National vs international

Western romanticism have become ingrained within our society that we leap at first chance of international recognition

With the 17^th IAAF World Athletic Championships around the corner, Arshad Nadeem is the only local athlete that the Athletics Federation of Pakistan can afford to send. If the Federation’s president is to be believed, Nadeem, who won the bronze medal in the javelin throw at the 2018 Asian Games, has the best chances of winning at such a level. A few days ago, former Pakistani cricketers Wasim Akram and Shoaib Malik tweeted an apology to Pakistani boxer Muhammad Waseem for not being given a celebratory welcome on his return from the UAE after his 82-second knockout win over Conrado Tanamor at the Rotunda Rumble, which marked his seventh knockout. Similarly, in 2017, the winner of the Australian Bodybuilding Championship, Atif Anwar, only received national recognition after his story went viral on social media. Again in 2015, Salman Ahmed, who clinched the Mr Musclemania title in Las Vegas, was unable to afford an entourage of managers, coaches, promoters for the event. The list goes on and on and on.

Not only does Pakistan have a history of disregarding local talent, it seems that sports in general have been left in shambles. Local industries, which once showed signs of flourishing, have shriveled up while the face of anything international is kept presentable. Sports at the grass-roots level remains alive only through the sheer passion and determination of individual athletes that invest their life saving into it. From the already filtered funds that the local sports industry receives, most of it is concentrated on international cricket, primarily because of economic benefit and international acclaim. Much like the grounds, local cricket has also dried up. Colonial idealism and Western romanticism have become so ingrained within our society that we leap at first chance of international or foreign recognition rather than our own. It is time that we as a country started to introspect and turn our focus at the ground level towards improving our local budding talent and industries by strengthening systems that promote national recognition. That is the true spirit of nationalism. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2019.

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