Monday, September 25, 2000
Aborigine focused on running, not politics
SYDNEY, Australia — Ultimately, all she is doing is running. It's all she ever wanted to do, and Monday night, she gets the chance.
Cathy Freeman is not a spokesperson for indigenous Australians, even if she is one. She is not someone who has forgotten her Aboriginal heritage, though some Aborigines feel that way. Tonight, she will not be a symbol for a new, progressive Aussie society, in which everyone gets along and feels good about themselves.
She's running 400 meters as fast as she can. She hopes that will be enough for a gold medal. That's it.
Why do we do this to athletes? When the first Greek won the first Olympic marathon, did the press
ask, “Spanos, what do you make of the chariot gridlock in Mykonos?”
Why do we insist Tiger Woods be a spokesman for his race, even if he's a mix of many races? Why must Michael Jordan be anything more than the best basketball player who ever lived?
What is their obligation? Jordan owed us nothing but an honest effort on the court and decent citizenship off it. The same is true for Freeman.
The Aussies, though, they act as if Cathy Freeman is going to change their world. Obsession is not too strong a word. “Australia had waited four years for this,” a writer gushed breathlessly in the Sydney Morning Herald after Freeman's first 400 heat.
Just athletes
But Freeman is just an athlete. There are a very few athletes who change any society on a grand scale: Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, perhaps Muhammad Ali. There are fewer still who make it their mission. They are necessarily wrapped in a self-involved cocoon of competing. They don't have time to save the world. It would disrupt their training.
“I'd like to pass comment on any political issues,” Freeman said at a press conference last week. Of course, she had no chance of that.
“People choose to symbolize me, no matter what,” Freeman said. “I like to typify any Aboriginal person in Australia who is taking advantage of the opportunities available to anybody.”
She might have trouble selling that a few miles to the west, on The Block, an area of criminally poor Aborigines with rampant drug problems. But if that's her vision, so be it.
The Aussies have attached themselves to Freeman for the same reason Americans gravitated to Woods and Jordan. One, she's the best in the world at what she does, and two, it's a painless way to feel good about a complex, difficult issue.
It's as if the entire country is saying, “Look, we're cheering an Aborigine. That's progress, mate, isn't it?”
Maybe Freeman thinks that way. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she doesn't think about it at all. Or tries very hard not to.
Keeping focus
“I'm so focused on the running side of things,” she said.
Freeman loosened up when someone actually asked her a question about her event. Freeman described running an Olympic 400 as “feeling like everything around you isn't going on. It's a big, alive, jelly-like thing, filled with color and noise.”
It was a terrific depiction. Then, another political question.
“I don't want this to be stressful,” Freeman answered. Camera flashes exploded as she rubbed her eyes. No wonder the woman runs fast.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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