World to see warts-and-all doco on Aboriginal athletes
Source: AAP | Published: Friday August 27 9:10:42 AM
LONDON, Aug 27 - Millions of television viewers in 33 countries will
have their pre-Olympic ideas of Australia
shattered by a new warts-and-all documentary on Aboriginal athletes and
their people.
Award winning journalist John Pilger hopes Welcome to Australia - which
premieres in Britain next week and on the
ABC next month - will dramatically alter the conceptions held by many
about his home country in the lead-up to the
Sydney Olympics.
The documentary starts by telling the stories of several world class
Aboriginal athletes denied the opportunities of
their white countrymen, including prominent activist, and former
outstanding athlete and soccer player Charles
Perkins.
It then delves into the third world conditions in which many indigenous
Australians still live, as well as the thorny
subject of Aboriginal deaths in police custody, and Aboriginal suicides.
The examples include the story of Kununurra, the West Australian town
through which the Olympic torch will pass, but
where many Aborigines will not see it due to the eye disease trachoma.
It is a study set to make many white Australians cringe, one from which
Prime Minister John Howard in particular
emerges with his reputation shot down, and one which may trigger media
organisations descending on Sydney next
year to head west in search of the Aboriginal story.
"This is Australia's glittering showcase when all the picture postcard
images and delights of 'Oz' will be on show,"
Pilger says.
"The Olympic organisers have co-opted Aboriginal art and artists, and
others, to ensure the 'multicultural' face of the
Games.
"But behind that facade is the shocking reality of Aboriginal Australia
- not only its betrayal over land rights, but its
continuing third world status within a first world country."
London-based Pilger describes world champion runner Cathy Freeman as a
godsend for white Australia as a symbol
of how Aboriginal athletes can rise to the top, but argues that, in
reality, she is an 'aberration' in the wider picture of
Aboriginal struggle.
The program tells the story of Perkins, who 'sought refuge' in England,
trialling for soccer giants Manchester United,
before returning to Australia to campaign for indigenous rights.
There is also Wally McArthur, a stolen generation child who set record
sprinting times in winning at the national
championships of 1951, only to be left out of the Australian team for
the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
McArthur, now living in Adelaide, also went to England and was a star
rugby league player with the Rochdale club.
Sydney's winning bid for the Olympics also comes under scrutiny. Pilger
points to two $100,000 sporting scholarships
given to African sportsmen as inducements for their countries to vote
for Sydney, while '25 scholarships are given to
Aborigines each year worth $5,000 each'.
Howard, who Pilger said declined to be interviewed for the program,
comes under attack for policies on land rights,
cuts to Aboriginal funding, and the statement of regret issued yesterday
for the suffering inflicted on indigenous
Australians.
"John Howard and Pauline Hanson have much in common, both deny the truth
of the past," Pilger says, likening
Hanson's One Nation policy to Howard's One Australia policy of the late
1980s.
Welcome to Australia, which Pilger says will be syndicated to 33
countries, will screen on the ABC on September 28.
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