The author's email address is at the bottom... The Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/editorial/news/20000911NEW02_NUAYERS.html September 11, 2000 Sydney 2000 Aboriginals seek Games victories It is a condition of the liquor license of these premises that there be restrictions placed on sales of alcohol to aboriginal residents of a number of nearby communities. These resolutions have been imposed at the request of the communities themselves, t o combat alcohol-related harm and damage to aboriginal culture. The licensee may refuse service to any person attempting to purchase alcohol on behalf of aboriginal people. CURTIN SPRINGS, Australia - THIS IS the notice, offensive but quite legal, posted on the wall of an outback station down the road from Ayers Rock, the sacred heart of Aboriginal culture. The notice, offensive but quite legal, posted on the wall of an outback station down the road from Ayers Rock, the sacred heart of Aboriginal culture. Imagine such a declaration if it were affixed to an Edmonton saloon. There would be protests and placards and lawsuits galore. The Human Rights Commission would be in a dither. The media would scold. Heads would roll. And the whole damn thing would likel y end up in court, resulting in financial compensation for the aggrieved. But I guess racism is in the eye of the persecuted minority. And apparently it's not racist when the stereotypes - and the paternalism - are being perpetuated by the designated victims themselves. That's the upside-down nature of the ``Aboriginal Question'' in Australia, an issue that has only in recent decades muscled its way to the forefront of the social conscience. It took 200 years for Aussies to feel seriously guilty about what the white inv aders did to the indigenous population of this continent. Now they've nothing to fear from these ruined people. What worries them, and only slightly, is international condemnation, especially if those passions are roused during the Olympic Games. When Captain James Cook first probed the east coast in 1770, sailing into Botany Bay, the natives were as curious a species as the hopping marsupials. But they seemed thoroughly uninterested in him or his ships, barely casting a glance towards the Endeav our and its passengers. Eighteen years later, with the arrival of the First Fleet - the introduction of transplanted convicts from England - the Aboriginals were in a more hostile mood. The first words they spoke to the newcomers were: ``Warra warra!'' Translation: ``Go away!'' They didn't. Now, more than two centuries later and with the world coming to Australia, the Aboriginals are still trying to get their message across. The venue is Sydney. The occasion is the XXVII Summer Olympics. Ever since these Games were awarded to Sydney, Aboriginal activists have threatened to bring their grievances to the attention of the world by piggybacking on to the Olympics. Here was a global stage on which to dramatize all their long-accumulated resen tment, their unhappiness, the life expectancy that's 20 years shorter than their white counterparts in this country, their disproportionate levels of alcoholism and unemployment, health problems, poverty, illiteracy, high infant mortality, their bitternes s over 100,000 children removed from families to be raised in foster homes and (for the darkest skinned, unattractive to potential adopting parents) orphanages, the loss of their culture, their social and political marginalization, the fact Aboriginals we ren't even recognized as people to be counted in the national census or allowed citizenship until 1967. Not so different from the sorry lot of native peoples in Canada. Not different at all, right down to the billion dollar class-action suits against the national government and the $350 million ``healing fund'' established for counselling of the ``Stolen G eneration.'' The government had even, after nine years of squabbling over how it would be expressed, drafted a Declaration of Independence wherein Australia expressed ``sorrow'' and ``profound regret'' over past injustices. But Prime Minister John Howard balked at using the word ``sorry'' and had that passage of the declaration rewritten, arguing an official apology would confer ``cross-generational'' guilt on Australians. ``I am not willing to apologize for things my government and my generation of Australians didn't do.'' Most Australians, it would seem, agreed with Howard. They don't like how Aboriginals were treated in the nation's infancy - in some areas, such as Tasmania, their tribes were wiped out completely, some were shot for sport, tens of thousands succumbed to white man's diseases such as smallpox and influenza, for which they had no natural immunity. There are now just 386,000 Aboriginals in all of Australia, 2 per cent of the national population. In his book, Blood on the Wattle, Bruce Elder recounts the litany of massacres suffered by Aboriginals since 1788, right through to the early decades of the 20th century: the Massacre of the Wiradjuri, the Massacres along the Darling River, the Myall Cre ek Massacre, the Massacres in the Gippsland Region, the Massacre at Kilcoy, Pigeon Creek, Forrest River Reserve, Coniston . . . Firebrand Aboriginal leaders vowed they would disrupt the Sydney Games with daily protests at Olympic Park. One told the BBC that the protests are ``going to be very violent.'' A group called Protest 2000 was created to co-ordinate demonstrations during the 16-day Olympiad and a Tent City has been established outside Sydney University. Then a less combative faction tried to play down the threats of violence, claiming they would use these Games only as an opportunity to educate the public about the Aboriginal plight. Mainstream leaders now say they will not otherwise disrupt the games. Still, they cannot give assurances that all will remain peaceful. Rallies and marches are planned and already Aboriginal groups have staged ``information greeting parties'' at the Sydney Airport, as athletes and dignitaries arrived. Said Geoff Clark, chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission: ``It's not for me to say there will be or won't be violence.'' For its part, the government has attempted to emphasize ``reconciliation.'' To that end, Nelson Mandela descended on the Olympic Village last week and was mobbed by athletes. Hurricane Rubin Carter joined Mandela on Thursday for a World Reconciliation Day concert in Melbourne. The Australian Olympic Committee, acutely sensitive to the issue and terrified by the spectre of violence, bent over backwards to accommodate Aboriginal sentiments. The indigenous leaders were consulted throughout the Olympic planning process, Aboriginal culture and traditions will be highlighted in both the opening and closing ceremonies and an indigenous pavilion has been erected at Olympic Park. When the Olympic torch finally reached Australia, it came here first, to Ayers Rock - Ulurlu, its Aboriginal name - the world's most massive monolith, in the red heart of Australia. This is where the torch relay on Australian soil began its 100-day journ ey towards the Olympic Stadium. The first of 11,000 relay runners to carry the flame in-country - around the base of Ulurlu (climbing the rock is now discouraged by the Aboriginals) - was Nova Peris-Kneebone, who in 1996 became the first Aboriginal to win an Olympic gold medal as a mem ber of the field hockey team. She ran barefoot, to honour tribal customs. At the opening ceremony, the national flag-bearer will be another Aboriginal heroine, 400-metre Commonwealth gold medallist Cathy Freeman. That will be the Australian flag. But if Freeman wins her event, she'll carry the red, black and yellow Aboriginal flag for her victory lap. When she did that at the '96 Commonwealth Games, when the Aboriginal flag was banned, Freeman was rebuked by the Australian team chief. This time she has received, in advance, the consent of the Australian Olympic Committee. It is a symbolic victory. Back in Curtin Springs, there is another poster tacked to the wall, alongside the alcohol prohibition against Aboriginals. This one is a white man's manifesto and it's entitled: ``I'm Sorry.'' Among the dozen sarcastic mea culpas listed: ``I'm sorry that we perpetuate the myth that the Sydney 2000 Olympics is about sport when it is really about telling the world how horrible we white scum really are.'' Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. 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