There was a lot to agree with Pat Rafter's version about what makes our country great when he thought about why he is proud to be Australian before January 26.
The legend of tennis said that “humility is a large part of who we are” while criticizing the Australians who develop “a great head” and “get an ego” while they think they are “better than everyone else” in a written piece NOTS CORP January 24.
But then, Rafter illustrated his point about changes in the national character when talking about his experiences with indigenous Australians, and could not believe what he was reading.
'I grew up in an Australian city quite bloody, Mt Isa, in a large loving family, with white and aboriginal companions with whom I played tennis and came out. It was not black or white; We were just colleagues, “he wrote, referring to his childhood in Outback Queensland.
So far, so good. But then he continues: 'When I was a child, you really don't know much about aboriginal history, but when you get a little more about what Australia is and what it was.
“That transition has been a bit rocky sometimes, but I think it's now much better.”
Pat Rafter (in the photo playing in Brisbane last month) went far beyond using pink glasses when he gave his thoughts about Australia's relationship with his indigenous peoples
The two -time Grand Slam winner returned to an Australia where “we treat all the same”, and in doing so, he ignored the most shameful facets in the country's history.
Just think of those six words for a minute: 'A little rocky sometimes'.
I am not accusing Pat of being ignorant or false in any way, form or form, but that is an absurd and disconcerting way of describing what is correctly considered as the most shameful part of the history of our nation.
The term 'glossing over' does not even begin to scratch the surface here.
I will not try to illustrate the indescribable horrors that the first Australians have visited about them since the white settlement, or invasion, since the country's European colonization is often called now.
My colleague Candace Sutton did a much better job than in an article in an article that Daily Mail Australia published just after Australia's day realized this year.
In it, he begins by writing about the grass station in the northwest end of Queensland, not far from Rafter's childhood house, where 40 pairs of human ears were found nailed to the walls. Those ears did not belong to the whites.
The owner of the house, Frank Hann, was known for collecting the heads of indigenous Australians. He and his station manager, Jack Watson, interrupt them as memories or a form of reward, according to newspaper reports at the end of the 19th century.
The story is illustrated with photos of large groups of aboriginal prisoners united by chains locked around their necks.
Continue reading and will face disgusting details about children who behead in the Myall Creek massacre, which took at least 28 lives.
According to the legend of tennis, the images like this photo of indigenous men chained by the neck in Wyndham, Western Australia, represent a relationship with the nation that has been “a bit rocky sometimes” sometimes 'sometimes'
Rafter said he believes that life for indigenous Australians is “much better now”, which is true, but it is not true to the extent that the people of the first nations have nothing to protest on January 26 (in the photo)
Continue and will reach two instances of settlers who donate flour bags to indigenous Australians after binding them with poisonous strictness. Each of these inhuman acts took approximately 70 lives.
These are not cherry incidents, isolated and out of place. Any restrictions on our history will be full of horrors like them.
When Rafter says he believes that Australia's relationship with his first people is “much better now”, you cannot argue with that, not so much for the progress that has undoubtedly done, but because when you are working on this type of such. Bar horribly low, any instance of treating aboriginal people with the most basic levels of respect as human beings would represent an immense improvement.
The two -time Grand Slam winner also says that he was proud of the way the Australians were very dear abroad in the 1990s because “we knew how to have a good time, but we also treated everyone the same.”
Well, that is the ideal in which we like to believe. But it was not the reality at that time and now it is not reality.
Only six months ago, the closing report of the federal government The GAP highlighted disturbing facts about how indigenous Australians move away far behind the rest of the country when it comes to life expectancy, health, education, housing, suicide statistics and imprisonment rates.
A little rocky, Pat?
For many Australians, Rafter (in the photo on his way to win the 1997 US Open) was an example of walking and talking about the best parts of our national character.
Take as his, who ignores stains in our history, opposes the honest and painful conversations we need to continue having to live up to the description of Rafter of Australia as a place where all are treated equally.
Again, it hurts to point out that I don't think Rafter has made his statement with any malice.
Millions of Australians loved to see him play not only because he was great in tennis, but because he embodied many of the ideals he speaks in in his article.
It was an adorable Larrikin, a great guy to be close, self -critical despite its immense talent and fame, the type of type that passes one of the best tests of character in Australian life: you would love to have a beer with him.
Pat also seemed to comply with that value of other characteristic Australians so highly in themselves: being heterosexual shooters, people who are not afraid to call it as they see.
But in this case, his vision has failed him badly.
The facts with which it skip with those six words are no longer hidden. They are finally difficult to remain blind in Australian life, as they should be.