The Daily Dispatch E-Edition

SPRINGBOK LOGO HEADS FOR COURT

Sports activists say Nelson Mandela protected those who didn’t want to change ‘hated symbol of white supremacy’ in 1994

RAY HARTLE

An Eastern Cape man is taking on the mighty SA Rugby Union’s continued use of the Springbok name and emblem, claiming it is an illegal and gratuitous display of an apartheid symbol.

Kanya Mdaka intends launching proceedings in the equality court in East London to force a decision on Saru’s continued use of the Springbok symbol.

He has the support of a predemocracy nonracial rugby star with Kwzakhele Rugby Union (Kwaru), Zola Yeye, who said there was nothing wrong with Mdaka’s action, and lamented then-president Nelson Mandela’s overruling of those who did not want the Springbok emblem to be maintained after 1994.

Mdaka hopes that a 2019 court decision in a matter for the Nelson Mandela Foundation against Afriforum will be a precedent for a local finding that the emblem is a “symbol of hate” and its display inappropriate “given its controversial history and what it symbolises”.

The 2019 decision found the apartheid-era SA flag was “a vivid symbol of white supremacy and black disenfranchisement and oppression”.

In a landmark judgment that ensured the Equality Act’s ambit applied to symbolic acts of expression, Gauteng deputy judge-president Phineas Mojapelo found displaying the old flag constituted hate speech and harassment, was discriminatory, had a clear intention to hurt, and incited harm and hatred against black people.

Mdaka wrote to Saru early in July alleging the organisation was in contravention of the Mojapelo judgment.

He said the Springbok, adopted for SA’S 1906 tour of the northern hemisphere, was later copyrighted by rugby authorities and shared with other sporting codes, provided it could be awarded only to white sportspeople representing SA.

“It is for this reason that the Springbok has come to be known as an international symbol of hatred, white supremacy and apartheid.

“This led SA’S sporting codes to cease the use of the Springbok as a national emblem, except for Saru.

“It is my contention that the Springbok emblem holds similar values to the old South African flag.”

He said the slow pace of rugby transformation was testament to the white supremacy and non-progressive culture that continued to plague the game.

Inextricably linked to its “atrocious past, in the same way the swastika cannot be separated from its (Holocaust) past”, the Springbok was not welcomed by the general black population, who “tolerate its use due to ignorance of its unlawfulness”.

In a response to Mdaka, Saru’s attorney, Matt Kemp, said the organisation denied the Springbok was a divisive, hurtful or dehumanising symbol, arguing the emblem, along with the new SA flag, represented the values of hope, possibility and unity.

He said despite Saru’s fundamental disagreement with Ndaka’s views, the rugby body respected its responsibility to redress past imbalances.

Mdaka said on Monday that he had not yet lodged papers in the matter due to logistical problems but he hoped to do so this week.

Citing former Springbok player Luke Watson who in 2008 reportedly said he felt like vomiting on the Springbok emblem Mdaka said opposition to the use of the Springbok symbol was “not a Kanya Mdaka issue; it is a national issue”,

He said he initially intended to bring the application before the court in Engcobo, but after being “sent here, there and everywhere”, and due to “issues of competency and the complexity of the case”, he decided to lodge the application in East London.

He plans to seek an order to stop the Springbok emblem being used.

He declined to say too much about the procedure under way “because the things I say can be used against me”.

Backing Mdaka, Yeye said: “It is his democratic right and we support this dialogue.

“As sports activists, we have worked very hard to normalise sport in our country.”

Yeye, who is a Springbok World Cup-winning manager, said there were two sticking points behind his opposition to the Springbok emblem when discussions were under way in 1994.

“For reconciliation and peace for all of us in our country, we needed to move from the same premise and find new symbols that reflected our diversity but also spoke to us as one nation, rather than the different communities that existed under the apartheid system.

“For me as an individual, I was saying I come from a nonracial environment, where our slogan was no normal sport in an abnormal society, no nonracial sport in a racial society.

“We also said that we could not have a rugby team with different symbols to cricket, soccer and netball.”

For people from a certain grouping, rugby would always be regarded as the dominant sport.

“We said we needed to change the Springbok emblem but those who didn’t want change were saved by Mandela.

“The political will wielded that power on us and overwhelmed us.

“There has not been a single attempt since 1995 to revisit this notion.

“Even today, some Kwaru people bemoan the fact that there are certain individuals who sold us out,” he said.

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2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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