Beer, nationalism, sponsorship dollars and a Muslim refugee. A microcosm of modern sport. If you haven't already heard, David Campese and Doug Walters, two intellectual giants of Australian sport, have extended a stinging welcome to Fawad Ahmed, the nation's latest spin-bowling heir apparent to Shane Warne

There is something wonderful in the way Twitter allows people to continue to express their true ignorance long after all other avenues have been shut down. Campese used to write a regular column for The Roar, a popular sports opinion site that I also contribute regular columns to.

In November last year, Campese tweeted a sexist jibe directed at the Sydney Morning Herald's Georgina Robinson. A very predictable slanging match between the righteous indignant and the anti-PC brigade followed. Campese went on to explain that "his wording wasn't the greatest" and that "people get offended by these things." When it comes to lame apologies, old Campo is truly the Larry David of our times, but without the wit. He hasn't written for The Roar since.

Almost a year on, it seems the finer points of bigotry still haven't been explained to the former Wallaby winger. It all started when Walters, the drinking man's drinker, decided that if Pakistan-born Ahmed doesn't want to wear alcohol sponsorship on his shirt, "he should not be part of the team." At the very least Walters said, he shouldn't get paid if he doesn't want to be a walking billboard for Carlton and United Breweries.

Despite the fact that Campese had run afoul of Twitter before, he didn't hesitate to tweet his approval for Walters. "Tell him to go home" Campese said, "Doug is right, go back where you came from." There's nothing new about this kind of backhanded parochialism. With all these sportsmen and women floating around the political classes, surely it's not too late for Campese's preselection in a Coalition safe seat? Actually, seeing as the ALP has been politically 'Zoolandered' on refugee policy, you might even be able to squeeze him into Australia's most gutless party.

You've got to feel for Ahmed. As one of the few Muslims in Australia's Anglo-wonderland cricket team, he certainly sticks out. The fact that he had protection visas and citizenship papers fast tracked by successive foreign ministers was agonised over by many, who felt his advantage a touch unfair considering the current political attitude towards refugees.

Perhaps there is some truth to that argument, but it shouldn't make us any less welcoming to Ahmed. I hear fleeing persecution isn't much fun, and where you can catch a break, the world's refugee crisis isn't really at the front of your mind. It's not Ahmed's cross to bear that half of Syria wants a new home, or UN refugee camps in the Horn of Africa have become permanent settlements.

While Australians aren't big on newly arrived brown people, we also have a nasty Good Samaritan complex about us. When a refugee gets a bit angry at being locked behind barbed wire in Nauru or Villawood, we wonder why they aren't more appreciative of their overcrowded, privatised prisons and squat beds.

Or in this case, when Ahmed respectfully declines to wear an alcohol sponsorship on his kit because it fundamentally contradicts his deeply held religious beliefs, there will always be those who want to pull out the "love it or leave it" bumper sticker.

Speaking of bumper stickers, I saw a wonderfully existential bonnet badge on one of my regular Sunday drives through Western Sydney the other week. Stopping at the traffic lights on Elizabeth Drive in Fairfield, a large four wheel drive sidled up next to me. Scrawled on the back windscreen read the slogan "fit in or fuck off!" Fit in? That could mean a whole lot of different things to different people, even those who claim lineage to the first fleet. Perhaps it was simply a Foucauldian comment on the state of all existence?

Campese was more straightforward, and we look forward to his next half-baked apology. While he's at it, someone should ask him to explain why sportsmen need express their loyalty to sponsors as well as the nation. If we pride ourselves on being a free country that stands by those with personal conviction, Ahmed should be praised, not scorned, for his decision.

