Maybe the Quidditch broom could sweep clean

IN OTHER recent news not carried by the South African Broadcasting Corporation it would appear final preparations are under way in Frankfurt, Germany, for the 2016 International Quidditch Association World Cup which takes place there on the weekend of July 23 and 24.

A contact sport, quidditch was developed in 2005 by students from Middlebury College in Vermont based on the game featured in the Hogwarts inter-house tournament as described in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter stories.

It’s a simple business. Two teams score points by throwing a quaffle – a slightly deflated regulation-sized volleyball – through their opponents’ hoops. Beaters try to stop them from doing this by assaulting them with bludgers – more deflated balls.

The game ends when the snitch – a tennis ball in a yellow sock attached to a runner’s backside like a tail – is captured by a designated “seeker” from either team.

The chief difference between the two is that in the IQA version quidditch players do not fly on magic brooms, but run around a field with the domestic variety between their legs.

“Where’s the fun in that?” the Mahogany Ridge regulars grumbled. “If you can’t fly, you may as well be playing netball.”

In 2007, the Americans started the Quidditch World Cup. Initially, and as with baseball, they only competed against other Americans. In 2012, however, teams from Australia, France, Canada and Britain – the host nation that year – took part, making it a global event for the first time.

Next month, teams from at least 23 countries – including Uganda, this continent’s sole representatives in the tournament – will travel to Germany, hoping to wrest glory from the US, the undefeated world champions.

It is not known why a South African team won’t be there. A quick internet search revealed quidditch is played locally. Where exactly and by whom was not immediately clear. Quite why they should be so publicity shy was not known, but it could well be they fear the mocking derision of a rubgy-mad public, callously emboldened by cheap beer and boerie.

It is a great pity. A national quidditch team would have done rather well at Frankfurt. Given that scapegoating the whistle-blower is already a muchloved tradition in our public life, how difficult would it be to hunt down the snitch?

Perhaps it’s a question of transformation and, as is the case with rugby, tennis, jukskei, cricket and many other sporting codes, local teams just cannot field enough black players to satisfy Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s requirements. It could even be that the diminutive Mbaks doesn’t know about quidditch.

Then, for those of us who are sensitive to such things, there is the matter of the broom itself. Given our troubled history, is this household item not a hated symbol of an oppressive past? One redolent of a life of drudgery and menial servitude?

Who in our previously disadvantaged communities would happily be prepared to hold such a despised appliance between their legs as they run about a field cheered on by yahoos in pointy hats?

Some Ridge regulars have suggested DA leader Mmusi Maimane could well be a quidditch natural. He was, after all, this week labelled a “garden boy” by ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa, who was addressing a halfempty hall in the Strand where Xolani Sotashe was introduced as the ANC’s mayoral candidate.

Kodwa suggested Maimane was nothing other than a DA “front” and the party’s real leaders were Helen Zille and Athol Trollip. That he did so in such an insultingly racist manner is perhaps not that surprising considering the immense immaturity that has been the overarching characteristic of the election campaigns.

There is no room for such bigotry and intolerance in quidditch. It is perhaps the most progressive of all sports. It is vehemently opposed to racism and one of the few codes that not only promotes a co-ed environment but is an open community to those who do not identify with the gender binary.

As the IQA’s rule book states: “The gender that a player identifies with is considered to be that player’s gender, which may or may not be the same as that person’s sex.” It further adds: “The IQA accepts those who don’t identify within the binary gender system, and acknowledges that not all of our players identify as male or female.”

The Springboks and the Proteas, like some of our politicians, have some way to go in becoming as tolerant and inclusive, it would seem.