Time to face up: Boucher must strap up at SJN hearings or gooi ‘n lange
|Published
RATHER SUE THAN SORRY: Boucher, centre, and Adams
Cricket South Africa’s SJN hearings got a strange turn last week.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission-style reckoning of South African cricket’s racial past has, in my humble opinion, been a largely positive exercise.
From it we’ve obviously heard of painful experiences and unjust treatment of people of colour since the unification of the old racial-divided Apartheid cricket federations.
But on the whole, those players – particularly Ashwill Prince and Paul Adams, who both spoke with the inspiring grace of a Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela – have been rather conciliatory about their experiences.
And more importantly they want to use their pain to make sure that the perpetrators understand that their actions were wrong and that it should never happen again.
They spoke of the incredible lack of acceptance and empathy for the South Africans who never benefited from the Apartheid system from their own teammates.
That ignorance is best illustrated by how they were klein gemaak by their teammates for being “quota” players.
Imagine the nerve.
Under Apartheid, EVERY SINGLE player was a “quota” player – selected only because players of other races were excluded.
Do they not realise that every South African player before 1992 readmission, by their own definition, was a quota?
And that legacy of that inhumane policy was perpetuated in the way they saw their teammates?
Last year, it was more disappointing than shocking to hear former players like Rudi Steyn, Boeta Dippenaar and Pat Symcox attack Lungi Ngidi for his support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
When will people understand that lifting someone else up under, no circumstances, diminishes who you are?
Anyway all I want to do is for us to establish just how far we have come in this fight for non-racialism and social justice from some 12 months ago.
It did shock me to read reports, that despite saying that he would cooperate fully with the SJN hearings, Proteas coach Mark Boucher had filed legal papers against former team Adams for revealing that Boucher had nicknamed him “Brown Sh!t”.
Sorry Boucher. But it doesn’t work like that.
These hearings are already commissioned to a be public forum with an advocate.
You don’t get to sue, you make your case in the forum that has been provided.
And in any case, Bouch’s defenders on social media claimed that he had called Adams “as soon as he heard” of the allegations at the hearings and that Gogga never answered.
So when you call someone to say sorry, do you just sue them when they don’t answer? That’s a strange game plan.
All that is being asked of you is for you to right a wrong against a teammate.
Man up. Play your part in the hearings.
Or step down as coach.