The former Australian Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer (very ironic that name) wrote a caustic-but-interesting article in the Adelaide Sunday Mail wherein he sleights his countrymen for being idiot whingers abroad who expect the government to do anything and everything for them when they get into trouble.
It's rather interesting to read Downer's own whinging, since on the whole we [Americans] don't hear much about our own getting into trouble overseas unless it's tragic or somewhat comic (Michael Fay)...mostly because so few of us ever leave the country period. (One could even argue that the American media does a very good job in scaring us out of leaving the borders.)
A little background on Downer, courtesy of Wikipedia: he is an Australian Liberal (right-wing, not centre-left as in Canada), and he did try to get the job as Prime Minister, so I can't help but think that his musings might be a way to keep himself in the public eye. He was also the longest serving Foreign Affairs minister in Australian history (and shortest serving leader of the Liberal Party).
Nonetheless, an interesting read.
1 comment:
a favorite columnist of mine wrote about how the u.k. press loves to cover stories about british tourists who get into trouble abroad -- which is a genre supposedly known as "brits in the shit."
so, the aussies may not be alone in the way they get in trouble overseas.
but to be fair to the aussies, many of their neighbors (malaysia and indonesia leap to mind) have draconian drug laws that probably justify a bit of government intervention to ensure evenhanded administration of justice.
Post a Comment