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Robson Sharuko

Senior Sports Editor

GLOBAL sports superstars, including six-time Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton and heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua, are coming out of their shell to lead a crusade against racism in the world.

The recent death of unarmed African American George Floyd at the hands of the police last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has galvanised a global movement to raise its voice against racism around the globe.

It has forced sports superstars like former West Indies World Cup-winning captain Darren Sammy, to review their past engagements, with some of their old teammates.

What they probably took as banter is turning out to have been racism.

Sammy, the only captain to lead his country to two ICC World T20 titles after guiding the Windies to success in 2012 and 2016, now wants his former teammates at Indian Premier League side Sunrisers Hyderabad to apologise over alleged racist slurs when he played for the side during 2013-14.

“I was listening to Hasan Minhaj (Indian-American comedian) talking about how some of the people in his culture view or describe black people,” Sammy wrote on Instagram on Monday.

“I was angry after listening to him describing a word that they use to describe black people, which he was saying is not in a good way . . . and it was degrading.

“Instantly, I remembered when I played for Sunrisers in 2013 and 2014, I was being called the exact same word he described as degrading to us black people.

“Because if it was in any way, shape or form what Minhaj said it meant, I’m very disappointed and I’d still be angry and deserve an apology from you guys.

“I assumed it meant something else that was uplifting. But every time I was called it, it was me and Thisara (Perera of Sri Lanka), there was always laughter in the moment.

“But you could understand my frustration and my anger when it was pointed out to me that it wasn’t funny at all.”

Sammy’s IPL team-mate, Irfan Pathan, told AFP news agency he was not aware of any occasion when the controversial word was used.

“I did not see or hear any such issue coming to light. See, it would have been a big issue had such a thing occurred and he was our captain as well,” Pathan told AFP.

“Racism is there in the world . . . and we should address it and set it right,” he said.

Here in Zimbabwe, former Warriors coach Wieslaw Grabowski, who owned Premiership side Darryn T, was known for using a word, “kurwa,’’ pronounced “kuvha’’, during his time in the trenches of domestic football.

The word was so synonymous with the Polish coach that he would barely complete a sentence without using it.

Some people even started using it as his nickname.

However, investigations showed that the word could have carried a darker meaning.

Marta Krzeminska, a Polish language explorer, who is an expert in language documentation and description, with more than two million viewers to her online lectures, addressed the meaning of the word.

“Please note, “kurwa’’ is a rather strong curse word.

In English, it can be variously translated as a moron, i***t, s***face . . . or any of your favourite expletives,’’ Krzeminska said.

“Therefore, remember, you would only call a person a “kurwa’’ in their face if you:

l Feel like starting a fight (verbal or physical).

l Are very close friends, as a way of counter-signalling.

“On many occasions the word ‘kurwa’ does not refer to anything specific. It serves as an abstract expletive which can express a variety of strong, but not always negative, emotions.

“In this case, the most common English translation equivalents will be ‘f**k’.’’

“It can be used to indicate anger, impatience, surprise.’’

In May 1996, a certain Tony Marcantonio, also tossed the word to the world for an explanation.

“I work with Polish people, and every second word is “curva” or ‘kurwa,’ can somebody please tell me why?’’

It triggered a number of responses, including one from Polish national, Mark Kaliczynski, who wrote that “kurwa’ is a filler just like “f**k” is, in many circles, it has lost any negative meaning or connotation.

“It is just the way people talk nowadays.’’

But, Radek P, commenting on the same online discussion, chose to disagree.

“Yes, I can tell you, the people who you work with do not have any manners, they are vulgar and unpolished. Perhaps you should change your company,’’ said Radek.

“These words are far more insulting and degrading than their English counterparts.’’

Most of the respondents say the world is usually used to refer to a whore or a woman of loose morals.

“The polish swear word ‘kurwa’ means ‘whore’ or ‘b***h,” but it is usually used to simply say ‘f**k’ just as in English,’’ explained the website www.europeisnotdead.com.

And, Wikipedia, referred to what Polish linguist, Jerzy Bralczyk, said when it comes to vulgar words.

“Linguist, Jerzy Bralczyk, calculated that there are only five basic vulgarisms in Polish (including ‘kurwa’. The rest are combinations of these five, derived words and phraseological relationships.

“New vulgarisms appear when new word configurations are created or their semantic context changes.’’

It’s hard to really pick what Grabowski might have been saying when he regularly bombarded his players with the same word, given others argue that it stands for an expression, which one gives out when they have been surprised by a sudden turn of events.

However, in today’s world, where racism has now become such a sensitive issue, it’s hard, too, to dismiss those who might feel the use of the word was probably offensive.