In South Africa, rugby has long been more than a game. Under apartheid, it became a deeply politicised site of contestation, where questions of identity, justice and belonging played out in the shadow of state-enforced segregation. For the apartheid regime, rugby symbolised Afrikaner pride and white dominance; for many black South Africans, it was both a field of exclusion and a stage for resistance. Scrumming Against All Odds, edited by Omar Esau, tells the stories of those who chose resistance over accommodation. By gathering oral histories of South African Rugby Union (Saru) rugby players and referees who refused to participate in apartheid's racially segregated sport, the book does more than preserve memory: it enacts democratic education.
To understand the claim, that a book about rugby is simultaneously a curriculum of…
