Kumar Sangakkara gives a strong message against racism by saying that a change can be brought only by teaching real history instead of a sanitized version of it.
Former Sri Lanka Captain Kumar Sangakkara on Thursday delivered a powerful message against racism saying that education without values will not stop discrimination. Sangakkara said that a change can be brought only by teaching real history about racism instead of a sanitized version of it. Offering his views on the “Black Lives Matter” movement that has gathered great momentum after the death of African-American George Floyd, Sangakkara said, “It doesn’t matter if you are educated or not. I have seen some of the worse acts committed by people with best education.”
“If your education is not based on values and not rooted in that in-built moral compass then you will be in trouble. Education is not going to take away any of your prejudices, it will only help you argue them away better,” he told media.
Kumar Sangakkara also said that there are various versions of racism & skin color is not only the basis for discrimination.
“If you take Black Lives Matter, if you take racism and discrimination in the world, I think one of the most important things is to teach our children history as it should be, and not the sanitised version of it. We need to shine the spotlight on the whole character — the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said.
“Once one understands what real history is, we will find changes in attitude. If you wake people up to that reality instead of believing we are the be-all and end all of civilization, I think that will be a powerful lesson to everyone.
“Change won’t happen overnight, it’s not the flavor of the month where you protest about it and forget it. It’s a slow and tedious process involving everyone in the world”, he added. Sangakkara who has scored a whopping 12400 runs in Test Matches & 14234 runs in 404 ODIs said that “We are all taught to love our country but sometimes we follow that blindly and that stops up from appreciating other cultures, races, religion and ethnicity.” He said that as a human being its our foremost responsibility to help others.
“We always have cricket team or sports team around the world doing charity, some of it looks very staged… If you are a responsible citizen, whether you play a sport or not you have a responsibility to make another life better.”
