www.cricketeurope4.net
by Michael Taylor
27 August 2010
Cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen.
– Robert Mugabe, The Sunday Times, 26 February 1984
Last Thursday the ICC confirmed that Ireland will travel to Zimbabwe in September to play three one day internationals and an Intercontinental Cup match. This article argues that, on three counts, Cricket Ireland’s decision to go to Zimbabwe is not only wrong, but entirely objectionable.
Sport, politics, and morality
The first and most important reason why Ireland should not tour Zimbabwe is that such an action would superficially appear to legitimise – or at least ignore – the brutality of a government which, despite the establishment of a coalition with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in February 2009, remains controlled by Robert Mugabe. I do not need to elaborate on the horrendous crimes of Mugabe and his regime, and the purpose of this article is not to expose the many misdeeds of Zanu-PF. I will, however, list a few, just to keep them fresh in your mind as you read on:
- The slaughter in the 1980s of between 10,000 and 20,000 Matabeles in an ‘operation’ called gukurahundi (‘the rain that washes away the chaff’);
- Wanton land seizures which the UN estimates has destroyed the livelihood of 700,000 Zimbabweans and negatively affected 2.4m more;
- The murder of at least 85 political opponents during the first round of voting in the elections of 2008, as recorded by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights;
- The murder of a cricket spectator who, during an ODI against Pakistan in Bulawayo in 2002, unveiled a banner protesting against Mugabe.
Of course, I am aware that the more general situation in Zimbabwe may be easing: the admission of the MDC to government has improved affairs; relative stability has returned to the economy, and Zimbabwean Sports Minister David Coltart flew to Belfast last week to make this point to the Irish players. Coltart, let it be understood, is one of the good guys, a human rights lawyer and a leading member of the MDC who survived an assassination attempt by Zanu-PF seven years ago. To his mind, an Irish tour of Zimbabwe would be a ‘good thing’, a step towards normality for a country ‘in transition’. ‘Normality’, however, remains a hollow concept for most Zimbabweans. Study, for a minute, these three questions:
- Has legally-owned land and property, stolen by ZANU-PF, been returned to its owners, or have those owners been compensated for their loss?
- Have those whose relatives were killed – or who were themselves injured by the same government – ever been given even an apology?
- Does the composition of the government reflect the democratically-expressed will of the Zimbabwean people?
If we answer those questions affirmatively, then the promise of a true democracy – of ‘normality’ – is perhaps realistic. Alas, we cannot, and it is worth reading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s current advice to British nationals on the issue of travelling to Zimbabwe:
During the election campaign of 2008 and its aftermath, there were numerous politically motivated attacks across Zimbabwe, including abductions, and the assault, torture and murder of opposition supporters, NGO workers, lawyers and those perceived to be against President Mugabe and his ZANU(PF) party. The police cannot be relied upon to assist victims and have told some British Nationals that they will not respond to politically motivated crime. You should avoid engaging in overtly partisan political activity, or in activities which could be construed as such, including political discussions in public places, or criticism of the President. It is an offence to make derogatory or insulting comments about President Mugabe or to carry material considered to be offensive to the President’s office.
By this stage, you may already wish to dismiss my case. You may ask: ‘What does this have to do with cricket?’ You may wish to present the eternal counter-argument: that sport, as we are told by untold seers and sages, should not be mixed with politics. Such people, however, are not Cassandra; this is not Troy, and we should ignore them. Let me explain why. If sport is a mere diversion, then only the despicable man does not forgo it to serve a nobler cause. However, if sport is more than that – if it carries a weight, a meaning, values – then it should be suffused by the same morality which informs the rest of life, and which informs our politics. Moreover, sport has always been as politicised as any other facet of life: the sectarian divide in the demography of sports in Northern Ireland has been a common subject for academic study; the propriety of sports on the Sabbath is a prominent feature of British religious history, while even the resurrection of the Olympiad was an explicitly political act, a means by which France could reassert its international prestige in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. Sport and politics go hand in hand, and ‘twas ever thus.
In the case of Zimbabwean cricket, however, politics becomes essential to the argument, primarily because of the peculiar relationship between Zimbabwe Cricket (formerly the Zimbabwe Cricket Union) and Zanu-PF. For one thing, Robert Mugabe’s name endures as an official patron of Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC). For another, Peter Chingoka, chairman of ZC, has been banned from entry to the European Union on the grounds of his links to Mugabe’s regime.
He has also been accused by former British sports minister Kate Hoey of using VIP pavilions at international matches ‘to host the ZANU-PF politicians, CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) operatives and senior army officers on whom he relies for protection’. This, of course, is the same CIO which launched an investigation into ZC’s new logo, launched in 2005, on the suspicion it cryptically spelled out ‘MDC’ in its symbols.
Even more sinister is Ozias Bvute, CEO of Zimbabwe Cricket, whose railroading into the administration in 2001 as Integration Implementation Officer marked the politicisation of the Zimbabwean board. This is a man who has had to repeatedly deny links to the CIO, who forcibly removed Henry Olonga from the team bus following the black-armband protest during the 2003 World Cup, and who handed Olonga his ticket back to Zimbabwe with the kind words: ‘You’re on your own now’. Tell me, how does accepting the invitation of these men to play cricket under their jurisdiction not carry political weight?
If we accept, therefore, that travelling to Zimbabwe is an inescapably political decision, what are its implications? The first is that Irish cricket may be accused of compliance with and appeasement of Zimbabwe Cricket, which – given its leadership – is still nothing more than what some people may view as the recreational wing of Zanu-PF. If you think I exaggerate, look at how the rebel tourists to South Africa were treated in the 1980s: many of the West Indians who toured between 1982 and 1985 were ostracised for appearing to comply with the white-supremacist government of PW Botha; the English tourists of the early 1980s were labelled ‘the Dirty Dozen’ by the Commons for placing cricket above the principle of racial equality, while those papers that supported the National Party did their utmost to represent all tours as tacit support for apartheid. Of course, that was not the intent of the cricketers. Nor will it be the intent of the Irish, but intentions are often misconstrued, as John Elder – managing editor of CricketEurope – found on a Grasshoppers tour to South Africa in 1981:
‘Before I went there I believed that sport and politics should be kept separate. After that fortnight I changed my view totally. Some people we met in South Africa truly believed that our going there was a statement of our support for the evil manner in which their country was run. In going to Zimbabwe the Irish players are allowing themselves to be used by … the government of Zimbabwe.’
Conversely, the consequence of not travelling is the admirable engagement in a practical and effective means of protest. You think cricket is powerless in this respect? Not so. Dr Ali Bacher, speaking to Cricinfo in 2008, averred that:
‘Zimbabwe should be isolated and banished from the international arena … I say this because of what brought apartheid down in South Africa: it was the international isolation. The same thing must happen now with Zimbabwe. From all the reports I read and watch in the South African media, what is happening in Zimbabwe is genocide. People who say sport and politics is completely separate are being naïve.’
Barry Richards, who was himself denied international cricket by the sporting boycott of South Africa, agrees in this. At Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s 2008 Spirit of Cricket lecture at Lord’s, he argued that inaction was wrong:
‘I think the ICC are erring and it frustrates the hell out of me that Zimbabwe have not been brought to book. It’s a moral issue and what is doing everybody knows is simply not right … cricket can play a part in that and it’s not.’
Moreover, the likely penalties the ICC would have meted out if Ireland had chosen not travel are surely worth the ‘crime’. England’s failure to qualify for the Super Sixes of the 2003 World Cup, for example, is forgiven without thinking: they were eliminated because they refused to play Zimbabwe, and they were condemned only for hesitating to do so.
Whose master’s voice?
The second argument against travelling to Zimbabwe is that doing so will only reaffirm the second-class citizenry of Irish cricket. Some months ago, the Zimbabweans wrote to ICC stating they were unwilling to play either Scotland or Ireland on neutral ground, contrary to the conditions upon which they were admitted to the Intercontinental Cup. Then, in August of this year, the Zimbabwe Independent – one of the country’s few independent newspapers – ran an article suggesting that Ireland and Scotland were being placed under undue pressure to play these Intercontinental Cup matches onZimbabwean soil.
Predictably, the ICC took no action against ZC, even for such flagrant dereliction of a mutually-agreed contract. Indeed, the ICC even joined in, for the sole purpose of ICC’s David Morgan recent visit to Dublin was surely to pressurise Ireland into travelling to Harare.
The pressure told: where Cricket Scotland, understandably seething at this duplicity, has deferred its decision on whether to travel, Cricket Ireland has already agreed to go. When I asked for an explanation, one senior member of Irish cricket’s administration told me: ‘The only reason we are going to Zimbabwe is because we are contractually obliged to do so’. Contractually obliged, that is, in much the same way that the Zimbabweans were contractually obliged to play on neutral ground. Some nations are equal in world cricket; some are more equal than others; by travelling, the Irish are only proving that point.
Gotta be crazy to fly…
Lastly, one might also ask if there is anything to be gained on the pitch: Cricket Ireland, with respect to the Intercontinental Cup match, seems to be caught in something of a Catch-22. Should Ireland beat Zimbabwe, their hosts may claim – and correctly – that the ‘Zimbabwe XI’ is only their ‘A’ team. Meanwhile, if the Irish lose, we may hear the cry: ‘Look, even our 2nd XI is too strong for the Irish!’ Of course, the addition of three full ODIs to the schedule is an attractive carrot being cleverly dangled in front of Irish noses, and it makes cricketing sense to play those matches. The non-cricketing objections to playing those ODIs, however, have already been made and should not be ignored: remember, cricket is more than a game, and what do we know of cricket if we only cricket know?