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| Sunday, 16 February 2003 |
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White team jitters over African venues : Match-fixing by death threat? by Michael Roberts The fears of some cricketers from the "white nations" have
reached such a level that they are dead ducks for Machiavellian operators cricket paranoia The British led boycott campaign against Zimbabwe adopted the high moral ground. This can be debated, but I shall confine myself to the simple counter-argument: it could not possibly have any effect and has as much chance of embarrassing Mugabe as one can expect to see his cheeks becoming pink. As a pragmatic act, it is wholly ridiculous. But the Anglo-Saxon media and leading Australian politicians thought otherwise and ran with it. Cricket administrators and cricketers, notably the ECB and the Englishmen, swallowed the rhetoric. Hussain and others reiterated the moral arguments and their distaste for the situation of the Zimbabweans while also raising the spectre of political turmoil as the government cracked down on the oppositional parties when (why "when" rather than "if"?) the latter used the World Cup as an occasion for protest. A fear psychosis, what I shall call "cricket paranoia," took root among the cricketers from England and Australia. I propose to criticise the reasoning that supports this paranoia and argue that the decisions taken by the Kiwis as well as the thinking of the English cricket team is as ridiculous as pathetic. I will dwell in particular on the complicity of media personnel in this specious body of thinking. This will require a number of articles. Though my original intent was to proceed chronologically and begin with the Kiwi decision, the hot news NOW is the adamantine position of the English cricket team on the ground that their fears about security have been accentuated by the information about "death threats" directed specifically at them. These "death threats" in the plural (a typical media exaggeration) turn out to be a letter received by the ECB some 20 days ago on the 20th January. It was checked out by the ECB and only divulged to the team recently. Tim Lamb of the ECB is quoted as saying that he was "as convinced as I can be that this is a hoax, a crank letter" (Australian, 10 Feb 2003). Though he conveyed this assessment to the English cricket team, the latter are unhappy with the delay in conveying this information and seem convinced that they are in personal danger. Some other unspecified reasons are not being pulled out of their hat. They seem determined not to play their match in Harare. unfamiliar conditions The climate of fear generated by politicians and media are now coming home to roost. These fears have sprouted wings because the propaganda has fallen on fertile ground. Fertile ground for several reasons. The cricketers, as one would expect, have little political sense. But their readings, it would seem, are distorted by their political conservatism and the vestiges of a colonial mentality that sustains an image of Africa as the "Dark Continent" with modern twists such as "dictators" and volatile"mobs". Brave men on the cricket field, these fellows are showing how spineless they are in unfamiliar conditions rendered subterranean by their own assumptions. Such a paranoid body of thinking, fostered by some media personnel whose neo-colonial conservatism is on the same level as that of the players, have made the Englishmen an easy target. The death threat, signed by a person purporting to be an arm of "the Sons and Daughters of Zimbabwe" could as easily have been sent by someone who was not a crank. I point here to potential rather than to fact. I can suggest at least two categories of schemers who could exploit the situation in order to benefit their "Cause." One category would be an avid, but a-moral, Zimbabwean, Indian or Pakistani cricket supporter. The other would be an Indian or Pakistani betting syndicate. The reason for a scheming cricket fanatic to stick his (male definitely) boot in are obvious. England is one of six teams in Pool A, the "group of death" in some evaluations. Only three teams from this Pool can qualify the Super Six second stage. The conventional wisdom holds that Australia will definitely be one of the three and that one of England, Pakistan or India will miss out. I, however, expect Namibia to upset all these calculations by a win against one of the test-status teams. But it would be conventional thinking that guides the potential (or actual: the Sons & Daughters guy?) schemers that I am pointing at. In this situation, such a schemer will say: "why not tip the scales and make it difficult for England by frightening these silly blokes with a death threat"! Good reasoning from an utterly Machiavellian point of view. Do I have proof? Clearly not. It is a speculation based on logic. All sides have crazy supporters, fanatics in fact (so much so that the Australian version of the Barmy Army call themselves "Fanatics"). It will only require a couple of such fanatics to step in to support their side with some "judicious" phone calls or letters. Apart from scheming cricket buffs, there are other candidates for the spot of scheming source of death threat: the Indian and Pakistani bookmakers. There will be more profit for them if both Pakistan and India reach the Super Six because the Indian subcontinent and Indo-Pakistani expatriates are their most lucrative betting markets. So, why not exploit the paranoia of the cricketers through some veiled threat or threats. lack of cultural knowledge Reasonable speculation? You judge, readers. If you accept this conjecture, then you will have yet another reason to conclude that position taken by the English cricket team is as silly as pathetic. To take anonymous death threats seriously is quite ridiculous. This decision not only harms Zimbabwean cricket on this occasion, it also opens the door to endless cancellations of cricket tours whenever some mischief-maker intervenes. Moreover, to take scurrilous calls and threats seriously reveals a gross failure of acumen and a lack of cultural knowledge. I speak here from experience of the Sri Lankan scene, an experience I would extend to the subcontinent. What I say below may have to be amended for Africa and the Zimbabweans, but I suspect that it could even apply there. Scurrilous Call & Threat in Asian Culture Anonymous petitions, letters and phone calls are not uncommon in Sri Lanka and among Sri Lankans abroad. It is an attempt to frighten, annoy or humiliate people you dislike or are jealous about. I have fragmentary evidence, gossip really, that indicates that during the height of the Tamil/ Sinhalese hostilities in Sri Lanka, a few Tamils in Sydney who retained some of their old cross-ethnic friendships received threatening phone calls. Again, Craig McDermott received a threatening phone call, apparently from the Gulf States, in late 1995 or early 1996, when the Australians had doubts about the safety of visiting Sri Lanka. I conjectured then that it would have been a Tamil Tiger sympathiser seeking to capitalise on the cricket scene in order to make a symbolic gain for his cause. cultural practices When Darrell Hair no-balled Murali at the MCG on 26th December 1996, he received several threatening phone calls. This is what I had to say then: These silly actions were undoubtedly the work of Sri Lankan cricket fanatics. They needed to be read as expressions of intense dissent rather than serious threats, that is, as so much hot air. Since multi-culturalism has been established in Australia, it is important that attention should be paid to cultural form at such moments. This said, it must be stressed that those Melbourne calls were reprehensible. They did not endear Sri Lanka to the Australians and they have been prejudicial to the interests of cricket in Sri Lanka (see Crosscurrents, 1998: pp. 128-30). With necessary changes, these affirmations extend to the present situation around Zimbabwe. Any schemer or crank whose intervention has increased the fears of the English cricket team is not contributing to the long-term interests of Zimbabwean or world cricket. Such action is wholly offensive. But, that stated, all concerned have to read such cultural practices or designing actions intelligently and with strength of character. I do not need to remind readers that Darrel Hair is alive and, so to speak, standing. Nor should it be forgotten that the Australian team, despite ambivalence and confused hesitations, have decided to play their game at Bulawayo. Through happenchance their official security guard during the World Cup is Darren Maughan, a fourth generation White Zimbabwean whose family resides in Bulawayo (Advertiser, 4 Feb 2003). His pragmatic and knowledgeable reports on the local scene seem to have assuaged the concerns of the Aussies. The latest information is that the Australian cricketers will honour their obligation to play in Zimbabwe. The fact that Geoff Marsh is coaching Zimbabwe may also have helped them reach such a decision. Why the Englishmen cannot talk to the people like Maughan, Marsh, Heath Streak and the Flower brothers amazes me. Their paranoia angers me. They are not serving Zimbabwean cricket, world cricket or themselves. As for the English and Australian parliamentarians, I hold that they embarked on an ill-advised and ineffective political course by asking cricket teams to be their pointmen in a battle against Mugabe; and in doing so they literally created the situation of paranoia. As for those sportswriters and other mediamen who responded like lap-dogs of thick conservative persuasion and reported on matters in such unintelligent style and without any spine, well, **!!** only four-letter words suffice. |
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partial to other lands or bookmaking interests. But these fears in turn
were developed by politicians in England and elsewhere who chose
injudiciously to make cricket teams the vanguard in their symbolic
campaign against Robert Mugabe. Supported by media networks allied with
them, whether from conservative persuasion or from strategic interest,
this project gathered momentum. It has consistently bamboozled the English
cricket team, while causing hesitations amongst the Australian cricketers
(while the Kiwi cricketers needed little persuasion about Kenya for other
reasons).
