A business associate of mine in Australia sent me this. Something to reflect
on.

Jabou
>
>

Now for the ugly world game

>
> God, the world can be an awful place.
>
> As I write nations and peoples tremble and brace themselves for war. Sabres
> are being rattled, gun barrels are being cleaned, battle lines are being
> drawn. There is the lingering smell of death in the air.
>
> Men are being boys again.
>
> But, as usual, it will be the boys that will do the dying.
>
> Boys in uniform acting on orders of men. Boys whose heads swim, doped to
> insanity by the drug of revenge and notions of a higher calling.
>
> Boys whose only concern is play and laughter. Boys unsuspecting, playing in
> dusty lanes, on cobblestone pavements, weedy greens and concrete squares.
> Boys kicking balls or throwing hoops, dancing to the joys of life, only to
> be struck down by a piece of shrapnel, a stray bullet, a shower of bricks
> from a collapsing wall.
>
> Boys unaware of, not capable of understanding, the bigger game being played
> out above them.
>
> Towering office buildings are toppled and thousands are massacred. A goal
> is scored.
>
> The other side goes on the counter. Missiles are unleashed, whistling in
> from both flanks. More innocents die. The damage is immense. The scores are
> level.
>
> And so it goes on.
>
> Only in this game there are no rules. There are no bounds and touchlines.
> There are no yellow cards. No free kicks. No compensation for foul play. No
> retribution for ungentlemanly conduct. No final whistle.
>
> In this game there are no limits on substitutions either. If a man goes
> down a string of subs rolls off the bench, each more determined and
> inspired to win than the ones that went before him.
>
> There is no shaking of hands, before or after the game. There is indeed no
> definable beginning nor end to the game, to the attrition, the murder and
> the death.
>
> And, weirdest of all, there are no winners. Both teams lose.
>
> It's a strange game, this. Why play it at all? Why - the boys would ask -
> engage in it at all if the object is to so obliterate the opponent that he
> cannot play again?
>
> The analogy, flippant as it might appear in such grievous times, is
> appropriate. Sport and football are essentially about tribalism. As is war
> and terror.
>
> Groups gathering and lining up to fight other groups in the name of a
> cause. In sport the aim is winning, scoring one goal more than the other
> group. In war, whether the tactics are terror and the murder of innocents
> or uniformly attired men firing and killing, the aim is the same.
>
> Analysts have said that in modern times sport is the equivalent of
> gladiatorial combat. Sport has replaced war to satisfy the dark human
> instinct and yen for conflict and the desire to kill and triumph.
>
> Sport had to be that because modern civilisations would not tolerate and
> have long outlawed primitive warfare.
>
> Well, the analysts were wrong weren't they? War, at its most obnoxious and
> indiscriminate, is back. The new season has kicked off.
>
> One wonders what is now being thought by those who dismiss sport as nothing
> more than grown up children at play? A silly diversion, a trivial sidelight
> to serious human behaviour.
>
> What is now being thought of Iranian and American footballers exchanging
> flowers before a World Cup game? Of those players ferociously competing for
> the ensuing 90 minutes and then embracing again at the end of it.
>
> Of Turks and Greeks, ancient cultural enemies, playing a game of football
> to raise funds to aid earthquake victims. Of a Rwandan national football
> team, comprised of both Hutus and Tutsis, winning a tournament and thereby
> unifying two tribes which months before were massacring each other.
>
> Of Palestinians and Israelis, though it has not happened yet, engaging in a
> playful bout of sport. Symbolising that a level playing field has been
> reached. That understanding between tribes has been achieved.
>
> Does sport now seem trivial?
>
> Yes it does because it is. Essentially a game of football is no more than a
> game of football.
>
> But at least sport, because it is trivial, because each conflict is only a
> game, because it is harmless, is played by civilised men in a civilised
> way. There are rules, there is a referee and, though the contest can be
> ferocious, there is no killing and maiming.
>
> But war is not trivial. War is not a game. War is serious business. War is
> about killing, maiming and causing misery in the name of far loftier causes.
>
> War is about many things, but spare us the nonsense.
>
> About being civilised, about men acting like men, war is not.
>
> War and terror are about men acting like boys. Men who think themselves
> serious and civilised but act primitively.
>
> Men who should have stuck to playing football.
>
>
> Murray Burfitt
>
Perth, Ausralia.

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