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[dhruvdeepak]

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/465991.html


Stop canonising Howard

Those who think he would have solved cricket's ills, and ignore just why he was a divisive candidate, have got the wrong end of the stick

Sambit Bal
July 5, 2010

Enough has been said - including in this column - about the manner in which the Asian and African boards stopped John Howard from assuming the vice-presidency of the ICC. Some members, either publicly or through official channels, opposed Howard's candidature well in advance, but the role of some others has seemed sly and underhand. Cricket Australia's indignation at what they see as betrayal by some perceived allies, primarily the Indian board, is understandable.

But what's beginning to grate is an appalling lack of understanding of the nuances of the issue among the leading voices in the Australian media and their cricket fraternity as a whole. It is as if they lack either the inclination or the capacity, or both, to view the issue with a broader lens. Peter Roebuck, who possesses a world view, has touched on the importance of sensitivity. Indeed, it's almost as important as integrity, he wrote. Otherwise the tone has been derisive, shrill and wholly oblivious to sentiment in parts of the world that view Howard as a poor choice for a global job.

Even more unfathomable is how Australian commentators have suddenly become precious about Howard's eminence. He has been variously held up as a potential saviour of the ICC; a seasoned diplomat who'd bring peace and unity to the global game; a crusader for justice and fair play, who'd root out corrupt practices from the ICC; and a champion of Test cricket, who'd restore its dignity and rightful place in the world.

For the sake of informed debate, both these issues need to be confronted.

The day after Howard was turned down, Malcolm Speed, the former chief executive of the ICC, wrote a strong bylined piece in two of Australia's leading newspapers. He said Howard had been rejected because his appointment would provide ICC with strong leadership that would thwart the ambitions of several current administrators who were looking to downgrade and devalue the role of the ICC. This seems a point of view that is shared among many opinion leaders in Australia. Speed then went on to shed light on some of the characters from the Asian boards he had had the misfortune of sharing space with, and ended by calling Ijaz Butt, the current head of the PCB, a buffoon.

Speed is, of course, entitled to his view of Butt; some of Butt's own countrymen may even concur. But in cold print - and in this age, anything that appears on the internet is instantly available for global consumption - and coming from someone who has headed the ICC's administration, it appeared shockingly crass. Not many Australians would see it that way, because directness is a cherished ingredient of the Australian way of life, but it is reasonable to expect Speed to be world-aware enough to know that calling Butt a buffoon publicly was likely to cause offence.

In the light of Speed's indignation, it is not unnatural to be reminded that he was the chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board when they hushed up Mark Waugh-Shane Warne bribe affair, and that as the ICC chief executive he ran the worst World Cup ever, in 2007. But the broader point is sensitivity, and the lack of allowance from Australian thought leaders for why Howard raises hackles in a significant part of the cricket world.

Why indeed?

It is safe to say that, even among Australians, Howard has had a uncomfortable reputation when it comes to race relations. His election campaign in 2001, which milked Australian xenophobia, was widely condemned as racist, and his government policy on asylum seekers was labelled by the United Nations as racist. As the opposition leader in the 80s he argued against imposing economic sanctions on white supremacist South Africa, but was - rightly - at the forefront of sanctions against Robert Mugabe's despotic regime in Zimbabwe. At best, it can be described as inconsistent.

Worst of all was his treatment of Australia's original people, the aborigines. He steadfastly refused to apologise for the "stolen children" - an abhorrent practice in which coloured children were forcibly removed from their families and assimilated into white society. And his government's mandatory sentencing law, which required repeat offenders to be jailed for trivial crimes, was widely regarded as targeting aborigines.

"I find it extraordinary that a key Indian government official is endorsing Mr John Howard's candidature to the ICC." This came not from a member of Zimbabwe Cricket. It came from a man whose surname cricket lovers will be familiar with. Neil Gillespie is the father of Jason Gillespie, and more crucially, chief executive officer of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement of Australia (ALRM). He said this in an interview to an Indian newspaper after it was revealed that Sharad Pawar, the ICC president elect, was backing Howard. Among other things, Gillespie accused Howard of institutionalising "discrimination against Black Australians so that racism is now entrenched within our society".

It is no one's case that the opposition to Howard from within the ICC board rose out of adherence to principle, or a sense of moral grievance. In fact, it would not be surprising if many who stood against Howard were not even aware of this background; some of these people bear questionable credentials for high office themselves. But it needs to be acknowledged that there can be a moral case against Howard, just as there has been one against Zimbabwe. There is a variance of degree, of course, but on my previous trips to Australia, during Howard's reign, I have had journalist friends apologise on behalf of the country for Howard. I am a bit incredulous that some of them are now the most vocal champions for appointing Howard as the top man of global cricket.

Certianly, calling Muthiah Muralitharan doesn't make Howard a racist - Bishan Singh's Bedi does it all the time - but to those aware, even vaguely, of Howard's politics, it falls in to a broader pattern. Given cricket's fraught past with race, why bring in a hardline conservative whose presence is certain to be divisive?

The other big argument is that the ICC has lost a great opportunity by spurning Howard. That Howard would have brought rigour and accountability to the global governance of the game. This is so hopelessly naïve, it is almost willful.

To start with, the ICC president is a figurehead. He has no executive powers; he doesn't have a vote; and the CEO reports to the board, not to the president. The ICC itself is an increasingly powerless body, hostage to the wills of the powerful boards. There is a perception that the BCCI runs the ICC. Nothing is likely to change by merely appointing a "tough" president. The real reason for the imbalance in cricket's power structure is the imbalance in the cricket economy. As long as India generates three-fourths of global cricket's revenues, the BCCI will continue to dominate the global cricket agenda. It is undesirable but inevitable.

It is so simple that it is amazing so many can't see it. The same ICC board that rejected Howard's appointment would have rendered him inconsequential had he been made president. And how independent would he have been of Cricket Australia, which fought his battle, and of the BCCI, had the Indian board used its weight to swing the case?

If anything, the role of the ICC president is that of a diplomat. What kind of diplomacy would Howard have brought to the table when his nomination itself divided the board?

The sight of Pawar at the head table of the ICC isn't thrilling; there is nothing he has contributed to the game, his political career has been chequered, and his role in the IPL has been questionable. But can we please stop canonising John Howard? He is a man who had no qualms about going to Zimbabwe to lobby for a vote. To argue that he deserves the job because others have been less worthy is like justifying the action of his opponents on the grounds that England and Australia did their worst to stop Jagmohan Dalmiya from becoming ICC president in 1996.

The process might have been gross, but the outcome isn't necessarily a disaster. Bring on Mark Taylor. Now that's what you'd call a worthy candidate.

[Blwe_torch]

Everything said and done......if Pawar can qualify then, why not Howard?

[dextrous]

This is a good article. I wasn't aware of howard's political career. i was under the assumption that the Murali fiasco had something to do with his rejection.

BTW, Pawar seems to be losing power... Couldn't save Modi, can't save Howard. Who is running the BCCI?

[Blwe_torch]

At the moment the traitor is running the BCCI........................I am waiting eagerly to see this local henchman fall soon, though.

[kban1]

Consider Howard's past

Could a man with such a poor record in matters of Aboriginal rights have made a good president of the ICC?

Christian Ryan

July 8, 2010



Cricket is in John Howard's heart. What else is in there? Not much, maybe. Or so ran the unanimous agreement on a crisp and cloudless May morning in 1997. We were 14 months into Howard's prime ministership, and a day before Australia set out down the road towards yet another Ashes conquest with their traditional sound beating of the Duke of Norfolk's XI. Timber Creek is 600 kilometres from the nearest city and far, far from Arundel Castle. It was here, on top of a hill, on a patch of scratchy and yellowing grass, that Galarrwuy Yunupingu said, with only the barest hint of exaggeration: "This is a revisit to our waterhole to poison it once again."

He was talking about John Howard's Ten Point Plan. The Ten Point Plan was Howard's gut legislative response to the High Court's Wik decision. With its Mabo ruling of 1992, the High Court dismissed "terra nullius" - the notion that Australia was an empty country before Captain Cook's boat docked - and found that Aboriginal people had legal rights to their native lands. With Wik, the court decided that just because a farmer had a pastoral lease, that did not necessarily mean those Aboriginal native title rights were extinguished. Extinguishment: that was where Howard's Ten Point Plan came in.

Yunupingu is the roughly accepted king and spokesman of all northern Australian Aboriginal people with a gripe. Ever since his teens he'd been telling white chaps, mostly to their gentle bamboozlement, about the deep spiritual relationship between Aborigines and the land. He'd told it to courtrooms, boardrooms, press conferences and land tribunals, and now he knelt down and whispered it to the circling kite-hawks. "Without this right… we will be like a dead leaf in a river that floats up and down in the stream. We will be a bird that flies freely up in the sky with no foundation, with no law, with no song, with no story."

The tock-tock-tocking of clap sticks grew faster. Murmurs of agreement got louder. The air turned thick with - not bitterness, or anger - but fear, first, then stinking black smoke, as traditional landowners tossed the pages, 400 of them, of Howard's Ten Point Plan on the fire.

Howard was in Canberra. A fortnight later, on the eve of Australia's opening first-class hit-out at Bristol, he was still there. It was his prime ministerial duty that day to table in parliament a report called "Bringing Them Home". This report laid plain what many Australians sort of knew but didn't want to hear: that Aboriginal children were taken roughly and against their will from their families; that assimilation into white society was the primary aim behind this; that getting rid of Aboriginal cultures and values was, often, a complementary side-aim; that such doings breached international codes against genocide.

Total healing, the report concluded, was impossible. But, as a small beginning, it suggested two things: that the government provide financial compensation, and the government say sorry. Howard, to make sure the former should never happen, was unwilling to go along with the latter.

Eminent. Distinguished. Respected. Beyond reproach. These words and their close cousins have been used to describe Howard by people sure he should be the International Cricket Council's president-to-be.

Blatantly misleading. Blatantly unfair. Self-centred, defensive and prejudiced. Deliberately divisive. Lack of compassion. Calculated to create panic and fear. Reduces human experience and understanding to a kind of single-entry accounting system. This was how Mick Dodson, Australia's first Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner, painted Howard and his policies in a mid-term review of the Howard years.

Back then, the easiest thing for Howard's admirers to do was to portray him as the No-Sorry Man and mock all those who'd get hot and bothered over one symbolic little word. This was disingenuous. For just as upsetting as the one word Howard wouldn't say were the others he did say, over and over.

When Pauline Hanson, an independent politician, claimed Aboriginal people were growing fat, spoilt and idle at taxpayers' expense, Howard repeatedly defended her right to say so. Yet Howard, unlike Hanson, was no gullible Queensland redneck; and therein, as Noel Pearson pointed out, lay his real moral crime. "Howard knew the truth about Aboriginal disadvantage," wrote Pearson, "about the fact that Aboriginal people don't just get free homes and free cars and free loans. In Pauline Hanson's defence, a lot of the ignorant things she professes she actually believes."

Then there was ATSIC - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission - which Howard first ridiculed, then cribbed funding from, then gutted, and eventually abolished. ATSIC, it is true, tended to be staffed by cheats, sycophants and buffoons, none of them more vile than its last chairman, Geoff Clark. Yet on dozens of remote Aboriginal communities, the local ATSIC office was a place you could go if your husband king-hit you, or if your child's ears were blocked, or if you couldn't draw out your dole money and didn't understand why - common problems, these. It was something, where before there was almost nothing, and in its place Howard put not much.

          
 
In the hour of junk cricket's ascendancy, it is tempting to suppose that Howard, who likes his cricket best when its plots and subplots reveal themselves slowly could do the game some good. But would he? Would he really? In answering that question, it would be sloppy not to consider his history as prime minister of Australia
 
Howard's beef rested not with ATSIC's corrupt leadership. What he didn't like was the idea of an organisation built specifically to represent Aboriginal people's interests. This we know because it was at his inaugural press conference as prime minister that Howard first outlined his intention to take a broom to ATSIC. At that time ATSIC was run not by Geoff Clark, an accused pack rapist, but by the late Gatjil Djerrkura, who was wise and soft-spoken, a man who radiated peace, the way a small, somersaulting bird does.

One afternoon in a parliamentary hallway, at a constitutional convention looking at whether the Northern Territory should be made a fully-fledged Australian state - a convention notable for one delegate's observation that "unless the black (man) becomes white, he comes from nowhere and will get nowhere" - I got chatting with Djerrkura. I asked him if Howard, in their umpteen conversations behind closed doors, had ever shown any sign of emotion about stolen Aboriginal children. "Emotion. What emotion?" he replied. And then he chuckled harshly. Chuckling harshly was never Djerrkura's style.

When it came to announcing Aboriginal policy - dismantling ATSIC, not saying sorry, concocting Ten Point Plans - this was how Howard would go about it. He'd choose uncharacteristically provocative, aggressive words. He'd say them without blinking. On the ground, out bush, the words would stir fear and panic. Howard did not wish merely to clarify and restrict the land rights of Aboriginal people; he wanted, as his cowboy-hatted deputy Tim Fischer put it, to deliver "bucketloads of extinguishment". And he wouldn't do so in a policy document or a bill. No. Howard had a Ten Point Plan - as in, you reckon this one point screws you and your people, here, try ten of them!

He preferred not to consult widely, or not to consult at all. Better that the people affected - the "blacks" - find out their fate at the same time as everyone else. Here's Yunupingu's recent recollection of a trip he made to Canberra in the early days of Howard's reign: "I am sitting at breakfast and I hear a radio tell me that the prime minister has taken millions of dollars of funding for housing and community programmes. He is sending auditors and investigators to check us all out. Later I sit at a long table, talking about 'reconciliation' … Eventually I can't stand it any longer. I get up and leave the talkers to their talking and go back to Arnhem Land."

Down in the cities by the seaside, who'd know or care? Further out, where Aboriginal people lived, a toxic them-and-us atmosphere simmered. Mick Dodson summed up the effect of the Howard years thus: "I see a real anger directed at us - a resentment that we didn't die out when we were supposed to. Why haven't our people been allowed to have just one victory?"

Victory became a habit of Howard's, until the last Australian election, and then last week, when international cricket's most slug-like individuals savoured their moment in the muck. Critics of the process, legitimacy and reasoning - they knocked back Howard "because they could", as Gideon Haigh pinpointed - are right. The office of ICC president is one where your actual powers are limited and the recent history putrid. Still, in the hour of junk cricket's ascendancy, it is tempting to suppose that Howard, who likes his cricket best when its plots and subplots reveal themselves slowly, in soft sunshine, over five days, could do the game some good.

But would he? Would he really? In answering that question, it would be sloppy thinking not to consider his history as prime minister of Australia. It is a long, long history, and his attitude and approach towards Aboriginal people is but one chapter. It is not a wholly bad chapter: Howard's pragmatic emphasis on the practicalities of keeping Aboriginal people alive longer and in hospitals and jails shorter was welcome. And it is surely the most relevant chapter. For it tells us how he carries himself in circumstances where the words you choose are crucial, and where people, non-white people, believe that their rights have long been trampled on, and their voices not listened to, and that only now are they beginning to taste a little power.

Sound familiar, cricket fans? Put John Howard in such circumstances and there is good reason for us all to feel cautious in our hearts.

Christian Ryan is a writer based in Melbourne. He is the author of Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/466465.html