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Sometime in the 80s, when motivational speakers and consultants were mushrooming all over the place in the black community, one of them, whose name escapes me now, coined a new word when making a sweeping and generalising statement: “Black people suffer from a rare and unique disease called excusitis.”
Don’t even look up the word because you won’t find it in any dictionary. In a nutshell, he meant that black people (his generalisation, not mine) have an excuse for everything.
Among the tales that my mother, a retired nurse, told us about her daily experiences at the hospital where she worked for her whole career, was how a toddler would be admitted after being diagnosed with malnutrition.
On the weekend after the child’s admission, the mother would come and ask for the child to be discharged as she and her husband, who had returned from wherever he worked, had consulted an inyanga (traditional healer), who had told them that there was nothing wrong with the child; it was the ancestors who wanted a goat to be slaughtered for the sick.
Among my mother’s duties was translating what was being said for the white doctor, who had diagnosed and admitted the child.
One of the doctors, who had developed a dry sense of humour, would then ask: “So there is somebody who has remotely diagnosed the child without even checking her/him? Please ask if all the goat meat will be eaten by this child, or are they the ones who will eat it?”
With apologies to Africanists and traditionalists, many of us in the black community still get hoodwinked by bogus izinyanga today.
I can tell many stories from my former schoolmates who got severely sick with headaches or running tummies every time exams came around.
The diagnosis would be that they were bewitched by either neighbours or relatives who did not want them to succeed in life.
Where am I going with this?
Tuesday’s result, when Bafana Bafana played to a goalless draw against the Seychelles a mere three days after walloping them 6-0 at FNB Stadium in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, means that the time for excusitis is over.
Even those who were still talking about why Bafana Bafana blow hot and cold so often must have run out of excuses.
Forget about the inyanga who is owed money. There is something seriously wrong with our national team.
And by now it should be clear that the fault does not lie with the 23 coaches who have gone along the Bafana conveyor belt since 1992.
Maybe with the exception of one – Joel Santana.
I have said many times before that there is a need for the country to get together – unfortunately, a process that has to be led by the SA Football Association (Safa) as the custodian of soccer in South Africa – and come up with concrete, proper and practical solutions to the Bafana Bafana conundrum. Let us face the facts, tackle them head-on and not only come up with solutions, but implement them.
And this must happen, like, yesterday.
It is called leadership!
If you can’t solve the problems you are faced with and cannot turn challenges into opportunities, then you don’t even deserve to be called a leader.
Once more, may I dare say that Bafana Bafana are the jewel in Safa’s crown?
The fact that Banyana Banyana and all the junior national teams from Under-17 to Under-23 are doing well and consistently qualifying for their respective global tournaments will always be nullified by the senior men’s poor results.
Bafana had no reason to play to a goalless draw with the Seychelles, just as they had no excuse for the stalemate against Libya at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
The list of matches that Bafana should have won at a canter, including those back-to-back defeats to Cape Verde, is much longer than my short arms.
Just as it has been asked before, albeit about different countries – if Bafana can’t beat the Seychelles, who are they going to beat?
The time for excusitis has run out!
smseleku@citypress,co.za
Follow me on Twitter @Sbu_Mseleku
