Go easy on the Springboks

It seems a lifetime since Brand SA brought us its stirring “Alive with Possibility” PSA.  The ad built a reasonably convincing and emotive case for why South Africans should believe in the future.   And even though one prominent economist told me at the time that he was only “cautiously optimistic” about our chances  – the ad persuaded me.

Fast forward to September 2016.  South Africa had just lost to Australia in a terrible display of rugby in Brisbane and there was much gnashing of teeth.  In particular, Twitter seethed with vitriol.  “What's the big deal?” an American friend said to me with a shrug, “where I come from it’s rare to see your team win as often as people expect the Springboks to win”.  I could have slapped him but thought better of it – we were, after all, preparing to go into a meeting.  Perhaps another day.

But that’s just the point.  The Springboks ARE expected to win every game even though the stats suggest that despite two World Cups and a sprinkling of Tri Nations titles, they are likely to win less than 7 games out of 10 – a lot less in fact.  There's no logic to it.

It’s a bizarre fixation when you consider that while our great rugby crisis is unfolding, our universities are burning (and may never recover) and that as many as 5 million children will go to bed hungry tonight – many within a 10km radius of where you live.  To say nothing of Nkandla, the EFF and the NPA.  We are becoming, it would seem, the land of impossibility yet the state of a national sports team ranks right up there with other national emergencies.

 4 Weeks ago, I set out to investigate why.  Over 20 focus groups in 5 major cities and 15 interviews with prominent rugby personalities took me down the rabbit hole that is rugby in South Africa

 At first there were no surprises.  Rugby is a type of social currency.  Even 50 000 fans at Kings Park could not be deterred from having a good afternoon last Saturday despite one of the most humiliating losses in Springbok history.  Rugby is beer, braai and boerewors.  Rugby is a story to tell and a tale to share.  Rugby is our big day out and an excuse to wear an ill-fitting green jersey.  “It is a pretext to stay in touch with one another” – said a young white man from Randburg.  “Win or lose we come together”.  When we invite a foreign friend to our local Currie Cup fixture what we are really doing is giving them a window on our world.

 Then things got a little deeper.  I found that Rugby puts us on the map, provides the perfect canvas to show the world what we’re made of.  And I don’t mean hard tackles and the odd bout of fisticuffs.  Those much-televised Mandela/Pienaar moments were so special because there was the perfect distillation of our national soul – muddied though it may be by recent events.  (By the way, if you were wondering what Mandela said to Rugby’s bad boy James Small moments before the kick-off the answer lies in a book by Dan Retief called “The Springboks and the Holy Grail”.  He said: “my son has a picture of you on his wall James.  He tells me you have a tough fight today against Lomu – he said that if anyone can stop him it’s you”.  I mean – how could we NOT have won?)

 And then things got dark.

 We are a frightened people.  I knew it before setting out but I had no real grasp of the scale of it.  We fear Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema, the #feesmustfall movement, the falling Rand…we fear what may happen to Pravin Gordhan and much more besides.  But these pale into insignificance next to our greatest fear – that we might one day become a nation of nobodies - a junk bond nation.  Comic relief for our friends who have emigrated.  It’s a deeply existential problem actually.  As one depressed fiftysomething resident of Fish Hoek put it, “I’m at the bottom of the food chain and there’s no way out”. 

This is not uncharted territory for us.  In the grim twilight of apartheid, we were literally an obscure nation – known only for the wrong things.  But no matter.   We had a legendary rugby team and test matches were our middle finger to the world.  “Slap all the sanctions you want on us but we will prevail – and should you be so unfortunate as to meet us on the Rugby field we will crush you”.  In this sense, rugby (more precisely winning test rugby) was, in the words of Von Clausewitz, a continuation of politics by other means.

But that was then – what about now?  We are no longer the pariah state we once were.  There’s been a reasonably satisfying flow of success on the rugby field since readmission.  So why do we spend sleepless nights excruciating about the recent developments in rugby?  “It’s like they’ve taken something away from us,” lamented one fan at my local country club after the Wallabies won in Brisbane.  Who he meant by “they” I can only guess but he resembled someone who had just lost something of great importance. 

 It’s simple really.   We behave, for the most part, like a helpless people.  The forces that threaten to tear our nation apart represent too big a fight for Joe Public.   At best we resort to slacktivism on Facebook or spoil a vote or two in the local elections. Those macro forces from which we cower are alive and well in our beloved pastime too:  mismanagement, high-level race politics and a maze of other leadership issues. 

Enter the Springboks.

A test win – no matter how ground out – is the middle finger to “them” – who are doing all “they” can to blot out the future – to hijack our way of life.  For many whites the Springboks are, quite literally, the “Thin Green Line” that patrols and defends the meniscus of hope that remains in our land.  About the only force that comes closer to defending the pride and hope of a nation would be the Marines or the Navy Seals.

In Greek mythology there is a tale of one Sisyphus who, punished by the Gods for his self aggrandisement and deceitfulness was forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back and hit him, repeating this action for eternity.  Nothing describes the burden our national team better.  

There’s a picture I really enjoy, taken moments after Japan beat South Africa in the 2015 World Cup opening rounds.  It presents a very different supporters mindset.  One that is as secure in the destiny of his country as he is in the destiny of his team - though he loves rugby, he seems to see the bigger picture.  That guy really has it.   If only I could be like that guy.