Members of the media
Today we had the first meeting of the Eminent Persons Group on Transformation (EPG) in South Africa. We thank them for accepting our invitation to serve on this august body in the possession and service of our nation and trust that they will employ and utilise their vast knowledge and experience to bring about new ideas and fresh perspectives on transformation in our motherland. In our considered view we deemed it of necessity to invite women and men of their stature to help us unravel this ‘animal’ and ‘dinosaur’ called transformation with a view to lay to rest the ghost of colonialism and apartheid through carefully considered solutions and policies.
We trust that they will appreciate the fact and reality that it is not our intention to embark on an academic debate on transformation. We are aware that out there, there are many individuals and organisations engrossed and immersed in polemic debates about the meaning of transformation. The ball is in their court to embark in such polemics; however we urged them from the outset to appreciate the need for action and action now. Ours is to advance the theorisation and intellectualisation of transformation with a view not to maintain, but to revolutionise and change South Africa through sport for the better.
We believe in that in them, we have the possibility to cause South Africans to think, reflect and resolve to undertake a journey that will lead to meaningful change in material and immaterial terms.
One of the most pre-eminent and celebrated philosopher par excellence once said:
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various forms but the real task is to alter it”. That said and that being the case we believe we have assembled in them a diverse team of men and women capable of interpreting, interrogating and changing the world for the better. There are many people in our country, both present and past, who have played a major role in the evolution of South Africa from the doldrums of colonial and apartheid successive exploitative and oppressive regimes. Despite this track-record of struggle and liberation in 1994, we in sport and recreation live in a country that is bedevilled by a number of social ills, to name but a few.
We live in a country where in there are black man and women in sport in charge and presiding over federations whose teams are still predominantly white and not representative. We have inherited federations that have been run as cartels and fiefdoms. Where governance and accountability are foreign principles and anathema.
We live in country where mediocrity is celebrated and our national team Bafana Bafana is a case in point, in this regard. We live in a country where there is little attention paid to women in sport, people with disability in sport, sports development in rural areas and townships. The majority of our schools and communities have no facilities not even recreational facilities. Physical education is no longer part of the curriculum of teacher training at universities since the demise of teacher training colleges. Sport administration, coaching, scientific support is in need of specialised attention.
The Department of Sport together with South African Sports and Confederation Olympic Committee (SASCOC) is giving this matter the attention it deserves.
Schools sport has been in shambles until our intervention with the Department of Basic Education to re-invigorate the school sport programme in all our schools especially in rural and township schools. Our university and college sport activities are completely misaligned from school and community sport.
Ladies and gentleman we believe we have in the Eminent Persons, capable men and women who have the capacity, capability and the will to bring about unorthodox ways of transforming society through sport. Notwithstanding our shameful past, sport and recreation have played and continue to play an important role in uniting our people, fostering social cohesion and promoting nation building. This is the role sport played during the days of apartheid, disunity, unification and what we call non-racial sport, which a I think is a fallacy, however you will be the judges!
The people of South Africa and sports activist across the globe are well informed of the resistance and protestation against the apartheid policies and practices as they impacted on sport and recreation. Structures such as the National Sports Council pronounced and fiercely campaigned for Transformation, Unity, and Development! The question is, have we achieved any of the aforementioned noble ideal? Do we have a common understanding of what these means?
Do we a have shared vision and mission for the attainment of these noble principles? Our observation and assertion is that we have not. We need to find the diagnosis before we set up the remedy. We are not going to solve the problem by vilifying apartheid, by blacks peddling insults at white people, vice-versa. The problems will not be resolved by chastising sport administrators and leaders. Through the EPG the government is creating a platform for all people concerned, affected and impacted on by sport to engage in a meaningful, focused and constructive debate on the future of South African sport and recreation with a view to find long-time and lasting solutions.
“For all the decades of sacrifice, commitment and opposition to apartheid sport, non-racial sport was called upon to forgive but not forget. And this is where we are today, having forgiven but not forgotten our non-racial sports era, our officials (and sportspersons) who gave so much to the development and organisation (of) non-racial sport. (South Africans, black and white) who were involved in sport (and recreation) from way back in the 1950’s are still involved in sport today, still giving their time to sport (and recreation) and still loving sport.
Post-apartheid South Africa has gone on to record international sports victories and sports prowess of our sports has surfaced with the eradication of apartheid. Elite and professional sports stars abound in all sports and South Africa derive much joy and pride from international sport. And through all of this, our stars from behind the bars are still involved in sport, still organising and loving sport, but never forgetting where we came from and what got us where we are today.” Cheryl Roberts, No Normal Sport In An Abnormal Society – Struggle for Non-Racial Sport in South Africa – From Apartheid to Sport Unity, 2011.
Having taken the poignant and plausible views posited by Cheryl Roberts, the man and women of our land chose to bury the ghost of apartheid and chose nation building and reconciliation. Our firm belief is that we chose the right path because the opposite was death, civil war and destruction. For those who hold a different view we invite them to express their views as part of the national discourse and transformation in sport.
Since 1994, the South African Government has been engaged in a vigorous process of transformation that has included a new Constitution, transformation of the State machinery and changes to almost all policies in order to ensure the emergence of a democratic society, based on the principles of non-racialism and non-sexism.
Towards the end of 2003 Cabinet approved the recommendations of a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) that investigated high performance sport in South Africa. The Cabinet approval of the MTT report paved the way for the rationalisation of South African sport with a reduction of seven umbrella bodies to only two - a fully-fledged Department of Sport and Recreation to deal with mass participation and a non-governmental sports organisation to assume the coordinating responsibility for high performance sport. However the question needs to be asked as to whether this current arrangement in present form and character enables us and empowers us to deliver on our national goals and mandate.
In 2009 Sport and Recreation South Africa finalised a document entitled “A Case for Sport” outlining the social and economic impact of sport and recreation.
The new sports environment at a macro level following the implementation of the MTT recommendations as well as the content of the Case for Sport necessitated the updating of the 2001 version of the White Paper on sport and recreation. This process was finalised early in 2011 together with the development that outlined priority areas for sport and recreation. In this connection we also invite the EPG to interrogate the White Paper and pronounce on whether the White Paper will address and redress our strategic objectives in relation to school sport, community sport, institutional mechanisms, facilities, recreation, funding and internationalisation of sport.
We wish to thank the Group once again for accepting to work with us and we in deed looking forward to working with them. To the extent that I have directed the Department to provide them with all the requisite support from secretariat and research support so that they can deliver on their mandate.
Just to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Eminent Persons Group are: Dr Somadoda Fikeni, the Chairperson, the Deputy Chairperson, Ms Ria Ledwaba, with whom I’m addressing you today, Mr Silas Nkanunu, Dr Sam Ramsamy, Professor Timothy Noakes, Ms Wimpie du Plessis, Dr Willie Basson, Ms Nomfanelo Magwentshu, Mr Qondisa Ngwenya, Mr Max Moss, Mr Louis Von Zeuner,Dr Xolela Mangcu, and Dr Marion Keim Lees.
I thank you.
