AS we look forward to the Brisbane Olympics in 2032, we should pause to reflect on what a wonderful success the Sydney Olympics were in 2000.
As the hosting country, Australia was expected to do well, and we did. Many Australians were glued to their television sets for the entire two-week duration.
It is useful to reflect on the Sydney Olympics amid the current debates about what being Australian really means. There has been a great deal of confusion in these debates, with all sorts of divisive claims about what is “real Australia”.
Websites have sprung up everywhere claiming to depict the true Australia, with names like “Australian Life”, “Real Australia” or a similar variation. Often, they only show a small fragment of Australian culture, despite claiming to be representative of the whole nation.
Many people promoting what they think is real Australia also fail to promote positive impressions. For example, television reports of drunken revellers waving Australian flags and behaving obnoxiously is hardly an ideal image of our country.
I personally detest the word “un-Australian”. However, one occurred on Anzac Day when television showed people booing the Welcome to Country at the dawn service. That seems very un-Australian to me.
Events that unite Australians, not divide us, are what we should look to as being representative of Australia. At the Sydney Olympics, one particular event achieved this better than above all others. The event that stood out was the women’s 400 metres track final.
It was a Monday night when Cathy Freeman crouched at the starting line and every person who wasn’t at the stadium or an emergency worker and had a drop of Australian patriotism in their blood was glued to their television sets. The gun went off and, 49.11 seconds later, Cathy won the gold medal.
Immediately after the race, she ran a victory lap with the Australian and Aboriginal flags wrapped around her, a tradition she started when she won gold at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.
In 1994, controversy followed her actions, with some conservative commentators saying there was only one Australian flag and she should not have displayed the Aboriginal flag.
As a result, Prime Minister Paul Keating changed the Australian Flags Act to officially recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in the nation’s legislation.
There was no such controversary in Sydney. I recently watched a documentary in which John Howard, who was Prime Minister during the 2000 Olympics, reflected on her running the victory lap, saying, “It was terrific that Cathy carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags in her victory lap. She’s proud of her Aboriginality and proud of being Australian. It’s a perfectly natural thing to do”.
An Australia that incites bitterness, hatred and divisiveness is not my type of Australia. I think we need to look for something better.
An Australia that celebrates Cathy’s victory at the 2000 Olympics at Sydney and her carrying the two flags is the Australia I love.
It is an Australia that celebrates that victory not just because it was an Olympic gold medal for Australia, but because it also was a unifying event that brought together people from all sorts of social backgrounds and political standings.
It rejoiced an Australia for all Australians, honouring its First Nations peoples, celebrating the strength of its cultural diversity and commemorating the harmony that exists in the nation.
That’s my kind of Australia.
