Not once, but twice, Siraj correctly called out the perpetrators, that too in the middle of what was his second Test Match. © Getty
On the third day of my first visit to Australia they called me a terrorist. Then they asked me if I had a bomb in my backpack. It was December 2014 and we were in Macksville, the hometown of the late Phillip Hughes, and the person who asked was a local. My response to this was simply pointing at him and saying, “If anything, you look like a fellow bomber,” referring to his generously oval physical shape. My comment was met with uproarious laughter, and his friends loudly agreed with my description. And my accuser was soon buying me beers.
Looking back, I realize that I handled it in a rather selfish and funny way. By using my humor to counter it, I unwittingly normalized it for them. Now I wish I had done a Mohammed Siraj. I wish I had called out to them, not with force or anguish. Maybe I just said it’s not done. He doesn’t get away with calling me a terrorist because of my hair, my beard, and the color of my skin.
Last night (Jan 9), I was outside the building in Potts Point where I am renting an apartment, desperately searching for the keys to scan me. I had just returned from the SCG and my bag, water bottle, and headphones were all strewn on the trail. As I continued my search, the sliding door opened and a couple emerged from the building. But when I smiled and tried to get in, they stopped me with a “Dude, the guys from ‘Uber Eats’ have to wait outside.” I smiled at them and replied, “I wonder why they think that. I know I can pretend to be one.” They left expressionlessly when I finally entered.
Now I feel silly for having done it. Again, he should have done what Siraj did. I should have denounced their unwarranted stereotypes. I am sure it is a stereotype that many people from certain countries have to endure. Learn from this. Talk loud. Don’t just ignore it.
There’s a reason many of us should draw inspiration from Siraj’s booth at SCG on Sunday (Jan 10) or, for that matter, even him by bringing the abuse he copied to the attention of his senior teammates. one day before. The management of the Indian team is convinced that the abuse inflicted on the young fast pitcher was “racist” in nature during the three days of the event, including the incident just before the tea break. The verdict on the prosecution now rests with the NSW police and will be released in due course.
Put yourself in Siraj’s place for a second. Here he is on his first big long tour with the Indian team. You lost your father at home while you were in self-isolation far, far away. You’ve burst your heart every time the ball has been handed to you. You have left a mark on your country. But out there with thin leg, you’re alone. You don’t have any teammates defending you. And then you have someone launching abuse, totally unprovoked. It can all get very overwhelming.
Ask R. Ashwin, who summed up his own experiences defending himself from the abuse of crowds in Sydney since his first visit to Australia in a rather nonchalant way.
“I had no idea about racial abuse and how they can make you feel small in front of so many people. And people really laugh at you when they abuse you. When I stood at the border line, you wanted to stand another 10 meters. To stop. stay away from these things. ”
That’s what racial abuse does to you. He despises you. It makes you feel “small” like Ashwin said. And Siraj would have felt quite small at that. Yes, his senior teammates had told him that he should let them know if he heard anything. But being able to do it, not once but twice, and that also during the course of a test match speaks of true character. You have to be brave to face discrimination. Is not easy. Because, your first instinct in such cases is to get defensive, maybe even scared. Or look for other ways of escape, making a joke as in my case.
Yet Siraj did what we should all aspire to do when confronting her abusers. As he walked from thin leg at Randwick End and briefed umpires on the matter a few minutes before tea break, he went from victim to hero in an instant. And you can only hope it becomes a symbol of change. He is not the first foreign cricketer to receive a spray from the crowd on an Australian field. But now, hopefully, he has set a precedent in that cricketers don’t necessarily have to stand by and let it happen.
By the way, it’s always been mind boggling why people would pay money to go see someone perform and then abuse those very people they paid that money for.
The thing about racism, especially in a country like Australia, is that it generally comes from two perspectives. It is up to you to try to judge if it comes from ignorance or if it comes from a place of spite.
Certainly, there is a generation of Australians you run into who might end up saying something not because they are meant to hurt your feelings, but because they are unaware of its connotations. While umpiring in Adelaide, I came across quite a few in that category. His slips can range from asking you to keep your fingers away from your pants while you signal because they are “black in color” or the usual “which one are you? Indian, Pakistani, or something else?” However, the best part about them is that they are open to being taught how inappropriate it is and are willing to change. Educating them is your responsibility.
It’s when someone attacks you out of sheer malice that you are left with fewer options. Like when they ask you to go back to where you came from just because someone thinks you are parking in their place. In most cases, the sensible way out you think of is to avoid confrontation and simply leave the scene. He takes it almost as a reminder that he is nothing more than a stranger. Or the time I am waiting to cross the street and someone from a car whizzing by yells: “Get out of here b # @ ck c @ (t”). Perhaps Siraj has shown you the way again. Maybe the way out is talking and making a deal with slander.
Then there is the easy category of “casual racism.” The more you hear about him, the more you wonder if racism can ever be casual. I think there is racism and there is no racism. The grays, if there are any in between, are just loopholes that people use to avoid being stopped for what they say.
Like being repeatedly told how pleasantly surprised someone is that your “English is so good” or being asked what language you write even though someone has had a long talk with you in English.
There are also a couple of other occasions that some might say qualify in this group. Like the time we went to one of the branches of a national pharmacy, we completed our payment with the cashier at one end of the store, we showed her our membership card, before the cashier at the other end of the store stopped us, coming out to the parking lot. “Have you paid for those?” ask even as other customers pass by without raising the alarm.
You want to make a scene, but you think it’s wise not to and politely show him the receipt. Then there are the times I walk into a store and they ask me to leave my backpack near the door while no one else does. I look around, I don’t see any other bags, but I don’t ask why. But not anymore. Not after seeing a young Indian cricketer take a brave stand against this nonsense in the eyes of the world.
“It is in his blood to look down on us,” was the conclusion of a high-level Indian cricketer from the Siraj episode. At the risk of generalizing, it saddens him to think in that sense about this beautiful country, which in general continues to be very welcoming and hospitable. I have been overwhelmed by the sympathy and support that the Indian players have received and the calls I have received personally from some of my wonderful colleagues in the press box about how deeply this affects them.
Too often, I have been guilty of trivializing racism because I think I am insensitive. Exaggerating my own stereotype. Sometimes even making nasty comments about myself, just because it makes someone else say it feel normal. Although it is wrong. I can’t desensitize the matter to such an extent that I indirectly give someone the go-ahead to be vile to someone else. That would be as if a former cricketer in India suddenly dismissed the Siraj incident by saying, “Oh, no big deal, I endured the same thing when I played there.”
Respect for another person begins with being able to say their name correctly first. So maybe the key is to sit someone down and help them say yours well, perhaps explain it phonetically, rather than accept being made fun of. Saying Cheteshwar Pujara shouldn’t be that difficult.
I was on a talkback radio show as a guest a month or so ago when I heard a former cricketer, who was the studio guest, make fun of my middle name and then laugh, blissfully unaware that he could hear it all. So when they finally came to me, I made it a point to tell them that Sundaresan, if there is anything, was a pretty straightforward name to pronounce if you just focused on each syllable. Not only did he sound regretful, but he even managed to start saying it correctly.
Now I look back at that moment with a sense of pride. That was, in any case, me doing what Siraj would do at SCG. In hindsight, it was my time to be a hero and I ended up being one. But as Siraj showed us today, it is never something unique. It’s about sticking with that. It’s about being the change every day. It’s about calling them every time. It’s about being a hero all the time.
© Cricbuzz
