"What do you think of us?" Australia asks. "What do you think of us now?"
Australia opened its Olympic Games yesterday with a proud celebration of itself. The Games are about athletes and medals and records, but this time they are also about Australia; a people flexing their nationhood, shedding their cultural cringe, celebrating the newness of their pride. It was wonderful and a little moving to watch the process.
Last night's opening of the Sydney Olympic Games saw the climax of a phenomenon about which Australians are defiantly unabashed. They have become a weeping nation: every symbol of national pride, every glimpse of the Southern Cross brings forth more proud tears. It was a night which gave them much to be proud of. All cliches except the unavoidable cast of thousands were dispensed with as Stadium Australia, a fabulous piece of invention itself, was transformed into a theatre stage.
The track and the infield were covered over to represent the ochre interior of this vast, almost empty continent. What followed was a dance and a history lesson, with outbreaks of humour in an event which usually takes itself too seriously and treats sport and patriotism too mawkishly.
The show was a history of Australia, a celebration of a nation's past as it crosses the cusp into maturity. It went from the ocean through aboriginal paradise, to the arriving migrants on steam ships from the old world. The show began with horses and continued with flying fish, singing tomatoes and bicycling kangaroos. The man from Snowy River was there, Matilda waltzed her socks off, hundreds of Ned Kellys and a couple of Captain Cooks traipsed through. Perhaps every living aboriginal danced.
Not many convicts showed up but the evening was as camp as Mardi Gras, as colourful as the best sunset. Half daft, half ironic, all fun. It ended with flame and fireworks.
When the pageantry subsided, the old traditions reasserted themselves. Athletes from the 199 competing nations marched team by team into the stadium. Ireland's contingent was led by the State's best medal hope, Sonia O'Sullivan, who carried the flag.
The night was Australia's, though. The Olympic torch arrived here 100 days ago and has been passed through 11,000 pairs of hands since to become a symbol of national connection. The question of who would be picked to light the cauldron inside the stadium has engaged the nation for weeks, with everybody from cricketer Don Bradman to Nelson Mandela being mooted.
Last night, the torch entered the stadium carried on its final stages by six female Australian sports champions, including Betty Cuthbert, now confined to a wheelchair. The others were Raelene Boyle, Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser, Debbie FlintoffKing, and Shirley Strickland de la Hunty. Finally, the flame was passed to the woman who has already become the icon of these nascent Games: Cathy Freeman.
With 3.5 billion people watching worldwide, Freeman - an aboriginal athlete and former partner of Nick Bideau (the current partner of Sonia O'Sullivan) - paddled into a large pool at the bottom of a long cascade and lit a ring of fire, which encompassed her. The ring rose into the air like a flying saucer, symbolising apparently the island of Australia and its burning centre. Whatever. It looked wonderful.