I’ve long been uncomfortable with the way our various sporting events have been deliberately co-opted in the service of other ‘worthy’ causes. Seemingly, every other round of AFL is devoted to some social cause or other. Celebrations of indigeneity, sexuality, disease, military history, suicide and other issues are often supported by a demonstration game of footy. Cricket, too, delights us with special cultural days. At the Sydney test match each year, a brief display of batting and bowling serves as the backdrop to the cause-celebre of ex-cricketer Glenn McGrath, whose wife died of breast cancer, quite a while ago, and for the benefit of the foundation he established in her memory, the whole ground is adoringly festooned in pink, her favourite colour.
Competition for the limited slots available to augment our beloved sporting events must be high; evidence for this was the juxtaposition at this season’s Sydney test match of three separate competing franchises: after a distinguished career as an opening batsman, the retiring Muslim cricketer Usman Khawaja, capitalising on the moment by charging the cricketing community and the public at large with racism, had to share air time not only with St Glenn of the Breast but also with the newly emerged Hero of Bondi, Ahmed el Ahmed, outfitted in a de rigueur ‘breast cancer-pink’ polo shirt, a fellow Muslim, we never tired of hearing, who had bravely disarmed yet another Muslim, who had engaged in a ‘sudden and unexpected’ display of shooting at innocent Jews.
Pity the poor performer who had to conduct the ‘Welcome to Country’ before the game eventually got underway - talk about hard acts to follow! It’s just as well Australia was playing against England, and not the West Indies, or we might have had the complication of the Australian team ‘taking the knee’, BLM-style, at some point in the festivities, as they did last time the WI were touring here. A nightmare for the intersectional virtue police putting together the run sheet.
Mind you, the recent passage of the ‘hate speech’ legislation, the 500-odd pages of which was definitely not prepared months in advance, and definitely written only after and in response to the Bondi massacre, gives us cause for hope. If we stop people giving vent to their thoughts, these and other problems will go away. Right?
The hate speech laws themselves provide a risk-free topic for pundits to bloviate about. While one pontificates about this or that aspect of the laws, or the commitment or otherwise of various political parties to the principle of free speech, one is on solid ground. One hasn’t actually said anything yet. It’s when you want to say something controversial that the problems start. It’s a bit like defending freedom of movement, let’s say, in the circumstances (who can imagine it?) where a nightly curfew is imposed. No problem if you bleat about it on line, that’s easy. But a true defence would have been to leave the house at 9pm and sit in a park with an evening picnic. Not many pundits did that.
But back to the hate speech legislation. It’s definitely going to work. Racism will disappear. Antisemitism will vanish. We’ve seen it work before, haven’t we? Machetes that used to jump into the hands of young male choir boys and cause them to run amok through shopping centres are now of course all in the rather expensive-but-worth-it bins, thanks to legislation. Why stop at hate speech? Have a crack at breast cancer too, so that St Glenn can finally hang up his tits and take a well-earned rest. Bushfires and floods will be things of the past. You name it, we can end it. The great progressive delusion. Why not? Legislation can fix anything and everything. Child’s play. And if it doesn’t, well then we’ll just pass more legislation. Perhaps then we can get back to a cricket match per se, without the social causes. Oh happy day.
On the other hand, voices of reason may find themselves confronted by the rough end of the pineapple, courtesy of the hate speech laws. When one wants to criticise, one will have to be circumspect.
A device to mitigate the risk of prosecution for speaking plainly is the parable. Some readers may recognise that the parable has a long and rather distinguished history. (If you don’t, for God’s sake Google it!) Here’s an example:
The Parable of the Arrogant Prince
There was a kingdom ruled wisely by a king; its people lived in harmony with others who had come from other lands. Justice was done, and seen to be done. The king had a son, who was reckless and arrogant. The prince was impatient to bring new ideas to the kingdom. When the king died, the prince made many changes. He declared that men could become women. He locked people in their homes and closed their businesses, when there was no reason to do so. He forced them to undergo a medical procedure. Many other changes were imposed. The prince watched his land become beset by disruption and fights, and some citizens were murdered and others injured.
The people became critical of the prince and called for him to reverse the changes. The prince decided that the people were wrong, and passed laws making it illegal to criticise the prince, and also to criticise his policies. He passed laws allowing him to watch everyone, and to collect reports on what they did.
The people continued to think poorly of the prince, but no longer spoke plainly, for fear of being imprisoned. But among themselves, they spoke in secret, in words the prince and his courtiers would not understand. Poets and minstrels told stories and sang songs of the land that only the people could understand; the prince and his courtiers could not interpret them.
Soon the people devised a plot to rid themselves of the prince. No one planned it, no one described it, no one prepared for it. But the plot took shape in the people’s unspoken determination to reclaim the peaceful, just, and plentiful life they had lost.
One day the prince was visiting his summer house, a large mansion on a cliff top overlooking the sea. When he arrived, people came out from hiding places and surrounded his house. They laid siege to the prince, trapped inside his clifftop mansion. The prince’s guards turned against him and helped the people to keep the prince imprisoned in his summer house.
The people found a new leader, who restored the kingdom to its former peacefulness and plenty. The prince soon died, friendless, in his enormous mansion. No one even noticed that he had died.
Perhaps we’ll see parables turning up more and more. Who knows?