I subscribe to South Africa: The Good News
By Ian Macdonald (SA Goodnews)
Here we go again. For the umpteenth time, the issue of whether the Springbok, as the emblem for the South African national rugby side, should be scrapped is once again being debated. The poor old Bok has emerged from these debates before, bloodied and in need of intensive care. This time, however, it looks terminal. By the time you read this, it could be dead.
My initial reaction, as a rugby mad South African who has supported the Bokke since my childhood, is one of despair and of anger. It is a symbol that means so much to me. To me, it represents South Africa as world beaters. To me, it represents my national pride.
But to many South Africans it represents something else entirely. To many, it represents our divided past, Afrikaner entitlement and/or white arrogance.
In short, it embodies what is right and what is wrong in our complex nation.
When I read the news articles that quote South Africans who are opposed to the retention of the emblem, I get a sense of why the Springbok is endangered.
“The Springbok divides us. We have a responsibility to unite our country on one national emblem… I want you to observe the arrogance of white people over the Springbok emblem,” says controversial chairman of Parliament’s sports portfolio committee Butana Komphela.
“Many people now see Mandela’s (gesture of reconciliation at the 1995 World Cup final) as a mistake,” Qasim Bhorat, a team doctor for the Soweto rugby club, is quoted as saying in an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper. “This is the last stand of the Afrikaner. They believe rugby belongs to them and they don’t want to give it up.”
As so often happens in South Africa, the real issue is about race. A lot of white South Africans, rightly or wrongly, feel relatively powerless in the South Africa of today, disadvantaged, marginalised and unable to make an impact in the politics of the land. Rugby – and the Springbok emblem – has assumed a massive role in defining white South African culture. For many, it’s what they have left.
Taking away something that they hold so dear would be a massive blow, a blow to their very psyche and, instead of uniting the country, I think it would further polarise white and black South Africans. But here’s the rub: I think that whites, not politicians, are to blame.
It was Mandela’s magnificent gesture in 1995 that showed the power of reconciliation. It couldn’t have been easy for Madiba, but it paid off handsomely. It showed his willingness to compromise for the greater good of South Africa. But how have whites responded? How have they compromised? I don’t think that white South Africans have given much in return and if they have, then it is been under duress and with reluctance.
Nowhere is this more apparent that in our rugby stadiums when the Springboks are playing. While, thankfully, the old South African flag is no longer being waved in our rugby stadiums, listening to the anthem being sung before Test matches is revealing. The “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica” part is barely audible as the crowd mumbles its way through it, but the anthem comes to life during the singing of “Die Stem“. This is another example of many white South Africans’ appalling response to the spirit of compromise that made our peaceful transition to democracy possible.
White South Africans will point to the national jubilation and sense of national unity following the 1995 and the 2007 World Cup victories. They will talk about the crowds at the national victory parades that represented the full spectrum of our rainbow nation. It’s one of the most powerful brands in world rugby; it’s worth a fortune! Black South Africans wear the Springbok jersey in shopping malls on the day of the big game! We have a black Springbok coach, for goodness sake, and the team that thumped Australia 53-8 earlier this year had six black Springboks in the starting line-up…
But while those arguments have definite merit, it’s just not enough. For the Springbok to be maintained, white South Africans have to do more to show that we are capable of compromise too.
Of course, I am making massive generalisations and I know that there are many white South Africans who have embraced these realities. But as a collective, and it pains me to say this, white South Africans are responsible for the death of the Springbok.
For me, it’s a clarion call for white South Africans. Getting rid of the Springbok will address the symptom and not the cause, but it is an indication that Khompela et al have lost patience and are using the Springbok to strike at the heart of white South Africa. It is a powerful statement and it is meant to hurt.
I hope that my beloved Springbok lives to fight another day. I still believe it could play an important role in South Africa’s progress, as a source of national pride and of our reconciliation between our people. I still believe that it could become the symbol that binds us rather than divides, a constant reminder of what we are capable of.
It may be too late to do anything to save the Springbok now; the horse may have already bolted. Whatever the outcome, I hope we can learn the lessons that are there to be learnt.
Black South Africans have shown incredible patience, magnanimity and a willingness to compromise. But that patience is starting to wear thin. The more white South Africans resist the changes that need to happen in South Africa and in our hearts, the more we will be marginalised and the more we stand to lose.
(Source: South Africa: The Good News)
November 4, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I find your article most interesting, seeing that I got to see Clint Eastwoods movie, Invictus, a few days ago. Being a white ‘English’ South African I’d like to add my point of view to your post. I refer to myself as ‘English’ because I’m not a boer. Yet, neither am I English. I was born in the land and grew up suppressed by the boer. I was lucky my skin colour was white, but unlucky because I was a ‘rooi nek’. I liked rugby and because I was brainwashed from a young age, in the fascism ideals of the government of the time, I used to get goose bumps and all emotional when time came to sing the anthem. I played rugby in primary school and always got beaten up by the boertjies. Not to mention the nine years OF schooling I spent having to travel on the bus to and from school and getting beaten up daily by an out numbered crowd of boertjies. Needless to say, I dropped the rugby and all other sports…it just was’nt my cup of tea to get bashed up continuously by a bunch of poenskoppies. I guess it wasnt in my nature to take up self defence sports to beat them back. You have to be a highly skilled blackbelt karate to deal with at leat five guys at a time. I opted out of that one.
But let me not get off the point here…. Nowa days, having been living abroad for the last four years, I get to see rugby and the SA dilemma from another perspective. I’ve come to see how the black South African has been conned into thinking and behaving like a boer. Afterall, Madiba did ‘study’ his enemy for all that time in jail…and that was the ‘boer’. So he got to see how the boer mind worked. This was useful for the establishment of the new SA democratic government. But it looks as if thats where it ended…because when he left, so did his ideals and what we have today is still that bitter chasim between the boer, the black and all the ‘minorities’ of SA. And to crown it all, the ‘Springbok’ emblem is one of the last symbols of white fascism that reminds its instagators, of what binds them together…reminds them of their glue, of their past and feeds them with hope. I feel that the Springbok must go, because afterall, it does not represent South Africa, it does not represent unity in diversity. There must and is another way to tackle this rugby emblem story..the answer of which lies in the so-called powers that run the country now. These powers who by now have their minds all mixed up with the mind of a boer and the mind of a black…that is what appears to prevail in the new SA. The story continues.