Riddle me this: If you’re an athlete of such excellence that you’ve been picked to represent this glorious country, and then for whatever reason are observed to have refrained from singing Advance Australia Fair , were you ever really fit to display the Coat of Arms in the first place?
asserted
you → riddle → place
At the Rugby League World Cup, the Fiji Bati’s pre-match performance before their opening game – an a cappella hymn, then their anthem – combined soaring vocal harmonies with a raw display of faith and national pride.
asserted
performance → combine → faith
Fijian players are getting paid ashtray change to represent their country in the tournament.
asserted
players → pay → tournament
By contrast, the Australian squad is trousering $40,000 per man.
asserted
squad → trousere → man
But when the national anthem rang out before the Kangaroos’ opening match and the TV camera panned along the line of players, Latrell Mitchell, Bradman Best and Keaon Koloamatangi appeared not to be singing.
asserted
Mitchell → ring → players
The next night, footage circulated of several Jillaroos players apparently doing the same before their match against Samoa.
asserted
players → circulate → Samoa
Which prompted tired rhetoric about disrespect, disgrace, and the players fingered as unfit to shoulder the green and gold.
asserted
Which → prompt → green
The anthem matters a great deal to a great many Australians, and nobody should sneer at those who are moved to tears by it.
asserted
who → matter → it
Reece Walsh appears to be a case in point.
asserted
Walsh → appear → point
But respecting the anthem has never required everyone to actually sing it.
asserted
respecting → respect → it
The demand that players sing, and be seen to be singing, gets the law wrong.
asserted
law → sing → ?
It gets the players wrong, too.
asserted
players → get → ?
The Governor-General’s 1984 proclamation declares what the national anthem is, and nothing much else.
asserted
anthem → declare → ?
You don’t have to sing it.
asserted
You → have → it
If singing is to be demanded as a condition of representing Australia, who audits the players’ efforts?
asserted
who → demand → efforts
What if the words are mouthed rather than sung?
asserted
words → mouth → ?
Jehovah’s Witnesses abstain, as an article of faith, from singing anthems and participating in nationalistic ceremonies; what to do about any player of that faith?
asserted
Witnesses → abstain → faith
That’s religious discrimination.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
The Fair Work Act prohibits adverse action against an employee because of race, religion or political opinion, among other attributes.
asserted
Act → prohibit → attributes
And the exemption for a role’s inherent requirements wouldn’t assist, because singing isn’t an inherent requirement of playing rugby league.
asserted
singing → assist → league
Any selection rule mandating anthem singing would fall hardest on Indigenous players, and would also have to survive the Racial Discrimination Act challenges that would inevitably follow.
asserted
that → mandate → challenges
Which feeds the subtext of this confected outrage.
asserted
Which → feed → outrage
Because Latrell Mitchell is in the frame, the inference drawn – loudly by some; more slyly by others – is that this is Indigenous protest dressed up as stage fright.
asserted
this → draw → fright
In 2019 Mitchell, together with others, declined to sing the anthem before the first State of Origin match in Brisbane.
asserted
Mitchell → decline → Brisbane
In 2023, on the night the Voice referendum result came through, Selwyn Cobbo and several others copped the same treatment before a Kangaroos Test in Townsville.
asserted
Cobbo → come → Townsville
Seems to me that’s a political opinion, sincerely held and quietly expressed.
asserted
that → seem → me
Holding it isn’t disloyalty per se.
asserted
Holding → hold → it
Last time I checked, we hadn’t legislated against it.
asserted
we → check → it
But last week’s camera caught a cross-section of the squad, not a bloc.
asserted
camera → catch → squad
Silence has many explanations, not that any is required – conviction, nerves, concentration or a second line changed in 2021 that plenty of Australians still mess up.
asserted
plenty → have → Australians
The weaponising lies in reducing all of these to a single motive, and then branding it seditious.
asserted
it → lie → motive
Elsewhere, this argument was settled decades ago.
asserted
argument → settle → ?
In 1943, the United States Supreme Court – the one Donald Trump has done his level best to stack with conservative judges, who still routinely rule against him – struck down a rule compelling schoolchildren (Jehovah’s Witnesses, as it happened) to salute the flag.
asserted
it → do → flag
One justice wrote that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics or nationalism.
asserted
what → write → politics
Even the NFL, at the height of the Colin Kaepernick protests and with President Trump urging owners to sack any player who knelt, went no further in May 2018 than requiring players on the field to stand.
uncertain
who → urge → field
The policy was suspended within two months, after the players’ union filed a grievance; by 2020 commissioner Roger Goodell was conceding the league had been wrong not to listen to its players.
asserted
league → suspend → players
In France, in 2013 the National Front demanded Karim Benzema be dropped after he admitted he didn’t sing La Marseillaise.
asserted
he → demand → Marseillaise
Benzema replied that playing for France was a dream, and pointed out that Zinedine Zidane hadn’t always sung it, either.
asserted
Zidane → reply → it
Zidane scored twice in the 1998 World Cup final.
asserted
Zidane → score → final
Nobody in Paris seemed perturbed.
asserted
Nobody → seem → Paris
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
