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ATSIC
Photo
Freeman’s
win brings indigenous reality into sharp relief
While
Cathy Freeman united Australia as she blazed to glory in the 400 metres,
the rest of indigenous Australia was, as one US commentator remarked
‘eerily absent’.
Cathy Freeman was running for her country and for her people and she
won universal admiration. Polls found that over 80 per cent of Australians
supported the choice of Freeman to light the Olympic torch.
But those same people who were united in their admiration for the Aboriginal
athlete feel very differently about her Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander brothers and sisters.
One poll found the same people who admired Cathy Freeman as an athlete
felt ambivalent about indigenous people on the whole.
So the question should be asked…
How far did the Olympics and the performance of our indigenous athletes
take the cause of reconciliation?
To use a time-honoured journalistic phrase, perhaps time will tell.
Will members of state police forces treat indigenous people differently
because of the Olympics?
Will the number of indigenous people dying in custody go down because
of the Olympics?
Will the mortality rate of indigenous people go down because of the
Olympics?
I want to be positive about Cathy Freeman’s triumph at the Games. I
was deeply moved by her role, and the roles of other indigenous participants
in the Olympics.
But will the people who admired Freeman’s gold medal performance, who
basked in the glow of the international accolades heaped on Australia
for the role of indigenous people in the games, feel any differently
about indigenous people at the bottom of the heap?
I’m sure this question was also in the minds of the members of Yothu
Yindi as they performed ‘Treaty’, Midnight Oil who sang their land rights
anthem ‘Beds are burning’ wearing shirts emblazoned with the word ‘sorry’
and one member of pop duo Savage Garden who sported an indigenous flag
on his t-shirt during the Olympics closing ceremony.
While I gloried in the high profile role of Australia’s indigenous people
at the Olympics, I was also mindful of the story of the 15 year-old
Aboriginal youth who hanged himself and died alone at the Don Dale correctional
facility in Darwin in February this year. This sad story of mandatory
sentencing was told at the Darwin inquest into the boy’s death which
took place simultaneously with the Olympics.
Courtesy of Channel
Ten
I was also mindful of recent reports of alleged police brutality against
a Brisbane indigenous youth pictured (above).
Unfortunately the glorious performance of our elite athletes cannot
wipe this reality away.
Then can be no doubt that national reconciliation between black and
white Australia was the heart and soul of the ‘greatest Olympics ever’.
This development was no doubt partly a result of the movement for native
title and reconciliation – the biggest grass roots people’s movement
in this country since the anti-Vietman war marches.
The movement reached somewhat of an epiphany with the role of Cathy
Freeman and all the indigenous participants of the Olympic Games.
But as we focus on and celebrate the wonderful culture, potential and
achievements of indigenous Australians, I feel we must also be mindful
of some of the brutal reality.
Only then can reconciliation truly go forward.
-
John Woodley
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