Little Johnny Howard truly lives in his 1950s fantasy world. Former Australian PM and self-confessed 'cricket nut' (the Aussie tabloids used to call him that in a positive tone) has failed in his bid to become vice-president of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and he is baffled as to why. Well, where do I start? The picture above of John Howard enjoying a banter with Australian cricket capatin Ricky Ponting says a lot. Ponting, the epitomy of Howard's Australia - white family man who loves his country and saw racial sledging as a legitimate game tactic in cricket, but only if the Australians are calling the South Asian, African and West Indian players racist slurs, is loathed throughout the cricketing world for his arrogance, hypocrisy, patronising attitude and superiority complex. These 'values' flourished under John Howard's 12 year reign of Australia. Ambivalence to such negative behaviours was another trait of those years as many Australian honestly believed that they were genuinely liked by the rest of the world. What this segment of Australian society failed to see is that locking up asylum seekers fleeing wars that Australia participated in (Iraq and Afghanistan in particular), and fanning the jingoistic flames of a crude nationalism which encouraged racism reminiscent of the likes displayed during the 'White Australia Policy' years prior to the 1970s, does not win many friends in the rest of the world. So Howard shouldn't be surprised then. Obviously Howard is still surrounded by a group of yesmen sheltering him from reality i.e. his wife. Little Johnny should wake up and realise that he lost this, like he lost the last election, because of himself.
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