Who's Sorry Now?
Viagra still refuses to be
ousted from its dominant position in the world's press. Le Monde of Paris, France's most
prestigious newspaper, reported Tuesday that the anti-impotence drug was almost
certain to be excluded from the list of medicines approved for free
prescriptions by the French state social security system. In a front-page
comment in La
Repubblica of Rome, celebrated columnist Gianni Riotta called Viagra "the
Peter Pan trap" and asked whether it was really a medicine against male
impotence or, rather, "a chemist's aphrodisiac."
"Does it
serve to cure an illness or to regulate eternal adolescence? Does it belong to
the world of pharmaceutical drugs or to that of aesthetic surgery, like
silicone breast implants?" Riotta asked. Viagra, he went on, creates the
illusion that time never ends and that the seasons are forever renewed.
"Leaders like Clinton and Blair, who are already middle-aged, are described as
'young,' " he said. "But at Sinatra's funeral, the eternal Gregory Peck amazed
us with his beauty and his bearing." When the year 2000 arrives, he concluded,
"the most beautiful and happiest old people, pill or no pill, will be those
like Peck, proud, aware, and strong in their imperfect human reality."
Tuesday was "National Sorry Day" in Australia, but not in
Japan, which, despite Emperor Akihito's state visit to Britain this week, could
not bring itself to apologize unequivocally for the Japanese atrocities
inflicted on British POWs in Burma during World War II. The London Evening Standard said in
an editorial that "no reasonable person could feel any personal animus against
Emperor Akihito" but that "most Londoners will feel little reason to
celebrate," because "the rising sun flag remains, for much of the world, a
symbol of terror and shame." "Former Japanese prisoners-of-war may be old, and
their grievances generated long ago," the Standard concluded. "But their
anger and bitterness deserve the sympathy of us all."
Australia was meanwhile
sharply divided over the need to apologize to Aborigines over their past
treatment by European immigrants. In the "red corner," said the Age of Melbourne Tuesday, was
the "National Sorry Day mob," while in the "blue corner" was Australian Prime
Minister John Howard, heading the anti-apologizing "National Reconciliation
Week." The newspaper reported that "hundreds of thousands of Australians today
formally apologised to the 'stolen generations' of Aborigines, but John Howard
was not among them." The prime minister had told parliament that "a formal
national apology, of the type sought by others, is not appropriate."
While
Deputy Opposition Leader Gareth Evans was reported as saying, "There's
something very sad about a man who can't say sorry," "National Sorry Books" had
been signed by half a million people, including "the Catholic bishops of
Australia, trade unions and teacher organisations." The Age also quoted
Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge as saying that "the whole sorry industry has
gotten a bit out of hand." Rupert Murdoch's daily, the Australian, reported
that Botany Bay, New South Wales, where Captain Cook landed in 1770 with the
first white settlers from Britain, was to be renamed "to reflect its Aboriginal
heritage." The Guardian of London, in a front-page report from Sydney Tuesday, said that one suggestion due to be
discussed by tribal elders of the Dharawal people was that Botany Bay (so
called because of the exotic plant life found there by Captain Cook) should
change its name to "Gillingarie," a word in the Dharawal language meaning "land
that belongs to us all."
The big vote for democracy in Hong Kong Sunday
was welcomed by the South China
Morning Post, although the paper expressed concern in an editorial Monday
that the high voter turnout, despite torrential rain, might have been at least
partly due to "the offer by the retail chain, Giordano, of a 40 per cent
discount to anyone who took along the commemorative card to show they had
voted."
"This may just have been a
piece of clever marketing, but it comes perilously close to using a financial
incentive to influence the election," the editorial said. "What next--voter air
miles?" It said that "the first multi-party elections to be held on the soil of
the People's Republic of China" might not please those who would wish Hong Kong
to be a less political society, "but once it has been let out, the electoral
genie is hard to put back in the bottle."
In Indonesia, newspapers
have been competing to denounce President Suharto's successor, Jusuf Habibie,
saying that during his 20 years as Minister for Technology and Research he had
amassed a fortune of around $60 million. The Jakarta Post said this
weekend that Habibie was "not only short of political legitimacy" but was also
an "anti-market personality" who believed in "crony capitalism."
In Rome, the Vatican
newspaper L'Osservatore Romano defended the Dominican order's campaign to beatify
Girolamo Savonarola, the fire-and-brimstone monk who was excommunicated,
hanged, and burned in Florence 500 years ago. The paper described him as an
"illuminated master of spirituality" and a "tireless preacher for social
reform."
