A prodigious homecoming: reviving cricket, suffocating vitriol

“All this country has is people, it needs a nation.” Traffic Warden Rashid.

“For a cricket-worshipping nation who was starved of the game for almost a decade, a country which is despised for not being safe, a people who are sick of the negativity and have no access to normalcy, the tournament was nothing short of a miracle.”

“The few hundred, or perhaps thousand people who claim that life in Lahore was sabotaged must talk to the thousands or even millions of cricket enthusiasts across the country for whom it’s not just a game but a catharsis.”

Three kinds of people prevailed in Pakistan during the last week. First, there were the millions of massively elated, joyously high-spirited fans across the country and even abroad, who were cheering for the revival of cricket. For whom the return of cricket to Pakistan after 8 damning years of starvation was nothing short of a miracle. The priceless, choice smiles of those entering in huge numbers to witness history at the Gaddafi Stadium was a sight to behold. The electric atmosphere within the Gaddafi stadium turned it into a theatre of nostalgia and belief. The vivacious occasion coupled with the nail-biting fixtures sent out such merry images, which were at the least, breath-taking and electrifying. The swathes of ebullient public rejuvenated in the cheerful success of their team – a rare chance to celebrate, amid the ubiquitous negativity that never seems to wear off.

The second lot was the World XI, the Pakistan Cricket Team and respective administrative officials that had flown in from different corners of the world to witness the historic, mega event. The Proteas, World XI captain and legendary batsman Faf Du Plessis commented, “I appreciate there was a lot of planning, a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy spent in the planning of this week,” adding, “Everything was very smooth and very easy and we say thank you for that.” On another occasion, International Cricket Council (ICC) Chief Executive David Richardson said Wednesday that if security in Pakistan continued to remain satisfactory and kept on improving then the country would host ICC events in the coming days. “The World XI’s tour has marked the start of the revival of international cricket in Pakistan,” he added. The Sri Lanka and West Indies tour is also just around the corner.

Then, there came thundering in, the third type, the detractors, the censurers, the nitpickers and the fault-finders. Except a few genuinely concerned, this lot included people filled with so much hate that they would never let go a shot at undue reviling, purposeful stigmatising and willful besmirching. This handful, rejected the idea of cricket bringing joy, to the millions, home and abroad. They were the inconsiderate lot who just could not bear to follow traffic regulations and be patient, who, without any effort to even explore, rejected the notion of alternative routes actually being present. Most of them were of the view that the cricket homecoming was nothing purposeful, rather they took it as an attempt, like the many others, from the government or the state, (they can’t make out) which was sinister enough, and inherently notorious just to piss them off. The pseudo-liberals, living in their own conceptions how the world should function on their whims of freedom, with little respect for utilitarianism, and failing to differentiate between Lahore and Los Angeles, believed that the revival of cricket is not sending out ‘a good image’. Rather it is a grand conspiracy against them. Because, astonishingly, every one of them is a legit town planner with decades of experience in public policy, governance and urban planning. According to their expert view and their standards of idealism, the Lahore administration is only a bunch of crazy old chaps who know nothing and have failed to devise traffic contingency plans. Hence, they claim that the tournament was a failure and should not have taken place.

As Benjamin Franklin once opined, “Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”

Conducting the international mega event in the same city, where Tanveer Iqbal, a twenty-six-year-old dedicated traffic warden was gunned down mercilessly during the 2009 Sri Lankan team ambush, is an outstanding victory in itself. A smack in the face of the lukewarm detractors who think the cricket match did not achieve a higher purpose.

It is sad how people in Pakistan fail to strike balance. They always seem to be disgruntled, distorted, and hapless. It is a curse, especially in the developing countries, where the public can never be appeased – you just cannot placate the ‘pseudos’. If they get a metro, roads and underpasses, they cry a river at how the government has neglected both health and education, if they don’t get roads, they are infuriated, again.

I had the chance to interview City Traffic Police Lahore’s Senior Warden Rashid at 0100 hours last night. Even after an 18-hour duty of standing upright and alert, in the scorching sun, giving his hundred per cent to make the traffic flow smooth, he felt like nothing but cool-minded and forthcoming. (Nothing like the apathetic schmuck who abuses the hell out of traffic wardens, just because he had to wait an extra half an hour, during a traffic congestion). The interview was an attempt to bring their side of the argument into the limelight. Sadly, their problems, reservations and contingencies during the Independence Cup were never highlighted. Because, perhaps, they won’t sell as much as a rant against the government’s idea to hold the tournament does. The mass media, which has turned into mass hysteria, can never incorporate a balanced approach, or they would run out of business. They have to sensationalise, opinionate, and exaggerate because frankly, the game is ratings.

The interview was very productive, largely owed to the busy traffic warden taking out time to answer my questions, without the slightest hint of annoyance or discontent. After the interview, he warmly shook my hand and thanked me for taking his lost opinion into consideration. A couple of days back, one of my fellow respected staff members, had written how the return of international cricket had actually stalled life in Lahore (perhaps for him Lahore comprises of only the Mall, Jail, Ferozepur Roads and some parts of Gulberg), where he wrote, “If you tell a disgruntled man or woman who has been through the insufferable experience these past few days …… that this is about the return of great things to Pakistan, they will smack you in the face.” The humble handshake of the after-duty traffic warden speaks volumes about his character, tolerance and empathy as compared to ‘the smack in the face’.

As far as the facts are concerned, the traffic police department last week launched a special awareness campaign with large-size advertisements in the national press to inform citizens about the traffic movement plan. Also, motorists were requested by police to use alternative routes through radio stations and mobile phone applications. There were also television ads to guide the general public about the traffic contingency plans. On the days of the match, the traffic police had installed large loudspeakers through which they continuously alarmed the public, requesting them to cooperate and guiding them to the alternate route. However, it is startling to note how all this flow of information eluded my respected colleague who apparently was carrying a personal vendetta to belittle Shehbaz Sharif and his efforts which he, in his inordinate rant column, termed as ‘bravado’. The ‘pseudos’ were perhaps so busy listening to Miley Cyrus’s ‘Party in the USA’, that they couldn’t make the effort to actually, physically read the traffic plan map released by their city authorities.

During the interview, when I put forward the concerns of the public and how they were stuck in traffic jams and were annoyed by the ‘maladministration’, he told, “At no place in the city was the traffic flow stopped more than 10 minutes by us.” He further added, “In the aftermath of the swathes of restive motorists trying to bypass the stop, the jam was nothing but natural.” When asked about how the traffic police treated the emergency vehicles he clarified that “No ambulance was stopped, no car carrying a patient was halted, in fact, we provided dedicated paths and guided them ourselves so they could escape the jam.” On the question of how the public had treated him, he narrated an incident, “Two men came and pounced at me, held me by the collar and asked me to remove the barriers as they claimed they had a patient with them who was critical,” he elaborated, “I agreed to remove the barrier and went all the way back in the cue to help the patient myself, just to find out that there was no patient in the first place, as a consequence about 50 cars broke protocol and zoomed by our barrier, which we should not have lifted in the first place.”

When asked if his extra duty timings had annoyed him, he smiled and responded humbly, “Hum tau duty kertay hain, asal kaam tau ap log kertay hain, sahafi hazrat, jo mulk k bhalai k liay sochtay hain.” (We only complete our duty, the real work is what you journalists do, you think for good of the country). How could I tell him what we journalists do? We flaunt our rights to access to information and freedom of movement, and in pursuit blackmail, intimidate other people and deprive them of their rights. We publish only what sells like hot pancakes. The balanced view seldom gets through.

I asked Rashid of what message would he give to the thousands of motorists of the city who faced difficulties just so a team of 11 foreigners could pass by with ease. He replied, “Sir, the World XI is only here to stay for a week, while we are here to serve the public for our lifetimes,” adding, “The people need to be patient, and considerate. They should realise that the security personnel or the traffic police officers are also human, and are equally dignified.” In his closing remarks, he opined, “All this country has is people, what it needs is a nation.”

As far as traffic and administration in the rest of the world is concerned, in one instance, special traffic regulations giving priority to athletes and VIP visitors to the Rio 2016 games caused an average of 20 km (12.5 mile) traffic jams in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, even days ahead of the opening ceremony. The city administration even opened up dedicated Olympic lanes for priority purpose. In another case, the G20 Summit of Hamburg of 2017 is known to have caused the most outrageous of traffic congestion. It was also the moment after a long time when thousands of police, military and para-military forces were deployed to provide fool-proof security to the officials participating in the summit.

Hosting international cricket is indeed a victory for the country. I can go on and on, about the ‘blowback terrorism vs cross-boundary proxy-terrorism’ debate, but space here does not allow for it. However, it is a fact that Pakistan has constantly been sketched (mostly by the west) as a country which is not safe, where people are blowing off their vests every other second and there is an apocalyptic fight for survival going on, where people are diving off buildings and bridges just to escape the wrath of the terrorists. Pakistan is blamed to be providing safe havens to the 1980’s Mujahideen, turned 1996’s Taliban, who were funded and armed by the CIA and who were Reagan’s ‘equivalents to the founding fathers of the USA’ and Kissinger’s ‘soldiers of God’. Pakistan is blamed to be the hypocrite country which follows its own interests, while Monroe’s doctrine of 1800’s ensuring total control of the Southern and Northern American continents, Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick policy of 1901-1909 in which he shredded South American, Latin American nations, Howard Taft’s dollar diplomacy of 1910-1920 to propagate sham revolutions in other American nations to further USA’s control, the naming and shaming (The popular McCarthyism) of the ‘red menace’ in the 1950s to take control of rest of the world, the Senior Bush’s New World Order to take over world’s economy, Junior Bush’s famously notorious Bush doctrine of 2001, Obama’s love for droning children and women, the country’s obsession with the middle east (Syria, Yemen, Libya) and exporting democracy, the war crimes committed almost all over the world from Philippines in the past to Iraq in the recent, and to curb the rising Iran, is no hypocrisy but a concerted, deep-down-from-the-bottom-of-the-heart effort by the saviour Uncle Sam to contribute to peace and become the torch-bearer of regime change and democratisation. Hats off to the ‘pseudos’.

Contrary to this, no one realises that India topped the list with the greatest number of bomb blasts (including IEDs and ordnance bomb blasts) in 2016, with 406 attacks, Iraq came second by 221, a mere half of India’s. Pakistan witnessed 161 that year. Why isn’t Pakistan safer for cricket?

It can be argued that the Independence Cup cannot be compared with the hallmarks of the Olympics or the G-20 Summit, but for a cricket-worshipping nation who was starved of the game for almost a decade, a country which is despised for being not safe, a people who are sick of the negativity and have no access to normalcy, the tournament was nothing short of a miracle. Pakistan won, Cricket won. The belittlers, detractors, revilers lost. The need of the hour is a giant leap of faith which would make us a nation not down and out, but up and running.