Welcome to Australia - John Pilger

• published: 25 Nov 2015
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© John Pilger. 1999. An examination of the exclusion of Australia's Aborigines. "Australia is gearing up to host the 2000 Olympics, yet its own sporting history is far removed from the spirit of the Games. Some of its greatest sportspeople were denied the chance to make their mark. Why? Because of the colour of their skin. And even today, to be aborigine, is to be a second-class citizen. By John Pilger Physically, there is no place like Sydney: the deep-water harbour, the tiara of Pacific beaches, the estuaries and secret bays where white eucalyptus rise up from the water's edge. At the city's centre is a stage-set like a small New York, its props the great bridge, the other-worldly opera house and the sparkling art-deco Olympic pool, built in the 30s, with an honour roll of 86 world swimming records, itself a world record. Beside it is Luna Park, a fun- fair announced by a huge face with a slightly demented smile. This is Australia's facade - or showcase, as the promoters of the Olympic Games prefer. Opening in one year's time, the Games, sing the video choirs, are to herald "a new golden age", with Australians "the chosen ones to take the dream to the new millennium: a dream we all share". The chosen ones left nothing to chance. When the International Olympic Committee came to inspect the city, the traffic lights were programmed to remain green as their limousines approached. The fascist past of the IOC's president, Juan Samaranch, rated barely a reference in the Sydney press, and the radio in his hotel room was "tuned" to avoid picking up a certain commentator who might raise the forbidden subject. Harbour cruises, lobster dinners, champagne and Cuban cigars were topped by gifts to African IOC delegates of Australian Sports Institute grants, each worth A$52,500 (£21,700). A "sucking-up fund" ran to A$28 million. On one outing, the wife of an IOC delegate spotted a black man playing a didgeridoo at Circular Quay, where he is a tourist fixture. "Who's that?" she enquired. "An aborigine," replied one of her hosts. "Really? Where are the rest of them?" "Er, in the outback." Sydney has a large aboriginal ghetto, Redfern, just a five-minute limo drive away from the centre. It is easily distinguished from the rest of the city by an oppressive police presence. The aboriginal legal service, which is based in Redfern, tried to interest the IOC in the Australia its representatives had not seen, the one behind the facade, but there was no time and the atmosphere was not conducive: "Anyone who threatens Sydney's Olympic bid," a government minister had warned, "had better watch out." In Monaco, when the IOC met to decide on the winning city, Australia was presented as an oasis of human harmony, in marked contrast to China, its main rival for the games. Delegates were treated to street performances by aboriginal dancers and didgeridoo-players in full body paint, together with cavorting giant kangaroos and wombats. Of course, white Australia has long appropriated the art and artefacts of the Aboriginal Dreaming. It was no surprise that the boomerang was adopted as the motif for the Sydney Games. Two Qantas aircraft have been repainted in indigenous designs, and there is an "indigenous advisory committee", headed by the affable former rugby star, Gary Ella, himself an aborigine. When foreign VIPs arrive next year, they will be met by aboriginal elders: "official greeters". And when the Olympic torch is first carried on Australian soil by Nova Peris-Kneebone, winner of the 200m at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, all those revelations of kickbacks, junkets and gifts of A$10,000 necklaces will be subsumed in the glow of an opening ceremony devoted to "mutual respect and reconciliation". Kununurra is in the remote north of Western Australia. It is ancient, volcanic ground that can seem on fire when the sun rises and sets. The town reminded me of its equivalents in the South African veldt: manicured gardens, air-conditioned supermarkets, Toyota four-wheel drives, large, grey-skinned people. Half the population, however, is black. Where are they? The only employed aborigine I saw was a man holding the "Stop" and "Go" sign at some roadworks. The rest are in the shadows: face down in the park, silhouettes framed in doorways on the fringe of town. The Olympic torch will come through Kununurra on its way to Sydney. Most of the population will cheer it on - except those black people who cannot see it, having been blinded by trachoma. Australia is the only developed country on the World Health Organisation's "shame list" of countries where children are still blinded by trachoma. Impoverished Sri Lanka has beaten the disease, but not rich Australia, especially Western Australia and the Northern Territory." Full Article from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/aug/21/weekend7.weekend?INTCMP=SRCH.