Jason Dasey
After the terror attack in Angola, why don't we just go ahead and cancel the soccer World Cup in South Africa? And, with the Mumbai massacres in mind, maybe it's advisable to skip New Delhi's Commonwealth Games. And to avoid any potential clashes with pro-Tibet activists, perhaps it's best that we also don't attend the Asian Games in Guangzhou.
This year is a particularly risky one in sports, with the Fifa showcase held for the first time on African soil in June and July, India's inaugural Commonwealth Games in October and the Asian Games staged outside a capital city for only the third time in its 59-year history in November.
If we want to put security above everything else, the best thing is to stay at home, lock all the doors, turn on the burglar alarms and hide under the quilt covers. But then again, that could leave us open to an attack from deadly bed bugs. The truth is that all sorts of terrible things can happen to us whether we leave our front door or not.
Since the horrific January 8 terrorist attack on the Togo soccer squad in Cabinda as they travelled to the Africa Cup of Nations, we have heard all kinds of hysterical nonsense about what this means to security, two borders away in South Africa. And fear being fear - sometimes called 'False Evidence Appearing Real' - there also seems to be a groundswell of concern about the safety at other forthcoming sports events.
Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the South Africa 2010 organising committee, got it 100 per cent correct when he said that claims that a similar breach would happen during the World Cup had no basis in reality.
Having attended last month's final draw in Cape Town, I caught a glimpse of the intense level of official security for a tournament that is now less than five months away. If anything, the sad events in Cabinda will effectively reduce the risk of a repeat in South Africa because officials will be more vigilant.
'To link Angola with South Africa would be the same as saying that because of problems in Iraq, people should not be travelling to Hong Kong,' said Ryan Cooper, of Kick Off, an African soccer magazine. 'They are two different places, thousands of miles apart, with their own security and strategies to battle any potential problem.'
Even so, the big cities of the so-called 'Rainbow Nation' still have many no-go areas. Statistically, a South African is 50 times as likely to be murdered than someone living in western Europe. But while that may put some of the predicted 350,000 foreign visitors at risk if they stray into the wrong areas, it is unlikely to produce a scenario where players will be vulnerable.
'Many European journalists have regurgitated some old nonsense about how Africa isn't fit to host the World Cup,' Cooper said. 'While Angola might not have South Africa's high crime stats, it's a country just out of civil war and those problems led to the tragedy.'
The perceived risk of prominent athletes abroad has caused unease amongst Australia's top cricketers, who are due to take part in the Indian Premier League (IPL), starting in March. A militant Hindu group has vowed to target Australian IPL players in retaliation for attacks on Indians in Australia. Australian and English officials are also monitoring security ahead of October's Games. And Delhi didn't do much to ease concerns last week when a woman died at the construction site for the athletes' village in a fire apparently caused by preparing tea.
Last March, cricket umpire Simon Taufel survived an attack by gunmen in Lahore that killed eight people and injured six Sri Lanka players plus one official as they travelled in a convoy to the second test against Pakistan. Taufel was sure he'd be killed in the gunfire, ducking for cover amid inadequate security as he saw reserve umpire Ahsan Raza seriously injured.
'How similar, how terrible and how lucky,' said Taufel when asked to compare the Cabinda and Lahore incidents. 'A bus carrying sports people cowardly attacked by ambush with their bus driver killed and a miracle anyone survived.
'For me, I don't believe you can prevent 100 per cent these kinds of people attempting such acts, but [financial] costs should never be an issue for sporting administrators and there needs to be a zero tolerance to breaches of security plans and arrangements.'
Taufel briefly contemplated retirement, but decided to continue with his career. In the 10 months since, he's officiated in a total of 18 matches at test, one-day international and Twenty/20 level, including sub-continental stops in Dhaka and Colombo.
The courage of people like Taufel and Manchester City's Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor not wanting to quit is to be admired, but isn't life all about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, as dozens of self-help books have professed?
Of course, you also need to have the wisdom to realise there are dangerous destinations in the world you'd be wise to avoid. Cabinda is one of those, but South Africa is not. Indeed, just four weeks out from the new Lunar Year, the old saying, 'Better to live one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep' has more poignancy than ever.
