“We all know you play for South Africa on merit. You don’t play because of the colour of your skin. The greatest thing was helping people understand why.” - Lungi Ngidi
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
LIKE Johnny Nash in 1972, Ray Charles in 1978, Jimmy Cliff in 1993, the Hothouse Flowers in 1990 and Eagle-Eye Cherry in 2008, among others, South Africa’s players of 2020 can see clearly now the rain has gone. Last week’s culture camp seems to have helped them cast a beam of light through a fog of ignorance and ugliness, and might lead to bright sunshiny days.
Lungi Ngidi, for one, left the camp with a song in his heart. “I felt happy leaving as a player,” he said in an audio file released by Cricket South Africa on Monday. “I really understood things a lot better. We understand there’s a still a lot of sensitivity towards what we spoke about. But just to be able to get onto the same page is going to help us a lot in terms of not having any grey areas and any clouded judgement when it comes to game time.”
It was Ngidi who sparked the singing in the rain on July 6, when his answer to a question during an online press conference unleashed floods of reaction. Would South Africa’s players take up the Black Lives Matter conversation, he was asked. They would, he replied.
Since then we’ve endured white former players trying to subvert the discussion with dog whistle racism exaggerating the prominence of the murders of white farmers, black and brown former players making serious — and largely unverifiable — claims of racism in the team environment, players snared in the 2015 fixing scandal hijacking the moment to launder their soiled reputations, and media megaphoning shrill allegations that dog whistle in another direction without applying the basic reporting imperative of corroboration.
Perhaps it was no accident that the culture camp was assigned to Skukuza in the Kruger Park, one of the largest game reserves in all of Africa. Out there, all there is to hear is what nature intended. And nature has no truck with lies, innuendo and shoddy journalism.
“It was very important for this camp to happen,” Ngidi said. “Most of the players and management felt like we had to address a few issues, and that was the outcome of the camp. There are a lot of young guys in the team now, and we had to pretty much form our own identity.”
South Africa last did this kind of thing 10 years ago, when then captain Graeme Smith came up with the notion of “Protea Fire”. A blaze in the bush, rather than destroying the king protea flower, which is represented on South Africa’s badge, triggers an explosion of seeds. The plant is one of the first to grow again after a fire. But in 2010 the country and its people were all loved up with the warm and fuzzy prospect of hosting football’s World Cup. Not for the first nor the last time, the myth that sport has the power to unify entire nations was afoot.
Ten years on, cracks caused by deep, latent racism, the failure of South Africa’s flawed attempt at democracy to deliver a better life for all but a few, and the resultant inequalities, are widening throughout our society. Cricket is plummeting into the abyss. Cue a rethink …
“The updated value system is very relevant to our country moving forward and the type of team we want to build,” Ngidi said, and referenced some of the themes of the camp. “Belonging — everyone needs to feel welcome. Empathy and respect — once you understand someone a lot better you can relate, and you can actually converse and have open discussion. We felt these are what we’re going to use moving forward.”
Not that it was all hugs and kumbaya in Wakanda for players of a game that has had to find a way to fit into a country where race has been, and will be for decades yet, the unbreakable dividing line. Selection, for instance, has always been skewed by race; albeit now less than ever. “Around the discussions — transformation, race and the team environment — it was very uncomfortable at moments, but it’s something that needed to be done,” Ngidi said. “A lot of guys shared their stories and how they felt. From the different racial groups you understand how people feel.
“We all know you play for South Africa on merit. You don’t play because of the colour of your skin. The greatest thing was helping people understand why. I feel sometimes people are scared or embarrassed to ask. Being able to speak out in that environment really cleared up a lot of grey areas for people.”
All that unseemly fuss in the wake of what Ngidi said on July 6 would seem to have served a positive purpose: “The most important thing is that it’s opened up communication and helped a lot of people understand. If people just make a judgement call, it’s very difficult to communicate. Guys were willing to communicate and express and explain. I think it’s definitely helped within the team. The main thing is helping people to be able to speak about issues that they find uncomfortable.”
What does all this have to do with playing cricket? Plenty: “I know I play my best cricket when I’m being myself. If I can’t be myself I don’t feel I’m giving 100% of who I am and what I can do. For me that was one of the most important things — to be able to come into an environment and not feel that you have to conform to a certain way in order to fit in. We accept everyone the way they are, and everyone’s different. Which is what makes the team so great and the environment so great.
“With South Africa being such a diverse nation, we found that that’s one of our strengths and why we’re such a resilient team. With all the diversity, people have faced a lot of different challenges in life and all of a sudden their true character shines in moments where they’re put under pressure. All that diversity suddenly shines through. Not many teams can compare to what we have. The probably haven’t experienced in their country the stuff that we have.”
There was even time for some straightforward cricket talk: “We need to win games. Working out a formula how to do that is always an ongoing thing. With a lot of new guys we’re going to have a lot of new ideas and new ways of approaching things. But the bottom line is we need to win games.”
Ngidi would be terminally naïve if he believed a few days spent away from the negative noise and among his largely like-minded comrades could unpack all the racial and cultural baggage South Africa’s teams carry, much less engineer a shift in the national zeitgeist. But it’s a start. The players have done their bit.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s going to be a bright, bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day.”
It’s a long shot, but maybe, a few years from now, a new recording of those old lines will hold special resonance for South Africans. All of us.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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