AN UGLY THING happened in New Zealand on the periphery of the World Cup celebrations over the weekend. A very ugly thing, that cannot be ignored.
A South African rugby writer — in the company of other rugby writers on Saturday night, enjoying themselves in a bar in Taupo, a town on a lake in the North Island — was apprehended by police and taken to a police station, where he was accused of dealing in drugs.
The rugby writer, by all accounts a sober and straight-laced man, was questioned and had to get undressed to allow police to search him and his clothes. He was released after no drugs were found on him. The other media men made a stink about it on social networking sites, to such an extent that New Zealand’s media cottoned on to it and brought the sad story out in the open.
Taupo police chief superintendent Glenn Dunbier then said: “He [the rugby writer] fit the description of somebody dealing drugs.”
Did I mention that the rugby writer, Vata Ngobeni of the Pretoria News, is a black man? Can anybody blame Ngobeni for claiming that he was a victim of racism and wanting an apology from the police?
Ngobeni said on Television New Zealand: “It’s difficult to prove you’re innocent when you are presumed guilty. I felt embarrassed, harassed and extremely violated.”
Some of the other rugby writers who were with Ngobeni that fateful night went ballistic on Twitter, with Ngobeni’s fellow South African, Michael Mentz of the Avusa media group, tweeting: “Racism is alive in this place.”
The New Zealand Herald quoted another rugby writer from South Africa, Brenden Nel, as calling the police action “racial profiling at its worst.”
Superintendent Dunbier remained unrepentant and refused to apologize to Ngobeni about the incident. He told Television New Zealand: “I’m not about to apologize for our police staff acting in a lawful manner, totally within police policy and in a way that was incredibly understanding and empathetic.”
“This isn’t about race,” he added. “It’s about police dealing with drug-dealing in Taupo.”
Can one therefore assume, given that Ngobeni “fit the description of somebody dealing drugs” and it wasn’t “about race,” that he was singled out by police because he was a rugby writer? Or because he was a tourist? The police reaction strikes one as being pure nonsense.
Ngobeni was picked up because he was black. Hurrah for the men and women in uniform in Taupo, bravely toeing the thin blue line, while acting totally within police policy and in a way that was incredibly understanding and empathetic.
Ngobeni said that he would never in his life return to Taupo — nobody can blame him.
That something like this happened to a black professional from South Africa in New Zealand — where huge anti-racism protests were staged in the 1970s and early 1980s — is pushing irony to its limits. It is also shameful in the extreme.
However, let us not dwell on the ugly things. Let’s rather have a look at something more upbeat, if not pretty: a NUDE rugby world cup, or rather, a series of seven-a-side matches played between amateur teams in the buff, potentially giving a whole new meaning to “play the ball, not the man.” When women play they do so in sports kit, while the male players proudly let it all hang out.
Nude rugby in New Zealand started in 2002, when a game was played on a beach in Dunedin. Ralph Davies, founder of the Nude Blacks, a New Zealand side made up of amateur players, told media outlets: “We were frozen. It started as a joke as part of a backpackers’ festival.”
He added that students were known to run naked across Dunedin streets in winter, so they decided to take it further by playing rugby games in the nude.
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