READER LETTER | Why do South Africans cheer when All Blacks beat Springboks?

A born-and-bred South African from Wellington in the Western Cape, still living in SA, has changed his name from Winston Small to the Maori equivalent, Winitana Mororiki, to honour the New Zealand All Blacks. I am first and foremost a 64-year-old SA patriot, and having lived through apartheid for half my adult life, I can fully understand why South Africans would support other country’s sporting teams visiting SA during the apartheid era as a form of protest against the apartheid regime. However, we have had freedom from apartheid for 32 years now, and as Nelson Mandela said and fought for, spending 27 years incarcerated, we are a rainbow nation.

I do not support the government of the day due to the ruin they have brought on my fellow citizens, but it is a fully democratically elected government. Why then do thousands of South Africans dressed in All Black regalia welcome New Zealand to SA at the DHL Cape Town stadium? They cheer when the All Blacks beat the South African Springboks, their very own nation in which they live, work and raise families. These South Africans who are anti-SA, pro-New Zealand, are traitors to their own kind, and I would challenge all of them to stand in front of those who are still alive, suffered and lost loved ones fighting apartheid to bring freedom to our beloved SA, and say, “thank you, but no thank you”.