Voiceless indigenous stars make themselves heard, writes Paul Kent
Few societies have so casually accepted such upheaval surrounding the refusal to sing the national anthem, as will happen during Origin I, like the NRL community, so why is this?
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It was a small conversation, kept proud and private.
Earlier this week Cody Walker, his protest of the Australian national anthem well known and back on the agenda, was approached by NSW teammates and fellow indigenous players Latrell Mitchell and Josh Addo-Carr.
Quiet words of agreement were spoken. They were also going to remain silent during the national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, before Wednesday’s first State of Origin game in Brisbane.
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About the same time Damien Cook, who is not indigenous, was on NRL360 where the protest came up.
“I’m pretty proud of Cody, the way he stood up for his own beliefs,” Cook said.
In Queensland, Johnathan Thurston questioned why the anthem protest from earlier this year, when the Indigenous All-Star team Walker captained refused to sing the anthem before the game, was “brushed over”.
This is where rugby league, so often portrayed as backward and basic, reveals its gift of simplicity and integrity.
Far from being everybody’s crime, as Thurston wondered, perhaps the warm acceptance of the right to protest was the sign of understanding, of a society no longer easily spurred to outrage but instead ready for the conversation.
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Is the Australian national anthem racist?
Anthony Mundine suggested on Friday it was. Mundine called on the white players to support the anthem boycott, aware the greater power it would bring.
“Cook came out saying he really admires and respects Cody’s decision,” Mundine told Wide World of Sports. “But it would be great to see if non-Aboriginal brothers took the same stance.”
Later in the day Queensland centre Will Chambers revealed he, too, will refuse to sing the anthem.
Few societies have so casually accepted such upheaval like the NRL community.
Years after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee during the Star Spangled Banner to protest discrimination the American public is still at war over the merits of Kaepernick’s protest.
There, the outrage for Kaepernick’s protest is equalled by the strength of his support.
Mitchell laughed at the absurdity of it all on Friday.
He saw on Twitter, where the brain is rarely required to work, somebody raging against Walker’s stand.
“They said go back to where you came from,” Mitchell said. “Where does he go?”
He laughed, saying, “How can you be so uneducated and ignorant towards something? Why can’t we, as sports stars and as high profile indigenous people, have an opinion?”
Rather than rush to outrage, the reaction within rugby league has ranged from supportive to indifferent.
Without the outrage, though, as Thurston identified, it is difficult to muster debate. Nothing dies quicker in the conscience than a one-sided argument.
LISTEN! Matty, Kenty and Finchy dissect both Origin teams and a game looming as a classic, recount the best of Tommy Raudonikis and Matty recalls Mitchell Pearce’s sleepover at the Johns household.
So the issue kind of passed by, as it threatens to again this time.
If there is a positive it is that the lack of indignation might be an indication that Australia, in a broader sense, is ready to have the conversation.
Mitchell has so far remained quiet on Walker’s protest but on Friday he said he will join the anthem protest.
“We’ve had a yarn,” he said. “We’ve spoken about it and we’re not going to sing it.”
He has no expectation on his teammates to join them.
“I’m not going to disrespect my teammates of white descent and ask them not to sing it,” he said.
“If they don’t want to sing it that’s up to them.”
Meanwhile Walker, the eye of the storm, is concentrating on Origin.
Earlier this week he was asked how he would cope with the Origin pressure, with 50,000 Queenslanders calling for a little Walker blood, and he shrugged it off like a lazy tackle.
“It’s obviously going to be a different sort of feeling but, I believe, I’ve played a lot of Aboriginal knockouts and we get hurled abuse a fair bit at those events and it’s a tough type of footy they play,” he said.
“So I feel like I’m ready.”
It is his Aboriginal heritage, of all things, that will help him most.
He has played in a dozen Aboriginal knockouts over the years and has still to play an easy game.
In his first game last year, playing for Walgett, it was on from the start.
“There was three stinks in the first 10 minutes,” he said.
“No one gets sent off. We had an NRL referee. That’s just the standard.”
The NRL players are hunted men at the knockouts.
“This ain’t the NRL now, bra,” a player said to him.
Mitchell wore the same treatment.
“You’re not in the NRL now, bra.”
“It’s really competitive in the Indigenous culture,” Mitchell said. “It’s the biggest carnival in Australia.”
The Aboriginal knockout is an annual pilgrimage for many NRL stars. Regarded the toughest tournament still left in rugby league.
In Dubbo last year Walker was joined by Greg Inglis, Josh Addo-Carr ran out for Redfern, Ash Taylor, Brian Kelly …
“You’re playing for your mob,” said Addo-Carr.
“It’s a celebration. Like a corroboree.
“They try and do everything in their power to stop you. They try to put the wind up you.
“There’s some tough blokes. There’s a similarity to Origin, there actually is.”
Toughness, he realised, is not restricted to the elite level. Toughness comes in different forms.
It is physical and resistant and often hides in humour. It runs deep through the Indigenous race.
Many years ago, at another Aboriginal knockout, the Redfern All Blacks won through to play La Perouse, from down near Botany, in the final.
Before the game the players were told an elder, his name long forgotten to memory, would be coming to the change room to give the pre-game rev up speech.
Gorden Tallis was a young bull playing for St George but, this day playing for the All Blacks, he witnessed the reverence that fell upon the team when they were told of their guest.
Immediately he was intrigued what kind of message was about to be delivered.
The change room fell silent when the elder walked in. Their metal studs clicked on the cement floor, a nervous chatter as their heels twitched up and down.
The elder walked a small circle, looking each in the eye. Their eyes, filled with energy and anticipation, darted around.
The elder stopped, ready with the words to motivate his team.
“Remember this,” the elder said finally, “these are the fellas that let the white fellas in.”
TOMMY GIVEN OVERDUE INDUCTION
Tommy Raudonikis’s induction into the NSW Blues Hall of Fame was a year too late.
The Blues launched their Hall last year but Raudonikis, NSW’s original Origin captain and later a series winning coach, was not among the first six inducted.
Thankfully that was set right.
Raudonikis knew Origin was going to be different the night before the game when the Blues were in Brisbane having a beer together and he got to wondering where the Maroons were.
Soon word came that the Queenslanders were home in bed, getting ready for the game with an early night.
Suddenly, warning bells rang.
LIES AREN’T ENOUGH FOR TWISTED BENNETT
Alternative versions of the truth, to put it politely, are part of everyday life.
So when a coach tells a small porky to hide his actual intentions it is often accepted as part of the game.
A month ago Wayne Bennett denied the interest in James Roberts, saying that nobody from the Rabbitohs had spoken to Roberts and that the speculation was simply a media invention.
“We haven’t approached him and James won’t be coming to South Sydney, this year and next year,” Bennett said.
This week Bennett justified the lie, saying: “What we had to do was get everyone off the scent so we could conduct ourselves and the negotiations in a manner in which there wasn’t a lot of fanfare.”
In a perverted kind of way that is acceptable because that is how business is increasingly done nowadays.
But Bennett has become so twisted that it is no longer enough for him to simply just lie.
So the lies now come with an insult, as he did by dismissing the initial Roberts fanfare: “It starts with you guys (the media) sitting in coffee rooms and thinking ‘what am I going to make up today’.”
Originally published as Voiceless indigenous stars make themselves heard, writes Paul Kent
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