Order of Ikhamanga in Silver
For his excellent contribution to the struggle for and the development of non-racial sport in South Africa.
Hassan Howa was born in 1922 in Cape Town into a large working-class family. He matriculated from Trafalgar High School in District Six after which he worked in the family business. As a young man, Howa was deeply influenced by his father Yusuf Howa, who was a prominent member of the South African Indian Congress, which stood for justice, equality and non-racialism.
In the community in which Howa grew up - one which was collectively the victim of discrimination and racism - where sport played a central role in maintaining a sense of sanity and dignity in the face of oppressive social conditions, his passion was for the game famously described as "the gentleman's game of flannelled fools", cricket.
After a memorable amateur career on the pitch, he took up the challenge of cricket administration and the promotion of the sport. In 1947, Howa was a founder member of the SA Cricket Board of Control (SACBOC) which worked resolutely to promote cricket among the dispossessed and the oppressed.
Having experienced poverty and social discrimination throughout his life, Howa deplored the pernicious impact of deprivation and racism on all aspects of human development. For him, participation in sport was critical for the growth and development of the individual as well as for society as a whole.
As the grand scheme of Apartheid separation began to impact on all spheres of South African life, the right to pursue sport became increasingly prescribed, and Howa found it impossible to remain quiet in the face of the naked injustice, blatant inequalities, and the disproportionate allocation of resources of the Apartheid state. These he saw as actively eroding the inherent purpose of sport.
Strongly influenced by the political movements of the Western Cape, with its long-standing tradition of principled opposition to racism, Howa reluctantly found himself becoming the voice of equality and of non-racial sport in South Africa, resolutely refusing to co-operate with the Apartheid-endorsed cricket establishment.
Through SACBOC he led a fearless campaign throughout the 1970s against "white" cricket. Having galvanized the support of communities and community organizations in South Africa and with the support of kindred international organizations, the campaign succeeded in ensuring that the Springboks were banned from participation in international cricket.
Seeing the need to ensure that all Apartheid sport be isolated and boycotted, Howa argued for the creation of an over-arching sports body to pursue non-racial sport and was instrumental in the founding of the South African Council on Sports (SACOS). As its leader, he lobbied for South Africa's expulsion from world sport under the slogan: No "normal" sport in an abnormal society.
Despite official state harassment and persecution by the security police who kept a close watch on his movements and activities, Howa never relented on his fundamental purpose and mission. The boycott campaign eventually led to the virtual total isolation of Apartheid sport as part of the international political campaign to isolate the Apartheid regime.
Fiercely independent and unbending in his fundamental belief in a non-racial society, Hassan Howa never gave up his dream that one day all children, whatever their class origin, colour or creed, would have the same opportunities to play sport and to represent their country. He devoted his life to the attainment of the noble goal of non-racism in sport.
