Input to Tourism Master Plan by DCAS – Sport and Recreation by Dr Lyndon Bouah
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Input to Tourism Master Plan by DCAS – Sport and Recreation By Dr Lyndon Bouah 1. Introduction Sport and recreation play an important role in South African society and have for many decades, as evidenced by South Africa’s participation in the Olympic Games and by the country’s emphasis on sport at school level. Sport has played a key role in nation building during important events such as the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the more recently held 2010 FIFA World Cup. The South African government committed R30 billion rand to major infrastructure investment programmes meant to ensure the success of the tournament. (2010 FIFA World Cup Country Report 2013:10) and has since invested in sport infrastructure throughout the country. The hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup presented an opportunity to South Africa and Africa, by extension, to celebrate African diversity and culture (Pillay, Tomlinson and Bass 2009:3). The National Development Plan (NDP) has recognized the importance for social cohesion and has called for all citizens to continue to engage with each other as they did in the 2010 Football World Cup (National Development Plan 2012: 428). The history of South African sport can be traced back to the 1800s when sport was thought to be introduced by the British settlers. Nelson Mandela in a foreword to the “Story of an African Game” (2003) by Andre Odendaal recalled that: 1 The educated Englishmen was our model; what we aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen’, as we were sometimes derisively called. We were taught and believed that the best ideas were English ones. In line with these ideas, sport, particularly cricket, was given a high priority. I enjoyed myself on the playing fields at Healdtown. The standards were high. Therefore even while athletics and boxing became my favoured games, I have been aware for a long time of the mission roots of cricket in the Eastern Cape and the deep love for the game that developed in the African communities in that part of the world. South African sport continued to develop sport clubs and federations in the 1890s and South Africa started competing in the Olympic Games soon after its rebirth in 1896. South Africa hosted touring sides such as England but later on Australia and other countries as well and became a regular competitor internationally in a wide variety of sporting disciplines. Once South Africa, however, formally announced the policy of Apartheid, pressure was brought to ban South Africa from most international events including the Olympic Games. In 1963 SA was banned from the Olympic Games and that was soon thereafter followed by other international sport federations. The South African Government supported rebel tours to South Africa which was met by opposition national and internationally. By the mid 1970s South Africa was effectively banned from all sporting codes internationally due to the practice of Apartheid. 2 Minister Stofile (2005) in an address to a sport conference at the University of Fort Hare stated that “Sport was used by the apartheid regime as their department of foreign affairs in tracksuits. Generations upon generations of apartheid sports administrators and athletes gleefully spread the propaganda of oppression and discrimination. Resources from the both the private and public sectors were horded on these people”. (C. Thomas (Ed.), Sport and Liberation in South Africa, Reflections and Suggestions. Alice and Pretoria: University of Fort Hare and Department of Sport and Recreation, 2006, p9). In November 1991 South Africa started its first step to its unbanning by touring India on a cricket tour under the leadership of the late Clive Rice. In February 1992, the ban on South African cricket was lifted which enabled South Africa to compete in Australia in the Cricket World Cup in 1992. South Africa then started dealing with all the international bodies responsible for sport. The crowning glory for South Africa, however, was the readmission to the International Olympic family thus enabling its participation in the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. The enduring image of this Olympic Games was the ten thousand metre event in which South African athlete Elana Meyer took silver and then ran with the Ethiopian winner Derartu Tulu around the track in a victory lap symbolizing the true unity of sport and an African victory. 3 South Africa’s initial foray back into international sport saw the country’s victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup and then the victory in the 1996 African Football Cup of Nations on home soil. This ‘golden’ period ended with Josiah Thugwane winning the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, thus becoming the first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal. The next few years had less success stories and South Africa became a “middle of the road country”, able to compete in rugby, cricket, football, athletics and a host of smaller codes but with not much significant results. The nation expected more from its athletes. From the South African Government side, strategic planning became necessary and the Department of Sport and Recreation published in 1996 the initial White Paper on Sport. This was followed a few years later in 2001 by a second White Paper on Sport and Recreation. The White Papers were meant to galvanise the sport movement and were setting out in broad terms the strategy and thinking of government. Following various dismal results in the early part of this century, the then Sport and Recreation Minister, Mr. N Balfour, instituted a Ministerial Task Team to report back to the Minister with recommendations on the streamlining of South African sport. The Ministerial Task Team completed its task in 2003 and from these recommendations the South African Sport Confederation Olympic Committee (SASCOC) was formed in November 2004. New impetus to sport was given to South Africa when it became the host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. South Africa had by this time hosted various international events such as the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the 1996 African Cup of Nations, the 1999 All African Games, the 2003 World Cricket Cup and an assortment of African championships in different sporting codes. The awarding of the 4 2010 FIFA World Cup propelled sport to the forefront of the nation. Government called on all stakeholders to unite behind the national team and to collaborate on nation-building and social change through soccer. Minister Fikile Mbalula was appointed as the new Minister for Sport and Recreation in December 2010 and immediately initiated policy discussions. He started what he termed a ‘Roadmap for South African Sport’ and convened a National Sport and Recreation Indaba in November 2011. This National Sport and Recreation Indaba brought all stakeholders together in a public process that culminated in the drafting of the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP). The NSRP is an eight year sustainable implementation plan for sport and recreation. The nucleus of the NSRP provides details of the three core pillars of implementation which are an active nation, a winning nation and an enabling environment. (Section 2, NSRP, 2011). At the National Sport and Recreation Indaba held in November 2011, it was declared that the key role of Government is to create the applicable policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks and to support an enabling environment for the equitable delivery of sport and recreation (Declarations of the National Sport and Recreation Indaba, 2013). 2. The value of sport The Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group (2008:9) noted the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace Report and its conclusion that well designed sport-based initiatives are practical and 5 cost-effective tools to achieve objectives in development and peace. Sport is a powerful vehicle that should be increasingly considered by the UN as complementary to existing activities. It is Keim’s view (2009:84), after analyzing the vision of Coubertin as well as the vision of Nelson Mandela that sport has a potential to make an impact on communities in many areas and can serve as an activation and training tool and as a means of fostering sportsmanship, friendship and citizenship. Sport can also be used as a means for social inclusion of marginalized groups such as women and persons with disabilities. Specific programmes and activities can be used to assist marginalised groups which will allow these groups to have their dignity restored and to empower them. Keim further noted that sport can be used as a means for empowerment and personal development, as a means for crime prevention and as a means for social transformation and reconstruction. These are varied aims which sport in its totality can speak to. Keim concluded that sport can be used as a means to improve infrastructure, to improve integration and as a means for peace building and democracy. According to the Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group (SDPIWG: 2008), sport is seen to have the most benefits in individual development, health promotion and disease prevention, promotion of gender inequality, social integration 6 and the development of social capital, peace building and conflict prevention/ resolution, post disaster/ trauma relief and normalisation of life, economic development, communication and social mobilisation. 3. Economic contribution of sport De Coning (2014) found that strong evidence existed that sport and recreation makes a substantive and significant contribution to the socio-economic development of the Western Cape Province. De Coning found that sport contributed in excess of R8.8 billion to the Western Cape during 2012. The study concluded that sport and recreation have a major impact on social development and impacts positively on health, education, human and social capital, and especially the youth.