Patriotism a swear word for South Africans?

24 June 1995 is a date that is deeply engraved in the memory of sports loving South Africans; a date in which the world officially recognised the arrival of our country as a force in the world arena; a date on which millions, glued to their screens, bore witness to the former President Nelson Mandela, wearing an oversized No. 6 green Springbok Jersey, presenting the William Ellis Cup to Francois Pienaar, who captained Amabokoboko to stunning victory against the mighty All Blacks. At that moment, at that time, the capacity crowd, predominantly white, erupted into a thunderous and deafening applause; piercing whistles, boisterous screams, ebullition of joy and all-round celebration of victory.

On every street, from the tarred and brightly lit streets of the leafy suburbs of Sandton, to the dusty and dark streets of Soweto; South Africans, black and white, united in pride and celebration of the victory with which their national team presented them. We were all proud of the national rugby team, as white as it was. It was our team and it had brought unimaginable pride even to those who never in their life imagined themselves watching and supporting rugby.

After many years when blacks and whites viewed each other with suspicion, there was at that hour, on that day, a certain illusion of Utopian unity. The images of Mandela as the embodiment of everything representing worst fears of white South Africa had at the minute, at that time, been transformed into those that embodied unity, pride and patriotism. It was as if a few years earlier there was not a mob of right wingers under the banner of the far right Volksfront, marinated in mampoer, had not threatened South Africa with war.

Like everything else, the euphoria that followed that June 24, 1995 victory dissipated into nothingness and the merciless reality of our time forced us all back to mother earth.

It became clear that sports had the capacity to unite a divided nation into one; that in all things social we can be as many as fingers and one as a hand. However, with the progression of time, we came to realise that patriotism for many South Africans is an unimaginable concept.

There are those who take pride in ridiculing their own country and derive some measure of satisfaction in seeing the projection of negativity about everything that represents them. Perhaps these are South Africans who subscribe to the ideas of George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, who remarked on patriotism that, “…to me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography,” or those of the British author, Samuel Johnson who said that, “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

I am no proponent of blind patriotism nor do I seek to promote obedience to the state, but I wish, “men loved their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own” (Seneca). None of us should be promoting psychopathic tendencies which are almost always amplified by mental instability as was evident in the likes of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs.

The Illinois Senator, Barack Obama said, “I love this country not because it’s perfect but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection. Because through revolution and slavery … generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise.”

And indeed, a certain generation of white South Africans has risked and lost their lives to defend what they wrongly perceived to be right about the country; while the other generation of black South Africans similarly did the same but to fight against what they knew to be unjust about their country. Both without doubt, however, proceeding from extreme and opposing stations, were driven by the common love for their country.

In 2003 President Mbeki responded to parliament that, “there is need to evolve that new patriotism because as an abnormal society we could never have a common patriotism, because the structural faults of our society continue to impede the fulfillment of the hopes we all share…” It is imperative that all of us refrain from propagating mutual suspicions; that we amend the structural faults of our society, in order that society can progress to normality; in order that we can have a common patriotism.

It is with such commonness of pride in our country that we should, all of us, whether black, white, coloured, Indian or Chinese, when Manchester United FC visit our shores next time (or any other foreign team for that matter), rally behind local teams, support them and cheer them to victory.