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Travel | |
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I realized that I was witnessing something special in South African society: The "rainbow nation" was hoping that sport - the rugby team's anticipated triumph over England - would unify its diverse ethnicities and heal some of the old apartheid wounds like never before. In South Africa, and Cape Town is not an exception, sport is king. Sport also is political, and sport involves race. It determines who watches and who participates in which sports. Before the end of apartheid, in fact, soccer was the only major sport blacks could participate in without major trouble. The others - cricket, rugby, golf and swimming - were labeled "whites only." You can go to any township and you will see hundreds of blacks kicking soccer balls. You will not see many boys playing cricket or rugby. Now, because of the Springboks' international success, many South Africans, blacks included, want rugby to become the sport of all ethnicities, and they hope that it will bind the race-conscious nation.
In Paris, President Mbeki awarded the cup after the 15-6 victory over England, and the players hoisted him onto their shoulders. Even with black superstar Bryan Habana on the team, Mbeki's presence was awkward both for him and the fans. Many South Africans see the president as being too focused on race. Now, with the 2011 Rugby World Cup final to be played in Cape Town, the pressure is on to have seven black players in the starting lineup. Only two of the team's players in the regular starting lineup in France were nonwhite. A sports writer for the Cape Argus captured the nation's focus on race: "It cannot be beyond our capacity in four years to produce a better, deeper supply of black players. ... It won't be easy. Nothing in this country is easy." True. Mike Stofile, deputy president of South Africa's Rugby Union, added another level of complexity to the black quota debate when he spoke with the Cape Times: "I don't want to give a figure, but I don't agree that there should be seven black players in the team. We cannot say only seven. ... "We must be honest with ourselves and realize that there are many different communities out there who play rugby - black, white, colored, Indian and so forth. If those communities are not represented, then how can we say that we have transformed rugby?" Stofile, like many others, believes that establishing a hard quota is the only way to make rugby mirror South Africa's diverse population. As I read more about these issues and spoke with more Capetonians, I had no doubt that South Africans, like their U.S. counterparts, are trying to do the right thing for the good of society. Race and crime Each day, the press carries stories about deadly encounters of one kind or another. Rape and theft are so common that stories about them almost seem like afterthoughts. Again, as with almost everything else in South Africa, race matters when crime is at issue. For one thing, the majority of the people arrested for crimes, other than white-collar crimes, are black. Many critics of the ANC-dominated government argue that officials, some who had been imprisoned by the Nationalists, carry too much cultural baggage and anti-colonialist feelings from apartheid to be effective against crime. One crime expert says that a "psychosis of fear" is moving across the nation. One result is that business owners and others with the wealth to do so are hiring vigilantes for protection and, in many instances, to exact revenge. Each day I was in Cape Town, I read about a vigilante attack.
"To a large extent, the crime wave is the unavoidable legacy of apartheid," Cohen writes. "It reflects the forced redistribution of wealth - the violent grab for economic power that has followed the much-heralded peaceful transfer of political power. For despite the expansion of the black middle class off the back of an aggressive empowerment program, the country's wealth has remained largely in white hands. "It will take more than a decade to right the wrongs of apartheid and to narrow the monumental gap between rich and poor. But - and this is the crunch - though 10 years is but the blink of an eye in the life of a nation, it is a painfully long stretch in the lives of impatient young men who find themselves uneducated, unemployed, and without prospects. Just who has robbed whom?" I pondered Cohen's question the next day as I walked down funky Long Street looking for a place to sit in a window, watch people and drink some Western Cape wine.
Each time I visit South Africa, especially Cape Town, I learn something new about race in the United States. On this trip, I realized that where Americans engage in hypocrisy, evasion, obfuscation and denial, South Africans vigorously and honestly discuss race. Political correctness is hard to find in public discussions on the subject. I believe that over time, South Africa, not the United States, will be the international model for racial understanding and inclusiveness. |
Race and sport
The politicization of the sport began in earnest in 1995, when South Africa's teams were readmitted to the international sporting world, when the Springboks won the World Cup. The nation's first black president, Nelson Mandela, awarded the cup to the Springboks. This was an important moment, too, because the team had its first black player. Since then, race politics and talk of quotas have swirled around the team. 
By now, most of the world knows about the death of international reggae star Lucky Dube, 43, who was shot and killed in Johannesburg as he dropped off his 15-year-old son at his brother's house. Police believe that he was the victim of a botched carjacking. Four suspects have been charged with the murder and are being held in Johannesburg without bail. 
I tried to understand, through the eyes of an American black, the widespread black crime in South Africa. I found part of the answer while reading People Who Have Stolen From Me, David Cohen's 2004 book I had bought the day before. It is a true story about a white furniture store owner in Johannesburg who watched his workers, most of them black, steal from him. 
As tourists and denizens, white and nonwhite, passed my perch, I found it hard to believe that racism, deep economic inequality and serious crime could exist in such a beautiful place, in paradise. But they do exist, I was thinking, in ways that are so American, in ways that are so familiar.
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