Lessons from World Cup 2006

The World cup has come to an end. Many of us may be disappointed that our favorite teams failed to make to the finals. We became so accustomed to staying awake in the wee hours and now suddenly we realize we have to get back to routine as it used to be. Like any viral fever, the World Cup fever too will take a while to recover from.

Watching the World Cup, made be ponder on a number of realities in our life today.

Each match starts with the players marching in holding the hands of children who are a symbol of innocence. Although the whole tournament may be far from being innocent due to politicization and commercialization but nevertheless FIFA still manages to portray its noble aim of promoting goodwill and unity among the masses throughout the world, in keeping with the vision of its founder, Jules Rimet, who was committed to “universal brotherhood”.

In fact the World Cup truly deserves to be called “The greatest show on earth” as it makes people forget their differences and come together to celebrate this festive month. This is evident in the huge crowds comprising all races that gather in our nasi kandar and other coffee shops at odd hours all over the country to watch the game. No l other national event can ever attract such a spontaneous crowd of all races.

Then the national anthems of the competing teams are played and close up views of the players seem to reveal the sense of pride in their faces in representing their nation.

Following this is the display of a huge banner that reads “Say no to racism”. It is an appropriate reminder to a world that is divided by race and religion which has plunged it into violence and war. . If only our political leaders from all over the globe can get together every four years and “Say no to racism”, a major battle against that evil would be won.

I was particularly impressed by the degree of patriotism displayed by the players to their countries. Imagine Zinadene Zidane, at the age of 34, managed to pump all the adrenaline into his system, to rise up to the occasion to steer his team almost single-handedly into the finals. Then there was David Beckham shedding tears of sorrow as he was kept out of the penalties by which England loss to Portugal. There was also Ronaldo who was so determined to become the greatest world cup scorer which he finally succeeded.

We witnessed Germany and Argentina toil it out for more than 2 hours to outplay each other. In the clash between Germany and Italy, the spirit of perseverance of the Italians till the dying minutes brought them the desired result. It was this fighting spirit that finally made them the champions.

Every player, regardless of his color or creed displayed so much patriotism towards his country. Most of these young men are rich and lead glamorous but their attitude of seeking glory for their nation surely must be lesson for us all.

Do we Malaysians have that much of true patriotism for our country? If we had we would have joined the ranks of South Korea and Japan in the World Cup finals, as we were once superior to these nations.

From what I see we had all the national patriotism before but this is regrettably slowly slipping by. All we can do is to sadly stand idle and watch this patriotism to the nation being substituted by “over-patriotism” to ones own race, religion and material wealth.

It is timely for us to find the root cause of this failure. We must sit down and think of ways to instill greater and true patriotism among our youngsters. Unless we succeed in this, we will continue to lag behind in the field of sports and be satisfied as being just spectators.

In this context we have to reconsider the relevance, in the modern era, of the famous phrase of John F. Kennedy, which was very pertinent in the sixties, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but you can do for your country”. Perhaps in today’s realities it is also equally important to ask not just what you can do for you but also what your country can do for you.

Dr.Chris Anthony