Tonetto responds

I am writing in response to Mr. Roderick Brazier letter of Dec. 18, 1999, entitled Tonetto's article biased.

It is difficult to engage an adversary who can show little besides a blunt blade. But if he keeps poking it in my face, I had better move to foil a little to the side. And there stands an obscure Mr. Roderick Brazier: picture him in the half-light, molded in the tradition of the loud-mouthed and uncouth Australian ocker, not proclaiming to be of high birth or spirit, and wishing others were like him.

Mr. brazier attacks my name (Tonetto) and my foundation, though he knows next to nothing of either; what he pretends to know is gleaned from an ill-construed 10 words or so footnote I did not even write. This brash Australian might indeed serve as an egregious symbol of Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "Rodrigo" means "some kind of snuff" in Spanish; "Brazier" recalls Shakespeare's line in Henry VIII: "He should be a brazier by the face", a brassmaker. "Brazen" is related, of course, and we find the perfect measure of the man.

What of my name then? Again Shakespeare: "What's in a name; does the rose by any other name smell as sweet?" Australians, especially the rednecks in Pauline Hanson's sunburnt northern regions, can't do much with European names, since their culture and education has permitted little exposure to more than meat pies and jingoist self-complacency. When I lived on the Gold Coast, back in the 1980s, in one of the more expensive residences, complete with pier, all the neighbors kept asking me was what kind of boat I intended to buy. Perhaps this example speaks for itself, and speaks to Mr. Brazier, who has no antennae for anything beyond base metals.

All that would be fine and almost tolerable. The average Australian of little knowledge, and less self-reflection, stutters along, occasionally pulled out of his sloth by a national sporting achievement, and the brouhaha of seeing the nation's toy soldiers dispatched overseas, the sun-struck expression of their prime minister waving them on.

Nevertheless, those who are ignorant should not profess to set the standards for those of higher aspiration. Herein Australians of Mr. Brazier's ilk exceed the measure: when Mr. Brazier cites my example of a "vestiary almost wholly devoid of any garments" in connection with Australian youths, he does not see the allusion to religiosity as a source of strength, and shows once again the calloused hand. Please read again, and ponder. Australia's crisis is the decay of its spirit: this has nothing to do with "lower" unemployment levels or the fun that a tourist might have on a honeymoon to the Antipodes.

There is also nothing wrong with handiwork, but don't elevate your dyslexia. If Mr. Howard's brusque diplomacy in East Timor had led to full-scale war with Indonesia -- and your friends returned home in polystyrene body-bags -- would that have vindicated you in any way?

Do you chew or smoke your snuff, Rodrigo?

WALTER TONETTO

Jakarta