Saturday, August 07, 2021
Let’s start todays spiel on a positive note. Indian Mens Hockey team won a Bronze medal after 41 years and the entire nation is celebrating this glory. Twitter is brimming with congratulatory messages to the Indian Hockey team, Prime Minister Narendra Modi even sent out individual tweets for each of the player. You can read it here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here. This win surely means a lot. Women’s team on the other hand stood 4th and missed the podium by one step. However the fighting spirit that the team showed was much much better than what people had expected. Tokyo Olympics 2020 (playing in 2021) boosted the status of Hockey in India.
The world is a fractured place. There are conflicts between countries around the globe. Infact there are conflicts within a country. But when it comes to sports, people forget everything and come together in an action packed stadiums cheering for the team. In India, you can unite the ruling party and the opposition, Hindu and a Muslim only when there is a match against Pakistan. Over time world leaders have continued to leverage sports as a medium to reopen diplomatic dialogues. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is China’s “ping-pong diplomacy”, whereby the Chinese government invited US players to exhibition matches in their country in April 1971. This marked the first time Americans were allowed to enter the country since 1949. Less than a year later, President Nixon made a historic trip to China, which ended 25 years without communication or diplomatic relations between the two countries, and led to the re-establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979. Another example is from the 23rd Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where athletes from North Korea and South Korea marched together in the opening ceremony. The most dramatic gesture of reconciliation between them in a decade.
There are many other examples of the unifying power of sport, including the pro tennis doubles team of India’s Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, who had a successful partnership for many years, despite their nations being often in conflict. Fans from both countries would fill the stadiums for their matches – including, at the 2010 US Open, their respective ambassadors to the United Nations – to cheer for a shared cause. The team nicknamed themselves the Indo-Pak Express and started a campaign called “Stop War, Start Tennis”.
"The crowd is getting bigger. There are more Indians and Pakistanis coming. They're all mixed together sitting in the crowd. You can't tell who is Pakistani and who is Indian. That's the beauty about sports. That's the beauty about our playing."
~ Qureshi
Sports unites more than it divides. This is the reason Tokyo 2020 Olympics were not cancelled but are being played in 2021. It is undeniable that sport has the uncanny ability to transcend racial and religious boundaries and unite individuals and societies through a shared passion. Sport allows individuals from different racial backgrounds but who support the same team to bond over a shared interest and common passion. This encourages them to look past whatever prejudices they may bear towards their counterparts to the extent where it can displace years of disdain and mistrust. Sport’s role in reducing conflict can be traced back to the creation of the Olympic Games. In the ninth century BC, the Oracle at Delphi advised Iphitos, king of Elis, to start a peaceful sporting competition to end the armed conflict that was plaguing Greece at the time. Iphitos garnered the support of his fellow monarchs and created the tradition of the Olympic Truce, whereby all regional conflict would end for seven days before and after the Games every four years so that the athletes, their families and others could travel to and from the Olympics in peace. The Olympic Truce was reintroduced at the modern games in 1994, and it remains an ideal of the Olympic movement, with a related UN resolution passed every two years before each Olympics.
I hope you liked the post.
See you next Saturday, until then have a great weekend :)
Cheers!
Some things that you may find interesting-
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Must Watch: The Simplest Math Problem No One Can Solve
Song I am listening to: Into You by Tegi Pannu
Thought of the week: “We are biological machines programmed to survive and replicate. Happy is anti-evolution.” ~ Naval
Thread of the week: Devastating story about an island Nauru
Here are the last three posts if you were too occupied to read them:
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