Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. (René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher,1599-1650)

Thursday 10 September 2009

(o) Three-Year Old Editor of Leading NZ Newspaper?


The DominionPost is Wellington's daily newspaper. What it writes rarely passes unnoticed by the nation's policy-makers. The newspaper's editorial of September 4 was headed "Dictator Behaving Like Spoilt Child." This is how it opened:

"Question: What is the difference between Fijian dictator Voreqe Bainimarama and a badly behaved three-year-old?
Answer: The three-year-old eventually works out that it's no fun being permanently consigned to his room with no-one to play with. Unfortunately for Fiji, Mr Bainimarama is a slower learner. Fiji's suspension from the Commonwealth is just the latest indignity to be inflicted on the country by the intransigence of its self-appointed prime minister...."

Infantile editorials, that stoop to personal slurs (and are so eurocentric as to think Fiji and Bainimarama's prime concern should be international opinion) written in a major NZ newspaper hardly make one proud to be a New Zealander. From the "Waikikamukau" Gazette perhaps, but not from the DomPost.

The one thing in the paper's favour is that it did publish Dr Roderick Ewins' rebuttal.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one! Why is it that these kinds of Editors think that Fiji should tow the line to the way the rest of the western world thinks. When Fiji had the '87 coup, the western world whinged that it is a racist coup, so was the 2000. The 2006 Coup which many believed had to wipe out the "Racism and corruption" had more Whinging by these Western Governments? Who were the very ones that kept on harping about racism. Jinkies we cant satisfy any of them huh? In order to at least clean up corruption drastic action had to be taken. we cant expect the previous government and police to investigate, since all of them were corrupt in the first place! How can you investigate yourself? Bainimarama is an amazing individual! He has the balls to survive this long. Which only means he believes in what his doing! We the lay people applaud him for his struggles! Its about time we the lay people are not put behind the line because we dont have any connections to the big guns in government! To the wanna be editor in NZ... has he lived in Fiji at all? Has he lived for a number of years to know what goes on? Rather than holidaying in Resorts with high walls to keep the "locals out" and the reality outside of those high walls? Instead of sitting comfortably behind your wealth and your desk... come to Fiji and please dont stay in a hotel but try living in the squatter areas and experience living on a $50-$80 a week income? Wonder if you could survive that for 1 year mayte!

Anonymous said...

Not in the least surprised by the asinine editorials in NZ newspapers. They still do not seem 'to get it' and by now it must have sunk in that they likely never will. That is why I for one choose not to visit New Zealand or Australia now. I fly North to more receptive places and shall continue to do so. This will almost certainly continue well past 2014 for very obvious reasons.

Tropicat said...

Beginning with Ms Clark in Dec. '06 comments from N.Z have consistantly referred to the commodore as a naughty child. It would be interesting to review all those insults from Mr Gough, Peters, Key & others. Australians have not taken this particular line.