The year was 1994. It was an authentic spring morning in March and I was sitting with a group of friends at La Baguette Cafe. The room as usual was noisy, filled with mists of cigarette smoke; waitresses were pale skinned, dark haired and dressed in black.
This was in the heart of mid- west USA. In Norman, Oklahoma to be precise; at my good old University of Oklahoma-OU. The café was established by the Jazzar and Khouri families in the 80’s, recognizing the need to attract a healthy population of European students and curious Americans.
One of my friends introduced me to Tod. He was from Paris, Texas. After some initial exchanges, he told me that he always wanted to meet someone from Pakistan. Hearing this, I had expected the usual stereotype questions; but I was taken by surprise.
Tod wanted to play squash with me. Then he had gone on to narrate Pakistan’s legacy of squash, from Roshan Khan to Jahangir and Jansher Khan. He did stereotype me, assuming that being from Pakistan; I would know how to play squash. But I didn’t mind. In fact I felt proud, being a Pakistani.
Fast forward to March 2010. Nadeem Chawhan and I were at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok; waiting to catch a flight back to Karachi after conducting an annual conference for a client. As usual, we were chatting up people in the smoking room, deciding which perfumes to buy our better halves etc. and then ended up in the book shop.
Here, I zoned into ‘The Talent Code’ by Daniel Coyle as I did a few months ago at Liberty Book Store in Karachi.
I discounted this book at that time labeling it as another Malcolm Gladwel rip off, but this time around I found something that would interest me. So I bought it and I am glad I did, as it would help me to connect my conversation with Tod at La Baguette Café sixteen years ago with what I was about to read.
In his book Coyle writes against the wisdom that talent is natural. This statement is very well supported by stories, theories and examples. What blew my mind away was the concept of ‘talent hot bed’ with examples from countries like Brazil, South Korea and Russia. One such example was of a 20 year-old-girl Se Ri Pak from South Korea. In 1998, she was the only Korean golfer on the LPGA tour. On May 18, the same year, she won the Mc Donald’s LPGA Championship and become a national icon over night. Flash forward to 2007 and South Korea’s women had essentially colonized the LPGA tour with 45 players who collectively won about one third of the event. Is Pakistan a talent hot bed for sports?
Story of Se Ri Pak opened up a can of questions. How is one successful breakthrough followed by a massive bloom of talent? More importantly, how can Pakistan having a golden legacy in squash, cricket and hockey, have nothing to show for, as I write this?
Recently, Maria Toor, who grew up in South Waziristan - the epicenter of terrorism - got a five year scholarship to study at Cambridge University, UK. She had to dress up as a boy throughout her childhood to play competitive sports. She is a top ranked squash player in Pakistan and in September 2009, CNN ran a story on her titled ‘Teen athlete fled Taliban to pursue dream’.
Before February 2010, Naseem Hameed did not exist in the hearts and minds of Pakistanis. On February 8, while we were mourning our cricket team’s performance she created history by sprinting her way to becoming the fastest woman in South Asia at the South Asian Games.
And, let’s not forget Pakistan’s favorite past time, cricket. Innovations like the reverse swing and doosra are home grown. Fastest century, fastest ball… we seem to grow fast bowlers like road side weed, while our neighboring countries, have not to this date produced a single express bowler.
There might be countless examples that I may have missed out on; but you get the point.
In the words of Nelson Mandela:
'Sports has the power to change the world… to inspire…to unite people.'
When Nelson Mandela was released from his 27-year jail sentence in February 1990, few people in football envisaged the World Cup being staged in his homeland. Twenty years later, it's a reality.
Mandela, who could have walked out of jail seeking revenge on the oppressive white minority, instead won them over with his open-hearted humility. He turned to the white-dominated sport, rugby and made the players and their followers his friends.
It’s not only the South Africans; the Chinese seem to have taken Mandela at this word, using Olympic Games at Beijing in 2008 to project an image of their nation as a rising global superpower. The world’s third largest country, China is also the most populous with 1.3 billion citizens. But this figure only hints at the sporting potential emerging from China. Also, just looking at numbers alone doesn’t tell the whole story. After all, India is also a very populous nation, but has yet to make its mark in the global sporting arena other than in cricket. So what other factors are contributing to the growing success of Chinese sport?
In August 1995, a ‘Physical Culture Law’ was enacted in China, which enshrined in legal form a series of rules and regulations requiring citizens to enhance their health and physique through sports. As a result, by the end of 2000, there were 30 national mass sports associations and over 40,000 grassroots workers’ sports associations. Since the 1990s, large numbers of sports centers have been constructed or reconstructed. In the period 2000-2002 alone, 1,077 public health building projects were constructed.
A glance at recent medal tables shows they’ve succeeded with flying colours. More importantly, their success has come from improved training, coaching and nutrition, not from genetic manipulation. So I guess the method to madness highlighted by Daniel Coyle in ‘The Talent Code’ holds some value.
So what can we, the Pakistanis, learn from the Chinese, South Koreans, Brazilians and South Africans? Where do we go from here?
Not long ago, an international magazine of high repute labeled us as ‘the most dangerous country in the world’. They were right in labeling us as dangerous, but they got their reasons wrong.
We are dangerous because ever since liberation in 1947, in face of global rejection, internal and external conflicts, lack of sound political leadership etc., we seem to find ways to outshine other nations from time to time; specially in the sports arena. Be it hockey, cricket, squash or more recently track and tennis.
We are dangerous because, with pretty much everything going against us, we are still standing. What we need now more than ever is the political leadership and will, like China and South Africa. But for that to happen, the courage and conviction needs to come from the masses; it will not come from the elite because they are same everywhere. Comfortable.
We may stand divided on many issues, but when one or a few of us excel at sports, we stand proud and united. So why not use this God given power to shape our future and influence the world?
If not now, then when? If not us, then who?
Source Dawn News
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