Race debate: South African columnist hoping Boks get humiliated

The South African Springbok rugby team poses during the World Cup squad announcement. Photo / Getty Images

A South African columnist is hoping the Springboks are humiliated at the Rugby World Cup as debate continues over the racial make up of the team.

South Africans are also hotly divided, as can only be expected, as a small political party tries to stop the Springboks playing in the World Cup which starts this month. Another columnist and a lawyer have said the Agency for New Agenda party will struggle to prove its case.

Coach Heyneke Meyer included nine players of colour in his 31-man squad, igniting fierce discussion over whether rugby has truly transformed since the days it was a whites-only domain under the apartheid system.

Mondii Makhanya, writing for the City Press, said he had flip flopped over the years about supporting the Springboks.

"As I watch the passage of the Springboks I will be openly cheering for whichever opponent they are facing and wishing them humiliation," he told his readers in a newspaper described as the country third largest, one aimed at a black readership.

"As treacherous as this sounds, the team Jean de Villiers will be leading will not be my team. It will not be a South African team. Rather it...represents the stubborn refusal by some sections of our society to change."

His passionate attack claimed Meyer's "almost snow white team" spits "thick phlegm" at Nelson Mandela's nation-building effort.

Under a headline "Let's just embrace transformation" in IOLsport, Kevin McCullum wrote that rugby needed to rid itself of those who took a pre-1994 approach which prevented the flow of black and coloured players from schools to the professional ranks.

"Transformation is about creating opportunity and removing obstacles," he said.

McCullum wrote that former Springboks coach Peter de Villiers had even been warned by his rugby bosses he might be placing too much focus on transformation which could cost him his job.

In the online Daily Maverick, Antoinette Muller accused the ANA of cheap politicking which threatened to undermine serious discussions about transformation.

She said the legal argument to prevent the Springboks' travelling was "flimsy" although the constitution's section about black economic empowerment meant rugby selections were encompassed by the document.

But Muller wrote: "There is no part of the Constitution that mentions quotas. While South Africa does aim to address the wrongs of the past by appointing black candidates who are competent and qualified ahead of white candidates, it will be difficult to prove in this case."
She quoted a lawyer Michael Bagraim as saying the ANA would have trouble proving its case because "they are not a coach".

"If there is a black player who is of equal strength to a white player, then according to the Constitution the black player does have to be chosen...but with sport it's difficult to prove."

The debate has been fuelled by the ANA (a party said to be made up of disaffected former African National Congress members) seeking a High Court order to confiscate the Springboks' passports.

There was a similar threat to the Springboks in 2007, when they went on to win the World Cup. A matching case exists in New Zealand rugby - two lawyers used the New Zealand Rugby Union's constitution to win a court order preventing the All Blacks touring South Africa in 1985.

While it is hard to judge form this distance how the Pretoria High Court will view this application, it is also difficult to imagine the 'Boks will be barred.

Online readers in South Africa have reacted passionately. A selection of comments are.-
- "Transformation is another word for black racism."
- "The very part of the constitution they are trying to use to make their case is the same part that says all selections should be colour blind."
- "Just a publicity stunt without legal merit. Will be thrown out of court as baseless."
- "Go and do your politicking somewhere else ANA."
- "I am fully behind the Springboks and will support them in the World Cup. But we must as a nation accept that transformation is inevitable in the sport."
- "They are ignoring the demographics in SA...most of the police, army (and other institutions) have been transformed but rugby is sacred to these morons."