Time to change beliefs in SA rugby

THE meeting held by the South African Rugby Union with stakeholders was a full-blown anti-transformation agenda. This lack of invitation to transformation forces to the meeting to bring organic knowledge to the deliberations is deplorable.

This took place with the knowledge of Allister Coetzee and acting president Mark Alexander. The only black coaches who were invited were Mzwandile Stick and Ashwin Willemse. Those, to our knowledge, who were excluded included Gcobani Bobo, David Maidza, Jerome Paarwater, Jonathan Mokoena, Elliot Fana, David Dobela, Chumani Booi, Paul Treu, Etienne Fyn, Deon Kayser, John Williams, Eric Sauls, Godfrey Thorne, Chester Williams and Pieter de Villiers.

Critically, the blame for the deplorable state of the national sport must not be attributed to two black men with no real power. The tentacles of power in South African rugby are a replica of the tentacles of power in the mainstream South African society. The blame sits squarely with the structures of SA rugby and the inability of the ministry to supervise transformation.

It is this arrogance and structured reticence to the constitutional imperative of transformation that led President Mandela to hold a commission of inquiry into rugby transformation in 1997. It is for the same reason that the ANA instituted an action against the SA Rugby Union in the Pretoria High Court in 2015.

Fanon once wrote in Wretched of the Earth that “sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted”.

“It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalise, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief ”.

The cognitive dissonance of SARU is their inability to comprehend the existence of black talent both within the professional player corps as well as within the administration. They must lose the belief that blacks do not have a right to sit at the core of SA rugby.

The question still remains, when will SARU rid itself of this cognitive dissonance? When will it adhere to and adjoin itself to the constitutional imperative of transformation like all other South Africans? Dr Asad Bhorat and Nqaba Malghas Transformation and Anti Racism in Rugby