Sir Joh Vs Arafat?
I don’t like to speak ill of the recently deceased and I avoid commenting on issues I don’t have a reasonable grasp of (although occasionally I do slip here).
For this reason I haven’t commented on the passing of Sir Joh. I can’t imagine I’d have anything particularly nice to say about him and he was mostly before my time – or at least before I was politically aware enough to understand.
However it is interesting to note the difference in the way the media and others have portrayed his life in comparison to Arafat’s. When Arafat died all we heard about was how corrupt he was and how we could now go ahead with the peace process in his death with little reference to the good he did. All we’ve heard about Sir Joh, was about how wonderful he was and his gross civil rights abuses seem to be dismissed almost as part of his charm. Australians love a larrikin, and larrikins are usually a bit controversial but seriously, corruption is still corruption.
