by frog
I hate to say “I told you so”, but opponents of the Black Caps’ tour of Zimbabwe are left with little other option today. The Dominion Post leads today with the story of how the government-controlled Zimbabwe Herald has used the Black Caps’ arrival to propagandise about the loveliness of Zimbabwe. The newspaper wrote in a recent editorial:
The New Zealand cricket team is in town, its leadership having chosen to put the value of sport ahead of petty political considerations, and we welcome the Black Caps to our lovely country… We salute the team leadership’s brave stance to go ahead with the tour despite reservations from their political leaders who are clearly obsessed with the isolation of this country… [The Black Caps had weathered a storm that included] an international crusade opposed to this tour that even sucked the likes of confused cricketer-turned-politician Henry Olonga into their ranks.
Alas, if Mugabe’s mouthpiece is hailing the Black Caps as heroes for standing up against an oppressive government, you know that we’ve got something wrong. As Rod keeps saying, we can only hope that the Black Caps return home safely. In the meantime, we are left hanging our heads in shame, for having allowed Mugabe to use our national cricket team to bolster his regime in this way.
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Sat, August 6th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Actually, as the editorial makes it clear that we (or at least our “leadership”) are opposed to the political situation in Zimbabwe, I’m not so sure that this is a bad thing.
Presumably the reason to oppose the Black Caps tour is that it might give the false impression that New Zealand thinks Mugabe legitimate. But the quoted editorial makes clear that this is not the case at all. So the problem has been avoided after all — in no small part due to the excellent work done by the Greens to publicize this issue, and make our position clear. Good work!
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