Mandela and Amabokoboko: The Political and Linguistic Nationalisation of South Africa?

Mandela and Amabokoboko: The Political and Linguistic Nationalisation of South Africa?Author(s): Douglas BoothSource: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 459-477Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/161381 .

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The Journal of Modern African Studies, 34, 3 (i996), pp. 459-477 Copyright C i996 Cambridge University Press

Mandela and Amabokoboko: the Political and Linguistic

Nationalisation of South Africa?

by DOUGLAS BOOTH*

I did not expect this, but I am proud to wear [a Springbok jersey] when a few years ago, even a few months ago, it was an anathema. I try to say what I believe is true and this thing, that was a very divisive and ugly symbol, could in fact have been magically used by God to weld us together. No one of us could ever in their wildest dreams have been able to predict that rugby ... could have this magical effect.

Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, quoted in The Star Johannesburg), 2 I July I 995.

SOUTH AFRICAN sports officials recently agreed to retain the Springbok as the emblem and sobriquet of the national rugby team. The decision, which followed protracted debate, raises important questions about the construction of national identity in the post- apartheid era. Why has this traditional symbol of white racial superiority been reprieved? And can Springbok rugby help mould all South Africa's peoples into a nation ... with common feelings of loyalty and belonging to each other?

NATIONALISM AND SPORT

'No nation possesses an ethnic base naturally', writes Etienne Balibar. Rather, all states face problems of cohesion and must draw together disparate political, ideological, religious, ethnic, and racial interests in a process that the author calls nationalizationn'. States 'nationalise' their social formations in the sense that they represent them in the past or in the future 'as if they formed a natural community, possessing of itself an identity of origins, culture and interests which transcends individuals and social conditionsl.

How do states nationalise their populations? History shows that they variously invent traditions, describe conquests within or beyond

* Lecturer, Sport and Leisure Studies, School of Physical Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

' Etienne Balibar, 'The Nation Form: history and ideology', in Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: ambiguous identities (London, i99i), p. 96.



460 DOUGLAS BOOTH

historical frontiers, celebrate diversity (by which they encourage their populations to mutually recognise each other within a common boundary), and impose uniform administrative practices. A significant role can be played by sport, 'one of the most potent of human activities in its capacity to give meaning to life, to create and interconnect senses of achievement and identity', according to Lincoln Allison. 'Above all, and increasingly, sport has a complex and important interaction with nationality and the phenomenon of nationalism'.2 This occurs in at least three ways. First, sport provides 'a form of symbolic action which states the case for the nation itself'.3 Victories incarnate positive images of national virtues, strengths, and ways of life. Similarly, hosts of international sporting pageants, such as the Olympic Games, display national wealth, technical expertise, and organizational competence. Second, many sporting events provide 'shared memories'. Occasionally these may act as 'turning points for national history' and help forge ideas about 'common destiny '.' And third, the symbols, icons, anthems, and songs of competitors and/or representative teams are signifiers that separate and distinguish nations from each other.

Given the diversity of racial and political groups which share few common historical, linguistic, religious, symbolic, or sporting ties, and which traditionally proffered vastly different nationalistic visions for the future, the new South African state would appear to face insurmountable obstacles in nationalising its peoples. It must, somehow, entice and manipulate culturally, linguistically, and politically diverse groups into subordinating their local conflicts, customs, and beliefs to a patriotic ideology.

The Springbok emblem is a classic case in point. For three-quarters of a century this symbol of Afrikaner nationalism signified racial division and white exclusiveness and superiority. Should the state abandon the Springbok for a new unifying symbol and alienate traditional supporters? Or should it attempt to rewrite history and confer upon the emblem an alternative set of values? A peculiar set of circumstances led the new government to choose the latter.

2 Lincoln Allison, 'The Changing Context of Sporting Life', in Allison (ed.), The Changing Politics of Sport (Manchester, I993), pp. 4-5. See also, Eric Hobsbawn, 'Mass Producing Traditions: Europe, i870-I9s4', in Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, I983), pp. 298-303.

3 Grant Jarvie, 'Sport, Nationalism and Cultural Identity', in Allison (ed.), op. cit. p. 74. 4 Ibid.



MANDELA AND AMABOKOBOKO 46i

THE RUGBY SPRINGBOK AND THE AFRIKANER NATION

Late in I99I the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (NOCSA), then an interim association comprising officials from anti- apartheid and establishment sport organisations,5 announced its decision to accept an invitation from the International Olympic Committee and send a team to the I992 Games. South Africa would return to the Olympic arena after a 30-year absence. NOCSA also unveiled a ' neutral' anthem and flag for the Barcelona-bound team. Beethoven's Ode to Joy and a red, blue, and green motif on a grey background were part of the process to rid South African Olympic sport of apartheid symbols. The decision caused a furore. Louis Pienaar, the Minister for National Education, described the new anthem and flag as 'a slap in the face of all South Africans'.6 Dozens of letters in the white press scorned the changes.7 The Citizen blustered 'capitulation':

This country is South Africa - and its official symbols must be honoured ... our sports administrators have cravenly capitulated to the African National Congress (ANC) and must now dance to its tune. Shame on them.8

The leader of the far-right Herstigte J'fasionale Party, Jaap Marais, accused NOCSA of contravening the constitution and treating the national flag with contempt, and instructed the police to investigate criminal charges. Students from the Afrikaans University of Stellenbosch marched in protest, demanding the retention of the Springbok.9 In a poll conducted by the liberal-leaning Sunday Times, as many as 7,542 readers said that they would rather South Africa did not attend Barcelona if the team competed under NOCSA's flag, which was approved by only I,553.10 A survey by the Human Sciences Research Council confirmed the racial polarity on the issue: 92 per cent of whites

5 Five organizations were then jockeying for a place in the emerging sports order: the anti- apartheid South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC), the South African Council on Sport (SACOS), and the National Sports Congress (NSC), as well as the establishment South African National Olympic Committee (SANOC) and the Confederation of South African Sport (CSAS). SAN-ROC was formed in the early i96os but state harassment forced its leaders into exile. Under Sam Ramsamy's guidance it forged close links with the International Olympic Committee, the Organisation of African Unity, and the United Nations, and its lobbying resulted in the almost total isolation of South African sport. SACOS was formed in I973 and became the internal wing of the sports liberation movement. In I 989 a number of officials split from SACOS and formed the NSC which aligned itself to the African National Congress. Establishment sport refers to the white dominated network of clubs, national associations, and umbrella federations intertwined with the apartheid state. 6 Pretoria News, 7 November i99i.

7 Sunday Tribune (Durban), 20 October i99i; Daily Dispatch (East London), i2 November I 99 I; The Star, i 6 November I 99 I; and The Citizen (Johannesburg), i 8 and I 9 November I 99 I.

8 The Citizen, 8 November I 99 I. 9 The Star, I 5 November i 99 I. 10 Sunday Times (Johannesburg), I 7 November i 99i.



462 DOUGLAS BOOTH

wanted to retain the Springbok, 5 I per cent of blacks supported a new emblem."l

In their desperation to preserve the Springbok, many white South Africans presented an extremely selective history of the emblem. The State President, F. W. de Klerk, avowed that 'the green and gold of the Springbok were colours worn with pride by every South African regardless of race and colour and had nothing to do with apartheid '.12

Defenders of the Springbok recounted the story of how this was arbitrarily chosen by captain Paul Roos during South Africa's first rugby tour of Britain in i 906. Several days after reporters quizzed him about the team's nickname, Roos struck upon the emblem, having apparently observed a penned gazelle at the London zoo.13 This was proof that the Springbok predated apartheid. The evidence, however, is unequivocal: until the mid- I970s the emblem could only be worn by whites. Prime MinisterJohn Vorster made this perfectly plain when he told Parliament in I97I that

the Springbok rugby team is not representative of the whole of South Africa. It has never been that. It has never claimed to be representative of the whole of South Africa. It is representative of the whites of South Africa.14

Nor did South Africans play racially mixed sport before apartheid. Whatever contact took place was 'essentially informal and irregular', and even that drew condemnation. In I926 the press criticized a former South African tennis champion, G. H. Dodd, for competing against Africans at Johannesburg's Bantu Men's Social Centre. Dodd himself played down the occasion as 'merely an exhibition ' without any 'inter-racial significance'.15 In I932 Die Volkstem commiserated with Don McCorkindale who was to fight a black Canadian, Larry Gaines, for the Empire title: 'there will be sympathy in the Union for McCorkindale because he appears to be conscious of the fact that he will have to hold high the name of the South African white man'. 16

Not only did the Springboks refuse to play against black nations, they even insisted that foreign opponents exclude individual black players. Between i888 and I970 - when the International Cricket

The Star, 22 November i99i. This reported survey was based on 772 white and 762 black respondents. 12 The Citizen, 8 November i99i.

13 D. H. Craven, 'Springboks', in D. J. Potgeiter (ed.), Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (Cape Town, 1974). Nearly 20 years later, however, Craven, a former Springbok and president of the establishment South African Rugby Board, claimed that the Springbok was registered as the national emblem in I903. Diamond Fields Advertiser (Kimberley), 20 March I992.

14 House of Assembly Debates (Pretoria), I97I, cols. 503I-2.

15 Robert Archer and Antoine Bouillon, The South African Game: sport and racism (London, i982), pp. I2I-2.

16 T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom (Berkeley, I975), p. 246.



MANDELA AND AMABOKOBOKO 463

Conference imposed the boycott - South Africa played I 72 Tests but not one against India, Pakistan, or the West Indies. During their tour of Britain in I 929, South African cricketers expressed their displeasure at the inclusion of Ranji Duleepsinghji, an Anglo-Indian, in the England team, and he was consequently omitted from the following Tests.17 New Zealand's All Black selectors excluded George Nepia, the Maori champion, from the I928 rugby tour of the Union in keeping with South Africa's racial traditions.18

Apartheid policies merely reinforced early segregationist attitudes and practices. In the mid- I 95os the Minister for the Interior, T. E. Donges, insisted that sport 'accord with the policy of separate development'.19 But the National Party never legislated against mixed sport. There was no need: segregated sport was a 'national custom'.20 As one liberal opposition United Party MP put it, 'the vast majority have no desire to part from [segregation]'; sport 'can safely be left to the forces of tradition) 21

Richard Lapchick argues that apartheid sport shared a fundamental racial tenet with Nazi sport. Just as the Nazis believed that only Aryans could represent the German nation, so only whites could represent South Africa.22 This was especially true for rugby. While the world knew nearly all South African representative teams (and soldiers) as Springboks - popularly shortened to Boks in English and Bokke in Afrikaans - rugby developed a special affinity with the name. British immigrants introduced rugby to black and white South Africans in the nineteenth century, but Afrikaners appropriated the game as their own.

In symbolic terms, rugby bears the print of Afrikaner culture - its convictions, aspirations and dreams: attached to their Voortrekker past, proud of their civilizing mission in a savage land, perceiving themselves as elected by God to reign on earth, conscious of their vocation as warriors not soldiers but freemen under arms - inspired by faith and an uncompromising moral ethic to defend the cause of their people and the God, the Afrikaner people ... conquered the game.23

The Springbok, the emblem of the game that Afrikaners seized as their own, became the passionate symbol of the white nation.

17 Archer and Bouillon, op. cit. p. go. 18 George Nepia and Terry McLean, I, George Nepia: the goldenyears of rugby (Auckland, i963). 19 Mary Draper, Sport and Race in South Africa Johannesburg, i963), p. 6. 20 House of Assembly Debates, i963, col. 753. 21 J. D. du P. Basson, in ibid. i962, col. 5084. 22 Richard Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: the case of South Africa (Westport,

CT, I975), p 3. 23 Archer and Bouillon, op. cit. p. 73.



464 DOUGLAS BOOTH

Occasionally, Coloureds with very light skin achieved national sporting honours by 'passing as whites'. But the state tolerated no exceptions. Ronnie van der Walt won the South African welterweight boxing title in i966. He applied for reclassification as a white person but failed the 'test', and the Boxing Board of Control withdrew his licence - and his title. Likewise, Glen Popham, a former captain of the South African karate team, was denied Springbok honours when officials became aware of his Coloured classification.24

Black sports fans affirmed their exclusion from the nation by vociferously supporting South Africa's opponents. Barry Macdonald recalled 'phenomenal support' from black spectators during Australia's i969 rugby tour of South Africa: 'They would always barrack for the Wallabies, and were very excited when we won - they made us feel that we were playing for them'. His team-mate James Roxburgh remembered that 'the blacks ... roared with excitement' after a try put the Wallabies in front near the end of one match.25 Black sports people chose their own colours and symbols. Rugby players in the Eastern Cape, for example, wore an elephant although, interestingly, the non- racial South African Rugby Union's emblem was two Springbok heads flanking a Protea flower.

Under growing pressure from international isolation, the apartheid regime progressively modified its sports policy.26 In I97I, in keeping with its grand political scheme of multinationalism, whereby South Africa was divided into ten black nations, each with its own territory, the Government allowed these new entities to compete against white South Africa in so-called open international events. Four years later it allowed the selection of multiracial invitation teams, although the Minister for Sport, Piet Koornhof, stressed that these did not represent South Africa. In I975 the French national rugby team toured the Republic and played an Invitation XV that included two Africans and two Coloureds.27 The following year Koornhof approved 'intergroup competition' at club level: sports associations and municipal councils, could 'in consultation with the minister, arrange leagues or matches enabling teams from different racial groups to compete [against each other]'.28 Shortly thereafter the Government authorised multiracial representative teams - chosen by way of racially mixed trials.

24 Lapchick, op. cit. p. io. 25 'Sport and Apartheid', in Current Affairs Bulletin (Sydney), 46, I2, I970, pp. i88-9. 26 For the first policy shift, see House of Assembly Debates, i967, cols. 3959-68. 27 South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa,

I975 (Johannesburg, I976), p. 279. 28 Ibid. 1976 (I977), p. 394-




Despite the convoluted selection process, blacks in mixed representative teams could at last wear the Springbok emblem. In I977 seven blacks wore national colours in an international soccer match against Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and 25 participated in mixed trials for the Springbok rugby team, although none gained selection.29 The first black to receive a green and gold Springbok blazer was a long-distance runner, Mathews Batswadi, in I 978,30 and two years later Errol Tobias became the first black rugby Springbok.31

Logically, integrated representative sport meant that South Africa was multiracial. But in reality integrated sport did not nationalise black peoples. At best it gave a handful of exceptionally talented black athletes a temporary escape, be it for i o seconds, I5 rounds, or 8o minutes, from apartheid. While those who wore the Springbok greatly valued it, the emblem remained purely a symbol of sporting excellence; black players suffered no illusions about their inclusion in the nation. Tobias, for example, says it was not until 27 April I994 that he felt like

32 a real South African. Indeed, in I979 Norman Middleton, a member of the (Coloured)

South African Labour Party and president of the anti-apartheid Soccer Federation denounced the Springbok as a symbol of oppression and advocated a new award for national representatives of all colours.33 But another decade passed before his call resurfaced. Meanwhile the campaign against apartheid sport became part of the broader struggle against apartheid per se as black intellectuals and activists increasingly recognised the inextricable links between discrimination in sport and social, economic, and political oppression.

Sam Ramsamy, the chairman of NOCSA, told South African officials in mid- i 99i that their respective sports would have to meet four preconditions before being eligible to return to international competition: unity and a single controlling association in each code; the removal of apartheid rules and practices; development programmes in the townships to redress racial inequalities; and new flags, anthems, colours, and emblems 'acceptable to NOCSA'.34 Ramsamy was adamant about the Springbok: it symbolises 'too many hurtful associations' and 'must go '.35 Non-racial and establishment sports

29 Ibid. I977 (1978), pp. 560 and 564. 30 Ibid. I978 (I979), p- 49I- 31 Ibid. i980 (i98i), p- 595. 32 'The Future of Sport in Post-Apartheid South Africa', in Time (New York), 29 May I 995. 33 SAIRR, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, i979 (Johannesburg, i980), p. 588. SACOS

expelled Norman Middleton on the grounds that the Labour Party collaborated in apartheid. 3' The Citizen, I July i99i. 3 Sunday Times, I o February i99i.



466 DOUGLAS BOOTH

officials had begun negotiating democratic structures in their respective sports during the preceding I 2 months. Progress varied. In some sports, notably rugby, the Springbok emblem was a major source of division. Mluleki George, president of the anti-apartheid National Sports Congress (NSC) and a key figure in rugby unity talks, said that there 'was no way we will compromise' on apartheid symbols.36

No less determined were the old sports establishment and Afrikaner nationalists. Danie Craven, president of the South African Rugby Board, declared the Springbok ' non-negotiable'." Right-wing Afrikaner nationalists warned that black communists and white liberals wanted to remove the Springbok because it represented Christian values.38 Daan Nolte, the Conservative Party's spokesman on sport, accused Ramsamy of forcing South African sports people to represent a foreign nation:

they will... represent Azania, and they will stand to attention while the ANC's national anthem, JNkosi Sikelel' iAfrika [God Bless Africa] is played. The flying Springbok will obviously be replaced with an emblem more fitting to depict Mr Ramsamy's idea of a new South Africa - a sinking banana on a red flag.39

The English and Afrikaans press rallied behind the Springbok. Several newspapers ran polls which they said 'proved overwhelming support' for the emblem. A phone-in publicised by the Sunday Times recorded more than I 2,ooo calls in favour of retention and just 304 against.40

Hardly surprisingly, black journalists presented a different picture. City Press reported that 'more than go per cent of callers rejected the Springbok'.41 Columnist Jon Qwelane summed up general black sentiments: 'those who hanker after the Springbok are reliving past glories; but, sadly [these] were gained... at the expense of locking other South Africans out because of their race'.42

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE PAST: THE SPRINGBOK

DURING THE TRANSITION

South Africa lumbered from one crisis to another during I992 and I993. The collapse of the multi-party Convention for a Democratic South Africa, President de Klerk's whites only referendum, the Boipatong and Bisho massacres,43 endless killings on the East Rand and

36 City Press (Johannesburg), I9 May I995. 37 Sunday Star (Johannesburg), 20 October i99i. 38 The Citizen, 3 I July I994. 3 Die Patriot (Pretoria), 5 July I991. 40 SuIdcay Times, 22 September 41 City Press, I December i99i, which did not reveal the number of callers. 42 Sunday Star, 3 November i99i.

43 In the early hours of 17 June I992, an Inkatha impi (battalion) from the KwaMadala hostel (Vanderbijlpark, Southern Transaal), allegedly assisted by South African police, massacred 42




in Natal, the suspension of official political negotiations, and the assassination of ANC and Communist Party leader Chris Hani,4 illustrated the seemingly impossible task of deracialising, democ- ratising, and nationalizing South Africa. Nor was sport immune.

At the rugby Test against New Zealand at Ellis Park (Johannesburg) in August i992, several white spectators taunted the ANC's spokesman on sport, and current Minister, Steve Tshwete, by extending the oranje- blanje-blou apartheid flag for his autograph. Before the kick-off Louis Luyt, vice-president of the newly united South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU) and president of its provincial affiliate, the Transvaal Rugby Union, instructed the announcer to play the national anthem - Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Voice of South Africa). This was a deliberate breach of a pledge not to promote apartheid symbols, and the crowd sang as one. In the resulting furore, Rapport, the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, waxed lyrical about 'softer tears of pride' and of the Afrikaner's defiant will which declared 'here is my song, here is my flag. Here I stand and I will sing it today'.45

The Ellis Park incident and the lack of development programmes in the townships forced NSC and ANC officials to concede the obvious. 'In hindsight', NSC-founder Arnold Stofile said, sanctions 'were lifted too soon. We made the fundamental mistake of believing that whites are ready for change'.46 'We have been taken for a ride', George added: ' certain people were never interested in unity ... they were more interested in international competition'. 4 The NSC and ANC discussed reimposing the boycott. Tshwete said that ' present conditions are not conducive to international tours'. 48 The NSC withdrew support for the i992 Springbok rugby tour of Britain and France, and the I995 Rugby World Cup, and tacitly approved demonstrations by the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. But as both organisations soon learned, they could not turn the boycott on and off like a tap.

The Springbok emblem remained the subject of intense debate. Most former non-racial officials in NOCSA and the NSC wanted to obliterate the past. However, they were painfully aware of the constraints. Unlike the National Party Government which had simply

residents in an adjacent squatter settlement known as Boipatong. On 7 September, 70,ooo ANC supporters staged a protest march in Bisho, capital of Ciskei. The Homeland's troops, under the command of a colonel seconded from the South African Defence Force, opened fire and killed 28 people.

44 Janus Waluz, a Polish emigre linked with the Conservative Party and the paramilitary Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), assassinated the popular and militant Chris Hani in April I993. 4 Rapport (Johannesburg), i6 August I992.

46 'Score One for Bad Behaviour', in Newsweek (New York), 23 November I992.

4 The Citizen, I April I992. 48 New Nation (Johannesburg), 26 June I992, and The Citizen, 25 June I992.



468 DOUGLAS BOOTH

removed God Save the Queen and the Union Jack as the official anthem and flag of the Union in I 957, the anti-apartheid sports movement could not impose its own anthems, emblems, and colours. Ramsamy said that NOCSA's 'neutral' flag was an innocuous design that 'everybody could live with ... until the matter [of symbols] is resolved'."9 But precisely who would resolve the issue remained unclear and, moreover, neutral symbols do not engender emotional attachment to the nation.50

The NSC acted more decisively. After polling affiliates, it announced in March I992 that the Protea would replace the Springbok.5" None the less, a few months later, shortly after the International Rugby Board awarded it the right to host the I995 Rugby World Cup, the NSC-affiliated SARFU unveiled an interim emblem: a leaping Springbok, vertical rugby ball, and four Proteas. (Interestingly, Mluleki George was both the president of the NSC and vice-president of SARFU.) From a non-racial perspective it was a major concession: the Springbok retained its privileged position both in the emblem and the name. No one was about to call South Africa's national rugby team the Springbok-Proteas or the Protea-Springboks, and certainly not the Proteas.

The inauguration of President Nelson Mandela and the Government of National Unity (GNU) on io May 1994 ostensibly marked the end of 342 years of white domination and the beginning of black rule. It was an emotional and joyous occasion perhaps best remembered for the black spectators who cheered South African airforce planes as they passed overhead, and who swarmed over armoured police vehicles. Blacks now claimed as their own these former reviled instruments of white power. Indeed, a black President and black Ministers 'proved' black ownership. By contrast, no blacks claimed ownership of the South African rugby team. It remained firmly bogged in the past. When England toured the country a month after the inauguration, captain Francois Pienaar declared that his team represented a new nation. But when England trounced South Africa in the first Test, 'Cheeky' Watson, a well-known anti-apartheid sporting activist, reported that most blacks were ecstatic. 'It's quite sad', he added, 'but people in the townships find it hard to identify with Pienaar and his

" Weekend Post (Durban), 5 October I 99 I. 50 Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, The Negotiated Revolution: society and politics in post-

apartheid South Africa (Johannesburg, I 993), p. 2 7. 51 The Star, 30 March I992. Late the following year the NSC finally approved a white Protea

on a green and gold background. Sunday Tribune, 3 I October I 993. At successive meetings during I993 the NSC reaffirmed its decision to adopt the Protea and demanded that affiliates comply.




teammates, who don't know the words of JNkosi Sikelel' iAfrika '.52 The GNU had declared that this and Die Stem were to be the dual national anthems.

In mid-I994 SARFU and the NSC agreed to retain the interim emblem until after the I995 Rugby World Cup in order to capture its marketing potential.53 Some commentators said that the Springbok was synonymous with rugby, just as Coca Cola signified cola drinks, Castle Lager beer, and Kellogg's corn flakes. But the analogy ignored the political content of the 'product'. Sharon Chetty's description of the crowd's behaviour during the Test between South Africa and Western Samoa is a poignant reminder that on the eve of the World Cup the Springbok was a political symbol of white South Africa:

holding aloft the old South African flag, the rugby die hards sought momentary refuge in the confines of Ellis Park. [When] i'fkosi Sikelel' iAfrika started up you could count the numbers who bothered to even keep still. But when Die Stem was played they stood to attention and sang with gusto - their voices in unison. Barring the good natured vendors ... the number of darkies at Ellis Park could be counted on one hand. [One] young fascist ... commanded a vendor to 'go stand under the spotlight. Maybe then you will become white'. His friends laughed. Rugby it seems is the last white outpost....51

THE RUGBY WORLD CUP: TRANSFORMING THE SPRINGBOK?

Logically, then, there seemed little prospect of the 1995 World Cup Springboks nationalizing South Africa. One could hardly expect a lily- white team,55 predominantly white spectators, and a racially divisive emblem to inculcate national feelings of belonging among blacks. However, the day before the tournament began President Mandela embraced the team: 'I have never been so proud of our boys. I hope we will all be cheering them on to victory. They will be playing for the entire South Africa'.56 It was an unanticipated gesture. Mandela was the official host and protocol required his participation, but he could have maintained a stiff and indifferent formality. In fact, he admitted several times to supporting the Springboks' opponents during apartheid. Instead, the President showed a genuine and infectious enthusiasm, even describing the players as 'our own children'.57

52 The Star, I3 June I994. 53 Sunday Times, 26 February I995- 54 Sowetan (Johannesburg), 20 April I995. See also, Sunday Times, 23 April I995. 55 Injured during the Test against Western Samoa, Coloured player Chester Williams only

returned to the Springbok side midway through the tournament. 56 The Citizen, 25 May I995.

57 Cape Times (Cape Town), i9 October i99i, and The Citizen, 25 May I995.



470 DOUGLAS BOOTH

Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley argue that 'politics is about the manipulation of symbols as a precondition for the exercise of real power'.58 Does this explain Mandela's support? Only partly. Three factors influenced the President: his broad philosophy of reconciliation which, at that juncture, coincided with a fresh drive by the ANC to win white votes in the forthcoming municipal elections, and a steadily reforming rugby administration.

SARFU supposedly 'united' the former establishment South African Rugby Board and the anti-apartheid Rugby Union. But the overwhelming majority of personnel clung to the racial attitudes and management styles and practices of the old order. SARFU's director of development, Ngconde Balfour, resigned after less than one year, and accused senior administrators of using 'development' as a smokescreen for gaining international respectability.59 A disastrous tour of Britain and France in I992 affirmed the reputation of the Springboks as insensitive, petulant, boorish, and arrogant. By the end of that year their public image lay in tatters.60

Slowly, however, SARFU began to reform, especially after the appointment in early I 995 of a new chief executive: former Business Day and Sunday Times sports reporter and staunch critic of establishment rugby, Edward Griffiths. Under his tutelage the Springboks became politically correct: they played under the slogan 'one team, one country'; they supported the Government's Masakhane (building for each other) campaign; they were polite, accessible, offered themselves for photo opportunities, and attended regular press conferences. Griffiths even set about de-emphasising the history of South African rugby. For example, he removed photographs of former 'Springbok greats' from public view at rugby headquarters. They were 'museum stuff', he said, adding that 'SARFU was born in I 99'I 61 Even Archbishop Desmond Tutu commented favourably on the new image.62

Did Mandela's endorsement transform ordinary black opinion? Not initially. The Sowetan summed up black sentiment:

One of the biggest sporting events, the Rugby World Cup, starts in Cape Town today and yet the majority of South African people are not interested. It is extraordinary in fact that white South Africa has tried to keep the game of rugby 'white' for as long as possible. It is a political statement to many who

58 Adam and Moodley, op. cit. p. 43. 59 Cape Times, 4 September I993, and personal interview, 22 December I994.

60 ' Score One for Bad Behaviour', op. cit. and Tommy Bedford, 'New Body, Same Old Face', in Guardian Weekly (London), 27 November I 992.

61 Recounted by Tim Noakes, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, public lecture, 25 October I995. 62 Cape Times, 30 May I995.



MANDELA AND AMABOKOBOKO 47I

will be seen carrying the old South African flag to make the point. It is likewise to say that we will only have national unity when the sports played reflect the country's racial mix.63

Twenty-four hours later the mood had swung dramatically. South Africa's victory in the opening match of the tournament against Australia, the reigning title-holders, engendered perhaps the first palpable sense of nationalism among South Africans.

Balibar argues that nationalism requires people to produce themselves as a nation, and that this process 'presupposes the constitution of a specific ideological form ... more potent than the mere inculcation of political values'. A national ideology, he continues, takes the form of 'an a priori condition of communication between individuals and between social groups', and involves 'ideal signifiers' which convey 'a sense of the sacred and the affects of love, respect, sacrifice and fear'. Ultimately, however, the effectiveness of a national ideology requires the presence of 'another community', whose differences the nation seeks to project and protect itself against.64 In front of an estimated world-wide television audience of 300 million, South Africa 'defeated' the ideal 'other' - Australia, the reigning champions - and in just 8o minutes accumulated a plethora of positive national images. But 'defeat of the other' and inculcation of national pride offers only a partial explanation of emergent South African nationalism: there was also a critical linguistic component.

The Sowetan triumphantly hailed the victory on its front page under the headline Amabokoboko ('The boks, the boks').65 It was a moment more decisive even than Mandela's support. Conceived by the sub- editor Sy Makaringe and endorsed by editor Aggrey Klaaste, Amabokoboko Africanised the Springbok and gave blacks a stake in the emblem for the first time.

Other attempts to nationalise the Springbok were less successful. In i99i Tshwete argued that it was an indigenous animal and, like any other native fauna, belonged to no one group. The Springbok, he said, was 'gambolling in our bush before the National Party came into power', and was not 'entrenched in apartheid like the [Afrikaner] Voortrekker Monument'.66 After the World Cup, Kader Asmal, Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry, articulated a similar case for the Springbok. Groups choose individual symbols from endless

63 Editorial, Sowetan, 25 May I995. 64 Balibar, loc. cit. pp. 93-5. 65 Sowetan, 26 and 29 May I995. 66 'Bok Emblem Gets Steve Tshwete's Vote', in Weekend Post, I2 October i 99i, and Eastern

Province Herald (Port Elizabeth), Io December I99I.



472 DOUGLAS BOOTH

possibilities and construct meaning around them, he said. But they 'have no inherent or talismanic force'. The Springbok no longer contains the power of the past, and those who press for its removal 'confer an unintended compliment upon the architects of apartheid. They deny that we, the victors, have the power to possess and transform the symbols of the past. They accuse us of a kind of impotence.'67 However, it was the linguistic twist not rational argument that persuaded many blacks to reassess the Springbok. Amabokoboko injected an African component into the emblem and provided a critical linguistic mechanism to transform its meaning. Barry Hindess and Balibar both alert us to the possibilities of linguistically reconstructing identity. The latter contends that

the linguistic construction of identity is by definition open. No individual 'chooses' his or her mother tongue or can 'change' it at will. Nevertheless, it is always possible to appropriate several languages and to turn oneself into a different kind of bearer of discourse and of the transformation of language.68

Yet, we must not downplay the task. Another South African case illustrates the difficulty of linguistic reconstruction. The Population Registration Act of I 950 defined as Coloured those who ' in appearance are obviously neither White, Indian nor a member of an aboriginal race or African tribe'. It was a political definition that connoted inferiority: Afrikaners spurned Coloureds as ' impure'. During the i980s, members of the anti-apartheid movement introduced the term 'so-called Coloureds' as a linguistic strategy to deny the salience of race imposed by the apartheid regime. However, the term evoked con- sternation. Alex La Guma, an ANC stalwart, wrote to Sebacha, the Congress's official organ:

Comrade Editor, I am confused. I need clarification. It makes me feel like a 'so-called' human, like a humanoid, those things who have all the characteristics of human beings but are really artificial. Other minority people are not 'so-called'. Why me? It must be the 'curse of Ham'.69

Others saw it as a necessary strategy of subversion and worthy of perseverance. ' PG' responded to La Guma:

Kadar Asmal, 'Let's Steal the Springbok from Verwoerd', in Weekly Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg), 28 July I995. President Mandela made the same point in support of the Springbok, noting that he too lived and worked in buildings constructed during apartheid. The Citizen, 26 June I995.

68 Balibar, loc. cit. pp. 98-9. See also, Barry Hindess, 'Actors and Social Relations', in Mark Wardell and Stephen Turner (eds.), Sociological Theory in Transition (Boston, i988), p. i i8.

69 Immanuel Wallerstein, 'The Construction of Peoplehood: racism, nationalism, ethnicity', in Balibar and Wallerstein, op. cit. p. 73.




To accept the term 'Coloured' is to allow the [racist] myth [of the pure white Afrikaner] to carry on.... Today, people are saying, 'We reject the racists' framework, we reject their terminology' and are beginning to build the NEW

in defiance of the old, right in the midst of the enemy. The term 'Coloured'...has been handed down by the racists. Instead of some of us getting offended or taken aback by adopting a very narrow interpretation of this usage, we should see the prefix 'so-called' as the first step in coming towards a solution which has been a scourge for years. We have got to move on from the term 'so-called Coloured' in a positive way.70

In any event the construction of Amabokoboko did not suddenly mean unanimous support for the Springbok. Several ANC MPs continued to regard it as an apartheid emblem.7" An acerbic Cosmas Desmond wrote that the Springbok victory 'might have excited readers of the Sunday Times and even the Sowetan, but most people do not, and cannot read either. The victory enabled white people to feel good ... But what did it mean to most of the population? '72 City Press too maintained that 'there is no reason to retain the Springbok emblem'.73

None the less, there was clearly a growing body of influential black support for the Springbok. On i6 June I995 Mandela addressed a rally in KwaZulu-Natal wearing a green rugby cap complete with Springbok emblem; he told his audience that the days of discrimination in sport are over, and that the cap 'does honour to our boys '.74 (It was ironic timing given the significance of the fact that the Soweto uprising, which began on i6 June I976, is popularly regarded as the beginning of the end of the apartheid regime.) Nine days later, in an unprecedented act by a Head of State, Mandela strode on to the turf before the final of the World Cup against New Zealand wearing a South African team jersey. The predominantly white audience rose to its feet chanting 'Nel-son, Nel-son, Nel-son'.

Eighty minutes plus extra-time later, South Africans were the world rugby champions. Blacks and whites joined in celebration: Mandela hugged the team captain, Pienaar, who told the international media that 'we were inspired by the President', 75 while black supporters toyi- toyied through downtown Johannesburg's Carlton Centre singing the theme song Shosholoza and shouting 'Amabokoboko'. Even City Press could not resist: 'Viva AmaBhokobhoko! Viva South Africa' exclaimed its front-page headline the next day.76 It was a moment of intense nationalism, a moment when South Africans formed a 'natural'

70 Ibid. 71 House of Assembly Debates, I995, cols. 2745 and 2756. 72 Cosmas Desmond, 'But What About the RDP?', in Daily News, I 2 June I995. " City Press, 4 June I 995. 74 The Citizen, 20 June I995. 7 Sowetan, 26June I995 76 City Press, 25 June I995.



474 DOUGLAS BOOTH

community whose interests transcended individual differences and social conditions. Even the Post Office sensed the occasion and introduced a special stamp depicting the Springbok and the Protea with the words 'World Champions I995' and 'Mabokoboko'.

Nearly all comment in the immediate aftermath of the victory focused favourably on rugby and the nation. Timothy Smouse, a Soweto sports official, captured the power of international sport to state the case for South Africa, and to forge ideas about national destiny, when he said that 'no country in the world can stand in our way as we continue to perform miracles', while Paris Maishwane, a black reveller and supporter, commented that 'rugby is no longer a whites-only sport -it is for all of us'.7" Mandela wrote -to Pienaar expressing his 'admiration for the role you and your team are playing in nation building'. And at a banquet held in their honour the President said that 'rugby, once a symbol of division and exclusion, had crossed the threshold into a new era of a united and reconciled nation '78

Mandela asked the NSC to look afresh at the once hated emblem: 'there is a real possibility that if we review our decision and accept the Springbok for rugby as our symbol, we will unite our country as never before'.79 The NSC acceded to the request and appointed a six- member emblems commission to review the issue. It too concluded that the Springbok symbol was 'deeply offensive' to many South Africans and recommended its replacement with the Protea.80 Mandela and Tshwete refused to accept the recommendation; the latter accused the commission of bias, and vowed to fight all attempts to remove the Springbok which he insisted was a symbol of unity.81 Mandela, Tshwete, and his departmental director-general, former NSC secretary Mthobi Tyamzashe, applied intense pressure on the NSC executive and others who rejected the Springbok.82 At a general meeting in March I996 the NSC voted against the recommendation of the emblems commission and approved the Springbok as a symbol of national unity in rugby.

7 The Star, 26 June I995- 78 Ibid. and Cape Times, I7 August I995. 7 The Citizen, 26 June I 995. 80 Ibid. 8 March i996. The emblems commission comprised senior sports officials from both

the old establishment and the anti-apartheid movement. 81 Saturday Star, 9 March i996, and Sowetan, I2 March i996. 82 Tshwete, for example, attempted to stifle ANC MPs who criticised the Springbok emblem

during a public committee debate on his department's budget allocation. House of Assembly Debates,

I995, col. 2772.




CONCLUSION

Balibar's concept of nationalisation accounts for the reprieve of the Springbok emblem. By the eve of the I995 Rugby World Cup, the Government of National Unity recognised its potential as a national symbol. Jubilation at South Africa's victory in the opening match and the final of the tournament, and the Africanisation of the Springbok, confirmed that potential. But the power of sporting emblems to nationalize South Africa requires careful evaluation. Like all signs and linguistic constructions, the Springbok contains a plethora of ambi- guities, inconsistencies, and multiplicities.

After its appropriation by ANC leaders, some right-wing Afrikaners disavowed the Springbok. They assigned the emblem a new meaning, labelling players as traitors and declaring their support for the opposition. 'I support any team that plays against the Springboks', said a spokesman for the paramilitary Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, who added that he 'wouldn't pay five cents to go to their games. The players have no national pride whatsoever. It is the Mandela team. Mandela is an enemy of the Afrikaners'.83 In the wake of the final of the Rugby World Cup, at least one newspaper correspondent blamed the destruction of Afrikaner nationalism on integrated sport:

In I970Jaap Marais... said that it would start with one or two Maoris in the All Black team and it would finish with Black majority rule. How right he was. Saturday was another nail in the coffin of the Afrikaner.84

For some the Springbok symbolized competing and contradictory subjective positions, sometimes simultaneously.85 When reporter Chetty noted 'inexplicable switch[es] of mood' among white rugby fans during the contest between South Africa and Western Samoa - one moment they were 'rude and racist', the next they would 'cheer on' the sole black, Chester Williams, as he took 'their team to glory'86 - she observed one of the great paradoxes of sport: whites revering black champions in an environment of crass racism.87

Still others conceded the possibilities of new identities emerging in a changing institutional environment. The editor of the Sowetan said that while the Springbok emblem reminded him of a time 'when blacks were pointedly excluded from being part of... the camaraderie of [sport]', he conceded that 'strange things are happening to my

83 Eastern Province Herald, 24 June I 995. 84 The Citizen, 29 June I 995. 85 Goran Therborn, The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology (London, i980), p. 78. 88 Sowetan, 20 April I995. 87 Colin Tatz, Obstacle Race: aborigines in sport (Sydney, I995), p. I09.



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sporting ways'. Klaaste attributed these changes to the fact that his young sons 'worship the ground [cricketer] Jonty Rhodes throws himself at with such seeming abandon', and that they could cheer 'pale-faced' South African cricketers against the West Indies.88 Marc Maharaj, the Minister for Transport, similarly recounted his children screaming support for the Bokke, and their refusal to discuss the historical meaning of the word.89

The latter two examples illustrate how language works by connecting individuals to an actualised moment with a common content through a common form of communication. The important point for Balibar here is not that the moment connects individuals in a temporary community, or that there are no limits on that communication, or that the process is 'transparent' between all individuals. Rather that these ' limits are relative: even if it were the case that individuals whose social conditions were very distant from one another were never in direct communication, they would be bound together by ... immediate discourses. They were not isolated - either de jure or de facto'. 90

Certainly, many South Africans have rapidly ' naturalized' Amabokoboko. Balibar warns, however, that often communities natu- ralise new language ' too quickly ... at the cost of an individual forgetting [about] "origins".`'91

None the less, the question of the nation as a temporary community seems especially pertinent, given that apartheid South Africa comprised several linguistically separate populations including 'whites' and ' blacks' each with their own political language. Springboks, Boks, and Bokke reflected the mutual incompatibility of those respective languages. Despite the post-apartheid Government's concerted efforts to translate between the different levels of the language and to produce a common code of the ' people', and notwithstanding many positive shifts in communication, perception, image, attitude, and behaviour, the reality is that terms such as Amabokoboko and Bokke still express concrete social differences.

To return to a point made earlier, nationalism presupposes a specific ideological form that constitutes 'an a priori condition of communication'. Pierre Bourdieu argues that the absorption of new ideologies requires their placementn] beyond the grasp of con-

sciousness', where they 'cannot be touched by voluntary deliberate transformation, cannot even be made explicit'.92 But asJarvie reminds

8 Sowetan, 9 January I 995. 8 Business Day (Johannesburg), 27 June 1995. 90 Balibar, loc. cit. p. 97. 91 Ibid. pp. 98-9. 92 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, I977), p. 94.




us, 'the quest for identity inevitably involves nostalgia'.93 Amabokoboko does not place the Springbok 'beyond the grasp of consciousness' because it cannot obviate the desire to look back and search for origins.

Not surprisingly, given the fleeting conditions which draw peoples together as a nation, the nationalistic euphoria of South Africa's World Cup victory quickly receded and critical comment resumed. According to Rafiq Rohan, the parliamentary reporter for City Press:

it's going to take a lot more than a smiling and gleeful president sporting a [Springbok] jersey and ... cap to get everyone in the country to accept the symbol and colours of the historic enemy, the cultural, social, and political enslaver, and to proclaim them with pride.94

Victor Tsuai, a Sowetan columnist agreed:

no amount of hype and spurious explanation will convince blacks that politically or otherwise, the Springbok is the right symbol in this day and age. The whites have had their opportunity to embrace everybody with their Springbok tentacles but have sadly left it too late.95

The New Nation warned against what it called a 'lapse in memory' and embracing 'this apartheid symbol as our own'. It maintained that 'we need to draw the line between the past and the present. And that cannot be done by straddling apartheid and democracy'.96

The Springbok emblem will remain a symbol of racial division until there is ample evidence of black ownership by, for example, an equal racial mix of players. Only then will blacks recognise a legitimate historical discontinuity. Until such a break with the past occurs, not even Amabokoboko will counter the nostalgic quests for identity. In short, history will conspire to preserve the Springbok as a symbol of an unsavoury ideology.

93 Jarvie, loc. cit. p. 73. 94 City Press, 2 July I995. 5 Sowetan, 29June I995. 96 Editorial, New Nation, 30 June I995.



Mandela and Amabokoboko: The Political and Linguistic Nationalisation of South Africa?

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