 Political
Corrections
with Mungo MacCallum
Howard Bats on with Boycott
In many ways John Howard's cricket is not unlike his politics. His batting is dour and unimaginative and his off breaks, like his attitudes, seldom turn. His myopia ensures that his work both close to the bat and in the deep is, at best, suspect. So it is hardly surprising that his foray into the forthcoming World Cup has met with less than a standing ovation.
Howard wants the Australian team to boycott its scheduled matches in Zimbabwe, on the grounds that the government of that country is "an illegitimate, totally undemocratic, stolen government" - a description unkind critics might use of the administration of his great idol George W Bush, but let that pass. Typically, Howard is not prepared to take the responsibility for turning his desire into reality; the decision is to rest not with the politicians, but with the cricketers.
And lest a boycott could in any way disadvantage his mates in the Australian XI, Howard wants it too extend across the cricketing world: "Everybody out!" he urges in the manner of the union shop-stewards he detests.
It is a bit of a turnaround for Howard: in his years as Malcolm Fraser's treasurer, he was the leader of the pro-South African clique, arguing passionately against sporting boycotts against the apartheid regime (which he presumably saw as legitimate, totally democratic and an impeccable result).
This was in spite of (or could it have been because of?) those boycotts clearly shook and embarrassed Pretoria - the government would not otherwise have committed millions of dollars to attract so-called rebel tours made up largely of has-beens and never-would-bes with whom to stage pretend international matches. Sporting boycotts against South Africa may well have been, as the sportspeople affected complained, unfair, discriminatory and divisive, but they had one great saving grace: they worked.
Perhaps carried away by this success, Fraser went on to propose a boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest against the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan, which was less of a triumph; not only did the Kremlin take no notice at all, but the revelation that wool from Fraser's own Nareen station was being exported to be made into Russian military uniforms led, understandably, to charges of humbug.
Howard has clearly failed to absorb the lessons. The paranoid Robert Mugabe has already made it clear he would treat such a boycott as further evidence of persecution by white colonialists and that it would only make him more determined to pursue his vindictive policies, while questions are being asked about why Howard has singled Zimbabwe out while ignoring contacts with other countries such as the vicious military dictatorship in Pakistan. Given his record, the fact that Mugabe's principal targets are white English-speaking Christians cannot be entirely ruled out as the reason for his enthusiasm.
Faced with an initial rebuff from both the International Cricket Council and the Australian Cricket Board Howard is now hinting at threats and bribery to pursue his aim, but the fact that he has gained support only from England, and in a half-hearted sort of way from New Zealand, and the outright opposition of the main World Cup host country, South Africa, means Howard's bid will fail - unless, of course, he takes the deeply unpopular course of actually ordering the boycott as a matter of principle.
Howard? Principle? Hahaha.
During the 1971 Springbok tour of Australia - the last South African sporting visit until Nelson Mandela became president - Prime Minister Billy McMahon was indeed decisive; he ordered the RAAF to provide transport for the team around Australia when unions threatened to black ban them in line with massive public demonstrations.
It was, of course, a massively wrong-headed decision and a gross misuse of the defence forces, but at least it showed a kind of strength. Oddly enough McMahon's only surviving sycophant, Peter Howson, did not mention this in his absurd defence of his former patron in The Australian last week, concentrating instead on McMahon's alleged economic credentials.
After some 30 years of well-merited obscurity, Howson has now been resurrected by the Right as some kind of authoritative sage, especially in the area of aboriginal affairs - he briefly held the junior portfolio of Environment, Aborigines and the Arts under McMahon, an extraordinary grab bag which showed the extent to which that government despised each of its components. Even on those terms he was adjudged a total failure: environmentalists rechristened him Peter HouseandGarden, aesthetes described him as a pain in the arts and indigenous Australians and their supporters used somewhat earthier terms about their deeply uninterested minister. He would be a very good bet for the worst minister in the worst government in Australian history. That the Right now relies on him as a spokesman says a lot about the intellectual standard of Australian conservatism.
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