Azeem Rafiq's anti-Semitism hurt me personally but it should not detract from his testimony

NICK FRIEND: There are too many people using the disgrace of this incident – and it is a disgrace for many of us – to cancel out what Rafiq has suffered to this point

“Azeem Rafiq has suffered terribly at the hands of racists in cricket so he will well understand the hurt this exchange will cause to Jews who have supported him. His apology certainly seems heartfelt, and we have no reason to believe he is not completely sincere.”

They were the words of Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, following a somewhat unexpected turn of events on Thursday afternoon when anti-Semitic messages sent by Rafiq came to light. I thought she put it well: a saddened response that was also measured.

As one of those Jewish supporters described above, I can’t deny that this development has left me hugely disappointed. To be frank, my heart dropped. Earlier this year, I spelled out some of the recent racist abuse to have arrived anonymously in my inbox: it stops you in your tracks. I didn’t mention it then, but it made me routinely look over my shoulder in the weeks afterwards; you lose your self-assurance in those circumstances. The money tropes, which were the focus of Rafiq’s correspondence a decade ago with former Warwickshire player Ateeq Javid, truly are painful – and all too common – to read.

But I do want to write this, because there are too many people using the disgrace of this incident – and it is a disgrace for many of us – to cancel out what Rafiq has suffered to this point. Likewise, there are too many people basking gleefully in the chance to catch Rafiq out and to cast a stain on his character, when discrimination is never a matter for celebration. And conversely, there are too many people attempting to downplay the anti-Semitism on show, as if it is an inconvenience that would be better off squashed or caveated.

As has become the norm over the last 15 months, however, it was Rafiq who reacted best. He understands as well as anyone what it is to be hurt, and what it is to be in a minority. He has made and accepted his mistakes, and it would take a total, catastrophic misreading of the situation were they to be weaponised in an effort to discredit his testimony. Because – let’s get this straight – one does not detract from the other.

^{Azeem Rafiq at his DCMS select committee appearance on November 16}

It was to his significant credit that he responded immediately – as noted by van der Zyl – with a proper apology, full of active ownership of his comments as a 19-year-old rather than the passive distancing to which society has become accustomed, and as genuine a remorse as you might be likely to decipher from a screenshot. There has certainly been no mea culpa of greater sincerity since this grim affair came to light. He has set the bar for their content and contrition.

Then, he ensured that his next media engagement began to make amends, speaking to the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle about the notions of education, ignorance and forgiveness. In a further blog post, Jack Mendel – one of the journalists who interviewed Rafiq – wrote that Rafiq had declined to offer a reason or excuse for his comments in their conversation “because he was worried it would sound like some kind of justification”.

Instead, he called Alex Sobel, a Labour MP – and Jewish – for Leeds North West to apologise personally. In a column, Sobel added Rafiq’s keenness to learn more about Yorkshire’s Jewish community.

“I don’t think I’m in any position to be asking the Jewish community on how they feel,” Rafiq told Jewish News. “All I can do is do my best, to show them that I am sorry. And time to understand and learn and educate myself to make sure that I’m improving myself.

"None of this delegitimises his whistleblowing nor renders him any less credible as a victim, whatever Nigel Farage might suggest"

“I don’t expect it to be quick, but in time the Jewish community can forgive me.

“I made a mistake. And I don’t I really want to make any excuses around that. I want to front up, apologise and hopefully spend some time with the Jewish community to learn.”

None of this delegitimises his whistleblowing nor renders him any less credible as a victim, whatever Nigel Farage might suggest. If anything, perhaps it proves a portion of his point – of how prevalent and normalised racism is in our game and in our society. It was never his intention – as he reiterated before the DCMS committee – to make public the long list of names documented in his evidence. That was down to the mishandling of his allegations by Yorkshire, when really the pattern of events he outlined was put together to highlight and demonstrate the institutionalisation of the racism he suffered at the county. He wanted to use his own experiences to help plot a different way forward.

“If we’re just going to end careers and end people’s jobs and bring new people in, that doesn’t actually change anything,” he put it, when speaking to The Cricketer’s Cricket Club. “We’ve actually got to give people a chance to change. Yes, not get away lightly either – there has got to be some level of accountability, but I actually thought the Ollie Robinson situation was handled very well.”

On that podcast, he also broached his role as “a voice for the voiceless” and whether his own past comments would hinder that goal. As Mendel suggested: “It’s always problematic when a whistle-blower is exposed as having done the very thing they’re highlighting.”

Rafiq’s conclusion on that issue? “It’s not about me. What we’ve tried to do from the offset with whatever decisions or actions to take is think about the cause. Whatever I end up doing or whatever ends up happening, the conversation has been smashed open well and proper. That has got to be a positive, right?”

^{Rafiq's testimony about his experiences at Yorkshire has inspired several former players to come forward}

Given all that Rafiq has been through – not to mention his courage in recounting those experiences in front of a watching nation – it feels particularly difficult to write this. But while there aren’t many Jewish people in English cricket to offer this perspective (and Rafiq has admitted to hardly remembering a Jewish teammate), there are plenty of Jewish people who – as he put it in his apology – will feel “rightly offended by this”.

As is laid out by David Baddiel in his book, Jews Don’t Count, it often feels that way.

You haven’t had to deviate too far in recent days to test that thesis: take the ongoing controversy surrounding the Royal Court theatre, whose play Rare Earth Mettle starred – until its subsequent outcry – a billionaire villain by the name of Hershel Fink. The theatre company called it “unconscious bias”, though those of us for whom this is a regular part of our lives would term it something rather quite different. The oldest of tropes hiding in plain sight, and yet no one cared enough to spot it – or if they did, to call it out.

Likewise, Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale is currently suspended pending an investigation into his use of the Y word in a Twitter exchange a decade ago. If such a state is possible in this bleak episode, it feels like that has gone under the radar. Gale offered a mealy-mouthed non-apology and insisted he didn’t know what it meant, in which case he probably shouldn’t have used it.

Part of its history lies in the lexicon of Oswald Mosley, the fascist (his supporters would often walk the streets chanting about getting rid of the “Y**s”). In footballing circles, its future remains a subject of debate, though perhaps putting it to the Jewish population might provide greater, more accurate consensus. Either way, there is little historic precedent for the offensiveness of race-hate words being judged by people beyond the affected minority.

That, though, is a piece for another day. The Athletic covered it in great detail on Friday, in fact. I’d urge you to give it a read.

Rafiq followed his apology with a further tweet: “At no point will I ever try and defend the indefensible. For those I have hurt, I am sincerely sorry. I will continue to front up and own any more mistakes I have made.”

That, I think, is all that can be asked. The fight against racism – and that includes anti-Semitism – goes on.