It's cricket but it's not
By
Alaa Abdel-Ghani
A wise man once said you shouldn't mix something as nice as politics with something as nasty as sports. The man was probably not a cricket fan because the always combustible mixture has been introduced at the World Cup of cricket.
I'm not terribly familiar with cricket but this is not about how to play the game. Rather, it's whether one match in particular should be played at all.
The schedule says England and Zimbabwe are to play in Harare today but as we go to press England's deeply divided camp has yet to decide whether it will go ahead with the match. England's concerns range from personal security issues to the ethical dilemma of playing in a country facing major upheaval.
The issue has been simmering for months after British ministers urged the England team to boycott the Harare match in protest at Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe whom they accuse of rigging his re-election in 2002 and compounding a food crisis by seizing white-owned farms to give to blacks. With half of Zimbabwe's 14 million people allegedly facing food shortages and the main opposition leader facing a possible death sentence if convicted of trying to kill Mugabe, some critics say playing cricket there would be to condone Mugabe's rule.
But that's not necessarily so. How can one cricket match imply tacit support for or opposition to Mugabe's presidency? As British Olympian and now politician Sebastian Coe pointed out, Britain does not divorce itself from Zimbabwe in the political or economic arenas, which is surely more influential than sports. So why should English cricket be asked to do what its government does not?
In addition, six out of the 54 World Cup matches are to be played in Zimbabwe. If it's wrong for England to play in Zimbabwe at present, then surely it's wrong for all the competing teams to play there. If so, then it was incumbent on the International Cricket Council to switch the matches to another venue before the tournament began.
Finally, the World Cup has been on the schedule for years, with South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe selected as host and co-hosts respectively. Mugabe didn't become Zimbabwe's leader the other day. Why did his policies not generate strong feelings until just a few months ago? Why should England be making a decision at the 11th hour? Why the last-minute grandstanding by the British and Australian prime ministers and others? If they had objections, they had years to make them.
England is not the only side to face such a dilemma. New Zealand, unsettled by a bombing in Mombasa in November which killed 16 people, has refused point blank to play Kenya in Nairobi on 21 February. Champion Australia is also watching the situation intently, having expressed concerns about its match against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo later in the tournament.
Possible boycotts all around: is there resentment about playing in Africa? Do we detect a touch of snobbery emitting from a post-colonial power? There might be genuine security concerns among England and company but there also seems to be a genuine racial divide. The game is, after all, inherited from the British whose envy might be showing at losing their creation to others who are staging the biggest cricket show on earth.
But England might decide to put World Cup ambitions ahead of principles. Its World Cup hopes would be seriously damaged if it chooses to boycott -- it would mean forfeiting four points and a forfeit would all but end its hopes of reaching the second round of the competition. England might also conclude that swallowing its pride is cheaper than coughing up millions of dollars in compensation that will be demanded from sponsors in case of a boycott.
Whatever the outcome, the England-Zimbabwe encounter has now acquired far more significance than it really warrants, none of it sporting. That said, there is a principle at stake: sporting autonomy. To those who support the ideal that sport should be devoid of politics whenever possible, if the match takes place, it will represent a victory bigger than any England was likely to achieve in the tournament. If the match is not to be, then sport has not transcended politics when we all know it should.
