Friday, October 19, 2007

About the Black monkey...

The current controversy continues to rage, and I continue to wonder, the relation between monkey chants and racism.
If crowd sentiments and favouring towards the local side are acceptable and understandable behaviours, then dislike for
the one player who perhaps single-handedly took the serious away from the Indians should be just as acceptable.
Doing monkey actions towards him, is perhaps a better thing than hurling verbal abuses. I guess, the aussies, being
the masters of such words on the field, are resilient towards them and hence find them more less "hurting" than calling
someone a "monkey".
One thing that aussies are probably not aware of is about the existence of a monkey-avatar Hanuman, who is worshipped
by hindus across India! Maybe, if Symonds came to know of this, he would start enjoying the monkey chants rather than
feeling "hurt".
Ofcourse, its obvious that the intent of the "monkey chants" is more of an abuse rather than a worshipping gesture, but then
again, the intent is to abuse the top scorer. In my opinion, Symonds is at the butt of these remarks not because he is a black
but because he has consistently taken the match away from India in this future cup series.
Unlike countries like Australia, USA, and UK, racial discrimination and abuse is not a particularly common feature in the Indian
subcontinent. What one is more likely to encounter are discrimination and abuse of a different kind(read sexual or religious).

Knowing all this, it is my belief that the "racial" tinge to the whole controversy sources itself from the aussie mentality itself, coz
however much brotherly they might feel, deep down they are consciously aware that Andrew is a "black".
In light of this chain of thoughts, I believe the best way to nip this entire controversy is not by trying to control or moderate the
crowd(coz if that was possible, then it would be a "crowd" it would be a "civilized gathering") but by encouraging the crowd to
be more generous and uniform with their "abuses" and "chants". Why single out Andrew Symonds? Give monkey chants to them
all! ;-)
And the T20 match in Mumbai is last place where this could be achieved!
Go on Mumbai! "Ape" them all~