Sport Diplomacy

Mohali Stadium Setting the Arena for Diplomatic Discussion

Last week the much hyped about cricket world cup semi final match took place between India and Pakistan at the Mohali stadium but much of the media attention was surrounding the formal talks, coinciding the match, between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in what has come to be known as cricket diplomacy. The two prime ministers used the cricket match as a reason to facilitate talks between the two nations for the first time since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 which had resulted in a deadlock between the two nations in what one could portray as cold peace, which at any moment could escalate back to violence. The two nations have shared a violent history since the region was divided at the end of British rule in 1947, particularly over the Kashmir region which has been fought over for more than sixty years. This is the third time cricket diplomacy has been used before between the two nations since 1987. Whilst some people have argued that it will do little to bring the nations closer to peace (see - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5f5RjFnX3o), it is still a great example of state actors using a public occasion between a shared cultural sport to take part in diplomatic dialogue and surely any dialogue is better than no dialogue.


Rugby World Cup 1995

Another example of sport diplomacy took place in South Africa when Nelson Mandela used rugby to unite the nation after the end of the apartheid regime. Unlike the India Pakistan conflict this took place in one nation and Mandela helped bond a divided population under the new rainbow flag using the slogan ‘One team, One country’. By wearing a springbok jersey, the epitome of the white class, Mandela “captured the hearts of white South Africa. The rugby game was the orgiastic conclusion of the most unlikely exercise in political seduction ever undertaken”(1). The black president managed to do something that for years would have seemed unheard of, unite the country, and he did so using sport.

(1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3634426/How-Nelson-Mandela-won-the-rugby-World-Cup.html