Being A person with even A small
Amount of notoriety
or “fame” is exhausting. What you see on instagram, in gossip magazines or on tv is just a fraction of what transpires. and for every style choice, every restaurant visited, every appearance made, every speech given, there are a thousand messages, hundreds of emails, too many texts to count, and conversations had that go into every decision. and each one affects the next. that, of course, is all on top of the work it takes to do the thing for which you’re famous. if you’re an athlete, that’s the extreme physical and mental cost of getting to – and staying at – the top of your game. you’re travelling the world, always bouncing between hotel beds, separated from those you love for weeks at a time, watching your children grow up through a screen. the highs are often rewarding and unforgettable, but the lows are challenging at best and terrible at worst. yet you learn to deal with those in your stride because that’s your job – and through it all, you find ways to stay motivated and keep pushing forward.
Imagine living with all of that, the most lovely of challenges
– and reaping the fruits of your labour by winning the
Rugby World Cup. Surely after dominating that virtual Everest of trophy-chasing summits, you can take it easy? Not quite. Now you’re suddenly one of the most marketable faces and personas in the country – and more than ever, everyone wants you everywhere, and at the same time. Take two hours and see your family, but then we have an appearance scheduled here and signing here, and then we have to discuss the new sponsorship deal, and… you get the idea.
So with that in mind, one could imagine that for an athlete, the silver lining of a forced lockdown would provide one much-needed thing: rest, and time to relax, away from the spotlight, off the field, even away from training for the first time in ages. That has been true for the Springboks, and especially true for Siya Kolisi. No one would forgive him for taking some time out of the spotlight and just being.
But as we discovered during a rainy afternoon in October, in between capturing him in the latest gear from Adidas – including a special one-of-a-kind suit collab created by Thebe Magugu – our captain is so much more than just an athlete: he’ll literally do whatever he can to see his mission of creating a better South Africa, and impacting the next generation, become a reality. GQ: What’s life under the lockdown been like for you?
Siya Kolisi: I’ve been discovering just how amazing family time is. It’s something that I wasn’t really able to have before the lockdown, and I think spending time with my family and my kids is really important. I’ve missed a lot of that in the past. And I’ve been trying to do meaningful work with the foundation. [During the lockdown] there haven’t been
many opportunities for people, and that was really tough to see. So, it opened my eyes to the fact that we can do a whole lot more than I was already doing.
GQ: have you pivoted some of the aims and activities of the kolisi foundation to react to peoples’ needs?
SK: We started with PPE [personal protective equipment], and at that point, we hadn’t even started the foundation yet; we were talking about it, but we had to get started immediately. We started helping public hospitals and clinics with PPE. And doctors, especially in the Eastern Cape. At that point, we knew the thing we needed the most was to keep people at home. And we knew that the way we could help was by making sure that we were doing food parcels, and encouraging people, who’d usually leave home to go and look for opportunities so they can look after their families, to stay at home.
GQ: What’s it been like to get other people involved or to secure financial support for the foundation?
SK: It’s been going well, especially with corporate sponsors. We’re working closely with Adidas, who’ve helped us a lot. We’re working on new ways to get more funds to the foundation so we can help more people. So, our corporate sponsors have helped a lot in this space. It’s always good to get other people involved.
Many people want to help, but they don’t know how to. For me, it’s a bit easier; I was familiar with the situation because that’s where I come from. Many of my friends are going through tough times, so I knew, and they told me about it. What was so touching, for me, was that when I went to my [hometown, we met] some of the people that helped my grandmother look after me when I was younger. I was grateful to hear them say, ‘Thank you so much for not forgetting us.’ They help so many people, but they never expect anything in return, and they were so grateful not to be forgotten. That’s why I do what I do. My motivation – other than my family – is making sure that I play a part in fighting for equality in South Africa, and making sure that I create opportunities for people who’ve never had them.
We want the kids in the townships to have the same dreams as the kids in the model-c schools, and the same opportunities. And we’re active in other ways through the foundation. One thing we’re fighting is gender-based violence. It’s personal for me because people who mean a lot to me were affected by gender-based violence when I was young. There was nothing I could’ve done back then, but now I’ve got a platform, and I’ve got a voice, and now, with the foundation, we’re able to help. [My wife] Rachel and I have been working on this with the foundation. We also partner with people who know more about it than we do. We’re working on it across different areas. My job is to make sure young men have the opportunity to learn and unlearn, so many things. I believe that, as men, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we get the education we need, and also to understand that we’re part of the problem. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the perpetrator of violence or not – you have to make sure everyone around >>
you is on the same page. What’s happening to women isn’t right.
And it’s so easy for “good men” to think, “If I’m not the one doing it, it’s not my problem.’
That’s how I used to be. With your friends around, you think, ‘If they’re doing it, but I’m not doing it, it’s okay.’ But you’re telling them it’s okay by keeping quiet. And it’s a tough thing – saying to the people around you, whom you’ve known for so long, ‘If you carry on doing this, I’m out.’ As soon as you get through to the people around you, it gets easier.
GQ: it’s a hard conversation to have, but it can’t just be a conversation women have by themselves. Men need to be involved.
SK: That’s my whole thing. We men have to talk to one another. And if we don’t know, we have to go and ask the women. Ask a woman, ‘How can we be better? What can we do? What are the things we learned in the past that we need to change?’ And I think it’s also this thing about being the “man of the house” – your job is not just to get food. Women also work and bring bread and take care of the house. You have to do things around the house, too. Make sure your kids see you washing dishes, cleaning up and cooking. That’s what I’ve been doing, both on social media and at home, so my daughter, son, brother and sister can see that
I’m not just doing one thing, that my wife and I are equal. My wife works; I have to make sure I add value in the house too.
GQ: it’s important, especially when many younger men don’t have consistent male role models.
SK: It’s hard because you’re going to be angry at the people who were there before you, like your parents, but they’ve only known one way. That’s why we have to have these conversations and tell them the world’s changed; that we’re all equal and we all have to bring something to the table. And you just have to bring the conversation up. There’s no right time or place; you just have to speak about it whenever there’s an opportunity. Kids have to know, from a young age. And school and the sporting worlds are great places to start because if they’re not getting [this kind of education] at home, they should get it there. It should be cool to be a good person. It should be cool to treat women nicely.
GQ: What are the most important things you want your children to know?
SK: First of all, they’re enough as they are. They’re beautiful enough, strong enough, and capable of being anything they want to be. Second of all, we’re all equal, no matter what your skin colour or gender is. We’re all important, we all bring something [special] to this world, and we have to find it. Find your purpose. The third one is to learn to understand someone as an individual before you start judging them – get to know what’s important to them, who they are, and what makes them do the things they do so that you can better understand them, instead of generalising them. We might have the same skin colour, but we could be way different. I think that understanding will help a lot with racial issues. Get out of your comfort zone. Step out! Go to the neighbourhoods you don’t usually go to, so you can see why people are fighting for things. There will always be a reason behind it.
GQ: you recently participated in a diversity panel with adidas.
SK: It was great. We were a diverse group of people from different generations, just talking about how things are. That’s why I say understanding one another is important. Try it. Go to another area so you can understand what’s going on. We all know SA’S one of the most unequal countries in the world. I always say I wish I had the same opportunities in my model-c school at Grey as I did at Emsengeni. I probably would’ve stayed and finished off
my schooling there. And it’s hard [to move as I did] because you have to adapt to another culture and another language – and it can make you feel stupid. I was doing well in my schoolwork, and now I have to [operate in] a whole new language; it’s hard. The sooner people understand that, and the more that the kids of today start knowing that ‘okay, I’ve got this opportunity in a model-c school. I have to make sure I do everything I can to look after myself and my family. What can I do to make life easier for the kid that doesn’t have the same opportunity?’ When I was younger, I had to make bricks, sell fruit, and I was a bartender at 16. So, now I ask myself, what I can I do now, or what can I do in my career to make life easier for someone in a different environment? We want to empower kids through schools, making sure they’re better, their facilities are better, the teaching is better, the bathrooms are at the top level, and they have wellequipped libraries. Education is the key.
GQ: lots of organisations try to tackle diversity and inclusion at the advanced stages. Where do you think we should start?
SK: It starts at the grassroots level. If this is how a model-c school looks, it should look the same elsewhere. It must have the same quality of education, sporting facilities, bathrooms, and all that, so that kids go to school confident, knowing they have everything they need, and they have options. Where I come from, there aren’t many options, so it’s easier to do things we shouldn’t do. The more opportunities we can create for kids that lead them in the right direction, the easier it’ll be for them to choose that than to go the other way. And kids should know that South Africa’s made up of so many different languages, and so many different people who each bring something special.
I just have to feel included in my workplace, in my school environment, and everywhere else, so that I can be at my best. Each culture’s different, meaning we see things differently, and we have to understand one another. The only way we’ll make South Africa great is if we feel included and everyone has the same opportunities and a voice in our country. And we have to make South Africa the most important thing and make sure we all move in the same direction. If you’ve got other intentions, someone must call you out and say, ‘This is the direction we’re going. This is where we want to move.’
GQ: What do you think it will take to transform the conversation into action?
SK: I think it’s about having the conversation wherever you are – work, sporting environments, offices. Some people are experts in these kinds of things; bring them in. Instead of doing teambuilding and just going to play golf or something, get someone in to lead those conversations. The more we talk about it, the more we start understanding, the more we can ask questions. Change comes from within, and it has to come from inside before it comes outside. Your heart must change first, and then things can start moving forward. It’s easy to put out rules – “Don’t do this, don’t do that” – but you need to make people understand why people do things. And you have to be willing to understand your own biases. It can start at the grassroots level, but it must also include people who’re in power or politics – they need to have those conversations, even when they’re sitting in Parliament so that citizens can see what’s happening. We talk about so many things that aren’t as important as this. And there are so many other distractions. These conversations must happen all over South Africa, and we need to get people in to explain to kids why these things are crucial. We’re all South Africans, and we’re all going to have these conversations. It doesn’t matter where it is; there’s no such thing as a small conversation, or it’s not good enough, or we’re not important. Everyone has to evolve, from the youngest to the oldest, and the richest to the poorest. We’re all intertwined. We have to make South Africa the most important thing. Everyone has to succeed, feel valued, that they have a voice and that we represent them in everything we do.
GQ: let’s talk about returning to sports – finally!
SK: I’m excited. We played our first game in September. I didn’t know what to expect, playing without a crowd, but I’m excited. It’s great to have people watching South African sport taking place once again on TV, and for us because it’s been >>
‘my motivation is making sure i play A part in fighting for equality, And creating opportunities for people who’ve never had them’