The Hindu : Sport : A virus of the mind

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2007
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A virus of the mind

To view sport from a national or regional perspective in this day and age seems almost anachronistic, writes NIRMAL SHEKAR

YOU know what is the best thing that can happen to sport and to the wholesome enjoyment of sporting drama as a truly elevating spectacle? Simple. Ban national flags from all great sports venues, including the Olympics.

This is unlikely to happen in my lifetime, perhaps not even yours even if you are just old enough to be able to read this, but it doesn't hurt to dream, to dream like John Lennon did, does it? Imagine if there were no flags at the Grand Slams in tennis, at the Test matches and the World Cup in cricket, at the popular football championships including the World Cup and, most of all, at the Olympics. Imagine if we could identify with plain and simple excellence instead of with national colours.

Imagine if we could lose ourselves in the transcendental majesty of an individual's game, no matter his colour or creed or whatever, and no matter that the performance means our national side is taking a beating. Imagine, too, that sometime in the future people may come to view sport as we've come to view great art and music.

Would you love Mozart or Schubert any more than you happen to do now if they were Indian? Would you love M.S. Subbulakshmi or Pandit Ravi Shankar any less than you happen to do now if they were not Indian? Do we carry flags to concerts? A Sachin Tendulkar or a Roger Federer or a Zinedine Zidane may not rank alongside the great masters of music and art. But if you were a true connoisseur of sport, if you constantly seek a deeper and more nuanced enjoyment of sporting spectacle, you would have no objection to keeping the national flags away from the sports stage.

Atavistic

To view sport from a national or regional perspective in this day and age seems almost anachronistic. It is because of this, it is because the flags and allied symbols of group identity ignite atavistic passions in the stands that we are still not able to nudge George Orwell in his grave and say with a straight face: Sorry, George, you were wrong. Serious sport is not war minus the shooting. It is something rather more profound and soul-lifting.

Jingoism

Jingoistic chest-thumping and drum-beating in sports arenas may come in different forms, some more acceptable — and rather less primordial — than the others in a civilised society. But they can all be traced to the same roots. Whatever version it is, it is nothing but a glorified, modern-day brand of tribalism — something that has no place in sport if sport is to distance itself from its evolutionary roots.

We are all hard-wired to identify with group symbols that come in many forms — the most potent one being the flag. While it might still be useful to rally under the flag for a truly great national cause, to use national colours to help fire our own passions on a sports stage is at once ridiculous and dangerous.

Ugly incident

All these thoughts were triggered by an ugly incident at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne Park on Monday. Groups of so-called "ethnic" fans (Serbian and Croatian) waving flags — many of them drunk, too — set off an ugly brawl and over 150 young men were evicted from the stadium by security personnel and police.

Grand Slam tennis is the last place you'd expect something like this to happen. But then, the truth is no place on earth may be immune to the rather nasty virus of the mind — nationalistic frenzy at sports venues — that needs to be eradicated immediately.

The truth is simple: the instincts that evolution put in us and that were important for our survival and `fitness' in another age deep into our past as a species have lingered on through all the cultural evolution to haunt us in a globalised world and in an era of space travel and Artificial Intelligence.

Imagine if we could all say `no' to national flags at sports venues! Imagine, because imagination always precedes action.

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