Comments on: Lahore attack just erased the line between sports and politics

By: Michael Trapido

Michael Trapido — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:17:11 +0000

Pakistan identifies Sri Lankan teams attackers :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5854505.ece

By: Lyndall Beddy

Lyndall Beddy — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:07:15 +0000

If you want to understand the tragedy of the Tamils, and of how Africa’s independence collapsed, read “A Passage to Africa” by George Alagiah. His father was one of the few Tamils who was able to blackmail their Tamil family out of Sri-Lanka and get passports to leave – to Ghana, which they watched Nkrumah destroy in under a decade with his grandious “African Renaissance” ideals. Eventually his family got him to Britain for an education. He becaume a top reporter – and spent some time in SA as well.

A brilliant book – well worth reading.

By: Lobengula

Lobengula — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:38:04 +0000

Dear Mike,

Were you not yet born or were you asleep during the attacks on the Israeli team during the 1972 Munich Olympics?

By: brent

brent — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:11:22 +0000

How can you write a serious article on sport and terror/politics and not even mention the Munchen Olympic massacre. Wake up terror has targetted sport for almost 40 year and politicians for much longer (Hitler and the Soviets) but the ruling elite/chattering classes in the West refuse to acknowledge it.

A suggested few rules:

- abolish all Govt. sports departments
- sport is soley run and administered by the internally elected sports bodies and conform in letter and spirit to the laws of the land – no race based sport bodies to be allowed
- no country flags/symbols/anthems allowed at any international sporting events.
- where ever a terror/sport attacks comes from that country is banned from all international sport for 10years minimum.

As you can see all useless chattering class solutions, as long as people/countries love and support sport politicians/terror sponsors will interfere.

Brent

By: Ahmed Jazbhay

Ahmed Jazbhay — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:50:49 +0000

Jon. you got to be absolutely naive to think that the Tamil Tigers are supported by Al-qaeeda. Al-qaeeda regard non-muslims as infidels thus will not support the tamil tigers. Your resoponse just shows your blatant Islamaphobia.Whilst the attacks must be condemned in the strongest possible terms, we should refrain from making elementary comparisons and statements that have absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand.

By: J du Preez

J du Preez — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:54:50 +0000

(continued)

Michael Trapido uses such sweet reasonableness in his argument for greater totalitarianism that one can almost place him as a crypto-communist. He uses the ploy of “assumption of guilt” by asking the reader: “would you like to be the party responsible for having made the decision that Sri Lanka tour Pakistan?” However, in the matter of the Lahore attack, any and all guilt lies with the radical Islamist shooters, and most definitely not with those that were the victims (including the relevant sporting bodies).

So Trapido, next time a South African tourist gets kidnapped or shot at in an unsafe tourist destination, share with us your thoughts on the right of politicians to decide for us where and if we can travel overseas. That is after all your constitutional right and the next step in your logic. And it is so, like, pre-1989 USSR.

By: J du Preez

J du Preez — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:53:51 +0000

Trapido openly pledges his support for the ANC/SACP alliance in the 2009 elections. It is therefor no surprise that Trapido writes in this piece that, after the Lahore attack, there is no further argument against politics being kept out of sport. If my understanding of Trapido is “correct” (as ANC/SACP hacks like to say), normal sporting cannot exist in an abnormal society and politicians should have the right/power to weigh up political “and other” factors to decide whether a sports tour can take place or not.

In peddling the ANC/SACP line of BIG GOVERNMENT through his advocacy of political interference in sport, Trapido matches the disdain with which the ANC/SACP treats the Constitution and the rights of citizens (as set out in the Bill of Rights). Contrary to what Trapido suggests, the Constitution guarantees the right of every citizen to freedom of movement: everyone has the right to leave or to enter the Republic. The irony is that Trapido uses the failure of a government to do its job (Pakistan guaranteed the safety of the visitors) to propagate even greater government powers over its citizens.

By: Paddy II

Paddy II — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:47:54 +0000

Indeed, the line between sport and politics was never really there in the first place. Those who would like to separate sport and politics are merely protecting vested interests, either in promoting a profitable event or in quieting publicity over their human rights record (or both).

But it’s obvious that as soon as sportspeople represent their state on the track or field, their appearance there is a political phenomenon.

Sporting boycotts have often been used to effect good political change (especially so in the case of apartheid South Africa!). A sporting boycott of Pakistan would not only be pragmatic, it might even be moral. Sport — and the withholding of sport — should continue to be an avenue of political protest.

http://padthemadlad.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/why-not-mix-sport-and-politics/

By: coffee

coffee — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:28:32 +0000

this attack on Sri Lanka’s unsuspecting Cricket team is tragic because of the deaths and because of the long term effect this will have internationally

By: Izak de Vries

Izak de Vries — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:51:12 +0000

Munich in 1972?

I think the lines between sport and politics have been erased a long time ago.