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I’ve been stewing about this for a couple of days now, and I think this is the right time to write about it.
I am severely disappointed at the comments of English match referee Chris Broad and Australian umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Davis about the ‘failure’ of the Pakistani security forces (all as far as I can see purely based on conjecture and circumstantial observation without possession of the full facts) without even a passing word of gratitude to those who lost their lives in their service. I believe that these comments reflect a sub-conscious Western bias in their worldview, where a non-white life is worth less than a white one – if it had been six (count them, SIX) English or Australian police officers killed in the line of duty they would be hailed as heroes and their names published on the front page of every newspaper in town. Instead, because they are ‘only’ Pakistani police, they are not even worth the life of a single English match official, who instead of thanking those who died, have the gall to complain when, as far as has been reported, they contributed nothing at all to their own salvation – it was a Pakistani driver who was killed driving the match officials around, and a Pakistani police officer who risked his life to jump in to their van and drive them away to the stadium (what did they think all the ‘gunfire outside when a Pakistani police office finally came to drive them off’ was? Fireworks? There was some real action going on outside, yet they dismiss that there was any effort to save them at all, even having the temerity to say ‘we don’t know why we’re still alive’. Perhaps your security cordon had something to do with it?)
And the way they have spoken of their killed driver (talking callously about how he was 'thrown him off the bus' so that the policeman could get into the seat) shows clearly that they see Pakistanis as a somehow 'lower' form of humanity (Mr. Davis said as much - did he even care to find out his name, or the names of the killed police officers?). Had it been an English or Australian driver I doubt they would be half as callous.
Contrast Mr. Broad, Taufel and Davis’s comments to the comments of the Sri Lanka cricket team (apart from Murali), who have had nothing but praise (and thanks) for the security officers and their driver, DESPITE being more severely injured than the match officials in the van behind, because they know that they have the sacrifice of six Pakistani policemen to thank for their lives. Maybe Mr. Broad, Taufel and Davis could learn a thing or two about gratitude.
There is no doubt that the Pakistani security could have been much better, and that many things went wrong that HAVE to be looked at, but surely a word of gratitude to those who died in the service of protecting you could be forthcoming BEFORE engaging in all this precious posturing.
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In my development work I see this type of subconscious superiority complex all the time, and it sickens me. It disappoints the heck out of me to see it in some of our top cricket officials.
I am severely disappointed at the comments of English match referee Chris Broad and Australian umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Davis about the ‘failure’ of the Pakistani security forces (all as far as I can see purely based on conjecture and circumstantial observation without possession of the full facts) without even a passing word of gratitude to those who lost their lives in their service. I believe that these comments reflect a sub-conscious Western bias in their worldview, where a non-white life is worth less than a white one – if it had been six (count them, SIX) English or Australian police officers killed in the line of duty they would be hailed as heroes and their names published on the front page of every newspaper in town. Instead, because they are ‘only’ Pakistani police, they are not even worth the life of a single English match official, who instead of thanking those who died, have the gall to complain when, as far as has been reported, they contributed nothing at all to their own salvation – it was a Pakistani driver who was killed driving the match officials around, and a Pakistani police officer who risked his life to jump in to their van and drive them away to the stadium (what did they think all the ‘gunfire outside when a Pakistani police office finally came to drive them off’ was? Fireworks? There was some real action going on outside, yet they dismiss that there was any effort to save them at all, even having the temerity to say ‘we don’t know why we’re still alive’. Perhaps your security cordon had something to do with it?)
And the way they have spoken of their killed driver (talking callously about how he was 'thrown him off the bus' so that the policeman could get into the seat) shows clearly that they see Pakistanis as a somehow 'lower' form of humanity (Mr. Davis said as much - did he even care to find out his name, or the names of the killed police officers?). Had it been an English or Australian driver I doubt they would be half as callous.
Contrast Mr. Broad, Taufel and Davis’s comments to the comments of the Sri Lanka cricket team (apart from Murali), who have had nothing but praise (and thanks) for the security officers and their driver, DESPITE being more severely injured than the match officials in the van behind, because they know that they have the sacrifice of six Pakistani policemen to thank for their lives. Maybe Mr. Broad, Taufel and Davis could learn a thing or two about gratitude.
There is no doubt that the Pakistani security could have been much better, and that many things went wrong that HAVE to be looked at, but surely a word of gratitude to those who died in the service of protecting you could be forthcoming BEFORE engaging in all this precious posturing.
-
In my development work I see this type of subconscious superiority complex all the time, and it sickens me. It disappoints the heck out of me to see it in some of our top cricket officials.
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