Sydney Morning Herald article , April 12 , 2013.
Memorial services and public tributes in Darwin, Hanoi and Dili marked the death of journalist John Loizou, who had a 54-year career in radio, newspapers and online publishing, ranging across northern Australia and Southeast Asia.
Loizou was buried in Darwin with a traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony, while Vietnamese colleagues in Hanoi stopped work in his memory and East Timor's Fretilin Party paid tribute.
Loizou would have appreciated the diverse acknowledgments; his life's work was shaped around the notion that Australia's Top End was an integral part of Southeast Asia.
During parliamentary debate on a condolence motion, both sides of Territory politics described Loizou's reporting as balanced and fair. Yet he called himself a Marxist and, while never joining a political party, was prepared to cross the line separating journalism from social activism.
John Brendan Loizou was born in Melbourne on June 20, 1942, to a Greek Cypriot immigrant, Vasilios Loizou and his Tasmanian-born wife, Gladys (nee Jackson). John's education never went beyond Dandenong Technical School but at 17 he was promising enough to win a prized ABC cadetship.
The ABC sent him to Darwin, where he met Olive Kennedy, a member of the stolen generation, and they married in 1964.
Loizou became a respected member of Olive's extended Walpiri family around Phillip Creek. In an ABC radio documentary long after Olive's death, Loizou recorded the Phillip Creek children's experiences of family fragmentation under government policies of assimilation.
After a stint back in Melbourne at The Age, Loizou returned to Darwin to work at the Northern Territory News under its crusading editor Jim Bowditch, who championed such unpopular causes as Aboriginal land rights and opposition to the Vietnam War.
(Later , In Darwin , John teamed up with Christina Pas , who ran the popular Restaurant Cri , about which it was hoped she would pen a book, was a keen photographer , wrote an essay on Xavier Herbert , author of award winning novels Capricornia and Poor Fellow My Country . A dynamic couple, they produced newspapers , including the Southeast Asian Times , which Cri continued online after John's death.)
Loizou's sympathetic coverage of Aboriginal actions such as the occupation of Quail Island, which stopped RAAF practice-bombing of an area containing sacred sites, and the Larrakia people's successful claim to land at Kulaluk in suburban Darwin was crucial in the battle for public opinion, according to anthropologist Bill Day, an adviser to the Larrakia claim.
UPCOMING : Rerun of Loizou's Scurrilous clash with an editor .
(Reporter,Loizou , Asia.)
