If you want to celebrate the rugby win, be genuine enough to accept that you are celebrating the White man’s superiority in sport. By isolating Black players and celebrating them in a White dominated sport smacks of racial undertones. It is just not honest.

Some people may view the springbok World Championships as just sport and the win to be blindly celebrated. But President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC do not see it as such.

The President and his team have used the Win to drum up a unity message thereby effectively politicizing the Win.

Someone may think that the word politicizing is too hush, but this is not so for the following reasons:

  1. The pretence that only Black players played a major role in the win, some posters around the country only celebrate Black players. This presents some injustice. There were excellent White players who also deserved to be celebrated,
  2. There seemed to be a pumped-up unity message, that seemed to be designed to give Ramaphosa and his government a fresh start. One could not help but sense that the celebrations were designed to consolidate the Ramaphosa Presidency.

Those who don’t follow rugby will not remember a single face of a White player. If you asked any Black South African who their favourite Rugby player was during the world cup, the answer is likely to be very predictable and the following names may come up: Siya Kolisi, Tendai Mtarawiwa or Makazole Mapimpi. This is by design.

Rugby is traditionally a White sport and to pretend otherwise would be self-defeating.

It is therefore an injustice for those who have chosen to celebrate the victory to focus only on Black Players, such a celebration is very dishonest and cannot be compared to the honesty of refusing to celebrate.

Those who have been celebrating, their celebrations seemed to be in agreement with Dr. Ndlozi’s tweet, which seemed to mean that he will only celebrate Black players and Whites must celebrate their own White players. This seemed to be what has been happening in South Africa.

The EFF’s position on these celebrations seems to be the most honest.

For me personally it worries me to see a revolutionary celebrates a first Black in 2019. It’s worrying to see that there are still first Blacks in South Africa where Black people constitute over 80% of the population. This is an indication of a failed democratic project and we should not be celebrating but mourning.

25 years after our democracy, Black people have nothing to show in terms of the success in both the economy and sport.

In both the economy and sport, we seem to be content with being accommodated, we seem to be content in riding the wave of other people’s success.

We are not prepared to work, but we are prepared to ride the wave of those who have worked.

Most Black people who are against expropriation of strategic sectors of our economy without compensation, will easily accept free shares in an established company without having to pay a cent, because they know they don’t have to lift a finger. But if you expropriate, you are going to have the responsibility to make things work and that is hard isn’t it?

It is easier to celebrate than to work to win.

So, we are now riding the rugby wave and enjoying the first Black captain. Riding the wave of the sport other people developed and build for us.

When are we celebrating the Soccer World Cup win? We don’t want to think about that because Black people dominate soccer and we would have to work for it, this one won’t come free.

Why unify people behind something they never worked for? Why can’t we call for unity towards a soccer World Cup victory, where politicians, supporters and the entire country must rally behind plan to Win the world CUP.

But that’s hard work and it is impossible for Bafana Bafana to win the World cup isn’t it? No, its not impossible, it is as possible as this rugby win.

But the Spring Bok’s championship serves those in power politically and economically very well.

When Nelson Mandela was release from Prison South Africa was so excited that, we all forgot about the economy. The economy was donated to the White community while we were still celebrating. While we were busy calling for unity and reconciliation, White South Africans were thinking about protecting the economy against a Black government.

As it is today with the rugby win, the ruling elite and WMC thinks that a fake unity if achieved will burry all their sins and corruption and give them a clean slate to move on.

Our economic challenges cannot be solved buy a rugby win. A world championship cannot inspire citizens to work for their country.

Citizens can unite behind a strong common purpose inspired by very strong and decisive political leadership, consistent in its decisiveness.

What exactly did Ramaphosa do to ensure that the Spring Boks untimely snatches the World Championships? Nothing.


The EFF is being honest by not celebrating. If they chose to celebrate, they would have to accept that they can’t only celebrate Mandela’s grandchildren but they would have to also celebrate De Klerk’s grandchildren.

The EFF did not politicize the win, but President Ramaphosa did.

The President must toughen up and rally every sector of society behind the fixing of our economy. Investors alone will not fix the economy, but hardworking South Africans will. They just need strong political leadership to lead them into making our economy prosper.

I did no celebrate as well simply because the celebrations had been hijacked by political fake unity agendas. Also because, to achieve such face unity White players were sacrificed and only Black players were celebrated. Their shine was stolen and they may believe they paid the debt of their ancestors by this sacrifice.

The EFF in my view has made the correct call not to celebrate.

By Sefu Sekgala

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. nobody can force anyone to do something they do not want to do its as simple as that.Think of corruption & the trillions of rands that has gone through some peoples fingers that has brought this country to its knees before you talk about unity.



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