SPORT AFTER APARTHEID
LIFTING A SPORTS-MAD NATION OUT OF APARTHEID: ROUND TWO
The international sporting ban on South Africa helped end apartheid. But, while it contributed significantly to a political transformation that created a non-racial country and freed South African teams to rush back into the global sports arena, the Minister of Sport and Recreation says the transformation did not spread deep into the heart of the national sports system. A new transformation has therefore begun to turn one of the nation’s pre-occupations into a completely non-racial activity fair to all that will strengthen national unity and improve the lifestyles of all South Africans.
Mr Fikile Mbalula, MP, in Cape Town. Mr Mbalula has been Minister of Sport and Recreation since 2010, having previously been Deputy Minister of Police. An African National Congress MP since 2009, he was a member of its National Executive Committee and from 1998 to 2008 was a senior officer of its Youth League. He was President of the International Union of Socialist Youth in 2004 and was an official of the South African Medical and Dental Association.
Indeed, sport occupies a special place in the South African psyche. We are a sport-mad nation. In the past, sport mirrored our society’s ugly reality of apartheid, the separation of people according to their race and their resultant oppression.
Mr Fikile Mbalula, MP
Many people took part in the struggle for liberty and democracy as well as the struggle of sport in erasing apartheid and colonialism. Through initiatives such as “Remembering Sport in the Struggle: A Human Rights Perspective” exhibition, we pay homage to millions of people in the Commonwealth of Nations and the international community who, against all odds, caused South Africa to be expelled from the international sporting community.
The government of the Republic of South Africa, its citizens and Parliament raise our banners and flag in honour of this selfless contribution.
30 | The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One - South Africa
Whole generations of otherwise talented citizens with the wrong skin colour were denied access to sports such as rugby and cricket. If they did have access, there was scant investment in building proper facilities in and outside of school. Facilities that were built for predominantly black people were second class and inferior to those for white people. The country will never know talent that went untapped, people who could have gone on to represent their provinces at a national level or even represent the country at an international level.
The international campaign to transform South African sport This gross injustice resulted in sport people who are black suffering under a repressive system that saw them being denied the opportunity to compete at the highest level of
sport. To counter this discrimination, a process was started in the 1950s that gathered momentum as non- racial sports organizations such as the South African Council on Sport (SACOS) and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) were formed to organize local opposition to the country’s policies and to garner support all over the world for isolating South Africa in international sport. Eventually by the late 1980s, South Africa was completely isolated with no international sport contact, a painful situation for a country renowned for being “sport mad”.
This was the state of affairs when a political transition to democracy started from 1990 onwards with the unbanning of political organizations and the release of political prisoners. The breakthrough in sport in 1992 was a watershed moment in the history of South African sport. At this time, sport leaders and administrators charted a way forward for transformation and inclusion in the Republic of South Africa.
Twenty years since the unity talks in sport, South Africa has moved
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