AfriForum retreats further and further into ideological laager

It’s 2010. Eighteen years after South Africa’s re-introduction to international sports and the formal unification of sporting codes in the country. A sponsor writes to the organisation responsible for running the game it has been associated with for a quarter of a century to express its concerns over the seemingly slow pace of transformation and representivity in the sport.

And they get lashed by a conservative forum for it.

What’s wrong here? Is it the sport that still struggles to find a place for black talent? The sponsor expressing its legitimate (and in my view correct) concerns, or those who seek to punish the sponsors for highlighting an uncomfortable truth? I don’t like that we are still talking transformation in 2010. In fact I don’t like that we still need to have transformation programmes in 2010, and that for me is the real problem. That says to me there is either just not enough non-white talent in the country, a charge I’d like to see proven, or an unwillingness to transform at a very key level of the sports administration. The latter situation being easier to fix, I would think.

The “Stop Absa Quotas” campaign by AfriForum leaves me really confused. Not least because I do not know of any quotas campaign by Absa. I know SA Rugby (Saru) has a transformation strategy, as do other sporting codes, which were racially divided prior to the early 90s. I know Saru has never sought to force transformation down the throats of any sector of our community. I certainly know that transformation in rugby has not been applied to freeze out any race or community.

Look at the numbers of white talent that shines through in rugby each year. Rugby is (outside of the Eastern Cape at least) a sport still primarily played by whites and in white communities. As it will be given it’s been in those communities for over a century and is an integral part of their history. I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind, and some will argue that certainly doesn’t apply to a certain sports portfolio official, would expect to see teams that are predominantly black in the Currie Cup. Certainly that is now what the thrust of Absa’s confidential message to Saru was, but judging by the hysteria and opprobrium generated, you’d swear Absa had ordered a racial cleansing of rugby.

AfriForum has, as a mouthpiece for a large minority constituency, a special opportunity to speak out and have the voice of their community heard. They certainly give the impression of having a strong mandate to do so. The way there are going about it, however, leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Confrontational, emotional and all about the headlines. There is now talk in some quarters that Saru has sold its soul to its sponsors. How? By sharing the same views on necessary social change?

Some have pointed to the scarcity of white faces in the Bafana team and the lack of official condemnation for that, as some kind of evidence that rugby is being unfairly targeted and marginalised. Of course those of us who aware that South African football has been integrated for decades find this amusing if not insulting. The Likes of Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows, Mamelodi Sundowns etc have had black players, owners, coaches and technical staff since at least the days of the National Soccer League in the 1970s. Football has never needed transformation intervention because it has always been open.

Tell the likes of Andy Karajinski, Ted Dumitru, Eddie Lewis, Gary Bailey, Gavin Lane, Noel Cousins, the Krok brothers, the Tschiclas family, Primedia, Leon Prins, Abdul Bhamjee, Deshi Bhaktawer that football needs transformation. Tell Neil Tovey, Bafana’s most decorated skipper and one of its longest serving captains that football needs quotas because rugby had a segregated past.

The fact is that treating transformation as some kind of ANC project to drive whites and especially Afrikaners away from rugby is the kind of thinking that emanates from those who seek to keep their communities marginalised and paranoid to strengthen their relevance. I find the talk of boycotting Absa puerile and juvenile at best. I also wonder what those who seek an Absa boycott are saying about the banks they would move their business to. Is Standard Bank, Nedbank and FNB opposed to transformation? Would they want to be seen as a haven for those opposed to transformation? Certainly they are unlikely to turn away business but is that the image they want to present to South Africa and the world?

Bok legend Andre Venter got it right when he said: “AfriForum is placing unnecessary emphasis on some issues. They are worse than the ANC Youth League. They think the only way to handle these things is to create controversy, but it can backfire.” If there are concerns that a certain community is being marginalised, there are many ways of dealing with this constructively, retreating into an ideological laager is not the way.

AfriForum, and I single them out because of their profile and apparent influence, have a massive opportunity to use their position to help keep Afrikaners feeling a part of this nation and to keep flying the flag of Afrikaners as proud and loyal South Africans. They owe it to their constituency to use it productively.

This blog first appeared on www.newstime.co.za