I received a note from a friend who is unfortunate enough to be stuck in
Dogsville, suggesting communication with Indo newspapers. This springs from
frustration at seeing the diet of lies and hatred towards their betters
peddled in a junk rag like Jawa Pos (very popular in Java: its content
speaks volumes about its readership).
What does one do when one is writing to the enemy?
If you write the truth they won't print it.
If you write something conciliatory you encourage enemies of even the most
elementary decency to imagine that they are something other than a stink in
the nostrils of decent people worldwide.
I have tried to get around it by suggesting the editors have a look at an
Australian website for more accurate information. They won't print it but
if they look at the suggested web site they may learn something about
themselves, especially that they are pariahs. It is well that they be
reminded often.
---------
The letter:
--------
I hear you have much to say about Australia. The Australian Broadcasting
Corporation runs a forum in which anyone can write without being censored.
It is at http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?ra/indonesia&; .
I suggest you visit the site and read the many letters to learn the views of
Australians (not the government) on Indonesia and Timor.
Dion Giles
53 Wood Street
Fremantle WA 6160
Australia
--------
They won't like what they read. This will help encourage bad, not good
relations between ourselves and the enemy. A half-century of placating them
and treating them with undeserved respect has been an obscenity and they
have been laughing at our softness. Their showing their true face to the
world in Timor is a watershed -- no more careful eggshell-walking with a
bunch of colonialist butchers or with those of their nationals who close
ranks with them. Time to be seeking good relations is when they have
ditched their armed forces, freed all their colonies, handed their criminals
over for punishment, returned their scores of thousands of East Timorese
captives in good condition, paid for the material damage they have caused
plus the cost of the UN operation they made necessary, repatriated their
transmigrated Javanese settler-overlords, and abjectly apologised to the
world -- not for what their predecessors did but for what they themselves
did. As they are showing no sign of any of these actions there is no basis
for anything less than hostility towards them (as there was towards
Boer-ruled South Africa) for the foreseeable future. Whistles need to be
blown at every sign of Mr Greed's eager helpers in the Australian
government, civil service, business and news media seeking to repair
relationships in order to go on making profits from their cheap labour and
stolen mineral resources.
Here are some logical general but relevant propositions which I suggest are
inescapable:
� Compromise deals:
All compromise between right and wrong is by definition wrong, as any
mixture of wine with sewage is sewage.
---------
� Demonstrations in Jakarta, Surabaya etc. and bleatings by the likes of Ali
Alatas against Australia for blowing whistles on murder, torture, rape,
arson and theft by Indos and their quisling cronies (e.g.
http://www.easttimor.com/html/gal_indonmil.html,
http://www.easttimor.com/html/gal_women.html):
All who close ranks with garbage are themselves garbage.
---------
� Distinction between human beings and wild beasts:
Human beings possess a conscience: something biologically human but without
a conscience is subhuman.
---------
� A ray of hope for the future:
The greatest fear of the Javanese colonialists is and always has been the
breakup of Indonesia. This desirable result has been brought much nearer in
recent weeks. It will mark the disintegration of the world's last (and
probably vilest) colonial empire. Let's help it happen to the best of our
ability.
Dion Giles
Fremantle
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