Today Alex Ferguson reminds us about England’s two rebels tours to South Africa. Thank heavens there was never a third.
Two weeks ago the West Indies completed a three-game series against England, where – quite rightly – the words: “Black Lives Matter” was all over Sky’s coverage. Knees were taken, tears welled up. It was simply amazing.
Cricket’s move is a follow-up to all other sports who have done the same thing in an effort to push black rights.
But within this is something that English cricket has never officially apologised for – the two ‘Rebel Tours’ to South Africa in 1981-2 and 1989-90 which put money over race.
HOW THEY STARTED
Because of apartheid, world sporting organisations banned South Africa from competitive cricket.
But players still wanted to play there, and – according to The Rebel Tours by Bob May – ‘Ian Botham, Geoff Boycott, Graham Dilley, John Emburey, Graham Gooch and David Gower signed a letter expressing interest in a “quiet, private” tour of South Africa’.
For financial reasons, Botham and Gower pulled out because of the hit it would take to their endorsements. Although Botham has said it was because of moral reasons, Boycott called Botham’s reasoning to be B.S. calling it “puke-making”.
Emburey, with the promises of a windfall for cricketers in his pocket, wandered around the Middlesex dressing room encouraging cricketers to take the cash.
THE FIRST TOUR
Squad: Graham Gooch, Geoff Boycott, Dennis Amiss, John Emburey, Alan Knott, John Lever, Chris Old, Derek Underwood, Peter Willey, Bob Woolmer, Wayne Larkins, Arnold Sidebotton, Les Taylor.
The English authorities didn’t sanction the tour. The players knew that if they decided to go then they would get three-year bans.
The decision to play three tests and three one-dayers was hated by the general media, but loved by the pro-white South African press.
And as for the cricketers, according to Martin Williamson’s article for Cricinfo, the 12 players pocketed between £40,000 – £60,000 (in today’s terms £162,000 – £213,000) from the South African Breweries. The argument was simple: “why not go and make money in addition to the usual five-month season?”.
Most of the players lost their Test careers after these moves – although a notable exception is Graham Gooch, who continued to pile on the runs.
And for the record, England performed crappily, losing the tests 2-0 and the one-dayers 2-0.
THE SECOND TOUR
Squad: Mike Gatting, Bill Athey, Kim Barnett, Chris Broad, Chris Cowdery, Graham Dilley, Richard Ellison, John Emburey, Neil Foster, Bruce French, Paul Jarvis, Matthew Maynard, Tim Robinson, Greg Thomas, Alan Wells and play-manager David Graveney.
The second tour in 1989-90 came after England had been obliterated by an Australian team that they were expected to beat comfortably. Like the first tour, it came about because of money. The dosh on offer was far higher than the wages offered to international cricketers.
The idea was floated around the Middlesex dressing room by John Emburey – one of the original ‘rebels’. One of the people who took it up was Mike Gatting, who was still fuming at the TCCB because he hadn’t been given the England captaincy. According to the Angus Fraser, who had just started playing for England, Gatting – “just wanted to stick two fingers up at [the selectors]”.
Unfortunately, the two fingers were up at Gatting. Almost as soon as he arrived in South Africa, there were mass demonstrations saying: “Gatting, go home!”. He laughed it off at the time, saying that it was ‘just a bit of singing and dancing’.
The cricket itself was a debacle, with England losing their ‘international games’. The tour was also shortened due to the demonstrations and, more importantly, the release of Nelson Mandela on February 11th 1990. A proposed third tour was also cancelled.
Gatting himself was tone-deaf even some years after the tour. He told the Guardian in 2010: “I don’t want to talk about it, really, except to say that it all turned out well for South Africa”.
Foster’s stupidity was even worse when he said: “in a bizarre way, we did help change the country”. Meanwhile Emburey said: “in hindsight, it was a tour that maybe shouldn’t have taken place.” It’s hard to tell whether that was sarcasm or idiocy.
The aftermath saw most of the touring cricketers’ test careers destroyed. But that wasn’t the case for Gatting, Jarvis and ‘double-sinner’ Emburey, who were immediately selected after their bans finished.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
While you can criticise the TCCB and the rest of the cricketing world for ‘just going along with it’, many players on those tours never played for their country again. It was the same story for the Australian, West Indian and Sri Lankan players who also toured South Africa during the apartheid years. Only a few played internationally again.
You wonder, however, what would have happened if the international players were better-paid in the first place? What if the cricketers didn’t feel the need to go and play over in South Africa?
But regardless of that, all the players put money over morals. And then England and other countries soon forgot about what these players did: they effectively supported racism yet their careers trundled on.
Graveney became Chairman of Selectors in 1997.
Gatting and Underwood have gone on to serve as Presidents of the MCC.
Woolmer – now deceased – was a celebrated coach in Pakistan.
Broad is a high-ranking Test referee.
But most gallingly Boycott, who once claimed that he would have to ‘black his face’ in order to get a knighthood – got a knighthood.
Oh, and what about the ICC, the group who slapped the racists with a three-year fine? They elected Gooch and Underwood to their Hall of Fame.
Alex Ferguson
Wow. I love reading the blogs on this site but usually they at least have some nuance. This particular article is just a rant. I wanted to use the word garbage but I will stick with rant, just to stay diplomatic.
I quite agree.
Tend to agree. Not prepared to even comment.
The rant about Boycott is just hilarious. Dial the hate further up and see where it gets you. This bullshit was just funny
As a supporter of both cricket and of the anti-apartheid campaigns of that era, these rebel tours were highly embarrassing and morally very wrong. Calling this article a rant is simple denial of the racism inherent in the collusion with apartheid SA at that time.
We’ve had some comments about ‘virtue signalling’ on Facebook too. I think this in unfair. Whether one thinks Black Lives Matter has become politicised or not, I’d dare anyone to stick up for the morality of apartheid. I don’t have any axe to grind with the likes of Gooch, Gatting etc these days, but I don’t think there can be any disagreement that those rebel tours were wrong and should not have gone ahead. I’d like to know where the nuance in that particular view lies?!
This blog has always given people from all walks of life a platform. I’ve even got a guest article defending Ed Smith in the pipeline (!). It’s all about debate. We said very, very little about BLM during the Windies series – we simply mentioned that Michael Holding was in tears once or twice – so I hope this article redresses that balance.
Many people feel very strongly that the rebel tours were dead wrong. So thanks to Alex for representing that view.
And how much of what the writer said was actually inaccurate? Or, to use a potentially more emotive and subjective word, ‘wrong?’ I am genuinely curious to hear more, partly because this was a period in time that I was too young to experience first hand, and secondly because none of the comments thus far have given any clarification as to why they consider this article quite so unpalatable… Looking forward to learning more!
Humpage and Hendrick missing from that first rebel tour but, yes, we’ve been too forgiving of some of those rebels. I’d be quite happy to see them stripped of their honours and barred from these senior cricket jobs.
A forgotten topic so interesting to see it raised. I would have liked to know more about what the author thinks should have happened for those players that did go on the tours. The tours were an embarressment for this country and the Cricket authorities and not welcome by those suffering under the South African government of the time.
The tours allowed an evil regime to claim validation in the cricket world – allowing them to proclaim “We can’t be doing too much wrong – see these international sports stars think we’re kosher!”. These were box ticking bans, imposed reluctantly, with the tourists welcomed back into the fray (not once but twice in the case of Emburey)at the soonest possible juncture. This rather suggests that the ECB viewed the rebels decision to tour as a selectorial inconvenience rather than an amoral and mercenary flouting of the Gleneagles Agreement. Knowing in advance that they could pocket the bribe, serve their 3 year International bans (the Counties clearly had no opinion either way) and then pick up where they left off made it a relatively easy decision for pretty poorly paid sportsmen with iffy moral parameters.
The West Indies cricket authorities were so angry that players were banned for life (it got repealed to what turned out to be 6 years), while the ICC (or the form as it was back then) banned players for three years.
What should it have been? Six, in my view.
I’m afraid I found this a disappointing and naive article. Pontificating and moralising by applying the values of today to events of 30 to 40 years ago doesn’t make for good or well-informed reading.
The cricket world of then was unrecognisable from that of now. Pay was poor and even international players often had to take other jobs in the off-season. Once your career was over, there were very few career opportunities, especially the lucrative media roles that are available today across the globe. So these players, most of whom were at the tail-end of their careers (Gooch being an exception for the first tour), were offered something like 5 years’ earnings for a few weeks’ work, at a time when their earning potential was about to fall to close to zero. Criticising and moralising is all very well, but these were people with families to support in very different times. If you want an indication of how different, remember that the second tour party initially included 2 black players – Roland Butcher and Phil DeFreitas.
< Subsequent comment content about BLM has been edited because I want to stick to the cricket. This isn't a discussion about domestic American politics or even BLM in the main >
James if you’re going to include an article on the site that begins
“Two weeks ago the West Indies completed a three-game series against England, where – quite rightly – the words: “Black Lives Matter” was all over Sky’s coverage. Knees were taken, tears welled up. It was simply amazing.”
you really shouldn’t be censoring comments that expose what this dreadful organisation is actually about.
There’s a difference between the cause (which Sky and the ECB supported) and the BLM organisation itself. I believe Alex was referring to the sentiment (which Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford Brent discussed so eloquently at the time) not the political movement.
He’s not though, is he, when you actually read what he wrote? Furthermore, the “cause” is nothing to do with Black Lives, which isn’t where the money goes and is just a front. That’s the point, and it’s relevant because it’s been rammed down the throats of cricket viewers this summer whether we like it or not. It’s because the truth is being silenced in the mainstream media that this myth is able to be perpetuated, and I was sad to see you censored it. I understand it isn’t territory when you want to go on this site, but given how many cricket viewers have found the association utterly repellent, the movement, be it the cause or the organisation (semantics equivalent to Clinton’s “sexual relations” in my view) , shouldn’t be left unchallenged.
Hungerpang
I agree with you.
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. You’ve read TFT for a long time and you know that I always shy away from declaring any kind of political affiliation / bias. Had I thought that Alex’s article was a propaganda piece for BLM then I wouldn’t have published it.
In an era where there are less black players (or indeed Asian players) in our professional game, I can see why Alex found the coverage emotional. Did you see the interview with Michael Holding? I doubt he’s a Marxist or part of a political conspiracy. He was simply talking about prejudice he’s experienced. What’s wrong with my author commenting on the fact that “tears welled up” – a reference, I assume, to Holding? In no way does the article suggest any kind of political right / left bias. It was simply expressing a distain for apartheid. And I do not consider distain for apartheid to be a policy or either the left or the right. It is – or at least it should be – a universal value shared by all.
The article is not a propaganda piece for BLM but it contains references to BLM and its involvement in the game that I don’t think should be allowed to be unchallenged:
“quite rightly – the words: “Black Lives Matter” was all over Sky’s coverage.”
Quite wrongly, in my view. In fact, the most wrong-headed decision made by cricket’s administrators since the ICC tried to force England to play World Cup matches in Zimbabwe in 2003 – a country which, under Mugabe, was effectively enacting apartheid in reverse – and the spineless ECB disgracefully tried to avoid making a decision and leave it to the players.
“Knees were taken, tears welled up. It was simply amazing.”
Or sickening, depending on your point of view. I was amazed you interpreted these tears to be in relation to Holding’s monologue, which is not mentioned in the article. I assumed the author was referring to the kneeling, given that’s what preceded it.
I watched Holding’s speech at the time and have re-watched it just now. My view hasn’t changed between viewings, namely that he’s a well-meaning man who unfortunately made a bit of a fool of himself. He doesn’t talk about prejudice he’s experienced – in fact, he says he didn’t experience much growing up in Jamaica – but then embarks on what is little more than an embarrassing rant. Judas Iscariot portrayed as a black man? Really? Might have been occasionally, but not often. Only black men are followed under suspicion in shops, and this equates to “white privilege”? Come on. Lewis Latimer not credited with creation of the carbon filament because he’s black? Er, no…it was because he improved it, rather than invented it (Edison filed for the first patent 2 years earlier). Silly revisionism of history will get us nowhere.
From what we’ve seen this summer you’d swear that the UK is some God-awful racist hell-hole with the attitudes of the US in the 1920s. Yet in reality we’re among the most racially tolerant and diverse nations on the planet. Of course racism still exists in society, but the way to address those problems is through respectful and nuanced debate that delves deeply into the issues, not through childish, pointless gestures like “taking the knee” or subservience to despicable movements like BLM who simply are not what they claim to be. What I wrote about them was not “conspiracy theory” but fact – I explained that if you donate through their website you are taken to “actblue”, and what actblue actually is (Google it). Sadly, this is relevant on this blog because it’s mentioned in the article and has been rammed down our throats all summer by cricket’s administrators, against the will of many cricket lovers. Equally sadly, because it doesn’t fit the mainstream narrative, you chose to censor it. If the ECB was serious about helping to address racial prejudices, as opposed to virtue signalling, it would decouple itself sharpish from political movements like BLM and align itself to something like the Equiano Project (www.theequianoproject.com). But that would be dull and hard work.
As for the article itself, it’s not really “simply expressing a disdain for apartheid”, is it? It’s mainly a rant slagging off the people who went on the rebel tours. While we can all agree that apartheid was abhorrent, these were naïve young men seduced by a massive pay cheque. They were hardly the first (or last) to put money ahead of morals. Times for cricketers were very different, as I explained in the part of my first comment you didn’t delete. Let’s not forget that there was also a West Indian rebel tour. Now there’s a complex subject…
Well, now I’ve googled actblue….I don’t know what you wrote about them, but I struggle to see how an organisation part of whose aim is to support progressive nonprofits involved in racial justice matters would be an inappropriate platform for BLM as an organisation to use. There are conspiracy theories that actblue is a Democratic campaign fundraising tool–maybe this is what James was referring to–but to see it as ONLY that involves, as far as I can see, an inability to read actblue’s own website properly. What’s your objection to BLM using actblue?
As for virtue signalling, it may or may not be on the part of the ECB, but I struggle to see how it’s more virtue-signalling than its very high-profile support for a small, fairly specialised and not very well-known charity that just happens to be the project of one of its committee heads–to the extent of completely redoing its visual branding to support the charity.
The author is well within his rights to criticise the decision-making of the rebels, as indeed you are in attempting to justify their choice. They are, or were, international sportsmen and their actions are in the public eye for debate. Playing cricket for England means living somewhat under scrutiny, and playing cricket for England in a country governed by an oppressive, racially segregated regime is going get you a whole lot more. Again, it was up to them to choose whichever option and live with the ramifications. And ultimately it came down to priorities, as they considered that the financial benefits for themselves, and most likely their families, outweighed their optical justification of apartheid. Which from the sounds of it, you do too. So why not be honest and just own it? State what, or who, you see as most important in this situation. It’s touching that the plight of the poor players has moved you so much…
And as for your point about applying ‘modern’ values to the past – well it would be laughable if it wasn’t so intellectually dishonest. Firstly, we do it all the time so stop cherry-picking your principles as and when the context suits you, as I’m sure you don’t hold rigidly to that belief when surveying history. Speaking of which, “30 or 40 years ago” really isn’t that long ago, (in fact it probably qualifies as recent history or living memory) and guess what? Apartheid was also considered bad back in those days! That’s why South Africa wasn’t competing internationally, because most of the world didn’t really like the fact that the majority of their citizens weren’t allowed to play too (and the rest). So just to clarify, apartheid and racism in general, was still perceived as a bad thing in the 80’s, even though it was such a different time and so long ago that none of us can really remember that far back. And who cares if the initial touring party included two black players? Do you really believe that is some kind of mitigation? News flash – black people are not exempt from making questionable decisions that can be challenged. Just because they originally chose to tour, and subsequently changed their minds, doesn’t make the rebel tours a good thing. So please stop pretending that this is about applying contemporary values to a prehistoric event – it’s not “good,” it’s not “well-informed” and it actually makes you sound rather stupid.
Do Brown Lives Matter? If not, why not? (Maybe because even the most brain-dead normie might notice the contradiction between the slogan and with the havoc the West and its allies are causing in the Middle East…. ).
It was not “quite right” that BLM was all over the WI series. Read this movement’s manifesto – it’s not about what you think. They are an obvious controlled movement. The whole George Floyd incident that kicked this off has so many anomolies that you have to more gullable than a flock of seagulls to not whiff the fishiness about it (try the Texas attorney who says Floyd died in Texas two years earlier to the conflciting autopsies to the conflicting different footage of the alleged death [and who thinks the police would just let someone film them like that?] to the ‘coincidence’ the cop knew “Floyd” and was called Derek Chauvin – what next? Bob Racist-Pig? Terry Bigot? And Chauvin had a teacher called Waynel Sexton? Can’t you hear them laughing at you?…. ) .
I agree that rebel tourists should not have appointed to senior positions afterwards. However I would point out that the article gets cause and effect round the wrong way – many of those who went knew they were unlikely to be selected in the future, it was why they went, rather than they went and weren’t selected afterwards because of going. Funny how most articles about SA rebel tours don’t mention Richie Benaud who was manager of an International XI tour of SA in the 1970s. Are some exempt?
BTW, to call Bob Woolmer “deceased” may be factually accurate but it’s a lot less than the whole picture about what happened to him.
This article doesn’t really do the subject justice as it looks at it entirely from the point of view of the present day (the repeated references to the ECB, which wasn’t called that until 1997, emphasise this). Opinionated rants are all very well (fair play to The Full Toss for giving writers of many opinions an outlet) but I feel that something more nuanced which brings in other factors from the time is needed.
I’d like to know more about what happened from the players’ perspectives – yes it probably was all about the money for them and the TCCB’s revolving door of a selection policy in the 1980s no doubt convinced a few that this was probably their best shot at playing internationally (albeit unofficially), but what did they think at the time and how did their views on what they’d done change (if they changed) in the light of subsequent events? Apparently (in the case of the 81-82 tour) they weren’t expecting to be banned. In a sense it’s unfortunate that Mike Gatting has never written an updated version of his autobiography which came out in 1988!
It’s easy to forget that the rebel tours didn’t happen out of the blue – several English players already had links with South Africa before they went there as part of an ‘England’ team. Geoff Boycott is a prime example (he having played for Northern Transvaal in the early 1970s). In a sense, the absence of a player like Robin Jackman (served with a deportation order when England went to Guyana on the 80-81 tour of the West Indies on account of his links with South Africa) from the first rebel tour is curious; what led him to decline the offer of playing in a country with which he was already very familiar?
I’d like to know how the treatment of the rebel English players by the TCCB compared and contrasted with the punishments meted out to the rebel Sri Lankans, West Indians and Aussies by their respective boards (all I really know about this is that Sylvester Clark, he who terrified county batsmen in the 1980s, was banned from playing not just for but IN the West Indies as a result of his having gone to SA, while Terry Alderman played for Australia in the 1989 Ashes series despite having been on both Aussie rebel tours; as the last of those was in 86-87 his ban was clearly less than three years).
Also, what about the various South Africans who played for English counties during the Apartheid years – not so much the ones who played for England (Allan Lamb, Robin Smith, etc) but those who counted as overseas players and in a few cases represented their country against the rebel sides (Clive Rice, Allan Donald, etc)? How does that fit into all this?
From a wider point of view, how does the cricket experience compare with what happened in other sports during the Apartheid years? There was a South African Grand Prix during that time, the British Lions played there…
And finally, even though a quick glance at Wikipedia confirms that ‘England’ didn’t do very well, am I alone in wanting to know a bit more about what happened on the pitch during these tours?
A correction – of the 89/90 rebels, it wasn’t just Gatting, Emburey and Jarvis who later played for England, although the author would be forgiven for forgetting Matthew Maynard’s brief return and Alan Well’s short ‘proper’ international career (out for a golden duck in his only Test).
Thanks for the detail here. FYI as writers we don’t always have time (as amateurs) to write exhaustive analysis of subjects. Often posts are just a vehicle to start debate. We rely on the comments to fill in the gaps. They’re a vital part of this blog.
I looked at the results in some depth but decided against putting it in, because I thought it would take away from the piece itself.
I also didn’t put in the fact that Chris Broad didn’t play for England again because he was widely disliked by just about everybody.
As someone who lived through all the Apartheid years it is puzzling to realise that the full meaning of racism and its inappropriate relationship to cricket seems to be misunderstood.
The principle behind playing cricket is one of merit. This has been a feature of the game from our own history when the game was invented among shepherd boys in the Middle Ages and developed as a peasant game played on the village green. It was taken up by the gentry but they had not more qualifications for it than the local farmers and yeomen. Simply the teams were put together from all classes based on merit. Merit still counted even when teams were later divided in the 19th century and early 20th century into Professionals and Amateurs: Gentlemen and Players. They may have had their names written differently on the board but all were equal before the bowling of this ace or the batting of that one. Many were famous and many were humbled.
South Africa introduced apartheid as a system which rigidly separated races so that merit no longer applied in playing for the national team. On an international level it was no longer a sport where the best were selected. It was on this basis that the international sports bodies banned playing in South Africa and organised a sports boycott. South Africa chose to stick by its racist rules.
The appalling oppression of these rules might now be forgotten but nuanced they were not.
It wasn’t just the power of money which created the Rebel Tours it was also comfort for the Apartheid Regime. The British were not free of racism but unlike the States had no institutions of their own to enforce it. The reality of the Tours shocked the world but also the players themselves who had to face the hostility and hatred of those who had few human rights at the time.
The world has moved on. But some parts haven’t. Anyone who comes up with a conspiracy theory about George Floyd is not that cognisant about the police force in the States. They have regularly been caught on film ill treating black citizens and even killing them. What makes it likely is the ubiquitous nature of the mobile phone camera. Someone always has one to hand. So tragedies are captured when they are actually happening. Instead of being just a subject of a news report.
As for the Rebel Tour players they will always been known for what they did. To harm others deliberately is not an honourable course. The boycott worked
Remember that our ancestors were once serfs under the Normans who were our conquerors. But peasant uprisings over the centuries settled the scores. Cricket was invented by these villagers not the overlords. It’s our game and it still stands for fair play despite the decadence of despots.
Brilliant piece of writing, Jackie.
The problem is Jackie what is not reported. I have a son whose been working in the states a few years now and I can assure you that we are not getting the full picture over here about anything from either side. Yes there’s a lot of police who are prejudiced against blacks because they spend so much of their lives dealing with trouble-makers from that ethnic background, who have no intention of doing anything but exploiting their situation. Poverty is no excuse for crime, there are billions of law abiding poor people from many ethnic backgrounds all over the world, including black urban Americans. You never here about their views, because they don’t fit the bill for the BLM pushers, so the media ignore this silent majority.
Yes, racism is endemic in the states as it is in most western countries, but it cannot be addressed effectively by PC laws motivated by political agendas. It has to be on a personal level of mutual respect from all of us as individuals, so it becomes the natural way to behave.
It has to be handled on a personal level of course but if laws exist which segregate unfairly then they have to be changed. It is a question of who has the power and who is powerless. The US had apartheid style laws in southern states as late as the Sixties at a time when Britain was embracing radical reforms. It was a world away from our society. These prejudices have held the States back while we have moved on.
The power to influence public opinion is with the media, but in persuit of controversy they consistently report editorially, so nothing you ever get from them approaches the true picture. There’s never been even handedness as this waters down the impact. Also the political agendas of media outlets are dictated by the Murdocks of this world, who are elected and controlled by no one. Do you really believe the BBC is independent?
You can’t change entrenched attitudes with laws, this just drives it all underground where it’s much more difficult to address. If you don’t like it ban it, doesn’t help.
Don’t agree we have moved on much, it’s just not institutionalised elsewhere the way it is in the states. PC only serves to hide an ever increasing radicalism against trend setting. Go to any footie match and it’s not just a small minority getting at black players. The home fans know it gets under the players skin and will use abuse as a tactic to provoke. For me this is a pretty active reflection of the direction society is moving in this country.
Sport and politics are inextricably linked, no matter how much we would like to pretend otherwise.
In 1989, the recruiting and negotiating were going on in the middle of an Ashes shellacking. Leaving aside the moral arguments for and against such a tour, a lot of cricket fans felt particularly let down by the timing.
Regardless of you personal view on this “nostalgic” rebel tour and trying to equate it with BLM and other such current matters of race and equality, this article is unfortunately causing a lot of derision on what is first and foremost a very good cricket HYS, and not a political or equal opportunities forum, where such matters are much better discussed. Rebel tours of the 1980’s? Old news and pretty poor to boot. And there, I wasn’t going to comment!
Cricket is a game where history is always up to date. Do we discount the 1980s when it comes to Botham? Cricket is a game on the world stage it’s not some parochial backwater sport. So when players take a political decision to organise a tour to South Africa at a time of international boycott there were reverberations around the world. For some it might have been conceived as solidarity with SA cricketers who were penalised from playing international cricket. For others it might have been for money alone. But all ignored the world cricket bodies boycott and the appalling state of affairs in SA. The regime collapsed because its apartheid laws were relics of a past unsustainable as well as unethical. At the time the boycott was seen as preferable to the predicted blood bath of revolt and insurrection. The peaceful transfer of power in SA was made possible by the efficiency of the boycott. Mandela followed that road. Cricket took an honourable path to its credit. The Rebel Tours proved to be the exception. They deserved to be judged for their actions as boycott breakers. They failed and the world is a fairer place because of the Cricket boycott.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned here was the visits the rebel players were obliged to make into the townships to encourage black youngsters. These rebels were high profile names and most would be known by the youngsters and their visits appreciated. The players were not idiots and would know their visits would be politically orchestrated but they still spent more time doing this kind of public relations than a normal touring side would have done.
Demonstrations were inevitable and in hindsite the tour was probably a bad idea, especially with players accepting such huge pay offs for their participation, but the release of Mandela could not have been foreseen, so it’s inevitable the tour would be subject to ridicule.
Lastly please don’t praise the BLM movement with people taking ‘the knee’. In the states, where this emanated from, black athletes are now standing, realising the whole thing is a cheap publicity stunt that will change nothing. It makes the white media feel better about themselves though.
Every civilised person on the planet knows racial prejudice is endemic in all 1st world countries. All we can do is plough our own personal furrow to help reduce this. Cheap political gestures devalue the whole thing. Education is the key and that has to emanate from mutual respect on a personal, not political level. Introducing PC laws only frustrates all sides, as they are pretty much unenforceable and drive existing prejudice underground, where it becomes more potent than ever.
As a poet I can only say you are underestimating the profound effect of symbolic gestures. Symbolism has extraordinary power. Just think about Robin Hood as a symbol of Saxon resistance to Norman power. He became an outlaw and the wearing of green became symbolic of rebellion. The Levellers adopted green as their colour during the English Civil War. The Suffragettes adopted green and purple. The rebels adopted the wearing of the green. Red only supplanted it as a rebel colour when socialists claimed their flag was stained red by the blood of martyrs. So the red flag became symbolic. Our own history is full of symbols of resistance by the refusal of free men to doff their caps In courts and to their ‘betters‘. It might seem unimportant now but at the time it signified an important change in the so called natural order. British society was the first at the time to challenge the Middle Ages rigid hierarchical systems.
How many levellers or suffragettes campaigned actively. A few thousand out of millions.
For the man in the street symbols have little meaning apart from what they’re told. Most folk want to get on with their lives without involving themselves in controversy.
I think you’re being idealistic to suggest movements change much for most most folk. Women got the vote yes and quite rightly and the Suffragettes were a significant factor, but more because of their efficient publicity machine than anything symbolic. It was because of their part in the war efforts that the establishment began to appreciate the value of women in society.
In particular, Marc, you’re also ignoring the symbolism around sportspeople standing for the national anthem, which is far more politically and emotionally charged than it is in Britain–at least apart from the small number of people obsessed with Eoin Morgan not singing the anthem!
So, although it may have been cheapened by overuse (which is just what happens to most symbols over time), it was a pretty radical gesture when Kaepernick originally did it. And it might be worth remembering that he hasn’t worked in his sport since, so it was clearly seen as more than a cheap publicity stunt by a lot of quite influential Americans.
Out of interest, I’m curious whether you regard, say, wearing red (or white) poppies or dressing in a certain colour to support a charity as a “cheap publicity stunt”.
Supporting charities has little or no political connotation, so I have no issue with that, though I hate the way we continue to ‘celebrate’ WW1. It was a disaster from beginning to end and is not something to celebrate. We can learn from it but what are we remembering on ‘rememberance day? How governments and royal families fell out with each other and pretty much destroyed an entire generation of their young men? Are the memorials designed to reflect or deflect attention from what actually happened to produce that aberration?
WW2 was a totally different proposition, as we were under active threat, but to carry on with the poppy motif, which has no relevance to it or any subsequent conflict, seems ludicrous to me.
Purely from a cricketing perspective the South African Team has not been picked on a selection policy based on ability but largely on a diversity basis. Hence all the South Africans playing here in County Cricket including those like Morkel who “retired” from Tests at an early age. I’m not condoning Apartheid, but in a reverse sort of way the problem with team selection hasn’t changed thus severely limiting South Africa as an International force in top class cricket.
You could also simply point out that the money in county cricket is better than it is for South Africans in international cricket. Oh, but that is not a valid excuse, even though it was for all those rebels. Or something. No we have to celebrate how wonderfully England is doing, when it has stacked all the rules and resources in its favour – but we are not supposed to mention that? Really?
But then again, the establishment rewards its own criminals time and again (Gatting, Broad and quite a few others), and yet some people object to BLM being political. You simply fail to see the politics involved in these connected moral failures of human beings protecting each other and giving each other jobs.
Honestly, if some average Joe had done the same thing as Chris Broad, or Mike Gatting he would have been lucky to have been forgotten. Let’s celebrate Gooch, for doing the idiotic thing twice. But if it is some poor soe, then we happily throw him under the bus. Shall we discuss how wonderfully a certain Harold Larwood was treated after the Bodyline series?
Why is it nearly every time I go on this site lately, I can’t pick up half the posts? Whether it’s on my Kindle or Laptop? I put a post on here yesterday and it doesn’t show up. It’s a bit annoying. Something to do with the server perhaps?
This has been happening to me for months now. Clearing my cache seems to help, but only sometimes–although I have to clear my cache every time I post in order to see any subsequent posts. A lot of the time it’s completely random–and, like you, then a bunch of posts appears magically.
I imagine it’s a hosting site issue–and it’s the only website I have this problem with. Is there anything you can do, James M?
Now yesterday’s post has appeared miraculously!
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