Durban - It's no secret that marginalisation, among many other injustices, was a norm in apartheid South Africa, and sport was no exception.
Durban author and UKZN research professor Mohamed Saleem Badat has added another book to his name with Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice: The First Non-racial International Tennis Tour, 1971, which explores tennis and social injustice with a focus on that year.
Badat said he combined tennis with apartheid and social justice to challenge the amnesia and sanitised histories of the post-1994 period.
“Much of my writing is on apartheid oppression and the struggles for freedom and social justice that it aroused. The Forgotten People, my previous book, told the story of the banishment of rural leaders opposed to apartheid to inhospitable, desolate areas (South Africa’s ‘Siberias’) for long periods. Banishment was a weapon the British colonial government introduced in the 1890s to silence its opponents. This book examines apartheid in tennis and how black people bravely struggled for non-racialism, human rights, and social justice in sport, often at great personal cost. It gives ‘voice’ to voices ignored, marginalised and suppressed,” he said.
“A misguided ‘rainbow-ism’ and urgings to ‘forget the past’ mean that past reprehensible racist conduct in sports is swept under the carpet. My research tries to recover and highlight the past as the only basis upon which we can build a future in our divided country. I argue that we needed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on sport to reveal apartheid sports crimes, how they were part of a system of racist oppression, and which organisations and individuals perpetrated those crimes.”
He also added that a sports TRC should have investigated how big business reinforced white domination in sport through generous sponsorship and the role of the media, which devoted print copy and airtime principally to white sports.
“It should have documented how apartheid affected black sports people and instituted restitution and reparations. Past sport journalism and many sports journalists have much to answer for for the silences and exclusions of the apartheid era. In James Baldwin’s words, ‘not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced’,” he said.
He recalled 1971 in the book and the importance for tennis in South Africa that year, in particular.
“1971 is recalled because in that year, the non-racial Southern Africa Lawn Tennis Union (Saltu) sent, at great cost, six promising young black players on a first, historic four-month international tour of Europe. Saltu was an affiliate of the South African Council on Sport, which championed non-racial sport and proclaimed that there could be ‘no normal sport in an abnormal society’. Dubbed the ‘Dhiraj’ squad, after non-racial tennis champion Jasmat Dhiraj, the other players were Hira Dhiraj, Alwyn Solomon, Oscar Woodman, Hoosen Bobat and Cavan Bergman,” said Badat.
The professor said South Africa in 1971 was a racist and repressive society based on white supremacy and privilege and black oppression, and that oppression spanned to sports.
“Residential areas, education, healthcare, worship, sport and amenities were all racially segregated. Blacks were included in the economy and society but excluded from enjoying the fruits of their labour and from citizenship and human rights. Black sports people were denied proper facilities, coaching and opportunities to excel, could not belong to the same clubs as whites or compete in competitions with or against white players. Nor could they represent South Africa.”
In his book, the black players take centre stage, and he also notes their modesty. “They wanted to compete against tennis players irrespective of ‘race’ and nationality, play tournaments in Europe, improve their tennis and be ambassadors for non-racial sport, upholding equality and human dignity as opposed to racism in apartheid sport,” he said.
“Post-1994, there has neither been fitting recognition nor reparations for outstanding apartheid-era black tennis players. The apartheid legacy continues to affect tennis today.
“Probably less tennis is played today in black communities than in the 1980s. The leadership of the Tennis Association of South Africa has failed to transform tennis,” he said.
“Nelson Mandela observed in 1995 that ‘we can now deal with our past, establish the truth which has so long been denied us, and lay the basis for genuine reconciliation. Only the truth can put the past to rest’. Regrettably, the ‘truth’ is being either ignored or sanitised, and myths are continuing to be peddled.
“Take the KZN Tennis Association website. Its ‘History of KZN tennis’ is an account entirely of tennis played by whites, yet it makes the staggering claim that it ‘is the very history of South African tennis’. The ‘legends’ of tennis mentioned are all white. It is silent about blacks playing tennis from the late 1800s and does not mention that blacks were deliberately excluded from clubs, which were reserved for whites, and from tournaments that were held from the 1880s,” he said.
He said the website noted the creation of the tennis Sugar Circuit with the help of the South African Sugar Industry, which became the “breeding ground for world ranked players”. It was, of course, restricted to whites.
“The sugar industry was built on the blood and sweat of Indian indentured labour and black labour, more generally. Joanne Josephs’s recent book, Children of Sugarcane, powerfully recounts the brutality of colonial sugar farming. Yet, sugar big business did appallingly little to support black players. Twenty-nine years into democracy, sport reflects many continuities with the devastating imprint and scars of the apartheid past. Meaningful development and cultivation of talent is sacrificed by an obsession with professional and commercialised sport, ‘race’ quotas, and the like.
“For meaningful change, we need an effective national development strategy to prioritise those who were historically marginalised, including women, ensure there are accessible and good tennis facilities and good coaching at schools and in working-class communities. Only in this way will tennis become socially diverse and inclusive,” he said.
Badat said his close friend Hoosen Bobat’s reminiscences of the 1971 tour were the inspiration behind the book.
“He was 18 years old then. He was invited to participate in the junior Wimbledon championship, and would have been the first black South African to do so. Until then, only whites participated because the international tennis body only recognised the racist white body, to which black players could not belong.That body objected to Bobat’s participation, and he was excluded on the orders of the general secretary of the international tennis body. Can you imagine the excitement of the opportunity to play at Wimbledon, only for your dreams to be shattered? I had to bring to light this shameful episode, what racism and apartheid and the blatant collusion of international sports bodies did to black South Africans,” he said.
He also said apartheid was a killing field of the talent and ambitions of countless black sports players, who were denied the opportunity and support to succeed at the highest levels.
“Another inspiration was Hira Dhiraj’s plea that the book should be produced ‘to get a message’ to black communities ‘that we did play sport under apartheid’. Hira notes that ‘even with all the obstacles presented by the (racist) government, we produced some great sportsmen and sportswomen’.”
“For Hira, try as it did, the apartheid regime was unable to destroy the determination of blacks to express themselves through sport, to excel despite impoverished facilities, to test themselves in competition against others irrespective of colour and to dream about a future where sport would uphold and enhance human dignity,” said Badat.
- Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice
The Independent on Saturday