Jim Eagles: To protest, pick an easy target

The face of sport has changed beyond belief since the days when I was a lad, a time when dinosaurs stalked the Earth, the sun always shone and unspoken codes of sporting behaviour ruled the playing fields.

That, of course, was long before professional rugby, when international players still turned out for the clubs they played for as youngsters, and were motivated to represent their provincial teams by parochial pride rather than the size of the cheque.

Back then most international cricketers walked when they knew when they were out rather than wait for the umpire's finger, unlike today when a pronouncement by Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist that he intends to walk is cause for astonishment.

Rugby was a rougher game - not least because there were no television cameras to endlessly replay the sly boot or angry punch - but it was accepted by players that what happened on the field stayed on the field.

I can't imagine the grizzled captains of yesteryear calling a press conference to complain that they had been hurt in a nasty tackle and the other side didn't say sorry.
No one then wanted to miss international sporting contests, because of their rarity. The Springboks might tour only once a decade and the top athletes clashed only at the Olympics. Now it doesn't matter if you miss one international fixture because there will be another in a few weeks.

But one thing hasn't changed. Sport is still an easy way for politicians to take a lofty moral stand at no cost to themselves.

Back in 1980 United States President Jimmy Carter led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics as a protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. It was a neat way to obscure the memory of the many invasions by the US and had the advantage that the pain was limited to a small group of athletes.

Around that time, too, African countries threatened to boycott the Olympic and Commonwealth Games in protest at New Zealand playing rugby against the Springboks.

That was a much more comfortable means of showing distaste for apartheid than ending their own economic links with South Africa.

On the other side of that fence, our own Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon took a remarkably liberal stance by refusing to interfere with the rights of South African and New Zealand rugby players, while acting with remarkable illiberality in almost every other sphere of national life. It helped win him re-election but rugby paid a heavy price.

Now we have the present Labour Government underlining its moral credentials by calling on the New Zealand cricketers not to tour Zimbabwe as a protest against the thuggish policies of Robert Mugabe.

The rhetoric by Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff is very much in the tradition of courageous stances by previous Labour Governments that earned this country a reputation for independence and integrity.

But we shouldn't forget that this reputation, which gives New Zealand a global influence out of proportion to our size, has been hard-won.

For instance, the Lange Government's ban on nuclear-armed or propelled warships enhanced New Zealand's moral stature, but it also angered some traditional allies and has cost us support for trade deals.

Similarly, the insistence that the French agents who blew up the Rainbow Warrior must submit to the rigours of the law, impressed other small nations, but it resulted in the French Government applying vicious trade sanctions (to the point where we agreed to United Nations arbitration).

If the Clark administration wanted to burnish its international credentials by following in those brave footsteps there have been plenty of opportunities available.

For instance, Clark has recently visited Beijing and hosted the chairman of China's National People's Congress in Wellington, providing great opportunities for New Zealand to tell the Chinese we want nothing to do with them until they improve their appalling record on democracy and human rights.

But, of course, China is the emerging global powerhouse and we hope to reach a trade deal, so the Prime Minister did no such thing.

Another recent visitor to Wellington is Bahrain's Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa who, like most Arab leaders, represents a country with limited democracy and a restricted view of women's rights. It would have been a huge boost to the work of groups such as the Bahrain's Women's Petition Committee if Clark had told the Sheikh to go home and reform his legal system. But we want access to the Middle East's oil so we gave him a state reception.

Only last month New Zealand hosted Pakistan's self-appointed President, General Pervez Musharraf, who presides over a sham democracy with minimal human rights. But Pakistan is a huge and influential country, so instead of giving the General a ticking off, our Prime Minister kissed him on the cheek.

New Zealand has obviously learned that when it comes to taking high moral stands it is wise for a small country to restrict itself to targets with no power to hit back and to use tactics that cost nothing.

All of which makes the call for New Zealand to withdraw from cricket matches against Zimbabwe the perfect choice.

Zimbabwe is almost without influence on the world scene and our trade relationship is negligible.

True, if the Black Caps were to pull out of their upcoming tour there they would face a multimillion-dollar fine from the International Cricket Council, but Goff has made it clear that the taxpayer would not reimburse that.

The Government is also proposing to pass legislation to allow it to bar the Zimbabwe team from coming here for a return series - but, again, the burden of that will fall on cricketers, not the wider country.

For the politicians it's a win-win strategy. And, best of all, it is being done in the name of Labour's proud tradition of fearless international morality.