“There’s nothing wrong with compensating people who have lost income, but every case will be judged on its own merits.” - Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, CSA transformation chair
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
COMPENSATING victims of racism financially would not damage the integrity of Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) project, independent board member Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw said on Friday. The scourge of prejudice tainted the game as much as it did every other aspect of the country’s society, and paying former players and others afflicted has been floated as a way to acknowledge wrongs and try, in a small way, to right them. But it could also explain why allegations of racism have mounted in recent weeks: some could see profit in pain.
“We are still going to raise the funds to see how we’re going to restore,” Kula-Ameyaw, who is CSA’s transformation chair, said during an online press conference. “There are a lot of companies, even government, that are ready to restore people. Yes, money will change hands at some point.”
And she had no problem with that happening: “I don’t understand what will be harmed when you try to restore. When people work in an asbestos factory and they are affected by [tuberculosis], they get compensated. There’s nothing wrong about that. The modalities of compensation, we’re still going to work on that. There’s nothing wrong with compensating people who have lost income, but every case will be judged on its own merits. That will not harm credibility. Ask those who work in the mines, in asbestos factories, even some insurance companies; organisations do pay for restoration or some form of redress.”
How CSA go about deciding who is compensated and by how much promises to be difficult. Makhaya Ntini has claimed he was given the cold shoulder by his teammates and so chose to avoid taking the team bus. Assuming that needs to be proven and is, is it a more serious slight — and thus worth more — than Aaron Phangiso being the only player in South Africa’s 2015 World Cup squad not to play a single game in the tournament? Or Khaya Zondo being removed from the XI to play an ODI against India in Mumbai in October 2015? What of Geoff Toyana not being named South Africa’s coach in August 2017, which then CSA president Chris Nenzani has since described as “a missed opportunity”? What happens if white players who consider themselves unfairly treated by South Africa’s current racial selection policies demand payment? Or if victims of the previous racial selection policies — the first 247 Test players were all classified white because the quota was 11 whites per team — also want what’s coming to them? Will lost earnings be used as a measure, or will the levels of hurt experienced come into the equation?
Kula-Ameyaw avoided that level of detail. Instead she said things like: “What I don’t like about cricket is they don’t predict how long they will play.” And: “Football is 45, 45 [minutes]; then you are done.” And: “I only watch the highlights of cricket, not the whole game. I don’t have time for that.” And: “Am I done? Can I go sleep?” It’s only fair to make clear she was joking, and to emphasise cricket boards include independent directors because they do not have ties to the game and so do not bring vested interests in cricket with them. But it is also true that Kula-Ameyaw will only give the board’s legion of detractors ammunition by bringing flippancy to a serious subject.
An accompanying release quoted CSA acting president Beresford Williams as saying: “Today I can boldly say that despite the challenges CSA has endured we are committed to a new path anchored on the mandate set out by the [SJN]. We owe it to the former players, coaches and administrators and the general public to act decisively. We need to ensure the ills that may have been inflicted on them are not extended to the next generation.
“As the board of CSA we took the country into our confidence and accepted responsibility for not establishing adequate channels for reporting of acts of racism and discrimination at the time that they occurred. We acknowledge this oversight and apologise to the cricket stakeholders with a promise that we will immediately strive to remedy what happened in the past.”
Nine SJN ambassadors were named: Toyana, former men’s internationals Ntini, Monde Zondeki, Gary Kirsten and Lance Klusener, and women’s players Marcia Letsoalo, Shandre Fritz, Nolubabalo Ndzundzu and Dinesha Devnarain. They would seem well-qualified for their role, as does Dumisa Ntsebeza, who was named SJN ombudsperson but, unfortunately, did not attend the press conference. Ntsebeza is an advocate who completed his law degree while imprisoned for political activities during South Africa’s struggle against apartheid. He has lectured in law and served as an acting judge. He chairs the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust, and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation as well as the chancellor of the University of Fort Hare. Good people are hard to find in cricket, but cricket seems to have found one.
Faced with the choice between right and wrong in the past, CSA made poor choices too many times. Having engineered this opportunity to get it right and taken promising steps towards doing so, is it too much to hope that they don’t get it entirely wrong? This will take integrity in every sense. Putting money where the mouths of former players are won’t be enough.
First published by Cricbuzz.
I trust they will refund the ancestors of Llewellyn who was refused his place in the early 1900's and chose to play for hampshire.