Politics: Zimbabwe, apartheid & cricket morality - comment and analysis

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

Appeal to Zainub, Beny, Don, Kiwi Luvs Cricket and other non-Brits

What are your newspaper commentators saying about this, if anything? I'd be really interested to know. If you have time to post a link or two here, that would be greatly appreciated by me, and perhaps by other members of the forum.

Thank you for the summarised links this morning OF, good research.

The Pakistani press is not covering this issue in a great deal of detail - most of the coverage comprises of news reports and wire stories, describing the events and the developments, but not putting any spin on it. The main Op-Ed writers on the sports pages have not really devoted a lot of space to this issue recently. I only follow the Pakistani and Indian media over the web, hence someone who is based locally, eg Zainub, might be able to elaborate.

What might be of interest to you is the general sentiment on this issue over the past few months/year. I have trawled through my press clippings, and found some mention of Zimbabwe in quite a few opinion articles, though most of it unfavourable to the English position. I am attaching links to a few comments from Omar Kureishi, the most respected Pakistani cricket journalist, historian and commentator - probably a John Arlott and a Christopher Martin-Jenkins rolled into one, someone who has been intimately involved with Pakistani and Indian cricket over the past 60 years.

Kureishi's articles are on general cricket issues, but if you scroll down, the Zimbabwe gets a mention somewhere along the line:

http://www.dawn.com/2003/11/12/spt2.htm

http://www.dawn.com/2003/06/11/spt3.htm

http://www.dawn.com/2003/01/07/op.htm (probably the most detailed piece of the lot, with excellent historical analysis, titled "The World Cup")

Hope the above is useful OF - apologies to everyone else for such a lengthy monologue.

[Zainub]

Omar Kureishi, writes for the Dawn, Pakistan's largest and most widely read English daily, and the only one I'm suscribed to. He for once is the last person you would expect to agree with your stance on Zimbabwe. In the run up to the world cup, he mentioned the England-Zimbabwe issue almost every other week, in recent times the Australian tour has dominated his column but his opinions haven't changed. Like most people in Pakistan, Kureishi has frequently questioned England's supposed flip flop morality. He's been a severe and outspoken critic of not only England, but also Australia, who too briefly threatenned to not play their world cup match in Hararre. 15 January 2003, he wrote:

"DON Bradman's batting genius did not confer any kind of sainthood on him. The green baggy cap he wore was not a halo. Nor was his name ever associated with any human rights groups. He never spoke out against the treatment of Aborigines in Australia nor against apartheid in South Africa. Australia had no qualms about playing against all-white South African teams. His son, John Bradman, does not honour the memory of his father by invoking it to support the boycott of World Cup matches in Zimbabwe. John Bradman says that his father would have wanted Australia to consider the fate of Zimbabwe's people. Surely he means the white farmers and not the blacks of Zimbabwe. It seems a cheap shot. Bradman was my boyhood hero but he was no Muhammad Ali. If Australia and indeed England do not want to play their World Cup matches in Zimbabwe, it is their business. But spare us the moral clap-trap and the sanctimonious humbug."

He has questioned England's wisdom of using sport, in this case cricket, as a ground for political lobbying: in his column Swinging Drives (edition April 2nd, 2003) he writes:

"England refused to play in Zimbabwe for political reasons [in the world cup], the same Zimbabwe that has been persuaded to send its team to play in England this summer. In agreeing to tour England, Zimbabwe has taught a lesson to England that sports should be kept out of politics."

Kureshi, Pakistan's most admired, loved, respected, experienced and outspokern cricket annylyst has never been in two minds about his opinion of England, Jan 1 2003, he was as blunt as ever:

"The pressure is coming from England even the government has weighed in with Claire Short, a cabinet minister saying it would be "shocking and deplorable" if the England team went to Zimbabwe. The irony is that Zimbabwe's team is mainly made up of whites. Yet, they seem to be willing to play but the high-minded English find it morally repugnant to play in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. By introducing politics into sport, the World Cup is being put to risk. People like David Graveney are entitled to their opinions but are singularly unqualified to make political judgements. I would guess that they have no idea about the imperatives of Zimbabwe's politics nor any idea of the white man's rule in that country and how the best lands in that country were 'stolen' from the Zimbabwe blacks. It is a shameful history. The ICC must take a tough stand. "

I doubt anything has changed, I'm sure, that with the tour becoming such a major talking point, he will definately bring it up again this Wednesday. I will post a link to his column if he does. Apart from him, Zaheer Abbas, the former Pakistan captain who also writes for Dawn, but in its Saturday Supplement Magazine, has also condemned for the greater part England's reluctance to tour. Abbas refrains somewhat from addressing the moral rights and wrong (if one ever existed) of touring Zimbabwe, and focuses simply on trying to keep sport free of political intervention. On that front, he's been a long time critic of India who disallowed their team to play matches against Pakistan until before this year, and he did the same for England when the world cup match issue was brought up. In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, he thought England would rue not playing against them because beating Aus would always have been a tough proposition for them.

To be really honest, I'm fed up of the whole England-Zimbabwe debate. The media here is also on the same lines. For that reason they seem to be concentrating now on reporting on other, more important issues, like our Australian tour, with 3 staunch previews coming in the Maganzine last week, more expected this week with the squad now being announced, and still more talk continuing after that. We, really, at this point, don't care if England will tour Zimbabwe or not. We have enough problems of our own to ponder over already.

[Occasional Fan]

Zainub/Maranello - thanks for posting the comments from Omar Kureishi. It's interesting to see what the perspective is from a non-British viewpoint. Although some of the comments made are uncomfortable for the Brits, I do think some of them ask some serious questions of the ECB's position on this - not the least, there is the question of selective morality most clearly exemplified in my view by the ECB's willingness to have Zimbabwe teams play in England and thereby contribute to the English coffers coupled with an unwillingness, or at least severe qualms, about the return fixtures in Zimbabwe. It seems strange to me: if you and I have serious moral or political disagreements, it's unlikely that I'd invite you to dinner at my place but never come to yours. We'd just not visit one another at all.

I don't agree with everything Kureishi writes - in particular, I find his belief that sport, uniquely among all business activities undertaken by mankind around the world, should not mix with politics to be naive. However, I am more than willing to listen to his viewpoint. Thanks to you both for your contributions to this thread.

[Zainub]

I said I was going to provide you guys with a link to Kureshi's column if he has to say anything on the Zimbabwe affair, he did, you can read the whole column here, but I have quoted the part where he speaks about Zimbabwe.

Originally Posted by Omar Kureishi

England is touring Zimbabwe after all but seems to be making no secret of the fact that it is a reluctant guest. Sports and politics should be kept separate but it is not always possible to do so. The BJP government had not allowed its cricket team to play against and this decision had nothing to do with cricket. Then, after Mr Vajpayee had visited Pakistan and the two countries were embarked on confidence building measure, cricket relation was resumed but it was a political decision. The two cricket boards were merely pawns.

It is no secret that the British government is hell-bent on a regime change in Zimbabwe. But the implications of pulling out of the cricket tour would have been an admission of political interference in matters of sport and it is necessary to keep up appearances. But mixing sports and politics can be a double-edged sword. Not that it is likely to happen but suppose some country was to decide not to send its national sports team to Britain because Britain was one of the countries that invaded Iraq and is heavily engaged in what even the Secretary-General of the United Nations has called an "illegal war". In the long term it is best that sports and politics are kept apart. Sport is something that brings joy to a lot of people. The same cannot be said of politics. But not to allow members of the British cricket media to cover the tour was totally daft and I am glad that better sense prevailed and the Zimbabwe government realized that it was an own goal.

[Occasional Fan]

Thanks for this, Zainub. It's interesting to see a viewpoint from a non-Brit. I don't want to comment on the overtly political suggestion that the UK Government is "hell-bent on regime change", other than to say that I haven't heard anyone from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office use quite those words. The issue of political interference in sport is a strange one, though.

I am well into the Oborne book about the D'Oliveira affair now, and there are stories there (presented with proof from the National Archives of the UK and South Africa) of government interference which would make anyone's hair curl today. I was just too young at the time to be aware of the matter, but Oborne's book documents overt interference in the MCC's selection committee not only by the UK Government under Harold Wilson, but also by Vorster's Government in South Africa. The UK Opposition doesn't escape either, with Sir Alec Douglas Home, a former Tory prime minister and Opposition front bencher at the time, also getting involved. This is what I tend to think of when I think of political interference - and it's just not acceptable in my view. I suspect that the latter day condemnation of the involvement of the Wilson government in cricket in 1969 may be at least part of the reason why the Blair government of 2004 has made it perfectly clear that it will opine on the actions of the ECB, but not direct them.

Kureishi suggests that pulling out of the Zimbabwe tour "would be an admission of political interference in sport", but, taking political interference in the sense set out above (which I think, based on the few comments of Kureishi's that I have read, all of which are linked in this thread, is close to the way he uses the term), I don't see that that logically follows at all. It is perfectly possible for someone or a group of people who are not politicians in a professional sense to undertake political actions and make political decisions. I would go so far as to suggest that many - if not all - of us do it every single day, even if only in something apparently as minor as choosing which newspaper to buy or which radio station to listen to. In that sense, I suggest that it is just impossible to separate politics from sport - as it is to separate it from almost all human activity involving more than one person. And following on from that, I think that the ECB has made a political statement in touring Zimbabwe, and in my view, they have not made the right one.

Let me just come back to one point on the Oborne book. The MCC itself and the Imperial Cricket Conference (now the International Cricket Conference) also do not come out of this smelling of roses. Oborne paints a picture of massive establishment support of or at least acquiescence in apartheid, and both these bodies (and many other international sports governing authorities) are tainted in his view. That's off the subject of this thread, but I thought I ought to mention it in case anyone thought that his condemnation was reserved for the politicians in Britain and South Africa at the time. This really is a fascinating book and - surprisingly to me - a real page-turner. I recommend it to anyone who can get hold of it.

[Beny]

The thing is OF that nobody has botherd to write anything. There are a few factual articles concerning what is going on over there but nothing with an oppinion. (Some good thread starters though).

A few of the commentators on ch9 generaly just sigh when the subject is brought up. Most people over here see it as (no offence) the 'whinging poms'. I know that when Engalnd refused to play in the world cup they recived a battering from our media. Not just for choosing to not go but also for the way it was handled.

I have never seen an aussie jorno who backs the English stance, although i'm sure they exsist.

[Occasional Fan]

Yes, Beny: maybe it's just not a story outside the UK and Pakistan (and Zimbabwe of course, though I've not seen much from there either).

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

Let me just come back to one point on the Oborne book. The MCC itself and the Imperial Cricket Conference (now the International Cricket Conference) also do not come out of this smelling of roses. Oborne paints a picture of massive establishment support of or at least acquiescence in apartheid, and both these bodies (and many other international sports governing authorities) are tainted in his view. That's off the subject of this thread, but I thought I ought to mention it in case anyone thought that his condemnation was reserved for the politicians in Britain and South Africa at the time. This really is a fascinating book and - surprisingly to me - a real page-turner. I recommend it to anyone who can get hold of it.

Thank you for the book review OF, fascinating reading, really appreciate it. Did the MCC and the Imperial Cricket Conference have any appreciation of what was happening in SA? Of what an evil apartheid is? Does Oborne's book or your other reading shed any light on that? Would be interest to know. If they had even a vague idea, I would say their actions and views were "racist". Yes, I know, it is a controversial word which is thrown about too easily these days, and has been hijacked by the busybodies at various quangos etc, but this current example may be one of the rare cases where the word is relevant. I think it is an apt description for aparthied's bed-fellows.

On a related point:
For those who criticise the ICC in its current incarnation, I'd much rather have a bungling, incompetent organistion which the ICC is sometimes criticised of being, instead of the apparently racist or apartheid supporting MCC of the 60s and 70s. Malcolm Speed and Ehsan Mani are a great improvement, though there is still a long way to go to perfection. The International Cricket Council may share its initials with the Imperial Cricket Conference; in most other ways, it is a totally different and much more democratic and liberal body.


PS: you will notice I have changed the thread title to make comments on Oborne's book within the remit of this thread

[Occasional Fan]

There's no question, Maranello, that the MCC (and the ICC: in those days it was not much more than a sub-committee of the hugely powerful MCC) knew perfectly well what was going on in Southern Africa (both South Africa and Rhodesia: the region needs to be seen as one in historical terms even though it now comprises several countries, and I mean no offence to Zambians or Zimbabweans when I use the old name, Rhodesia, in this context). The MCC had been sending touring teams to Southern Africa since before the first world war, and, even though the codification of apartheid in its most obscene extremes only got under way with the election of the Nationalist government in South Africa after the second world war, the foundations were well laid in a racist society pretty much from the day the white man arrived on the continent. No-one touring in the test sides throughout the first seven decades of the twentieth century could have missed it: at Newlands, there was one small, uncovered area of the ground which was caged in and that was the only part of the ground to which non-whites were admitted. No chance for any of the tourists to run into a Black, Coloured or Indian person in the bar after the match. (I capitalise those terms to emphasise that these were legal distinctions in South Africa: everyone fell into one of four "racial" groups by law, and the allocation was so arbitrary that sometimes brothers and sisters were allocated to different groups dependent on how curly their hair was. A test was used by cricketing and government authorities which involved putting a pencil into someone's hair and seeing if it fell out: if it did, the person was Coloured; if not, the person was Black.) Apartheid was there for everyone to see, and it could not be missed: separate entrances to shops and hotels, labelled "Whites only" and "Non-whites"; separate seating at bus stops (often only one seat, in which case it would be labelled "Whites only"); separate public toilets; separate beaches; people being routinely physically kicked off the pavements and into the road because pavements were areas where white people had priority ... This list could go on forever. And this is the trivial stuff. What about the Immorality Act (outlawed inter-racial marriage and inter-racial sexual intercourse)? The Group Areas Act (determined who might live where - and separated brothers and sisters as a result of the arbitrary race classifications I mentioned above)?

In short, it was impossible for the MCC not to know about all this. They acquiesced in it at the very least, as did virtually all parts of the British Establishment and many more groups besides. Some would say that the acquiescence amounted to actual support, and it's difficult in hindsight to argue against that. They didn't have to do it. John Arlott (to name one) went to South Africa for a tour in the late 1940s. He never went back. It is probably no accident that he was instrumental in getting Basil D'Oliveira to the UK.

Thank God the world has changed. Thank God for those who made it change.

Another footnote: my grandfather, who died before I was born, was a white South African. I wish I had had the opportunity to discuss the country of his birth with him.

[Maranello]

Again, thank you for that. Definitely a thought-povoking and soberising post (is that a word?); I will take a breather from this thread and go away to mull over you post, and maybe rustle up a copy of Dolly's book.

The Immorality Act and the Group Areas Act sound quite distasteful. A Saffer friend of min of Indian origin had personal experience of this; in the 'enlightened' 1990s, when the legal structure supporting apartheid had been disbanded, the old attitudes still lingered. His girlfriend in Jo'Burg was Afrikaan; when her folks found out, the family came all the way from Pietermaritzberg (a small town, more like an Afrikaan fiefdom in the wilderness) and physically threatened him with guns. The girl never saw him after that.

In fairness though, the fact that an Indian and an Afrikaan can cohabit, albeit briefly, without legal sanction is a triumph for South African democracy. Some old attitudes will linger and there are die-hards fanatics everywhere, but in more ways than one, what SA has achieved in the past 10 years should act as a beacon of hope to all of us.

Thank God the world has changed. Thank God for those who made it change.

My sentiments exactly...

Good thing Israel does not play cricket or the ICC in its current guise would be faced with some very tricky moral decisions. $$$ signs on one hand.... honour and morality on the other.

Ok, time to go and mull ... More later