Why the hypocrisy on Zimbabwe ?

SO AUstralia decries the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe.....and won't send their cricket team over there.

Ok, I can accept that .....but is Australia prepared to boycott the Beijing OLympics next year ?
Hell after all, China just suppresses human freedoms and illegally occupies a whole country (Tibet) ?

What about the Pakistan tour next year - General Musharraf is nothing but a military dicatator who has curtailed democracy in Pakistan ?
But hey, he iss upposedly a valuable ally in the so-called "war on terror", so its ok to tour ?

C'mon where's the logic there.......?????

Salamuddin said:

SO AUstralia decries the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe.....and won't send their cricket team over there.

Ok, I can accept that .....but is Australia prepared to boycott the Beijing OLympics next year ?
Hell after all, China just suppresses human freedoms and illegally occupies a whole country (Tibet) ?

What about the Pakistan tour next year - General Musharraf is nothing but a military dicatator who has curtailed democracy in Pakistan ?
But hey, he iss upposedly a valuable ally in the so-called "war on terror", so its ok to tour ?

C'mon where's the logic there.......?????

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Money is more important in the political world than logic I'm afraid.

Salamuddin said:

SO AUstralia decries the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe.....and won't send their cricket team over there.

Ok, I can accept that .....but is Australia prepared to boycott the Beijing OLympics next year ?
Hell after all, China just suppresses human freedoms and illegally occupies a whole country (Tibet) ?

What about the Pakistan tour next year - General Musharraf is nothing but a military dicatator who has curtailed democracy in Pakistan ?
But hey, he iss upposedly a valuable ally in the so-called "war on terror", so its ok to tour ?

C'mon where's the logic there.......?????

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exactly, can't do something against a sports team because of their government even if the both mix.

Salamuddin said:

SO AUstralia decries the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe.....and won't send their cricket team over there.

Ok, I can accept that .....but is Australia prepared to boycott the Beijing OLympics next year ?
Hell after all, China just suppresses human freedoms and illegally occupies a whole country (Tibet) ?

What about the Pakistan tour next year - General Musharraf is nothing but a military dicatator who has curtailed democracy in Pakistan ?
But hey, he iss upposedly a valuable ally in the so-called "war on terror", so its ok to tour ?

C'mon where's the logic there.......?????

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I agree with you completely. I would be happy if the west did boycott Beijing, and that Musharraf was regarded as a military dictator rather than some sort of "friend with a few flaws" as he is now.

That said, I would rather the powers-that-be make the right call on one of the three situations than on none of them.

It's pretty diablocial that Beijing was even considered to be a viable venue for the Olympics.. How many journalists to they hold in prison? Is it something like 36?

Bracken said:

That said, I would rather the powers-that-be make the right call on one of the three situations than on none of them.

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That's not fair and is double standards and discrimination against zimbabwe.

The thing that really irks me is the "holier than thou" attitude adopted by Western countries to Zimbabwe.

Ok Mugabe is an animal, but IF he had opened Zimbabwe's rich mineral deposits to exploitation by Western companies, do you honestly think criticism of him would be so strident ?

I've allways maintained that the attitude by guys like Howard and Blair to the regime in Harare is due more to other factors than pure concern for the plight of the Zimbabwean people.

If it wasn't for this sort of thing there would still be apartheid in South Africa so I'm inclined to go with it. Build a house one brick at a time. Change the world (for the better) one country at a time if that's what it takes.

Salamuddin said:

The thing that really irks me is the "holier than thou" attitude adopted by Western countries to Zimbabwe.

Ok Mugabe is an animal, but IF he had opened Zimbabwe's rich mineral deposits to exploitation by Western companies, do you honestly think criticism of him would be so strident ?

I've allways maintained that the attitude by guys like Howard and Blair to the regime in Harare is due more to other factors than pure concern for the plight of the Zimbabwean people.

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Do you claim the same hypocrisy on Stuart MacGill? (asking)

pasag said:

Do you claim the same hypocrisy on Stuart MacGill? (asking)

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Will he sit out the Pakistan tour then on moral grounds ?


THe moment you mix sport and politics, you open up a whole Pandora's box.

jot1 said:

If it wasn't for this sort of thing there would still be apartheid in South Africa so I'm inclined to go with it. Build a house one brick at a time. Change the world (for the better) one country at a time if that's what it takes.

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Agree with this 100%. If sport & politics didn't mix then the exclusion of SA for over 20 years is indefensible; when SA were excluded from cricket they were (arguably) the best team in the world. It meant guys like Richards, Rice & Proctor were denied the test careers that should've been their's as right. Despite that I really doubt too many people would argue that it wasn't the correct course of action, so I don't see any reason not to apply the same standard to Zimbabwe.

Plus, of course, there's the obvious cricketing reason that yer Zimbas are just no bloody good now they've been denuded of their best players.

BoyBrumby said:

Agree with this 100%. If sport & politics didn't mix then the exclusion of SA for over 20 years is indefensible; when SA were excluded from cricket they were (arguably) the best team in the world. It meant guys like Richards, Rice & Proctor were denied the test careers that should've been their's as right. Despite that I really doubt too many people would argue that it wasn't the correct course of action, so I don't see any reason not to apply the same standard to Zimbabwe.

Plus, of course, there's the obvious cricketing reason that yer Zimbas are just no bloody good now they've been denuded of their best players.

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THe tour is being objected to on moral grounds tho....
leaving aside the issue of how good Zimbabwe actually are, do you or jot honestly think that anyone would ever call for China's exclusion from the Olympics ?

I just don't buy the whole morality argument especially when it seems to apply in some cases and in others it doesn't.

The cases of Zimbabwe, Pakistan and China are not as similar as you are making out, though. If they were identical then the argument would be identical, but it isn't.

Neil Pickup said:

The cases of Zimbabwe, Pakistan and China are not as similar as you are making out, though. If they were identical then the argument would be identical, but it isn't.

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Of course they're not going to be identical, they're different countries with different regimes and different crimes that have been committed.


THe basic principle is the same though......how can you object to touring Zimbabwe
and yet happily send your Olympic contingent to Beijing 2008. ?

Langeveldt said:

It's pretty diablocial that Beijing was even considered to be a viable venue for the Olympics.. How many journalists to they hold in prison? Is it something like 36?

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Weight of numbers.

Salamuddin said:

THe tour is being objected to on moral grounds tho....
leaving aside the issue of how good Zimbabwe actually are, do you or jot honestly think that anyone would ever call for China's exclusion from the Olympics ?

I just don't buy the whole morality argument especially when it seems to apply in some cases and in others it doesn't.

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There is an argumant that different standards are being applied, yes. However it's no more than a "but he's doing it too, sir" defence. The fact of the matter is that the make up of the cricketing community in Zimbabwe (predominantly white until recent events have taken over) means it's impossible to separate the moral issue from the cricketing one. I don't know enough about sport in China to comment, but there has not been an exodus of Pakistani cricketing talent similar to that from Zimbabwe since Musharraf took over, has there?

BoyBrumby said:

There is an argumant that different standards are being applied, yes. However it's no more than a "but he's doing it too, sir" defence. The fact of the matter is that the make up of the cricketing community in Zimbabwe (predominantly white until recent events have taken over) means it's impossible to separate the moral issue from the cricketing one. I don't know enough about sport in China to comment, but there has not been an exodus of Pakistani cricketing talent similar to that from Zimbabwe since Musharraf took over, has there?

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But Pakistani crickets can not become Kolpak cricketers. Zimbabwe has (or had) an associate agreement with the EU. Doubtlessly, if Pakistan had such an agreement, English cricket too would face an influx of disenfranchised Pakistani nationals.

Salamuddin said:

Of course they're not going to be identical, they're different countries with different regimes and different crimes that have been committed.


THe basic principle is the same though......how can you object to touring Zimbabwe
and yet happily send your Olympic contingent to Beijing 2008. ?

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Same way you can object to eating battery farmed eggs and eat Bernard Matthews turkey.

Neil Pickup said:

Same way you can object to eating battery farmed eggs and eat Bernard Matthews turkey.

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And to think I expected a half intelligent response

I don't have the time for long paragraphs at the moment. I need to be somewhere else ten minutes ago and have done several things yesterday.

Effectively, there's a scale of human rights abuses and political interference in selection and democracy. South Africa isn't clean when it comes to political interference in team selection. Nor is Sri Lanka - who were banned from FIFA competitions recently when the government messed around with their FA (a similar happening was the case in Bangladesh too, IIRC). The USA does not have a good track record with human rights.

Your opening post takes the tone of there being either "black" or "white" when it comes to human rights and democracy, when there are a hundred shades of grey in between. In terms of moral objections, it's about how dark it needs to be before you can no longer see anything: the extent of breadth, depth and severity of political interference, human rights abuse and gross mismanagement across Zimbabwe Cricket (case in point: the impossibility of covering the last Zim-Bdesh ODI series) is, in many peoples' perception, more severe than China.

From another perspective, it's more of a political question than a cricketing one. Zimbabwe is making itself a pariah at a rapid rate - and pissing off China is a very, very bad idea. Whether or not that's right, that's just the way it is.