Olonga should just shut his big mouth

Olonga should just shut his big mouth

OLONGA

• Your shouts on the Olonga debate

• Olonga: 'Why I wore that black armband'

• Olonga weds in Australia

• 13 white players quit in racism row

• Three selectors dropped

• Streak is right

• Player revolt looms

• Streak axed as Zimbabwe skipper

Former Zimbabwe cricketer Henry Olonga, 27, recently married Australian Tara Read, 34 and had two wedding ceremonies in Australia and Kenya. He shot to world fame when he wore a black armband with a white cricketer to protest human rights abuses by the Robert Mugabe regime before fleeing to England.

He has since become a favourite for TV journalists looking for an expert on Zimbabwe. But many, including his rugby-playing brother Victor, think he is an opportunist thrust into a world he has little understanding of.

Here, a New Zimbabwe.com columnist lets rip at Olonga, accusing him of being a stranger to politics. What do you think? Send your comments to ozzie@newzimbabwe.com

Henry Olonga is not qualified to give a political commentary on Zimbabwe.

I know the guy from back at school and he is not the kind of guy who will or would stand up for the oppressed. He wouldn't know oppression if it stared him in the eye. The British press love him because he is "the ideal black man" - the son of a doctor, plays cricket, sings opera music, and hangs more with the white people than his own folk.

Why should he want to stand up for Zimbabweans when he is from Kenya anyway?

I think that when Olonga wore the black armband last year he did not think Zanu and the rest of the world would make a meal out of it.

READ YOUR SHOUTS ON THE OLONGA DEBATE

He was probably just making a statement just like what every sports man seems to be doing these days. When shit hit the fan, it was too late for him to say "sorry I didnt think it would go this far". Instead he stood by his guns and decided to go the full distance.

Now he is hailed as the cricketer who chose to leave his beloved country and sport all in the name of Human Rights - yeah right!

What the British media chooses to ignore is the fact that Olonga's form had dipped considerably and he was on the verge of being dropped. To him his exile is just a means to an end. Zimbabwe cricket misses the Flower brothers more than it misses Olonga and thats a fact.

I just feel that Olonga should be turning down these interviews and directing the British press to those that are qualified to make a political analysis. Everyone has a voice and deserves the right to be heard, but for the British to assume that Olonga speaks on our behalf is absurd.
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
ozzie@newzimbabwe.com