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Killing sport to spite Mugabe dishonorable
By
Obert Madondo
THE current
attempt by certain elements in the British cricket and political establishments
to scuttle the Zimbabwe cricket team’s scheduled England tour
next year is an extension of the West’s isolationist policy against
the Robert Mugabe regime.
But, having failed to unnerve the dictator with this rigid, ineffectual policy, these elements now seek to punish Zimbabweans instead.
These elements are disillusioned by Zimbabweans’ perceived failure to dislodge the dictator. They feel insulted that, in recent years, Zimbabweans have become increasingly skeptical of, if not hostile to, the West’s policy. The policy, targeting the dictator and his closest lieutenants, is a cocktail of so-called targeted sanctions, travel bans, sustained international isolation and demonisation.
The West imbedded its anti-Mugabe stance into the domestic multi-faceted fight against the dictator. During its infancy, the West’s policy meticulously fed on the wounds of brutalised Zimbabweans, particularly supporters of the opposition MDC. The so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill in the US, the most significant official manifestation of the West’s stance, identified itself with “the suffering people of Zimbabwe”. Democracy, the rule of law and human rights became mantras upon which smart individuals built careers and churned out bestselling books.
If the West’s policy produced any positive result for the democratic effort in Zimbabwe, I have yet to see concrete evidence. In the political boxing ring, Mugabe’s punches no longer sting, but he is yet to hit the canvass. If Zimbabweans were a vindictive lot, they would turn the tables and argue that Mugabe actually profited from the West’s stance.
With the economy spiraling out of control the dictator took his smear campaign and propaganda directly to Zimbabweans. He argued, consistently, that the West was out to sabotage Zimbabwe. He proposed this vivid picture of a secret, grander, re-colonisation plot by the West. He portrayed opposition forces, particularly Morgan Tsvangirai, as remunerated agents of the West in this plot.
If repeated again and again, negative, malicious propaganda finally sticks in the mind and replaces the truth. Such is the nature of dirty politics. Love him or hate him, Mugabe is a master propagandist. The economic collapse, a consequence of his corrupt rule and Western sanctions, primed the rural folks, the backbone of the now-agrarian Zanu PF party’s vote, for the dictator’s vote-buying.
Simba Makoni’s entry into the presidential race has upped the stakes. To the usual verbal smear campaign and ballot rigging on polling day, Mugabe has added tractors and computers. This is his response to both the domestic democratic challenge and the West’s policy.
But while Zimbabweans have invested tremendous energy in the democratic struggle, they have rendered token direct support to the West’s policy. Not all Zimbabweans opposed to Mugabe supported the MDC but few challenged the party and the West. The lack of challenge to the MDC by those opposed to Mugabe, particularly political commentators, translated into only implicit Zimbabwean support for the West’s policy.
Zimbabweans’ hesitation to explore alternative solutions to the fractured MDC became closeted approval of the West’s stance. To some in the West, Zimbabweans could have done more. For example, they should have waved American and British national flags during their domestic rallies as a show of support to the West.
Zimbabweans will not stray that far in thanking outsiders. In fact, after the MDC split in 2005, Zimbabweans began to say: wait a minute, there is something wrong with our unadulterated support of the MDC, and failure to scrutinise the West’s position! The independent media in Zimbabwe began to scrutinise and challenge the opposition. The search for an alternative to the MDC became an integral part of the larger struggle against Robert Mugabe.
New progressive ideas began to emerge. There was the Third Force baby that died before it could crawl, for example. There’s was a clear move away from the unadulterated support of the MDC which, as stated above, was implicit support of the West’s policy. By putting the MDC under the microscope Zimbabweans deliberately shamed the West, which sees the opposition MDC as a blemish-free alternative to Mugabe.
Then there is the unprecedented positive interest Simba Makoni has received since he rebelled from the regime last month. Western commentators had hinted at this development for years, but privately prayed against it. The Makoni factor is a serious rebuke of the West’s sanctions regime, and MDC Tsvangirai faction’s proposal to prosecute Mugabe if it wins the next election. Makoni has already indicated that if he wins, Mugabe will retire without the prosecution the West howls for every day. By accepting Makoni and his supposed Zanu PF baggage and protection of Mugabe, Zimbabweans are shaming the West’s thirst for Mugabe’s blood.
Some sympathy is due to the West on this one: Zimbabweans are reneging on their promise to international community to make Mugabe pay. But some of Mugabe’s perennial critics in the diplomatic community are complicit too. Roy Bennett recently bemoaned that some unnamed Western diplomats previously sympathetic to the MDC now sought to “impose” Makoni. By supporting Makoni, these individuals are accepting the possibility of letting Robert Mugabe get away with crimes against humanity.
To add insult to injury, Zimbabweans remained stoic in the face of the biting economic, political and social problems. Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate of over 100,000 percent. The economic, health and education systems have collapsed. 90% now live in abject poverty. Zimbabweans at home are broken but remain hopeful for the future.
The situation in the Diaspora is a contrast and this provokes rage among self-appointed Western Messiahs who have tirelessly worked toward Mugabe’s demise. They include human rights crusaders who kept the deteriorating human rights situation on the global media circuit, and scribes and intellectuals who built careers on a sustained negative international portrayal of Zimbabwe.
Western diplomats like former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe and now a deputy chief of mission in Afghanistan, Christopher William Dell, must be gritting their teeth in damn-you-Zimbabweans fashion. Remember his numerous hysterical predictions of Mugabe’s inevitable demise? To these Western individuals, Zimbabweans are an ungrateful lot.
In the current Western mindset, Zimbabweans are solely to blame Mugabe’s delayed demise. The dictator-busting uprising proposed by the targeted sanctions, travel bans, demonisation, negative media campaign and economic collapse has not materialised.
Mugabe will rig the March 29 elections. The starving and brutalised people of Zimbabwe are unlikely to engage in a Kenya-style reaction. Some non-Zimbabweans have posited that Zimbabweans are cowards. Wrong. Zimbabweans aren’t afraid of Robert Mugabe; they’re damn too peaceful, and too sensible, to engage Mugabe in an armed conflict that would cost thousands of innocent lives and drive the country to the stone age. The thing called hope is an asset Zimbabweans have in excess.
Unwittingly, Zimbabweans are also shaming both the prophets of doom and the cloak of darkness proposed by Mugabe’s repressive rule.
Most infuriating to some in the West is the fact that the name “Zimbabwe” continues to shine on the world stage, eclipsing the countries’ domestic woes. The perennial ZimExpo series in the UK and North America is an apologetic showcase Zimbabwean of business, fashion and culture in the Diaspora. From humble beginnings, internet publications such as NewZimbabwe.com now showcase the best of Zimbabwean analytical minds. As a testimony, numerous international media and independent media at home have either alluded to or carried original articles published by NewZimbabwe.com in recent months.
The world-class exploits of the evergreen Kirsty Coventry, soccer star, Benjani Mwaruwari and Zimbabwe cricket player Tatenda Taibu are not lost to some indignant individuals in the West. David Cameron, leader of the UK Conservative Party must be the angriest of them all. He has already indicated that he would support an official ban on Zimbabwe’s planned cricket tour of England. Cameron and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB)’s vexation is specific to the game of cricket. To them, it is insulting that a country that has failed to topple Mugabe should still play the Gentleman’s Game.
Before establishing its global presence, cricket was a source of English pride. The era of empire-building had to have been stressful. There were millions of “savages” to tame, precious resources to extract and ship out of the colonies and foundations to be laid for perpetual social, political and economic domination. What a relief it must have been to finally play some cricket amid fanatical shouts of unflinching patriotism to the British Empire! In the mid-1800s British colonialists used the game to instill British ideas and attitudes in the natives.
Cricket as a game played its own part in the colonizing game. Some indigenous elites embraced the game, and Britain's social practices, so that they could secure good jobs in the prevailing colonial order. Cricket became such a potent symbol of Englishness that some learned the game so that they could secure acceptance in the Englishman's eyes. Henry Olonga is the quintessential residue of this misguided, low-esteemed indigenous elite. The man has internalised the inferiority complex proposed by racist colonial domination. From his recent publicly uttered support of the proposed British ban of Zimbabwe’s cricket tour, one cannot resist concluding that his 2003 armband stunt sought to please the West. It was not a public rebuke of the Mugabe dictatorship!
For the rest of us in Zimbabwe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, cricket is now synonymous with feelings of self-worth and dignity.
In fact, Zimbabweans now love cricket so much that they even revolutionised the game, made it more Zimbabwean. Whereas, Zimbabwean cricket was mostly a white and elitist affair ten years ago, it is becoming a lot more Zimbabwean every day. The Zimbabwe cricket team is no longer a symphony of European names.
It is now a full-fledged orchestra. Listen to this: Prosper Utseya (captain), Gary Brent, Hamilton Masakadza, Ryan Higgins, Tatenda Taibu, Brendan Taylor, Regis Chakabva, Chamu Chibhabha, Terry Duffin, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Keith Dabengwa, Tawanda Mupariwa, Ray Price, Friday Kasteni, Tafadzwa Mufambisi, Sean Williams, Mluleki Nkala, Edward Rainsford, Vusi Sibanda, Christopher Mpofu, Elton Chigumbura, Alester Maregwede, Piet Rinkee, Johnson Marumisa, Timycen Maruma, Charles Coventry, Blessing Mahwire, Tafadzwa Kamungozi, Gregory Strydom, Tendai Chisoro, Trevor Garwe, Tinashe Hove, Graeme Cremere, Tino Mawoyo, Keegan Meth, Prosper Tsvanhu. Welcome to the new Zimbabwe!
But one can understand the British and ECB chagrin. Zimbabwean cricket evolved during the last ten years, a period when the Mugabe dictatorship opened a repressive chapter only surpassed by the dark days of Gukurahundi. More than 300 died in politically-motivated violence since 2000. In 2005, Murambatsvina robbed at least 750 000 of livelihoods. By revolutionising cricket right under the darkness of Mugabe’s dictatorship, Zimbabweans scored an envious and progressive feat. Racial tolerance is the nature of Zimbabweans. Remember when all-black constituencies elected white MPs right in the midst of Mugabe’s anti-white crusade of 2000 and 2005?
On the contrary, cricket remains largely a white-washed affair in England and other Western countries. These countries need to wake up to the new reality of sport. Sport has become a symbol of diplomacy, international solidarity and diversity. Cricket is no longer the English Gentleman’s game. It is no longer the umbilical cord of the British Empire, which linked the mother country with her subjects around the world. Mostly importantly, cricket can no longer work as a political tool.
The argument that the ECB’s position is based on morality is an insult, to say the least. The old, all-white Zimbabwe cricket team competed and dined with the British during the 1980s when Mugabe slaughtered 20 000 innocent people in Matabeleland and the Midlands. England boycotted Zimbabwe during the 2003 World Cup in protest of Mugabe’s reclamation of land owned by whites. If morality is indeed the bottom line then England should also boycott Pakistan. There, a vicious dictator presides over a state that employs violence to suppress dissent too. The difference between General Pervez Musharraf and Robert Mugabe is that the former is an ally of the US in the global war on terror.
Stephen Brenkley, writing in The Independent on Sunday (March 9, 2008), justifies and the ECB’s decision, positing that “The tour, in any case, is likely to be restricted to one-dayers because Zimbabwe have not played any Tests since 2005 and there is not the remotest hint that they are ready to return.”
Here Brenkley is not only insinuating that Zimbabwean cricket is in the Intensive Care Unit; he is also mocking our modest record on the cricketing circuit. Surely, if cricket was the ultimate litmus test, Brenkley and like-minded westerners would consider Zimbabweans lesser human beings.
Brenkley refuses to acknowledge that both Zimbabwean cricket and Zimbabweans refuse to die from the combined effects of Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship and regressive international politics. Last year at the Twenty20 World Championship, Zimbabwe thrashed the much-fancied Australia in the opening match. Last November, Cricket South Africa invited Zimbabwe to participate in the MTN Domestic Championship and the Standard Bank Pro 20 Series.
Zimbabwe has since played and won a couple of first-class four-day games against South African teams. Recently, Zimbabwe played a five match One day International series against the West Indies, scoring an upset in the first match before losing the series 3-1.
Paradoxically, cricket is supposed to be the cleanest of sports predicated on the twin tenets of fair play and respect. Using it as a political tool against Mugabe is throwing the beautiful game into disrepute. By refusing to use cricket as a political tool, Zimbabweans are doing their part in preserving cricket’s sedate image. The same cannot be said of other cricket-playing countries. Modern-day professional cricket is plagued by intrigue, murder, cheating, match-fixing, doping scandals, ball-tampering, riots and target for gamblers and bookmakers, especially in Asia.
The late Pakistan coach, Bob Woolmer, was murdered at the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean last year. He was reportedly writing a book which touched on corruption in cricket. He reportedly “knew too much” and was about to blow the whistle on some bookmakers.
During a Test series against England at the Oval last year, the Pakistan cricket team, under Woolmer allegedly cheated. Team captain Inzamam-ul-Haq denied the claim and refused to lead his team out for the final session. The match was declared a forfeit, the first in the 129-year history of Test cricket.
In the 1990s, the late former South African team captain, Hansie Cronje, was exposed for match fixing. He pocketed an estimated US$100,000 from gamblers and bookmakers while on a tour of India in 1996 in return for match information. He was banned for life in 2000 and died shortly in a plane crash that has never been properly explained. The same scandal implicated former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin, teammate Ajay Sharma, and Pakistan batsman Salim Malik and fast bowler Ata-ur Rehman.
Australian Shane Warne, pulled out of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa after testing positive for a banned substance. Warne is considered the world's greatest spin bowler and has also taken the most Test wickets in the game. Last year, Pakistan fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif tested positive for the banned substance nandrolone. They were banned for two years. In both India and Pakistan, passions sometimes explode into rioting if the countries national teams lose. The list of cricket infamies is endless.
There is an interesting pattern here. Traditional Western cricketing countries routinely use the game for political expediency. Scandals have plagued mainly intermediate countries like India, Pakistan and South Africa. If there is one report of a Zimbabwean cricketer abusing the game, please forward it to me. With modest success on the international scene and few rewards, Zimbabweans still play the game with an embodiment of class, elegance, sophistication and dignity. They are the true custodians of the spirit of sport.
For captain Prosper
Utseya and his colleagues in the Zimbabwe national team, no doubt, using
cricket as a political tool against Mugabe is throwing the beautiful
game into disrepute. Killing the sport to spite Mugabe is dishonorable.
The West can keep the inferiority-plagued soul of the likes of Henry
Olonga, which forfeited its place in brutalized by proud Zimbabwe. Come
Robert Mugabe’s brutality, hail or thunder, Zimbabweans will play
cricket. Cricket is too beautiful a game to be used as a political sjambok
against someone as evil as Robert Mugabe.
Obert
Madondo writes from Canada. He can be contacted on e-mail: ronrich22@yahoo.ca
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