Shahid Afridi the Idiot is (was?) the Captain of our national Cricket Team. The bunch which recently got a rather well-deserved thrashing at the hands of the Indian team in the semi-final of the World Cup, barely a few days ago. Cricket, as most people around the world probably know, is a game, a sport, but we in South Asia somehow manage to imbue it with the spirit of a war, an inimical contest that is totally irrational and immature.
This time round, the traditional India-Pakistan rivalry in the semi-final seemed, for once, to take a back seat and a great deal of good sportsmanship and positiveness prevailed, both amongst the teams and off the ground, amongst people in both countries, at all levels, official and unofficial. There was a joyous feeling, a sense of happy contest, a serendipity that had to do with mutual goodwill between the public in both India and Pakistan-- hey, one thought, are we perhaps maturing and getting over our mutual hates and inhibitions and phobias, fostered by six decades of enimity, at last, somehow, via this great sport? Our leaders, our media, even our players exuded goodwill and respect for each other at Mohali. The self-same idiotic Afridi, as captain, said good things there (maybe drilled into his thick and bigoted little skull by someone else, it seems in retrospect). Though Pakistan lost the semis, the crowd accorded them a little of the general accolade, too.
But witness this idiot, this ape after returning home!
He went on air, with the comments that, despite the semi-finals loss, Pakistanis were still 'braver' and 'better' and 'bigger-hearted' than the Indians. Wow. How? Why? Our pocket philosopher believes this is because 'most' Pakistanis are 'Muslims' and 'Muslims are braver than Hindus'. :( To cap it all, a silly TV audience of nit-wits clapped themselves insane at these sagacious pronouncements.
Thus, very effectively, Mr Shahid Afridi has, by putting his big foot into his even bigger mouth, killed any goodwill or fellowship that had been engendered over the past month or so and once again shown the people in India, and the world in general, that where pure stupidity is concerned, we have no match whatsoever. Shabash, Afridi, you bloody cheendakh.
I wonder what special criteria, or yardstick Afridi applied in this lick-spittle, Jingo-istic outburst, to 'measure' bravery? Was it some dubious historical standard or example, of the sort drilled into Urdu-medium critters of this ilk, in illiterate schools where fake and propagandist versions of history are 'taught' via sarkari textbooks? Or was it some sort of quasi-anthropological-mythological-militaristic hypothesis somehow ingrained in what passes for Afridis 'brain', of the type our mullahs pump up young lads with, to make them think they are 'superior', and then send them out to make mince-meat of poor civilians in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan? Or was it just simple (the key word here) Pathan/Pukhtun machismo that spoke out, unbidden?
For Mr Afridi's information, I belong to a senior Pukhtun/Afghan tribe and clan compared to his. My ancestors are genuinely in all the history books, for deeds spread out over a couple of thousand of years at least. When the likes of him were feeding off semi-raw lamb meat in some god-forsaken hole up in the hills, we were ruling in Delhi and Kabul. What I have learnt, what I have found out from the collective ancestral wisdom and experience, is that there is no 'superior' race. People all over the world evince extraordinary courage at different times. Let go of these silly, dangerous notions-- dont forget that it was a similar folly that brought Hitler and his insane Nazi Party to power in Germany and resulted in a Second World War, and poor Germany's eventual grief.
As far as 'racial' bravery is concerned, that is an equally fallacious argument. In the annals of the military history of the British Raj in India, Mr Afridis' tribe faced the little Gurkhas from Nepal in at least 42 pitched engagements over as many years. The Gurkhas trounced them every time. If we, in Pakistan, have 'martial' races (a term coined by British colonisers to encourage recruitment of soldiers in certain less-developed areas) such as Pathans/Pukhtuns, Turks, Punjabi Jats and all, then India also has its Rajputs, Jats (Sikh and Hindu), Dogras and Marhattas.
Finally, regarding 'Muslims' in Pakistan and India-- is Mr Afridi the Learned at all aware that Muslims in India outnumber Muslims in Pakistan in at least a 3:1 ratio?! So much for his 'religious' views.
Very honestly, if I were the Pakistan Cricket Board, I'd take a big stick to Afridi's fat behind and make him smart for some days.
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