Cricket South Africa (CSA) has released a statement confirming that the organisation’s board had decided unanimously that all Proteas players should take a knee in support of the fight against racism ahead of every match at the World Cup.
This is an extraordinary decision because the issue of racism in cricket is a matter for the board of CSA to resolve. However, accepting that one can never remove political issues from sport, a directive to perform a controversial act to express abhorrence of racism amounts to a fundamental breach of the players’ constitutional rights. The Constitution states that –
- everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected;
- everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion;
- everyone has the right to freedom of expression.
Some people, as a matter of religious conviction, regard kneeling to any person or cause other than their God as an affront.
As it was a unanimous decision, Lawson Naidoo, the chairman of CSA and executive director of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, must take responsibility for the hypocrisy evident in this decision.
This is particularly important in the context that ‘taking the knee’, which has its origins in the United States, has become indelibly associated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which led the charge against the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police.
Protests erupted, but became violent leading literally to the death of citizens and damage to property running to billions of rands. BLM didn’t disavow the death and violence. Although policemen were found guilty of causing Floyd’s death, racism was never an issue. BLM’s credentials as a human rights organisation came into question.
In addition, it became apparent quite quickly that BLM was founded by Marxists and had as an aim the overthrow of capitalism and the move to the creation of a Marxist state.
In other words it is not unanimous that BLM is a worthy representative of the fight against racism. If CSA feels the need to create a permanent expression against racism, it is surely not beyond its powers of imagination to find a symbol that does not require showing obeisance to a dubious organisation, genuflecting in support of that organization, or ostracising a player for standing by his principles and withdrawing, simply because CSA is more concerned about virtue signalling than being cognisant of its players and the fans.
Quinton De Kock, our premier batsman, withdrew for ‘personal reasons’ from yesterday’s match against the West Indies, presumably because of this directive. CSA has said it has yet to decide what to do with him. We watch with interest.
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