Vasana’s Views

It’s not cricket

Sanjana Hattotuwa in latest issue of Groundviews critiques the differences between the media coverage on the attack on the cricket team and the coverage on the humanitarian situation in the Wanni in It’s not cricket:

“…there was no shortage of genuine concern for the safety and security of our cricketers. The outrageous attack on our cricketer team usurped vestigial local media coverage of the humanitarian crises in the Vanni. Instead we now consume penetrating analysis of the future of cricket in Pakistan, insights into the nature of injuries sustained by players and replays of tearful reunions at the airport. Perhaps life imitates art - anyone who has read David Blacker’s A Cause Untrue will also recognise the familiarity of some of the theories bandied around now suggesting the LTTE’s involvement in the attack. A President who cut short a foreign tour, a Foreign Minister who rushed to the scene of violence, and a Media Minister who wants the international community to sign a treaty on the prevention of terrorism with special emphasis on the safety of sportsmen and sportswomen. Some media have even gone as far as to draw parallels between this attack and the infamous Munich Olympics. Cricket is our opium, and we are intoxicated.

Is there some way we can channel at least a bit of this concern towards the situation in the Vanni? Are we so inured, misled or confident that killing a Tamil children, women and men is inevitable or even necessary to decisively end the war against a larger enemy? Is this not the same perverse logic the LTTE employs, to date, and with disastrous consequences? In a bid to secure peace, must we become in form and action that which we revile in order to defeat it? And if we must become less than democratic in our response to terrorism, what guarantee is there of democracy’s quick and full restoration after war?…”

Read the full article here