We should treasure the Manenberg Maoris because they hold up a mirror to what was and to what should have been, but is still not a reality to many.
The All Blacks perform the haka before The Rugby Championship match between the New Zealand All Blacks and South Africa Springboks at Eden Park on September 06, 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand. Picture: Phil Walter/Getty Images
The All Blacks are back in the country. It’s the first tour in 30 years and already “Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry” is heating up.
There was a wonderful Cape Town welcome for the New Zealanders at the Cape Town stadium and, immediately, some people started calling out the “Manenberg Maoris” for not getting behind the Boks instead.
It’s a sore point, but it shouldn’t be. You can’t tell people to get over the hurt and inhumanity of apartheid because you have.
But, equally, why is it even an issue? We’ve got legions of reborn Saffas in the diasporas of Australia, New Zealand, the UK and even parts of North America.
They proudly don their green-and-gold jerseys, conveniently forgetting it was the prospect of the end of apartheid and an ANC government that made them emigrate in the first place.
There are people in KwaZulu-Natal, who’ve never been further than Chatsworth, fanatical about Manchester United.
South Joburg is full of die-hard English premiership fans – even our Bok skipper is mad about Liverpool.
Give Siya Kolisi his due. He went to Anfield to watch games and counts Jurgen Klopp, one of Liverpool’s best managers, as a personal friend.
We can’t force people to back the Boks, irrespective what Kolisi and Rassie Erasmus have done in both creating a winning culture on the field and an unprecedented nation-building campaign off the field.
What we can do is recognise, as our national motto urges us: !ke e: /xarra //ke or “diverse people unite”.
We can’t speak about diversity unless we allow Van der Merwes and Steenkamps to join the Brakpan Caledonian Society without a hint of derision or pity.
We can’t speak of diversity uniting unless we can understand Cassinga, Cuito Cuanavale and Magoo’s Bar within each other’s context.
We can’t make sense of the future unless we start to truly understand the past and not try sweep it under the carpet.
There is a good reason why we have Manenberg Maoris. We should treasure them because they hold up a mirror to what was and to what should have been, but is still not a reality to many.
None of that should detract from Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry. On the contrary, it just lets it properly live up to its billing.
As the kids say, August is going to be lit – in more ways than one.
