Talking During Welcome to Country is "Culturally Devastating"

Could someone tell Aunty Julie the World Cup is a sporting event, not a cultural sit in

Channel Seven has been slammed after commentators had the temerity to talk during a Welcome to Country ceremony broadcast before Australia’s opening FIFA World Cup match against Ireland.

Indigenous elder Julie Jones said it was “culturally devastating”.

I’m pretty sure that’s a way of saying “my feelings were hurt”, but with moral weight.

Julie explained that she had told the Jannawi Dance Clan dancers their three minute performance would be seen around the world.

And it was.

The problem, though, was TV hosts talked about football during the dance routine.

It’s almost like the sports commentators forgot that the month-long FIFA Women’s World Cup, featuring 32 nations, existed only as a prop to showcase a dozen women performing a three minute frolic.

A culturally devastated Julie accused the commentary team of …

“ … silence(ing) the voices and the storytelling of women that have been a part of the oldest living culture on the planet.”

So, if you don’t keep quiet during Welcome to Country you are “silencing the voices” of indigenous people? Really?

I fully expect that yawning during Welcome to Country will soon be a crime.

But it’s more serious than silencing voices since these “voices” are not just any voices. These voices are from the “oldest living culture on the planet”.

This is said in such a way that it assumes everyone must automatically be impressed, and become unquestioningly deferential.

You must respect Indigenous culture for being the oldest continual culture. No questions asked. But don’t think too hard about it. You must never, for instance, wonder why the oldest living culture never came up with the wheel. To ask that would be rude. Maybe even racist.

No, the “oldest culture” claim has been given mythical status where it is now routinely implied that Indigenous people are not just deserving of respect like everyone else; but they are deserving of more respect than anyone else.

Where Julie sees “women that have been a part of the oldest living culture on the planet, most of us just see a dozen lovely girls from Sydney. Whatever.

Julie continued …

“I kind of felt that they (Channel Seven) might do a better job, given the gravity and the weight of the event itself.”

See, here’s the thing Julie. A lot of people don’t feel any “gravity” or “weight” when being welcomed to their own country by a stranger in fur and feathers.

A lot of people just feel pissed off, to be honest. Welcome to Country is most unwelcome. It’s racist. It’s divisive. It’s often highly politicised. And it achieves nothing other guaranteeing income for the performers.

We don’t put up with it because we recognise the gravity. We put up with it because we’re polite.

Julie complained …

“It was culturally devastating because generally we take our responsibility and obligations not just to each other on Country, but to everyone on our Country seriously.”

A few commentators talking about football during the Welcome to Country at the football did not ‘devastate the culture’, unless Julie’s feelings and Indigenous culture are now one and the same. And to be honest, in this ‘I feel therefore I am’ world, it wouldn’t surprise to learn that that was the case.

But no. Indigenous culture was unaffected. A few woman who were excited about being on the tele were, however, a bit upset.

Hey, I know the feeling of disappointment when your bit on the Bolt Report gets cut short. Trust me, it happens all the time.

You get a bit sad for 2 seconds, and then you remember that it’s the Andrew Bolt Show, not the James Macpherson extravaganza; almost like it’s the FIFA World Cup, not the Welcome to Country royal gala performance, that people have tuned in to see.

No such perspective from Julie, though.

“I don’t know whether it was cultural ignorance or ego but for two minutes, the three presenters who were babbling on for the whole world cup commentary just couldn’t be respectful. We had a three minute ceremony to perform ... I don’t understand why it was hard to just be respectful.”

The ignorance is not on the part of Seven football commentators but on the part of Julie.

It might surprise Julie to learn that the FIFA World Cup is a sporting event, not a cultural sit in.

She’s not the main event. It’s not her right to be there. And most of us watching on TV went to make a cup of tea during the Welcome to Country so that we didn’t miss a second of the football which is what we had tuned in to watch.

But I bet no-one will be brave enough to tell Julie that.