Does anyone else feel like the Commonwealth Games are kind of like a paralympics for white people? Not to disparage our athletes any, but a games held that always tend to focus on the relative sporting merits of a bunch of countries linked through their former domination by a legion of stuffed shirts just kind of seems strange.
That said, I was proud to hear a report that the New Zealand team was the only one to request a welcome to country from the Wurundjeri people. Bloody good on you to whomever arrived at that bit of publicity. And speaking of Aboriginal people, there is a couple of interesting mixed messages coming out of the Australian media on the question of the 'treatment of the natives'. On the one hand we have the Sydney Morning Herald reporting the Queen to have said,
the need to ensure that ...prosperity touches the lives of all Australians is as powerful as ever... For many indigenous Australians there remains much to be done"
while the Australian reports her saying,
the need to ensure ... prosperity touched the lives of all Australians is as powerful as ever... At the same time, this country has welcomed people from many nations and thrived on the diversity that has produced... Even so, across this vast land there exists an undiminished recognition that communities must be built on values that transcend race, religion and culture
Goes to show, selective editing is not the sole preserve of bloggers.
And read the helpful suggestion from Prince Philip at the bottom of the Australian article. The poor old bastard hasn't got a clue.
In a way I'm kind of mildy regretting not being in Melbourne for the games. The city was a great place to be during the Rugby World Cup, with people heading out of the house to take in sport at the drop of a hat. You could pretty much go into a pub anywhere and see coverage of your favourite game, and all this in Aussie Rules heaven. The Soccer World Cup was the same, we spent a number of evenings in the local supporting our favourite teams. A mate told me one time that you charged a decent price you could half-fill the MCG to see a game of mini-golf, the Aussies love their sport that much.
Ah well, split milk and all that. It's always after I've been in a new city for about a year I get the most homesick for the last place.
On a less positive note, if you are in Melbourne for the Games be sure to get out to the Kings Domain and show a little solidarity with Victorian Aboriginal people. Jesus that lot have had a hard time of it. Stopped this writing for a bit to get over to the TV and see Campbell Live do a piece of the Stolenwealth Games, and saw them interview Robert Thorpe.
Back in 2000 I was doing fieldwork for the PhD and interviewed Robert and others about the history of the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Reserve, a place way out in the East of Victoria. Christ Robert made me laugh, the man's as mad as a cut snake. He had this way of talking about events in the 1840s like they were happening today, and stories about whitefellas unloading sheep off boats that can't really be repeated in polite company.
God he and the people at Tyers lived in a difficult place. The towns that surround the reserve are stocked with some of the most in-bred, bigoted assholes I've ever met, and it made Tyers something like a prison for the people who saw the reserve as the last tiny bit of their country not confiscated or stolen by the English. They were subject to routine verbal and physical abuse from police and public alike, unemployment was near one hundred percent, conditions mediocre at very best, and I could go on.
Meanwhile mainstream Australia wallows in a sea of apathy or complacency towards Aboriginal futures, seeing them as nothing greater than cultural tourism or 'ethnic' rubber-stamping for festivals.
It's sickening, victim-blaming behaviour that has no rightful place in a country that likes to think of itself as 'gods own'.
Ah well, at least there might be some medals handed out to the Kiwi's. If you're reading this, and are in the media scrum for the Kiwi team, how about having some of our winning athletes say, "I recognise this, the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people".
If you are an athlete, how about a photo op of you giving that medal to Thorpe, he's fought his whole life for something like a space on a podium. His people have been pushed down and beaten for generations, spat on, ostracized for speaking out against white injustice, rounded up and incarcerated for the crime of being black.
Think about that while you're preparing for the race of your life. Think about your entire life being nothing more than a race you'll never win, because you're marked 'trash' from the day you're born.
Or just go hang out with the people down at the Kings Domain, share a joke or two, talk about who they are and what they do. You know, folksy like.