CAPE TOWN - When British Premier Boris Johnson last week cancelled the “Yorkshire" leg of HS2, the high-speed rail line meant to connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, BBC Radio 4’s satirical Now Show could not resist lamenting that the senior management of the Yorkshire Cricket Club have been deprived of a high-speed getaway from the county.
The club has been embroiled in English cricket’s latest and most brazen racism scandal as if senior officials at the famous Headingley ground in Leeds were still trapped in a neo-colonial mindset more befitting of that architect of institutional racism in sport, Cecil John Rhodes.
Events came to a head last Tuesday when Azeem Rafiq, an ex-spinner at the club of South Asian heritage, gave a harrowing testimony and allegations of institutional racism at the club to the UK Parliament’s Media and Sport select committee.
More than 1 000 people contacted The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket inquiry into discrimination in th sport amid the Rafiq allegations, which suggested that the phenomenon was more entrenched than the club and English cricket establishment would have us believe.
To dismiss this as mere changing room “banter” or “incidental” racism, as a flawed Yorkshire inquiry concluded with no recourse for Rafiq and other players of colour at the club, shows the racism reality gap between the white cricketing establishment and players and those team players of colour who are lucky to make it to the top.
According to the commission, a third of recreational cricketers in England are from the South Asian community, but less than 5% play professionally, a significant drop since 2010.
There is only one non-white coach of a county side, despite the launch of the English Cricket Board's South Asian Action Plan in 2018. Similar stories are emerging from other county cricket clubs.
Cricket seems to have a particular problem in rooting out racism. Not that rugby, football, et al, are bereft of it.
But on Saturday when the Springboks played England at Twickenham, the broadcaster had a clear message: “There is no room for racism in rugby, sport and society.” The players went on to take the knee. Later in the Liverpool match against Arsenal it was the same.
I didn’t see similar gestures at the recent T20 Cricket World Cup in the UAE nor at the Test matches in England this year, let alone county cricket matches.
South Africa too has form here. It was outrageous that the Proteas did not take the knee initially. Of all the national teams representing their countries, that was the one that should have done so.
Quinton de Kock at the T20 World Cup refused to take the knee preferring to miss a match, only to apologise for his “mistake” afterwards.
The ECB, heavily criticised for its handling of the Yorkshire scandal, typically adopted a “Johnny come lately” attitude only for ECB chief executive Tom Harrison to be forced to “apologise unreservedly' for the 'blight' of racism “in our game”.
There is a sense of déjà vu because we have been here before with many so-called “wake-up calls” for rooting out racism in sport and society. History has shown that this latest one by the parliamentary committee may also fizzle out to be another false dawn.
There are those who sincerely but naively talk about eradicating racism from sport or society as if it is a tick box exercise.
The truth is that racism and for that matter corruption is as old as society itself. Whether in sport or society, it can never be eliminated because human nature will not allow it.
Racism and chauvinism are not the monopoly of the white majority countries. It’s pervasive all over South and East Asia, Middle East, Latin America and in Africa. It's just that former colonial countries are past masters at it complete with legacy institutional support.
Given that sport was set up on a globalised basis, in tandem with colonialism, it is inevitable that it still retains its racist roots institutionally and in terms of its structures and attitudes. There is racism in sport because there is racism in society. Sport cannot be divorced from life. Those who have been doing this in over a century of apartheid sport merely reinforced their own racism.
In an age of social media also where your cyber footprint is effectively owned by the big tech giants, it is nigh impossible to hide from online indiscretions.
Azeem Rafiq himself a few days ago apologised unreservedly for historical anti-Semitic tweets he shared with a fellow cricketer when he was 19-years-old and which it seemed was accepted by the Jewish community.
At best racism and chauvinism can be contained. But it will require the meeting of minds between governments, governing bodies, sponsors, clubs, fans and communities. One reason for the debacle at Yorkshire Cricket Club was the refusal to acknowledge that there was a problem, which led to a lack of communication and support, which in turn ensured continued institutionalisation of the status quo.
The fact that racist abuse in sport on the field, in the stands and on social media platforms is alive and kicking today is a poignant reminder that the struggle towards non-racial sport everywhere must continue and requires constant vigilance, pressure and calling out.
One factor that brought the Yorkshire Cricket Club to its knees is money, characterised by an exodus of sponsors and the loss of the right to stage lucrative England test matches. This precipitated a spate of resignations of senior club dinosaurs.
In contrast, UK sports minister Nigel Huddleston threatened to take the "nuclear option" of creating an independent regulator for the game and asking Sport England to cut grants if it fails to "put its house in order" over racism.
* Parker is a writer based in London
Cape Times