Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
“Beer mat Mum” follows media script to perfection
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Are we so prejudiced nowadays that any Aussie who is arrested for a misdemeanour in Asia is front page news? The beat-up about the Melbourne “beer mat mum”, Annice Smoel, suggests the Australian media will grab any chance it can to condemn the authorities — particularly the judiciary — of our Asian neighbours. The Daily Telegraph’s headline on Tuesday summed up the tone with “Beer mat mum faces Thai jail hell.” As we all now know, Smoel received a suspended sentence and a fine of just $40. She walked free from court and is reportedly on her way home this morning. The sentence was a mile away from the potential “five years in jail” mooted by the media over the last week. So why did the media get so worked up about Annice Smoel?
Admittedly the story did have a few elements that the media was always going to find irresistible. The novelty beer mat angle was too cute to ignore. The fact that Smoel happened to be blonde was a bonus, as were her four doe-eyed kids. The media quickly adopted Smoel as a sort of everywoman. She became one of us, a fun loving Aussie, held captive to those merciless westerner-hating officials in one of those corrupt and dirty places in Asia and ergo she must be championed. When the media discovered Smoel was speaking out and that what she was saying contained that wonderful blend of anger and vulnerability, she became a sensation and everyone started taking notice. But it was the prank element that became the clincher. Not only was Smoel one of us, a mother, with her beer mat, tearful kids and quavering voice, she also happened to be innocent. At that point the media flicked the switch to outrage.
Politicians know how this works. Once an Aussie abroad becomes emblematic of our helplessness in a foreign land, and their cause is championed by the press, MPs, the Foreign Affairs Department and its consular staff know they have to be seen to be doing all they can to get her home. That’s why their radar is now finely tuned for just these sorts of cases. The Victorian Premier, John Brumby, was saying all the right stuff, as was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who even managed the perfunctory reminder that as Thailand is a sovereign nation, there is only so much that he and the Australian Government can do.
The elements of this story have been predictable from the start. The jail, in which Smoel spent two nights, was described by the media as “four metres by four metres”, as if that suggested a torture cell out of Apocalypse Now. The toilets were described in graphic detail, the food was condemned as inedible and the officials were described as heavy handed. Even an instance of incorruptibility on the part of the Thai officials was twisted to suit the story. On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph wrote “The family have admitted they offered Thai authorities money to secure her release but it was refused.” Written like this it is merely an indication of our beer mat mum’s desperation, and certainly not of the wrongdoing of offering what appeared to be a bribe. When Smoel gets off the plane today it’ll be hugs with crying kids and tearful joy at being home in the best country on earth and, if all goes to script, a vow to never go back there again. About the only line that suggested something other than the “innocent abroad” theme came in Karen Percy’s report from Phuket on ABC TV this morning which ended with this tag: “But (the whole affair) has also shone a spotlight on the way Australians behave abroad.” |
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22 Comments
I am sick to death of badly behaving Australians going to Thailand for a cheap holiday then criticising the people, their culture and their laws when they get themselves into a fix. The Thai people are beautiful people and we must respect their culture and their laws. Smoel rudely made fun of the food the Thai people sell on the streets - that is all they have! They make food on the streets for as little as ten baht in order to make a living - from rich foreigners - and to provide food for other locals. The food is edible and many tourists are happy to eat it. For Smoel to rudely make fun of this is in my opinion despicable. Smoel and her friends are typical of ignorant, arrogant Anglo-saxons who use other countries for their cheap holidays but ridicule the poor for making a living out of what they have. I hope to God this woman and her friends never return to Thailand - they do not deserve the hospitality that the people of the Land of Smiles are famous for. I certainly hope any money she makes out of interviews she will inevitably do with any one of the womens’ magazines - she donates the money to a childrens orphanage in Phuket - that is the least she could to make amends for herself and her friends for making a goose of themselves and for criticising the Thai culture.
Revelling in the revolting - a line for News Limited mastheads. Hopefully Mrs Smoel realises she didn’t have to steal a beer mat - she is one. We used to tip off hundreds of Smoels in the shuttle services run by Qantas and Alitalia to cheap destinations and hope like hell they’d be ripped off by locals for their deserved crassness. News Limited and Smoel - both ugly Australians.
So she or her supporters arranged a plea bargain - not so unusual.It appears to be a drunken escapade, that ended in abuse of the police who detained her.
It appears to me that she was extremely lucky, particularly if she tried to bribe the authorities.
Yes, but she will have to live with the Bar Mat Mum title forever. That is cruel and unusual punishment and not even the cheque from a trash mag for her tearjerking story may be adequate compensation for that.
At least the Thais got something out of it as she is promising not to go back.
***if all goes to script, a vow to never go back there again***
“Ms Smoel said she would never go back to Thailand after her nightmare holiday.”
http://tinyurl.com/prn6ta
There are two nations whose youth to middle-aged tourists are boorish, intolerable, gauche and, quite gorge-raising. Israel and Australia. The Israelis are loud, arrogant, self-opinionated and bullying. The Australians who are loud, arrogant, self-opinionated, bullying, slobbish, drunken louts. Male and female.
Whole areas of Asia have become sodden with this poor white trash-think Bali and partsd of Thailand-seasoned travelers avoid these places as if they were riddled with Bubonic Plague.
Wander along the streets of Bangkok and the Oz male is pitifully obvious. He’ll have a small, neat Thai female on his arm, he’ll be fairly tall, have a loud, strident voice, and he will have a hugely deformed beer-gut hanging over his belt.
All over Asia I’m constantly asked if these particular farang are representative of Australian males. I answer “yes. And the females are, in their own way, just as bad”. Then I add, “the good ones are invisible”.
Christine Johnson, you speak with great authority.
Why is it that Australians who travel wish to be sodden with beer, beer-guts, assuming all Asians to be inferior and giving Oz a nightmare reputation.
It seems that the media are more sympathetic to ( and more dramatic about ) the happydoings of a totally irresponsible mum of four than they have ever been to David Hicks. Just wondering how it works. Justice of illiterate mob, perhaps.
Drawing an incredibly long bow comparing those two, Rena.
Rena Zurawel: Couldn’t agree with you more. The ranker elements of the media, Herald Sun. Lurve mums, bubs, kids with big eyes, etc. [Portion of comment edited]
“This is just like Schapelle Corby” squawks Ms Smoel. She’s right there but not in the way she means. The same extravagant posturing and hysteria, the same caricaturing of Asian policing and justice systems. The same inability to face up honestly to what you have done and how you have behaved.
go david! couldnt have said it better myself
Just waiting for the No Idea to run the front page story. Or perhaps GQ.
Venise I’m afraid has it right. Thai jails are no place for a Aussie tourist, though there are/have been many, who have spent a little time in them for foolishness or bad behaviour. Others have spent longer in them for mind bending moronism (think drug smugglers et al).
From the first moment I heard about this I was watching thaivisa and listening to the moronic expats blathering away as if they hold the answers to all Thailand’s farang issues, I was asking what sher said to anger the cops.
It is important to note, the “undercover” cops were likely off-duty police waiting for their weekly pay packet from the owner of the bar, and happened to note part of what happened to the beer mat. After they asked her about it (perhaps accosted her is a better phrase), fully expecting a bonus to their weekly bonus, my view is she in all likelihood launched into them, and more particularly, had a go at their manhood. This would be enough to ensure an overnight in the lockup. If she hadn’t shut up, they would have found it difficult to get the forms etc together for her to sign and get her in front of a court.
All she had to do was shut up, pay them a thousand baht and all would have been forgotten with no paperwork involved.
The rubbish about food would be just that. There would be plenty of food, 3 times a day and access to coffee if she asked for it. Her issue was, in all likelihood, that she couldn’t get her head around a bag of soup, or rice, or both. The latter most likely.
Daemon Singer. Thank you.
@ Backchatme - I disagree. Under Howard, the AFP [portion edited], sold out Australians on a daily basis, to foreign governments. Hicks was one, as were those stupid children in Bali. Keelty has now announced he is retiring, because Rudd has said “enough of your bullshit-we don’t owe the yanks”.
Keelty does owe them and big time, so his time is up. Hicks et al, along with dozens of others sold down the drain by the AFP, are of no interest to the mainstream media, since the average Australian hasn’t got the brains to ask what has been going on.
Since Howard killed investigative reporting, we get zero depth in news, and (in the main), because so many haven’t the brains or the inclination to ask, zero media interest in looking behind a 15 second sound byte on your favourite commercial news provider.
Media have zero interest in anything that takes brains and courage to cover, because that’s what the idiots (consumers) want.
For the punters- I reckon Keelty has been nurturing the police forces of the countries he has sold Australians out to, to garner their votes for him to lead Interpol. The challenge will be that the AFP and Keelty can’t investigate. They can only act on information provided.
I hate to stray off topic, but Venise, can you please keep a lid on the generalisations. Plenty of Aussies like myself are not overweight, and have Thai wives, some who are , shock horror, the same age as their husbands (in my case 3 years older)! Your cliche’s are quite tired. In any case, so what if a bloke has a Thai girlfriend half his age/weight, and happens to keep his accent? Does this make him a bad person for some reason?
Back on topic, it was interesting that, depsite the sensationalist headlines, in most blogs and their commenters, whether they were left or right leaning publications, agreed that she was an idiot - myself included. So many people do seem to leave their brains behind when they leave home.
Sure there are plenty of ugly Australians, just like there are ugly Kiwis, Canadians, Americans, Germans, Isrealis etc (not necessarily picking on those countries). But there are also millions of good, honest, respectful people visisting countries like Thailand year on year.
Hi Andrew,
It seems unfair to lump the Herald Sun into this piece. We actually reported in detail on May 20, splashed across pages four and five, claims that Annice Smoel had been rude to Thai police, had been drinking and had tried to flee. Further, Andrew Bolt today devoted many paragraphs to the issue of Australians behaving poorly abroad.
Regards,
John
Thank heavens for beer mats, it’s got Krudd and rugby out of the news for a few hours.
All we need now are some proper news items, duly investigated and reported in professional manner and the radio and tv may be worth listening to or watching again.
Congratulations to the media for spotlighting just another of too many crass Aussie tourists hitting Asian getaways like a mob of thugs. If a guest at the Smoel house knocked off one of their plastic mugs you can bet they’d have the TRG and riot squad scouring the burbs. Trashing other peoples customs and backyards and getting miffed about the penalties is ripe. Looks like the Smoel family’s diet won’t include much more than sausages peas and potato.
Christine Johnson I really don’t think this is about the media spotlighting crass Australians so much as perhaps trying to create a beat up about how Asian countries treat their “wonderful Australian tourists”.
As other writers have opined, Australians tend to invade places like Phuket and since they don’t have to work the next day they get very drunk and very obnoxious. It is my humble opinion that the two most obnoxious drunks are the Scots and the Australians, and the two most obnoxious tourists are the Israelis and the Australians. At least Scots tend to behave themselves (up to a point) when travelling in Asia which can certainly not be said for Australians, who tend to utilise the words such as, “cobber”, “Sheila etc”., even though in real life you would never ever hear them saying such a thing.
Further to my comment earlier, that I wish the stupid cow had got a month in a Thai jail; still holds true, because I believe there are few things as focusing as being forced to eat Thai food when you don’t like it, and being forced to be around Thai people when you understand nothing of their culture, their language, their social norms or very much else.
I suppose it’s fair to say that I could equip an entire bar with beer mats if I had one dollar for every Australian tourist I met proudly Sawadeeing and waiing as they enter grubby little 20 baht knocking shops with a set plan to get thoroughly smashed before their night finishes, and do it with as little expense as possible. They are generally bad tippers, loud, overbearing, obnoxious and full of themselves.
What I found most humorous about this thread is the amount of input coming from places like Thailand, from people who have some experience of overseas living, but no experience of Crikey, doing their best to cover their expat arses, against the judgement of those of us who hold them in less than high regard.
My last comment has disappeared. All I want to know is why? If you don’t tell me, how am I to learn to write comments?