Because my most important reader is me, I’m blogging this. It’s old news in SA now, but not all my readers are South African and I’m pretty sure it’s something that I will always enjoy coming back to, like Nhlanhla Nene falling off his chair, mid-interview.
I know a lot of people are going to click that link and relive that 23 second clip again. Quality impromptu slapstick comedy by the head of the Finance Portfolio Committee.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ras Dumisani and his rendition of the South African national anthem before the France v SA rugby match in Toulouse last Friday:
(* note inverted SA flag at 0:42. That’s because SA expats don’t know much about the SA flag.)
But tuneful, it ain’t. The jokes have been doing the rounds about the amount of weed Dumisani had smoked before he sang etc etc. But there’s a serious side to it all. Ex-bok Supersport rugby guru Naas Botha blamed the poor Bok performance (they lost 20-13) on the poor Dumisani performance.
“It was sad that we lost the game,” said Botha. “But after that absolute disaster of a national anthem, everything went wrong. It was shocking and definitely didn’t assist in creating a calm atmosphere for the team, as it should have. Someone has to be taken to task for this disaster. The government should assist in getting to the bottom of this.”
Yes. Bring the Government in. That will help. Jacob Zuma can hop into his time machine and go back to urge Ras Dumisani to practice a bit more. Or at all. Whatever. Or maybe he could pop a wig on and take Dumisani’s place.
Jacob has got a bald head, but he’s got a lovely singing voice. We’ve all heard him doing Umshini Wami. It’s inspiring stuff.
And Botha is probably right about it being the sole cause of the Bok defeat, as well. I know that when I’ve been listening to Sicky Dion, I get all my line-out calls wrong, forget how to tackle and commit far too few players to the breakdown. So that’s probably what happened.
It was bad though. So bad, in fact, that Julius Malema hasn’t even blamed the fuss on racism.
Yet.