Some people claim that athletes exist to satisfy the inchoate yearnings of the lumpen couch potato by embodying human striving — citius, altius, fortius and all that — but the bottom line is that athletes are useful, and they always have been.
To take only some recent examples: Hitler thought the 1936 Munich Olympics would demonstrate usefully the superiority of the Aryan races; instead Jesse Owens usefully won the 100m to prove that it is racing, not race, that matters in these matters.
The Chinese attended the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, defying the Soviet boycott and hastening the warming of China’s relations with the West and the restructuring of the world economy.
Closer to home, of course, the Springboks conveniently won the World Cup in 1995 and Bafana Bafana the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996 to unite the country behind a white team and a black team, respectively.
Ever since, we have been as united in sporting defeat as we are in victory. Frustration with the perennially misfiring Bafana, for example, knows no racial bounds and even the eternally uncomfortable Thabo Mbeki was in on the 2007 Rugby World Cup celebrations.
Of course, politicians understand this efficacy just as well as commercial sponsors do — and are quick to deploy it for good or ill.
Madiba used it to unite a fractious, infant democracy when he pulled on the number6 jersey in 1995. Others, from Butana Komphela to racist white fans, use it to divide.
So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, in the middle of a debate at the highest levels of the ANC over whether we need a national conversation on race, to see Caster Semenya so cruelly put to use.
In a week when white and black South Africans united to pour scorn on the global athletics establishment for questioning her sex and to celebrate a constitution that honours diversity, Julius Malema understood that he could put the young woman from Limpopo to work.
White South Africans, had not, he suggested, showed up in adequate numbers to welcome her home.
In less time than it takes Semenya to get around a track, the tone of national celebration and unity in defiance turned sour and we returned to the tired, frayed battles of talk radio, opinion columns and blogs, staring out at one another from our usual bunkers.
Malema mouthed off. So did Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Athletics South Africa boss Leonard Chuene.
But one voice was not heard in the hubbub — the famously deep tones of Semenya herself. Apparently she is strong enough to crush the competition, but not to speak to the public.
It was only at the prompting of President Jacob Zuma that she said a few words and they were the words of a competitor: ”I killed them in the last 200 metres.”
As long as she keeps winning, Semenya is going to be useful to people. To politicians, to her sponsors, to gender activists who see in her as a triumph over rigidly stereotyped identities. She will be deployed for good, or for ill, and ultimately she may learn to control the process herself — deciding for how much cash and for what causes she makes her talents available.
That won’t stop the Malemas of the world from trying to take control of the situation, but we can do worse than ignore them, which is that much easier to do when South Africans are winning.
Fortunately, it now looks safe to declare that the winning bug has ÂÂseriously infected our sports teams.
Graeme Smith and the Proteas are now officially the best team in both Test and One Day cricket, ending the almost uninterrupted domination of our old adversaries, Australia. A comfortable three-point cushion separates Mickey Arthur’s team from the chasing pack.
Our 800m gold medallists, Semenya and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, as well as Khotso Mokoena in the long jump, as well as three swimmer’s medals in Rome and one at the canoe sprint in Canada, have all but erased the memory of a miserable Beijing Olympics. Twelve medals for South Africa in 2012 now looks a plausible target, not just a euphonious one.
And the Springboks, not withstanding the carping, sometimes racist criticism of their coach, have been brilliant of late, beating the much-fancied British Lions and winning all their home fixtures in the ÂÂTri-Nations. A win in Australia this weekend would leave the defending world champions just one point away from the Tri-Nations title.
Even Bafana, their poor showing against Serbia notwithstanding, are much improved and the prospect of embarrassment at next year’s World Cup showcase seems diminished.
For now, though, what South Africa really needs is the example of a ruthless winner who stared down the IAAF and the international media to win and went on to declare: ”I killed them in the last 200 metres.”
It’s not just the trying that matters, or the elaborate excuses for yet another nearly-there performance, but the victory. As we struggle to face down a global recession it’s not just in sport that we need a little more of that attitude.