One defeat provoked less than subtle expressions of white supremacy, two released emotions constrained by the excesses of the likes of Eugene de Kock and Craig Williamson. Naively increduluous they asked each other: “You mean our side did that? Well there was communism you know.”
On the Talk At Will show, where they feel most comfortable, a Fish Hoek caller, reacting to the complaints that the South African side was too white for words, recommended two teams; one lily-white and the other ebony-black. “And then we shall see who wins.” You don’t want to know Fish Hoek. The ultra conservative ex-Rhodesian nestles there.
On the day of your second defeat, a crafter at a Cape Town market, gloating with untrammelled white supremacy, targeted me. “We can lick you guys anytime, anywhere, anyplace.” You do know who is “we” and who is “you” of course.
I wasn’t about to allow your defeat to make me swallow the bitter phlegm I involuntarily brought up while I tightened my belt, fearing the realisation of his threat. Then I reminded him of Cuito Cuinavale, where Jos Eduardo dos Santos and Fidel Castro fielded an excellent combined team of Angolans and Cubans who knew the stakes – to take the white apartheid team out of the race. As an aside, I reminded him of the second- rate black side they fielded in Angola and Mozambique. That was Renamo and Unita.
You do know of course the proud dent they took from the isles of the pristine white empire who showed them who was still boss and checked them from making rugby history and getting into the Guinness Book of Records.
One South African commentator (not, I think, the one who said that Curtly Ambrose must sleep with his head in a safe because of the gold chains he sported) likened your defeat to a champ getting into the ring with a punch- drunk has-been. A cruel and vicious metaphor describing your tame response to the culture of winning at all costs. We’ve been weaned on that culture that best describes the colonial-settler instinct to emerge as top dog. It’s all part of the continuing quest. Everything returns in new forms. The old ways were regrettably repulsive. Now they can pretend that they win for the glory of the Rainbow Nation.
No self-respecting black buys that shit. Ask Trevor Manuel.
Would you reckon the Australian “aborigine” gets all ecstatic about “his” side’s win? Same here. Blacks in the ghettoes and slums of South Africa do not celebrate the wins of white South Africa. Wherever they win, we lose.
Can you see the worth and value of their win? And the intention of their sport? It’s not a game. It’s “attritional”, as Mike Atherton called it. That should tell you a thing or two. It’s all about reinforcing definite beliefs and retailing them. The perpetuation of that myth conjures up clusters of related myths and keeps them alive and functioning. You know, like: “You know who were slaves Charlie? And who ruled for more than 400 years?”
I have never seen a West Indian team so demoralised. And believe you me, I have seen the likes of Sobers, Hunte, Khanai, Gibbs, Griffith, Hall, Kallicharan and others play like gods of the game.
Cricket and rugby are stubborn white projects here. Failing in them would be seen as a traitorous act.
Their side needs them like angels need heaven, from whence they can proclaim (and justify, I dare say) their sanctity and purity. Without heaven there are no angels. All would be reduced to banal ordinariness.
You did not deprive them of that. Indeed, unwittingly, you have sadly and sloppily collaborated in the realisation of a myth. Like a choir existing solely to sing the glory of an unseen myth.
Like a Greek chorus functioning as a curtain enhancing the performance of those occupying centre stage.
I remember what the great Muhammad Ali said of his formidable opponent George Foreman in his title fight in Congo. “Man, he was killing me, and I was letting him kill me. Until I told myself, hold it there fella, you’re the champ, you’re Muhammad Ali. He ain’t allowed to do that to you.”
On that recognition Ali defeated Foreman.
Perhaps you should see that film before you get into the next Test. And, play the game with honour. – Lawrence J Sakarai, Kalk Bay