Cricket For Peace

Its taken me a while to write this post as I am also busy writing a paper on cricket and Indian national consciousness….

Anyway enough excuses.

In India in the run-up to the world cup final there was talk that the LTTE would hold off any strikes on Sri Lankan targets as Team Sri Lanka had a chance to win the cup.  Former PM Ranil Wickremesinghe even went as far as to suggest that ‘if the country emulates the men in [dark] blue [and yellow - so as to distinguish from the India's 'Men in Blue], terrorism will be wiped out.’

The Sri Lankan team has a Tamil – in the form of spin genius Murali – and a Muslim – Maharoof.  So is cricket a unifying factor in Sri Lanka?

Sadly it seems not.  Not only did the new branch of the LTTE – the Flying Tigers – launch a daring raid in their new airplanes over the capital of Colombo (power to the city was cut part way through the match in order to prevent the Flying Tigers from reaching their targets) but apparently many older Tamils support India, or in the recent world cup final Australia, rather than Sri Lanka.  However it has been argued that the younger Sri Lankan Tamils do support their national team so maybe gradually cricket can do its bit at uniting this beautiful, fractured island?

Articles in Indian newspapers have agreed with this claim that Tamils support anyone rather than Sri Lanka. One Sri Lankan newspaper editor claimed that ‘The older generations have been through 20 years of ethnic conflict and see everything through that prism.  Though they have no liking for Australia, they would not mind [them] beating Sri Lanka.’   However he also contradicted himself further in the interview when talking about support for the SL team among Tiger cadres and pro-LTTE Tamils by saying ‘cricket and politics are separate.  This is a small island and Tamils see themselves as Sri Lankan in many contexts…’

Its hard to understand how both statements can be said by one person but my experience researching cricket and nationalism has brought me to the conclusion that contradictory emotions can be held by the same person quite easily.  For example it seems quite possible to support Sri Lanka on one day and then India the next just as British Asians can support India or Pakistan in cricket and England in football.  It seems to me that even when fighting for the right for self determination, when it comes to sport supporters can be quite fickle.

I’d love to hear from others out there what they think of these ideas…..  Let me know!  Thanks.