COMMENT: The day cricket broke free

ASK yourself, what would you have done? An umpire wearing his bias on his face, with a history of behavior steeped in the bile of prejudice; in a country ill at ease with you and your kind; raising an allegation that has rankled for a decade and a half; making an abrupt assessment devoid of proof, fairness or commonsense; who finally delivers a verdict and penalty unprecedented in the annals of Test cricket.

With all of this swirling about, if you had come running down those Oval steps after tea and got on with the business of the game as if nothing had happened, then you are either an angel or a fool.

Inzamam-ul-Haq is neither. He decided enough is enough. The time had come to stand up to an abuse of authority that has been allowed to go on too long. From the looks of it, Inzamam was standing up to Darrell Hair.

But whether he realized it or not, he was actually taking on far more — the weight of the ICC, the game’s ultimate authority figure; a century and more of Test cricket culture and tradition; the game’s colonial roots; Western distaste for Pakistan and Pakistanis; and menacing administrators and power figures everywhere who think they can get away with anything, and do.

This is what makes Inzamam’s stand so heroic. The scope of what he went up against is so vast, the implications so portentous, that the very fact of his resistance has made him unassailable.

Both umpires were out there, both batsmen were at the crease, and the match had worked up to a nice boil, but Inzamam said, it’s not cricket, and he was right. It was a simple act of defiance, but the kind that can unleash sea changes and sweeping transformations.

For over half a century — ever since Fazal Mahmood’s phenomenal 12 for 99 in 1954 — Pakistani fans have known exactly who they meant when they referred to the ‘Oval hero’. That changed last Sunday. When you say ‘Oval hero’ now, you’ve got to specify.

What was Hair thinking? Had there been any proof behind his ball-tampering allegations, it would have been out by now. No one’s produced any proof because there isn’t any.

The ball was 56 overs old, it had been hit about the park and into the stands, and there were 26 TV cameras constantly rolling to collect footage from every conceivable angle. You do the math.

The only rational explanation for Hair’s actions seems to be racial bias. It is, perhaps, possible that he is just a nutcase, but then he would have acted nutty with everyone, not just with Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan, as his umpiring history clearly shows.

Every one of Hair’s actions in this incident — no warning or consultation with the fielding captain, reaching a verdict that he cannot defend, rushing to forfeiture without overtures to the aggrieved side, and refusing to accept an olive branch when finally offered — betrays his malicious intent.

The ICC has hurried to protect the umpire. Their approach is sad, predictable, and lazy. It saves them the effort of investigating and convicting an authority figure, which can never be pretty, and also gives them the comfort that comes with self-preservation. But this approach also makes them blind to the awesome gravity of what has happened. Their haughtiness reeks with the stench of colonialism.

When Malcolm Speed addressed a press conference to charge Inzamam with bringing the game into disrepute, he sounded hollow and puny, like the abandoned emissary of a crumbling empire on its last legs.

Cricket is no longer a colonial game and the empires are long gone, but the ICC insists on clinging to the idea. The tipping point may well have been reached on August 20, 2006. If justice prevails, this will go down in history as the day when cricket finally broke free of its colonial shackles.

Whether the ICC finds Inzamam guilty or not is irrelevant. By refusing to play, he has already rejected the ambit of the ICC and flung himself into the court of public opinion (where, by the way, he’s winning handsomely).

But the ICC must definitely punish Hair and expel him from the elite panel. They need to make an example of him. Failure to do so will aggravate the open sores in cricket’s current governance structure — mean umpires, lazy referees, a blinkered ICC, the whole lot.

With PCB chairman Shahryar Khan and President Musharraf — not to mention legions of fans — firmly behind Inzamam, failure to punish Hair will also mean taking on the entire Pakistani nation and diaspora and God knows who else besides. This is playing with fire. You do so at your own peril.

Fascism, terrorism, extremism have no religion

FASCISM has no religion and neither does terrorism, fanaticism, extremism or for that matter bombs. However, regrettably the western world continues to selectively equate all these ‘negatives’ with Islam and Muslims. Invariably we hear and read about loose references to ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, ‘Islamic terrorists’, ‘Islamic militants,’ ‘Islamic extremism’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ ‘Islamic bomb’ and so on.

The US and western media which is full of it, is largely responsible for projecting Islam and Muslims in such dim and biased light.

It becomes even more alarming when such terminology is sanctioned by the state and world leaders start propagating it. Just recently it was the president of the world’s sole super power who came up with the warped expression of ‘Islamic fascists’. Soon after the unravelling and foiling of the alleged terror plot to blow up transatlantic flights, President Bush declared that his country was at ‘war with Islamic fascists’.

The unearthing of the plot, he noted, was ‘a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation’.

One could not but be appalled by the rash use of this divisive term that hurt the sensitivities of Muslims around the world. It raises many questions about the moral authority coming from a president whose administration stands guilty of providing firepower to what is widely seen as the fascist state of Israel in its month-long onslaught against Lebanon. A leader who heads a government that is in the bizarre business of ‘regime changes’ and dangerous pre-emptive strikes. Not to mention the US military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan that has killed thousands of civilians and continues to operate its killing machines.

Also, the horrendous human rights abuses committed by the US forces in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and prisons in Afghanistan.

Many diplomats from western capitals in Islamabad also seemed stunned by the US president’s tactless and insensitive characterisation of fascism. A characterisation that would even make the worst critics of the notion of ‘clash of civilisations’ change their mind. Non-Muslims too have taken a strong exception to this and expressed their outrage at the terminology that sows the seeds of hatred and jeopardises the security of both Muslims and non-Muslims in already polarized societies.

However, one was astonished to learn that amid all the criticism about Mr Bush’s latest utterance none other than our own ambassador in the US rose to his defence. Almost sounding like a White House spokesperson he told a group of reporters in Washington that Mr Bush did not actually mean that.

However, when the real White House spokesperson was queried about it by a journalist, he showed no remorse. On the contrary he indicated that Mr Bush would continue to use the term ‘Islamic fascist’, which evoked heavy criticism throughout Muslims world.

His argument was that the label did not apply to all or most Muslims but to tiny factions such as Al Qaeda. This is not the first time that Mr Bush has opted for such controversial terminology that many believe is a deliberate attempt to isolate Muslims and calculated to appease his own constituency of war-mongers.

Early on he had used the term ‘Islamo-fascism’ to describe Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and their allies. Soon after 9/11 he had referred to the ‘war against terrorism’ as a ‘crusade’, a term perceived in the Muslim world as a battle against Islam. However, a day later the White House apologised for the offence it had caused.

Issues of terrorism cannot be addressed by such reckless branding and serve the purpose of only propagating abhorrence. It undoubtedly creates more problems rather than help the global fight against terrorism that is already perceived as targeting the Muslims.

At best it is a self-serving attempt at over simplification of complex issues and essentially ignoring the unjust policies that have contributed to radicalism. Such a myopic approach also supports and substantiates the view that the US administration is deliberately fuelling hatred to pursue its agenda of conquering ‘oildoms’ in the guise of ‘war on terror’.

No opportunity is spared to use terrorist attacks or terrorist plots in any part of the world to demonise Islam and Muslims who already feel quite marginalised. This sullies the milieu for dialogue among nations and civilisations that the US and the West so passionately advocate.

It negates the spirit of multiculturalism and integration. It adds to further stereotyping of Islam and reinforcing negative images about it. The Bush strategy is yielding fruit only if that is the design.

There have been emphatic calls from the Islamic world to reverse the dangerous trend of Islamophobia that is on the rise in Europe and the US. Flagging this point Pakistan’s articulate Permanent Representative in Geneva, Ambassador Masood Khan, rightly underscored the need for an international instrument that would create a deterrent against such defamation of religion and incitement of religious hatred.

He made some powerful and telling observations while speaking on behalf of the OIC at the 58th session of the UN sub-commission on the promotion and protection of human rights last week. That Muslims were being dehumanised, as Jews were during the inter-war period in the last century. That 50 million Muslims in Europe were facing discrimination and exclusion. That it was partly driven by an attempt to ‘squeeze out Muslim migrants’ from western countries.

We live in dangerous and trying times where the lingering threat of terrorism continues to haunt all of us. To respond effectively to this global challenge, sagacity, perseverance and restraint are required. Finger-pointing, outrage, over-reaction and racial profiling will only prove to be counterproductive as they have so far.

Brute force cannot and will not win minds and hearts. What will is sustained dialogue and understanding. For this patience and tolerance remain key. There is no other way. No short cut.