MARXISM AND CRICKET SOUTH AFRICA BY SANDLA MTOTYWA

“This piece is a reflection on how unimaginative Cricket South Africa is.”

7 FEBRUARY 2020

Cricket, to some of us, reminds us of the earliest real and purposeful interactions we have had with our parents and friends. We were taught a game so complicated, with numbers and cheered on as Makhaya Ntini bowled beautiful lines which Ricky Ponting dismally failed to play. I hated Ricky Ponting growing up. He was the nemesis, and we had to hate Australia, while marveling at the way Jacques Kallis played the cover drive! It was a beautiful scene. 

This piece is a reflection on how unimaginative Cricket South Africa is.  I will, with no doubt, show why the current management, crop of players and system used at CSA is destined for failure. Using Karl Marx’s dialectical materialist theory, I will substantiate why these problems and their causes are mainly inside Cricket South Africa and not outside.

Besides the racism that is all the more present, the pseudo transformation, the rewarding of mediocre players with leadership roles, and overlooking of quality players (Vernon Philander and lately Rassie van der Dussen), I will demonstrate that these are merely symptoms of a bigger problem, and have evolved across the years like a virus plaguing Cricket South Africa. We don’t play to influence the sport, to leave a mark in the game for generations to come, we don’t have a winning style of play that is homogeneously crafted and perfected in South Africa.

Firstly, why do we play cricket? Why do we play poor cricket? And why when we do succeed for a period of time we never dominate like the Windies Team in the 70’s and 80’s, the Australian Team in the late 90’s? These questions, though very simple, have very complex answers. It is therefore this interrogation which will shed light on the plight or CSA. 

Current Management

The current management is comprised of players that played for the national team in an era of relative success. But, under a team plan of Mickey Arthur that never really won major tournaments but focussed more on the Test Arena. This team had a good leader in the form of Graeme Smith, who is now the current Director of Cricket, Mark Boucher who was an exceptional wicket-keeper but mediocre batsman and Jacques Kallis who was world-class. This team depended on Jacques Kallis most of the time. If he failed to show up on the day, the batting scorecard would definitely be very embarrassing. 

What’s common between these three individuals is their friendship and trust they built over years playing together. Another commonality between them, is failing to draft a winning formula that is consistent with the current playing conditions of World Cricket. They are not in touch with how the game has evolved, how aggressive the Top 5 batsmen in other national teams have become, how other teams balance their players and make sure that they are not drained out or lose form. 

Cricket South Africa is in 2010 with this coaching team, whilst the rest of the world is in 2020. Dialectics show us that “in the development of a plant, the seed, a manifestation of its growth, appears as the negation of it, i.e., the negation of the negation. But seeds are generated by the development of the plant, they constitute a moment of the plant, a moment which signifies the goal of the development of the plant. The plant rots, the seed remains. The cycle of development is finished.” This is the law of the negation of the negation developed by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.  

Here we can make an analogy by replacing the seed with (Cricket South Africa’s philosophy and system) and the plants are Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Graeme Smith. It is simple, the plants are now rotten, but the problem is that the seeds which were generated by the development of the plant are now apparent for all of us to see. The new seeds are products of the plant and will of course generate the same outcome. What we need to do is remove these old seeds with their backwards outlook on the game and plant new seeds which will give us new plants. This scientific law of analysis clearly shows that the jugular part of Cricket SA is indeed its management and system.

Current crop of players

Led by the lacklustre Faf du Plessis, the current crop of players are performing badly, not because they lack talent or are not ready for international cricket and its demands, but they perform badly due to the inconsistencies of the starting XI in every game. There are too many debuts, and this creates a sense of uncertainty within the players that are part of the team with contracts. This uncertainty within players translates to something much more dangerous, which is the lack of understanding of players’ roles in the team because nothing is clearly defined, there is no time to do that and unfortunately no effort from the coach and captain. 

Black African players are not given enough time to settle in Test Cricket, Andile Phehlukwayo being an example. There is a deliberate view and position by management and stakeholders within the cricketing fraternity to make sure that the number of black players in the team are limited at any given point. Some are told they have injuries when they don’t, like Temba Bavuma in the last Test Series against England. All these symptoms I have mentioned are merely a drop of what actually happens in the dressing room. Vernon Philander retired this month, we must ask why his stellar international career started so late and then regressed in the last two years. He wasn’t himself anymore. Can we expect the same from the patient, wicket- protecting Rassie Van der Dussen when his career ends in the next 5-6 years. We could have had him for an extra 5 years if there was a system in place to recognize his talents early and then nurture them. 

The problems in the management, and the problems currently faced in the current crop of players, are products of the system. CSA is performing badly financially and will do so for the next 3 years. They have projected this in their Year End Statements. This will definitely have a negative impact on players and how we play our cricket.

There certainly needs to be a serious introspection in the boardroom of CSA, and after that, bold steps need to be taken. At the rate that this sport is going in the country, it is going back to being a sport of and for the elite and haves. The have-nots will again be excluded, but this time under black government rule. And the white-dominated sport will push the narrative of blaming black executives. They have already started, by refusing to account for their lacklustre leadership. CSA needs to understand the process they have undergone to get to this specific point, they must understand the basic cause of how the mess happened inwards. They must not look outwards, that is secondary in the reflection. 

THE EFF’S POSITION ON AFRICA IS CORRECT BY SINAWO THAMBO

In his seminal text Class Struggles in Africa Pan Africanist giant Kwame Nkrumah said “The total liberation and the unification of Africa under an All-African socialist government must be the objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world.” 

It is this rallying call that should inspire any revolutionary who locates themselves within the quest for economic freedom.

It is this very rallying call that allows us to identify and reject neo-colonial legislation peddled by the likes of Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi, which seeks to take advantage and manipulate the most basic of sensibilities of our people and instil fear of their own within them. 

As much as we have this in mind, it is equally important not to leave the masses of our people behind in our journey through consciousness. It is Paulo Freire who teaches us that the process of conscientizing our people against servitude and oppression must be interactive and not one that resembles the colonialists Banking method of education. A method where knowledge is deposited to an unresponsive recipient. We must as revolutionaries respect the experience of the colonized as a valuable ideological process, that can and must contribute to how we craft and mould our journey to liberation.

It is for this reason why the call for a united Africa, which has emanated from the lengths and breadths of the continent must be defended. In contemporary South Africa, this is a call being championed by the Economic Freedom Fighters. It has been met with aggressive push back, ridicule and threats of numerical loss of support. The party has however remained firm in its position to collapse borders which were established in the Scramble for Africa by colonial powers, in favour of a united Africa, with a single currency and free trade. This piece will serve as a brief debunking of common myths surrounding the EFF’s support for this Pan Africanist agenda and reveal how flawed the logic behind a push back against progressive immigration laws in the continent are. It will place South Africa in context, and undo many underlying fears that seem to plague South Africans around the role of Africans in South Africa, and the role of South Africa in the continent.

The first myth that must be debunked is the common assumption that the EFF is calling for the collapse of borders and restrictive immigration legislation in South Africa for populist reasons. Those that make this claim are either extremely confused about what populism is or deliberately speak with confidence about things they know very little about. Populism in political culture refers to the manipulative use of genuine socio-economic narratives for expediency. It is simply the hijacking of an issue which has popular expression or traction within a society without any meaningful commitment to champion such a narrative.

To claim that Pan-Africanism and the tolerance of fellow Africans is a popular sentiment amongst South Africans would be to lie. The popular sentiment in South Africa is that African foreign nationals are the source of moral decay. It is that African nationals bring with them heinous crimes such as the selling of drugs, human trafficking and trade in counterfeit goods.  It is the popular sentiment that these Africans are the cause of economic decline and unemployment. If indeed the EFF were populist, the ideal move would be to take advantage of these sentiments to garner political and electoral support. This is something the ANC is attempting to do with its anti-African Refugee Amendment Bill that restricts the political freedom of asylum seekers and refugees. That is populism that has manifested itself into law, not the EFF’s perspective which goes against many South Africans deep seated feelings.

The second myth then that must be debunked are these very sentiments themselves. These are that African foreign nationals bring with them moral decay, unemployment and socio-economic instability. South Africans, through a deliberate depoliticization seem to have transitioned from rainbow nation consciousness to inexplicable essentialism. This is to say that the failures of the 1994 dispensation are not being considered to their root cause, but are being masked and scapegoated. South Africa is being made an exceptional nation within the continent by a black majority that has very little claim to South Africa in real terms. The offensive on African foreign nationals for the very structural failures of South Africa is a case in point. South Africans are so accepting of the failures of post 1994 South Africa that they even fight in defense to exclusivity to them.

It is not African foreign nationals who control the banks and the mines of this country. It is not them who evade billions of Rands in tax through profit shifting and base erosion. It is not them who gamble with the money of pensioners, it is not them who deny our people health care and education. It is not African foreign nationals who pay our people wages below what can sustain them. It is not African foreign nationals who control the majority of the land in this country and subject us to space-less reserves with shacks built on top of each other. It is not African foreign nationals who killed our people in Marikana, who shot Andries Tatane and who ensure that the most prominent role of Africans in the economy is in kitchens and gardens. To compete with Africans who have a common plight for space at the altar of exploitation is ridiculous. 

These Africans do not hire themselves in various sectors of our informal economy. They are hired by a ruling white elite that finds joy at their desperation and their willingness to work for close to nothing. 

Furthermore, to project South Africa as a country whose crime is inspired by fellow Africans is dishonest. It is within our communities that we harbor our brothers, sisters, friends and families who abuse and distribute drugs. It is within our laboratories, in our kitchens where illegal substances are cooked, prepared and packaged. It is within our communities where we bury intimate gender-based violence, between families and loved ones. It is in our Cape Flats where we have gangs that have governed communities for decades. It is within our police stations where we have proxies of gangs and enablers of violent crimes.

Crime is not foreign to South Africa. It is perpetuated by us towards our own. It is a product of the harsh conditions that have dehumanized our people. This is not to say that there are no criminals who are from our fellow African nations, but to suggest that crime will be alleviated once they are removed from our social fabric is delusional. Just as suggesting that unemployment and various structural problems will subside should they be removed from the country.

These myths must all be rejected with one position that we must push vigorously. The position that the socio-economic problems of the country are not a product of the presence and existence of the poor. It can never be another poor person’s fault that you are poor. 

The EFF’s intervention must therefore be read as a necessary hostile intervention in consciousness. It is a difficult task, one that may cost the organization a great deal of support, but principle, patience and persistence are key to opening the minds of our people towards anti-imperialism and continental unity.

The EFF’s position on Africa and Africans is one cognizant of undoing the divisions in the continent. These are divisions which further the grip of imperialism and deepen our dependency on the West. 

It is a position that aims for the developmental progress of the continent, through free movement, exchange of skills and resources. It is a position that seeks to establish a unitary African currency, that is backed by mineral resources and social cohesion in the continent. This social cohesion must be based on the principle of Ubuntu, that a person is because of others. This means intervening and providing relief to those who may seek refuge from us. 

The position of a borderless Africa is a declaration of independence. It begins at collapsing borders and scrapping the limitations of free movement of Africans within the continent. It is a position that does away with the notion that South Africa is a Europe in a rural Africa. It opens up paths to new possibilities, of alleviating unemployment, poverty and hopelessness. When Africans open their doors to each other, it will be the opening of doors towards mutually beneficial trade, and abandoning the skewed and exploitative relations with those who have historically extracted our wealth. It will open the door to structural solutions for structural problems.

Robert Sobukwe in his historic speech at Fort Hare University as SRC President in 1949 said, “Let me plead with you, lovers of my Africa, to carry with you into the world the vision of a new Africa, an Africa reborn, an Africa rejuvenated, an Africa re-created, young AFRICA. We are the first glimmers of a new dawn. And if we are persecuted for our views, we should remember, as the African saying goes, that it is darkest before dawn. . .”

The EFF must therefore remain steadfast in its journey to build a continental movement for African independence. As a party that fashions itself as a vanguard, it must perform the labor of elevating consciousness and maintaining principle. For it is only through commitment and perseverance that the new Africa Sobukwe imagined will come to be.

SInawo Thambo is a member of the EFF’s Central Command Team and a student at the University of Cape Town