No black and white issue

Clever things, words. You can use them to think with, but they're far more useful than that. You can also use them to not think with. And if you are clever, you can use them to make other people not think. One of the real, solid triumphs of the Diabolic Semantics Department has been to give virtue a bad name.

The best example of this is "worthy". If I write that a person raising money for the AIDS epidemic in Africa is "worthy", I would be writing him off. The person - worthy, perhaps even saintly - would be made to look foolish, Not Like Us, someone who need not trouble our consciences. And then again there is "politically correct". This has become a useful sneer term: politically correct means bad, stupid, half-baked, worthy (ha!) only of our contempt.

But let us remember what politically correct actually means. It is a correction, often an over-correction, of vile attitudes we are seeking to outgrow. People who write things off as "politically correct" are giving a merry thumbs-up to racism, sexism and discrimination against people with physical problems (challenges, if you must).

Which brings us to the Quota. The South Africa cricket team, I have read, is being picked on the grounds of political correctness". The phrase is an invitation to avoid all thought. If it is politically correct, it simply has to be bad. Ho, ho, ho, the saloon bar bore says, I'm frightfully politically incorrect myself. Mind you, so was the old way of picking the South Africa team: 11 whiteys, blacks to fetch the beers and clean the latrines.

The trouble arose when Percy Sonn, president of the United (ha! again) Cricket Board of South Africa, overruled the selectors and insisted that Jacques Rudolph be left out and Justin Ontong play in his place. This was unapologetically because Ontong is black and Rudolph white.

Now this is nonsense, right? You pick people for a team on pure sporting merit and then you go out and you play, pure and simple. Problem: sport is never pure and rarely simple. Sonn's intervention prompted an on-pitch cave-in. South Africa were in the process of being whitewashed by Australia anyway, but once the selection was made, they rolled over to have their tummies tickled.

Meanwhile, ex-players did the usual purblind ex-players' bit: 'snot right, 'snot fair, supposed to be a game, innit? How any South African can fail to see that sport and politics are inextricable is beyond me, but there you go. It doesn't help that South African ex-players are, by definition, white.

"Either you become part of the solution or you remain part of the problem," came the stinging rebuke from the office of Ngconde Balfour, the Sports Minister.

The Quota is a difficult issue. Sport always likes to pretend that it has nothing to do with the real world. The idea of sport's purity is a piece of wishful thinking that goes back to Victorian imperialism. But isn't sport's point the levelness of its playing fields? Doesn't everyone always select the team most likely to win? In 1968, England failed to pick one of their best players for political reasons; his name, you may recall, was Basil D'Oliveira. (Note for younger readers: D'Oliveira was later selected for the tour to South Africa when another player dropped out. South Africa refused to play; D'Oliveira is of South African birth and is Cape Coloured. South Africa were then expelled from international cricket until apartheid ended.)

There is something about the Quota that doesn't seem right, there's no ducking that. But that is because most of us fail to understand the context. We haven't lived under apartheid. Most of us lack the experience of being legally second-rate. Few of us have lived in a place where our oppression is not only politically correct but also enshrined in the law.

Me, I'm amazed that the traditional imperial sports are still allowed in South Africa, so greatly were they used as comforters of apartheid. Had I been Nelson Mandela, my first act would have been to outlaw cricket and rugby, in revenge for all those just-here-to-play-sport rebel tours.

But instead, the 1995 rugby union World Cup was held in South Africa (South Africa won and Mandela wore a Springbok shirt) and the cricket team has emerged to be a force in the world again. Recently, the four South African provincial sides in the Super 12 rugby series agreed to double the number of black players to two per side.

This is the result of one of the greatest acts of political magnanimity in history, one that sent the world the message that the way of righting the wrongs of history is best done not though revenge but through renewal. But that doesn't make renewal an easy process. You change a law overnight; you change a society over generations.

I don't much like the Quota myself, but I like it a lot better than apartheid's Quota of 11. The Quota is politically correct. At this moment in history, to criticise it is - how shall I put this? - unworthy. Once again, sport has its part to play in the transformation of South Africa. Well - once again, sport should be proud.

"It is a critical time in South African cricket and I think that's why people are a little bit upset."
Graeme Pollock

"Nowhere in the world are players chosen on a quota system. I believe upcoming players in this country are crucified by politicians who are trying to get votes. Justin Ontong was picked because he is black, not on merit."
Clive Rice

"(Cricketers) who gained from apartheid in the past are now contributing to racial polarisation."
Graham Abrahams

"Hello Percy!"
members of the Australian cricket team to Justin Ontong when he walked to the crease in the third Test

"There is no issue between us. There is just a system in place that we have to accept."
Jacques Rudolph