His name's Herbert, should you take the trouble to ask, and he's a member of that singularly South African fraternity, the car guard.

And had my meagre offering of change not been accompanied with the rather trite, it's a lot of money in Zimbabwe dollars by way of throwaway apology, we wouldn't have got talking. And I wouldn't have discovered that Herbert is actually a Zimbabwean teacher, forced across the border to patrol a Midrand car park, because his Z$9-billion monthly salary — R900 at the time he quit the classroom — simply wasn't enough money to keep his family going.

Chance encounters like that have far more of an impact than mass media images; sure, we cringe at news and pictures of battered victims or burning homes, but part of us is numb to the impact through constant overload, and endless front pages trumpeting despair and depravity. Meet an affected individual, however, and get first-hand interaction with the extent of Zimbabwe's demise, and the impact is far more sobering.

It hasn't been much fun being Zimbabwean over the last few years, unless you happened to part of the lunatic dictator's sycophantic inner circle. But the last month has been particularly unpleasant for the substantial number of Zimbabweans living south of the border, shoring up families, friends and the wreckage of an economy with carefully saved rands. Everyone knows a Zimbabwean working for someone: smiling, cheerful, friendly, vested of a wistful shake of the head, and an ever more hopeful assertion that things will come right at home, eventually.

That Herbert is one of many professionals scraping along in a menial position is just one of Zimbabwe's many tragedies — and that he's a teacher holds personal resonance, my family having landed in a newly-independent Zimbabwe as teachers. There is so much wrong about Zimbabwe's decline, and South Africa's woeful inactivity in attempting to stem it, that cataloguing is a futile exercise; when teachers — the guardians of a generation that will hopefully rebuild Zimbabwe in time — are parking cars for a handful of change, the fundamental problems have reached a depressing low.

There are a few exceptions to Herbert's case, however; exceptions that shroud the Zimbabwe situation with a strong dose of surrealism. While their countrymen are chased out of townships and vilified on the margins of South African society, Tonderai Chavhanga, Brian Mujati and Tendai Mtawarira — vested of a nickname more suited to his country's President — will, in the coming weeks, either resume or embark upon their Springbok careers, with every burst of pace or brutal piece of scrummaging wildly cheered by South African fans.

That's no indictment on the three players, all deserving of places in the squad; nor does it reflect on fans, cognisant of the shifting parameters of international sport in the professional era. If Dan Vickerman and Clyde Rathbone can run with the Wallabies, then why not give talented Zimbabweans a chance they'd never have at home? JP Pietersen and Jannie du Plessis won't be marshalling a disaffected mob of pitchfork-wielding rugby players demanding the Zimbabweans are cast out — professional rugby simply doesn't allow for that sort of sentiment any more.

And there's a history of Zimbabweans playing in this part of the world, from Bob Skinstad and Adrian Garvey, to older players like Ray Mordt in South Africa's darker days. Neil Johnson heads the cricket list, Lindsay Carlisle the hockey, Nick Price the golf — the sense of sporting fraternity between two African neighbours is well established. All of which only adds to the sense of madness that underlines the wave of hatred scorching across South Africa.

Drawing an analogy between a professional rugby team and the blue collar masses is unfair, certainly — Chavhanga beating Pietersen to a place in the Boks isn't the same as an unemployed South African feeling the resentment of foreigners placing pressure on a limited pool of job opportunities. But while that does nothing to justify the crude mob behaviour that's made international headlines, it does reinforce the elevated status we attach to sport.

A Springbok victory sends a surge of goodwill through a considerable portion of the country, and if one of the Zimbabweans is central to that victory, we'll all celebrate. But is a Chavhanga try, or a Mujati tighthead, more valuable in the long-run than the work a teacher named Herbert might have done in a small, anonymous classroom in rural Matabeleland? Zimbabwe has deserved better from South Africa; a trio of high-flying Springboks isn't much to show for quiet diplomacy.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za
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