Steel Tiger
Senior Master
On Sunday Australia won their sixteenth test match in a row. But it was not a game without its problems. One of the Indian players was handed a three match ban for racist comments directed at an Australian player from an Islander background. Symonds, the Australian player, suffered similar insults when the Australian was last in India a few months ago. There were many bad umpiring decisions and the Indian captain has said Australia did not play in the true spirit of the game.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23015099-2882,00.html
This is something I have been paying some attention to in international sport for the last year or so. The racial abuse aimed at players of black ancestry, especially in Europe, is at times unbelieveable. I have always known that India is a place of extremes but I have never seen this sort of thing from Indian crowds or players before.
I believe it is indicative of a new level of intolerance throughout the world. As the world gets smaller and resources begin to get stretched and the gap between the have and have-nots gets bigger there seems to be no room for tolerance or compassion. I had thought we had moved through this sought of thing with our parents and grandparents and the vile acts of WWII and the Cold War, but it seems that given the right (or wrong) conditions humanity will very quickly revert to biological imperatives and xenophobia will quickly become rife.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23015099-2882,00.html
This is something I have been paying some attention to in international sport for the last year or so. The racial abuse aimed at players of black ancestry, especially in Europe, is at times unbelieveable. I have always known that India is a place of extremes but I have never seen this sort of thing from Indian crowds or players before.
I believe it is indicative of a new level of intolerance throughout the world. As the world gets smaller and resources begin to get stretched and the gap between the have and have-nots gets bigger there seems to be no room for tolerance or compassion. I had thought we had moved through this sought of thing with our parents and grandparents and the vile acts of WWII and the Cold War, but it seems that given the right (or wrong) conditions humanity will very quickly revert to biological imperatives and xenophobia will quickly become rife.
