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Monday, 11 March 2013

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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?  

HRW workers do make love to this employment

A close look at the barrage of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Crisis Group (ICG) produced anti-Sri Lanka propaganda aimed at reinforcing the message of the British Channel 4 video falsehoods at the 22nd session of the UNHRC reveals much about the people and the techniques used in the global administration of the neocon generated ‘pretend’ human rights regime.

Full Story

Dealing with allegations of war crimes

Some weeks back I was sent, by a friend in England, a book entitled The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media. It was by someone called Lila Rajiva, but doubtless that was not the only reason to assume it would interest me.

Full Story

 

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