It’s not Banter it’s Racism
Martin Chandler |Published: 2024
Pages: 199
Author: Rafiq, Azeem
Publisher: Trapeze
Rating: 4.5 stars
It is unusual for stories of cricket and cricketers to find their way onto the front page of newspapers but it does happen, and certainly did for Azeem Rafiq and a number of other individuals in the period between September 2020 and March of 2023. The 2020 date was when Rafiq’s complaints of racism and bullying during his time with Yorkshire first emerged, and the latter date was when the Cricket Discipline Commission concluded its involvement in those allegations.
The developing story was one which was widely reported and it soon became clear that a book from Rafiq would follow. That It’s not Banter it’ s Racism then took 15 months to appear rather took me by surprise and, to an extent, public interest had cooled by the time of publication. It was perhaps a combination of that and the fact that I had read so much at the time that led to the delay in my feeling the need to read the book.
We have a problem with racism in the UK. We always have had and I fear we always will. The nature of the problem has certainly changed over my lifetime, but not as much as I would have liked. I believe that on the whole there are many more people than when I was young who passionately believe in fairness and equality, but the minority is still far too large, and there are far too many of those who allow their thoughts to become words and, worse still, actions.
In a different life I used to defend people in Magistrates’ courts. I have seen changing attitudes in both those who make the law and those who are charged with enforcing it. But despite that I have to confess to not having really understood the problem until 2003, a time by which many criminal offences could be and were made more serious by the words racially aggravated being added to the charge.
In 2003 there was a football match between Port Vale and Oldham Athletic at the former’s home ground in Burslem, one of the towns that makes up the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Something was chanted by the home fans towards the away fans along the lines of You’re a town full of Pakis. One fan faced a racially aggravated charge as a result. Sitting in Stoke-on-Trent Magistrates Court a District Judge dismissed the charge, on the basis that use of the word Paki was mere doggerel.
The prosecution appealed, and the High Court agreed with them, and did not mince their words in doing so. Paki was denounced as a slang expression which is racially offensive.
The release of the Judgment of the High Court inevitable sparked much debate in my local magistrates court’s advocates’ room. It was, after all, the sort of issue that cropped up in cases in the court day in and day out and whilst I remain of the view that none of my professional colleagues had a racist bone in their bodies, a number had a degree of sympathy with the errant District Judge’s reasoning.
Our discussions were ended when another colleague, a newly qualified one of Pakistani ethnicity, came into the room. He explained to us all, clearly feeling much the same emotions as Azeem Rafiq, just why the High Court were right and the District Judge wrong. I learnt something that day which I have carried with me ever since and, reading Rafiq’s book having reminded me of the episode, it came as no surprise when googling that young solicitor to learn that he has made a great success of his career.
But I digress.
When I did open It’s not Banter it’s Racism I have to say my initial reaction was that I didn’t like the cover (I thought it was far too ‘in your face’), I didn’t like the fact that it didn’t have any photographs in it, nor that it lacked the statistics of Rafiq’s career or an index. Those thoughts were prompted by previous experience distilled from the number of cricketing biographies and autobiographies I have read over the years. As soon as I started reading this one however I realised that in fact it is the exception that proves the rule. The design of the cover is entirely appropriate, and photographs, statistics and an index not required.
And that isn’t because the book is not in fact an autobiography. It most certainly is and however much I did know before reading it I certainly didn’t know about Rafiq’s childhood in Pakistan, the circumstances that forced his family to travel to England, and the hugely distressing loss of his first child.
I also didn’t know quite as much as I thought I did about what had developed as far as the bullying allegations were concerned, and more particularly just how thoroughly he was ultimately vindicated. The line that tends to stick in the memory is that the allegations against Michael Vaughan were found to be ‘not proven’, but it is clear that is the top and bottom of that. Ultimately of course only Vaughan played an active role in the proceedings, and much of what was accordingly found proved against others had been admitted by them in any event.
The greatest hope therefore must be that all involved, Vaughan included, had at some point the sort of light bulb moment that I had in June 2003, and I have no doubt that anyone who reads Rafiq’s superbly crafted telling of his life and feelings and hasn’t already experienced that will do likewise. It’s not Banter it’s Racism is an important book. It is an uncomfortable and troubling read but does, ultimately, give some hope for the future and, spoiler alert here, at least for Rafiq and his family there seems to have been a happy ending – it is just a shame he had to move to Dubai to find it.
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