August 04, 2003
FLAMING BROIN
Paddy’s Bar, blown to bits last year by an Islamic terrorist, is back in business and as happily Western as ever:
There were no parked cars allowed out front, guards with metal scanners prowled the door and the second floor had gone, but a symbol of the Bali bombings – Paddy's bar – has risen from the ashes of last October 12.
The famous Kuta nightspot reopened its doors on Saturday night for the first time since being destroyed by a suicide bomber carrying a vest stashed with TNT.
”With the bar reopened and tourists returning to Kuta again,” writes Gareth Parker, “these fundamentalist criminals will have died without achieving a thing.” Well, maybe not. My hope is that Paddy’s will soon sell a cocktail named after Alison Broinowski, the beer-blaming Bali blast bigot. “Gimme a Flaming Broin!” revellers will cry, in their offensive Australian accents. “Sorry, no Flaming Broin available,” a Balinese drinks jockey might answer. “We all out of carp pellets.”
Speaking of the Broiner, Professor Bunyip has been inspecting her adjustable attitude to matters Asian. Intriguing.
Posted by Tim Blair at August 4, 2003 05:07 PM"beer-blaming Bali blast bigot".
I remember a time when tim blair was raging against phillip adams for pointlessly employing alliteration; apparently his opinion on this stylistic device has changed in the last month.
Posted by: adam at August 4, 2003 at 05:49 PMUmmm, there's a bit of a difference between a breezy, light-hearted blog and a frickin' weekly column in a national newspaper!
Posted by: Jaime Blogenstein at August 4, 2003 at 06:44 PMwhat, so blogs need not be consistent? not sure blair agrees with you.
Posted by: adam at August 4, 2003 at 07:27 PMTim,
Maybe you want to actually read Brionowski's book before to simply ape Andrew Bolt's fatuous take on things.
It is a book that points out how the relationship between Australia and our region has got to its sorry state through significant and transparent racism on the part of Asian leaders toward us, and how they rely on our hysterical and hyper-critical media to fuel antagonism toward us amongst their people.
What this means Tim is that you are a patsy to Mahathir. How does it feel to be used?
Rex
Posted by: Rex at August 4, 2003 at 07:39 PM
I see the linked Professor Bunyip article has included a rape analogy. I assume regular readers will have gone similarly apeshit and thrown their brains out the window when reading this... just like y'all did when I had the temerity to do such a thing only a few weeks ago in the comments section here.
Yes?
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/003438.php
Uh adam, the link seems to be caustic yes, but not nearly raging. Nice try.
A question for readers: if Bolt sues Marr, will the ABC be obliged to pay Marr's legal expenses?
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 4, 2003 at 08:14 PMBig Rami... (who's still having trouble with links).
No.
Quite different context. Read your comment, read the one you refer to. See?
Posted by: The at August 4, 2003 at 09:16 PMOkay, I downloaded the whole 364 page pdf of Broinowski's thesis. Read the first 40 pages to get the gist of it. Skimmed later bits and then went to the conclusion.
Bunyip has it pretty much right except that Broinowski is much more judgemental when it comes to Australia and Australians. Asian opinion leaders do misrepresent Australia and Australians but Australians should be doing much more to get the Asian opinion leaders on side.
In other words, the beer swilling, scantily clad Aussie bastards and Sheilas brought it on themselves.
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 4, 2003 at 09:44 PMI'm not surprised if her views on occidentalism changed between East Timor and Bali.
The far left, having supported a free East Timor since day one (they get things right occasionally), couldn't back away from it now. They had no choice but to disagree with the Occidentalists.
However, with regards to the war on terror, the far left and the Occidentalists had the same views.
Posted by: Andjam at August 4, 2003 at 11:24 PMOT: Police drop charges against Muslim leader. I wonder if this had anything to do with his statement a few days ago about Muslim extremists?
Posted by: Andjam at August 4, 2003 at 11:32 PM"caustic yes, but not nearly raging".
i see zsa zsa is a fan of pedantry.
adam,
caustic = marked by sharp or bitter wit; cutting
raging = speaking or acting furiously
duh
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 4, 2003 at 11:54 PMZza Zza,
Sadly, your take on the Brionoski book is as shallow and ill-considered as Bolt's and Blairs. I can only assume that you already had your mind made up before you started reading it.
It is typical of celebrity pundits and their fawning mob to see things only in black and white. The book, if you bothered to read it properly, paints a huge canvas of grey.
Brionowski's conclusion that Australia needs to address the problem is not the same as saying that the problem is our fault. Of course we have to do something about it otherwise it will just get worse for us. We can become incensed and emotional like Blair and Bolt, and let things turn to shit, or we can be smart about it. But let's not be in any doubt. We are in a competition for economic Power with our regional neighbors and if we don't start to get cunning then we will lose.
REx
Posted by: Rex at August 5, 2003 at 09:50 AMRex, no offence, but you're thick enough to be writing to Margo. What can Australia, as you say, "do about" changing the attitudes of our racist Asian neighbours. Appease them? Adopt corruption, cronyism, and a state religion?
Get serious, Rex. If Asia was full of white guys saying the same things about Australia, the Broinowskis would be up in arms.
Instead, beacause they're Asians, she feels obliged to make excuses for their racist perceptions and words. She wouldn't last long at ANU if she was honest, so she flogs a watered-down blame-the-victim routine as an afterthought to qualify her footnoted observations on Asian bigotry toward Oz.
Anyway, if you reckon Broinowski is so great, you bloody pay for her fellowship salary. Me? I'd prefer to see government grants going to Blair and Bunyip.
Posted by: Incontinentia Buttox at August 5, 2003 at 12:10 PMBroinowski & Kingston make a great pair.
B. blames the victims lawful attitudes: "beer-swilling" beverage preferences and an idiom that is "jagged with Strine" for
inviting the region's contempt
K's thesis is that the Bombers blew up the Bar so that displaced locals could reclaim their lost "sense of place" since Australian tourists are neo-colonialists who may not have "respected and nurtured the place we love to visit. Instead we have
colonised it with our wants...Have residents lost their place, their power to define it?...Have Muslim extremists destroyed the vibe of Hindu Bali to force us out?"
People like Marr, Kingston and Broinowski have one main agenda: to put themsleves and their mates at the top of the social status tree of cultural arbitors. They are snobs or cultural elitists.
To achieve this social power position they must demean the cultural tastes and political preferences of average Australians.
One would not mind it so much if Australian cultural elites were actually good at producing and criticising elite stuff eg classical writing, research, art etc.
Instead they rapidly descend into po-mo moral relativism and dabbling in lit-crit.
What bothers them the most is that they cannot be accepted as worthy fellows of note in the Great Councils and High Tables of the oceanic metropolises of the North Atlantic and North Pacific - because they are stained by relation to Ocker yobbos of Australia.
Hence the chronic fawning and hand-wringing over what "international opinion" will make of popular Australian values.
I have a suggestion: Reverse Transportation.
Cut off their flamin grants, bind them up in chains and pack the lot off to be overseen by their minders in Bloomsbury, Left Bank and Greenwich Village.
They deserve each other.
The problem with Broino, Marr et al is that they WANT to be the elite, but don't have the brains the breeding or the bottom.
Posted by: Toryhere at August 5, 2003 at 02:23 PMJack,
I think you are so blinded by your contempt for anybody who posits a point a view that differs from your current rigid position that you dismiss outright what is a very valuable contribution to the debate on Australia's position in the region.
It is not necessary to agree with all that Brionowski concludes to appreciate what she has created with this book. She has prepared a brilliant narrative that demonstrates through countless examples how the leaders of the region have deliberately set out to undermine Australia's position at every opportunity. She demonstrates how they use Australia's media, and our own portrayal of ourselves to underscore their cynical and manipulative goals.
She is right when she says that if we want to join their club we need to play by their rules. The choice for us is, do we want to play by their rules? What impact will it have on us if we don't? Can we change the rules? Do we just ignore then or do we find a cunning way to subvert their strategy?
Your simplistic dismissal of her because she offends your preferred economic and political model is short sighted and does neither yourself nor Australia any good at all.
Rex
Posted by: Rex at August 5, 2003 at 02:42 PMRex,
The following is from the conclusion of Broinowski's thesis:
"Australia is particularly vulnerable a result (sic) of its proximity, its policies, its differences, its lack of appreciation of its neighbours’ concerns, and its failure to deal appropriately with its own image problem".
You tell me where she is laying the blame.
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 5, 2003 at 02:50 PMRe: Reverse Transportation
Good thought, Jack, but you're a bit late. Back in the 50s and 60s (19xxs, that is), it was de rigeur for the cultural elitists to leave the sunburnt country for points abroad, usually London, where they would sit on sharp objects and sniff pointedly about colonial backwaters they had left.
As it was a long boat ride, they rarely found their way back, much to the joy of us ignorati.
Personally, I reckon Boeing has a LOT to answer for!!!
Posted by: Paul Johnson at August 6, 2003 at 03:03 PM