timschochet
Footballguy
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/04/08/is-the-anc-now-the-party-of-hendrik-verwoerd
“THE moral position is absolutely clear. Human beings should not be willing partners in perpetuating a system of racial discrimination. Sportsmen have a special duty in this regard in that they should be first to insist that merit, and merit alone, be the criterion for selecting teams for representative sport. Indeed, nondiscrimination is such an essential part of true sportsmanship that many clubs and international bodies have expressed provisions to this effect. For example, the first fundamental principle of the Olympic Charter states: no discrimination is allowed against country or person on the grounds of race, religion or political affiliation.”
You might balk at the suggestion that idealistic sentiment belongs to the African National Congress (ANC), given the dogged attitude it has demonstrated with regard to quotas in sport, but it does indeed.
ANC stalwart Abdul Minty put it to the United Nations’ Unit on Apartheid on May 25 1971. It formed part of an impassioned appeal by the ANC to the UN to continue the international boycott of South African sport, on the grounds that the teams it chose were white only and players of colour stood no chance under apartheid law of representing their country.
All of this moral idealism seems to have been forgotten by the ANC of today, however, which, according to Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula, is introducing a set of stringent quota requirements for national sports teams.
According to The Times, a series of resolutions taken by the department, following a meeting between the minister and provincial MECs, aims to “increase the 50-50 quota system to 60% representation after noting a ‘lack of willingness in implementing transformation, especially the enforcement of quotas’”. They will apply to the most popular sports, including rugby, cricket, netball, athletics and football.
Mbalula said: “(We will) withdraw the national colours of any federation that is hell-bent on the current set-up and status quo.”
How the worm turns. Where once the ANC argued that South Africa’s international sporting privileges should be revoked because the country advocated racial exclusionism, now an ANC government is threatening to withdraw the international credentials of its own teams because it demands racial quotas. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
And don’t misunderstand the impulse that underpins this move. There is a crystal-clear belief inside the current ANC that there is no longer anything wrong with racial engineering “in principle” (the moral position to which Minty referred). Quite the opposite; in the ANC’s hands, racial engineering is now punted as a moral virtue.
Consider, by way of illustration, the remark made in November last year by Enoch Godongwana, the ANC’s transformation chairman. He said then that “(apartheid architect Hendrik) Verwoerd used the quota system, therefore we should too! We unashamedly say we will use quotas.” Put another way, the ANC has no problem with the morality of what Verwoerd did, only with the fact that black South Africans suffered at the hands of those policies. Now, they should benefit from them.
Minty, for one, would have disagreed. He said to the UN in 1971: “All links with racialist bodies should be abolished until sport inside South Africa is conducted on the basis of merit alone and not of colour.” For the ANC of 1971, there was a principle at play, a “clear moral choice”. The ANC of 2014 appears to have little time for that kind of moral sentimentality.
It is remarkable the effect that history has on principle. The Democratic Alliance (DA) is today the party of Thabo Mbeki. Who could have imagined such a scenario in, say, 2004, when Mbeki was at the height of his powers and the DA would structure an entire election campaign around opposing him? In turn, the ANC has become the party of Verwoerd, openly evoking his name to defend its policies.
The nature of any debate about quotas is that it acts like a set of ideological blinkers. It narrows discussion down to binary opposites. Development, for one, is rarely brought into the equation.
The ANC has had 20 years in government. That it has failed to produce a generation of young black stars in that time tells you one of two things: either it is useless (the entire national government is now demographically representative) or some dark unseen force is resisting it (which would make it difficult to explain why various sporting codes embrace any black talent that comes their way, falling over themselves to capitalise on any such opportunity, given the pressure they are under).
The truth is no sporting code actively seeks to ignore or isolate black players. They couldn’t be more desperate for them. But these players just aren’t being produced. And so for the ANC to turn to quotas is for it to admit its own grand incompetence. That and an admission that sports such as cricket and rugby just simply do not appeal to black South Africans in the way they do to their white counterparts.
The world over there exist examples of different cultures embracing different sports to different degrees. The US basketball team is dominated by black Americans. You don’t see Barack Obama trying to impose quotas. Of course there are black South Africans genuinely and authentically interested in cricket and rugby. All strength to them; they should be given every opportunity to excel at their chosen profession. But, if after 20 years of governance the numbers just aren’t coming through, that tells you the sport is simply of limited appeal to particular groups.
Here is a question: how much money has been spent in Gauteng on the transformation of cricket? The total must be hundreds of millions of rand. You cannot read a Gauteng cricket statement without reference to a new programme or development scheme dedicated to promoting young black talent. Now, consider this question: how many black Protea cricketers have come out of Gauteng in the past 20 years?
The problem is not one of money or dedication; it is about culture and personal preference. And, actually, that isn’t a problem at all. It is remarkable how much time the ANC spends telling South Africa how wonderful our diversity is — how our difference is our strength. But, actually, it hates diversity. The ANC hates difference. It wants everyone to be the same in every way. Every black South African must love cricket and rugby just as much as every white South African. We must all be alike — robotic, generic archetypes of an ideal racial stereotype the ANC holds in its head.
Ask most professional black sportsmen and -women what they think of this kind of assumption. They find it just as insulting as they do the notion that they should sacrifice winning in the name of a political programme.
In a wonderfully authentic and personal interview with the Sunday Independent in 2005, former Springbok winger Breyton Paulse set it all out:
“People should not use us as tokens. It is so discriminating. It is against our integrity.... You start to doubt yourself and negative things creep into your mind. People have been put in there because of their colour, and that is wrong. You can’t just put someone in. You must give the players a support structure and provide the opportunity for them to help themselves get to where they want to be. This tokenism is definitely wrong and will create divisions in the team. Supporters are also fed up with it. People are not stupid; they cannot be fooled. You cannot play with reality. Obviously, after democracy, transformation was going to happen, and originally I supported it. But the manner in which it has come across has been wrong for both sides. There is a better way you can nurture people. You can’t just take them from the bottom and put them at the top. They must put themselves at the top. This happens ... in business.”
His view has been supported by other prominent black sporting professionals.
Former Proteas opening bowler Makhaya Ntini, for example, has said: “I do not believe in mixing politics with sport and I do not see why people still see a problem today. We already all have the same opportunities. One thing I do not want is for us to be called affirmative action players. That’s bad for black players and bad for South African cricket. I want to play first and foremost with good players, the best players, in a winning team.”
But that is just one other thing lost on the ANC — the opinions of black professional athletes themselves. It simply never occurs to the ANC that they, like every other sporting professional, want to win. They are competitive. It is why they are in sport. They do not wake up in the morning wanting to be demographically representative.
In the early 1990s, the ANC understood this. The late sport minister Steve Tshwete said in March 1994: “We cannot allow tokenism. Colour decoration (of teams) is dangerous. It will destroy young talent if you promote players simply because they are black. These players must grow through the ranks. Overnight we cannot have 11 black cricketers or 15 black rugby players. We must change gradually through an evolutionary process and not through colour decoration.”
Back then the party understood the kinds of impulses Paulse and Ntini referred to, just as Minty did in 1971. It understood that the party, if it was to create a greater number of black players, had to “grow” them, through “an evolutionary process”. That process is development, and Mbalula refuses to admit either that this has been an abject failure (for which, significantly, he attributes no blame to his government) or, given the amount of time and effort poured into transformation, that cricket and rugby simply don’t have the same kind of appeal to black South Africans as they do with white South Africans. But those really are the only two options available to him.
However, Mbalula is the worst sport minister South Africa has ever had. He is so deeply immersed in mediocrity and superficiality it is a wonder he is able to speak at all. He seems to break everything he touches. So who could rely on him to form any kind of objective opinion? When your larder is as bare as Mbalula’s, all that is left is quotas, a last-ditch attempt to generate some kind of profile and effect where he has none.
There is much more to be done in encouraging those black players interested in sports such as cricket and rugby into the fold. Even if those sports hold less interest, in a country of 50-million people it is unlikely those who do enjoy equal opportunities have had every chance to seize them.
But the minister is kidding himself if he thinks imposing a 60% quota will result in the miraculous and authentic manifestation of widespread enthusiasm for these sports. People can choose what they like in life. They don’t have to comply with the ANC’s tastes.
Right there you have the very difference between the ANC of old and the ANC of today. It is no longer interested in mere demographic representivity but in actually fashioning the personal desires and aspirations of private citizens after its own image.
That is the difference not between representativeness and development but between quotas and totalitarianism. The spirit of Verwoerd is strong in the ANC of today. Stronger than it has been in a long, long time.
“THE moral position is absolutely clear. Human beings should not be willing partners in perpetuating a system of racial discrimination. Sportsmen have a special duty in this regard in that they should be first to insist that merit, and merit alone, be the criterion for selecting teams for representative sport. Indeed, nondiscrimination is such an essential part of true sportsmanship that many clubs and international bodies have expressed provisions to this effect. For example, the first fundamental principle of the Olympic Charter states: no discrimination is allowed against country or person on the grounds of race, religion or political affiliation.”
You might balk at the suggestion that idealistic sentiment belongs to the African National Congress (ANC), given the dogged attitude it has demonstrated with regard to quotas in sport, but it does indeed.
ANC stalwart Abdul Minty put it to the United Nations’ Unit on Apartheid on May 25 1971. It formed part of an impassioned appeal by the ANC to the UN to continue the international boycott of South African sport, on the grounds that the teams it chose were white only and players of colour stood no chance under apartheid law of representing their country.
All of this moral idealism seems to have been forgotten by the ANC of today, however, which, according to Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula, is introducing a set of stringent quota requirements for national sports teams.
According to The Times, a series of resolutions taken by the department, following a meeting between the minister and provincial MECs, aims to “increase the 50-50 quota system to 60% representation after noting a ‘lack of willingness in implementing transformation, especially the enforcement of quotas’”. They will apply to the most popular sports, including rugby, cricket, netball, athletics and football.
Mbalula said: “(We will) withdraw the national colours of any federation that is hell-bent on the current set-up and status quo.”
How the worm turns. Where once the ANC argued that South Africa’s international sporting privileges should be revoked because the country advocated racial exclusionism, now an ANC government is threatening to withdraw the international credentials of its own teams because it demands racial quotas. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
And don’t misunderstand the impulse that underpins this move. There is a crystal-clear belief inside the current ANC that there is no longer anything wrong with racial engineering “in principle” (the moral position to which Minty referred). Quite the opposite; in the ANC’s hands, racial engineering is now punted as a moral virtue.
Consider, by way of illustration, the remark made in November last year by Enoch Godongwana, the ANC’s transformation chairman. He said then that “(apartheid architect Hendrik) Verwoerd used the quota system, therefore we should too! We unashamedly say we will use quotas.” Put another way, the ANC has no problem with the morality of what Verwoerd did, only with the fact that black South Africans suffered at the hands of those policies. Now, they should benefit from them.
Minty, for one, would have disagreed. He said to the UN in 1971: “All links with racialist bodies should be abolished until sport inside South Africa is conducted on the basis of merit alone and not of colour.” For the ANC of 1971, there was a principle at play, a “clear moral choice”. The ANC of 2014 appears to have little time for that kind of moral sentimentality.
It is remarkable the effect that history has on principle. The Democratic Alliance (DA) is today the party of Thabo Mbeki. Who could have imagined such a scenario in, say, 2004, when Mbeki was at the height of his powers and the DA would structure an entire election campaign around opposing him? In turn, the ANC has become the party of Verwoerd, openly evoking his name to defend its policies.
The nature of any debate about quotas is that it acts like a set of ideological blinkers. It narrows discussion down to binary opposites. Development, for one, is rarely brought into the equation.
The ANC has had 20 years in government. That it has failed to produce a generation of young black stars in that time tells you one of two things: either it is useless (the entire national government is now demographically representative) or some dark unseen force is resisting it (which would make it difficult to explain why various sporting codes embrace any black talent that comes their way, falling over themselves to capitalise on any such opportunity, given the pressure they are under).
The truth is no sporting code actively seeks to ignore or isolate black players. They couldn’t be more desperate for them. But these players just aren’t being produced. And so for the ANC to turn to quotas is for it to admit its own grand incompetence. That and an admission that sports such as cricket and rugby just simply do not appeal to black South Africans in the way they do to their white counterparts.
The world over there exist examples of different cultures embracing different sports to different degrees. The US basketball team is dominated by black Americans. You don’t see Barack Obama trying to impose quotas. Of course there are black South Africans genuinely and authentically interested in cricket and rugby. All strength to them; they should be given every opportunity to excel at their chosen profession. But, if after 20 years of governance the numbers just aren’t coming through, that tells you the sport is simply of limited appeal to particular groups.
Here is a question: how much money has been spent in Gauteng on the transformation of cricket? The total must be hundreds of millions of rand. You cannot read a Gauteng cricket statement without reference to a new programme or development scheme dedicated to promoting young black talent. Now, consider this question: how many black Protea cricketers have come out of Gauteng in the past 20 years?
The problem is not one of money or dedication; it is about culture and personal preference. And, actually, that isn’t a problem at all. It is remarkable how much time the ANC spends telling South Africa how wonderful our diversity is — how our difference is our strength. But, actually, it hates diversity. The ANC hates difference. It wants everyone to be the same in every way. Every black South African must love cricket and rugby just as much as every white South African. We must all be alike — robotic, generic archetypes of an ideal racial stereotype the ANC holds in its head.
Ask most professional black sportsmen and -women what they think of this kind of assumption. They find it just as insulting as they do the notion that they should sacrifice winning in the name of a political programme.
In a wonderfully authentic and personal interview with the Sunday Independent in 2005, former Springbok winger Breyton Paulse set it all out:
“People should not use us as tokens. It is so discriminating. It is against our integrity.... You start to doubt yourself and negative things creep into your mind. People have been put in there because of their colour, and that is wrong. You can’t just put someone in. You must give the players a support structure and provide the opportunity for them to help themselves get to where they want to be. This tokenism is definitely wrong and will create divisions in the team. Supporters are also fed up with it. People are not stupid; they cannot be fooled. You cannot play with reality. Obviously, after democracy, transformation was going to happen, and originally I supported it. But the manner in which it has come across has been wrong for both sides. There is a better way you can nurture people. You can’t just take them from the bottom and put them at the top. They must put themselves at the top. This happens ... in business.”
His view has been supported by other prominent black sporting professionals.
Former Proteas opening bowler Makhaya Ntini, for example, has said: “I do not believe in mixing politics with sport and I do not see why people still see a problem today. We already all have the same opportunities. One thing I do not want is for us to be called affirmative action players. That’s bad for black players and bad for South African cricket. I want to play first and foremost with good players, the best players, in a winning team.”
But that is just one other thing lost on the ANC — the opinions of black professional athletes themselves. It simply never occurs to the ANC that they, like every other sporting professional, want to win. They are competitive. It is why they are in sport. They do not wake up in the morning wanting to be demographically representative.
In the early 1990s, the ANC understood this. The late sport minister Steve Tshwete said in March 1994: “We cannot allow tokenism. Colour decoration (of teams) is dangerous. It will destroy young talent if you promote players simply because they are black. These players must grow through the ranks. Overnight we cannot have 11 black cricketers or 15 black rugby players. We must change gradually through an evolutionary process and not through colour decoration.”
Back then the party understood the kinds of impulses Paulse and Ntini referred to, just as Minty did in 1971. It understood that the party, if it was to create a greater number of black players, had to “grow” them, through “an evolutionary process”. That process is development, and Mbalula refuses to admit either that this has been an abject failure (for which, significantly, he attributes no blame to his government) or, given the amount of time and effort poured into transformation, that cricket and rugby simply don’t have the same kind of appeal to black South Africans as they do with white South Africans. But those really are the only two options available to him.
However, Mbalula is the worst sport minister South Africa has ever had. He is so deeply immersed in mediocrity and superficiality it is a wonder he is able to speak at all. He seems to break everything he touches. So who could rely on him to form any kind of objective opinion? When your larder is as bare as Mbalula’s, all that is left is quotas, a last-ditch attempt to generate some kind of profile and effect where he has none.
There is much more to be done in encouraging those black players interested in sports such as cricket and rugby into the fold. Even if those sports hold less interest, in a country of 50-million people it is unlikely those who do enjoy equal opportunities have had every chance to seize them.
But the minister is kidding himself if he thinks imposing a 60% quota will result in the miraculous and authentic manifestation of widespread enthusiasm for these sports. People can choose what they like in life. They don’t have to comply with the ANC’s tastes.
Right there you have the very difference between the ANC of old and the ANC of today. It is no longer interested in mere demographic representivity but in actually fashioning the personal desires and aspirations of private citizens after its own image.
That is the difference not between representativeness and development but between quotas and totalitarianism. The spirit of Verwoerd is strong in the ANC of today. Stronger than it has been in a long, long time.
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