Iraq has won the first international football match in the country since the US-led invasion in 2003, beating Palestine 3-0 in a friendly. Both countries, stricken by war and death, took time out from lives that involve phosphorus burns and suicide bombers, to play the game, simultaneously putting into perspective what sport is really about, and showing the true power of chasing a bit of material around a piece of grass.
Last month, as bombs dropped, car bombs rattled resolve and the Taliban slowly under cut more than half a century of foundations, eleven men playing a game gave the Pakistani people something to smile about. The victory of Pakistan over another war-torn country, Sri Lanka, in the World 20/20 Cricket championships saw Shahid Afridi take the match in his hand and bring home joy to millions of Pakistanis in an otherwise bloody week for the ravaged nation. From The Swat Valley to Karachi, if their homes have not been blown away by bombs, and their electricity remained, they would have seen their cricket team take on the world and win in the new, most exciting form of one of the few, true global sports.
Sport is a bizarre thing, the repercussions of what occurs on a stretch of grass can echo for decades, and the true meaning of sport can so often be lost in a sea of misdirected testosterone and sentiment. Throughout history, politics has spilled onto the sports field and usually for the worst reasons.
In 1956, the Olympic Games saw a game of Water Polo between Hungary and the USSR become known as ‘The blood in the water match’. The Hungarian uprising of 1956 had seen the suppression of the people of Budapest by their rulers in Moscow. As tanks rolled into the Hungarian capital just months before the Melbourne games, the Water Polo team watched from the surrounding hills in their training camp as smoke rose from the embattled city.
The match was played in a pool in Melbourne, a long way from home and the Hungarians did not play for themselves; they played for a country ravaged by a fierce crack down. The indelible image of Ervin Zador leaving the water during the match with blood smeared across his face after a series of brawls and kicks in a match of a generally pleasant game such as Water Polo, was one of the more celebrated examples of sport and politics mixing into something ugly and something to question.
When Apartheid stripped South Africa of its international sporting prowess, a country so similar to Australia in the massive role sport plays in its society, became a proud sporting nation isolated from the rest of the sporting world because of their racist and deplorable political policies.
Sport will never be far from politics. In more recent years, cricket series between India and Pakistan have been played on neutral soil as the battle for Kashmir flares. While this continues to rage, the actions of the Pakistani side in London will mean so much more to a nation desperately begging for some good news. In essence, cricket wanted and needed Pakistan to win as much as they did themselves.
The last few years have been a torrid time for Pakistan, the death of political figureheads and thousands of civilians in a somewhat meaningless tryst with a Sharia law-pushing Taliban force in the North West and the destabilisation of the seemingly corrupt and murderous Musharraf regime, culminated with the Sri Lankan cricket team being attacked earlier this year by a group of insurgents as they headed to a match. As the Sri Lankan side was airlifted out by helicopters, hope for a brighter future could have gone with them; Pakistan were in a dark place.
In the shortest of crickets World Championships, the big guns fell away within a few days. Sides like Australia, India and South Africa left Pakistan to peak at the right time. The courage and determination of a side so often criticised for their throwaway attitude to the game valued every run and every wicket.
With this victory, a nation ravaged by war, famine, terrorism and the fear of so much more happening in the years to come, were momentarily free from woe and struggle. Whilst it is merely a game of sport, the celebrations will last and they will spur the people of Pakistan to continue their plight against the evils that attempt to abduct things such as sport from their national identity.
Whilst sport and politics have so often left us questioning why we play games for such high stakes, for Pakistan, the actions of their men at the home of cricket, thousands of miles away in London, proved that it was quite simply more than just a game.
This article was first published on news site, Debaser Online, on June 22nd 2009. You can find it in its original form here.
Top image by Stevec77 on Flickr
Middle image by Aaron Bassett on Flickr
Bottom image by Aidan Joneson Flickr
Will try to keep a clean sheet and stay on the topic but one thing I could not get out of the article was ‘Why?’.
Why is sport more than a game? Can’t it just remain within the bounds of simply being a ‘game’ and not erode its importance?
There are some awesome examples in the article, some of which are well known and some not so. I personally have always enjoyed the idea of watching ‘games’ of bat and ball on a cricket pitch.
What is it that draws our attention to see two opposing figures playing a game individually or as a team?
Why have the UN identified the need to ‘play games’ as a fundamental right of a child? The idea of ‘playing’ almost has a human like quality embedded in it but thats not exclusive humans since such exhibitions of ‘playing games’ are prevalent in the animal kingdom as well.
I don’t agree that sport is more than just a game simply because it can be politicized. I think the idea of ‘games’ is important in its own right. Everything else, including sport, is derived from it.