Racism in Australia

I was in a pub in Dublin a few years ago with a work colleague and some of his friends. They were all well- educated middle class guys from the posh suburbs and we spent most of the night talking about football and politics. But I only really remember one thing about that night. One of them mentioned an absent friend who was a big hit with the ladies. An element of envy in their voices was clear until the subject of their friend’s latest sexual conquest came up. He had picked up a girl at a nightclub and brought her back to his flat in the well to do suburb of Blackrock. A night of passion ensued and they went for breakfast the next morning when the prospect of a second date was a strong possibility.

Then she mentioned that she was a member of the Traveller community. At this point in the story the group erupted into howls of laughter interspersed with comments such as “Are you serious, he shagged a knacker” and facial expressions that made them look like they had just swallowed a wasp soaked in castor oil.

I remained stony face and eventually this made them uncomfortable. One of them asked me what I was thinking and I said that I suddenly realised what it must have felt like to be in bar in Mississippi in 1954 when the locals found out that one of their friends had slept with a black woman.
The group were horrified. Nobody likes being called a racist because most people don’t think they are one even when they start sentences with “I’m not racist but…..”. They honestly couldn’t see the connection between how people in the South of the USA thought about coloured people and the way many Irish people think about Travellers.

I mention this because the conversation in Australia this week is all about racism and to preface what I’m going to say by pointing out that no country in the world holds the high ground on this subject, not least the Irish. You only have to watch “Gangs of New York” to see our ancestors exploits in American or to note how many O’Briens and Murphys there were in the Police Force of apartheid South Africa.

It’s ironic then that the controversy in Australia this week surrounds the Collingwood Football Club, a team that has its roots among the working class Irish community in inner city Melbourne. 

 

Australian Rules football was a sectarian battleground in the late 19^th Century and Collingwood gave a chance to struggling Irish immigrants to band together as one voice and get a start in life. And once they had that start they did what their cousins did in London and Boston. They abused and vilified the next community which was on the bottom rung and trying to climb up.

Last weekend the AFL celebrated the indigenous round, an annual event when each game of footy is supposed to be a tribute to the aboriginal players who have graced the game. In Melbourne in particular, it’s a chance for fans to think about their relationship with indigenous people, because if truth be known, the only place most football fans see indigenous people is on the sporting field.

The first match of the weekend was Collingwood versus Sydney at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The star player on the night was Adam Goodes, who as well as being a gun footballer is also one of the most articulate and well respected aboriginals in Australia. Towards the end of the game, he went to retrieve the ball from beside the boundary fence when a 13 year old female Collingwood supporter called him an Ape. He called over the stewards and she was escorted out of the ground, leaving her embarrassed grandmother behind to face the glare of 80,000 spectators who were watching the incident unfold on the big screen.

The incident had all but died down by Wednesday when the Collingwood President fanned the weakening embers. As well as being a footy man, Eddie Maguire (Irish name and it would have to be) is also host of one of those jokey morning radio shows that are as common as ragworth in Australia. The formula usually involves two blokes with a sporty woman occasionally thrown in. On Eddie’s show, they were talking about King Kong which is about to open in Melbourne.  What Eddie meant to say about it remains unclear, but what he actually uttered was one of the greatest Freudian slips since Sigmund meant to ask his wife what was for tea but actually told her she ruined
his life.

Maguire basically said that Adam Goodes should be employed to advertise King Kong. Eddie has spent the days since with a shovel, fruitlessly trying to dig himself out of the hole he has dug.
It has at least kicked off a conversation about racism which has been badly needed. I have stood in the social club at football matches surrounded by Carlton fans and heard dogs abuse being hurled at Carlton’s own indigenous players. When it comes to abusing players on the opposing team, the abuse is more subtle. Many AFL players have blemishes in their past, mainly due to earning too much money at a young age, or coming from a poor background and doing the sort of thing that is endemic in that community and would generally go unreported at a national level if it wasn’t for the fact that you were on telly every week.

To remind every opposition player of their past indiscretions would be exhausting for even the most beer fuelled football fan. But if you are aboriginal and did something dodgy when you were young then you will be reminded of it whenever you play.

This is a country that still hasn’t come to terms with it past but maybe this week and the fact that people are finally talking about this issue, suggests that a better future lies ahead.