Can we now try to save the tournament, please?
February 06, 2003 Edition -1
Max du Preez
Some people like South Africans for it, but it is probably a sign of a rather immature public opinion: there's no grey, it's always black and white. Often literally. You pick your side of the argument using only your emotions, and then you stick to it.
Should England and Australia play cricket in Zimbabwe? Absolutely not, say some (mostly whites, most of them supporters of the rebel tours to apartheid South Africa), it would mean supporting an immoral regime and it would be unsafe. Of course they should, say the other camp (mostly blacks), their only reason for not wanting to is that they hate black people.
But I'm afraid it is far more complex.
Yes, the Mugabe regime is illegitimate and immoral. But this alone had never stopped international teams - nobody complains about visiting an undemocratic Pakistan, for instance. And we have to ask: will a boycott of Zimbabwe change Robert Mugabe's mind in the slightest?
I don't think so.
What about those, including our bumbling Minister of Sport Ngconde Balfour, who brand those nations and players who question the wisdom of playing in Zimbabwe and Kenya racists? Their concerns about safety and political morality are simply swept off the table as fabrications. It is being turned into one of those "the West is the racist enemies of Africa" arguments.
But isn't South Africa an African country? Aren't the vast majority of South Africa's people black? Didn't all the
so-called "white" teams (Nasser Hussain, captain of England, would have something to say about that) play their warm-up matches in South Africa in township stadia and mix freely with black kids? Why, if they're racists, would they not have found an excuse (rampant crime, for instance) why not to play in South Africa?
I am listening to Eric Miyeni's new talk show on SAfm as I write this. Australia is applying double standards, Miyeni says, because look at how they treated the Aborigines. It's pure Western racism, he says. Who has been shot in Zimbabwe other than whites with five farms? And so on, with foaming emotionalism that contributes absolutely nothing to an intelligent debate.
At the same time, one should ask why the English, the Australians and New Zealanders and their governments have waited until a few weeks before the World Cup to raise their objections. Didn't they know six months ago exactly what was going to happen? What could be their reasons for waiting until the last moment?
My own view is that it should never have been an issue. Ali Bacher, the South African cricket boss and kingpin of the World Cup organisation, has a good reputation as a sports administrator and as someone genuinely enthusiastic about transforming a sport which once had a mostly white face. But perhaps he was so eager to please those with other agendas and so scared of being criticised as a white man that he had lost his good judgment on including Zimbabwe in the World Cup. Or is it true what a little bird told me, that Bacher simply acts on orders from the Mbeki government?
When Bacher and his South African and international colleagues started planning next week's competition, they already knew that Zimbabwe was a country led by an unstable tyrant where people's human rights are violated on a regular basis. They would have known a year ago that the people of Zimbabwe would be starving in their hundreds of thousands by now and that the instability could only have grown worse. They should have known that Zimbabwe was not a good place right now to stage international sports events.
The original idea was a good one: calling it an "African World Cup" and sharing some of the joy and prestige of hosting it with neighbours. But picking Mugabe's Zimbabwe as a co-host could predictably diminish the success of the tournament and damage South Africa.
Instead of gaining good PR for Africa, they have simply succeeded in broadcasting Africa's failures and problems to the world, because every cricketing nation on earth is now hotly debating the question of playing in Zimbabwe. And why include Kenya, where several international terrorist attacks against Western interests have already claimed large numbers of lives? If we had to share it with someone, why not stable, safe and uncontroversial Namibia which has all the facilities needed?
Supporters of the opposition MDC - and we have good reason to believe they form the majority of that nation - have clearly indicated they don't want to see World Cup matches played in their country. In fact, they are planning to protest against it. The Zimbabwean police have shown time and again that they cannot or prefer not to use civilised methods of crowd control.
Can Africa afford to have demonstrators, let alone spectators from abroad or players themselves, badly hurt or even killed in Harare, Bulawayo or Nairobi? It would be devastating for Africa's image and for its tourism. Stop the posturing and save the tournament, I say.
