MURALITHARAN, ICC AND POLITICS
Why should we get upset when Muralitharan is not selected for either the world test cricket team or the world one-day cricket team? Neither of these teams would play any matches against a team from any other world as it is very unlikely that there would be a "tribe", a "race" or a "nation" or any other entity similar to the English anywhere in the universe to invent a game like cricket. If at all the so-called world team could play a so-called Rest team selected again by Benaud and his team. Incidentally who selected the Benaud team to select the so-called world eleven? The answer is I suppose the ICC, but then what is the ICC and who dominates it? I am always reminded of what the Irishman Bernard Shaw had to say on cricket, though I myself have been conditioned by the education I received to enjoy cricket. At present, the television that has become the foremost educational mechanism, conditions millions of people not only in Asia and Africa but even in the United States of America to develop a likening to cricket, as demonstrated by the participation of a team representing the latter at the ICC championships. Our lives are being increasingly determined by the television, and throuugh this medium a few thinkin people in the west holding influential positions within the system, could manipulate all the others in the world to "think" the way the former think.
If Muralithararan or somebody else from Sri Lanka was not selected to the world Kabadi team would we have made a big noise about it? Perhaps a writer to the editor of a Sinhala newspaper would have made a murmur and the matter would have been forgotten. There may be some people who do not know what Kabadi is but I am sure many of us know what "Gudu" is. Whether it's Kabadi or Gudu we would not have taken much notice of it, and moreover even if he had been selected for the world team we would not have considered it as a "great honour" to the country or the player.
Now for a moment I am not trying to advocate that we should not protest against the way Muralitharan has been treated by Benaud and company. In fact, as Mr. Mahinda Wijesinghe has very correctly (correctly because I agree with him - When A says B is correct it is, very often, a way of stating that A agrees with B) said in his column in "The Sunday Island" on the 12th September 2004, that "Sri Lanka has been subjected to this type of step-motherly treatment due to the servile scraping and bowing by some of our officials who merely want to survive in their niche at all costs". Mr. Wijesinghe has very kindly referred to some of our officials. He may be correct, as he is more knowledgeable in this field. However, I am not sure of the numbers when it comes to counting the number of officials who could demonstrate that they have a "straight backbone". However the problem is not confined to Sri Lanka cricket. It is not very much different in the Sri Lanka (in respect of the present cabinet, it could mean either the country or the party) cabinet.
The honours, recognitions, values are all relative. There are no "intrinsic" values in any of these, but unfortunately people tend to think so. These relativities are interconnected within a culture through what we call the chinthanaya, and at present we are forced to imitate the western Christian culture and finally to consider it as our culture. Cricket has been forced and promoted by the schools first and then by the media, especially the television, to become our "national" sport and we have been conditioned to give a very high recognition to that game. The moneys involved in cricket are always increasing and, in Sri Lanka it has become the "only game" that almost all the people talk of. One would say that there are different western cultures and it is not correct to speak of "the western culture". For example one might say that cricket is popular only in England, and may be in Wales in Europe and thus there are many western cultures. In that sense it would be better to talk of western Christian civilisation and different western cultures such as the American culture, the Anglican culture, then the common Anglo American culture of North America and Britain, French culture etc.
It so happens that we have been hurt that Muralitharan has not been selected to the so-called world teams that have been endowed with a high recognition by the Anglo Australians. Incidentally the world here means only the cricket-playing world, and the French would not have been very enthusiastic to find out who had been selected for the "world" test team and the one-day team. In fact, if we had been under the French we would not have bothered about the world cricket teams. We are in a trap here. The Anglo Australians set the standards in cricket. We may have an Asian or an African as the chairman of the ICC for a limited period but it is not the chairman who decides on the standards. Even these positions are ornamental though the middle class in the cricket playing Asia and Africa would have an aspiration to fill them by their own members.
The west knows how to handle these aspirations. The Asians and Africans have held these so-called prestigious positions not only in the ICC but in the UN offices and other similar organisations. However, have these ladies and gentlemen been able to change the course of these organisations, let alone of history, by holding these positions? Is the present secretary of the United Nations an African in culture? I am not referring to his Swiss wife, but isn't he more European than African? The west could afford to throw some of these prestigious positions to a few middle class Asians and Africans and feel secure in the thought that the system would not change. After all the Asian and African middle class is a creation of the west and they do not have to worry about the aspirations of the former. In a sense, it would not be far from truth to say that the middle class in Asia and Africa is more committed to upholding of the values of the west than the westerners themselves.
The west first creates the values, then they impart these values on us the rest of the world. We want to achieve what they want us to achieve and we aspire to be honoured in the west, recognised by the international community etc. (Ironically some people writing to the Sinhala language newspapers want to know whether I am internationally recognised! They do not know that I am not recognised nationally as well.) However, only a very insignificant minority in Asia and Africa is given the opportunity of achieving these "heights" and the rest is left with only expectations. I suppose the man live in expectations and giving some of the "prestigious" to a few Asians and Africans make the others to have more and more expectations. If none of these positions were given to any Asian or African, then the latter would have soon realised that these positions
were not for them and would have realised what was happening.
Though Muralitharan is not in anyone of the "world" teams Chaminda Vaas has been selected for both teams. Moreover an Asian, Rahul Dravid, has been selected the cricketer of the year who would be the "proud" winner of the trophy named after Garfield Sobers a person with a black skin. Perhaps "Sir" Garfield, after all he is a "knight", may be the greatest all rounder, but naming of the trophy after him has political connotations as well. The British, rather the English, are the best "managers" of the western civilisation and they knew how to rule the world using the minimum military force, something that the Americans have to learn.
The west knows how to reward a Dravid and a Vaas, and "punish" a Muralitharan. They have the mechanism and more importantly the words to so. The English language is a managerial language more than anything else. While Muralitharan may be a threat to Warne, who was selected to the world teams, ironically on his performance against Sri Lanka, after that come back from drugs and shady women, if we were to believe Benaud, and may have a "suspect" action, though he has been cleared by the western bio mechanical "experts" themselves, but are they the only reasons for punishing Muralitharan? I have my doubts. After all Muralitharan is a Tamil playing for Sri Lanka, that is supposed to be under the hegemony of Sinhala Theravada Buddhism, that is supposed not to recognise the talents of the Tamils and other "minorities" who were created by the west in more than one sense, that is supposed to suppress the Tamils and the others. It was a Sinhala Buddhist by the name Arjuna Ranatunga, who later took up politics and who is in the executive committee of the Desha Hithaishee Jathika Vyaparaya, who first stood up for Muralitharan against the Australian umpires, and it is the Sinhala Buddhists including the Chauvinists who are the most enthusiastic supporters of Muralitharan.
Incidentally where is the other Muralitharan, who is better known as Karuna? Is he getting any support moral or otherwise from the west? Is he also treated the same way as his namesake in the cricketing world? While the cricketer Muralitharan represents a unitary Sri Lanka with the center in Colombo the other Muralitharan wants the northern and the eastern provinces separated. It cannot be said that the west likes either of them.
One would question as to why Benaud should worry about Muralitharan playing for Sri Lanka. It is not suggested here that the ICC or any other westerner who attempts not to give "due recognition" to Muralitharan has the slightest idea of Politics. They may or may not, but people living in a culture and working in one field get unconsciously affected by what is happening in the other fields. It is said that the theories of Einstein were influenced by the novels he read. The concept of chinthanaya is all about these internal connections within a culture.
Now Sri Lanka happens to have one of the most "servile scraping and bowing" middle classes, if not the most, in this part of the world. The Indian middle class when they do not get what they should get within the western system is prepared to protest and take action. However the Sri Lankan middle class as a whole is not prepared to do so. They are the petitioners par excellence. They want to show to the west that they can imitate the latter better than anybody else in Asia or Africa. In politics and in economics we are dictated by the west to such an extent that we cannot claim that we are independent even within the western system. What other country would have tolerated the Norwegians the way Sri Lanka does? The west knows that they can do anything with the present rulers and the ISGA would have been given already to the Prabhakaran, the darling of the west, who fights "Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinism" on behalf of the west, if not for the JVP. No wonder that the Sri Lankan middle class that wants "negotiations" with the LTTE, and that cannot see through western Christian Cultural colonialism, hates the JVP. Most of the members of the Sri Lanka cabinet are not inferior to "some officers of the Sri Lanka cricket", Mr. Wijesinghe has mentioned when it comes "servile scraping and bowing".
Professor Nalin de Silva
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