Integrity always gold

Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

THROUGH OUR children, parents learn so much. For example, Ziya just started triathlon training, less than two months now, and it’s been a steep learning curve for me. A bookish sort, who spent my teens reading, and who spent my twenties in performance poetry and feminist organising, sports was like learning a foreign language with a different written script.

I knew zero, whether about laces or bike sizes or even what materials are best to wear. And, suddenly, I was around seasoned athletes competing since their teens, or coaches who might consider my most basic of questions to be obvious knowledge anyone should have.

One thing has been gratifying to see, however, is the kind of TT people who gather around sports. Those who provide advice you didn’t even know you needed, those invested in all children’s confidence and fun in addition to them doing well.

In a society that often feels as morally bankrupt as ours, particularly at the top, I was a latecomer discovering a space – besides the feminist and social justice one I’ve known for 30 years – which values qualities associated with determination, camaraderie, community and excellence. No one is perfect, but everyone shares ethical ground. Some issues are complex, but often it is very clear what is unjust and unfair or right from wrong.

Sports has always been like that, where it’s not just the best athletes, but the best characters and teams that shine, setting an example for others. Children learn to aim to be champions, but to also cope with not placing in one or another competition, for in life you can’t win every battle, and still must conduct oneself with dignity, generosity, humanity and grace.

Think of Serena Williams’s horror that a referee could think she – one of the greatest athletes of all time – was cheating in a match. Think of Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Barshim who agreed to share a gold medal each rather than compete in a jump-off at the Tokyo 2020 games. Their Olympic motto was: Faster, Higher, Stronger, Together.

Though it’s early days, I’ve also begun to discover the dark underside of how sports works. Indeed, our dark human underside bedevils everything we do, and rises wherever there is power and status to be fought over, hierarchies to be established, and inequities that are put into play to give some advantage over others, even among children and schools.

We should all be familiar with this. We live in a society that works on who you know, which lodge you belong to (if you are a man), which political party you support, your family name, or whether you are the one favoured for opportunity over others. Think of how national gymnast Thema Williams’s successfully fought in court the "biased and flawed" decision of the TT Gymnastics Federation to pull her out of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Sports sets who children become later in life, and if it’s a space of poor team principles, it normalises callous and divisive conduct in adulthood, whether among the poorest or town’s wealthiest.

Sports spirit can therefore be crucial for transforming our downfall in TT. Here, you could be both unethical and a poor choice, but be returned to a board, because machinations protect your position.

People set out to occupy top posts or get shortlisted, regardless of how they get there, how they behave while there, who they bully or oppress to keep that status or who they exclude or treat as a "lone wolf" to demoralise an adult or child who appears too much like a threat.

What enables that to happen, and continue, is the complicity of others. Those who should know better, but find excuses, justifications, technicalities, friendships or suddenly invented rules to allow a community or a nation’s moral compass to be off centre.

Brazen behaviour occurs because those who know choose silence in the face of what is not right; perhaps because they benefit, are intimidated by a more dominant personality or because there isn’t anywhere to go once you challenge a clique.

Position, whether on a political, state or sports podium, is considered a victory, but must be honourable or others will always see it as a farce. Sports has the opportunity to teach children its highest ideals or dark underside. Schools and teams, led by adults, are setting lifelong examples and have responsibility to teach what is right.

We now reach, but Zi must know. Medalling matters, but integrity is always gold.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 518

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