The Melbourne Storm have decided to limit the number of home games they open next season. The decision has received both applause and condemnation, such has become the polarizing nature of the traditional ceremony.
Personally, I have no problem doing a welcome (or acknowledgement) to the country before NRL games. I also don’t particularly care if someone organizing an event feels inclined to start the process with one.
Whether or not an occasion is important enough to celebrate is a subjective assessment that must ultimately be made by whoever organizes the event.
What’s interesting is that this rather simple recognition of indigenous heritage has become as controversial as it is now.
Politicians, activists and self-important Pharisees have to share the blame for this. They can’t simply attribute the reaction to widespread intolerance, because that is completely wrong.
First of all, the divided opinion has nothing to do with race. We watch the All Blacks perform their Hakka before games and we love it. Australians have embraced other Pacific nations by holding similar ceremonies as the international game has grown.
The problem with country welcomes and acknowledgments is the sometimes preachy nature of how they are delivered.
Plus, when every speaker at an event does one (which, by the way, is completely unnecessary), they lose their meaning and start to get irritated.
The Melbourne Storm have decided to limit the number of home games they open next season. (Pictured: Welcome to the country before a football match in Perth in 2022)
And of course, in the context of the failed Voice of Parliament referendum, they have also become unnecessarily politicised.
Activist and academic Marcia Langton threatened not to do anything to anyone, encouraging others to follow her example, if the referendum did not become law.
By making that threat he undermined the good will to recognize our first inhabitants and their traditions in this way.
The complete rejection of the voice (60 per cent of Australians voted against and it failed in every state) was evidence that the Labor government did not adequately defend constitutional change.
However, he pressed ahead with the vote knowing it would fail, creating growing divisions over previously undiscussed aspects of reconciliation.
The intimidation and threats associated with demands that citizens vote in favor became counterproductive. The suggestion that anyone who did not support it was somehow racist or less sympathetic to our Indigenous past was not only offensive to many, but has inevitably led to setbacks in other areas of Indigenous rights and recognition.
A consequence of this is the growing intolerance towards welcoming and recognizing a country.
Who has attended an event where each speaker, one after another, who stands up to speak begins with an acknowledgment of the country?
Brendan Kerin, cultural educator for Sydney Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, gave a resounding welcome to country in the AFL which he said was not for white people.
Welcome to countries is now common at football matches. Fans are widely supportive, but concerns sometimes arise if they seem too “preachy.” (Pictured: Melbourne Storm players at AAMI Park on September 27)
It happens all the time and is completely unnecessary. More to the point, it defeats the entire purpose of recognition. The welcome attempts to reflect the indigenous greeting that newcomers would receive upon entering the territory of a particular tribe. Recognition is about respecting that tradition.
There are more than 250 indigenous tribes across the continent. It’s a tradition that dates back thousands of years and, if done correctly, is a wonderful cultural practice that most Australians would gladly embrace.
But when it descends into virtue signaling – an opportunity for every self-proclaimed indigenous rights advocate to show how woke they are – it loses its meaning and creates a backlash against what began as a unifying way to create greater awareness of Aboriginal culture. .
The endless thanks to the country to begin each speech at events is a shameful misunderstanding of the greeting on the part of those who do it. Which is really ironic.
I was recently at an event where no less than five speakers in a row began their talks, one after another, acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we were meeting on.
Their attempts to show how in touch everyone was with the custom really only revealed how little everyone knows about it.
It should happen once and that’s it!
You don’t say “hello” repeatedly to people during a conversation. Hakka Maori is not performed throughout the match. And thanks to the country are not made over and over again when one has already been made at the beginning of an event.
I was recently at an event when no less than five speakers in a row began their interventions by acknowledging one after another the traditional owners of the lands on which we were meeting, writes Peter van Onselen
The other disuniting aspect of the traditional welcome is the growing desire of some activists to turn it, when delivered, into a sermon or a punishment for those who hear it. About the misfortune of white settlements, for example, or the need to take next steps on the path to reconciliation, such as a treaty, for example.
One may agree with these notions as part of the ‘journey’ towards reconciliation or not, but wrapping that preaching in what is supposed to be an uplifting and well-intentioned cultural welcome is both rude and misguided.
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, as the saying goes. Disparaging those attending an event (who, let’s face it, when we’re talking about a football game, are there for sport, not ceremony) doesn’t win hearts and minds.
What it does is lead to a situation like the one we have now, where one of our NRL teams chooses to limit the occasions on which they start games with a welcome to the country.
That would not happen if the original purpose of the ceremony was fulfilled.
Presumably The Storm believe they have made a decision that reflects the feelings of the majority of the club’s supporters. Now, I don’t know if that’s the case – sometimes the decisions that are made can be wrong or completely wrong – but that’s almost certainly the club’s thinking. Melbourne Storm officials wouldn’t take this action if they thought the majority of their fans would be up in arms about it.
We will have to wait and see if other clubs follow in the Storm’s footsteps.