Youth must make a stand – Why not Rebel! when schools are closed in Hambantota to watch the cricket match?

Today is Tuesday, the 24^th of July, 2012 and Sri Lanka recorded a historic victory over India in a Cricket, one day international held at the Hambantota Suriyawewa Stadium. Sadly there were hardly spectators, and we have more elephants in the wild in Sri Lanka than the number of Spectators at today’s game.

More to the point, the number of school children at the game are included in the total I mentioned above, so without them there would hardly have been anyone at the match. The fact that school children are given tickets or taken for the match on a school day is not cricket. We then give them the impression that a Cricket match is more worthwhile than attending school. That is a bad example to set for our youngsters.

To struggle to fill a stadium in the remote wilds built by displacing elephants is a crime. We have not even built a special stand for the elephants to come and watch the match after seizing their land. That too is not cricket! It is to fill the stadium that schools were given a holiday and encouraged to send their kids to the match. Remember most schools in the provinces are coeducational and so boys and girls in equal mix in their school uniforms were watching the match at night. It was a relief that the match was over before 7.30pm as the total number of overs bowled in the match barely exceeded 50. What if the match went the full course? The kids would have to go home at midnight and school the next day!

The authorities seem not to care about this issue and it is another aspect of political interference in people’s lives. It is sad that there is no concerned person in civil society to bring a case against the Govt. on behalf of the Students, akin to a FR petition for this action. I guess that is the level to which our systems have crumbled that no one even notices this point. I bet there will not be any mention of the facts above in any of the daily newspapers tomorrow.

We are a TV addicted country that hopes to recover the costs of the match out of TV rights, so it does not matter if the stadium is empty. In building a stadium in a desolate place such as that even if ALL tickets were free, they will not be able to fill the stadium with locals who live at a 10km radius from home, as they will not have the means to get home in the night, without fear of wild elephants!

What kind of country do we live in when we cannot do this and we put the lives of kids at risk. This is a blog for youth. It is time some of them took a stand.