South African rugby team to switch 'divisive' Springbok emblem

[travelling_gerry]

South African rugby team to switch 'divisive' Springbok emblem

By Sibongile Khumalo
December 02, 2008 SOUTH Africa's world champion rugby team might not be the Springboks any more, after an impassioned national debate on changing the 102-year-old emblem which critics say smacks of the apartheid era.
The South African Rugby Union (SARU) and the sports ministry have agreed that the team will adopt the symbol used by all the other national teams, the King Protea flower.

The springbok will remain on the jerseys, with the protea over the heart and the lithe antelope on the right side, Saru announced on Monday.

The change has inspired intense debate, with parliamentary sports committee chairman Butana Komphela leading the push for the Boks to make the switch.

"The issue of replacing the Springbok with a recognised national emblem was long overdue,'' Komphela told AFP.

"The sign carries a long history of racial divisions," he said.

Rugby in South Africa remains a white-dominated sport, but some argue that racial barriers were broken in 1995 when former president Nelson Mandela lifted the World Cup trophy, wearing a Bok jersey, after South Africa's victory.

Komphela said Mandela's action was a matter of convenience rather than conviction.

"It is a known fact that even Mandela himself allowed the team to use the Springbok emblem for the World Cup only as they had already made orders for the kit bearing the Springbok,"
Komphela said.

"He simply did not want to rock the boat before the big event, he even told the rugby captain at the time (Francois Pienaar) that they must not forget that the Springbok should go," Komphela said.

Saru says the "Springbok" was born in 1906 when a nickname-less, whites-only national rugby side toured Britain.

During a trip to London zoo, the visitors spotted a herd of the antelope, common to east and aouthern Africa, and decided to name themselves Springboks.

In the apartheid years, blacks were barred from wearing the jersey, and some South Africans say the springbok is a painful reminder of the past.

Since the end of white rule in 1994, many city and street names have changed to erase connotations of the past.

Komphela says changing the Springbok emblem is long overdue, but not everyone agrees - and the debate doesn't divide clearly along racial lines.

A sports convention last October passed a resolution to remove the emblem, sparking an outcry from supporters of the national rugby team, which is a source of deep pride, especially for Afrikaaners.

Former Saru president Silas Nkanunu believes changing the logo will not address the real issues affecting the sport's development and its promotion among blacks.

"The move smacks of political power play," Nkanunu told AFP.

"Black clubs are in dire need of financial assistance, which is slowing the development of talent," said Nkanunu.

He said he did not understand how the emblem was racially divisive, saying some black players had adopted the Springbok even before South Africa's race-based rugby bodies unified into a national group in the early 1990s.

Despite the change, Saru spokesman Andy Colquhoun said he expected few people would stop calling the team the Springboks.

'We believe rugby has united the country like no other sport. When we won the 1995 World Cup, people of all races came out to celebrate the victory of the Springboks," he said.

"The 2007 World Cup attracted even bigger support for the team, regardless of race," he added.
The timing of the change to the new jersey is still under discussion, mainly for logistical reasons, Colquhoun said.

Marius Roodt from the Institute of Race Relations said any racial hang-ups about rugby being a whites-only sport died in 1995, when Mandela lifted the World Cup trophy for a newly united
nation.

"The change of emblem will not contribute towards nation building," Roodt said. "Instead it will lead to cynicism in various quarters of society" about the motives for the change.


Agence France-Presse

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...-23217,00.html

[jargan83]

the Springbok is nothing more then roadkill now

[robyn <3]

It's true, they are trying to erase their past. I grew up in Natal, but jeez, that doesn't exist any more, it's Kwazulu-Natal and removing all reminds won't make it go away, or get better. I'm sad they aren't the springboks. But I am expecting worse to follow, so I'm saving the real upset for later Shame

[waratahjesus]

i understand what your saying robyn, but i don't think there erasing there past as much as being politically correct about there future!

im not sure if you have been touched by racism in your upbringing, and i hope you havnt.

i have a very good friend whos grandfather spent world war two in a concentration camp awaiting execution for two years, he was tortured and scared for life both mentally and physically, if he sees a nazi symbol he gets physically ill!,

symbols can mean very different things to many people and while i will always call the south african rugby team the springboks, as a nation, the need to move on outweighs history when history involves such black things.

the whole luke watson affair this year really drove home the underlying racism and paranoia that still exists in countries around this world! its not restricted to south africa and is prominant in many places of australia if you scratch the surface.

i think this is a positive for the country and i hope they use it to unify the team more and get rid of the quota in exchange for picking there best 15 regardless of colour!

[laura]

WJ your a changed man!

Good point about moving on. I think the history of the team will always remain, regardless of the picture on a jersey. Its a shame that it takes changing a symbol, that represents so much, to try and help overcome racial issues. I don't know if it will have the desired effect or just be a massive slap in the face to past players. Either way something will come out of it and hopefully it is for the better...time will well I guess.

[jargan83]

i hope they use it to unify the team more and get rid of the quota in exchange for picking there best 15 regardless of colour!

unfortunately I doubt that will happen. I agree that teams should be picked on who is the best 15

[welshrugbyfan]

Lets put the idea up to replace the name "the Wallabies" with "the Golden Wattles" and see who would complain.

In this PC world I can't see the name "the All Blacks" lasting to much longer then.

[Darren]

The Australian equivalent of the Springbok emblem would be teh Union Jack. I for one would not arugue with it's demise ...

[robyn <3]

i understand what your saying robyn, but i don't think there erasing there past as much as being politically correct about there future!

im not sure if you have been touched by racism in your upbringing, and i hope you havnt.

i have a very good friend whos grandfather spent world war two in a concentration camp awaiting execution for two years, he was tortured and scared for life both mentally and physically, if he sees a nazi symbol he gets physically ill!,

symbols can mean very different things to many people and while i will always call the south african rugby team the springboks, as a nation, the need to move on outweighs history when history involves such black things.

the whole luke watson affair this year really drove home the underlying racism and paranoia that still exists in countries around this world! its not restricted to south africa and is prominant in many places of australia if you scratch the surface.

i think this is a positive for the country and i hope they use it to unify the team more and get rid of the quota in exchange for picking there best 15 regardless of colour!

The place is very divided at the moment, and it is sad. I understand what you mean, and they are trying to bring the place together with this new emblem, but I am unsure if they are ruffling a few more feathers than they are smoothing over. I recall Lara said before that 98% of the voters on a poll on an SA website said no to the proteas.

I have seen racism... and it's nasty stuff. I don't remember extremely well, but I don't think it was the funnest 18 months I've had. But I wish it was kept out of sport, and the boks didn't need changing to make it all pro-intergration.

It's strange, when I think of this stuff I think (dear God, this means I listened in history!) never forget history, so that it never repeats itself. And I just don't want them to forget what the embelm shows and something terrible simmilar to this happens again.. I know it's strange, but then my history teacher was strange and he's drilled it into me, so it's stuck being strange in my book. But to mean the boks symbol shows strength that all those African's went through to get the coloured boys out there playing.

I am all for this if it stops the division... I hope this is all it takes. But that's just my slightly odd view on what's happening there.

Laura's right, what happened WJ?!

[welshrugbyfan]

The Australian equivalent of the Springbok emblem would be the Union Jack. I for one would not arugue with it's demise ...

I need this explained. Why is this the Aussie equivalent? Why is a picture of an animal and the name "Springbok" so offensive that it needs to be changed.

Excuse my ignorance on the matters.

[Darren]

I'm no expert by any means, I wouldn;t even call myself knowledgable - as I see it, it is a remnant from the apartheid era and is symbolic of white rule. The protea has already been on the emblem for a few years now, all other sports have dropped the springbok, rugby should also.

There's 40 years of legisliated apartheid (and many more decades of exclusion before that) that need to be negated - It's things like this that will help South Africa move forward.

[mudskipper]

Waratahjesus...wise words...well said...

[tragic]

The Australian equivalent of the Springbok emblem would be the Union Jack. I for one would not argue with it's demise ...

I suppose so. It would certainly stop the Poms singing their nasty songs about it...

I understand why they're doing it. I only hope the entire country can get behind it and that the new emblem has the desired effect.

[travelling_gerry]

Don't start Coach on Leeks.

[almac]

Kruger National Park can now expect a Mass Culling of Springbok, as it is a nasty reminder of Apartheid...!!!!