CSA hope money will buy justice


Posted August 19, 2020 by topcrickets

Cricket South Africa (CSA) could spend more than a million dollars on reparations to former black and brown players who say their careers were blighted by racism. Although the amount has yet to be agreed,

 
Cricbuzz has learnt that independent board member Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, who is driving the initiative as part of CSA's Social Justice and Nation Building project, has demanded between R20-million and R22-million in funding for the project - the equivalent of between USD 1.143-million and USD 1.262-million. Nothing has been agreed, but cynics will wonder whether the bandying about of those kinds of figures is fuelling the stream of black and brown former players telling their stories of racist treatment.

In an interview on state television on July 17, Makhaya Ntini said he was socially shunned by his teammates during his international career. On July 23, the Eastern Cape provincial government pledged their support to help Ntini relaunch his academy in Mdantsane.

Hardly a day passes without a former player recounting their hardships, often on state media. Thami Tsolekile has appeared three times on one radio show, which is also due to host Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Alviro Petersen. Often the aggrieved players' white contemporaries come in for criticism, most often Graeme Smith, now CSA's director of cricket, who has professed his lack of awareness of racism in South Africa's team environment during his tenure as captain from 2003 to 2014.

"We can't have him in the system if he's not going to tell the truth," Tsolekile said, in his latest appearance on Thursday. Is Tsolekile following his own dictum? Almost always an understudy in South Africa's squad, he has recently slammed the limited playing opportunities he was given in an international career that amounted to three Tests. Undoubtedly, he deserved more. But in an interview he gave to a South African newspaper in Brisbane in November 2012, Tsolekile was quoted as saying: "I've had long talks with [coach], Gary Kirsten, in England and here in Australia and he made it clear to me where I stand, and I'm very comfortable with that. I see no reason to change things." That was in response to Ntini telling another newspaper at the time: "Tsolekile would have been playing if he was white. People will say we are talking politics but we need to say these things." Tsolekile said then he found Ntini's assertion "quite disturbing" and that, "For me, I wouldn't know why he said that; perhaps he has his own reasons."

Almost eight years on, parsing fact from fiction has only become exponentially more difficult. So quite how CSA are going to decide who is deserving and of how much money is part of the challenge they will face in their efforts to mete out appropriate social justice. That will not be made easier by finances that were in a parlous state even before the coronavirus pandemic. But they are under pressure to address the issue and have resolved to appoint a transformation ombudsperson by the end of this month.

"We may not have the money at this stage but we have not yet quantified the cost," Chris Nenzani said in an interview on state radio on July 30, when he was still CSA's president. "We are busy drafting the terms of reference. We are busy going through a process of saying what resources are we going to need, and how do we then ensure that we can afford these resources.

"The issue may not necessarily be money. Restorative justice does not necessarily mean that you are going to pay somebody something. But there has to be a sense that a person's dignity has been restored, and that the system is acting in a way that ensures it does not go back to the unfortunate past. Whether that [restorative action] will be monetary or otherwise is going to be determined by the outcome of the process."

Nenzani resigned on Friday, ending a tenure of more than seven years in which transformation has been a constant and thorny presence. Not that it has ever been anything else. A former selector tells of the original squad for the 2003 Test series in England taking seven hours to pick, and then being rejected by CSA because it was too white. Instead of the committee being given the chance to reconvene to consider other options, the squad was amended by the suits without the selectors' input.

For every such tale, there are many others of black and brown players getting the short end of the stick. The outpouring of hurt has intensified since July 6, when Lungi Ngidi voiced his support for Black Lives Matter and said he hoped the conversation would be taken up in South Africa's dressing room.

He need to have no doubt that the discussion is booming in CSA's committee rooms, albeit online. Kula-Ameyaw has been part of the board only since May, but she arrived as a vocal proponent of black African transformation - she chairs the transformation committee - and is known to have formed an alliance with Welsh Gwaza, the all-powerful company secretary.

CSA will need careful management to come through this phase of their chronically troubled history without inflicting further reputational damage on themselves. They are being beseeched to do the right thing by around half-a-dozen different pressure groups, some of whom represent current and potentially conflicting interests.
it promises to be substantial as the organization tries to buy some peace in the wake of weeks of race ructions. But those who benefit could face accusations of profiting from the pain of the past - even if they were victims of injustice. And it's not as if CSA are awash with cash.

One such hastily formed collective, which claims that whites represent 60% of crowds at matches in South Africa, has threatened a boycott if CSA do not scrap racially-based selection policies. Whatever thunder they think they have will be stolen if Covid-19 keeps spectators out of grounds in the coming summer. That's assuming lockdown regulations are relaxed enough to allow foreign teams to tour, which is not the case currently.

The 36 black and brown coaches and former players who issued a joint statement on July 14 supporting Ngidi and criticising white players like Pat Symcox and Boeta Dippenaar, among others, who came out against the fast bowler's position, has splintered.

More division might follow. A growing number of brown South Africans feel CSA's targets - six black or brown players in every South Africa XI, two of them black, and six in every franchise XI, three of them black - are unfair on them. For now, they are happy to fight the good fight alongside their black comrades, but factionalism is a distinct possibility.

Because there is only so much space in the spotlight, only so much appetite for another saga of sadness, however genuine, and only so much money CSA will pay.

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Issued By topcrickets
Country India
Categories Blogging , News , Personal Interests
Tags cricket , csa , justice
Last Updated August 19, 2020