"Where will it all end? I'll tell you. It will end
with the destruction of pro surfing as we know it."
This climate, man. Hot. And I don’t simply
refer to the global warming trend melting icebergs and flooding
lowlands plus paradisiacal island nations (I kid. Or do I?). I
refer to everything else, but mostly the Israel v Hamas conflict
currently inviting any and all outside the region to pick a
ridiculously hardened side.
Death to the other or worse. If it can be conjured.
College students at Harvard
imagining they know, and stand with, the oppressed. Hollywood
notables thinking that they are victims and those who
disagree must be dispensed with immediately.
The lack of nuanced thinking, wishing complete cancellation on
the other, frankly, mind-bending.
Now, let us reintroduce the Ricky “Bobby” Basnett vs. Shaun
Tomson blood feud. The
business spilt into the public square earlier today when the
former, and beloved, Championship Tour coffee sipper, Basnett
became fired by the 8th greatest surfer ever, Shaun Tomson, after
posting a slide to Instagram reading “From the river to the
sea.”
Or not fired, but quit
according to Tomson.
“From the river to the sea,” in any case, and depending on bent,
either a call for the complete eradication of the Jewish state of
Israel or a mere plea for Palestinian autonomy.
I think it probably actually means the former, though social
media gonna social media and illiteracy gonna illiterate.
In any further case, Tomson fired Basnett, who had begun working
with Insight, in a fiery letter.
Or maybe Basnett quit.
But let us transport to another time in professional surfing
history when South Africa, Tomson’s home country, was ruled by a
government that supported the subjugation of its natural born
inhabitants.
History is important (please subscribe here) and, in
1985, Tomson, the smoothest surfer ever, stood on a Torquay,
Australia stage and declared, “The rumor I’ve heard is about a
South African boycott. Suddenly the surfers have principles.
Suddenly we have political aspirations. I’ve been involved in pro
surfing since it began…”
A powerful opening salvo.
“I don’t like people being killed in South Africa,” he
continued. “No South African does. But do you think not surfing in
an event in South Africa will change anything? Are you not all
trying to get some cheap publicity? What’s the next frontier in
surfing’s newly found political conscience? Maybe we won’t go to
the USA because we object to American involvement in Central
America (etc. etc. ad infinitum). Maybe we don’t go to France in
objection to the socialist government. Maybe we don’t go to Israel
because we object to the treatment of Palestinian refugees…”
England because crackdown on Irish nationalists etc.
“Where will it all end?” he sally forthed. “I’ll tell you. It
will end with the destruction of pro surfing as we know it.”
Tomson went on to state, “If you don’t support South Africa,
then voice your opinions, but support pro surfing. Look after your
livelihood and what you love. I don’t stand here in defense of
South Africa. I stand here as a surfer in defense of pro surfing.
Thank you.”
Mic drop.
Was Shaun Tomson on the right side of history?
Hindsight always a perfect 20/20. Apartheid South Africa an
absolute historical disgrace. Tom Carroll, who rode for Tomson’s
brand Instinct, was threatened with lawsuit if he didn’t travel to
South Africa to surf. He refused then signed a million dollar
contract with Quiksilver becoming an icon twice over.
Making good.
Derek Rielly, in his exceptional biography
of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke (RIP) covered
the scene, writing:
In 1985, the world champion surfer Tom Carroll refused to
surf in South Africa’s three international surfing events “until
black surfers are allowed on all beaches.” Carroll was sponsored by
the South African company Instinct which threatened him with a
lawsuit if he didn’t compete.
Hawke heard about the threat, called Carroll, and invited
him to Canberra where he told the surfer that if his sponsor went
legal he had the weight of the Australian government behind
him.
“I was really welcomed by Bob. It was a nice feeling to have
that support from him,” says Carroll, who didn’t lean either way
politically and admits he was initially inclined to distrust any
politician courting the youth vote. “I had some strange responses
to my decision. All kinds of people went a bit crazy about it. But
he was genuine, very interested and he asked all these really good
questions about the tour and competing and where I’d been and even
brought up some results. He read his brief very well.”
When Mandela came to Australia, Hawke introduced Carroll to
Mandela.
“I remember Bob telling him, in his frank way, ‘Nelson, this
was the world champion surfer at the time and he made decision to
boycott the events in South Africa. Gave him the whole story.
Mandela turned around to me and said, ‘Thank you very much Tom. I
needed all the help I could get.’ Bob facilitated that. It was a
lovely moment between the three of us. It gives me goosebumps
now.”
At Carroll’s retirement dinner in 1995, Hawke would say,
“His beliefs, his principles, were so strong that he put those in
front of everything else and as I recall there has been no example
in the history of Australian sport where a champion has been
prepared to put principles so manifestly in front of his or her own
interests as Tom Carroll did in 1985.”
Tomson was never pro-apartheid, let it be stated. Let it also be
stated he is not anti-Palestinian, writing most recently, “Yes, I
agree Palestinians have suffered too and that war is dreadful.”
And so.
Surfing and politics?
Where are you currently landing?
Willing to actually challenge your own suppositions, which are,
let’s be frank, elementary unless you are there, studied, open? Or
ready to double down on all that you don’t know?
My goodness. I once thought I knew. Nineteen years old, in
Egypt, traveling to Israel, overland though the now trendy Rafah
crossing for the first time. My positions became absolutely
ludicrous when meeting real people in that Holy Land. Stretched
further in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Somalia.
Maybe Shaun Tomson was right. Maybe he wasn’t. Pro surfing
already destroyed by Dirk Ziff, Erik Logan and co. But lend an ear
to the other side and try to understand, try to feel instead of
popping off.
Pro surfing is dead, sure, but surfing still lives.
Take your shirt
off.
