Race and sport in Aussie Sin City

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

gold coast, April 18

Australia topped the medals table very easily. Why is a country of 2.5 crore so fantastic in sport? Australia took 80 gold to England’s 45 (population 5.3 crore) and India’s 26 gold (population 130 crore). Just what do the Aussies do right? There are many factors, including notional things like passion and concrete things like facilities; Galia Forrester provided another factor. Galia comes from a family of Russians fleeing Communism in their country. Harbin, the Chinese city famous for ice sculptures, is famous for hosting Russian refugees too, for several decades. Galia’s siblings were born in Harbin while their parents waited for visas and papers to get out of China; Galia was born in Australia after her parents reached here. “We’re a family of 10 children, and all of my sisters are way shorter,” says Galia, who is close to 5ft 10in tall. “You see, this is possible only due to better food and weather that we have here. That’s one big reason the people of this country are so well-nourished.”

The average Australian man is 5ft 9in tall; the average Indian male, in contrast, is 5ft 5in tall. Same with the women — Australian women are 3.5 inches taller than Indian women, on average.

Real Aussie

Galia says that when she was growing up, she and her siblings faced racism in schools — even though she’s completely white. “We were Russians, we were outsiders,” she says. “We learnt to ignore it.”

She says she married a “Whitey”, ie British settler. 

Who’s the real Aussie? This question hung over CWG right from Day 1, when Aboriginal people protested against “Whitey” stealing their land and resources.

Posters showing the image of a man with an Asian/Indian style pugree can be seen on the walls, with the legend “Aussie” printed under it. It’s among Australia’s attempts at fostering multiculturalism in its increasingly diverse population.

Racism

Simran studied international relations and journalism as she became interested in minority issues while still a child. “I don’t know anyone who hasn’t faced racism in this country,” she says. “It could be casual racism, or something much more serious like people throwing things at you and calling you racist names.”

She says the victims try not to make an issue about this because such things can become too big, “blown out of proportion” and “needlessly controversial”.

Lisa, a volunteer driver, is a ‘health coach’ in real life; to the naked eye, she seems British or northern European, but that’s not the case. “Oh, my blonde hair comes from my mother, who is English. My father came from Italy,” she says. “There was casual and serious racism when I was growing up.”

Waves of immigrants to Australia – Chinese, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Anglo-Indians and Indians/Asians – have faced racism over decades. But right now, the anti-racism movement and sentiment are stronger than ever before in history, says Lisa.

Gold Coast Gurdwara

There are roughly 1,500 Sikhs in Gold Coast, the senior-most we met during CWG being Dr Jagatjit Singh, who came over in 1979. They’re in the process of building the city’s first Gurdwara, at the Helensvale suburb. Surjit Singh, who’s in the real estate business, is taking a lead role in the project. “We’re raising funds, and hope that it would be completed within the next couple of years,” he says. 

Surjit is part of the Gold Coast Sikh Council, which is trying to raise funds for the project, estimated to cost A$3.65 million. “I’m using my own funds as well as trying to raise funds,” says Surjit.

There’s a rival faction as well, we were informed. “I have friends in both the groups,” says SP Singh. “It’s the usual gurdwara politics. One group felt that work was going too slow, so they split and set up their own organisation.”

The two groups are now trying to become the first creators of a gurdwara in Gold Coast.

Sin City

If you go around Surfers Paradise area, you might bump into a jolly, noisy, cheery bunch of Hare Krishna devotees. One of them might come up to you, greet you with ‘Hare Krishna’, and say: “We’re just trying to spread some positive energy here.” He would be Jivananda Dasa, formerly Jan Lacko, an East European who turned to Hinduism 15 years ago.

There’s already a lot of energy at Paradise, which is known for food, drink, dancing and partying on the beach. But it’s not the sort of energy Jivananda Dasa approves off. “I’ve been a celibate sadhu for 15 years,” he says, and displaying spiritual books in several languages, adds: “I’ve been going around in different places, trying to show the people the path to goodness.”

True Savior

We also encounter a Korean Christian missionary at Surfers Paradise. “Are you a Christian yet?” he asks in soft tones. I had to break the sad news to him that I’m an atheist. He’s cheered by this bad news. It’s clear that despite living in Australia for 30-plus years, his English is quite modest. But he tries his best to convince you that there’s only one true Son of God, and He would Save Humanity. He says that the end of the world may not be too far, and it’s time to do some post-death planning. That’s an idea.

Iago

Iago has been forced to the street, to drive a manual cycle-rickshaw after the Greek restaurant he worked at sacked him. He says the restaurant had hired a lot of staff, anticipating a boom in tourism during CWG. But no one came. Iago looks totally Indian — we’ve all seen someone like him in India, north or south, east or west. But he insists that he’s Brazilian. Outside of Shakespeare’s Othello, this is the first Iago we’ve met. He says he’s aware that a man with his name has featured in a famous book. He also says that his sister looks even more Indian than him.

Who’s Indian?

My colleague, who’s from the Northeast, was sledged by a woman on the tram. “You don’t look Indian,” she told him. We had to explain to her that there exist Indians of different colours, facial features, customs and beliefs. We returned her sledge: “You too don’t look Australian!” “Oh, I’m originally from Philippines,” she said, laughing.