Olympics Didn't Mend Australia's Ties With Natives

by Kalinga Seneviratne

For most of the two-week games that ended Sept. 30, "Our Cathy" was everywhere -- newspapers, television advertisements, Olympic updates and even on many billboards around Sydney, promoting Nike sportswear with the "Just Do It" slogan.

Freeman's high profile put into focus not only her Aboriginal roots but something more sensitive: Australia's inability to come to terms with its mistakes in dealing with its Native peoples.

Indeed, race has played a prominent part in Australian politics in the last four years, since Prime Minister John Howard came to power and independent politician Pauline Hanson was given the green light to promote her "One Nation" ideology of white supremacy.

A major plank of this ideology is cutbacks in Aboriginal welfare funding, even while Aboriginal communities' living standards remain below those of many poor people in developing countries.

The Howard government's hostility toward Aboriginal demands gave rise to threats by Native leaders to mount protest actions during the Olympics.

Howard has refused to make an official apology to Aborigines for Australia's past injustices, which include taking away Aboriginal children from their families to be given to white foster parents.

This practice occurred until 1971, and many of the children who suffered that indignity are still alive. They are known as the "stolen generation," and Freeman's maternal grandmother is one of them.

Sensing trouble and potential embarrassment during the Olympics, the government and the Sydney Olympics Organizing Committee came up with a gold-medal winning performance to blunt expected protests by Aboriginal activists.

They gave prominence to Aboriginal culture in the opening ceremony and chose Freeman to light the Olympic flame. The identity of the torch lighter was kept a secret until the last moment to forestall any opposition by white Australians.

Freeman also helped organizers in no small measure when she won the gold and became the first Australian Aboriginal to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics.

Her Nike endorsement became a gift to government spin-doctors and the media. Many of them used the slogan to argue that in spite of "disadvantages" that may come from her Aboriginal roots, Freeman has made it. Even some Aboriginal leaders tend to endorse this view.

"Not all Aboriginal people will achieve the same heights as Cathy," observes Aboriginal leader Peter Yu, executive director of the Kimberley Land Council.

"But her inspiration to our community is to tackle and challenge our own demons -- to find a more fulfilling and dignified existence, notwithstanding the ever-present daily obstacles we are confronted with," he adds.

Another Aboriginal leader, Noel Pearson, a rising star in the Australian Labor Party, called for the "emotionalism and symbolism" of support for Freeman to be matched with commitment to the "unfinished business" of Australian race relations.

He said that ever since the 1967 referendum recognized Aboriginal people as citizens of the country and gave them the vote, many Australians want to allow indigenous people to take their fair place in the country.

"The will is there and the desire is there, but we have got to have substantial action," Pearson says. "What needs to happen at the next political level is we have to have a commitment to that (treaty)."

"There is a long argument to be had about the content of that commitment. I don't see it coming easily. It'd will be good if it could," adds Pearson.

"It was straight from the hear," he observed. "This is something which reached me and moved me. It gives me encouragement to move on."

Yunupingu, an Australian icon in the musical field, said that the only way to move on was for Howard now to apologize to his people and to agree to work toward a treaty on Aboriginal issues.

There is now a large groundswell among white Australians for reconciliation with Aborigines and adoption of a historic treaty.

This was something British colonizers never undertook, because they declared Australia as "terra nelius" (unoccupied land) in the Australian constitution.

In May, more than 200,000 Australians of many walks of life marched across the Sydney Harbor Bridge in a symbolic expression of support for a treaty.

But Howard was unmoved, saying Australians should not use today's attitudes to judge what happened more than a generation ago. In 1997, he was booed by Aboriginal activists when he told a conference that Aborigines were not a "profoundly disadvantaged" people.

Three years later, Howard seems to be a bit more enlightened about the plight of Aborigines.

In April, he said "there were practices engaged in the past that by today's standards would be quite unacceptable, and we feel sorry about people who suffer the injustices and we regret them."

South African born Professor Colin Tatz of Sydney's Macquarie University, who has written many books on racism and sports, warns against believing in all the hype going on in Australia at the moment on the political significance of Freeman's win.

"The marketers are selling us a pup by suggesting we can change the substance of the country through Olympic victories. We are investing in a mirage and quicksand," he says.

However, Tatz believes that Freeman's victory could provide an enduring patriotic revival which could transcend race. "Cathy has icon status that bridges history, gender and the gaps in our treatment of Aborigines," he observes.

Journalist and political analyst Brian Toohey is not that convinced. "The win was interpreted as a tremendous advance for Aboriginal reconciliation. Just how is a little difficult to understand," he wrote in the Australian Financial Review.

"If anything, the reaction seem to have been that things must be going okay if well-mannered Aborigines can get to the top in sports," Toohey observed.

Freeman herself is known to be realistic about the political significance of her sporting achievements. During a media interview in London in May, she criticised Howard for his attitude toward Aboriginal reconciliation.

She has refrained from making political statements after her Olympics win, other than carrying the Aboriginal flag in her lap. But Freeman, who recently married an American senior executive of Nike, has hinted at a future political role.

"Freeman has given a positive focus to black-white relations," says Mike Steketee, political affairs editor of The Australian newspaper.

"But she has not banished prejudice by Australians generally. And although it would be a brave political leader to disagree publicly with anything she does, it is their actions that ultimately will count," Steketee concludes.