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January 12, 2024 - 6:45pm
Sport always has a political dimension, and nowhere is it starker than South Africa. One of the great symbols of post-apartheid reconciliation (so sentimentalised that a film got made about it) was the 1995 Rugby World Cup, in which the white South African captain, François Pienaar, received the trophy from President Nelson Mandela. The processes which the 1990s set in motion — of reconciliation, and return to the international fold — were capped off in 2010, when South Africa played host to the FIFA World Cup.
But the role of sport in South African history has not always been inspirational or positive, which is of course what makes those two moments so poignant. The boycott of apartheid South Africa, sparked in Britain in large part by the D’Oliveira Affair of 1968-9, played out on the cricket fields.
And once again South Africa’s cricketing controversies have made the news. Today Cricket South Africa announced that they were demoting David Teeger from the captaincy of their Under-19 Team. Teeger, who is Jewish, attracted negative attention by making comments in support of the IDF a few weeks after the Hamas terror attack of 7 October. Yet Cricket South Africa itself concluded, after investigating the matter, that Teeger did not cross any lines in expressing his support for Israel. They are dropping him — as their statement makes clear — not because he had committed any wrongdoing, or even because his talent or sportsmanship weren’t up to the task, but rather to prevent “conflict” and “violence” from protestors.
This capitulation to the mob is an unedifying sight, especially once placed within its broader context. Cricket South Africa announced their decision to drop Teeger on the second day of proceedings in South Africa v. Israel at the International Court of Justice. Israel, and some South African Jews, claim that South Africa bears a vendetta against Israel rooted in antisemitism; in response, South Africa presents itself as a moral beacon, a champion of the oppressed. That was already eyebrow-raising for all those familiar with South Africa’s role in Putin’s war against Ukraine. But now, with South Africa’s cricketing authorities seemingly discriminating against a Jewish player, the image that South Africa is trying to sell to the world has become even harder to swallow.
Cricket South Africa already has a history of determining sporting matters on the basis of racial politics. Kevin Pietersen felt he had to leave South Africa for England because of a quota system limiting the number of white players; their loss was our gain. The treatment of Teeger might therefore be par for the course. Still, the decision to remove him as captain is craven and discriminatory. It is grist to the mill of all those who think that South Africa’s case against Israel is being made in bad faith. It is an insult to South Africa’s substantial Jewish community, which is rightly proud of its prominent role in the struggle against apartheid. And it is above all an insult to the game of cricket, whose name across the world is synonymous with fairness.
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SubscribeI don’t really have anything to say anymore, except to note that I no longer greet stories like this with any sense of surprise, but only a kind of resigned sadness. Speaking as a tremendous admirer of the Jews and their contributions to world civilization, it causes me a great deal of psychic pain to realize that we are not entering a new age of antisemitism, but rather never left the old, and the illusion that, after 1945, we had consigned antisemitism to the intellectual ash heap was just that–an illusion.
I guess you’re right, son. Thanks for the kind words.
It didn’t take long for South Africa to fall back into nepotistic tribalism.
‘Twas ever thus!
Well this is a link to a report from Genocidewatch about South Africa
http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/19/genocide-alerts-south-africa/
A nation that doesn’t have the guts to select sporting teams and their captains on merit, rather than any other criteria, is finished.
The regime that prevailed prior to the end of Apartheid is testimony to that principle, and one would think that such a country would’ve taken that lesson to heart.
If i were Teeger, i’d refuse to play for such a cowardly country at all, and maybe seek to follow in the footsteps of Kevin Pietersen.
I hope the UK cricket authorities are talking to him already. His would be one asylum claim worth fast-tracking.
The incident is outrageous of course, but I’ll note something similar is still happening to Russian athletes, and talking heads in the west don’t seem to have an issue with it. The Russian junior hockey team, just this Christmas, was barred from playing in the World Championships. These are a bunch of 17 and 18 year old kids.
And the initial retaliation against Russian civilians in the West at the start of the war was even more appallingly stupid.
Orchestras refusing to play Tchaikovsky and expelling Russian musicians even more so. Absolutely infantile.
Antisemitism has a long and dark history in South Africa. I am not surprised that it’s raising its ugly head again; sad, yes, but not surprised. The brief spot of bright light that shone on post-Apartheid South Africa was not a harbinger of better times, but a momentary deviation from the status quo, which is marked by nepotism, racism and tribalism.
Antisemitism by whom – specifically? The whole world was antisemitic (barring a small minority) prior to the end of WW II. The Holocaust was what made people think about the plight of the world Jewry.
Israel should have been the solution and giving them back their ancestral homeland, but alas as October 7 and the baying for Jewish blood proves your point. Disgraceful.
Can we offer him refugee status in the UK, along with the many other useful South Africans currently being persecuted on account of their race?
Racism underpins everything in South Africa, as much, if not more so, than in its pre-Apartheid era.
You’re forgetting that it’s colonialism that caused all Africa’s problems and that the indigenous population is only ever a victim and not capable of racism, bad ideology, criminality, fraud etc. Get with the program!
South Africa’s Bantu population is not even indigenous. They invaded South Africa at roughly the same time as the Boers.
Methinks he was being sarcastic.
Probably hoping to claim benefits
You are correct, Richard. The indigenous people of southern Africa were the Khoi San folks, often referred to as the ‘Bushmen’. It was they who inhabited the savannah lands in small groups of hunter-gatherers rather than in larger ethnic tribal groups. It was they who left behind a legacy of their exquisite rock art that adorns the natural granite galleries of countless hill complexes (‘kopjies’) throughout southern Africa. the Bushmens’ skin colour was light brown/yellowish. They were exterminated by the black Bantu tribes that migrated southwards out of the Congo Basin and eventually took over all of southern Africa, apart from the area of the Cape Province South of the Fish River, where the Boer expansion prevented their further progress; and the Kalahari Desert, to where that last vestiges of the Khoi San people escaped to survive in a harsh environment that was of no interest to the Bantu tribes with their livestock and subsistence farming. The Bantu effectively wiped out the Khoi San as an indigenous population in southern Africa (genocide is the modern term). Applying Woke principles relating to colonialism and settler populations, the Bantu have no more right to the lands of southern Africa than the bogeymen of the European colonial era – who did not exterminate Bantu populations but sought to protect and nurture them in the main (in contrast to their more ruthless counterparts in the United States and Australia who substantially reduced those indigenous populations to insignificant proportions; thereby guaranteeing that they would not be challenged in the future as were the white settlers of southern Africa by huge Bantu populations that had grown exponentially under the beneficence of modern medicine and other advantages of Western science, technology and administration).
Thanks for taking the trouble to elaborate upon my brevity.
The Gods Must Be Crazy.
If it was not for western aid, roads, railways, agriculture, medicine, technology there would be far fewer of them
This sarcasm is going over like a lead zeppelin
I got it despite my somewhat po-faced response.
Absolute rubbish! Unless your tongue is firmly wedged between your teetj!
It’s the sporting equivalent of arresting the man with the Jewish flag ‘for his own safety’ in the midst of the mob…
The ANC were always the villains. Change my mind.
I hope and trust that Mr Teeger will respond to his demotion by becoming increasingly outspoken in his support for the IDF.
Ironic that I and many South African cricket lovers were disgusted by the Basil d’Oliveira affair, which would sadly deprive us of international cricket for decades. Typically, we did nothing to hold the ANC to the supposed values they pushed during the “struggle”. This latest poor form of the SACB and the tacky ANC does not surprise.
Had Mister Peter Hain used his parents influence and his time more productively and constructively, he would be actually able to proclaim that he brought changes to SA. Pompous man – if there ever was one. I wonder how he views this latest gaff of his beloved ANC.
By the way: Although I stand to correction, I doubt any of his books ever lay blame for the disastrous effects of British rule in SA. They set the tenure, which unfortunately the Afrikaners finally made law.
What can candidly be said about South Africa post apartheid that is fit for polite company?
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/look-back-in-anger/
Without the quota system in provincial rugby that encouraged non-white players to aspire to represent the Springboks, South Africa would probably not have won the last two World Cups.
His rantings would have upset many South Africans, including many Jews. Would you defend any sports man who was fired for showing support for the Hamas attack of 7th Oct? A German footballer was sacked, not for showing support for Hamas, but for condemning Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.(South Africa have condemned the Hamas attack of October 7th)
I can only assume that you think that over 23,000 dead with thousands more buried in the rubble, 60,000 injured, many of whom will suffer amputations and many of whom will die through medicine being deliberately blockaded, not to mention the thousands who will die through lack of food, sanitation and clean water, is not enough and you want more to die.
You are making Jews look like monsters. Perhaps this is deliberate as Zionism depends on anti Semitism as justification. This is a great pity as many Jews are disgusted by Israel’s genocide.
Anwar El Ghazi, a footballer playing for Mainz 05 in Germany has been sacked by his club for social media posts condemning the bombing campaign in Gaza, while Australian opener Usman Khawaja was threatened with suspension if he displayed messages calling for peace on his bat. There seems to be a lot of censorship in regards to the conflict the world over
So judging by the downvotes I’ll assume that people on here are happy a sportsman lost his job because he criticised the IDF, but are angry that another sportsman lost his place for praising them?
No doubt the same people that claim to be for free speech
Aye UnHerd. Still trying to convince everyone that you are a genuine free speech advocate!
Try looking at one then come back to me…
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