David Packman discusses the reaction to Sydney Swan Adam Goodes’ ‘war cry’ goal celebration.
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Last weekend marked Indigenous Round in the Australian Football League, an opportunity to celebrate the role indigenous athletes have had in shaping the unique Australian brand of football. “Not just making the game spectacular,” reads the AFL website, “but bringing two cultures together.”
With the spotlight firmly fixed on the League’s most exciting indigenous players throughout the build-up, Sydney Swans veteran Adam Goodes was always going to step up and play a leading – if not controversial – role.
Goodes is in the twilight of a stunning career in Australian Rules football. At 35, he holds an elite place in the history of the game as a dual Brownlow Medallist, dual premiership player, four-time All-Australian and member of the Indigenous Team of the Century. His tally of 358 games is the most by an indigenous footballer.
He was also named Australian of the Year in 2014 in recognition of his advocacy against racism, his work as a community leader and for establishing the Go Foundation, empowering the next generation of indigenous role models.
His legend grew again on Friday night at the Sydney Cricket Ground, with his now infamous ‘war cry’ goal celebration directed towards opposition fans spurring a week of predictably oversensitive media response, political grandstanding and faux outrage from the public.
It’s fair to say the atmosphere surrounding Goodes was charged prior to the match. The ‘booing’ directed towards him at a recent game against the Hawthorn Hawks had already attracted a media maelstrom with many saying it had racist undertones, while others debated it was due to his alleged tactics of sliding feet first into contests for the ball and/or staging for free kicks. Perhaps it all just came down to that awful Australian ‘tall poppy syndrome’.
Whatever the case may be, when Goodes showed some pride in his indigenous heritage on the weekend, the wheels of public opinion went into overdrive.
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The incident – if you can call it that – dominated the halftime show on Fox Footy with outspoken Collingwood Football Club president and TV commentator Eddie McGuire labeling Goodes’ actions “quite aggressive” and adding, “We’ve never seen that before and I don’t think we ever want to see it again, to be perfectly honest”.
Certainly, the very origins of a traditional war cry is that it is intended to look aggressive in nature. And quite clearly, it needs to have an opposing side to which it is directed in order to qualify. The fact it culminated in the throwing of an imaginary spear probably didn’t help matters, however, it’s important to note that indigenous cultural acts such as this are very familiar to Australians as they are featured in a number of other major sports, such as the Maori Haka that is performed before by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. The Haka has long been an accepted part of sport; it is performed by everyone in the team regardless of heritage and is not considered controversial in any shape or form.
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The reaction by some elements this week reminds me in part of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and his taking of a prayer knee. An innocuous gesture that was simply a personal statement of faith and in no way meant to cause offense. Yet, of course, there were those who felt that it did, and one side of the ensuing debate seemed to ridiculously suggest that a Tebow touchdown scored one for religion whereas an interception somehow marked one up for atheism.
Once the match was over, Goodes was asked about his actions as he left the ground. He said, “It’s Indigenous Round and I’m proud to be Aboriginal, so I’m representing. It was inspired from the U/16 Boomerang [junior national indigenous team] kids who taught us a bit of a war cry so it was a little tribute to those guys.”
Back in the Fox studio afterwards, McGuire quite demonstrably softened his view, perhaps in reaction to Goodes’ post-game comments.
I’m glad we’ll have another week of footy commentators talking about race. We need the best minds discussing this. #AFLSwansBlues
— Titus O’Reily (@TitusOReily) May 29, 2015
Despite this apparent reversal – he later denied ever labeling it violent or aggressive – it wasn’t enough to stop him then bizarrely relating the war cry to gay marriage later in the week. “Had we known before the game that Adam or the indigenous players were planning to do some sort of war cry, we could have been able to educate and understand the situation,” McGuire said. “It’s almost like what the government has to do as far as the equal rights marriage situation is concerned. There are people out there who are frightened, people don’t understand, you have to put it into context and take people along for the ride.” These comments were enough for NSW parliament to officially condemn McGuire for “being a continual boofhead”. This is not the first time McGuire has been involved in a saga involving Goodes, after a 13-year-old female Collingwood fan in the crowd called Goodes an ‘ape’ during a game in the 2013 Indigenous Round, McGuire apologised to Goodes “on behalf of football” before joking on radio some time later that Goodes could be used to promote King Kong the musical. While McGuire insisted education and understanding was the key, when it came to pure, unadulterated open criticism of Goodes’ war cry, it was left to those such as prominent ultra-conservative political commentator Andrew Bolt, who flat-out accused Goodes of challenging White Australia to a race war. Conversely, AFL players have supported Goodes’ action en masse and suggested that it could even become a powerful inclusion to the game on an ongoing basis. Even the AFL itself has backed Goodes and said that it hopes to see more of the same in the future, with CEO Gillon McLachlan stating, “We are a big enough game to accept and celebrate this type of expression”.
Just Goodes doing it solo was powerful… But what about every Indigenous player in the #AFL https://t.co/Hg0ho3wxys — Fremantle Dockers (@freodockers) June 3, 2015
I wholeheartedly applaud Goodes’ actions but I also understand that he will always leverage any platform he can to push his own agenda. That’s fine, but in doing so he needs to remember that he will stir up reactions of every kind from across the broadest spectrum of the community. If that is to be his modus operandi going forward, Goodes will continue to be a polarising influence and he cannot then choose to play the victim or take umbrage at those who hold opinions that don’t suit him or his purposes.
The lasting feeling for me on this occasion is that of an opportunity missed. Rather than see Goodes’ message of cultural pride simply for what it was – whether ill-advised or otherwise – and use it to celebrate Aboriginal heritage in a week of Australian football designed to do exactly that, the event has merely reminded us once again of the continued small-mindedness that exists within our society and the reluctance some of us seem to have to fully embrace the unique history of our land and it’s people.
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Photo Credit: AAP/File
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