Deputy President forced to defuse tension in S Africa (13 January 1999)

13 January 1999

Deputy President forced to defuse tension in S Africa

By Geoffrey Dean

THE issue of the racial composition of South Africa's sporting teams has become so contentious throughout the country that deputy President Thabo Mbeki felt obliged last Friday to defuse tension surrounding it.

His statement apparently contradicted the New Year warning by Steve Tshwete, the Minister of Sport, that he would have difficulty supporting "white" South African sides at this year's cricket and rugby World Cups.

"We are all Africans," declared Mbeki. "All of us must give our teams the necessary support so that they emerge as the world champions."

The United Cricket Board of South Africa would have welcomed those words, but there are divisions within the board over the principles of selection.

Percy Sonn, the coloured vice-president of the board, says he sympathises with the views expressed by Tshwete, who will expound them further to the board executive during the fifth Test starting on Friday.

"Why chase records when you know there is responsibility to build a nation?" asked Sonn, clearly unhappy that the opportunity to blood non-white players at Test level has been subjugated to the quest for a 5-0 whitewash against the West Indies.

As a member of the four-man committee which was set up to monitor national selection, Sonn could have raised objections to the fifth Test squad, but he decided not to. "I have a responsibility to be loyal to my organisation, but it doesn't mean I am comfortable," he said.

While Sonn accepts political intervention in selection, the board president, Ray White, once of Cambridge University and Gloucestershire, publicly expressed his resentment of it.

During the board's televised 'Pledge to the Nation', broadcast live from Newlands during a tea break in the fourth Test, White could not resist straying from his authorised text and slipping in an aside that interference in selection was neither wanted nor needed.

Most of the 16,000 crowd applauded White at this point, but furious board executive members forced him immediately to pen a handwritten apology, photocopies of which were hurriedly circulated around the press box.

A more formal board statement followed the next day, announcing that White's apology had been accepted.

Whether his long-term position is tenable is another matter. It used to be a time-honoured tradition for the president to approve national selections, but it was White's decision to rubber-stamp an all-white team for the first Test that led to the formation of the committee to approve future selections.

Very good reasons now have to be given to that committee if no non-whites are picked for the national side.

The rumpus surrounding White's remarks deflected attention from the board's Transformation Charter, as encapsulated in the 'Pledge to the Nation'. In it, the board's commitment to promote and develop cricket among non-whites at all levels was reiterated.

With a general election taking place here this year, more criticism of the board can be expected from politicians eager for point-scoring.

Imtiaz Patel, the board's prime facilitator of the Transformation Charter, is upset. "It is sad to see these guys shooting us down when they should be recognising cricket's efforts as a model for society," he said.

Tshwete, whose ministry could well be scrapped after the election, was lambasted by the opposition Democratic Party's Mike Ellis, who said: "Tshwete's panic about his future is understandable. It is, however, not acceptable that he should drag sport back into the cesspool of racial politicking in an effort to save his own political skin."

Sport and politics in South Africa appear almost as unavoidably inter-linked as during the apartheid days. That is no help to the country's sportsmen in a year they began with realistic hopes of winning both World Cups.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)