Small children invariably see themselves as the centres of their little worlds, believing that everyone is fascinated with all they do. The threats of international embarrassment that many environmental and social activists trot out when they fail to get their own way with Australian politicians or the public depend on a similar immaturity.
Either innocently or cynically, the activists confuse the outrage they can mobilise amongst their own networks of supporters in other countries with more general opinion on particular issues. So they issue stern warnings that "if we mine uranium at Jabiluka, Australia will be an international laughing stock", or "unless we implement all the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we will be condemned by world opinion".
In reality, the rest of the world rarely gives us much thought, except as a sporting power or tourist destination. This was brought home to me during a three week trip to the United States from which I have just returned.
Americans tend to be favourably disposed towards us in a superficial way. But they are remarkably uninformed about Australia and do not seem overly interested in remedying this ignorance. Most people I spoke with had a university education, yet few had any idea where Brisbane was, let alone Jabiluka.
Always on the lookout for news from Australia, I read a variety of national and local papers in the cities I visited, from The Wall Street Journal and USA Today to the Tucson Citizen. I also watched a lot of television news. I did find an obituary for the painter Arthur Boyd in the Los Angeles Times, but apart from sporting stories, this was the only specifically Australian item I saw.
While the US media were preoccupied with the release of the three American soldiers from Yugoslavia, I never came across any mention of the two Australian CARE workers being held by Milosevic on spying charges. Indeed, I did not meet a single American who had even heard of their detention.
In part, this is a consequence of the parochialism of the American press and public, a rather alarming trait in the world's only superpower. Contemporary America seems to have turned the old environmentalist maxim on its head -- thinking locally while acting globally.
But parochialism is not the only reason why Americans are largely indifferent to what goes on in Australia. Even when the American press does run international stories in which Australian interests or actions could be expected to feature, we are frequently overlooked. There was a fair amount of coverage of East Timor while I was in the US, but hardly any reference to Australia's involvement in the crisis.
As David Horowitz -- a leader of the New Left in the 1960s and early 70s, and now a prominent conservative -- told me with a dismissive wave of his hand when I tried to talk with him about Australian issues, "you guys are pretty unimportant in the overall scheme of things".
Certainly, there is something to be said for not being newsworthy. After all, when Chinese express the hope "may you live in interesting times", it is meant as a curse, not as a blessing. Part of the reason why we are so boring to the American -- and world media -- is that comparatively speaking, we are doing rather well.v Although many greens like to think otherwise, whatever mistakes we have made in managing Australia's natural environment, they are as nothing besides the ecological catastrophes in parts of Eastern Europe or Africa. And as distressing as many of our social problems may be to those who are affected by them, they are small beer compared to most other countries, including America itself.
Perhaps some activists would argue that Americans represent a unique case, and that the rest of the world is carefully focused on Australia, taking diligent note of our crimes against nature and human decency. They might point to events such as United Nations committees moving to place Kakadu on the World Heritage "in-danger" list because of Jabiluka, or condemning the Howard Government's amendments to the Native Title Act as being racially discriminatory.
But many of these United Nations bodies are little more than extensions of the activists' own networks, comprising a convenient mix of ideological enthusiasts, pliable bureaucrats, and cynical entrepreneurs seeking to enhance their personal standing by enlarging the reach of their committees. When the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination handed down its report attacking Australia a few weeks ago, hardly anyone bothered to inquire into the background of its 18 supposedly "expert" members.
These include people nominated by current communist regimes, such as Cuba and China, people originally nominated by former communist states, and people from other countries whose human rights record leaves a great deal to be desired. Some of them have unwholesome views -- for instance Agha Shahi from Pakistan, a strong supporter of his country's nuclear weapons program, is passionately opposed to Pakistan signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nevertheless, according to Labor's Daryl Melham, the report produced by this dubious bunch showed that the Howard Government had "shamed us in the eyes of the world". But the world wasn't looking. I checked over a dozen English language newspapers in Europe, Asia, North America and South Africa on the Internet, and only two, England's Daily Telegraph and Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, carried any mention of the UN report.
In both cases, the stories were sourced from Sydney, rather than from Geneva where the UN report was actually issued. In other words, what really triggered the stories was not the report itself, but the outbursts by Melham and others who were trying to play the "international embarrassment" card in order to push their own agenda.
Of course, there is one way that really would make a laughing stock out of Australia. That would be to take seriously those who attempt blackmail with threats of a non-existent international opinion directed against us.
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