The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, September 20th, 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Editorial: Olympic scoreboard The opening ceremony at the Olympic Games will probably set a new direction for opening ceremonies in those countries that subsequently stage the Olympics. The historic tableau was an imaginative presentation that captured some of the features of Australia's history and the characteristics of its people. It was also a high-level technical presentation making full use of lights, technology and materials. It seems that those who conceived the tableau were attempting to make a genuine contribution to reconciliation and this was crowned by the fact that Kathy Freeman had the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron. Having said that, the ceremony did not recognise the resistance of the Aboriginal people to their conquerors nor the dispossession of the Aboriginal people of their land and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. Perhaps such references would be regarded as too political and would not be acceptable to the Howard regime and all those Olympic sponsors who are supremely jealous of their private property rights and might be upset by a political controversy which could interfere in their Olympic profit-making. The tableau also gave recognition to Australia's multinational and multicultural population and that the country has been built up by waves of migrants from many countries. These were very positive messages. One wonders whether the Prime Minister will now find it within himself to use the words "Sorry" and "Multiculturalism"? In the lead-up to the games there was the journey of the Olympic torch through many communities. It provided the opportunity for participation in the event and brought large numbers of people onto the streets and into the process of the games preparations. The means used to choose those who carried the torch seems to have been very democratic in that a wide range of people were selected from within the many communities through which the torch passed. Credit for the organisation of the hundreds of thousands of people here for the games, including transport to the Olympic site and throughout the metropolitan area, primarily belongs to the thousands of volunteers, public transport workers and the public transport system which, despite being undermined and underfunded by successive state governments, nonetheless demonstrated its vast superiority over the private system. At the 1996 Games in Atlanta -- a city with virtually no public transport -- the mass movement of people during the event was chaotic. Together with these positive aspects we are witnessing a great deal of hype and the growth of the idea that Australia and Australians are the "best in the world". The opening ceremony was a great opportunity to show the world that Australia sees itself as part of the community of nations, desiring peaceful, friendly and cooperative relations. However, instead of taking this opportunity, the Howard Government and the media are deliberately promoting the idea of national superiority which can have very dangerous consequences if genuine patriotism becomes arrogant nationalism. Some will attempt to harness nationalism to the Government's undemocratic and militarist preparations that are now emerging. If we are the "best in the world", it follows that we are superior to Indonesians, Indians, Malaysians, Burmese, Chinese and others, all countries whose peoples have long histories and many achievements. In the past Australia suffered a "cultural cringe". This could be replaced by a nationalistic, arrogant and ignorant jingoism, unless it is tempered now by modesty and a real knowledge and recognition of the achievements of other countries. There is no doubt that friendly and positive attitudes are alive and well in the Australian community generally, but they are not guiding the decisions of governments and those members of the ruling class who look at our Asian neighbours as inferior and their working people as a source of cheap labour from which to rip enormous profits. In some respects the promotional hype of the Sydney Games as the "people's games" is true: not because the people own them, they don't. But without the cooperation, enthusiasm and labour of the people, the world's "biggest event" simply would not happen. *********************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
