Tonetto's article biased

Writing a letter to the editor of The Jakarta Post is generally a pointless exercise. No one pays much attention to notes from those familiar few, relentless correspondents who clog up your pages day after day with their boring diatribes. But on rare occasions, certain objectionable opinions cannot pass unchallenged. Once before, I have written to the Post, that time responding to the deranged, racist tirades of Masli Arman. Now I am prompted to write for a second time, again to counter a bizarre intervention, but this time from the formerly obscure Walter Tonetto (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 15, 1999: Australia: The child with everything who does not know it).

Tonetto was introduced to readers as the founder of the humbly named Tonetto Foundation, unknown to the world until now, but which has dedicated itself to the intriguing task of helping set up other foundations. Sadly, Tonetto deprived readers of his expertise in this area, instead expending his energy on a pompous, offensive and unwarranted attack on Australia.

Tonetto made admirable use of his thesaurus, but failed to engage more than a couple of brain cells in composing his gaseous rant, a point-by-point rebuttal of which would fill pages of newspaper. Supposedly a "reflection" on the recent referendum in Australia (a topic, might I say, that has been done to death in your newspaper), the article soon lost track, and deteriorated into a baffling laundry list of Tonetto's pet hates, prejudices and misplaced resentments.

Homosexuals, academics, atheists, "rightists" and hedonist all came in for a shellacking. But what for? The key flaw in Tonetto's article is that for all the ranting and raving, he could not say what is bad about Australia. Are its people happy? Are they poor? Are they unhealthy? Is it a violent place? No, no, no and no. The amoral wasteland he described bears no resemblance whatsoever to the friendly, clean, fair, vibrant and prosperous country that Australia is. Put simply, Tonetto doesn't have the faintest idea what he is talking about, and anyone who has spent even a few days in Australia will recognize that.

A few examples of Tonetto's poor logic should show how little store can be placed in his article. In one howler, he wrote that Australia "routinely ignores" the International Covenant of Civil and Political rights and, curiously, cites Australia's "brusque" diplomatic actions during the East Timor crisis as an example. Whose civil or political rights were infringed by Australia's actions? Australia intervened to put a stop to the appalling human rights abuses in East Timor.

Tonetto also claims that Australian teenagers have nothing to look forward to (though he couldn't say it that plainly, he had to write "the Australian vestiary is almost wholly void of any befitting garment"). That is just more nonsense. Australia's economy is booming, and unemployment is below 6 percent. The Australian economy is the envy of Asia.

Instead of embarrassing himself to a city full of readers, Tonetto should apply his dormant mind to the pointless task of spawning foundations around the country. But, having used his surname for the first one, what will he call the second? The third?

RODERICK BRAZIER

Jakarta