THE RACE TO TRANSFORM SPORT IN POST - APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA Edited by Ashwin Desai Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za First published 2010 ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2319-6 ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2320-2 ISBN (e-pub) 978-0-7969-2321-9 © 2010 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council. Copyedited by Karen Press Typeset by Baseline Publishing Services Cover by Fuel Design Printed by printer, Cape Town, South Africa Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477; Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Contents Acronyms and abbreviations iv Acknowledgements vii 1 Introduction: Long run to freedom? 1 Ashwin Desai 2 Creepy crawlies, portapools and the dam(n)s of swimming transformation 14 Ashwin Desai and Ahmed Veriava 3 Inside ‘the House of Pain’: A case study of the Jaguars Rugby Club 56 Ashwin Desai and Zayn Nabbi 4 ‘Transformation’ from above: The upside-down state of contemporary South African soccer 80 Dale T. McKinley 5 Women’s bodies and the world of football in South Africa 105 Prishani Naidoo and Zanele Muholi 6 Jumping over the hurdles: A political analysis of transformation measures in South African athletics 146 Justin van der Merwe 7 Beyond the nation? Colour and class in South African cricket 176 Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed 8 Between black and white: A case study of the KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union 222 Goolam Vahed, Vishnu Padayachee and Ashwin Desai Contributors 259 Index 261 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za iv Acronyms and abbreviations  – Annual General Meeting  – African National Congress  – Athletics South Africa  – Amateur Swimming Association of South Africa  – Board of Control for Cricket in India  – Black Economic Empowerment  – Confederation of African Football  – Chief Executive Ocer  – Concerned Group of Cricketers  – Council of Southern Africa Football Associations  – Congress of South African Trade Unions  – Cricket South Africa  – Durban and District Cricket Union  – Department of Education  – Department of Sport and Recreation  – Department of Water Aairs and Forestry  – European Union  – Football Association of South Africa  – Forum for the Empowerment of Women  – Federation of International Football Associations  – Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur  – Gauteng Cricket Board  – Growth, Employment and Redistribution  – International Association of Athletics Federations  – International Cricket Council  – Indian Cricket League  – International Olympic Council  – Indian Premier League Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za v  – International Rugby Board  – KwaZulu-Natal  – KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union  – KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Union  – Mass Democratic Movement  – Non-Aligned Movement in Cricket  – Natal Cricket Association  – Natal Cricket Board  – National Executive Committee  – National Olympic Council of South Africa  – Natal Rugby Board  – National Sports Congress (late 1980s and early 1990s)  – National Sports Council (from the late 1990s)  – Provincial Monitoring Committee  – Premier Soccer League  – Reconstruction and Development Programme  – South African Amateur Athletics Board  – South African Amateur Athletics Congress  – South African Amateur Athletics Union  – South Africa Amateur Swimming Association  – South African Amateur Swimming Congress  – South African Amateur Swimming Union  – South African Amateur Swimming Federation  – South African Cricket Board  – South African Cricket Board of Control  – South African Council on Sport  – South African Communist Party  – South African Cricket Union Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za vi  – South African Football Association  – South African National Amateur Swimming Association  – South African Non-racial Olympic Committee  – South African Rugby Board  – South African Rugby Football Union  – South African Road Running Association  – South African Rugby Union  – South African Sports Commission  – South African Soccer Federation  – South African Soccer League  – South African Women’s Football Association  – South African Women’s Soccer Association  – Swimming South Africa  – Transformation and Anti-racism Committee  – Transformation Monitoring Committee  – United Cricket Board of South Africa  – University of Cape Town  – United Kingdom  – United Nations Development Programme  – United States  – United Schools Sports Association of South Africa Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za vii Acknowledgements     a wide-ranging research project on racial redress in post-apartheid South Africa. The study was undertaken by researchers in the Democracy and Governance research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), in collaboration with researchers drawn from inside and outside the academy. We would like to express our appreciation to a number of donors for their involvement in the project: the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the Konrad Adenauer Foundation; the Development Bank of Southern Africa; CAGE, the joint European Union –South African funding facility for research located in the National Treasury, and the parliamentary grant of the HSRC. Without their generous contributions, the research on which this book is based would not have been possible. The authors would also like to thank the people who agreed to be interviewed and made valuable documentation available. Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 1 …the level playing field is enclosed within a society which is anything but level. Access to the level playing field has always been unequal… But there is a sting in the tail. On sport’s level playing field, it is possible to challenge and overturn the dominant hierarchies of nation, race and class…The level playing field can be either a prison or a platform for liberation. (Marqusee 1995: 5)    - South Africa witnessed a proliferation of writing on the value of sport in breaking down racial barriers and building a united nation. This was given incredible impetus in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 Rugby World Cup victory. Most dramatically, Nelson Mandela appeared at Ellis Park in a Springbok jersey, signalling the acceptance of this decades-long symbol of oppression as a national emblem for the rugby team. At the same time, this gesture was about more than the acceptance of a national emblem. Rugby, the symbol of Afrikaner nationalism, at once became the sport that would help to catalyse the building of a ‘rainbow nation’ predicated on a common identity, a common sense of ‘South Africanness’. This project can be best summed up in a 1 Introduction: Long run to freedom? Ashwin Desai Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za 2 the race to transform: sport in post-apartheid south africa comment originally made by Massimo d’Azeglio in 1870 in the context of the political unification of Italy: ‘We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians’ (D’Azeglio, cited in Hobsbawm 1996: 257). Inscribed in this nation- building project was also a commitment from the African National Congress ()-led government to address the brutal legacy of apartheid. This promise to redress the conditions of existence of those who had been oppressed under apartheid came to be captured in a simple but evocative  slogan: ‘A Better Life For All’. The party’s Reconstruction and Development Programme () of 1994 promised a heady mix of measures to address the expectations of the majority of South Africans, for whom poverty and minimal life chances were still a daily reality ( 1994). The  specifically addressed sport and recreation, referring to it as ‘[o]ne of the cruellest legacies of apartheid’ and signalling an emphasis on ‘the provision of facilities at schools and in communities where there are large concentrations of unemployed youth’. As was the way with the , the document tempered this commitment with the recognition that ‘sport is played at dierent levels of competence and there are dierent specific needs at dierent levels’ ( 1994: 72–73). While in the aftermath of the 1995 World Cup it appeared that everyone could be part of ‘a talismanic club of equality’ (Cape Times 26 June 1995), the challenge of redress and change would see sport become, over the next decade and a half, an arena of intense engagement and contestation. In discussions and debates around policy formulation for a ‘new’ South Africa, two approaches that could broadly be labelled ‘reformative’ and ‘transformative’ emerged. The transformative project sought to fundamentally transform the way society was structured; its economic emphasis was best captured in the popular slogan ‘growth through redistribution’. In sport, this emphasis would mean a bottom-up, mass- based approach, a position exemplified by Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile in 2004: Our focus will be to build the right attitude and skills from below. In our view the starting place to achieve this is to get the basics Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za [...]... that: the entire analogy of two economies is itself misleading for it assumes the existence of a Chinese wall between the two; the one having nothing to do with the other…But what if, to stick with the 6 the race to transform: sport in post-apartheid south africa analogy, the policy reforms and interventions of the irst economy is [sic] what creates the poverty and immiseration of the second? The ANC... after the uniication of the national rugby boards The story of Jaguars provides important insights into the continuing salience of race and class, the legacy of apartheid geography and the ‘unintended’ consequences of transformation, which can rebound on the very constituency that policies are designed to beneit Important in the story of Jaguars is the erosion of school rugby in the areas closest to the. .. strategies have shaped the modern face of the sport, and the extent to which they meaningfully address the racial and class imbalances that characterise swimming in South Africa today The inal section presents some recommendations for strategies that could take transformation of the sport beyond the levels already attained 16 the race to transform: sport in post-apartheid south africa The birth of black... in the global economy Many of the major interventions made by our government over the years have sought to address this ‘irst world economy’, to ensure that it develops in the right direction, at the right pace the successes we have scored with regard to the ‘irst world economy’ also give us the possibility to attend to the problems posed by the ‘third world economy’, which exists side by side with the. .. re-admission to the Olympics, Van der Merwe dissects the highs and lows of the broad transformation agenda in South African sport The chapter then uses this national backdrop to present a fascinating case study of the Worcester Athletics Club, based in the Boland in the Western Cape province The chapter provides insights into the way that old apartheid racial categories persist as well as get challenged at the. .. assessment of the success of swimming in meaningfully resolving the contradictions that have plagued the sport, and our society more generally The chapter is divided into four sections The irst section focuses on the political history of the sport under apartheid; the second centres on the unity process, and the manner in which this process has inluenced the contexts of transformation In the third section... on the neglect of black swimming during the apartheid era, and the struggle by black sportspeople to develop a culture of competitive swimming, given that by 1977 there was not a single Olympic-size swimming pool available to African swimmers The chapter then sets out in fascinating detail the story of the fractious process that led to the establishment of a single controlling body for the sport’ The. .. on the subject in 1967 However, by the 1970s international pressures had forced the apartheid government into trying to represent its policies in a more palatable way to the international community The year 1970 was a turning point In that year South Africa was expelled from the Olympic movement, the irst expulsion of any country in the history of the movement; it also became known as the year of the. .. swimmers The chapter explores the growing tension between the drive to create a grassroots culture of swimming and pressure to produce black Olympic qualiiers and medallists Chapter Three, by Ashwin Desai and Zayn Nabbi, focuses on the Jaguars, the only black rugby club in the premier division in KwaZulu-Natal The chapter traces the history of the club, its courageous attempts to ‘keep going’ during apartheid... to assess the transformatory project of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA), now known as Cricket South Africa (CSA), by excavating the limitations and potential of their development programme The last part 10 the race to transform: sport in post-apartheid south africa of the chapter looks at the changing face of international cricket, especially the growing global reach of the Indian Premier . between the two; the one having nothing to do with the other…But what if, to stick with the Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za introduction: Long run to. pool available to African swimmers. The chapter then sets out in fascinating detail the story of the fractious process that led to the establishment