Monday, March 16, 2009

When a weapon is attacked

(Lahore, Pakistan)

Lahore is a beautiful city boasting an exotic mix of impressive monuments, exquisite street food, modern media companies and traditional festivals. It would be a tourist paradise were it not for the problems that still beset this jewel. The city was torn apart during Partition, and soon afterwards riots between Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus further damaged both the physical infrastructure and everyday life. It was the objective of an attack by the Indian army in 1965, and its position close to the new border has never let it rest. Today Lahore figures prominently in the conflict against between the West and its enemies.

On March 3rd a group of gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, killing six people (five policemen and a driver) and injuring nine more. Comparisons were quickly made to the violence at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when members of Palestinian group “Black September” kidnapped and later killed eleven member of the Israeli Olympic team.

However, the Olympics are widely regarded as an event which brings nations together in a sporting festival which still observes the accepted ethics of competition and morals of human co-existence. The irony of the Lahore attack is that it was committed against a team engaged in a “sporting” activity which was used as an unsubtle truncheon in the English class war and more importantly as a weapon in the colonial domination of a post-abolition British Empire.

Many people have likened sport to war – not least when the situation in question involves English football supporters – and there are obvious parallels between armies and teams, flags and team colours, trophies and conquests and primitive tribal belligerence and football crowds. Some would even point to a direct connection between the gentlemanly rules of engagement and the gentlemanly rules of a sport. Whatever the extent of the similarities, it was only a question of time before the already blurred boundaries between these two “sporting” activities were shot to pieces.

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