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*Official* The Zimbabwe Situation
- Thread starter marc71178
- Start date
IMO the 'player safety' issue re Zimbabwe is a red herring / smoke screen.
The ICC are saying they only have a mandate re those issues & not internal politics, which is correct. The real issue is their Govt's politics & human rights issues etc, which is up to other bodies (UN & Govts) to take action upon independant of the ICC & cricketing bodies.
While everyone remains focused on 'safety' issues there will be no hope of any action being taken, as there is no percieved direct threat to 'visitors', only 'locals'.
If the Govts are so worried about it they need to do something themselves that the cricketing bodies can then follow, as they are not in a position to lead this charge for them!!!!
The ICC are saying they only have a mandate re those issues & not internal politics, which is correct. The real issue is their Govt's politics & human rights issues etc, which is up to other bodies (UN & Govts) to take action upon independant of the ICC & cricketing bodies.
While everyone remains focused on 'safety' issues there will be no hope of any action being taken, as there is no percieved direct threat to 'visitors', only 'locals'.
If the Govts are so worried about it they need to do something themselves that the cricketing bodies can then follow, as they are not in a position to lead this charge for them!!!!
Legglancer
State Regular
Well I came across this article and thought some of you might find is Quite interesting !!!
Leg
Old Raj style tactics create a World Cup crisis
From Trevor Chesterfield
Centurion (South Africa) - Okay . . . so what is it going to be? A happy New Year, along with a growing storm in a political eggcup? Or, as it seems at present a tidal wave about to engulf South Africa's dreams to stage a successful World Cup from February 8?
As British Raj cronies England and Australia wag an admonishing finger at Robert Mugabe and his chums running his despotic renegade fiefdom, the International Cricket Council, well with their constitutional rights are a little like the old fashioned gentleman looking at an empty toilet roll dispenser and wondering how to clean up the mess left by someone else. Politicians are good at doing that.
After all, neither Tony Blair's England nor John Howard's Australia have a record which today is likely to stand up to close scrutiny. A bit of a laugh really. There was Blair, barely four years ago waffling on about the World Cup in England being all about the brotherhood of nations. The scriptwriters were not really too clear on that one were they? Of whether the game was influenced by the brotherhood, or whether the commonwealth was still really a binding force.
Apart from embracing Europe and the American dream, that is the George Bush 2002/03 vision: or a war no one really wants; Blair had capitulated any right to demand of the England and Wales Cricket Board that they do not allow Nasser Hussain's side from play in Zimbabwe. It is well known that Mugabe's rhetoric is as poisonous as any black mamba.
Australia's prime minister, Howard, regarded as being a couple of steps to the right of Attila the Hun, talks with a double agenda and a forked tongue. He has carried out the great ‘white Australian' policy by kicking out the refugees looking for a haven in a supposed democracy. And they talk of humanitarianism and human rights records. What was it that a United Nations report of the refugee camps? Inhumane? If the comments Howard made about the raging fires in the refugee camps are to be believed, it is nothing really. Nothing that Gestapo style tactics could not quell.
And here is Howard and Blair doing their bit. Whether or not England or Australia aim to allow either side to play in Zimbabwe is not a matter of supporting Mugabe's ugly regime as it is doing its best to apply the sort of gun boat style diplomatic England and the Yanks were once so good at doing. Now they cannot get their way Blair and Howard resort of threats; not suggestions or alternatives. Blair and Howard seem to have forgotten is that the game has a broad global image and ICC are doing what they can to develop this growing representation among nations. It is, after all, a game for all: it is very much about India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indians and African nations. England has long surrendered their cricket crown (if they ever had one) to the former colonies so their word no longer counts.
Anyway Blair and Howard (and Mugabe for that matter) are politicians and few can trust politician and his or her word. Blair and Howard are looking at it through white Western eyes and an ideology, which in modern ICC thinking, is long outdated. It is hard to argue against it as well. This is especially after reading the opening words in The Tao of Cricket by Dr Ashish Nandy who proclaims with that delightfully spicy tongue in cheek aphorism that, ‘Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English'. It is easier to understand and believe Dr Nandy and the ICC actions than trust the word of either Blair or Howard and their unctuous Raj buddies.
Moving into what modern tourists euphemistically call contemporary Africa has its moments and as the current favourite buzz phrase indicates ‘a continent of contrasts' slips easily into the vocabulary. Another modernism which comes easily to mind is that the continent is also one of serious contradictions. In some regions the post-colonial era still uncomfortably rubs shoulders with an emergent force almost forty years after the event of full emancipation, while the existing juxtaposition of developing and
established communities still seek a common identity.
So just who the hell are Blair and Howard to advance old colonial dogma on a world now moving into the twenty first century? They should be told stick to making a mess of their own patch of territory while the ICC gets on with what it knows best, to run the game globally. Well, that is what Malcolm Speed and the ICC are trying to do without deliberate political obfuscation.
Was it not Mugabe, at some stage in the 1980s, who said that he wanted Zimbabweans
to play cricket because it taught them to be gentlemen? A pity he has not followed his
own line, but as with all politicians, they cannot be trusted. Which is why a leader of a
country should be non-political. But trying to find someone that honest is another
matter.
It was Speed, as the ICC Champions Trophy wound down in Colombo last September,
who pointed out just how diverse was the make up of the ICC executive as well as the
board and that of the council as a body with eighty-four full, associate and affiliated
members. Charging in with stupefying arrogance we have Blair and Howard, Clare Short
and some Po-faced toady England government official.
What should be remembered is that in 1994, an ambitious South Africa had stood back,
after applying to stage the World Cups of 1996 or 1999, to wait their turn. After an
acrimonious debate, South Asia jointly staged the event won by Sri Lanka in 1996.
England it was agreed could host it in 1999 and South Africa were granted 2003.
While these decisions were being made Blair and Howard were in a sense political
nobodies in opposition party ranks. Mugabe was quite happy to run Zimbabwe as it
was; without too much fuss, yet some bother as land reform suggestions (reform, as
with Cecil John Rhodes, meant landgrab-style tactics) were being publicised. Now Blair
and Howard are out to wreck an event where planning has been in progress for two
years.
Okay, what would happen if Australia, as in 1996 with Sri Lanka, boycott the game
against Zimbabwe on February 24? After England have performed the dishonourable
deed on February 13? Apart from the forfeiture of points there are sponsor and TV
obligations which have to be met. Naturally some Po-faced political Pom threw up his
hands in horror at the suggestion that the ECB pass on the more than £1-million fine
likely to emerged from being forced not to play in Zimbabwe.
‘It's not our problem. It is the ECB's worry . . . the ICC's worry . . . They are the one's at
fault.'
Leg
Old Raj style tactics create a World Cup crisis
From Trevor Chesterfield
Centurion (South Africa) - Okay . . . so what is it going to be? A happy New Year, along with a growing storm in a political eggcup? Or, as it seems at present a tidal wave about to engulf South Africa's dreams to stage a successful World Cup from February 8?
As British Raj cronies England and Australia wag an admonishing finger at Robert Mugabe and his chums running his despotic renegade fiefdom, the International Cricket Council, well with their constitutional rights are a little like the old fashioned gentleman looking at an empty toilet roll dispenser and wondering how to clean up the mess left by someone else. Politicians are good at doing that.
After all, neither Tony Blair's England nor John Howard's Australia have a record which today is likely to stand up to close scrutiny. A bit of a laugh really. There was Blair, barely four years ago waffling on about the World Cup in England being all about the brotherhood of nations. The scriptwriters were not really too clear on that one were they? Of whether the game was influenced by the brotherhood, or whether the commonwealth was still really a binding force.
Apart from embracing Europe and the American dream, that is the George Bush 2002/03 vision: or a war no one really wants; Blair had capitulated any right to demand of the England and Wales Cricket Board that they do not allow Nasser Hussain's side from play in Zimbabwe. It is well known that Mugabe's rhetoric is as poisonous as any black mamba.
Australia's prime minister, Howard, regarded as being a couple of steps to the right of Attila the Hun, talks with a double agenda and a forked tongue. He has carried out the great ‘white Australian' policy by kicking out the refugees looking for a haven in a supposed democracy. And they talk of humanitarianism and human rights records. What was it that a United Nations report of the refugee camps? Inhumane? If the comments Howard made about the raging fires in the refugee camps are to be believed, it is nothing really. Nothing that Gestapo style tactics could not quell.
And here is Howard and Blair doing their bit. Whether or not England or Australia aim to allow either side to play in Zimbabwe is not a matter of supporting Mugabe's ugly regime as it is doing its best to apply the sort of gun boat style diplomatic England and the Yanks were once so good at doing. Now they cannot get their way Blair and Howard resort of threats; not suggestions or alternatives. Blair and Howard seem to have forgotten is that the game has a broad global image and ICC are doing what they can to develop this growing representation among nations. It is, after all, a game for all: it is very much about India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indians and African nations. England has long surrendered their cricket crown (if they ever had one) to the former colonies so their word no longer counts.
Anyway Blair and Howard (and Mugabe for that matter) are politicians and few can trust politician and his or her word. Blair and Howard are looking at it through white Western eyes and an ideology, which in modern ICC thinking, is long outdated. It is hard to argue against it as well. This is especially after reading the opening words in The Tao of Cricket by Dr Ashish Nandy who proclaims with that delightfully spicy tongue in cheek aphorism that, ‘Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English'. It is easier to understand and believe Dr Nandy and the ICC actions than trust the word of either Blair or Howard and their unctuous Raj buddies.
Moving into what modern tourists euphemistically call contemporary Africa has its moments and as the current favourite buzz phrase indicates ‘a continent of contrasts' slips easily into the vocabulary. Another modernism which comes easily to mind is that the continent is also one of serious contradictions. In some regions the post-colonial era still uncomfortably rubs shoulders with an emergent force almost forty years after the event of full emancipation, while the existing juxtaposition of developing and
established communities still seek a common identity.
So just who the hell are Blair and Howard to advance old colonial dogma on a world now moving into the twenty first century? They should be told stick to making a mess of their own patch of territory while the ICC gets on with what it knows best, to run the game globally. Well, that is what Malcolm Speed and the ICC are trying to do without deliberate political obfuscation.
Was it not Mugabe, at some stage in the 1980s, who said that he wanted Zimbabweans
to play cricket because it taught them to be gentlemen? A pity he has not followed his
own line, but as with all politicians, they cannot be trusted. Which is why a leader of a
country should be non-political. But trying to find someone that honest is another
matter.
It was Speed, as the ICC Champions Trophy wound down in Colombo last September,
who pointed out just how diverse was the make up of the ICC executive as well as the
board and that of the council as a body with eighty-four full, associate and affiliated
members. Charging in with stupefying arrogance we have Blair and Howard, Clare Short
and some Po-faced toady England government official.
What should be remembered is that in 1994, an ambitious South Africa had stood back,
after applying to stage the World Cups of 1996 or 1999, to wait their turn. After an
acrimonious debate, South Asia jointly staged the event won by Sri Lanka in 1996.
England it was agreed could host it in 1999 and South Africa were granted 2003.
While these decisions were being made Blair and Howard were in a sense political
nobodies in opposition party ranks. Mugabe was quite happy to run Zimbabwe as it
was; without too much fuss, yet some bother as land reform suggestions (reform, as
with Cecil John Rhodes, meant landgrab-style tactics) were being publicised. Now Blair
and Howard are out to wreck an event where planning has been in progress for two
years.
Okay, what would happen if Australia, as in 1996 with Sri Lanka, boycott the game
against Zimbabwe on February 24? After England have performed the dishonourable
deed on February 13? Apart from the forfeiture of points there are sponsor and TV
obligations which have to be met. Naturally some Po-faced political Pom threw up his
hands in horror at the suggestion that the ECB pass on the more than £1-million fine
likely to emerged from being forced not to play in Zimbabwe.
‘It's not our problem. It is the ECB's worry . . . the ICC's worry . . . They are the one's at
fault.'
Anil
Hall of Fame Member
I am not saying that cricket should take precedence over politics. I just expressed my opinion which is that after having awarded co-hosting rights to Zim, England and Australia are back-tracking without giving adequate reasons especially when all other countries are willing to play there.Rik said:
Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
I could not agree more with the Trevor Chesterfield article.
Clare Short and Peter Hain usually speak approaching sense (as for Blair and Bush and Howard.. don't go there!) (sorry, did I say Bush, silly me, they're independent nations...)
So remind me of the rules then?
Can I sell arms to Zimbabwe?
Yes
Can I trade with Zimbabwe?
Yes
Do we have full relations with Zimbabwe?
Yes
Can we play Cricket there?
NO!
:!( Angry Face :!(
Clare Short and Peter Hain usually speak approaching sense (as for Blair and Bush and Howard.. don't go there!) (sorry, did I say Bush, silly me, they're independent nations...)
So remind me of the rules then?
Can I sell arms to Zimbabwe?
Yes
Can I trade with Zimbabwe?
Yes
Do we have full relations with Zimbabwe?
Yes
Can we play Cricket there?
NO!
:!( Angry Face :!(
Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
They're still in the Commonwealth, we have not recalled our ambassadors etc.
What really, really gets to me is New Labour's disgraceful attitude on this.
What really, really gets to me is New Labour's disgraceful attitude on this.
marc71178
Eyes not spreadsheets
Now the FA's have got involved - Zimbabwe asked the English FA if they wanted a game on the way down to playing South Africa in the summer, and the FA declined owing to the current political situation.
The Government is bound to put more pressure on the ECB to pull out now, but will still refuse to pay any compensation that will arise if they do withdraw!
The Government is bound to put more pressure on the ECB to pull out now, but will still refuse to pay any compensation that will arise if they do withdraw!
Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
Insert Abusive Expletive Heremarc71178 said:
Why couldn't the FAs have left it until after the World Cup? Petrol, Fire and Pouring come to mind.
*Angry*
Langeveldt
Soutie
Just my two cents.
I think Thabo Mbeki (SA President) could do more to stop this.
He could shut off all the borders with Zimbabwe, effectively locking them in. This would put a lot more pressure on Mugabe, and it would restrict his actions.
SA is one of the most influential players in the Zimbabwe topic, and at the moment it has an official policy which is sitting back and doing nothing.
You cant play a match with that going on in your back yard, give Zim a chance to recover a bit, then give them an ICC knockout Trophy competition or something, because cricket there is a role model in being truly multi-racial, and it needs a boost from somewhere.
Move all the matches in the World Cup from Zimbabwe to Bloemfontein, and lets get on with it.
I feel really sorry for the Zimbabwe veterans (Flowers, Whittall, Campbell etc) as well. They have worked endlessly in building up Zim Cricket , but all the publicity is negative, and nobody talks about them, they only talk about the politics surrounding them.
I think Thabo Mbeki (SA President) could do more to stop this.
He could shut off all the borders with Zimbabwe, effectively locking them in. This would put a lot more pressure on Mugabe, and it would restrict his actions.
SA is one of the most influential players in the Zimbabwe topic, and at the moment it has an official policy which is sitting back and doing nothing.
You cant play a match with that going on in your back yard, give Zim a chance to recover a bit, then give them an ICC knockout Trophy competition or something, because cricket there is a role model in being truly multi-racial, and it needs a boost from somewhere.
Move all the matches in the World Cup from Zimbabwe to Bloemfontein, and lets get on with it.
I feel really sorry for the Zimbabwe veterans (Flowers, Whittall, Campbell etc) as well. They have worked endlessly in building up Zim Cricket , but all the publicity is negative, and nobody talks about them, they only talk about the politics surrounding them.
chris.hinton
International Captain
Trevor Penney said yesturday in the Sunday Mercury (Birmingham Paper) that Birmingham was Worse then Zimbabwe
Who is he trying to kid?
Who is he trying to kid?
chris.hinton
International Captain
How ExplainBazzaroodoo said: