CSA has now opened itself to entirely avoidable accusations of incompetence, cowardice and political interference.
Last Friday, Cricket South Africa (CSA) “relieved” David Teeger of the captaincy of South Africa’s team for the U19 Cricket World Cup, which begins this Friday and which South Africa is hosting.
CSA’s stated reason for doing so was to mitigate the risk of “conflict or even violence, including between rival groups of protesters”, relating to Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza.
CSA did not demote Teeger for being Jewish, as some claim. The accusations of anti-Semitism are opportunistic and intellectually lazy, and they dilute the meaning of actual anti-Semitism, which is indeed a grave problem.
But CSA still did not demote Teeger for the right reasons.
What did Teeger do?
On 22 October 2023, Teeger, a gifted batsman, was named the Rising Star at the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards. The South African Jewish Report quoted Teeger as saying in his acceptance speech: “Yes, I’m now the Rising Star, but the true rising stars are the young soldiers in Israel… So, I’d like to dedicate this award to the South African family that married off one son while the other is still missing… And I’d like to dedicate it to the state of Israel and every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.”
Teeger was referring to Israel’s military response to the 7 October attacks on Israeli towns by militants from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, in which 1,139 people were killed, 240 were taken hostage, and dozens of Israeli women and girls were sexually assaulted, raped and mutilated. Most of the victims were civilians.
What did Israel do?
Israel reacted with what it called Operation Swords of Iron – a “complete siege” on Gaza (where Hamas is based), involving hourly bombardment by air, land and sea, and cutting off Gaza’s scarce supply of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has not allowed Palestinians to have their own military with formal military bases, so Palestinian guerrilla fighters have no option but to operate from civilian areas.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Israel-Palestine War
As a result, Israel bombed, shelled and shot at civilian houses, hospitals, ambulances, schools, universities, businesses, mosques, churches, humanitarian shelters and entire refugee camps, claiming that each one is being used by Hamas as a “human shield”.
By the time of Teeger’s speech, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Operation Swords of Iron had killed 4,651 Palestinians (including 1,873 children), injured 14,245, and displaced more than 1.4 million. Officials of the UN, International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders had already accused Israel of committing war crimes by conducting indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians, inflicting collective punishment, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
In the days before Teeger’s speech, hundreds of scholars in international law and genocide, as well as nine UN special rapporteurs, warned of potential genocide against Gazan Palestinians.
What did CSA do?
On 13 November, CSA named a “provisional” squad for the U19 World Cup, with Teeger as the captain. This announcement provoked outrage from the Palestine Solidarity Alliance, among others, who pointed to Teeger’s Rising Star speech, calling it “callous and prejudiced”.
CSA charged Teeger with misconduct, as did his domestic team, the Lions. He was accused, among other things, of “unbecoming or detrimental conduct which could bring [him], CSA or the game of cricket into disrepute”, under the CSA Code of Conduct. CSA appointed legendary senior advocate Wim Trengove SC to decide on the charges. Trengove exonerated Teeger on 4 December, and four days later CSA named him captain of the final squad for the World Cup.
Was Trengove right?
Trengove found, among other things, that “there is nothing unbecoming or detrimental about an opinion expressed seriously and in good faith, however offensive it might be to some”. As reluctant as I am to disagree with Trengove, whom I admire greatly, I find this unconvincing.
One can think of many “opinions”, which are “expressed seriously and in good faith” (a notion taken from defamation law), which would still be unbecoming, detrimental and disreputable. An obvious example is an “opinion” that black people are genetically less intelligent than white people, or a Bible-based belief that same-sex couples should be put to death. People cannot expect to express these views without consequences, and certainly cannot expect to serve in and lead national sports teams if they do so. A “seriously and in good faith” defence thus does not answer the charge of breaching the CSA Code.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Cricket SA never took a principled stance on Teeger situation, and it backfired
Trengove also found that Teeger “expressed support for and paid tribute to the state of Israel and its soldiers… because he believed their cause to be just. It was not a function of the race or national or ethnic origin of anybody else.” I am not sure this conclusion can be reached so lightly. Where there is evidence that Palestinians are being attacked, purely because they are Palestinians (a national and ethnic group), expressing support for the attackers can objectively be construed as meaning that Palestinians, as a group, deserve what they are getting. This is bigotry. What is more, it endorses and encourages violence against civilians, purely based on their national and ethnic origin.
Teeger claimed his speech was “not in support of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity because in my view Israel is innocent of all these allegations”. This was, however, a bald denial, and did not address the mounting evidence and expert assessments of breaches of humanitarian law by Israel. At best, Teeger’s comments were brutal, bellicose and callous, and he displayed poor judgement.
In my view, Teeger was guilty of “unbecoming or detrimental conduct which could bring” him and CSA “into disrepute”, and he should have received at least a written warning. There was no need to relieve him of the Junior Proteas captaincy at that stage, since his appointment was only provisional. The World Cup captain had yet to be named.
What did CSA do wrong?
Trengove’s ruling did not mean that CSA had to make Teeger captain when confirming the final squad four days later. They could easily have chosen another young man with leadership skills (as they have now done). They could also easily have justified this by explaining that, although Teeger had been cleared by Trengove, it would be unduly divisive and distracting to make him a national captain, who is meant to be a unifying figure from whom the whole nation can draw inspiration and pride.
CSA missed that one-off opportunity to resolve the situation. They made the wrong decision.
But, having made that decision, CSA should have stood by it, and defended it, or given much more convincing reasons for reversing it.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Sticky wicket — Reinstate Teeger as SA U19 captain or we’ll escalate matter, demands DA
The “security” explanation for demoting Teeger, more than a month later, does not hold water, for four reasons. First, the “rival protests”, which supposedly constitute the security threat, were plainly predictable at the time of naming Teeger as captain of the final squad on 8 December. Second, demoting Teeger could not have dampened the prospect of “rival protests”; in fact, it may well have heightened it (predictably so). The explanation is thus irrational.
Third, the prospect of protests, even “rival protests”, does not equate to a risk of violence. I do not believe that South Africans are incapable of disagreeing peacefully. And CSA’s coded apprehension that pro-Palestinian demonstrators might physically attack Teeger is unfounded and insulting.
Fourth, and finally, even if there were a security “threat”, it is wholly inappropriate to allow it to dictate a team selection decision. Any “threats” of violence (which appear to be imagined) are to be monitored and managed by the police and private security. If they cannot protect the participants and spectators from threatened violence, the fixtures simply cannot proceed. To base a selection decision on a fear of violence does not do anything to prevent violence; it only encourages it by affirming its effectiveness.
CSA should not have given Teeger the captaincy on 8 December. But they did. The predictable consequences of that decision cannot now be avoided by taking the captaincy away from him. Instead, they have been exacerbated, and CSA have opened themselves to entirely avoidable accusations of incompetence, cowardice and political interference.
The opportunity to appoint an untarnished and unifying captain came and passed last month. CSA has now tried to do so for the wrong reasons, and at the wrong time.
If CSA’s true reason for demoting Teeger is that it is intolerable for the national team to be led by someone who espouses support for the Israeli military and everything it is doing, then CSA should have had the courage to say so. It would, in my view, be a morally and legally defensible position. Yes, Teeger has the right to freedom of speech, but the way he chooses to exercise that right can make him unsuitable for leadership of a national sports team.
If CSA did, however, still consider Teeger suitable for leadership, then they should have stood by that, and stood by him. DM