This one is beyond us. Our feeble intellects are simply not capable of comprehending the thinking behind this.
All these years we thought South African apartheid was evil, that the intentional exclusion of one race by another was unacceptable. But then how do you explain the fact that a race-based football team from Australia has been selected specifically to play South Africa? And how do you explain the fact that it’s being applauded?
The Age reports the odd turn of events as if they don’t see any irony in it:
An AFL match will be staged as an exhibition event at the Africa Games in Mozambique in September. It will be between a team from South Africa and an Australian Aboriginal team.
So apartheid is evil unless you’re segregating the races to play football against South Africa in Africa and the race being excluded is caucasian in which case it’s all dandy.
Surely, there’s some logic in there somewhere. We’re just having trouble finding it.
By the way, if you’ve never seen Aussie rules football, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s like the NFL without pads or the NBA without rules. Don’t know how the players survive each week’s games.
Source: The Age
View Comments (8)
After reading that it is an Aboriginal team scheduled to play the South African team, it made sense. It is nice to see segregation ending for the Aborigines. Now all we need here is to abolish Affirmative Action and move on from racial divisions. I believe my generation is sick of it and ready for it to end.
I hate Affirmative Action, & what's great about sports is there is no room for it. Either you can play or you can't, straight up. It does not matter what sport it is, performance is what matters. Now this case looks like it was set up for different reasons, & if the reasons are up front, fine. But in the arena of pure compitition, the only thing that matters is performance, not Affirmative Action.
" I believe my generation is sick of it and ready for it to end."
So was Abraham Lincoln's generation.
Error. The majority of Northerners did not care about Blacks one way or the other, except the poor saw them as competition for limited jobs. The industy in the north, however really wanted lots of southern cotton, and after the development of the cotton gin, it again became profitable to run huge plantations with huge cotton crops to fill the increased demand. Though a limited number of hard core abolistionists wanted the war to be focused on stoppoing slavery, that was not the main concern initially. Lincoln was upset about the succession of the slave states, and the breakup of the union. THe Emancipation proclamation came later, and they still kept blacks in separate Army units (after they finally started letting them enlist.)
I usually agree with most of the issues presented here but this one I have to disagree with. I don't have a problem with the exhibition match. You forgot to mention the context of this decision. The league is celebrating the inclusion of the aboringinal people into the league, that for so long were excluded for playing. The Dreamtime game between Essendon and Richmond was one such celebration and so is the match against South Africa. I agree with you on one thing, more people should check out the AFL. It is an exciting game and each week there is a game on ESPN2 early Saturday morning. Been a fan for almost 20 years.
I used to watch Aussie Rules when I was in high school on ESPN back in the day. I love it, 1 of the toughest sports on the planet, & it requires more then a bit of skill. I think it has been on FoxSoccerPlus here in North America, & that is a premium channel most folks won't pay for. I miss watching Aussie Rules.
It is only racist if whitney does it.
whitney houston? ;^)
And I agree with rol67.