ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

South African rebel tours

Okay kiddo, so rebel tours are when a sports team from a certain country goes to play games in another country that is not recognized by the international community. So, for example, let's say there was a cricket team in South Africa, and they wanted to play games in a country called Rhodesia, which was not recognized as a legitimate country by many other countries in the world at the time. This would be a rebel tour, because it's a group of people who are doing something that many other people think is bad or wrong.

Now, you might be wondering why anyone would want to do a rebel tour like this. Well, sometimes people feel strongly about certain political issues, and they want to show their support for a certain group or cause. In the case of South Africa, there was a government policy called apartheid that many people disagreed with. This policy kept people of different races separate and unequal, and many people around the world felt that it was wrong. So, some South African sports teams went on rebel tours to show their support for other countries that were also opposing apartheid.

However, rebel tours were not always a good thing. They were often controversial, because some people felt that they were supporting bad or illegal activities. Also, sometimes the countries where the rebel tours were taking place were not safe for the players, because they didn't have the proper facilities or security measures in place. So, even though rebel tours were sometimes used as a way to show support for something important, they were also sometimes dangerous or divisive.