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The following piece is written by Waleed Aly...
My wife refers to football as my mistress. I do not vigorously dispute this. I confess that I am a Richmond tragic. I go to every game I can, and many games I shouldn’t. I freely admit I am addicted.
This year has been even worse. My Tigers have had a reasonable year, and the world has become ever more depressing. My wife tolerates my weekly retreat into the footballing cocoon because she understands how necessary it is for my sanity. It is my release. My brief escape from a world of ugly words and images.
It is this ugliness that compels me to write, and just now I have a mountain of writing ahead of me. Last weekend it reached the point where my weekly ritual was gravely threatened. My compromise was to take my laptop to the football. There would be opportunities before the game and at half-time to bash out a few paragraphs.
As half-time approached, with the Tigers staring at a belting, it was time to begin. The siren sounded, the little leaguers ran on to the field, and the ideas began to flow. The strangest places are often the most productive writing environments.
But my productivity would be interrupted. Within five minutes a young man wearing an official, red, Telstra Dome coat approached and sat next to me. Calling me mate, he asked me to turn off my laptop. It seemed an odd request. I know there are AFL and stadium objections to filming during matches. I knew of no objection to writing. I asked him why.
Apparently stadium management had received complaints from spectators. The sight of my open laptop in the grandstands had made people edgy. I still didn’t understand. The Telstra Dome official explained himself as diplomatically as possible. “You know with the way things in the world are at the moment,” he said. “Especially for dark people like you and me.” Until then I hadn’t noticed his skin colour.
This was my first alert-but-not-alarmed experience.
I have spent a long time since this incident wondering how I am meant to feel about it. Should I feel safer and be thankful for the public’s vigilance? If so, then sorry, I do not. I fail to see how this makes Australia any safer. I know nothing about explosives, but how could a laptop be any more dangerous than, say, a mobile phone? Should people with dark skin not take calls at the football? You know, for our security.
However I am meant to feel about this, I know how I did feel: humiliated. Never have I wanted so much to be invisible. I contemplated going home, but it is against my football supporter’s code of honour. And in any event, it would have looked even worse; as though I had no business there once I was found out. I had no idea who among the 30,000-strong crowd complained, but I could feel their burning, suspicious gaze upon me. I couldn’t shake the thought that some unknown people suspected I might be a terrorist. I wondered if they were also Richmond fans, and for some irrational reason, the thought embarrassed me even more. All I could do was retreat into the game, pretending I was just like any other supporter. Lying to myself, basically.
It was the first time in my life I felt like I wasn’t an Australian.
Maybe that’s because we’ve created a new Australia. One that is so very different from the country in which I was born and raised. That is the power of fear. It triggers social implosion. It can cause societies to tear themselves apart without the need for external interference. And it is antithetical to the charming brashness of the Australian myth.
Ultimately, this is not a story about me, but about us, and what our country will become if we do not reclaim it from its present trajectory. Beyond this singular event lies a more lasting concern. I am over my initial anger and embarrassment – time heals all wounds. But I carry with me a nagging anxiety for my society’s soul. Time does not, by itself, cure all afflictions.
Posted by gary at August 25, 2005 11:57 PM
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