Was last week a particularly dull one for the news gleaners? Is it that, with the World Summit pending, media commentators are saving energy by going into two-dimensional mode? Or have we South Africans finally entirely lost the plot?
I am talking about the over-the-top display of ersatz patriotism that has followed Pieter van Zyl’s one-man “invasion” (for that’s the word everyone’s been using) of the field at the recent New Zealand/South Africa rugby match. If ever there was proof that we are turning into a nation of nappy-deprived ninnies surely this has been it.
I watched that match on television, in the company of a well-informed rugby fan. He was quite astonished by some of the referee’s decisions, which was rather wry as it turned out. Shortly after he made a comment along the lines of “that referee needs his arse seriously kicked”, on stormed the redoubtable Van Zyl driven by exactly the same reasoning.
As a side effect, Van Zyl’s actions have uncovered an alarming sinkhole in our national priorities. He actually deserves a medal for showing up our sports supremos and their obedient media hacks for the wankers they all are. The undignified clamour was set off within seconds of the incident by the television commentators. Hardly had Stormin’ Piet finished showing off his admirable beer-gut than these gents were carrying on like a couple of scandalised drag queens. “Oh what terrible damage to the image of South African rugby,” they screeched, clasping splayed fingers to their falsies. “Oh dear, think of the terrible damage to our chances of hosting the Rugby World Cup and other nation-building sporting events,” they whimpered, dropping their nail polish. “What will this sort of frightful behaviour say to the rest of the world about our country?”
I ask you. Some rugby lout gets so enraged by a set of dodgy referee decisions that he temporarily loses control and goes and throws himself into the middle of a pack of already enraged industrial-strength rugby forwards. That is an equal mixture of being very stupid and very brave, but that’s about all it is. In the eyes of a whole pack of jelly-baby commentators, however, Van Zyl’s one-off pet was of galactic significance. No lesser eminence than the sports minister himself, slowly erupted from his cellulite to announce that South African sport was tottering as a result. Apparently our national spine is like wet spaghetti. It bends double when some arsehole wanders on to a rugby field when he shouldn’t have.
Neither did the hoo-ha reflect too auspiciously on the physiology of the so-called rugby establishment. They were knocked right out of their hospitality suites. SA Rugby Inc put everyone to shame. Within the hour up came the frantically inarticulate Rian Oberholzer and several of his pig-eyed minions, brandishing their machismo, threatening to hang, draw and quarter Van Zyl. They still haven’t shut up.
The follow-up, particularly on SABC and e.tv, was typical. Out came the cherished tabloid slobber: “rugby terrorist”, “shameful match wrecker”, “national disgrace”. The print media weren’t too far behind.
As a nation we seem mired in a stooge-mentality where melodramatic extremes have supplanted rational priorities. It’s no wonder Van Zyl felt so strongly about our precious rugby team. Like legions of others he has been indoctrinated to the point of suffocation. He’s a victim of the myth that a whole country’s spatial equilibrium can hang on a rugby ball being kicked between two posts. In the past 20 years or so Van Zyl could hardly open a paper, look outside his car window without being confronted by full-page advertisements, billboards depicting sports heroes as national icons. Everywhere he has looked, read or listened, he has been reassured that he’s part of some contorted Spartan ideology.
The truly pestilent “invasion” — and subsequent tyranny — of sports fields has been by commerce. Cunning sponsors have distorted both perception and perspective simply because you can sell far more liquor if, by unrelenting synecdoche, you make everyone believe that every time some South African sports team wins something we have to wave our national pride in each other’s faces — while getting pissed, of course. We are now expected, almost by law, to celebrate as if we are part of some 1984 scenario where individual response is banned. Van Zyl is proof that the system works.
What has been even worse is that Van Zyl’s brief silliness has offered the perfect opportunity to commentators who see occasions like this as an excuse to flounce their moral garmentry. Some even tried to offload blame for the event on apartheid’s weary shoulders.
Van Zyl’s trespass was as about as momentous as a streaker’s. All it called for in the way of response was the sort of savage one-line bludgeon wielded by Mark Banks in his brilliant new satirical revue. Certainly not the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the grief-stricken whinging that has been its pathetic consequence.