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Concentration camps taught Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference. The two hottest topics in NSW sport this week are rooted in indifference.
Last weekend, David Pocock called another player out for using homophobic slurs, while Phil Gould announced that adults’ antisocial, abusive sideline behaviour meant that there would be security at his club’s junior games this season.
For his conviction, Pocock was called a hero, told to stick to his knitting and everything in between. Gould has been better supported for taking action to preserve the values of the game he loves.
This is not about whether either of them is right or not; the point is that they’re not indifferent to the minority who hurt their codes.
Pocock first. Rugby has an explicit ethical commitment to making homophobia unacceptable. Protecting the shared values of the game he loves by exposing players who don’t walk the talk is as reasonable as calling for dangerous play to be penalised, it’s just a different set of agreed behaviours.
Homophobia is not an abstract notion pushed by the PC crowd. Homosexual intercourse was decriminalised in NSW in 1984, and homophobia is decreasing, but just being homosexual poses real danger to the 3 to 5per cent of people who are.
Between 1989 and 1999, it is estimated that around 50 men died in gay hate murders in NSW alone. Homosexual men and women experience abuse and harassment – and at worst gay hate crimes – at far higher rates than the community at large.
If Pocock has the courage to reject indifference to homophobia, wherever, whenever, the only downside is that he’s seen as an exception.
Similarly, NSW has long had commitments – government and code sponsored – against antisocial behaviour at children’s sport. For many sports, keeping the sidelines decent is a failed attempt at preserving a reasonable, protective social norm.
This season, Gould has introduced security at selected Penrith District Junior Rugby League games as well as a mobile response team. It will cost Panthers an enormous amount of money that would be better spent on Gould’s other passion, junior development.
The need for security says more about the good but indifferent majority of parents than the small minority who are bullies and flaunt it. It is the indifferent majority who have stood by and let their kid’s sport be hijacked. Now money is being wasted on something that they could have managed themselves.
What people walk past is what they accept. It is no surprise that bullying is on the rise. The minority of children is learning bullying from their parents, while the majority see the adults who are meant to protect them stand by and let it happen.
Asking people to step up to the norm – and they know what it is, anyway – doesn’t have to be a confrontation. At a country rugby grand final last year, I ended up standing near a bunch of colts players. Well oiled by the time first grade started, they launched into a barrage of insults – “c****” and “poofter” being the favourites.
The loudest one filled non-play time recounting details of the latest pornos he’d watched (c***s aren’t all bad.) To give him credit, when I asked him to ease up, he did it in good cheer.
Right in earshot, the leaders of his club stayed silent and indifferent.
The good, silent majority is being bullied out of all sorts of shared spaces because, like it or not, indifference equals acceptance.
Indifference is as corrosive as hate. Good on Pocock and Gould for having the courage to stand for something. Pity that they’re the minority.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.