On the eve of the World Cup, one of the white cricketing savants (there are so many) wrote an article that Hansie Cronje was a Boer elder in every sense of the term. That particular piece was a panegyric to a man whom I've always considered to be too good to be true. . It was just the type of article that a white man would write about one of his own kind. Servile to the subject, but with a strong vein of self-congratulation at being one of them.
The writer drew strongly on how Hansie was a stern religious man with a strong sense of duty and would always be a bastion for cricketing morality. One could almost hear the creak of the disselboom (the central shaft that was fixed to the main axle of the Boer trek wagons) and smell the gunsmoke on the Tugela. Hansie Cronje, if the article were to be believed, could have been among the burghers who gathered at Krugers' stoep to defy the British Empire.
Boer history is strong on last stands and defeats snatched from the mouths of victory (Mafeking and World Cup '99 particularly stand out). It probably has a lot to do with the Boers themselves. At best a bastard race, composed of the flotsam and jetsam of the Low Countries with a strong flavouring of Huguenots (trust the French to fuck up on even a massacre). It began with the ships on the way to the profitable Dutch colonies in the East Indies offloading all their unwanted passengers. The Huguenots were almost butchered by that chiffon-clad Italian Bitch Catherine de Medici (not all Italian bitches wear white saris). They escaped and came to the most godforsaken land that they could find in the world- the Cape of Good Hope. The Brits (never people to let up on the main chance) came, saw and as usual evicted everyone else to the economic leeward zone. That was the beginning of the chip that the Boers have since carried on their shoulder. Along the way they gathered a lot of cribs like Slagters Nek, the concentration camps etc. The almost overpowering sense of inferiority that every Boer has and the resultant obnoxiousness has its roots on their origins as the unwanted ones (this probably also explains the Aussie aggro).
Boers have reacted to this jeering disdain that the world holds them in with an almost messianic sense of rectitude and by excluding everything else. The most visible manifestation of this was apartheid. It helped that they were sitting on piles of precious metals and stones. So this false ego kept getting fed- particularly through the years of isolation.
All this will explain why Hansie Cronje was so lionised. A good Boer boy from Bloemfontein who excelled at the Englishman's game and was good enough to captain the country's side. Moreover this good burgher led his commando out on to the field of battle and defeated various kaffir sides again and again like his ancestors before him. A figure fit for the Boer pantheon. It comes as no surprise that Hansie Cronje is a liar and a selfish crook who prostituted his office into a sordid money-grubbing exercise. He comes from despicable, treacherous, lying stock and nothing better should have been expected. I expect almost all other Boers in the South African cricket side to be of a similar ilk. Not for nothing was Hansie the Boer ideal.
The match-fixing incident will go down as another slight in a long litany of woes that comprises Boer history. It will be another thing that the Boer will have to get even with the world with. The remaining cricketers will become even more obnoxious and abrasive-if that were possible. The situation has been worsened by the fact that this time it is a kaffir people who have humbled the Boers. The Indian cricket team should never play the South African side again. They will be at their worst. The sledging and the gamesmanship of the past are going to seem tame in comparison to what is going to happen now. Also expect a major media offensive on all fronts from them. In fact if you go to cricinfo there is a desperate attempt to downplay the whole thing even now and cast Hansie in the role of a victim.
What we need to do is to attack before we are attacked. Jam every website and server in the world now with the real story. This is one war that we can't let the Boers win.