Whine, or play cricket

Cricket calls for character and determination. It also requires courage. Facing thunderbolts from a Brett Lee or Fidel Edwards is no walk in the park. For cricketers, such courage requirements extend to other aspects of leisure life as well. In 2000, when their boat sank in the high seas after a foolhardy trip, Australian cricketers Matthew Hayden and Andy Symonds were forced to swim several miles to the Queensland shore. Other Aussie cricketers would trek through croc-infested terrain without concern, a journey that would induce jitters within many an Asian male. But place the self-same Aussie blokes in the unfamiliar environment of a bustling Southasian city, with its steaming bazaars and medley of tongues, then add the prospect of a Tamil Tiger suicide attack or Islamist strike and, crikey, these fellows turn into wimps!

This transformation is a paradox, and one that has developed in part through notions and prejudices promoted by the Western media coverage of 'terrorist actions'. The media has helped to implant a climate of fear from the Caribbean to Western shores, resulting in magnified fears about suicide attacks. This mindset, verging on paranoia, is marked by a poverty of analysis, and indulges in sweeping generalisations that are inattentive to the limitations of militant organisations, the regional differentiation in their capacities and their selectivity of targets. The assailants in the recent attacks in Bombay added a new dimension to the range of targets in the region, by encompassing Western tourists in their sweep. But this was an instrumental prop in their performative theatre. Where Islamists want to hurt the Western world, they are more likely to choose European cities or tourist hotspots such as Goa or Kuta Beach in Bali.