In those shoes, whose toes is Usman Khawaja standing on anyway?
Opinion
December 13, 2023 — 7.07pm
December 13, 2023 — 7.07pm
If not in this first Test, perhaps on Boxing Day, Usman Khawaja plans to wear shoes bearing these slogans on the side of the soles: “All lives are equal”, and “freedom is a human right”.
Naturally, this has prompted some outrage, because almost anything concerning the Middle East prompts outrage, and because any time a sportsperson plays outside their boundaries prompts outrage. Khawaja says he’s felt the blowback already.
Usman Khawaja wearing “All lives are equal” on his shoes during an Australian nets session at the WACA on Tuesday.Credit: Getty Images
But let’s contemplate for a moment what, and whose toes, Khawaja is standing on in those boots. As statements go, his is conspicuously moderate. You might even call it motherhood.
It’s less pointed, for instance, than the wristbands England spinner Moeen Ali wore in a Test match in Southampton one day in 2014, at the time of the last Israel-Gaza war, which read: “Save Gaza”, and “Free Palestine”. The England Cricket Board approved them, but the ICC did not.
In and of themselves, the words on Khawaja’s shoes are no more inflammatory than the Black Lives Matter logo that both England and the West Indies have worn on their Test match shirts in recent times, or the eagle graphic on Marnus Labuschagne’s bat, which alludes to his favourite Bible verse. These all have ICC approval.
Yes, Khawaja’s message is political, but it’s scarcely radical. He is seeking to take the side of humanity. “No one chooses where they were born,” he says.
Khawaja in full flight in the Ashes.Credit: AP
Sometimes, the difference between political and humanitarian is blurry. Here, it is clear. However sorely Israel was provoked, however barbaric Hamas are in using civilian shields, the killing of innocents has to stop. As of Wednesday, Khawaja’s stance is roughly synonymous with the Australian government’s.
It’s more than an aside that federal sports minister Anika Wells on Wednesday endorsed Khawaja’s right to say what his shoes say. She noted his respectful tone. Respect is all Khawaja ever asks.
Marnus Labuschagne has the sticker of an eagle at the bottom of his bat in reference to his favourite bible verse.Credit: AP
If Khawaja was a politician or a diplomat, his message would and should be interrogated for extra layers of meaning and hidden implications.
But he is not. He is a sportsman, with a platform and a history of using it thoughtfully. As a person of colour, he’s been outspoken about racism and his experience of it. “Luckily for me, I never lived in a world where inequality was life or death,” he says. This time, he’s speaking up as a Muslim.
His Australian teammates empathise with his perspective. When Australia beat India for the World Test Championship in London in June, they forewent the traditional spray of champagne on the victory dais so as not to discomfit Khawaja. Somehow, that triumph was no less satisfying for their restraint.
Khawaja is hardly a provocateur or rabblerouser. If allowed to wear his shoes now, he would be making his point without shoving it in anyone’s face or ramming it down anyone’s throat. He is not staging a sit-in or trailing a banner across the sky. He’s wearing a pair of cricket shoes. He’s baring his sole.
In a social media post, Khawaja was slightly more direct. “Do people not care about innocent humans being killed?” he asked. “Or is the colour of their skin that makes them less important? Or the religion they practice? (sic) These things should be irrelevant if you truly believe that ‘we are all equal’.”
Again, using temperate language, he has a case. When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, the world pretty much stood as one with Ukraine, and its national colours became a kind of universal symbol of solidarity. The political framework might have been different, the aggressor more obvious and detestable, but the bottom line is the same: too many people were and are dying needlessly and too many others have had their lives destroyed, too.
West Indies’ captain Jasion Holder, centre, and teammates take a knee before the start of the Test match between England and West Indies at Southampton in 2020.Credit: AFP
In that context, are a couple of slogans about freedom and equality scrawled onto a pair of cricket boots so beyond the pale?
Khawaja says he is not giving up, but he is proceeding through the prescribed channels. Does this mean he lacks the strength of his convictions? Hardly. It means he is being careful not to make it all about himself. He knows how easily his profile could rebound on him. He wants to make it about them.
Meantime, let’s not hear again that dirge about how sport and politics shouldn’t mix. It’s so discredited. A risible principle anyway, it is how honoured more in the breach. And that’s a good thing, too. Sport is politics. It’s entertainment, yes, but it’s also a window into ourselves.
German players cover their mouths to protest against being gagged by FIFA in the World Cup in Doha in 2022.Credit: AP
In the past few years alone, sportspeople and sports bodies have taken stances on the war in Ukraine, on human rights abuses in Qatar, on the oppression of gay people there, and in Australia on gay marriage, racism and most recently the Voice referendum.
Not all agree, not all the sports-loving public agree with them, not all the protests have succeeded, but the thrust always is towards amplifying the cause of a gentler polity. This is probably not accidental; athletes of all people spend lifetimes face-to-face with an unvarnished image of themselves and so to deny the humanity in the other would be to deny it in themselves.
But if you really can’t stand Khawaja’s shoes, watch his hands instead. They’re still worth it.
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