Proudly South African Stand Up Comedian - Al Prodgers

Let me start off by saying I’m not xenophobic. I wish xenophobes would just push off back where they came from, okay? So this is not an article picking on citizens of other countries. It’s a blog about us.

South African rugby had a hard few weeks. Our team took a battering, some of it even from the opposition. But a lot has been home grown. Of course we have problems when guys like Bakkies follow their own head, but let’s drop the fake surprise. He’s named for a tough bundu-bashing vehicle, not called “koeksister”. Although that would be a cool name for a wrestler. I’m not suggesting that criticism isn’t justified; I just don’t understand why we internalise foreign media reports about us and allow them to spin us into a spiral of self-doubt and panic.

Even when we do well, we absorb uncertainty. Golfer, Louis Oosthuizen’s superb win at The Open was soon received with doubt. We echoed the nasty, little media trolls who were “worried” that he might not sustain his good form.
“Will he be able to win it again?”, they fretted, even before he finished winning it this time.
If they were so concerned for his well being, they’d have learned to pronounce his name.

So, while I can’t solve any of our sporting problems, maybe it would be a good idea not to reprint the competition’s talking points and beat ourselves up to save the opposition the effort.

I suggest that while we work at solutions, we whistle a good South African tune to give us courage. Anything will do… perhaps the inspiring national anthem, or something more informal if you don’t sing “country” music. I like to hum the traditional, “Mbube”, or belt out the falsetto bits of the better-known version, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. Though, if, on a dark night, you discover a tiger loose in your neighbourhood, just yell anything that comes naturally, like “Make the Circle Beeger!”

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