MARCH 22 ― One of the claims most frequently made upon behalf of sport is that it is a force for good in the world, encouraging friendship and tolerance by crossing boundaries in the spirit of fair play.
No less an event than the Olympic Games, indeed, is based upon such lofty principles, with the five rings of the movement’s symbol purposely designed to represent the five continents of the Earth locked in an amicable embrace.
Sometimes it doesn’t quite work that way, with the most infamous example of sport’s ability to erect barriers between people as well as tearing them down coming in 1969, when El Salvador and Honduras waged a brief conflict known as “The Football War” after a World Cup qualifier between the two Central American countries resulted in rioting.
More recently, the behaviour of some PSV Eindhoven fans in Madrid last week, mocking beggars by throwing coins on the floor and forcing others to perform press-ups before giving them money, has certainly clouded the views of many Spanish people towards the Dutch, even though only a tiny fraction of the otherwise well behaved travelling PSV contingent was involved.
But the good outweighs the bad, with the positive impact that sport can make never more evident than last Wednesday, when India and Pakistan contested a cricket match in the T20 World Cup in Kolkata.
Of all the conflicts in the world, the rift between India and Pakistan is one of the most complex and mutually resentful, borne out of deep religious, historical, political, social and geographical divides.
Considering the intensity of the tensions between the two nations, which frequently overspill into deadly violence, and the fact that security issues make regular meetings impossible, any cricket match between India and Pakistan is a major, major deal, and last week’s game was expected to draw a television audience close to a staggering one billion viewers.
Let’s not overstate things: a sporting contest cannot solve the world’s problems and I am not suggesting that years of bitter hostility will now suddenly be brushed aside thanks to a few men throwing and hitting a small ball.
But every small thing in the furtherance of peace and understanding helps, and the sight of Pakistanis and Indians peaceably sharing the same playing field and abiding by the laws of a sport in a competitive yet respectful manner can only be a positive influence upon the relationship between the countries.
For millions upon millions of Indians and Pakistanis who have grown up being encouraged to perceive the “other side” as mortal enemies who should be distrusted and disregarded at all times, the fact that their national heroes can actually co-exist on the same patch of turf is not insignificant.
If they can live together on the sporting field, perhaps they can do the same in the political arena, and in the religious sphere, and in matters of trade and commerce. And if not, they certainly have one less excuse not to try.
This, more than its capacity to keep us entertained and provide a sense of tribal belonging, is professional spectator sport’s greatest ability and, I believe, answers a fundamental human need.
We are born with a burning desire to compete. That inherent sense of competition is evident in children, whose unawareness of social niceties allows them to give free rein to their tormented anguish whenever they lose. Find a child who has just lost a game and you will also find a screaming child ― we are programmed to not like losing.
The instinct to compete, overcome and dominate is natural, and being able to live with those urges peaceably is a skill we have to learn. Not everyone can learn it, and the most unpleasant manifestation of our desire to compete ― and its concurrent hostility to the “enemy” ― is found in the never-ending cycle of violent warfare which blights our planet.
Indeed, the fact that even now in the twenty first century, despite all the breath-taking advances we have made in understanding and manipulating our universe, we still just don’t seem to be able to stop ourselves from killing each other ― there can be no clearer sign that our species is blighted by an innate desire for tough and physical competition than that.
This is where sport comes in.
With its rules and its frameworks and its tournaments and all its ritualistic conventions, sport provides an outlet for all our testosterone-driven, chest-thumping, feather-ruffling, horns-locking demons to be driven. And it does so (in nearly all cases, although there are some sad exceptions) without anybody getting killed.
Rather than killing each other, invading each other’s land and stealing each other’s property, sport compels us to push, kick, hurl insults and do everything in our power to win, win, win…and then, with all those nasty things out of our system, it suggests that we should just shake hands and reflect that, after all, it was only a game.
Oh yes….Wednesday’s game. India won, overhauling Pakistan’s total of 118 with ease. But that wasn’t really the point ― the point was that they played at all.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
