134 AND STIIL BATTING ON – DESPITE JOKERS LIKE THESE …
The 134th Battle of the Blues encounter between Royal
College and S.Thomas’ was played last week, and no doubt there
was a very interesting match of cricket, and excellent
camaraderie to be had, which is of course guaranteed whenever
these two institutions meet.
The subject of a Royal-Thomian need not necessarily be
material for an editorial in a national newspaper, if it wasn’t
for some of the comments that have been made on the game by
writers who have taken it upon themselves to obtain some
reflected glory by penning a few lines about this over century
old series of cricketing encounters.
Nobody of course, has a monopoly on writing on school Big
Matches irrespective of the relative stature of the series in
the March Big Match stakes, if there is such a thing.
But, when those who say they are commenting about Big Matches
end up writing malice-dripping political tracts, it’s time to
tell these people that it takes a desperate opportunist to
prostitute a school Big Match for a political cause.
What passes for a (recent) comment on the 134th Royal-Thomian
starts with a diatribe telling us ‘What should be a time of
national triumph and unity has been transformed into an age of
fear and repression, political corruption and public apathy and
the unprecedented arrogance of power.’
‘What should be a time of national triumph and unity’ in that
line of course, is a reference, obviously, to the end of the
war.
Think about it -- it’s as if these part-time hacks and their
near and dear brought about the end of the war in the first
place!
To think that it is these same people who keep talking about
what the people are missing ‘at a time of national triumph’
after the war, were the same people who did everything to stop
the campaign against the Tiger terrorists in the first place,
should be enough to remind us that especially in this part of
the world, fact is often stranger than fiction.
This same desperado who wrote the objectionable piece, was in
the political campaigns of various opposition-party notables,
but did his utmost to discredit some of these people themselves,
when they were serving the cause of the war under the current
regime, before the conclusion of hostilities in 2009.
The point is that anybody who wants to write a political
tract should be able to have the gumption and self-assurance to
do so as a sympathizer of a political cause, and not be so
cowardly as to prostitute a popular cricket match such as the
Royal-Thomian to advance an anti-regime and essentially
anti-people political line.
The Royal-Thomian is a pleasant, apolitical student oriented
cricket match, which has a long tradition, and which is also a
social occasion liked by young and old, male and female alike.
To use the Royal-Thomian to carry out a totally partisan
political project against the regime is desperation, but it is
also the height of crassness and bankruptcy.
It takes a rare kind of brazen bankruptcy to use a more than
century old cricket match to settle petty and partisan political
scores, and the only suitable response that could be given to
people who resort to such tactics is to say – ‘get a life’, to
use the pithy yet apt (via Hollywood) put-down.
Those who write in this way also must be aware that there are
intelligent people in both schools that certainly do not
subscribe to the anti-regime views that are passed off as
comment in this said article, ostensibly about the Royal-Thomian
cricket match. There are ministers of government and top public
officials, and impartial administrators from both schools for
instance, that do not conform to the ‘post war repression’ view
that’s excerpted here.
So why try to give ownership of an anti-regime point of view,
to Royal and S. Thomas? One does suspect that it is in a
desperate bid to use the names of the two schools and the
publicity surrounding a much looked forward to Big Match to get
some traction for a lost political cause.
Desperation of the desperado is to be sympathized with and
expected, but please, leave the names of our good schools out of
this petty attempt at partisan political bickering – that
certainly cannot be too much to ask for, right Mr. Cry-Saint
Hurray? |