Can this be fair?

My friends and I have waited for months to play our first game of this year’s competition. We know that it will be a challenge but we have worked hard during the off-season and we think we are ready.

Just before we are to run onto the field we are full of nervous excitement. This is the moment the whole team has been waiting for. We were ready to put all our skills and talents together for the benefit of the team. We were ready to pit ourselves against whatever the opposition threw at us.

We ran to the centre of the field and stood confidently, offering words of encouragement to one another. It was only then that we noticed the opposition. They looked huge. How could they be at the same level as us, we wondered? Nevertheless, we were determined to do our best no matter what.

The opposition looked very relaxed. They didn’t seem as fit as us. Maybe they hadn’t been training that much during the off-season.

One thing I noticed was that they seemed to be quite friendly with the referee. I was sure, however, that the ref would make sure that the game was played in the right spirit. We were anxious to get started, so we got together as a team for a motivational few words from the captain. We were ready to give it our best.

From the outset the game went badly for us. Every time we got ourselves into a position to score, the referee would blow the whistle and hand over the ball to our opponents. We weren’t even sure why we were being penalised half of the time. It was almost as if the referee was deliberately favouring our opposition. How could this be happening? No matter how hard we tried, it all came to nothing. We kept on trying but became more and more discouraged and disappointed. We were hoping that the final whistle would come soon. Eventually the game was over. We had lost out badly.

We had been taught to be good sports and not to complain when we lost but it just seemed to be so unfair. A few of us plucked up the courage to speak to the referee after the game. We respectfully asked about the rules and why they only seemed to apply to us. We also wanted to know how we should go about getting a fair go. The referee was not that interested in talking to us. He seemed to barely notice us. He simply turned his back on us and went to talk to the other team. They seemed to be indifferent to us. They were winning and apparently that was all that mattered.

I went to talk to the opposing captain and asked whether their team had noticed that the rules and the referee seemed to be biased in their favour. The captain shrugged her shoulders. I could tell that she knew what I was talking about. I pressed her and asked her why her team didn’t say something to the referee about the obvious unfairness. She shrugged her shoulders again and said, “Why would we? We won, didn’t we?”

How many of us would speak out about unfair rules when those rules favour us? How many complaints are made about bad decisions by referees when those bad decisions advantage our team? Perhaps we are too busy congratulating ourselves for our own good luck. But is it fair? Of course not, but we convince ourselves that we deserve our good fortune. It is so much more difficult to complain about unfairness when fairness may result in us not “winning” so often.

In so many ways this story represents the way that our world is. While the government congratulates itself on Australia’s prosperity, it only allocates $150 dollars per Australian per year in overseas aid. This is less than half the amount we promised to give in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Do we really want things to change? Or are we content to see a huge number of the world’s people coming a distant second?

Are we ready to accept that millions of people will die and their children orphaned just because they cannot afford the medication that will keep them healthy? Are we ready to accept that an Indigenous person will live 17 years less than a non-Indigenous person? Are we ready to accept that annual world spending on the military is US$1,059 billion, more than 15 times the total spent on international aid? Are we ready to accept that about 15% of the world’s people own 85% of the wealth? Or that the average member of the richest 10% is 3,000 times richer than the average member of the poorest 10%? Will we complain? Do we want the rules to change? Will we stand up and demand a fair go for all?

Caritas Australia will launch its annual Project Compassion appeal on Ash Wednesday February 21. This year’s schools theme is Fair Play Today. It opens up the possibility of a fairer, more just world. But we need to act, to speak up, to challenge the injustice and to help ensure that everyone has a fair go as well as a fair share.

“No nation may dare to hoard its riches for its own use alone.”
Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio – On the Development of Peoples, 1967