DEDICATION
6.5 Unwavering nation building
178 excellence to take place. The talent which is found in the rural and township schools is not nurtured and grown, and ownership of these talented learners does not belong to these schools. Talent is depleted from the township and rural areas, and the learners are drawn towards the private and former white schools which act like magnets. The migration of learners to the private and former white schools has enabled sporting excellence to become a phenomenon of the privileged and well-resourced schools. In the former white schools this also promotes racial integration and racial balance within the school, which enables them to transform.
Thus, schooling in the South African context demonstrates a uniqueness as to how school as an institution shapes the learners within the transforming environment, providing not only better education but also an avenue to promote their sporting agendas.
The next salient notion will provide an understanding of how being involved in the KZN sporting teams provides a catalyst for learners to unite as a team and identify with national entities.
179 In order to win the learners have to work as a team, and this means putting aside all their differences and prejudices. The social diversity of South Africa presents excellent opportunities for investigating the psychological and sociological perspectives of the learners and how they contribute to nation building. ‘Nation’ is defined as a civic community, rooted in values that can be shared by all ethnic components of the national society, offering the most durable framework for accommodating diversity. According to Smith (1996, p. 453), “a nation must possess its own individuality, its peculiar history and identity, and thereby reveal its unique contribution, its irreplaceable culture values to the world”.
The sociological approach to self and identity begins with the notion that there is a reciprocal relationship between the self and society (Stryker, 1980), where the self, influences society through the actions of individuals, thereby creating groups. In return, society influences the self through its shared language and meanings that enable a person to take the role of the other engaged in social interaction, and reflect upon oneself as an object. Individuals identify with and behave as part of social groups, adopting shared attitudes (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Being part of the KZN team and the sense of belonging it creates spills into many aspects of the learners’ lives that indicate the importance placed on nation building. Aspects such as team spirit, quotas, role models and goal setting (which will be elaborated on) have resulted in the changing social identities of learners. This has fostered a new social identity that has galvanised the learners towards nation building.
As part of the KZN provincial team, the data reveal that learners see themselves as part of a team. Despite the teams being racially and culturally diverse, learners tend to set aside these diversities when in the team. To them the KZN team allows them to gain a sense of positive self-esteem and a sense of belonging to a team with the unified goal of winning. Learners spoke very highly of their KZN team, and this group seems to have the strongest influence on them because through their belonging to the team they are creating their sporting identity. They function as a family, and when together they do not notice the differences between them. Being part of the team is fun and the camaraderie is strong. Sport is what unites them.
180 The coaches in the study affirmed the important of team spirit and according to the cricket coach the KZN cricket team is conscientiously promoting this: I must say that most of them know one another from the primary school where they are competing with each other on a regular basis, but when you get a boy from the township who does not know anybody, then we encourage the boys get to know each other properly.
This year for the first time we are organising a camp, not to discuss cricket but to get to know each other and develop a team spirit (CC4). Being part of a sports team is an excellent crucible (Sugden, 2010) to will away the negative effects of a place or set of circumstances, where people or things are subjected to forces that test them and often make them change.
Although the quota system is applied and both learners and coaches experience it, the KZN provincial teams are very united. This can be seen as role efficacy within sports teams. Beauchamp (2007, p. 182) refers to roles as “sets of expectations about behaviours for a position in a social structure”. They typically involve interdependent behaviours and are a defining feature of teams. Within sport teams athletes perform both informal as well as formal roles. Informal roles develop through intragroup development and interaction and may include the team joker or the spokesperson.
Formal roles relate to responsibilities prescribed to athletes for the specific purpose of meeting the group’s performance objectives.
When it comes to the formal roles played by learners in the KZN team, they seem to portray a very united team. The soccer coach describes his KZN team as one that does not look at colour or race but is based totally on the skill level of the players. He says that the white soccer players are described by their black counterparts as black boys who are just white because of the skill. They gel as a team. It is not a case of let’s stick to our kind (SoC7). The netball coach has the same views: if you are a netball player or a netball coach you need to be someone who loves the sport. If you love the sport you forget about race, you forget about everything that is not in line with that sport (NC7).
Sport provides people with a social context where encounters with other people take place in a non-threatening way and the social context provides an environment in which
181 they can get rid of harmful emotions. Irush and Broere (1999, p. 311) purport that through sport, values such as respect for others and keeping to the rules are learned. The diverse backgrounds of the learners can lend themselves to conflict and tension, but the findings of the study indicate that learners use this diversity to forge unity and oneness.
The cricket coach is also very positive about the way learners interact with each other in the provincial teams: we have never had any racist kind of issues. The boys actually interact wonderfully. I used to pair the boys myself but now they pick themselves, and you will be amazed how many of them mix, it is amazing and I honestly believe that we would not see to transformation but our children will (CC5). In the South African context this sense of identity provides a valuable vehicle in nation building. Sport is also regarded as a possible tool of social interaction because it occasions collective experiences as well as direct physical contact between the participants. According to Harms (1984, p. 7), “people jointly participating in active sport, especially in team sports, enter into direct physical contact with one another which practically provokes the emergence of intensive interpersonal relationships”.
Brendon is the only white boy that plays for his club in the township. When his club coach was asked about how he handles this situation he said: the first thing is that when a player comes in we welcome him. We do not look at colour because we believe that when you cut your hand the blood is red, so every hand is the same. We give every boy an opportunity. When Brendon goes to the township there is a stir because he is an Umlungu. He is from a different race so people receive him differently but it is a building block (NkCC6).
Having Brendon in his club provides the club coach with an opportunity to use him as a role model to strengthen the other boys: he is more mature, grounded and responsible.
To be responsible at the age of 14 tells you that you have a great destiny. We believe that every boy is the captain, but you have to earn it to wear the band, and you earn it through small events. Like Brad can run a warm-up programme because he has been trained, so that is leadership (NkCC7).
182 It would seem that in the KZN teams, as far as the learners are concerned, diversity has bonded them as a team. Dupper (2008, p. 444) also believes that affirmative action measures should “weaken rather than reinforce stereotypical and prejudicial views”. If the quota system is on its way out, surely this must be right, despite the injustices of the past. Sport is the ultimate meritocracy, and the sporting field a place where background, colour, creed and class, at least of the social kind, are irrelevant (Atherton, 2007;
Martens, 1975; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Mwirigi (2010, p. 73) believes that in the South African context the Government is not trying to exclude talented sportsmen and women, but simply trying to create opportunities for the many equally talented sportspeople who were never given the chance and who were never going to get a chance without some of these controversial policies.
The learners have a very practical and realistic approach to who they select to emulate as their role model. They admire the players from their senior provincial teams and the South African national teams, an aspect that strongly affirms the learners’ national pride. The learners look up to these sporting heroes who inspire them and who have become their role models in life. In their selection the learners chose sportspersons from their country who were in the senior provincial teams or played in the South African national teams. These sportspersons are Precious Mthembu76 (Y11); Jessica Nkomo77 (No14); Marcia Marescia78 (Dr6); Sekani Mbyiwe79 (Tho5); Jonty Rhodes3131, Jacque Kallis72 (C5); Wesley Gilchrest80 and Ryk Neethling81 (Da8). Most of the learners indicated that they see their role models in action, especially those in the senior
76 Precious Mthembu is a South African netball player. She plays in the positions of centre and wing defence. She participated in the 2011 World Netball Series in Liverpool, UK.
77 Jessica Nkomo is a South African netball player.
78 Marsha Marescia is a field hockey player from South Africa, who was a member of the national squad that finished 9th at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The midfielder comes from Durban, and is nicknamed Nator. She plays for the provincial team Southern Gauteng.
79 Sekani Mbyiwe is in the first team of Orlando Pirates which is a South African soccer club based in Parktown, Johannesburg that plays in the Premier Soccer League.
80Wesley Gilchrest is a swimmer in the KwaZulu-Natal senior swimming squad and he achieved gold in the World Junior Championship in Brazil in 2007.
81 Ryk Neethling (born 17 November 1977) is a South African swimmer. He won an Olympic gold medal in the 4×100 m freestyle relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics. He is the former joint owner of the 4×100 m freestyle relay world record and holds several South African records. He also is the first South African to compete in four successive Olympic Games.
183 provincial teams and this inspires them to achieve. The social diversity of South Africa presents these learners with an excellent opportunity to select role models from all spheres of life. The learners have tremendous admiration for their South African role models, who are from all racial backgrounds, affirming their loyalty and allegiance to their country.
South Africa’s nation building takes place on “the foundations of ethno nationalism, racial identity and the cultural politics of ethnic solidarity” (Bekker & Prinsloo, 1999, p.
25). What, then, is the attachment to the nation? According to Billing (1995) and Reicher, Hopkins and Condor (1997), there are two motives that may be specific to national identity construction: the desire for a sense of historical destiny of the group, and for the land of one’s birth. Learners in the KZN team differ in many ways - in race, class, culture and socio-economic status - but their choice of role models and goal setting reflect their strong national identity. The learners’ behaviour concurs with Mattes (1999) who points out the importance of the link between identity processes with behaviours in national identity.
The learners show similar characteristics of national pride when they set themselves goals. Their goal setting initiatives begin with aspiring to attain the next level of achievement within the sporting structures that enable them to progress towards national colours. According to Orlick (2008), people often set long-term, far-off goals without focusing enough on the present. But it is the present that gets one to the future in the way that one wishes to get there. Long-term goals can help motivate and guide, but one also needs lots of modest or achievable daily goals that take one progressively closer to the desired destination. The concreteness of progress in sport is readily obvious: better techniques, improved times, jump higher, play better and improve rankings. The learners in the study set themselves short-term goals in terms of their next level of achievement, which were realistic and achievable, and they were focused and driven towards them.
The learner data reveal their aspirations to progress to the next level of sporting achievements: I have the potential to be in the KZN team and the SA team. I want a good life like everyone else (No13); I would like to make the national team and attend
184 the Olympics 2012 (Dr6); I would like to play for my country. Get the caps (B1); my short-term goal is to make the KZN U19 team and go to Coke week. I really would like to make the SA school team this year (C7); I want to make the KZN U19 side and then go to Coke week. My main goal is to make SA school. I have two different plans, if I make it I want to go to Cape Town and go to the Academy in Cape Town and if I do not make it I will stay in Natal and I will go to the Dolphin’s Academy (Ja3).
Learners carefully mapped their goals so as to make their way to represent their country.
They want to move up the ranks in their province before setting their sights on national glory. It is evident that the learners display an eagerness to continue to represent their province so that they can be selected for the national squad one day. Their aspirations seem firmly entrenched towards achieving national accolades. Nation building takes on a new dimension, as the learners’ ultimate goal is to represent their country where the teams are made up of players who although from diverse backgrounds, work together as a team. It is evident then that being with the KZN team provides the learners with a social context where they can encounter other players in a non-threatening way, and gain a sense of positive self-esteem and a sense of belonging to a team with the unified goal of winning. In the South African context, this sense of identity provides a valuable vehicle in nation building.
The creation of a new social identity finds it roots in national imperatives; since the learners value their identification with the team, they see themselves very much as South Africans, despite the quota and affirmative systems. They select as their role models those who are in the senior or national teams, and their goal setting for the next level of achievement is the stepping stone towards them representing their country. The learners are inspired by the fact that they can represent their country, and the quota system actually provides a catalyst for them to excel and be the best (Rajput, 2010c).
Thus sport becomes a catalyst to draw individuals together with the common goal of winning. As Sugden (2005, p. 251) reminds us, sport “is a social construct and its role and function depends largely on what we make of it and how it is consumes”. In a transforming society then, sports can be seen as a powerful tool to drive the youth towards nation building: “Sport exerts an immeasurable influence as a unifying force for reconciliation and for the process of nation building” (Keim, 2003, p. 171).
185 National pride is an acute reason for the learners in the study to overcome diversity and ensure team spirit. Their identity as members of the provincial team and accepting all the players as equal, their choice of role models who are players from the senior teams or national players, and their ultimate goal of achieving their national colours demonstrate a strong sense of allegiance towards national pride. Eaton (2002) believes that for South Africa to succeed, the construction of nationhood will play an important role in enhancing a healthy democracy.
The focus in the final salient notion addresses how racial diversity plays itself out within the provincial teams.