals and asian immigrants. 2 articles seeing through the not-so-elaborate cover up action to point an accusing finger to injustice and racist tendencies.

These seem to be main topics. 11 articles deal with aboriginal land rights, the stolen generation, living conditions in aboriginal communities, the retraction of concessions made by the former government. While it is true that past injustice cannot be undone it is hard to understand why an apology is so hard to make. Denying the facts neither helps the relations between the indigenous population and white Australia nor does it make the current government look any better. The bad conscience of living on stolen land must lie heavy on Australia's mind. Even I accept that it is not feasible to hand back everything that was taken away generations ago but the fear of exactly that seems to paralise and more pragmatic approach to dealing fairly with the aboriginees. Something that is impossible for me to understand and accept. And while I have once been told that Australia's policy and actions are its internal affair and thus none of my business, not being a citicen of the place I maintain that some injustive cries out beyond the borders. A sentiment that is shared in many parts of the world and Australia is aware of it - people highly placed in Australia's tourist industry fear for their image. 11 articles reinforce this image. Racism is quoted often in these articles - not a pretty sight.

Racism sadly scores quite a few other hits. It seems that Australia has not truly left behind their 'White Australia' policy. 8 articles cover the Australian sentiments towards Asian immigrants and their Asian neighbours. Quoting government officals talking about the "yellow threat" leaves an unsavoury aftertaste. Somehow the idea of internation camps for illegal immigrants ring a bell...

Economy must thrive, who cares about ecology would well summarise the gist of another 7 articles covering topics as diverse as logging of primeal forest in Tasmania, deforesting a million hectares of Queensland's forest each year, being only behind Brazil and Indonesia when cutting down trees - after having cleared 70 percent of its forests in the last 200 years. Potentially selling of 90 percent of Australias oil and natural gas reserves to Shell for money's sake seems relatively harmless in comparison.

The raise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party with just 3 articles seems to have caused more of an earthquake down under than here. The cutting back of the social system to let people fend for themselves is covered in a couple of articles showing that poverty has risen over the last few years of government. A single article about an ex-Nazi whose extradiction to Latvia took enormous efforts against the government's lethargy in the matter just adds to top off the shallow feeling.

Care to hear some of the headlines:

• Making profit from racism
• Fortress Australia
• Going to hell instead of paradise
• Australia assaults refuge boat
• Canberra about to enter purgatory
• Slippery business
• Wounds of the past
• I am not aware of any guilt

You might wonder what could have caused me - who has spent more than 18 months in the country - to rant on like this. Current affairs have. A Norwegian boat picks up over 400 refugees in distress at sea and - strictly according to international maritime law - tries to make port in the nearest harbour which according to aforementioned law is obliged to take in the survivors of a ship wreck. These laws do not seem to apply to Australia. In dire need to gather support for the upcoming elections the government desperately needs the populace on their side after losing almost all support over the GST debacle and thanks to widespread racism they gain vast approval of most of the population. The old trick of turning to foreign affairs if your internal affairs are going down the drain once more seemed to work nicely. Living in a country which knew how to call Das Boot ist voll (the boat is full) I am all the more disgusted by this.

Of course my selection is not fair. It does not take into account all the other 500 articles in which Australia is mentioned. I did not analyse the results of looking for Australia Sport or Australia Holidays but comparing to my impression of Australian policy and general opinion over the last 13 years looking into Australia Howard paints a fairly accurate though bleak picture. I know that there are many Australians who are misrepresented but I have met many who think exactly like that and that sadens me.

Disclaimer:

Do I think this applies to all Australians? No. Might I offend someone with this? Yes. Do I mean what I write? Partly. Do I have a problem with Australia's current government's policy? Yes. Is it any of my business? That depends on whom you ask. Is it the only country that has problems? No. Is everthing back home better? No. Should this article be taken with a grain of salt? Obviously. Now sod off and read something less controversial.

Urs Beeli, Zürich, 2001-09-01