Australia Bows to the Queen
Australian newspapers, which were mostly pro-republican in the campaign to
abolish the monarchy in Australia, reacted huffily to the monarchists' 55
percent to 45 percent victory in Saturday's referendum. "Australia bows to Her Majesty" was the Sydney Morning Herald 's
contemptuous headline Monday. The paper agreed with Rupert Murdoch's prediction
last week that rejection of a republic in the referendum would provoke a
political backlash against the country's monarchist prime minister, John
Howard, who had skillfully divided the pro-republican forces. "John Howard
should reflect on his place in Australian history," the Syndey Morning
Herald said in an editorial. "He must know that Saturday's referendum
settled nothing." The paper warned that because 75 percent of Australians want
a republic, the debate will continue. "But it will remain confused, bitter and
divisive until another leader steps forward to bring the country together. …
The deep division between direct-election and parliamentary-election
republicans which Mr. Howard and the monarchists exploited in Saturday's
election will not continue."
The
Australian , which also supports a republic, summed up the divisiveness
of the referendum, in which the monarchy's supporters came mainly from
lower-income groups, with the headline "One Queen, two nations." The Herald
Sun said the referendum has also widened divisions within Howard's
government and generated "serious fears for its chances at the next election."
In Britain, where Queen Elizabeth II marked her triumph Saturday by presenting
the rugby World Cup championship trophy to the staunchly republican captain of
the Australian team, John Eales, after its win against France, there was talk
of subjecting the monarchy to a referendum by the British as well.
The
mass-circulation Sun , a Murdoch paper, claimed in a front-page splash that
Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, is eager to have such a
referendum, believing the monarchy would prevail. But in an editorial, the
Sun came close to advocating a republic for Britain, too. "We doubt
that, eventually, a monarchy can exist as part of a democracy," it said.
"Anyone who has spent a few years living in the United States has experienced
at first hand what it is like to be in a TRULY free country. … There is no us
and them in America. … Great families come and go--the Rockefellers, the
Kennedys, the Hearsts. ...We see this even now as Bill Gates' gigantic
Microsoft empire looks threatened by his own government."
The
Guardian noted
in an editorial that "democracy seems to like monarchy" and that the queen "is,
more than ever, head of the antipodean state not by grace of God but thanks to
a popular vote." The Independent sounded a similar note. "The tempering of the
hereditary principle by democracy has produced a curious constitutional
hybrid," it said in an editorial. "In Britain we now have elected hereditary
peers. In Australia they have what is, in effect, an elected hereditary
monarch. ... Of course, the Independent is not in favour of the
hereditary principle, but if it happens to coincide with the popular will, then
who can argue with it?"
Judge
Thomas Penfield Jackson's finding in the Microsoft antitrust case was a huge
story around the world both Sunday and Monday, leading the front pages of
Die Welt of Germany,
Le Monde of
France, and Britain's Financial Times , which also devoted an editorial and two
inside pages to it. In its editorial, the FT praised the judge for his
"sophisticated grasp of the workings of the computer industry" and said he had
successfully demolished most of Bill Gates' arguments. Gates "must know that
the chances of a drastic remedy--such as the breakup of the company he founded
are no longer negligible," the paper said. "Though this would probably not be
the best outcome, the judge's findings demonstrate that, if it were to happen,
Microsoft would only have itself to blame."
Le
Monde in an editorial said Jackson would be remembered in history for
recalling "a basic principle of the American system, one of the principles
which assure the vitality and dynamism of the United States economy: the
struggle against monopoly situations and respect for competition." The judge in
effect told Gates, "You may represent the industry of the future, but you are
no less a monopolist than those who came into being at the beginning of the
century." An editorial in the Times of London, however, was more sympathetic to Microsoft.
It said Gates has made his fortune primarily through his own ingenuity and that
"American antitrust law should not be used solely to rein in large and
successful firms and keep more complacent alternatives in business." The paper
added, "The fundamental concern must be whether or not it is actually true that
Microsoft can command this market in a fashion that will frustrate
innovation."
Libération of
Paris, which led its front page Monday with the headline "Setback for the
Master of the Universe," said that it was "the Internet, more than the American
Department of Justice, that is making his empire tremble." La Repubblica of Rome
Sunday, in an article by Furio Colombo, said that "Bill Gates, who with his
image and his self-promotion has become a sort of Mao Zedong of the new
technologies, evidently considers that there is no difference between the good
of Microsoft and the good of all." The case against him began when lawyers and
judges became convinced that the interests of the citizen "had been violated,
and therefore humiliated, by the conquering ride of Microsoft and by the
personality cult of its leader," the paper said.
The
Times of
India reported Monday from the eastern state of Orissa that receding
waters after last week's cyclone disaster have revealed mounds of corpses in
almost every village. It said survivors believe that 5,200 people have died in
18 villages alone, compared to an official estimate of 765 deaths in the entire
region. The paper complained in an editorial
that "the corrosive tawdriness of political populism" was delaying relief
efforts, with government and opposition politicians arguing about money and
whether there should be a formal declaration of a national calamity. In the
state of Andhra Pradesh, the Deccan Chronicle had as its front-page lead
a report from San Francisco claiming that the United States would only send
further help to Orissa if India asked for it. "This stance has created ripples
of outrage among Indians and pro-India Congressmen here who interpret these
signals as being a clear indicator from Washington that India must hold out a
begging bowl to the US," it said. The paper said the India lobby complained
that American aid to Orissa was "but a drop in the ocean" compared to the
"astronomical" amounts it sent to Turkey following the earthquake there.
The Pakistani daily
Dawn put a positive spin
on George W. Bush's failure to name the country's new military leader. "General
Pevez Musharraf has suddenly become an overnight celebrity and a 'yardstick' of
general knowledge for Americans and may well become the factor to decide who
will be America's next president," began a front-page
report from Washington on Monday. "The Musharraf quiz craze, as many are
calling it, has stormed America with everyone asking everyone else: 'Who is the
leader of Pakistan?' If you don't know the answer, you are considered dumb,
like presidential candidate George Bush. … His flunking of the pop quiz test is
snowballing into a major political threat to the Republican Party as their top
candidate, who has raised millions of dollars, appears increasingly like a dumb
duffer who cannot make out whether a 'military coup' is a good thing or
bad."
