Monday, April 03, 2006

Well said, Bill!


Full marks to Bill Leak for his witty cartoon about Indonesia and West Papua.

A similar cartoon in an Indonesian newspaper portrayed John Howard and Alexander Downer as amorous dingoes. Most people either smirked about it or wrote it off as a pretty lame joke.

But Bill's cartoon has got a lot of people running for cover, with Downer "disassociating" himself from it, opposition counterpart Rudd calling for a stop to the "cartoon wars", and numerous Indonesian commentators getting very worked up.

There's no need to get so upset.

The Indonesian media opposed Australia's actions over West Papua and criticized that decision.

Similarly, many Australians are skeptical of Indonesia's actions in West Papua, and are openly critical about it.

Debate between international neighbors about issues of mutual interest is a healthy thing. It would be a much less desirable situation if this sort of debate was stifled to try and appease those sensitive souls who are offended by criticism.

The debate serves a vital role - governments at home and abroad are held accountable for their actions.

If Bill Leak can have a bit of a laugh about it while contributing to the debate, then good for him!

5 comments:

Vic Barry said...

Wondering why my flickr stream is being used as a slideshow on your blog?

Neil Ennis said...

Vic

Please accept my apologies.

The slideshow is a blogger widget that I added to my page. When I added it, one of the prompts was what keywords I wanted to display pictures about, so I replied "Australia Day", then it just grabbed random pictures from the Flickr RSS feed that were relecant to those keywords.

I have no control over whose content appears in the slideshow because Flickr doesn't give you the option to filter out pictures from an RSS feed based on the copyright settings.

I think it just shows the most recent pictures that match the keywords, and you must have recently uploaded pics about Australia day.

I've tweaked and randomized the widget to reduce the possibility of your pictures being seen again.

Neil

Vic Barry said...

Hey, cheers for the reply. No hassles, was just curious, thats all. No big deal at all. Didnt even know it was a flickr slideshow. DOH!

trifty said...

I'm indonesian.. your post tells about my nation... but I don't think that's a joke

trifty said...

I'm indonesian..Your last post tells about my nation...I don't think that's a joke