Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Azeem Rafiq and the hypocrisy of victimhood

I spoke to the cricketer and I still have questions

(ParliamentTV)

On the face of it, it seemed the most startling irony. Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire spin bowler who has been giving tearful evidence to a select committee about racism at the club, was found to have made racist remarks himself. Well, anti-Semitic remarks. Which is just as serious, right?

In the eyes of many, it was a case of pot and kettle. Here was a man making a very public display of his victimhood, who seemingly felt it was OK to mete out the same treatment to others. #Hypocrite, they cried. #Humbug.

With almost no exceptions, reports focussed on the apology that Mr Rafiq gave and the fact that his anti-Semitism was only ‘historic’.

But not in the eyes of the media and liberal commentariat. With almost no exceptions, reports focussed on the apology that Mr Rafiq gave and the fact that his anti-Semitism was only ‘historic’. From one newspaper to the next, before the facts were even known, the tone was notably generous and forgiving. Why? 

When I discussed the matter on a television debate last night, I was taken aback when a fellow panellist made excuses for the cricketer — he was 19 years old at the time, these were surely ‘off-the-cuff’ remarks, that sort of thing — when the very same commentator, on the very same programme a couple of weeks previously, had refused to afford that same generosity to those who had allegedly abused Mr Rafiq.

In truth, we simply don’t know what happened. I spoke to the cricketer on the phone after I came off air. He was distraught and apologised profusely to both me and my community. He had made the anti-Semitic comments about a non-Jewish player, Atif Sheikh, he said, whom he had been criticising for not paying a dinner bill (‘Hahaha he is a Jew… Only Jews do that sort of shit’).

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