“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)
Just as cream rises to the top of the milk, on great occasions, great men reveal their class. The bigger the occasion, the bigger the performance. The tougher the test, the tougher the response. During World War II, when French resistance was snuffed out by Nazi Germany, the lone beacon of hope was the gaunt figure of Charles de Gaulle. During the British debacle at Dunkirk in 1940, it was the rotund cigar-chomping figure of Winston Churchill who symbolized British bulldog tenacity. On the negative side of demagogic leadership, Hitler restored German self-belief after the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. With the black man in America on the back foot, minister Louis Farrakhan organized an uplifting Million Man March in downtown Washington, DC, on October 16, 1995, with a message simple, yet profound: now is the time for black men to stand up and be counted.
In 1967, the trouncing of Arab armies by Israel mobilized Palestinian resistance and gave the cause salience in the international arena. The fedayeen became a symbol of Arab resistance. Today, in Chechnya, the efforts of the “black widows” have reached into the hearts and minds of the Russian imperial psyche.
During the 1992 World Cup, a disjointed Pakistan cricket team was literally on the ropes and on the brink of flying home. But then they came to life as never before. They all rose like a unit and raised their game when it mattered. Five successive victories on the trot ensured Pakistan’s march into the pantheon of immortality. They caught fire on the big stage and created an unstoppable momentum of self-belief, pride and passion.
Most recently, I had the privilege of having extended sittings with two of the legends of Pakistan cricket: Imtiaz and Fazal. One was a dare-devil stroke player who was not afraid to hook the fastest bowlers during an era when there were no helmets and the other had the conviction to run through the finest batting line-ups of their generation. Their only exposure was to club cricket but that did not deter them from racing with the devil itself. Their victory, their role in Pakistan’s miraculous victory at the Oval in 1954 against arguably the greatest English side of the 20th century is a stuff of legends. Imtiaz told me that while they were taking the bus to the Oval on the fateful day, there was a consensus among the team that “we have got the game in our grasp and let us keep it in our grip”. The above only goes to show that most of the limitations are in the mind and if one aims high with a sense of mission, faith and steadfastness, no target can be too high to achieve.
“It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.” - Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)
