About face: Asian Accounts of Australia,
Alison Broinowski. Scribe Publications, 2003. isbn 0908011962, rrp $30.00
Diplomatic Deceits: Government, Media and East Timor, Rodney Tiffen. UNSW Press, 2001. isbn 086840571X, rrp $27.95
Asian-Australian relationships have always been a critical issue; they are either a source of promise or fear.
In About Face, Broinowski, a former Australian diplomat, has written a book that looks at these relationships from an Asian perspective. Broinowski charts the historical events that have impacted on Australian relations with Asia, from the gold rush troubles of the Victorian era to the Bali bombings. However, not only does Broinowski examine national agendas, she deals with the cultural results of East meeting West. This is an illuminating process in itself.
Broinowski argues two fascinating contentions. First, that Asian nations themselves are subject to the same racial virus that affects us in Australia and that this is a reaction to the ‘white superiority’ of the colonial period. Asian leaders use this fear of others to their own electoral advantage, much like John Howard. Second, that part of the cause of the Bali bombings was Indonesian resentment of foreign tourists on their soil. She claims that the offensiveness of Australian tourists to Muslim sensibilities, combined with the wider deterioration of Indonesian-Australian relations from the East Timor crisis, created a groundswell of ill will that made the Bali bombings possible.
Broinowski writes fascinatingly about contrasting Indonesian and Australian perceptions of the East Timor crisis. Rodney Tiffen’s Diplomatic Deceits puts that crisis into a broader historical context, covering Australian political considerations in the period from the Indonesian annexation of the former Portuguese colony to East Timor’s eventual independence.
Diplomatic Deceits, through no fault of Tiffen’s, suffers from being written before the bombings in Bali. An analysis of this event would have added another dimension to the book, however Tiffen provides valuable insights into our government’s acquiescence to the invasion and occupation of East Timor. Diplomatic Deceits highlights the constant tension between pragmatic and principled policy-making on East Timor. Tiffen argues that principle would have been the better option for maintaining Australian credibility. Diplomatic Deceits is a quick but valuable read.
Godfrey Moase
The Complete Book of Great Australian Women—Thirty-Six women who changed the course of Australia, Susanna de Vries. Harper Collins, 2003. isbn 073227804X, rrp $35.00
A senior female judge recently delivered a speech at Melbourne University called ‘Women’s Experiences in the Courtroom’. When asked what it takes to become a judge,