AUSTRALIAN MEDIA IN MELTDOWN MODE OVER INDIAN CRICKET TOUR RACISM CRISIS
January 8th 2008 01:35
India cricket lovers are in a spin and the Australian media is in meltdown mode because the Indian cricket tour of Australia is in crisis and in danger of collapsing after Indian spin bowler Harbhajan Singh was “convicted” by cricket authorities for racially vilifying Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds by calling him a monkey.
Australian officials claim this is racist and refers to Symond’s rarely mentioned West Indian heritage or, as one cricket doyen said on ABC TV news, he is “of dark colour.”
The Indians say this is crap because monkey is not viewed as a racist taunt in India and has connotations of childishness.
Ouch.
The Indian cricketers at one stage threatened to take their bats and balls home if their player isn’t exonerated via appeal.
Many Australian media commentators suggested that the Indians are guilty of being over-emotional about this issue, which comes on the back of a bout of atrocious umpiring decisions against the Indians and a refusal by the Australian captain to display any hint of diplomacy.
But the Indians have point – the issue is piddling and the decision is stupid. Australia has a propensity to be a slave to faddish political correctness, and even during the 1930s a British writer likened Australia to a country ruled by maiden aunts and crisscrossed by a bewildering web of red tape.
During one cricket match, authorities actually placed ‘undercover racism police’ in the crowd to catch out spectators uttering racist terms.
Australian sports officials, when they attain power, tend to reveal and revel in Nazi-like tendencies and have ruined the careers of many outspoken sports stars, such as swim champ Dawn Fraser.
- From MediaBlab
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