Sport Is More Than a Game
For many people in Sri Lanka, sport is simply a game. We use the word “game” to describe many different things, most of them extremely simple. We then measure sport—which has a complex scientific foundation and a profound social background—by that same simple measure.
It is also common for people with genuine sporting talent to be forced to choose paths other than sport. Some may even live and die without ever discovering the sporting ability that exists within their own bodies, simply because they found themselves in environments where their talents had no opportunity to emerge.
Consider the school environment. Some teachers look at physically active children and see them with a strange sense of disapproval: “What a nuisance these children are.” Children who are sent to school after being taught at home to suppress their natural energy may also learn to hide the athlete within them.
They do not want to be labelled as troublesome, isolated, or different.
We encounter countless situations that make us think about the confusion between society and sport.
Even at an All-Island School Sports Championship, we have seen talented young athletes subjected to an enormous system of regulations—from the way they dress to the way they wear their hair. Perhaps one reason Sri Lanka struggles to nourish its national sporting talent is the attempt to produce, through schools, children who are quiet, obedient, inactive, without individuality, without a sense of style, and without a trace of mischief.
There will, of course, be criticism of this argument. We know that there are people who want to mould children according to a particular standard—to shape them into what they believe children should be, and then display those children as a reflection of their own discipline, personality, or pride.
But when the responsibility of preparing future citizens is entrusted to such a system, society may ultimately be left with people who are not independent, not creative, and not sufficiently active.
Political parties often gather their supporters from citizens who have been shaped in precisely this way.
What sport needs, therefore, are people who are prepared to challenge these patterns—to guide people properly towards sport, and to create human beings who can, through sport, contribute to changing society itself.
For the sport of a country to truly develop, it needs a society that can enjoy sport, question it, reason about it, and analyse it scientifically. That is why sport also needs a literary and political approach.
It is with this understanding that we hope “Hure Dapu Ure Kavi” and “Wedilla” will make even a small contribution towards creating that value and filling that need.
They may not be the best things that could ever be created. But if, even to some degree, they can help create a path for society to search for something better, then that itself is important.
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