IN other recent news not carried by the South African Broadcasting Corporation it would appear that final preparations are underway in Frankfurt, Germany, for the 2016 International Quidditch Association World Cup which takes place there on the weekend of July 23 and 24.
A tough contact sport, quidditch was developed in 2005 by students from Middlebury College in Vermont who based it on the game that featured in the Hogwarts inter-house tournament as described in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter stories.
It’s a simple business. Two teams score points by throwing a quaffle — a slightly deflated regulation-sized volleyball — through their opponents’ hoops. Beaters try to stop them from doing this by assaulting them with bludgers — more deflated balls.
The game ends when the snitch — a tennis ball in a yellow sock attached to a runner’s backside like a tail — is captured by a designated “seeker” from either team.
The chief difference between two is that, in the IQA version, quidditch players do not fly through the air on a magic broom but have to run around a field with the normal domestic variety between their legs.
“Where’s the fun in that?” the Mahogany Ridge regulars grumbled. “If you can’t fly, you may as well be playing netball. Well, a sort of netball where you sweep up and keep the court tidy at the same time.”
In 2007, the Americans started the Quidditch World Cup. Initially, and as with baseball, they only competed against other Americans. In 2012, however, teams from Australia, France, Canada and Britain — the host nation that year — took part, making it a global event for the first time.
Next month, teams from at least 23 countries — including Uganda, the continent’s sole representatives in the tournament — will be travelling to Germany, hoping to wrest glory from the US, the undefeated world championships.
It is not known why a South African team won’t be there. A quick internet search reveals that quidditch is played locally. Where exactly and by whom was not immediately clear. Quite why they should be so publicity shy was not known, but it could well be that they fear the mocking derision of a rubgy-mad public callously emboldened by cheap beer and boerie.
It is a great pity. A national quidditch team would have done rather well at Frankfurt. Given that scapegoating the whistleblower is already a much-loved tradition in our public life, how difficult would it be to hunt down the snitch?
Perhaps it’s a question of transformation and, as is the case with rugby, tennis, jukskei, cricket and many other sporting codes, local teams just cannot field enough black players to satisfy Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s weird racial requirements. It could even be that the diminutive Mbaks doesn’t even know about quidditch.
Then, for those of us who are sensitive to such things, there is the matter of the broom itself. Given our troubled history, is this household item not a hated symbol of an oppressive past? One redolent of a life of drudgery and menial servitude?
Who among our previously disadvantaged communities would happily be prepared to hold such a despised appliance between their legs as they run about a field cheered on by yayhoos wearing pointy hats?
In this regard, some Ridge regulars have suggested, DA leader Mmusi Maimane could well be a quidditch natural. He was, after all, this week labelled a “garden boy” by ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa, who was addressing a half-empty hall in the Strand where Xolani Sotashe was introduced as the ruling party’s mayoral candidate.
Kodwa was suggesting that Maimane was nothing other than a DA “front” and the party’s real leaders were Helen Zille and Athol Trollip. That he had to do so in such a vile and insultingly racist manner is perhaps not all that surprising considering the immense immaturity that has been the overarching characteristic of the election campaigns.
There is no room for such bigotry and intolerance in quidditch. It is perhaps the most progressive of all sports. It is vehemently opposed to racism and is one of the few codes that not only promotes a co-ed environment but is an open community to those who do not identify with the gender binary.
As the IQA’s rule book states, “The gender that a player identifies with is considered to be that player’s gender, which may or may not be the same as that person’s sex.” It further adds, “The IQA accepts those who don’t identify within the binary gender system, and acknowledge that not all of our players identify as male or female.”
The Springboks and the Proteas, like some of our politicians, have some way to go in becoming as tolerant and inclusive, it would seem.
This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.
