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Neal Collins After the dazzling closing ceremony, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph said goodbye in 38 languages, including Zulu and Afrikaans. Which got me thinking. What if we were saying salani kahle Sydney 2000, sawubona Cape Town 2004? It makes you think what a Games like this could have done for the rainbow nation, had Cape Town not lost out to Athens. Hosting the 27th Olympiad certainly did plenty for this colourful island. Outside my hotel in Parramatta, the big TV screen showing live coverage of the “best Olympic Games ever” has gone. The open-air restaurants have disappeared back indoors and the main road has been reopened to traffic. The bouncy castle in the main junction has gone, the Olympic pin market’s 14 stalls have disappeared, the stage in the middle of the main road showcasing local talent has been packed away, probably never to be seen again. All around Sydney this sad scenario has been repeated. Men and women are going back to work down under and feeling very down about it. The all-night street parties have stopped, the flags are coming down, Friends and Buffy are back on the telly. Sydneysiders spent six years hating it as they bickered over preparation, just 16 days loving it as they pulled it off with gusto for all the world to see. It wasn’t long enough. Sydney, and the whole of this talented country of 19 million diverse souls, have always lacked confidence in the big scheme of things. There are so many similarities between this lot and South Africans. Many of the decision-makers are descended from British convicts; many ordinary folk derive from refugee stock from all over the world, others from modest settlers out of Ireland, Greece, Holland, Germany, China, Vietnam and … well, anywhere and everywhere.
There isn’t a day when they don’t have the awful treatment of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander people thrust in their face. At the closing ceremony Midnight Oil sang “How can we sleep when our beds are burning?” – a reference to the land stolen by the white settlers. The band wore black T-shirts simply saying” “Sorry”. There’s a lot of divides to be bridged, a lot of past wrongs to be righted, just as there are in every nation – particularly Thabo Mbeki’s. But all these diverse Aussie cultures came together for 16 days at Homebush, a derelict bit of land now known as Olympic Park and home to the greatest collection of sporting venues on Earth. The closing ceremony proved that real reconciliation can grow from a sports event, that national pride and confidence can be gleaned from a best-yet haul of 16 gold medals, especially when one of them, the only high-profile track medal for the hosts, was won by the Aboriginal queen, Cathy Freeman, who paraded with both the Australian and Aboriginal flags. Just like South Africa’s rugby World Cup and African Nations Cup successes, the Olympics can bring people together, only more so. You get the feeling the Aussies have shuffled up a step in the order of things, if not in reality, then at least in their own eyes. From now on they will be proud to bring their culture forward for scrutiny.
>From this day forth Kylie Minogue and Rolf Harris won’t bring a cringe but a smile; the image of giant flip-flops, prawns on bikes and washing lines on stilts is no longer laughable but ironic. South Africa could have produced much of the same, showcasing the best bits of all the various cultures: inflatable rondawels, rhinos on rails, boerewors on bikes, even assegais on asses. And can you imagine the music; from Miriam Makeba to Steve Hofmeyr, all wrapped up in a uniquely Seffriken package.
These have been great days to be Australian, Or even a foreigner in Australia: there just weren’t enough days. For Cape Town, those days – and the traditional gold glut for the home nation – may never come.