All of the attention devoted to the consequences of some people in the crowd at an AFL game booing footballer Adam Goodes is entirely justified. Goodes is an Aboriginal Australian and a high-profile advocate of particular political causes. What happened and the reaction to it reveals a great deal about the politics of race and racism in this country.
One of the things we've learned is that in Australia, the reaction of authorities to racism is selective.
At the MCG in Melbourne in 2013, when a 13 year-old girl yelled "ape" at Goodes she was taken away and questioned for two hours by police. At a protest march in Hyde Park in Sydney in 2012, children held up placards advocating the beheading of "infidels". Interestingly, there's no record of police detaining and interrogating any of those young people. Meanwhile, at anti-Israel rallies around the country, Jews are routinely subjected to epithets no less offensive than what was shouted at Goodes.
We've also learned something about the politicisation of sport in Australia. For the time being (until the Football Federation Australia — the body administering soccer — inevitably overtakes it) the Australian Football League is the premier sports organisation in the country. The AFL has made a huge and beneficial contribution to Australia. It has supported many worthwhile causes. One of the most important things the AFL has done in recent decades is its work to eliminate on-field and off-field racial abuse. The AFL even has specially designated Multicultural Round. Yet for all of this, some in the crowd still jeer Adam Goodes. The jeering of Goodes is all the more significant because such behaviour from spectators is unusual and has largely disappeared at AFL games.
In 2014, Goodes was appointed by a federal government committee as Australian of the Year. In that role he made a number of highly political comments about Indigenous affairs. This he was entitled to do. And others are also entitled to disagree with him. What Goodes says should be subject to as much scrutiny, if not more scrutiny than anything uttered by a politician. His status as Australian of the Year is greater than that of a mere elected politician. Yet some have argued that Goodes is above reproach.
CAMPAIGNS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
The AFL could be discovering that its political campaigns have consequences. It's one thing for the AFL to support breast cancer awareness on Mother's Day. But that's something entirely different from the AFL endorsing a political campaign to change the Australian constitution and divide people according to their race. The AFL promoting the Recognise campaign is entirely different from the AFL stopping racial abuse on the football field. Andrew Demetriou, the former AFL boss, instituted a "Green" round and he said clubs should be aware of the dangers of global warming.
When the AFL adopts political causes, particularly causes more likely to be supported by the left of politics, it risks more than just the alienation of that half of the population who might have an opinion different from the officially endorsed position of the code. When the AFL plays politics it threatens the loss of one of Australian Rules' great strengths — when it comes to the football all players and supporters are equal. Australian Rules football is the great social, political, and religious leveller in this country. No other sports code, and probably no other cultural institution performs such a function. When you play or support Australian Rules it doesn't matter whether you're black or white, Liberal or Labor, Catholic or Protestant.
Australian Rules became the national game because unlike rugby it's not the product of a class structure. Robert Menzies was just as passionate about Carlton as Julia Gillard is about the Western Bulldogs. With a product as proud and as strong as Australian Rules the temptation for AFL administrators to co-opt it to pursue their personal political preferences is enormous. Unfortunately, it's a temptation that in recent years those administrators have been unable to resist.
The chairman of the Sydney Swans, the club Goodes plays for, said last week the booing of Goodes was "100 per cent racist". In fact, the reality is more complicated.
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