Betrayal of champion of apartheid sport boycott
IT WAS a period in the 1980s when white cricket was feeling the full impact of the isolation of South African sport that Krish Mackerdhuj, president of the non-racial South African Cricket Board (SACB), came to the fore.
He and his fellow anti-apartheid sports administrators were taken aback by moves of a former captain of the whitesonly national cricket team, Ali Bacher, to lure the former West Indian cricket great, Clive Lloyd, to visit South Africa to intervene between white and non-racial cricket administrators.
Bacher was the CEO of white cricket at this time and was busy preparing rebel tours to break the international isolation of white cricket.
Clive Lloyd, a former captain of the great West Indies team, who was not fully aware of the socio-political-economic situation in South Africa, agreed to come to the country to speak to all cricket administrators.
But Mackerdhuj and his fellow non-racial officials were opposed to Lloyd visiting at a time when the white minority was still in control of the country.
They had adopted the policy of “no normal sport in an abnormal country”, a vision of Hassan Howa, president of the South African Cricket Board of Control (SACBC), in the late 1970s.
The opposition by Mackerdhuj and his officials was fully supported by the anti-apartheid sports and political movements, such as the South African Council of Sport, the United Democratic Front, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, which was based in London, and the ANC in exile.
I spoke to Mackerdhuj about their attitude to Lloyd’s proposed visit. He outlined that they respected the West Indian great as a cricketer but they, as South Africans, knew when the international isolation of South African sport should be lifted.
This is what Mackerdhuj said during an interview at that time: “We have the utmost respect for Clive Lloyd as West Indies captain and his efficiency and ability in cricket.
“The system here would use him without any strings attached. They will go out of their way to use him and that’s why people like Ali Bacher jumped to issue an invitation to him.
“By Lloyd coming here, he would embarrass us. He must have nothing to do with them. Change must come from within the country.
“People who sit to talk must talk on an equal basis. There can’t be a master-slave relationship.
“There can’t be a privileged person sitting with an under-privileged person.”
Mackerdhuj, who in the early 1990s became the first president of the new United Cricket Board of South Africa, was just one of the hundreds of non-racial sports administrators who used sport to further the struggles for a non-racial, just and democratic new South Africa.
In that interview in the early 1980s, he expressed the views of his fellow anti-apartheid sports administrators when he said that “normal sport” could only be played and enjoyed once the country’s people were also politically free.
“You can’t have discrimination in some fields and no discrimination in others.
“This is our fight in sport. You can’t say there’s going to be no discrimination in sport and yet we have discrimination in other aspects of our lives.
“We have made it clear what we stand for. I don’t think the other side have made it clear what they stand for.
“And these people you know recently came out with a declaration of intent and Ali Bacher was one of them.
“The declaration was that they were preparing for non-racialism in sport.
“We say the declaration of intent by any sane thinking person with interest in non-racial democracy in South Africa should be against detentions without trial, against the unjust laws in the country, against discriminatory education, against influx control, against the activities of the police and defence forces in the townships.
“That’s the kind of declaration that must come out of people, who are interested in a future non-racial and democratic South Africa.”
Mackerdhuj, who was born in Durban in August 1939, had become politically aware after he matriculated at Sastri College and studied at Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape for a Bachelor of Science degree from 1958 to 1963.
He told me that when he returned home in 1963 and joined Shell and BP as a technologist, he had decided to use sport to further the cause of the ANC in the struggle for a non-racial and democratic society.
Although he was active in soccer and table tennis, he had decided to concentrate on cricket, both as a player and administrator. He joined the Crimson Cricket Club and thereafter promoted the cause of non-racial sport through the Durban and District Cricket Union, the Natal Cricket Board, the South African Cricket Board of Control and later the United Cricket Board.
In the ongoing struggle for a non-racial and democratic society, he served the Natal Cricket Board as president for eight years from 1976 to 1984; was president of the SA Cricket Board of Control from 1984 to 1990; the South African Council of Sport since its inception in 1970s and the Natal Council of Sport as a founding member and president.
In the struggle to isolate apartheid South Africa, Mackerdhuj, after being denied a passport on several occasions, travelled to London in 1987 to attend a meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Here he campaigned successfully with the help of Sam Ramsamy of the SA Non-Racial Olympic Committee for South Africa to be banned from international cricket until apartheid was abolished and the disenfranchised people in South Africa attained their political, social and economic freedom.
Mackerdhuj travelled to Lords in London again in 1989 to present a petition to the ICC against the rebel tour to South Africa by England’s Mike Gatting and his team.
After the establishment of a united cricket body following the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC in February 1990, Mackerdhuj served as deputy president of the UCB for a year from 1992 to 1993 and as president from 1993 to 1997.
He stepped down from the UCB in 1997 after he was appointed by then President Nelson Mandela to serve as an ambassador to Japan. He served in this position for five years.
During one of his visits back home at this period, I again interviewed Mackerdhuj while I was working as a senior political journalist at the SABC. He told me that throughout his life he had served the country and the ANC by campaigning for a non-racial democracy through the medium of sport.
“I am now happy to serve my country in a new role after we have attained our freedom.
“We have a long road to travel because we have to continue to work in all spheres to promote a better life for all people.
“We will have to be prepared to overcome many hurdles because the road ahead will not be easy.”
In the new South Africa, Mackerdhuj was presented with a number of awards for his contribution to the struggle.
These included the State President’s Award for Sports Administration by Mandela in 1994 and life membership of London’s Marylebone Cricket Club in 1996.
Mackerdhuj died on May 26, 2004, at the age of 65.
The role that he and others played, such as MN Pather, Morgan Naidoo, Hassan Howa and George Singh, should not be forgotten.
But, unfortunately, 23 years into our new non-racist society, the contributions by activists of the calibre of Mackerdhuj seem to have been trampled on by the return of racism in many disguised forms.
What a shame. What a sad commentary on the current state of affairs.