A spectator's protest

PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN

I.et me take, as a convenient starting-point, the rumpus about Basil d'Oliveira. I am not concerned here to discuss the details of this dismal affair (though I am quite ready to grant in passing that the MCC seems to have bungled rather badly); what I want to establish is where we all stand now it's over. One thing is cer- tain—that a winter of interesting cricket has been lost, and with it a lot of pleasure for a lot of people. Another thing is becoming daily clearer: that the South African tour of this country scheduled for 1970 will be much set about, if indeed it takes place at all, by hostile criticism and probably by physical demonstra- tion as well. For already the predictable voices are being raised in the predictable places: after the Southga'Africans' repulsive behaviour as potential hosts, the predictable voices are say- ing, and their blatant racial discrimination against: one of our chosen players, it would be both undignified and indecent to entertain a South African team in this country.

Now, to those of us who care for cricket and look forward to an exciting season in 1970, all• this bickering is the merest rubbish: What we want are good matches, which the South Afri-. cans will likely enough provide. Whatever may be said of them as last winter's bloody-minded and defaulting hosts, the South Africans know their place, and have always known_ it, as gtiests.- Their cricketers, when in this country, ate happy to play any team of ours that may bt:fielded -against them, whether it be with or without d'Oliveira, whether it be black, yellow or green;- and that, surely, is the only condi- tion which a visiting side need fulfil. It will be .a side well worth watching for the Pollock brothers alone; many thousands and even millions of people, myself emphatically among them, are eagerly awaiting it; why, we want to know, is our pleasure being threatened?

Well, the next objection urged by the pre- dictable voices is that since the South African side is all white, it is non-representative of its nation and 'unsporting' in its constitution. This is the most bloated red herring. We have always known that South African cricket teams repre- sent only white South Africa; what business is that of. ours, provided such •teams obey the laws of cricket and are strong enough to match up to us? True, the cricket would be a great deal more interesting if blacks were to be in- cluded in the tour; but since the cricket promises to be of considerable interest in any case, why not stop hankering after something which we shan't get and make the best of the very passable entertainment which is actually on offer? Asa spectator, I am very sorry that there will be-no black South Africans present, because black men make thrilling and graceful cricketers; on the other hand, I have no inten- tion of turning up my nose at the good thing- which is going simply because it might have been better. One appreciates, of course, what the predictable voices are getting at: they mean that the South African method of selec- tion is unfair to the blacks who are auto- matically excluded. And so it is: most damn- ably unfair. But that N the fault of the South • African selectors; it is not the fault of the players selected who, now as ever, will' doubt-

less comport themselves in as 'sporting' a manner as anyone could wish.

What is really at issue, however, has nothing to do with 'sportsmanship': it is all simply politics. Certain people disapprove of the South African political system and, in particular, of the way in which black South Africans are treated. The more fervent of such people, among them those who speak with the pre- dictable voices, wish to ban South African cricketers from playing here, on the ground that we must not associate ourselves on a friendly basis with a country capable of such wickedness. This, of course, is why the South Africans were kept out of the Olympic Games.

The rejection of the South African Olympic team was a protest against apartheid, not against 'unsporting' behaviour, and the same is true,

at bottom, of the -objections raised in this country against receiving a South African

cricket team in 1970. What is being said, in effect, is this: until you conduct yoilr internal affairs as we think you ought to conduct them, we won't know you socially.

On the face of it, -this may seem a pretty-

respectable attitude. But from _say point of view, as, a would-be spectator in 1970, it in-

vites one Of two alternative comments. Either

I might say: I want to watch eleven indi- viduals playing cricket, and as far as that goes their opinions about politics and race (which for all anyone knows, incidentally, may be as liberal as you please) are quite irrelevant.

Or I might say: yes, I agree that these,

cricketers are, in a sense, a delegation from a country which treats its black population shamefully, and I agree that as such they should not be given countenance; but (I should add in this case) similar delegations are invited here to play other games from countries whose treat- ment of human beings is just as shamiful,•and this, too, should plainly be forbidden. If we are banning South African cricketers because their nation maltreats its blacks, then we ought also to ban footballers and so forth from Spain

and Greece, from almost all Arab countries, and from all communist countries whatever, on the ground that in all these places the most hideous brutality and injustice are daily inflicted on innocent people. Yet none of these countries are banned from sending sportsmen here; and with none did we disdain to compete in the Olympics. So why, I should conclude, please tell me why, are we being so• disagreeable to the South Africans?

The answer is, of course (though it would not be given in quite these terms), that blacks are all the fashion just now, and anyway them persecution in South Africa is conducted • by the right. Persecutions of whites (including Jews) which are conducted by the left are . . . well . . . different; not exactly venial, but certainly not to be loudly protested at, lest harm come to the Cause. As far, then, as the fashionable left and the predictable voices are concerned, it is permissible because politically expedient to play the Russians at football while it is downright immoral to play the South Africans at cricket.

But as for me, speaking as a spectator (and in that capacity politically neutral) I say that since all are vile we should play either with all or with none, and that we should do much better to play with all. Thus, despite Russia's sickening behaviour last summer, I was in favour of letting her compete in the Olympic Games: the Russian athletes, after all, were

not responsible for her policy in Czecho- slovakia, and even if -they had been they would

not have been less interesting as athletes. In the same way, I desire—I demand—that the South Africans be allowed to play cricket here next year, without interference from idealists who insist on knowing best or from little boys and girls who know no better. It is all, in tile

last resort, a question of pleasure. By all means

let the idealists, the students, the revolutionaries feel as passionately as they must, write as much as they choose, shout as loud as they

please, and carry banners .as wide as they will: but for God's sake let them not spoil other people's pleasure. If I go to watch the South Africans, it is on my conscience, not theirs, and they must let me be its keeper.

But one knows all too well what is likely to happen. The predictable voices have foretold it with spiteful relish, and it has already hap- pened in (among other places) Germany, where a South African team recently went to play a hockey match. The protesters dug up the ground the night before.-thus ruining not only the match but the pitch. and with it many people's pleasure for many weeks to come— a public deprivation of which the protesters, one must suppose. were either too vicious or too imbecile to take account Or were they? Perhaps they were just too self-righteous. For all fanatics are the same in this, that they know they are right and are therefore not going to let anyone have any way but theirs. From Gibbon's absurd early Christians, who deliberately wrecked the pagan festivals even when they themselves were no longer compelled to take part, down to the ludicrous revolutionaries in Cuba who have abolished peanut stalls (as dangerous relics of capitalism, you understand), it is the same story. Nothing, nothing at all, is to be allowed except what is strictly required by the fanatics to rearrange the world just as they want it.

A good example of such lunacy was the wrecking of the recent Test match in Pakistan. On that occasion the protest was not, it appears, against the cricketers or the country they came from, but against the bare fact of there being a cricket match at all on the same day as an important strike; or, on another interpreta- tion, against the spectators. who were commit- ting the crime of watching cricket when they should have been thinking about revolution. But in either case, it was the spectators, as usual, who suffered, who didn't get their money's worth becaUse a fanatical minority dis- approved of their amusement.

And now therefore, a spectator speaking on behalf of my fellow spectators:I say this: it is only a minority which wants the South Afri- cans to be kept out in 1970; this being so, they should come; and when they do, we want to enjoy our money's worth in peace. Let those who wish to watch them, watch them; and let those who don't, stay away. Life is too short for us spectators to wait until the pre- dictable voices, etc, are at last satisfied with the moral performance of the South African government (if ever that time should come). We want to see these fine cricketers, and we want to see them now: we, the majority, demand our pleasure and our right.