I noted last time that the leaders of the western world all seemed to be singing from the same songsheet () as to the highly positive outcome of seeing Osama bin Laden get whacked just as the US President promised he would. Today, listening to Deutsche Welle news I realised something. Yes, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had publicly stated that she was happy to hear that bin Laden had been killed, but that didn't sit so well with other public figures in Germany, and not just her political opponents, but also members of her own party and her church as well. To go along with this, the homepage of Deutsche Welle and FAZ (just as two examples of German news sites) both had a mixture of analysis right there on the frontpage as the big stories, focusing on two ideas mainly - that expressing joy over an assassination doesn't exactly distance you morally from the person being assassinated, and that the killing may not have been legal (and a similar question was raised on FAZ). Looking at LeMonde.fr today, there was more coverage of the actual events, but also some frontpage analysis about how justice was required to heal victims of terrorism, not vengeance, and that the US will struggle to prove its claims without a body. If the reputation of the US government and its secret services hadn't been so thoroughly tarnished since the invasion of Iraq, perhaps that wouldn't be such an issue. The french even give a little time to covering current conspiracy theories!
For comparison, a quick sweep of Australian media coverage, the frontpage of The Australian website, which should be noted updates frequently, currently contains very little coverage of Osama's death except for articles on topics about how the Pakistanis must have been protecting Osama (gross incompetance on the part of all "intelligence" agencies seems to be completely discounted), as well as an entire "in-depth" page on Osama's death which currently lists about 26 articles, with not a single dissenting or alternative viewpoint, as far as I can tell from the headings. The topics range from copying US government press releases, to a vacuous story about using the codename Geronimo for OBL. The world news section of the Sydney Morning Herald is similarly lacking in diversity of opinion. Roughly 10 articles on the OBL killing, or related, and none would appear to offer any kind of alternative narrative. The Australian government broadcaster, the ABC, also appears to be largely devoid of any diversity of viewpoint. In their World news section, the only Osama related article talks about how Barack Obama's popularity has bounced back in opinion polls in the US. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff.
Funny how all the Australian media has painted themselves into a corner of complete irrelevance as they all fight to copy the same press releases, but with their own reporter in front of a camera somewhere random. I can hope we'll see something better from the ABC's current affairs programs. There are some alternative viewpoints expressed in independent media like this story from New Mathilda which seems to be bemoaning the lack of diversity too. The lack is in the mainstream English-speaking media, it would seem...
Most political leaders in Australia said essentially the same thing, certainly prime minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott with his usual embarassing machismo. I find it irritatingly just how little diversity there is in Australian politics and it shows up again and again. Vote Greens, I hear you say. Good point, but the Australian Greens are quite strange. They're called "The Greens" but what was the first thing our first federal Greens MP did upon entering the new parliament? Was it about saving old-growth forests? Marine reserves? Or, perhaps the "greatest moral challenge of our time": Climate Change and renewable energy sources?
No, it was a private members bill on gay marriage. That's right. Apparently, gay couples make up 0.47% of all couples in Australia. Wow. Earth-shatteringly important stuff! Shit, Adam, how about some federal funding for more bikepaths even? Something small. Legally, gay couples in Australia have de facto all the same rights as married couples (there really aren't that many extra "rights"), they just can't register a marriage officially. That's it.
OK, so, maybe this needed to be talked about at some stage in the future, but isn't there anything more important to talk about?
A bit like the old republican vs monarchist debate in Australia. There's plenty that could be improved about Australia's constitutional makeup but replacing a non-elected figurehead with an elected one doesn't seem that interesting to me. Occasionally, very occasionally, you can find someone else saying something sensible about this, but it's not often!
For another bit of continental contrast, Germany has a lot of "Green" representation spread across the country, and as a result they have very significant wind and even solar power! Drive through Germany and you will see solar farms, solar PV on half the rooves in many small towns, and plenty of windfarms. I'm not saying these are the be all and end all of renewables (I'll be writing on that topic in the near future), but at least it's something. We spend money on solar PV here in Australia, it's a minor cockup, and it is just completely knocked as a stupid idea for all time. Kind of like the way the Decepticons in the Transformers would come up with a great plan and it would almost succeed, but when it was foiled, sometimes through luck, they would abandon it and never try again :-) In further contrast with Australia's Greens, Baden-Wuertemberg now has a Green politician in charge - he's a socially conservative Catholic. Can you imagine an Australian Green being anything other than somewhere between "socialist" and "communist" in their views? They spend all their time worrying about the palestinians, or refugees arriving in Australia by boat, or, as mentioned above, gay marriage. I'm not saying those issues aren't important, but if this is what takes up 90% of the public time the Greens are getting in mainstream media, then who the hell is out there working to protect the environment? They're certainly not selling the carbon tax message well (I think they've left Labor to hold the hot potato there), and they don't seem to be doing much to stop the unfolding lunacy of a NSW government controlled by the shooters party.
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