<html><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><META name="Author" content="Novell GroupWise WebAccess"></head><body style='font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; '>'A Pretty Unfair Place' asks two questions about East Timor, ten years after<br>self-determination: if the country is a 'failed state', then who is to<br>blame, and if independence were a 'mistake', then what was the alternative?<br><br>The book takes the four main players in East Timor, Indonesia, Australia,<br>Portugal and the UN, to task. It delves beyond the different versions of<br>events put forward by people on opposing sides of the debate, which has been<br>reduced to being about what is 'fashionable' or 'unfashionable'. <br><br>In addition, it looks at the transport and communications infrastructure,<br>which has handicapped development, and links with the outside world, and<br>language policy, which its opponents have tried to sabotage, and which its<br>proponents do not know how to make work. <br><br>East Timor's greatest enemy has been the las ugly 'ism': parochialism. Not<br>only are foreigners in East Timor ignorant about East Timor, they are<br>ignorant about each other's countries. The traditional lack of contact<br>between the countries of the Asia-Pacific rim and the Portuguese-speaking<br>world has exacerbated misunderstandings and disagreements over East Timor,<br>which is pulled in opposing directions. <br><br>Yet the prospects are not all gloomy: East Timor has a chance to avoid the<br>'resource curse' suffered by other small states lke Nauru, and follow the<br>example of success stories like Mauritius. <br><br>Copies of the book can be ordered online here:<br><br>http://aprettyunfairplace.blogspot.com/<br><br/><div style='clear: both;'></div><br/></body></html>