“There is plenty of play left in South Africa's race game”: Race, cricket and nation in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Abstract This paper focuses on charges of match-fixing in April 2001 by Indian police against Hansie Cronje, cricket captain of South Africa, and the Commission of Inquiry that followed in order to probe the construction and persistence of race stereotypes in South Africa. It examines the historic construction of boundaries between Indians and Whites, their reactions to Hansiegate and the implications for the ‘rainbow nation’ project. White prejudices against Indians during this affair are documented and it is argued that these reveal the fragmented nature of post-apartheid South African society Hansiegate indicates that race remains the hidden arbiter in popular consciousness in post-apartheid South Africa in circumstances where race identities are sustained by new dynamics. The paper suggests that the historical, social, economic and cultural legacy of South Africa's conflicting pasts, as well as post-apartheid discrepancies in economic and social conditions, are perpetuating and creating separatist ide...