Rugby & Politics - a rant on SUPERBOWL SUNDAY

SOURCE - For the Love of the Sport - Our departure from ‪#‎SriLankan‬ ‪#‎rugby‬.
http://www.namalrajapaksablog.com/‬

BY NAMAL RAJAPAKSE ON 30 JANUARY 2015
FOR THE LOVE OF THE SPORT

Those who know me and my two brothers know well how deeply we love the sport of rugby.

Having begun playing around the age of six, we played during school, during college, captained university teams and finally represented Sri Lanka internationally. In addition to enjoying the game, in recent years, we also tried to do whatever we could to elevate the sport in Sri Lanka for younger generations that will follow us in the years to come. In this effort, we brought down internationally-acclaimed rugby players to Sri Lanka and worked to get access for our players to obtain playing experience abroad.

In all honesty, we simply enjoyed playing the game. And as we began to reach the final stages of our sports careers, we felt like we should try to give back to a sport that had given us all so much. I think and hope that these efforts would have made at least a small contribution to the development of the game.

Today, we’re incredibly saddened to see that the bitter, vengeful politics that took over this country after elections earlier this month, have even made its way to the sports sector. Just a few days ago, my brothers – Rohitha and Yoshitha – were both informed, by telephone, not to attend rugby practice. No reasons were given. They were just asked not to come.

Not wanting to tarnish the sport through any potential conflict, we took a decision to simply respect the request and not question the decision regardless of how unjust it seems. Though deeply hurtful, we felt this would be the best decision we could make at this time.

For some, rugby was also a part of politics. But for the three of us, it was the sport we loved.

On behalf of both of my brothers and myself, I want express our deepest gratitude to all those who supported us during our rugby careers. I think you all know how sincerely we loved the game. And if given the opportunity, we will never hesitate for a moment to contribute to the development of the sport in any way that we can.


A REPLY  

AN OPEN RESPONSE TO NAMAL’S RANT ON THE COLOMBO TELEGRAPH “VENGEFUL POLITICS AND RUGBY: PHONE CALLS TO MY BROTHERS”

Posted on January 31, 2015 by thisuriwanniarachchi under Blog

I’m so sorry life has been so hard for you lately. I’m sorry about your horses and all those unlicensed elephants now astray on the streets of Colombo. I’m sorry you had to say goodbye to all those Ferraris, Audis and Bugattis you bought with your hard-earned trillions of tax-payer money. I’m sorry about all that gold from the treasury that went missing, the mystery must be keeping you up at night. How is your mother by the way? The story around town is that “She sells sea shells by the sea shore of the Seychelles”. Satire aside, I hope she’s well, I think she wasn’t all that bad. I’m sorry your brothers lost their rightfully earned captaincy in the military rugby teams. To have three brothers talented enough to captain the tri-force teams at the same time was truly a blessing for the nation, such a beautiful coincidence, in fact it might be “Asia’s Miracle.” I’m also sorry about those phone calls you got, but I guess, if I were you I’d be happy I’m getting any calls at all, because from what we hear, all those who used to be in line to talk to you have now crossed over to our side. (I mean you still have Weerawansa, but who wants to be on the phone with him, right?) Now that you don’t have to spend so much time on Rugby I see that you’ve gotten really into sharing your grievances through blogging. So don’t get so down on yourself, at least you’ve got that going for you.

I’m not writing to merely offer you my sympathy. I’m writing to thank you.
I want to thank you and your family’s regime for the great lesson you all taught our great nation; the lesson of politics, karma and and the power of the people. While there were certain things that your father and his regime did for this country that we will always be grateful for, there is so much that you all have done, that will never be forgiven. You spent most of your time in power trying to victimize others through your power, and assuming way too much. You assumed that despite Sri Lanka being such a small country, nobody will notice the culture of corruption you created. You assumed that what felt right for you was what was right for the country. You assumed that all Sri Lankans suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and that we will love you and vote for you, no matter how bad you treat us. You assumed that stripping the General who took bombs and bullets to lead this country to freedom off his ranks and having junior military officers drag him to jail was the right way to go about. You assumed that minorities didn’t matter, you didn’t care to reconcile, you didn’t want to hear their struggle. Not your electorate, not your people, not your problem. (Equal rights, screw that, right?) You took away their lands in the north, and you seized our lands here in the south, with no compensation. You assumed that thugs and family were the masters of foreign policy, so you gave diplomatic passports to hundreds of henchmen and family members and sent them away to important foreign service posts, while the hardworking students who crawled up the free education ladder and passed the Foreign Service exams with flying colors stayed at home, unemployed. You assumed that killing our protesters, threatening our journalists, censoring our media and taking down anyone who criticized you was the way to go.While you can grieve all about being a victim of vengeful politics, you must know that your family wrote the book on vengeful politics, imprisoning political opponents and wrongfully impeaching Chief Justices.

Our country with all its diversity and baggage has a habit of uniting as one and working together to save our nation from times of grave depression. Such instances are a rare sight. One such instance was the 1948 independence struggle when Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims united to fight against colonialism. And since then, the first time we all united to fight for the democracy of our great nation was this Presidential election when we overthrew your regime. I think a main reason for this was that the fact that the governance your regime believed in was your own kind of colonialism. The Brits enslaved us, took away our rights, seized our lands, stole our resources, invested in our country and sent the benefits they wrongfully reaped back to their homeland. You did pretty much the same, with the exception of the fact that instead of giving the benefits to the homeland, you took them home. I’m writing to thank you for reminding our nation whose been apart for many decades, the power and the importance uniting as one people. It wouldn’t have been possible without you.

May the noble triple gem bless you and the gods forgive your sins even if the Supreme Court doesn’t.