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Journalism of Courage
For a country that has not yet fully recovered from the socio-economic ravages of the communist genocide of the 1970s, Cambodia exhibited its passion for the World Cup as exuberantly and excessively as any of the 32 nations participating in the month-long football fest that concludes in Berlin today.
Its Prime Minister Hun Sen had to publicly exhort his impoverished people not to sell their meager possessions 8212; cows, motorcycles, homes and land 8212; to place bets on the World Cup. 8220;Just bet verbally, for fun. Don8217;t sell your cows to bet on the games,8221; he told a gathering of villagers who, like me, and like millions of people on this planet, watched their favourite teams in action on television.
After all, Germany was the host nation, and the World Cup, along with its own young team8217;s gritty performance, was the greatest 8220;feelgood factor8221; that it has experienced since its reunification in 1990. One can also understand why feisty fans 8212; both men and women8212; from every other European nation descended in droves on the 12 German cities where matches were held. After all, they are affluent enough to pay for the fun, and combine pleasure with the patriotic duty of backing their home teams.
But why the poor farmer in Cambodia? Why the residents of Baghdad, who do not know where and when the next bomb will explode? Why the slumdweller in Mumbai, the migrant worker in Surat, and the students in troubled Srinagar?
I cannot recall any other time in the past when football got so much time and space in our media 8212; both English and non-English, both print and electronic.
So, was it all a media-created mania? That would be a misreading of the phenomenon. The media only fostered the phenomenon, whose roots lie elsewhere.
Where? In the needs, urges, possibilities, aspirations, and apprehensions engendered by the larger phenomenon called globalization. For the first time in known history, all the constituents of mankind are interacting with one another on a planet-wide scale 8212; through commerce, communication and recreation.
What was far has come near. What is foreign no longer seems as alien as it did earlier. Never before were we exposed to the limitless diversity of the human race, and also to its underlying unity, so effortlessly as we now are, with the TV or computer screen as our window to the world.
But it is also a scary world out there, with so much violence, so many minor and major conflicts, such an overload of unresolved problems, and so many uncertainties. Diversities, such as religious, racial and national, continue to remain sources of discord. In times like these, sport is one of those things that help us discover and experience our common humanity, transcending all the outward differences.
As an excellent UN report in 2003 Sport for Peace 038; Development points out, 8220;Sport is far more than a luxury or a form of entertainment. The potential links between sport and peace are powerful. From international events to the grassroots, sport brings people together in a way that can cross boundaries and break down barriers, making the playing field a simple and often apolitical site for initiating contact between antagonistic groups.8221;
World Cup 2006 proved this in humungous measure, both on and off the field. For example, its twin slogans 8212; Time to make Friends and Say No to Racism 8212; weren8217;t mere slogans. Football, more than anything else in the world, has erased, and is continuing to erase, racial barriers.
When France8217;s white-supremacist leader Le Pen complained that the French team had too many black players, pat came a stern but dignified response from Lilian Thurram, a player of Caribbean origin who incidentally has played the highest number of matches for France: 8220;Maybe Mr Le Pen hasn8217;t been told that some French people are black and others have got blond or brown hair.8221; The global media applauded.
World Cup 2006 was a grand celebration of nationalism soft, non-threatening and positive nationalism, multiculturism and internationalism. This spectacle holds great promise for the 21st century. Spectator sports, watched live by millions across the globe, is a uniquely late-20th century phenomenon. Technology has only provided the medium for it.
But the content is wrought by human excellence and emotions in the sports arena 8212; by the collusive contest between the foot and the ball, with the head and the goalkeeper8217;s hand also joining in sometimes. As we saw so often during this tournament, the best football is played when 22 feet and 11 heads move and dance as if they belong to one collective body, and are directed by one invisible goal-focused mind.
The magic of football is that, when the action is on, we are not neutral spectators. Involuntarily, we become participants. The passion travels instantly from the stadium to our drawing rooms because it brings with it some of the finest qualities that each one of us, knowingly or unknowingly, aspires to in ourselves, and in the collectivity to which we belong 8212; our family, our company, our institution, our nation.
Qualities like courage such as what the mountain-top warriors from Ecuador exhibited, character what Germany showed in defeating favourites Argentina, talent what Italy brilliantly showcased in its two goals in the last three minutes of extra-time in the semi-final against Germany and, above all, the strength to win and also the strength not to lose hope when one loses.
The World Cup owed its popularity because it conveyed all these virtues through the drama of the game itself. It mirrored a wide range of emotions and values with which people anywhere and everywhere on the planet could identify.
Take, for instance, the resolve of Zinedine Zidane, one of the greatest footballers of all time, not to retire from the game with a whimper. At 34, he was dubbed as a dinosaur in a game where young magicians like Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal and Lionel Messy of Argentina were beginning to demand attention. But those who saw this sweat-drenched and tiger-eyed baldie guide France in three make-or-break matches against Spain, Brazil and Portugal, knew that here truly was a global hero of our times.
If his was a lesson in tenacity, what better lesson in teamwork can we think of than the incredibly artistic goal, after 24 mercurial passes from one end of the field to the other, that Argentina scored in their 6-0 win against Serbia-Montenegro?
Of sportsmanship, savour this heart-warming example. Oliver Kahn, Germany8217;s celebrated No 1 goalkeeper was benched throughout the tournament by coach Jurgen Klinsmann in favour of the younger and more energetic Jens Lehman.
Unable to hide his dejection, Kahn publicly criticized Klinsmann for sidelining him. But when Germany8217;s quarter-final match against Argentina had to be decided by a penalty shootout, Kahn it was who went over to Lehmann, gave him a bit of elderly advice and wished him all the best. And there was also a lesson about how overconfidence gets punished.
Star-studded Brazil, perennial favourites before the start of any World Cup, were lacking in both style and strategy in their quarter-final contest against France. They played as if nobody had the right to stop them from lifting the World Cup yet again. At the end of the match, I, deeply disappointed, remembered how the BJP had to similarly pay for its overconfidence and lack of strategy in the 2004 parliamentary elections.
True, there is much that is imperfect in the world of football. But that there is also something sublime and spiritual about football was known even to Swami Vivekananda. Urging Indians to be strong, both physically and morally, he wrote over a century ago: 8220;You will be nearer to heaven through footall than through a study of the Gita.8221;
I was, for one month, watching the World Cup. And I will yet again be, for one last time in this beautiful tournament, when I watch the final between Italy and France tonight.
