Proudly South African again!

Just when we need it most, hope has burst on to the South African scene in the form of the sunshine start of the 2008 rugby season.

While our politicians are indubitably the scum of the earth, a malignant, avaricious cANCer and the archetypal kakistocracy, and our organs of the state are terminally leprous with corruption and maladministration, our sportsmen and -women in general, and rugby in particular, have been radiant lights for 14 years.

Together with our Olympic successes, rugby is the only South African activity in which we have consistently topped world rankings. There have been three iconic instances when we were truly one united, jubilant, triumphant, hopeful nation — one was the 1994 elections and the other two have been rugby victories.

Okay, so we had quite a cool economy for a while until Zuma the Doomer arrived. Now we face investment pull-out (or at least stagnation), negative credit ratings, hyper-inflation and infrastructure collapse. We have a great Constitution that is sadly under attack from all sides by the ANC and its demonic communist disciples. We had battalions of exceptional brains until they all had to leave for better opportunities (have you noticed the sudden explosion of homes for sale in virtually every suburb in Jo’burg?).

Even our vaunted soccer boys Bafana Bafana and their costly coach have so far proved woefully disappointing.

But, rugby. There we remain almost untouchable — on the field, at least.

Why is it that just about any good thing we start in this country gets itself fubar the moment administrators get involved? Craig Venter and the rest of the gene geniuses need to isolate this loathsome “administrator” gene and excise it from the human genome with immediate effect.

While they’re at it, they can find cures for the common cold, cANCer, HIV/Aids, depression (I had to slip that in) and whatever it is in the upholstery of BMWs and Mercedes Benzes that instantly transmogrify otherwise good, sane and compassionate people into homicidal, obnoxious, malignant road infestations.

We haven’t had a bad cricket season, but our legacy of choking and failing to sustain the top spot, now occupied by Australia (spit, spit, puke, puke), has become an albatross.

This weekend saw the start of the Super 14 series, arguably the toughest international sport series in the world. And the South African teams — reigning champs the indomitable Blue Bulls, the surprising Lions, the all-African Cheetahs, a fierce new Stormers outfit and the voracious Sharks — looked very sharp.

Compared to the antipodean sides that played this weekend — the Western Force, Reds, Highlanders, Chiefs, Waratahs, Blues, Crusaders, Brumbies and Hurricanes — we have a damned fine chance of showering ourselves in glory once again. And that is despite the fact that, following the climactic IRB Rugby World Cup in France last year — which we won! — many of the great names of recent rugby from all three Sanzar countries (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia) will not be playing in this year’s Super 14.

This brings a torrent of new young blood and the welcome return of many of the sidelined players from last year. And, thankfully, a large number of those players are black or coloured or whatever they’re supposed be called today.

Here’s hoping the pernicious and inevitably destructive politicos keep their unwelcome noses out of rugby and let the likes of Gcobani Bobo, Ricky January, the flashy new Zane Kirchner, JP Pietersen, Tondurai Chivanga, Kabamba Floors, Bryan Habana and Tendai “Beast” Mtawarira — to name only a few — show the world what they’re made of.

There is another reason to celebrate rugby. Despite the malignant, self-serving political interference, perennial administrative bungling and in-fighting, the sport has delivered on its promises and the sides that ran on to the fields this weekend were more representative than ever before — certainly “better transformed” than soccer — and there were no quota passengers.

Rugby is showing the way for the rest of the country — even the crowds are more multicoloured than in any other sport (except maybe cricket). Former bulwarks of whites-only rugby Afrikanerdom such as Loftus Versfeld and Free State Stadium (their crass commercial names still stick in my craw like a high tackle) are now happily shared by as ferocious and dedicated black spectators and supporters, young and not-so-young.

Maybe there are still, as poet Breyten Breytenbach so eloquently put it, “fokkops en foos kolle”, but rugby and its ultimate emblem, the Springbok, have triumphed through it all.

The ANC needs to take a lesson from that and change its outdated, war-loving, shield-and-spear emblem and try the 21st century for a change. Anyone who watched Feargal Keane’s exceptional piece of journalism on Carte Blanche last night and squirmed with embarrassment at the babbling, mumbling, illogical buffoons Frank “You Know I’m Lying If My Lips Move” Chikane and old Showerhead the Crook himself knows how badly the ANC needs to update its calendar.

Where just about every facet of South Africa today — most notably the loud-mouthed, boorish politicians — has failed to deliver, rugby has. It is now the sport to be emulated.

I was able to watch most of the games this weekend, and I was so damned proud to be a South African again.