ATSIC unimpressed
25 September 1998The head of the indigenous committee which advises SOCOG, Ms Lowitja O'Donoghue, says she has not ruled out calling a boycott by black athletes of the 2000 Games if Australian governments and Olympic authorities fail to satisfy Aboriginal demands.
"If governments cannot change their attitudes, it will lead to boycotts and the indigenous people would be calling out black athletes," Ms O'Donoghue, chairwoman of SOCOG's National Indigenous Advisory Committee, said.
"The Games wouldn't be anything without the black athletes. They are really magic."
Seven months into the job, Ms O'Donoghue, who commands huge respect in indigenous communities as former head of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, is unhappy with the way indigenous involvement in the Games has been handled.
"There have been many missed opportunities for us," she said.
They included contracts which have been let, jobs handed out and decision-making positions allocated before her committee was set up to advise SOCOG.
"The Games are a $5 billion project and they have an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program with just four staff to provide an indigenous perspective across the entire organisation."
The Minister for the Olympics, Mr Knight, had refused a request from her committee to appoint her to the SOCOG board, which has no indigenous representation. His argument, she said, was that multicultural representation would also be needed if there was an Aborigine there. But there was a difference, she said.
"I think the Minister knows quite well what the difference is: the difference is the Games are being held in Australia and we are the original owners of Australia and we should have some say."
Nevertheless, Ms O'Donoghue said she was reserving her judgment on making a boycott call because she hoped to be able to bring about change through SOCOG.
"Either you are on the inside trying to keep things on the rails or you are out there. If it gets too bad for us we will all be out there. If, at the end of the day, I am so frustrated with our efforts, I might be out there too.
"We are frustrated with the [Federal] Government. But I have taken on the responsibility of the chair of this organisation and we are about trying to change things, to get SOCOG to understand we are all trying to get them to improve conditions for our people and have a successful Games as well."
Her position reflects a conundrum for Aborigines preparing for a Games which will turn the world's spotlight on Australia.
If nothing changes, it will have the potential to illuminate our poor race relations. But it can also showcase successful indigenous athletes such as Cathy Freeman and Nova Peris-Kneebone.
The Aboriginal leader Mr Noel Pearson said in Sydney yesterday that he was "still thinking about" whether he would ever call a boycott, but he said he would find it hard to celebrate a world event here in two years if "legal apartheid" still existed.
"We have a Federal law dealing with native title that suspends the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act ... We can't go into an international celebration pretending that we are not subject to a constitutional discrimination, because we are.
"In the lives of athletes, this is an important event and our political decisions shouldn't be lightly taken, because in their whole life this is all they've built up for.
"At the same time, there are bigger issues at stake here about the future of our people and the future of those very athletes and their families and all the things their parents and grandparents strove for."
Mentally and linguistically agile as he is, Mr Pearson recognises the ironies: "Far be it for an overweight, absolutely unathletic politician like me to proscribe what they should be doing," he said.
"I take it as both a personal decision for the athletes themselves which has to be respected and at the same time I think the athletes have a personal responsibility to the community as well."
It raises the question of how successful a boycott call would be. Ms O'Donoghue said she believed African athletes would heed it and, despite all speculation to the contrary, black American athletes who have trained with Australians might, too.
SOCOG's indigenous program manager, Mr Gary Ella, said he thought boycotts would not happen, even if the political circumstances justified them.
"There have been people out there saying, "Brother, I am going to protest and I expect you to be bringing the tea and biscuits' and then "When Cathy runs, can you get me a ticket?'"
As a celebration of peace, the Olympics were a marvellous opportunity to promote Aboriginal reconciliation, Mr Ella said.
Nova Peris-Kneebone will be the first Australian to run with the Olympic torch when it hits our shores to pass through 198 "celebration sites" in its 100 days on the road to Sydney.
The Aboriginal actor Rhoda Roberts, who directed the highly successful Olympic Festival of the Dreaming, is artistic and cultural adviser to the creator of the Games opening and closing ceremonies, Mr Ric Birch.
SOCOG has awarded 24 scholarships to promising indigenous athletes aged 14 to 26 to help them train in 15 different sports.
Mr Ella is working on ensuring that the Games produce other spinoffs for indigenous people in jobs, training, involvement through volunteer work and access to some of the 1.5 million Olympic Opportunity tickets.
Ms O'Donoghue said she was uncertain about what her bottom line was on whether to support or boycott the Games, but she was clear on one thing: nobody could keep politics out of the Games.
