Why I won't support the Springboks in the Rugby World Cup

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/rugby-springbok-south-africa-race

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I was six years old when I huddled around a TV set with my parents and all their friends in Phakamisa township and watched Springbok fly half Joel Stransky score a glorious drop goal to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup for South Africa.

We couldn’t stop screaming. You could see the elation on every face in the room when Nelson Mandela, newly elected as president, handed the trophy to Springbok captain Francois Pienaar. It was the first time that rugby, a traditionally divisive sport which had prohibited players of colour from representing the country, had united black and white South Africans – and it sparked my ongoing love-affair with the game.

Related: Lack of black players in South Africa team puts race under spotlight before World Cup | David Smith

The 2015 Rugby World Cup, which starts tomorrow in England, comes on the 20th anniversary of this historic win at a time when allegations of racism are once again marring the sport. South Africa’s 31-man World Cup squad consists of 23 white players and eight players of colour; a composition grossly incongruent in a country which is almost 90% black.

Rugby authorities have defended the team selection, denying accusations of racism, but how can they fail to see the importance of racial transformation in post-apartheid South Africa? This should not be surprising to white South Africans, previously granted privilege and access purely because of their race.

Rugby’s reluctance to grapple with its past and take concrete steps to mirror the country’s demographic make-up reflects how black South Africans remain spectacularly side-lined in many aspects of life.

Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, a middle-aged white Afrikaans man who was brought up under apartheid, did not help when he defended selecting a all-white starting line-up for a match against Argentina last month by saying “I don’t look at colour – I look at the best players”. Yet there are recurring complaints that Meyer often plays white players out of position rather than black players in their regular ones.

Related: Can the Rainbow Nation ever shine through South Africa’s fog of racism?

A few seasons ago, white scrumhalf Francois Hougaard said that he was embarrassed to play at wing when Lwazi Mvovo, a black player, was shining in this position.

Former Springbok communications officer Mark Keohane claimed that Meyer’s selections are not consciously racist but rather that “when in doubt, like so many [Springbok coaches] before him, he has found comfort with what he knows – white rugby players”.

But even if it is not a deliberate attempt to preserve white dominance in the sport, it is inexcusable. Black South Africans realise that change takes time and redress does not happen overnight. But 21 years is long enough to put the necessary structures in place to identify and nurture black talent, and offer black players the same opportunities as whites.

Many South Africans are angry. A small political party known as the Agency for a New Agenda went to court to try to prevent the squad from competing in the World Cup because it did not abide by government policy on transformation. The bid was unsuccessful.

More than two decades after apartheid formally ended, we have grown impatient with the pace of change. Witness the recent unrest at universities, on the streets; the clashes in corporate boardrooms and institutions across the country.

We are now forcible renegotiating a national identity that is inclusive – removing symbols of oppressive regimes, debating appropriate languages at public institutions and exposing all forms of racism and cultural exclusion. And unless rugby gets its act together, it will be caught in the crossfire.

The World Cup should be a unifying time for any country. But South African rugby is fast squandering the remains of any goodwill it earned in 1995.

I know that this year many of my friends will not be cheering the Springboks but will back New Zealand instead – a team fielding more black players. The TV room at my parents’ house will not be packed with people supporting the national team, and for the first time in my life I don’t know whether I’ll even be watching.