Then came the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics and the sight of a slim aborigine girl walking on water to light the Olympic flame. Until now kangaroos and koalas were the icons of Australia, nothing was ever said about the black fellow,'' said Gregory Young, a half blood activist who goes by the aboriginal name of Eardrum because he is a good listener. People like Young remain skeptical Freeman's torch will light a new era for aborigines. Australia's Olympic gesture of reconciliation has not swayed Victoria Park where elders such as Kevin Buzzacott says Australian Prime Minister John Howard should be speared in the neck, like a kangaroo in the old days. Howard has adamantly refused to apologize for the thousands of children taken from aboriginal parents until the 1970s with the excuse of giving them a white education.
Thousands are still homeless.
At night they stoke the log fire at Victoria Park. That was long before Captain James Cook took possession of the vast continent in the name of the British Crown. But most of all they want to be recognized as equals and not the quaint relics of a dying race of 430,000 people, leftovers from the more than two million healthy nomads that roamed Australia before Cook's arrival in 1770. We don't wear grass skirts anymore. Look at me.