SA sport faces tough questions after Israel rugby debacle
I was stunned to read that the South African Rugby Union (Saru) was to host a rugby tour in March by a team representing the apartheid state of Israel in the 2023 Currie Cup competition. The Tel Aviv Heat were invited to play four games in South Africa next month.
Now that Saru has withdrawn the invitation after an outcry, it’s time for South African sport to face some tough questions.
To us in New Zealand it seems utterly incomprehensible that a country which experienced first-hand the brutality and degradation associated with apartheid could, after liberation, agree to host a team representing another racist apartheid state.
How on earth could this be possible? Which part of South African history did the rugby union miss? Why did they have to be reminded of the power of rugby for good, and the power of rugby to “sports-wash racism”?
Just to be clear, every major international human rights organisation now recognises Israel as an apartheid state. Palestinians have always known this as spelt out recently by Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq in a comprehensive report.
Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime is denying human rights to Palestinians — didn’t that sound familiar to Saru? Wasn’t it another European settler colonial regime which denied civil, political and human rights to black South Africans, just as Israel denies the same to Palestinians today?
UK based Amnesty International, US based Human Rights Watch and the largest and most respected human rights organisation in Israel, B’Tselem, have all condemned Israel as an apartheid state.
B’Tselem’s sums up the situation eloquently in the title of their 2021 report, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”.
Didn’t the world, New Zealand included, support the boycott of apartheid South Africa? Didn’t we disrupt rugby games played by racist South African teams to help bring international pressure for change and human rights to black South Africans?
So how is it comprehensible that in 2023 the South African Rugby Union could ignore human rights for others living under apartheid elsewhere and refuse to respect Palestinian calls for international boycotts of Israel to bring pressure for change?
Saru needs to conduct a review and explain how such a drastic mistake could have been made, even if it was rectified and the invitation withdrawn shortly after it was announced.
Saru needs to apologise to Palestinians.
South African friends tell me the problem is that rugby was never transformed from its old apartheid structures into a truly democratic, representative organisation. The name on the door changed from South African Rugby Board to South African Rugby Union and a few black faces sat at the table but the deep-seated attitudes embedded in the old apartheid structures were never transformed. As soon as it had undermined and side-lined the non-racial sports bodies in SACOS (South African Council on Sport) it was pretty much business as usual for South African rugby.
This is the only reason which makes sense to me. The job was never finished.
We must also remember this same state of Israel, which still wants to tour South Africa and help whitewash its vicious apartheid regime, worked hand in glove with the old South African apartheid regime to undermine sanctions on South Africa and provide arms to bolster the old racist state.
How many black South Africans protesting against apartheid were killed by Israeli arms and ammunition supplied to the old apartheid state in defiance of the United Nations arms embargo?
Palestinians are asking South Africa for the same international solidarity given to black South Africans struggling under apartheid — boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — and Saru should be proud to honour this request. Developing a policy whereby Saru condemns the apartheid state of Israel and declares it will not compete with Israeli teams until everyone living in historic Palestine has equal rights would be a good first step.
Sport can be a powerful force for good but in the wrong hands it can also be used to help normalise racism and apartheid.
There is no place for apartheid in sport. As the non-racial South African Council on Sport used to say “There can be no normal sport in an abnormal society”. This applies to Israel today just as it applied to the old South African regime.
Saru dropped the ball this time. Never again.
Indeed. They clearly need to look into who made the decision- and who paid them.
Hopefully your SA friends are correct John. Black faces at the table can include collaborators and crawlers as much as white faces in some instances, as was evident in the transition from Apartheid which corporates went along with as long as they got to keep operating in South Africa after Apartheid was gone, this included a black managerial layer.
But the vast millions of course are working class or alienated. Rugby has always had a reactionary element which is easy to figure out if you delve into its history. But Saru needs a good slapping in the form of an ongoing campaign by the sounds of it.
Apartheid Israel is ramping up the state violence against Palestinians weekly–it is an absolute no no for any team from there to visit RSA.
I wonder how Mr Minto feels about SA hosting Russia in military exercises and refusing to condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine against international law.
Seems to make a mockery of Nelson Mandela’s entire philosophy.
Russia helped SA throw off apartheid. Apartheid ‘israel’ helped apartheid South Africa’s nuclear program. Russia is a real nation run by moral human beings.
No, the USSR did. Russia encourages racism in all its forms. It has also invited white South African farmers to work its land as well.
Mohammed, the fact that you consider Russia a country run by moral leaders, confirms my opinion of you. I have no doubt that you would have been a flag waving member of the Nazi Party. You would have willingly volunteered for the SS and asked to be a guard at the concentration camps.
Russia is a fascist authoritarian state, oh that’s right very similar to most Arab states in the Middle East, no wonder you feel an affinity with Russia
Ah, a ‘friend of Epstein’ who doesn’t consider Russians to be human beings. I’m sure you think you’re unique.
Hmm not sure what a friend of Epstein is.
I know plenty of Russias when I lived there, it’s a great country with a fantastic culture. Unfortunately they are ruled by a political elite who are prone to being criminals.
More troubling is that you appear to be on the side of the despots.
The great irony is that Israel helped the apartheid regime with its nuclear weapons program.