The Pakistan-England Test that began on July 14 is the first one Pakistan has played in nine months. Security issues within the country have forced Pakistan to host home matches overseas, making scheduling and financing a challenge for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). No matches have been played inside Pakistan since March 2009, after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team.

The lack of international competition has drastically affected all sports in the country. For the first time in its history, the Pakistan hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympic games. Administrators have expressed concerns that the lack of international competition is slowly eroding interest and sounding the death knell for sports in Pakistan.

On Nov 13, 2015, Paris was rocked by multiple attacks that left 130 people dead and an additional 352 injured. Eight month later, the city hosted the final of the European Championships, the second largest football event in the world. On July 15 of this year, four days after the final, a man drove a truck into the Bastille Day parade, killing 84 people. These attacks have many questioning safety and security within France

As we mourn, we also ask about the unequal response to incidents in Europe when compared to similar attacks in places such as Lahore, Istanbul, or Baghdad. The former were acknowledged with showings of solidarity in city squares worldwide and flag overlays on social media pictures, while the latter received only customary condemnations from political figures. There is, unarguably, an unequal amount of sympathy and visceral shock generated by these events in favour of France and other western cities.

The response of international sporting bodies and their willingness, on one hand, to send teams to France and, on the other, to declare Pakistan a conflict zone can also be understood within this atmosphere of unequal sympathy. Pakistan and France both have a colonial past, albeit at different ends of the power spectrum. This history and the resultant representations of both places — one backward and stagnant, the other a hub of culture and liberalism — have a lot to do with how the world feels about and responds to tragedy in these countries. One becomes a society with which others are willing to share solidarity and to come to its aid. The other is mostly ignored, understood as a place of ongoing violence and social decay. In the post-colonial era, Pakistan is viewed by the international community more as menace than a state torn by the continuing imperatives of power and capital.

There a powerful link between these global political issues and their effect on the sporting world. Pakistan’s political representation has meant that its rich sporting history has been virtually erased. The most successful field hockey and squash nation in the world — not to mention its cricket pedigree — can now be globally ignored as a sporting entity. These issues of representation are most of what is seen when sport lovers in Pakistan try to understand why the country has been singled out for ‘punishment’. But there is more to the story than simply the prejudice of the global community.

First, there is the economic question. From a global standpoint, Pakistan simply does not generate enough revenue for sports governing bodies to be considered indispensable in the way France is in football, or England, Australia, and India are in cricket. With football, the rights to tournaments are decided by who makes the highest bid (which is why Qatar will be hosting the 2022 World Cup) and considerations for cricket events are not very different. The global perception of Pakistan and its lesser economic status combined make it less marketable as a place that must be kept viable as a sporting venue.

And then, of course, there is the fact that security in the country cannot reasonably be compared to France. Sources close to the cricket board say that cricket cannot resume in Pakistan without the approval of the federal government and that is currently not forthcoming. The last thing the government wants is another attack on an international team. Some people at the PCB also doubt whether they can host a high-profile series given the security situation in Pakistan. As it is, the board’s recent purchase of four bulletproof buses, which are being touted as a way of attracting international teams to make the bold journey to Pakistan, seems more like an admission of insecurity than a guarantee of safety. So sports in Pakistan are not simply being affected by antipathy towards the country on the part of the international community. There is a real fear locally, as well, about what will happen when a high-profile visiting team comes to Pakistan.

Given these circumstances, the recent result at Lord’s and the cricket team’s performance in Tests, not to mention the emergence of the women’s side, demonstrates the resilience of the country’s athletes. This is still not enough. Many administrators and athletes feel that hockey and squash will not recover from bureaucratic and economic decline. Cricket is so far keeping its head above water. But the future will be determined as much by the Pakistan government as it will by the international community.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2016