SYDNEY -- On its way from Greece to the Sydney Olympics 2000, the Olympic flame this week passed by Uluru, a huge rock rearing up out of the vast emptiness of the "dead heart" of Australia. Watching it were Aborigines, this country's inhabitants for the past 50,000 years, to whom Uluru is sacred.
The first televised images of the upcoming Olympic ceremonies -- and, for most of the world, of the Aborigines -- featured Australia's only indigenous Olympic gold medalist, sprinter Nova Peris-Kneebone, carrying the torch past the spectacular monolith.
But the thousands of visitors coming for the big international event in September will see few Aborigines. In fact, few of the general community here ever see the 386,000 indigenes, let alone meet and talk with them. Largely outback dwellers, they may as well be invisible.