The Australian 10 May 2011
Here’s the pocket cartoon on the Malaysian refugee swap I did for Tuesday’s first edition of the Oz before I changed my mind and went with the other one quoting John Howard. And while we’re quoting ex-PMs, here’s a little thing said by Paul Keating (written by Don Watson) at Redfern a while back on Aboriginal reconciliation, though this bit can safely be applied more generally.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask – how would I feel if this were done to me?
Bloody good question.
Aahh, the Redfern Address! Keating & Watson at their best, back in the days before the ALP’s current crop of self-interested, poll-driven, panderers-to-the-lowest-common-denominator switched off the Light on the Hill. :'(
Well, it was either Keating & Watson or Martin Luther King…
It was one of the great speeches of the 20th century.