The Zimbabwe question
I have just been at a mediation as part of my work, a mediation between two parties that wouldn’t agree on the colour of the sky. It was a hard work, and every second comment was vicious, and every third wrong, and in the end three lawyers managed to find enough common ground that we have some kind of an agreement.
Knowing that this was going to be the legal version of Bodyline, yesterday I thought I would grab hold of a nice bold red tie, just to indicate that there was going to be little compromise. I suddenly realised this was the first time I had worn a red tie since the election.
Many of you will know my political leanings. After all, they were there for all to see on the ballot papers. I like Billy Bragg. I have a Barack Obama badge. I read John Pilger. I own several red ties. But according to a broad agreement back in November, I will not be raising politics in this column except obliquely. And with one large post-colonial exception. Population 13,000,000.
Considering my apolitical blogging stance, many readers may be surprised to see me praise John Key, the Prime Minister, but I’m not one to put so much spin on every story delivered out of the Beehive that you could accurately call any press release a doosra. I would like to be known as someone who calls a shovel shot a shovel shot.
I thought the Prime Minister did exceptionally well with Zimbabwe, saying just enough to give New Zealand Cricket the comfort to postpone the scheduled tour. There is no way, with the viral Robert Mugabe as head of state, that we should be bound by the ICC’s perverse amoral view of sporting contacts. There is no way that NZ Cricket should fear the crippling financial punishment that would be imposed if they chose independently not to tour that failing state.
When there is a threat to the democratic framework in a country, test cricket withdraws. This is an inexact statement, but there is a neatness to it. Cricket and democracy are two vestiges of Queen Victoria’s vast British Empire. Cricket thrives only within Commonwealth borders, and clings to existence desperately elsewhere.
Remember it was not rugby that inspired sporting contacts with South Africa to be dropped – it was cricket. The apartheid regime refused to allow Cape-coloured Basil d’Oliveira to return to the country of his birth as part of the English team, and South Africa was sent to the dog house for 22 years.
When Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was killed, England pulled out of the tour while India reeled. In the early 1970s the war and consequent genocide in East Pakistan closed Bangladesh as an international cricket venue for two decades.
More recently Pakistan has seen tour schedules shortened, tournaments cancelled, and ever decreasing numbers of cricketers lining up outside Pakistan high commissions around the world seeking visas. This is largely because of an uncertain political climate, bombings, and the threat of violence from Islamic extremists. There is now talk of Pakistan playing all its home test cricket in places like Sharjah, Malaysia or even Old Trafford.
With a pariah at its head, Zimbabwe is starving, its people suffering. Cricket is just a sport, and what is needed is armed intervention from other African nations – even the United Nations. Zimbabwe would fall in hours if a force went in, and Mugabe can be tried for the crimes he has committed against his own people, not least pillage. However, a cricket tour by reluctant people from far across the seas might give a modicum of legitimacy to the regime, a veneer of normalcy, an impression to the population that the outside world cares more about a colonial pastime than about a despot ordering beatings and deaths from behind his jacaranda-ringed compound in Harare.
Good on John Key. Good on Justin Vaughan. But let’s go further. Let’s use diplomatic channels to convince Australia, England and anyone else who will join us to boycott Zimbabwe cricket. Let national politics put on red ties and display angry plumage to the ICC, to show exactly who is boss, and end the farce of Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Bvute, Chingoka and Mali once and for all.
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Hear, hear. Well said Hamish. The antiquated notion that politics has no place in sport is nothing but wilfull ignorance. No-one should be touring Zimbabwe, and the spineless ICC should've suspended them from the FTP long ago to save the boards of playing nations and their govenments the annoyance of having to deal with the abhorrent regime of Mugabe.
Its a good idea but I can't really see any African country daring to invade another Africa country to dispose of its leader.
I mean how many African countries can actually claim to be morally superior to Zimbabwe...
The ICC should do the right thing and dump Zimbabwe rather then blackmailing poorer cricket countries into having to play there
Shame on the BCCI for using the "vote" that Zimbabwe brings as a means to their own ends while ignoring the moral mess the country is in
Ah finally somebody in this country remembers that it was cricket on not so hardly-known about apart from in NZ rugby tour that actually stopped the sporting contact with SA.
And the UN or America at least should roll on into Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe - the world seemed close to doing it after the elections but he's squirmed his way into clinging onto power for a bit more.
Spot on Hamish, particulalry the mention of the 'amoral' ICC. 'Sick little buggers who have no conscience and don't give a stuff' is what I would call them, but 'amoral' sums it up well in one word
All good points as what is happening in Zimbabwe is abhorrent without a doubt...However, sporting boycotts concern me a little, merely as they beg the question, Where does it all end?? Remember that Minto, Locke and co were only last year desperately calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics based on perceived greivances against those very odd people the Falun Gong...And earlier in the year our self appointed moral guardians were tormenting a young Israeli tennis player under the misguided belief that this would somehow end the Palestinian conflict. Whats next? Do we stop sporting contact with Americans due to treatment of detainees at Gunatanimo?? Im likely setting myself up for a torrent of vitriolic abuse by saying this but where does it end?? Should we be playing India tomorrow? Their human rights record isn't exactly squeaky clean...
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Very nice post Hamish.
Considering that Australia and England have already junked tours to Zimbabwe, a formal boycott just might be possible. And it would be so much more effective than the dithering that has proceeded the abandoned tours to date. (Though I suspect John Key is going to be New Zealand's most effective ditherers.)
A boycott should have a criterion though, I suggest that this should be the removal of Mugabe from power.