‘Racism’ we should prefer over politics and sports
View(s):Sometimes, when an island-nation we know of wins at cricket or another international sport, some of us think that cricket or that other sport is our national religion. We pray for good weather and other clement conditions. We fast from mandatory work and otherstipulated responsibilities to go for games wherever possible or simply watch from the shrine room where the television is located. We worship the demigods who bring fame and fortune to our name. Every time we win a world cup – or even get into the semi-finals – we dream (at least those idealists among us) that cricket can unite us as never before and as nothing else can quite do.
And then our dreams get trodden on.
Other times, when the same blessed isle wins big – or thinks it does – or the majority now thinks it did – at a certain political, social, cultural, or military event, many if not most of us think that politics (or café society, or our ancient civilization, or the powers that be) is God and King in one. We ritualistically fete the warriors of Valhalla who brought us victory or sycophantically fawn at the feet of the glorious rulers who sued for war and called it a peace. All those times when the majority or mobile vulgus or common or garden mob feast in memory of re-established sovereignty, territorial integrity, and other mantras, we hope (at least the realists and the pragmatists among us) that cricket – or culture – or civilization – or zero-casualty blitzkriegs – can bring us peace with justice as nothing has ever done or is likely to do.
But then our hopes are dashed and smashed to smithereens.
I’ll tell you why. It’s because political enterprises and sporting endeavours alike are false gods. They promise what they cannot deliver. They often appear to promise what they cannot ever hope or dream of delivering. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof… and the forked tail… and the trident-like red fork… and we’re back to demonizing sports and politics and their selected and elected and appointed representatives.
We’ll say that politics was once the grand Promethean ploy or deception. It was where our conquering heroes *insert the name of any big-time politician* stole fire from heaven for the sake of our otherwise forlorn humanity. In reality, we come to be cognisant soon enough that most politicos steal fuel from human hearths and set fire to our very Olympus with its (and their) borrowed glory.
We’ll feel that sport once was the great Dionysian game or diversion. It was when our boys brought a brief moment’s respite from all the crime, corruption, and cost-of-living dilemmas that generally bog us down and depress the natural psyche no end. But after the all-too short-lived catharsis of the night of the finals, we wake up to the grim quiddity of urban and suburban traffic to negotiate, queues that disintegrate like quantum theory, bad bosses and worse co-workers, local mafias to appease or avoid, and poor national manners all round to traduce or tolerate.
You’ll wonder where I’m going with all this… Here’s my thesis in a nutshell: Don’t count on cricket or trust politics to position us in our rightful place in the sun ever again. Rather turn to the only thing that stands a monsoon’s chance in May or June of lightening the load that our national rep and image and persona carries with it these days, like a chip on each well-balanced shoulder. Did I mention cricket and politics?
I’m making a case here (if your mind had wandered off the res) for the erstwhile motto of the tourism industry – or the would-be motto, if the business itself had any sense and self-will to get, have, and hold a single thought in its pretty head. The leisure and hospitality sector is divided – and has been divided customarily and traditionally – on its positioning statement for as long as one can remember, or cares to. But there’s one thing or stance that it has got right from virtually day-dot. Namely, that we are an island-race… and therein lies our strength, our salvation, and our sanctification in the eyes of today’s largely disapproving world-glance. (If it helps us as it has helped Bali, Singapore, or what on earth, even Australia, that’s a bonus.)
What I – and they: tourism’s Epimethean stakeholders – mean is this… That if we are to succeed in restoring our beloved island to any semblance or degree of normalcy (over mere fervent or feverish propaganda or misplaced national feeling), we must all embrace the island-mentality. And I claim that this mentality comes in and as a form of racism. Not jingoism, chauvinism, patriotism, nationalism, or any other ism. But simply island-racism. Where our virtues are universal friendship, particular hospitality, a peculiar charm and lightness of being that defies rational definition. Where our vices are at most forgetfulness, latitude, tardiness.
Here, at last, is a candle in the dark to light rather than curse the darkness or a straw to clutch at in the stream of global unconsciousness. You might come to consider and appreciate the fact that it beats cavalier cricket or ephemeral politics any day. It is our hope, our dream, our last chance of becoming a world-beating, rightful-place taking, nation once again. Grasp it, and don’t let it go. Start today. Start by being a Sri Lankan who cares about being helpful and useful. Not helpless, for a change – and dependent on handouts, Pyrrhic victories, or match-fixing reassurances to bolster the national imagination and sense of well-being. Not intolerant of difference, but encouraging – even celebrating – variety and dissent. We are an island (like Britain with its Picts, Scots, Celts, Gaels, Welsh, Romans, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, Normans, Dutch, Germans, and Commonwealth colonials), and a race. A beautiful hybrid, if only we would stop mistaking uniformity for unity.
It’s the (aspirational) new national identity we could all be dreaming of and hoping for – if only we weren’t so obsessed by crummy politics and dullened by soporific cricket.