About a year back I wrote an article on
the alleged racism encountered by a second-tier
Indian actress in a British television program (The immigration reality
show, Asia Times Online, January 20,
2007), which prompted then-chancellor and now
Prime Minister Gordon Brown to issue an apology to
the Indian people. The rationale for that apology
was entirely economic, as the new Britain needed
immigrants to work its sewers and pay its taxes
even as the existing population wiled away its
time on the dole.
This time around, the
Indians are being portrayed as the
aggressors who shouted racist
epithets on a non-white Australian cricketer by
calling him a simian, a "monkey" to be precise.
For their part, the Indians allege that an
Australian player called their captain a
"bastard". Media reaction in both cricket-crazy
countries has been to support the local team, in
effect threatening consequences far beyond
cricket. Cooler heads may yet prevail, but the
makings of a mess are all too apparent in this
incident.
Asia is racist, and that is
that Understanding the interplay between
economic factors and social incidents that augur
racial friction is central to all this. To take a
small deviation, it is not surprising to me that
Japan leads the world in robotics, or that
progress has been accelerated in recent years when
the country's demographic decline turned
precipitous. The main factor underpinning the
Japanese preference for robots that could help
around the house, work in factories and drive cars
to the supermarkets is the very real need to avoid
any immigration from "lesser" Asian countries.
This is an obvious case of technology being
harnessed to maintain the natural isolationism of
the Japanese. The truth of those cute robots you
see being displayed in various shows then is that
they represent the attempt of Japan Inc to keep
Filipino maids out of the country.
Similarly, it is all too common for Asians
to use race for political and economic
segregation. Malaysia is the most visible example
of this process (When progress is against the
law Asia Times Online, June 2, 2007),
wherein the hard-working and entrepreneurial
Chinese have to take a back seat to the state's
favored Malay sons. This openly racist country
remains an anchor for Southeast Asian politics, a
trusted US ally and much more - there is therefore
not much surprise in seeing smaller Asian
countries following the same path.
For
their part, Chinese societies such as Hong Kong
and Singapore have been frequently attacked by
human rights groups for their own display of
racism against minorities such as immigrant
Filipino and Indonesian workers. Tales of grief
are all too common for non-Chinese in these two
rich enclaves, belying any notions of developed
country standards at least when it comes to
matters of human rights.
Meanwhile,
Australia has created a culture to preserve its
exclusivity, and this simply means treating
non-Australians with measured contempt. This may
have been acceptable in the past, but with
regional dynamics now changed completely and Asia
being on the rise, realities have changed. When
such pressures spill over to the world of sport,
results can be quite ugly, as the most recent
fracas in Sydney showed.
That the incident
should have occurred in Australia is perhaps more
than coincidental; as I wrote in a previous
article (Hazards of Oz Asia Times
Online, November 18, 2006) Asians confront a
fundamental quandary with respect to the country
as it is neither fish nor fowl in their line of
thinking. It is too isolated and European to be
part of the regional milieu, but yet happens to be
located very much within the same economic zone.
It follows curious double standards at
home, as the forced removal of Aboriginal children
to be raised by "normal" people in the sixties and
seventies showed. While professing to be a
democracy, Australia has no compunctions in
turning the screws on "undesirable" immigrants, in
particular Muslims as the various John
Howard-sponsored events involving refugees showed
in the past few years. Australia retains one of
the most racist immigration policies in the
Western world, favoring people based on skin color
rather than specific credentials. It is thus
ironic that my prognostication of doom for
Australia in the above-referenced article was
averted by surging exports of raw materials to
Asia that cushioned the country's over-dependence
on the US economy.
Cultural
misunderstanding From what one can gather
on the incident in question, it seems more than
likely that both sides simply got the wrong end of
their counterparts' national cultures. Being
greeted with comparisons to animals is, after all,
all too common across all Asian cultures. Thus, a
glutton or fat person is always a "pig", an
uncultured person a "dog", an obstinate, stupid or
lazy person is a "donkey" and an over-energetic
person a "monkey". It is not without reason that
the Chinese zodiac assigns specific
characteristics based on animals, and much the
same can be seen across all Asian languages.
A friend who is a noted linguist in India
pointed out that it is well nigh impossible to
insult anyone in various Indian languages without
invoking an animal metaphor of some sort or the
other. He also sent me some quotes from Indian
media outlets that were hilarious in their
attempts to "rationalize" what the player, a
Punjabi, may have said that was misconstrued as
"monkey". I am not at liberty to publish any of
those translations on this web site, seeing as it
is edited out of Asia rather than Australia.
Suffice to say that many an English sailor would
turn red like I did when these Punjabi expletives
were translated for my benefit.
Similarly,
while questioning the legitimacy of one's birth is
a strict no-no across Asia, the term "bastard" is
one of endearment to any Australian, employed with
almost as much frequency as "mate". Indeed, it is
quite common to hear the term uttered on
television even during prime time, something that
could simply not happen on too many Asian
television channels. Most Australians I know smile
when calling someone a "bastard", showing more
than anything else that far from malice being
intended, it is used in the same meaning as "good
old boy" would be in England.
Cause and
effect Given the cultural background, it
almost seems surprising that more such incidents
did not occur in the game nor indeed in cricket as
a whole. As with most stories, it is likely that
the economics of sport played a large part in
determining both the cause and likely consequences
of this racism incident. The game is largely
played for Asian audiences, even if there are only
three teams that seriously attract paying
audiences in a motley crowd of eight to 10
countries.
With this reality in mind, the
Indian cricket authorities retain an upper hand in
determining the future of the game. That they
would use it in fashion that bullies other teams
or renders many of the rules of the game redundant
should be taken as a given. There is too much
money at stake for all this not to happen. The
country's cricketers aren't as good as their fans
would like them to be. This means that relevant
authorities will over-compensate on the regulatory
and other fields to ensure that meaningful
participation from India is a given for the game
to survive into the next few decades.
The
history of field hockey shows cricket authorities
why that should be the case. When rules were
changed in favor of artificial turfs against
natural turfs, the game swung decisively away from
Asia and towards the Europeans. This produced
enough gains in fans for European teams over the
near-term, but as field hockey never became as
popular as football (or "soccer" as Americans call
it) in those countries, gains proved ephemeral if
not Pyrrhic as Asian fans stopped caring about
their national teams. The game is today rendered
to niche status as a result.
So it is with
the game of cricket. What happens from now on will
be a function of ensuring that the economics of
the sport remain untarnished. Those standing in
the way will be pushed out to other pastures,
sacrificed at the altar of Indian television
audiences. The players they like will survive long
after their sell-by dates, while those that the
audiences dislike will be removed from the game
quickly.
Much as war is too important to
be left to the generals, sports are too profitable
to be left to the whims (and mouths) of players.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
