Sunday Times 2
The unsung heroes of Lanka?
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‘Apey kollo’ and Apey Kello’ truly deserved the rousing welcome accorded on arrival home after they became Asian champs in cricket and Asian champs in netball. It was sheer joy for the starving bankrupted nation to see our cricketers, who trounced India, the big brother who keeps claiming that they are world champs, and also Pakistan that triumphed over India, riding double-decker buses from the Katunayake Airport to Colombo to the cheering multitudes.
It was of much satisfaction to this columnist who has been a city slicker to see a team comprising more than 90 percent humble unsophisticated village boys perform this cricketing feat.
Success has many fathers: Sri Lanka's Asian champs on a victory parade from the airport. Pix by Indika Handuwala
But while celebrating this joyous occasion, the cricketing public was gently reminded by two unsung heroes, Sports State Minister Rohana Dissanayake and former Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa that each of them individually had contributed to the outcome. Dissanayake, quite new to the Sports portfolio, had spoken of the encouragement and assistance he had rendered to the two teams. Namal Rajapaksa, the acknowledged crown prince of the Rajapaksa family and former Sports Minister was more definite about his claims to the press for the victory. He said he had been criticised when Sri Lanka was losing games, for bringing in a new captain, teammates and when fitness was made mandatory. “I tried to bring sports up and not to build myself. It does not matter who is the minister of sports and that there will be more victories if they don’t interfere with the system.”
So, according to him, it is the system that he put in place that is working, and, therefore, there should be no interference with it.
According to our understanding of Rajapaksa’s statement, he has put an eternally successful system in place by his interference and that hereafter there should be no interference with his system if success is to be achieved.
We wonder if this principle of noninterference with sportspersons by administrators is a Namal Rajapaksa contribution to the world of sports or an old axiom that has been considered an ideal that should be upheld by sports bodies around the world.
Administrators interfering with sportspersons, we think, is not desirable because personal interests come into play. Would politicians blessed with powers of sports legislation and with political interests of self, party and constituency be better? When Rajapaksa declares that the system he has put into place should not be interfered with, it is relevant to consider his political future. Probably he hopes for a Rajapaksa family comeback and for him to be a sports minister again or hold a much more powerful portfolio that would enable him to advise the sports minister. In such a likely or unlikely eventuality, would he interfere if officials violate the principle of noninterference with players?
Namal Rajapaksa is known for having captained his school at rugger but, as a sports minister, it would be impossible for him to be as familiar or knowledgeable in many other sports such as cricket and certainly not netball. Sri Lanka’s cabinet system of government, despite having an ever-expanding number of ministers, deputy ministers and ministers of state, cannot have a specific minister for very special subjects. Thus a Minister of Sports cannot be a specialist in every sport he would be responsible for. At times it has been found that a non-specialist would handle a portfolio better than a specialist such as a doctor to run the Health Ministry. Thus a sports minister has to be flexible in controlling sports, at which he may not be an expert and delegate powers even though he may have sports in his blood.
Following victories with cricket and netball, the talk is now to ‘improve sports’ despite all-round malnutrition and inflation. But more important will be the inculcation of the spirit of sports into young minds rather than annual bloody clashes in much-celebrated sporting events of reputed schools. The spirit of commercialism has overtaken the spirit of competition where a rugby or cricket coach of a reputed school can demand a higher salary than that drawn by the head of the school. Emil Zatopek, the legendary middle-distance runner of Czechoslovakia of the sixties is known for his saying: An athlete should run with hope in his heart and not dollars in his pocket. Those are times that we can only be nostalgic about today and never be brought back again.
Can the victory in Asian cricket assure us that the game is on a stable footing with an infallible system in place? With moneybags running clubs and being elected as officials and they, in turn, elect the national administrators of the game, can there be a guarantee of fair play and justice to players? Can the Sports Laws uphold the Namal Rajapaksa principle of noninterference by officials with players?
The Sports Laws are full of holes just as much as the Sri Lanka constitution is that enables a non-elected politician to be an all-powerful executive president.
Besides can any constitution withstand the ravages brought about by the core group of politicians who get elected and get thrown out but keep coming back despite and with the help of the many constitutional amendments?
An octogenarian ruminates: There is no cure. The rich get richer and the poor poorer, women young and younger. Observe any wedding or social function: Can you spot a woman with a single strand of grey hair? The men are mostly grey with grey beards and grey hair or shining bald pates. Only one or two old men with jet black mustachios and thinning black hair. Such is Samsara.
(The writer is a former editor of
The Sunday Island, The Island and
consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)