Japanese Lessons

Editorial:

There is much that the world can already learn from Japan, and yet the Land of the Rising Sun continues to serve up new examples that the rest can emulate. Japan’s prowess on the soccer field continues to impress and while football is notorious for its rough fans, the Japanese have announced that this need not be so. The Ivory Coast versus Japan clash in World Cup 2014 at Arena Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, was a keenly contested battle, but it has become memorable for what transpired after the match, outside the ground. After their side lost to Ivory Coast 2-1, Japan fans were seen cleaning up their section of the stands. They had come prepared with huge plastic bags, and after the match, cleaned up the entire section, packed the litter into the bags and left their section of Arena Prenambuco as tidy, perhaps even tidier, as they had found it when they arrived to cheer their team. And this was not a staged for a photo-op effort like the ones which have become sorely too routine nowadays; this was a gesture which became public only after some photographs taken on smartphones went viral online. What makes the Japanese fans unique and worth celebrating is that they displayed such civility at a moment when even if they had turned unruly and even smashed some seats in their section, few would have held it against them and would have explained it as a sign of their passion for the game. They have already established their passion for the game by having travelled halfway around the world to cheer their team, but with their clean-up act, they have established themselves as perhaps the most cultured fan-guests and definitely the most gracious in defeat. There is much that even Sikkim could learn from the Japanese gesture in Brasil because being gracious in defeat is a virtue which appears to be in very short supply here at present. And yes, one is talking politics here. The Opposition blaming their loss on money and muscle power, to the Ruling going into a sulk despite having won [but perhaps unhappy with the scale of its victory], is keeping the general environment as vitiated as it was in the run-up to the elections. Where one had hoped for the air to clear up after the results were declared, there is still too much negativity from all sides. Sikkim is too small a family to remain so sore for so long. It should learn from the Japanese fans – they travelled all the way to Brazil, were backing a good team and despite having played well and hard, were on the losing side when the final whistle blew. They must have been disheartened and dejected, but they did not let defeat strip them of their civility. They did not allow bitterness to cheat them of their love for the game, instead, they celebrated their passion for football and their national team by ensuring that just as the fighting spirit of them team on the field won them praise, the conduct of the fans on the stands earned them accolades as well…