Is Our Tapuaiga A Waste Of Time?

Written by Pio Sioa
Thursday, 03 April 2008
Did the tapuaiga desert our boys at the Hong Kong 7’s.? Did we project enough tapuaiga force to save the team from going down to South Africa in the semi final? We can talk, speculate, analyse or plainly condemn, but a fact is a fact. We were beaten. Full stop. Did we throw out enough tapuaiga? Our political leaders were probably cheering their throats out in Hong Kong, but we still lost. Would it have mattered that they were present? The problem with matters beyond our humanly grasp or influence is that everything revolves around faith. Blind faith. Devotion beyond human ability to reason. This is the basis of our tapuaiga. This is our silent prayer to will our support for success. This is why the role of non-participants is more important than participants – E le sili le ta’i i lo le tapua’i. The tapuaiga as we have all learned does not always work according to our desires and wishes. Should we dare ask if it is just a waste of time? The faithful will say it is blasphemy even to question the value of the tapuaiga. The force of religious belief will condemn such thoughts as ungodly and a sacrilege. Matters beyond the realm of the ordinary works in mysterious ways, in the same way miracles do. Miracles however are a slightly stronger term to be used in the context of our rugby team in Hong Kong. These things normally occur when hope is the only recourse left. Everything else humanly possible has been done and fully exhausted. Our Hong Kong team did not need a miracle. They have honed their rugby skills to a level where they became champions last year- the second time they have asserted themselves to become the best in the world. So to expect a miracle win for our rugby team was asking a bit too much. As far as the tapuaiga is concerned, there is always an underlying acceptance that what we wish or willed is not always granted. If it did then our rugby team would be the champions of everything. All our other sportsmen and women will be champions of everything else. When and if that happens, no one will want to play against Samoa in rugby or in any other sport. If it happens in sport, it would also happen everywhere else we throw our tapuaiga at. Samoans will be the smartest people in the world because parents willed their support for their children to pass their exams. We would be the healthiest people because the tapuaiga is always applied when a member of the family is taken sick. The list of success and other good things we wish for in life extends everywhere we apply our tapuaiga to. How boring! Where are the real rewards to reap from the challenge? Will victory be sweet anymore? Expecting the tapuaiga to lay down an easy path for us to take is no different from cheating. Unless ones conscience is blinded by a consuming passion to win, dependence on the tapuaiga to grant us our wishes all the time will deny us the worth of what we wished for. The tapuaiga like miracles are phenomena that are better left to the powers that wields them, because they are there for a reason that is beyond our capacity to comprehend. The forces responsible for these things have infinite wisdom beyond our mere human designs. When we throw our tapuaiga, we are doing no different from knocking on the door of divine judgment. If we are ruled deserving, it will be granted accordingly. If not, it is for a good reason. But it does not take away from our right to knock and knock and knock. As humans we are knockers not openers. There are others who do that for us. So maybe the door did not open when our tapuaiga knocked for our Hong Kong team to once again win the international 7 a side rugby championship, but that does not mean our tapuaiga was a waste of time. Maybe our tapuaiga did not work for our team, but ponder this thought for a minute. Our neighbours and arch rivals on the rugby field, Fiji, reportedly went to the extent of stoning the team coach’s home after losing to New Zealand in the semi-finals. Has the depth of our tapuaiga have anything to do with preventing a similar reaction from happening to the home of our coach Galumalemana? There is more to what the tapuaiga is all about then the difference between winning and losing. Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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