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The Forum > Article Comments > Zimbabwe tour a lost opportunity > Comments

Zimbabwe tour a lost opportunity : Comments

By James Rose, published 22/5/2007

Why should long suffering Zimbabweans miss out on some good cricket, an escape from the horrors of their predicament?

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Draw the line for HUMANITY!

As I think of the staving children, the battered, raped and homeless women, the struggle for those who give their own lives, to stand up to the self-interested cruelity we see in this particular Mugabe dictatorship... I CAN NOT imagine you or your Aussie Team in your "clean white" strides spining any ball before their (Mugabe) audience on the premise below;

"Cricket Australia, ...is ..a business organisation..handles large sums of money, is concerned about brand and image and, with promoting a product for sale on the mass market."

It would be different if you and your team went to Zimbabwe for one week as AID workers or as a TV crew, as people who did something to even up the opportunity to report the perfidious power arrangement so SPORT as we know it to be... (icon the quality of fairness) is as it ought to be about personal and team spirit, working together, (being sportive...) and could level the playing field (for real) of that country.

Do By Example ...

On other occassions YES, the Tour might of been a hero's day... but not this time.

Becareful of the mindfulness we require from all Australians right now.

We need you to sell us as a NATION of ALL wisely and our example impacts the state of the whole world through the ways we ALL "inter-relate" as ONE through a world of extraordinary change.

Life Quality is not a sport unless you have it.

http://www.miacat.com/
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Posted by miacat, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 12:17:00 PM
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Yes, We know big business has no moral conscience when it comes to doing business for profit with despots like Mugabe and Saddam Hussein and we know the ordinary people of Zimbabwe are suffering under Mugabe. I'm sure his supporters and protective goons would have enjoyed some fine cricket but that does not mean Australian Sportsmen have to entertain them.
I'm certain Sekai Holland, Morgan Tsvangirai,who were brutally beaten for staging a silent vigil protest and the opposition in Zimbabwe would be rejoicing that CA and the Australian Government has taken the lead by example and refusing to provide comfort & support for this corrupt and brutal regime.
Posted by maracas, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 12:38:44 PM
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I think the question is "should we link sports and politics".
Regardless of the answer we should be consistent.
Posted by Fellow_Human, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 2:07:05 PM
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As a Zimbabwean, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to the people of Australia for stopping the tour of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has completely militarised every structure my homeland and is in the process of completing a country-wide attack on all forms of democratic institutions by using illegal abductions, torture and beatings of members of Morgan Tsvangirai's movement for Democratic Change, members of the media and members of the legal profession. What is going on in Zimbabwe is a gross violation of human rights on a massive scale. It is an abnormal society and everyone suffers from FEAR.

Robert Mugabe is the patron of Zimbabwe cricket. Zimbabwe Cricket has been politicised by zanupf and it has been used for political purposes. ZanuPF have corrupted the game in Zimbabwe. A visit by the Australian Cricket team would have been a victory for Mugabe. It is for this reason that your Prime Minister took such a principled stand. No one with any decency would entertain playing sport in such a disgusting environment.

This has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with humanity.

To Australia, we thank you !!
Posted by P. Mangwende, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 3:38:09 PM
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The thing is James is that cricket, like other sports, is NOT as business and never will be, despite the wheeling and dealing of the ‘suits’ in the ICC and AC who couldn’t get a proper job in real business.

Sportspeople, who get paid to play games (!), are generally as thick as two short planks, and couldn’t get a job in the real world to support their egos and their bimbo wives and families in the manner in which they think they should be supported if it were not for SPORT.

All ‘professional’ sportspeople are sheltered from the mundane, low-paid existence they warrant by equally thick fans who use SPORT to escape from their own self-imposed boredom and lack of personal achievement and self-esteem.

The banning of the tour to Zimbabwe by a Prime Minister, whose bowling is second only to that of George Bush, is another exercise in the mental masturbation that is spectator sport. It will not make one iota of difference to the suffering of black African people under a black African dictator. If only sport-dulled white people had the guts to admit that Rhodesia and its people were much better off under white Ian Smith, a native Rhodesian, than they are now as Zimbabweans under a black despot and ex-terrorist, and take some real action against Mugabe et al, something might be achieved.

To even mention sport in the same breath as what is going on in Zimbabwe is disgusting and pathetic.

Also pathetic is the total disregard of the simple fact that 80% of Zimbabweans haven't got the courage to stand up to Mugabe - even to save themselves
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 8:07:34 PM
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