posted Oct 26, 2007

RSHome,
Welcome Home.
The article is pertinent, but is exceptionally bitter in tone, and I detect a politically-motivated dark thread to it. It is very, very disturbing.
I find it so because the author deliberately attaches just one sport, cricket, to, and places there the blame, for assimilation problems that are to be found in every corner of the globe.
You see, for every cricketer he accuses of bad behaviour, on or off the field, it is possible to name an equal offender in another country. This ranges from jellybeans at dawn to the physical confrontations of Sreesanth. Common sense tells you it is so; you have read the headlines as have I.
For Lehmann, the author is flawed in not considering or investigating the proposition that the cricketer was provoked or taunted and may have been responding in kind. I know this is no excuse in itself, but it would provide a balance if not a "justification". Knox, in a backhanded manner concedes rather ungraciously that Lehmann's conduct was contrary to his reputation -- and then immediately says, without further evidence, that it was not the first time. This "kick the man when he's down", I can assure you, is remarkably rare among Australians of intelligence.
Knox makes assumptions, admittedly based upon facts, but gives them an unwelcome interpretation. When, for example, he attributes the 10% of Hanson's vote as being from a white supremacist fringe, he quite conveniently ignores the known fact that many people who voted for her did so out of the geniune concern they felt that Australia might be facing a tidal wave of immigration that it could not support, in terms of education, employment, social welfare, health care, etc., etc.
He says "John Howard is supposedly a decent man who hates the racist epithet. Yet each year he sanctifies the white man's military tragedy (Gallipoli) while denying or excusing the black man's military tragedy (the colonisation massacres)."
He is totally wrong. Gallipoli came about because of an ambitious yet totally implausible plan hatched in Whitehall. I won't go into that anyfurther, except to observe that many, many regard Gallipoli to be the Dunkirk of Australia (and New Zealand). It is the day on which the nation remembers its war dead, its heroes; it is a day for sadness, comradeship in the finest sense of the word. It was not a tragedy, as he says, but a disaster, and I resent the fact that he equates it with racism.
Tasmania was the only State in which "massacres" -- on the SCALE that he infers -- of Aborigines took place. Bear in mind, please, that the first Europeans were sealers and whalers. They did not massacre the aboriginal inhabitants. They used more subtle means, such as syphilus, ghonorrhea, the common cold, influenza, measles, mumps, tuberculosis. They were followed by the enforced refugees/prisoners and their brutish jailkeepers from a country where legendary British Justice played a tacit part in helping the Establishment to reduce the staggering, threatening overcrowded population. I will append to this a comment I made on another board in this context.
I am getting more bad-tempered as I read his pernicious phrasing ... "supposedly a decent man"??? He is talking about the democratically-elected (probably, soon, to be democratically-unelected) Prime Minister.
I am losing my appetite for lunch. I will only say that for the few instances Knox relates, my own memories provide me with examples of the amicable assimilation into all sport of people from all corners of the world, including the Australian Aborigine. They earn a living and make headlines for the right reasons in Rugby League, Australian Rules, football (Schwarzer, Viduka really do stand out), swimming (the Konrads in particular), athletics, weightlifting, boxing (Lionel Rose, the Sands brothers)...
"Australian triumphalism masks the fact that we lag a generation behind England in resolving the race debate. While English sporting clubs struggle to harmonise different cultures, Australian clubs fix the problem by leaving non-whites out".
What a gratuitous slur! Knox, himself, in this one unbalanced article, has done more harm than good. No-one denies there is a problem, but he deliberately chooses to concentrate upon the problem without considering the possibilities of a solution. My estimation of The Age in allowing it to be published has diminished in consequence.

comment by belgianmick
posted Yesterday
I was not going to buy into this one, but I feel forced to.
I think we all agree that racism in sport is abhorrent, wherever it occurs. N’est ce pas?
What disturbs me is the claims made about Australia’s policies regarding immigration... the truth is that Australia is, arguably, the most, or certainly among the most multi-cultural nations in this world. Following the defeat of the US, and resultant mass exodus of the Vietnamese, it leads the list of nations which accepted the “boat people”. It has, also, accepted immigrants from origins as diverse as Burmese, Chinese, Indonesian, Timorese, Thai, Korean, Malaysian, Filipino, Polynesian... from everywhere within its immediate sphere of influence.
It also has refugees from the new war zones of the Middle East, from Iran, Iraq, Turkey/Kurds... it allows “family-related” and professionally-qualified immigration to satisfy its ongoing needs for experts in a booming economy from its traditional European supply countries, such as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, Greece (that country’s second-largest concentration of nationals is in Melbourne), Italy, the former Czechoslovakia, Serbia... and so on. Australia is veritably a United Nations in its own right.
The problem is one of topography. Australia’s habitable area consists of a relatively-narrow strip around the edges of the island continent. There is a wider, inner, concentric circle of grazeable, but non-arable, land, consisting mostly of spinnifex and small eucalypt. The land is extremely hostile, and volatile. Grazing capacity, for example, is measured not in terms of animals per acre (whoops, catch up, hectares), but in hectares per animal. Victoria Downs, the nation’s largest “station” is of some 21,000 SQUARE kilometres, but supports only some 300,000 cattle (this is from memory and is offered as such). It should be noted, also, that Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in 100 years.
The simple truth is that, at around 20million people, Australia obviously believes it has reached a plateau, from where it would be difficult to support uncontrolled immigration — and it should be noted that there are those in the United Kingdom who are arguing for similar controls. Even more evident: At this moment in time there is simply not enough water to satisfy both the needs of the urban or the agricultural sectors.
So, in fact, it is not a case of being unwilling, but rather a case of being unattainable.
As to the racism? I applaud Cricket Australia and the Australian Government’s publicly-stated firm determination that the upcoming series involving India and Sri Lanka will be as racism-free as possible. They have promised not only exclusion, but also prosecution for offenders. They have also spent a great deal of money to have anti-racist notices specially printed on beer/soft drink bottles and cups to help get the message across.
There will always be the stirrer, of course:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/warning-to-murali-no-surprise—sutherland/2007/10/23/1192941047045.html
Most reasonable Australians prize sportsmanship in all forms of sport, and abhor any form of racism; what I am suggesting is that they are quite firmly in the majority, for I have, personally, found them to be so.

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posted Oct 26, 2007

Very risky, I think there could be a conflict of interest between Lee and Tait as they're both very similar bowlers although Lee obviously the obvious choice. I would however consider tait if an injuries to the front line bowlers should occur. This is my team for the first test:

1 Hayden
2 Jaques
3 Ponting
4 Clarke
5 Hussey
6 Symonds
7 Gilchirst
8 Lee
9 MacGill
10Johnson
11Clark

I would however consider Simon Katich and Shaun Tait for starting places in my team.

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posted Oct 26, 2007

comment by murph73

posted Yesterday

unlike Indian fans who make monkey calls at Andrew Symonds..
only if selected

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posted Oct 26, 2007

tiptopteam

posted Yesterday

My Lankan brothers can relax in the knowledge that the arrogant aussies have been nicely softened up by us Indians so they will now will show our fellow sub-continent team due respect!
Murali and Malinga to do some serious damage, trust me .

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posted Oct 28, 2007

I think Australia does have problems with racism like most countries, but I found that stuff in the article about Oz sporting clubs deliberately excluding non-whites just bizarre.

Does that man actually watch sport? If non-whites are excluded at club level, how do they get into national teams?

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posted Oct 28, 2007

OR,
look at the date of writing/publication of the article. It was probably around the time that Howard was re-elected.
For the incident itself, Lehmann (at the close of play) immediately went to the opponent's dressing room and apologised, individually, to each and every team member and official. He was, rightly, banned for five matches (and subsequently lost employment with his county, Yorkshire, I think). He did the crime, paid the fine. Knox fails to acknowledge, also, that Lehmann "copped it sweet", i.e., took it on the chin, and never appealed.
What disturbs me is that anyone can use such an obviously unbalanced piece on which to build a stereotype. That's the danger of attempting to source "fact" from what is obviously "fiction".

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posted Oct 29, 2007

OldRegret

Being white, you're not nuanced enough to understand...

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posted Oct 29, 2007

The year that he wrote that article George Gregan was captaining the losing team in the Rugby Union WC final.

I would never excuse racism on any level and I don't think that Oz sports fans are all innocent by any means, but most countries have unsophisticated eejits in the population.

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posted Oct 29, 2007

Going back to the original article, comes this from Peter Roebuck:

"Stuart MacGill did not look much like taking a wicket until it was too late to matter, whereupon a lower-order man tried something more often seen on Moore Park. Admittedly the pitch was slow and the batsmen were set but a bowler of his class ought to trouble modest opponents battling to save a match on any surface. Instead, his work lacked sparkle and his opponents were able to counter him comfortably off front and back foot. Indeed the willow-wielders were confident enough to step down the pitch to take the ball on the bounce. That the leggie sent down several loose deliveries was to be expected in his first match back from a break, and in any case he has never been the tightest of operators. More disconcerting was his inability to coax anything from the track even when the ball landed as intended. MacGill's bowling was as flat as yesterday's lemonade.

Meanwhile, news arrived from Melbourne about his rival taking a stack of poles and scoring handy runs. Brad Hogg is the form bowler, the man at the peak of his powers. MacGill can only hope that his record is enough to get him across the line. But the selectors will want some proof that he has not lost his nip, a fate sooner or later suffered by all bowlers."
You can find the full article at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/macgill-as-flat-as-yesterdays-lemonade/2007/10/29/1193618798569.html

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