Sign up with Google
Creag
The Boar's Rock
- Joined
- May 19, 2009
- Messages
- 43,526
From being scouted at Dale College to carrying kit bags and being told to learn Afrikaans, a young man's dreams turned sour
Malwande Mhamhe | 04 June 2015
Let’s talk about our national rugby team and its inability to racially mirror the demographics of South Africa and why this is. You see, I am one of many young black rugby players who was offered and awarded a professional rugby contract on merit. Mine was from a Gauteng Super Rugby franchise, having been scouted from one of the grand rugby playing schools in the Eastern Cape, Dale College Boys High, which is renowned for producing the best players of colour from Makhaya Ntini, Monde Zondeki, Bandise Maku, Bjorn Basson, to Gcobani Bobo, just to name but a few.
I signed the deal with the hopes and aspirations of playing top level rugby and tapping into greater realms of my abilities. However, upon my arrival my dreams turned sour. They turned sour when I realised I would be another black statistic who spends the greater time of his junior contract warming the bench and carrying tackle bags, never really being given a shot to prove themselves. My talents were suffocated and marginalised as a result of limited opportunity and exclusion from team sheets. After much investigation and frustration stemming from me trying to decipher the real reasons for these exclusions, at first I was told I “need to learn Afrikaans if I want to further my career at this union” but I couldn’t accept this.
Inevitably if there are two players of similar ability, the coach would always choose the white guy, you see he knows how to get the best out of the white guy, because he can identify with him, he will not select the other guy because he is going to have to spend time getting to know him so that he knows which buttons to push to get the best from him. Undeniably I could sense a general cynicism about my presence from teammates and a premature lack of confidence or a covert stereotypical “Swart seun, gaan sokker speel” attitude from the coaching staff.
You see, something we cannot be naïve about is that pre-1994, rugby was the ultimate symbol of oppression, it was championed and cherished by its predominantly Afrikaans administrators. Now post liberation it’s almost as if these administrators committed themselves by oath to a certain unalterable doctrine in order to perpetuate an endless guardianship of this system, just short of a “whites only ” type system.
The present national team may be presented as belonging to a certain era of this country that is not in sync with racial demographics of this wonderful country. The present must be interrogated in an attempt to decrypt in it the undue South African rugby system where black athletes are undermined based on their political economy of their race in the sport.
We know that the great promise or the great hope of a just and equal society was fulfilled in many regards, but perhaps we have been a little too passive in the quest for national teams that truly constitute the rainbow nation. When a countryman is writing for his people and uses the past he must do so with the intention of opening up the future, of fostering hope and spurring his words into action, but in order to secure hope and give his cause substance, he must take part in the action and commit himself body and soul to the national struggle.
What I and many others like myself seek to do is nothing less than to shift the foundations upon which the South African rugby system is built — foundations of white supremacy. Now let me touch on the quota system, a plan of action imposed by our Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Fikile Mbalula, to balance the unbalanced, to aid the problem of unequal opportunities. I know there is much debate about this; I reject the view of some that this process of transformation will happen naturally. Look, the quota system has faced a lot of criticism, but by who? And why? You see a statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly, because there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around parliament and the press. He has to prove that his every single step is well-founded and flawless. Actually an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself from the beginning.
Source: http://www.rdm.co.za/sport/2015/06/...-s-painful-encounter-with-the-racism-of-rugby
The Dale College first rugby team on May 19, 2011. Pictured are back row, from left, Bangi Kobese (capt), Somila Jho, Jason Buchholz, Abongile Mnyaka, Brandon Kemp, Tino Zukeyo, Malwande Mhamhe, Siyamthanda Gushelo, Siphumelele Msutwana and Sibanye Bukani. Front: Maliviwe Simanga, Achumile Mashalaba, Linda Zindela, Ayabonga Masiba, Siviwe Soyizwapi and Zinzo Tom. Picture: GALLO IMAGES / DAILY DISPATCH / MARK ANDREWS
Malwande Mhamhe | 04 June 2015
Let’s talk about our national rugby team and its inability to racially mirror the demographics of South Africa and why this is. You see, I am one of many young black rugby players who was offered and awarded a professional rugby contract on merit. Mine was from a Gauteng Super Rugby franchise, having been scouted from one of the grand rugby playing schools in the Eastern Cape, Dale College Boys High, which is renowned for producing the best players of colour from Makhaya Ntini, Monde Zondeki, Bandise Maku, Bjorn Basson, to Gcobani Bobo, just to name but a few.
I signed the deal with the hopes and aspirations of playing top level rugby and tapping into greater realms of my abilities. However, upon my arrival my dreams turned sour. They turned sour when I realised I would be another black statistic who spends the greater time of his junior contract warming the bench and carrying tackle bags, never really being given a shot to prove themselves. My talents were suffocated and marginalised as a result of limited opportunity and exclusion from team sheets. After much investigation and frustration stemming from me trying to decipher the real reasons for these exclusions, at first I was told I “need to learn Afrikaans if I want to further my career at this union” but I couldn’t accept this.
Inevitably if there are two players of similar ability, the coach would always choose the white guy, you see he knows how to get the best out of the white guy, because he can identify with him, he will not select the other guy because he is going to have to spend time getting to know him so that he knows which buttons to push to get the best from him. Undeniably I could sense a general cynicism about my presence from teammates and a premature lack of confidence or a covert stereotypical “Swart seun, gaan sokker speel” attitude from the coaching staff.
You see, something we cannot be naïve about is that pre-1994, rugby was the ultimate symbol of oppression, it was championed and cherished by its predominantly Afrikaans administrators. Now post liberation it’s almost as if these administrators committed themselves by oath to a certain unalterable doctrine in order to perpetuate an endless guardianship of this system, just short of a “whites only ” type system.
The present national team may be presented as belonging to a certain era of this country that is not in sync with racial demographics of this wonderful country. The present must be interrogated in an attempt to decrypt in it the undue South African rugby system where black athletes are undermined based on their political economy of their race in the sport.
We know that the great promise or the great hope of a just and equal society was fulfilled in many regards, but perhaps we have been a little too passive in the quest for national teams that truly constitute the rainbow nation. When a countryman is writing for his people and uses the past he must do so with the intention of opening up the future, of fostering hope and spurring his words into action, but in order to secure hope and give his cause substance, he must take part in the action and commit himself body and soul to the national struggle.
What I and many others like myself seek to do is nothing less than to shift the foundations upon which the South African rugby system is built — foundations of white supremacy. Now let me touch on the quota system, a plan of action imposed by our Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Fikile Mbalula, to balance the unbalanced, to aid the problem of unequal opportunities. I know there is much debate about this; I reject the view of some that this process of transformation will happen naturally. Look, the quota system has faced a lot of criticism, but by who? And why? You see a statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly, because there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around parliament and the press. He has to prove that his every single step is well-founded and flawless. Actually an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself from the beginning.
Source: http://www.rdm.co.za/sport/2015/06/...-s-painful-encounter-with-the-racism-of-rugby
The Dale College first rugby team on May 19, 2011. Pictured are back row, from left, Bangi Kobese (capt), Somila Jho, Jason Buchholz, Abongile Mnyaka, Brandon Kemp, Tino Zukeyo, Malwande Mhamhe, Siyamthanda Gushelo, Siphumelele Msutwana and Sibanye Bukani. Front: Maliviwe Simanga, Achumile Mashalaba, Linda Zindela, Ayabonga Masiba, Siviwe Soyizwapi and Zinzo Tom. Picture: GALLO IMAGES / DAILY DISPATCH / MARK ANDREWS
Last edited:
