… Uncle Bob’s sheer wishful thinking
As a confirmed citizen of this beloved land of ours, christened Namibia, yours truly feels obliged to put into perspective certain issues of national interest because I’m not the kind of dude who is in the habit of multiplying entities beyond necessity – finish and klaar.
Obviously, people are entitled to their own skewed opinions but when these opinions are accompanied by a tinge of emotive language, a systematically defined outcry that arouses emotions in expressing the complainant’s disapproval of a statement or an activity it certainly calls for any patriotic citizen to set the record straight and call a spade a spade and not a large spoon.
The comments attributed to veteran sports administrator Bob Mould, who apparently rubbished allegations of racism in Namibian sport cannot be left unchallenged because this is the typical ploy in an attempt to excuse wrongdoing by picking out companions in guilt who are far less guilty than the issue in question.
Reading between the lines, my learned colleague is not denying the naked truth that racism does exist and that a significant number of sports codes in our neck of the woods have failed to introduce and implement comprehensive transformation programmes.
Instead of tackling the real problem and looking for solutions, the brother jumped to the defence of those codes which have constantly made themselves guilty of these worrisome clearly defined tactics aimed at keeping aspirant athletes of colour at arms’ length from what is seen as private castles for the few selected elites.
Uncle Bob is making a laughable and inadequate reference to football and still has the temerity to want to know why fewer white footballers ply their trade in the country’s flagship league.
The comments are conservative and bode on ignorance, to say the least. Uncle Bob needs to be alerted to the fact that this is an extremely poor and insensitive argument advanced to support immoral behaviour, which amounts to sheer wishful thinking to suppose that other people’s bad behaviour in some way legitimizes his own.
Yours truly is damn sure many of you would scorn to own me in a lie if I put it this way. It’s a well-documented secret that blacks have never discriminated against whites – blacks have always been the victims of discrimination and are still at the mercy of laanies in many aspects of their togetherness, nogal in their own backyard in an Independent Namibia, holed up on the African continent for that matter.
When sports authorities under the auspices of the Namibian government and sponsors such as MTC speak loud by airing legitimate concerns over the tortoise-pace issue of transformation, those at the helm of many a sporting code should take note and heed the call.
This much-trumpeted worn-out humble request for inclusion of athletes of colour into sporting codes previously reserved for the elite should under no circumstances be viewed as asking a favour but rather as a national obligation. The debate about transformation should not be the exclusive concern of blacks in isolation – it has to be a collective effort.
The absence of white footballers in the MTC Namibia Premiership is twofold: (1) football is not for the faint-hearted as emotions can easily fly with abusive chants inspired by tribal or racism foolishness. (2) No matter what, Laanies are just not keen to mingle freely with darkies, simple as that.
Netball, hockey and rugby have set the trend as evidenced by people from all walks of life participating fully in these sporting disciplines without an inch of worry. Maybe some of our local sports clubs should take a leaf out of Western Suburbs’ book.
The Namibian rugby champions are doubtlessly the most successful local sports club in recent years as a result of its vision to integrate athletes from across the colour and tribal lines into their structures without shedding an ounce of sweat.
Hats off to MTC and those who have the courage to throw a spanner in the shoddy works of the various sporting disciplines because it does not make sense in a country where the majority of inhabitants are darkies.
Racial prejudice in sport has to die a natural death in our midst. Non-white athletes suffer a lot in terms of self-esteem because of the false belief that white athletes are better and superior, purely by virtue of their pale hide, which calls for a complete change of mindset across the board of those so-called elite sport codes.
For the umpteenth time, let me bluntly put it this way – Transformation should not be confused with Development. The latter is the nurturing of talent and talent identification should never have a colour coding while Transformation is about opportunities. I rest my case.