Programme Director;
This afternoon, we have hosted the first ever Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA’s) symposium on transformation in sport and recreation in the Republic of South Africa. This symposium, as we said this afternoon, was aimed at promoting dialogue and information sharing amongst and between the stakeholders in sport and recreation in the Republic.
The symposium also drew some experience from intellectuals, both organic and academic, from the different parts of the world to share with us their experiences in the advancement and improvement of sport and recreation in South Africa, Africa and the world over.
This evening, therefore, is the official launch of the ThinkSport Journal of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA). As the National Sport and Recreation Indaba (NSRI) had instructed us to continue the intellectual debates and discussions about issues affecting sport and recreation, ThinkSport is therefore a structured response to that instruction to continue positive intellectual dialogue on the course of transformation of sport and recreation in South Africa.
Hence we believe that the responsibility of intellectuals as said by Mr Noam Chomsky is to speak the truth to power and to expose their lies. In doing so they should facilitate debates and shape the general policy directions. This is the generally accepted wisdom about the role of intellectuals. In the same context; the role of intellectuals could not be limited to that as Mr Busane Ngcaweni puts it in his writings about intellectuals. Mr Ngcaweni had this to say:
“So, it cannot be a service to the national intellectual project to confine intellectuals to scholarly publishing when we have preachers, political activists and artists that have made tremendous contribution to the advancement of human freedom and knowledge, often employing public means of expression. Many communities grew their understanding of their oppression through various public commentaries and literary genres such as music and poetry. It is here also that national aspiration and memory is best expressed and preserved”.
Thus ThinkSport is born to preserve our heritage in sport and recreation through deliberately documented intellectual information that could be shared with generations to come regarding the history and philosophy of sport and recreation in South Africa, Africa and the world.
This preservation of knowledge, information, discourses, perspectives, landscapes including historical advancements in sport and recreation requires a dedicated platform of academic and organic intellectuals to be an embodiment of such bold initiatives.
Therefore, the window of opportunity opened by the hosting of the National Sport and Recreation Indaba (NSRI) and the footprints discovered in the process of the implementation of the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) are paving a necessary way for building an intellectual community of great thinkers.
As a result, following the successful hosting of the National Sport and Recreation Indaba (NSRI) last year; our country and nation is now boasting of the first ever National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) which has been unanimously adopted by Cabinet of the Republic of South Africa in July 2012. In this context, the NSRP has been made the programme of government of the Republic going forward and shall be part of planning and delivery by all spheres of government led by the department of sport and recreation.
With the help of the initiatives like ThinkSport, we are carefully sure that the NSRP will assist the country to reconstruct, and revitalise the sport and recreation sector in South Africa for an active, healthy, productive and winning nation while at the same time improving the quality of life of all South Africans especially the poor and destitute.
In keeping with the pace of robustness, decisiveness, dynamism and vibrancy of the debates and discussions that are aimed at supporting the NSRP, we are sure that this initiative will translate into the achievement of the NSRI objectives and be made an interactive platform to assist in infusing-in the spirit of the ThinkSport Journal’s thinking and application towards the broader community of sport people.
Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), therefore, understood well to create this platform in order to create another continuous platform for constructive debates and a festival of ideas on critical and strategic issues that affect the life of sport and recreation in South Africa. This boldness from the SRSA will ensure that we contribute meaningfully and strategically towards the development of sport and recreation in our country especially at grassroots level and all the levels of participation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is why we believe that the ThinkSport Journal will serve as a high quality debating platform which has a balanced approach on integrated sport issues through a tailored usage of articles specially made to deal with different sport and recreation matters in our society, such as high performance and sport development.
Thus we believe further that this initiative will also enable our people to make this Journal a reference centre for sport and recreation practitioners, scholars, students, learners, participants, academics, researchers and research fellows including all our stakeholders for further educational and training purposes as well as academic and research purposes.
In conclusion, SRSA will in addition to this Journal host ThinkSport Seminars once a year as we have witnessed during the day during the Symposium on Transformation in sport and recreation in South Africa. These seminars will continue to be a round table, face to face discussions with the article contributors and opinion makers in the sport and recreation discourse to the debate and reflect on the content of the Journal Articles. This exercise brings energy and adrenaline to the discussion and debates at hand.
We must accept though that this is not an intention to make the Journal Elitist, which is why we want to make both the Journal and Seminar prestigious by making it robust and vibrant with no intention to make it an aloof forum.
In closing I would like to quote from a famous writer who wrote about the role and function of intellectuals in society in his book titled “Prologue to a theory of revolutionary intellectuals. Alvin W. Gouldner had this to say:
“Nowhere do intellectuals seek power in their own name. Being a small group they can mobilise power only in alliance with other strata. They also create new political structures of their own, rational political organisations such as the "vanguard party." These vanguard structures create an independent organisational power base for sections of the intellectuals, and through which, in turn, they can assert themselves over, routinely mobilise, and develop alliances with other social strata—peasants and proletariat”.
I would therefore like to call upon all South African intellectuals, organic or academic, to contribute and participate towards the qualitative articles of ThinkSport especially those individuals and communities who share our vision of an active and winning sporting, recreational and healthy nation.
I want to personally invite them to make their unreserved contribution towards the success of this initiative through writing brilliant articles and opinions for the ThinkSport Journal.
Thank you.
