Our proud cricketers make monkeys out of our leaders - Miranda Devine - Opinion

Our proud cricketers make monkeys out of our leaders - Miranda Devine - Opinion: "Our proud cricketers make monkeys out of our leaders


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Perhaps the PM and the GG were referring to past misdeeds but, coming so soon after the Australians had been so wronged over the Monkeygate saga, their comments were unjust, disloyal and downright unpatriotic. Not to mention unoriginal, piling onto the jihad launched by Sydney Morning Herald cricket commentator and one-time English county cricketer Peter Roebuck, who famously likened the world's best cricket team to "wild dogs" and called for Ricky Ponting's sacking.

Where is their defence of Andrew Symonds, our only black cricket player, who has been subjected to ongoing vile racial abuse from crowds in India and branded a "monkey"?

If it had been white Australians calling an Indian player a "monkey", making ape noises and tickling their armpits, imagine the opprobrium heaped on our team and nation.

Breast-beating would have ensued, John Howard blamed, and re-education programs launched.

It is the case that Judge John Hansen from the New Zealand International Cricket Council Appeals Commission last week found there was insufficient evidence to prove that Indian Test player Harbhajan Singh called Symonds, who is of Caribbean descent, a "big monkey" during the Australia-India Test match at the SCG last month.

But no matter how much garbage is spouted about Indian "monkey gods" and how "monkey" is a term of endearment in some parts of the world, everyone knows that calling a black person a monkey is a universal insult, meaning they have skipped the evolutionary process.

Judge Hansen didn't see it that way, saying in his judgment: "Even if [Harbhajan] had used the words alleged ["big monkey"] an ordinary person ... would not be offended or insulted or humiliated." Wrong. Or does racial vilification only count if it's from a white man?

Racism is racism. As Muhammad Ali said: "Hating people because of their colour is wrong. And it doesn't matter which colour does the hating. It's just plain wrong."

You just have to look at the photographs of the Mumbai spectators during the one-day series in India last October with hands in their armpits, lips arranged in simian pucker, their neighbours smirking, to know "monkey" was meant as a potent insult. Symonds knew and was hurt by it, said Ponting, though the last thing he wanted to do was make a fuss, saying he felt he was "in a situation not of my making".