Let the ping be heard

Amid a Cold War with no end in sight and another war still raging in Vietnam, on April 12, 1972, a Pan Am flight landed in Detroit, Michigan, with China's world champion table tennis team onboard for a series of matches around the country.  

It had all started a year earlier when the US team got a surprise invitation to visit the People's Republic of China. Time magazine called it "The ping heard round the world." Within a year of China's goodwill gesture, later popularly known as "ping-pong diplomacy," US President Nixon made a historic trip to the country, ending two decades of frosty relations between the two giants.  

In 2009, China and Japan came up with their own version of sport-turned-into-statecraft when Chinese President Hu Jintao played against a Japanese teenager during the first visit of a Chinese president to Japan in 10 years - a visit Hu called "a warm spring." 

Sports have thus long been idealised as a way to heal wounds, mend fences, and rise above differences among cultures and nations. In light of this potential, April 6 has been declared as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace by the UN General Assembly. 

Take for instance, the FIFA World Cup where even nations usually at each other's throat, come together for a few weeks to support their national team, putting aside politics and differences. It seems to have worked for Ivory Coast, a country embroiled in civil war. The country's star striker Didier Drogba made public statements before, during, and after the 2006 World Cup about the mending power of the tournament. It's difficult to measure how much soccer actually contributed to ending the conflict, but a peace agreement was reached within a year.  

Two years later, the presidents of Armenia and Turkey used it to reopen diplomatic dialogue. The two countries had severed relations and sealed their common border more than a decade earlier, but a World Cup qualifying match between their national teams engendered the Armenian president to extend an invitation to his Turkish counterpart. It was the first-ever visit to Armenia by a Turkish head of state, prompting Time magazine to wonder, "Can Soccer Heal Turkey-Armenia Rift?" In a way it did, eventually resulting in an agreement to reestablish relations and reopen the border. 

It's not just soccer. After being elected the first post-apartheid president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela used the rugby World Cup to further his country's healing process and prevent a civil war that was seemingly inevitable. All that was beautifully captured in a great movie called Invictus. 

Research shows that sport programmes have the potential to help underprivileged youth to overcome problems associated with poverty and crime. When values such as discipline, confidence, teamwork and perseverance are built into the programme, participants from conflicting groups learn to respect that our common humanity is stronger than our differences. 

The Complexo de Maré neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro - divided into territories controlled by rival gangs - offers a compelling example of this approach. The Luta Pela Paz (Fight for Peace) programme was established to offer youngsters an alternative to drugs, gangs and violence turning the community around. Can similar programmes be introduced in this country at the grassroots level?   

But despite these feel-good stories, can sport really bring peace? In the subcontinent, can cricket bring the two nuclear-armed arch rivals together? The short answer is yes and no. During the 2003-04 Indian tour of Pakistan, for the first time in 50 years, Islamabad allowed thousands of Indians to cross the border on "cricket visas". They were greeted effusively by the common men and women of Pakistan - to be an Indian in Lahore or Karachi those days meant free rides, discounted meals and purchases, and overwhelming hospitality.  

Then in 2008 came the Mumbai attacks and many ruling party MPs and the Hindu hardliner Shiv Sena started opposing any sporting relations with Pakistan. Since then, the two countries have hardly toured each other and Pakistani players have not participated in the Indian Premier League (IPL). 

And yet, there is a good argument to be made for the healing power of sport. Peace-building is tricky business and to be effective, it must be undertaken in participation with all key stakeholders, not by sport organisations alone. Sport for peace initiatives, if strategically designed and implemented, can play an important role in helping to prevent conflict and build peace around the world - a prerequisite for all development. 

The writer is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.