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You can’t help but laugh at the likes of regressive dinosaurs Doug Walters and David Campese.
It’s not so much that they are unable to look beyond their blinkered view of the world, it’s that they didn’t see this coming…
In case you missed it, a Pakistani refugee called Fawad Ahmed made his debut for Australia last week: First in two T20s against England, and then only two days ago playing his maiden ODI against Scotland.
Unfortunately Ahmed had the audacity to take to the field without the VB’s sponsor logo on his playing shirt – prompting a vicious backlash, and hateful rants filled with xenophobic contempt.
According to Walters and Campese, allegiance to your national team should be accompanied by allegiance to a corporate sponsor.
But why have they caused such a stink when a situation like this has just been waiting to occur?
The fact is that Ahmed is a Muslim, whose religious beliefs preclude him from either drinking or promoting alcohol.
Such a phenomenon is hardly new in world cricket. South Africa’s Hashim Amla regularly plays without the Castle Brewery logo on his shirt, while as far as back as 2005, during the ICC Super Test against Australia, Inzamam Ul-Haq refused to sport the Johnnie Walker logo on his shirt.
The Muslim cricketers in question have not tried to force their counterparts to follow suit. The fact Ahmed refuses to wear VB on his shirtfront does not prevent Michael Clarke from doing so.
But given the backlash, you would be forgiven for thinking that the loyalty of some Australians sits less with our new sporting representative and our team; but more with an alcohol company.
What do the sentiments of Walters, Campese and the many Australians who have lashed out at Ahmed say about us?
The main theme of Campese’s hate-filled rant, shared by many rabid bloggers, was to tell Ahmed to “go home”.
“Home” for Ahmed is Abbottabad, a small town famous for being the scene of Osama Bin Laden’s demise.
The man Campese demands “go home” is responsible for assisting Allied Forces in Pakistan against the Taliban and promoting girls’ education in his native region. As a direct consequence of this, his life was in danger, so he applied for refugee status in Australia, which is where his story begins in our country.
For the likes of Walters and Campese, it seems more important our cricketers show loyalty to the sponsor than showcase their own moral attitudes.
Our sponsor in this case is an alcohol company in a sport that regularly markets to children.
Putting aside the type of message this conveys, it surely stands to reason that any sensible person would side with a man standing up for his personal convictions, providing no one is a victim?
One can only hope that Walters, Campese and the bigoted readers and bloggers who share their view are a loud minority.
For Ahmed, his focus needs to be on taking wickets, snaring catches and scoring some handy runs – not on the bigotry that is still given prominence by a regressive few.
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