First published as Lettr from Britain in South Africa on 12 October 2007.
It is relatively unknown that the most well-known propaganda photograph of World War II was taken in St. Peter Port, the capital of the Channel Island Guernsey – the only patch of Britain where the swastika ever fluttered.
In 1940 a German military band, followed by 400 German troops, marched past the front door of Lloyds Bank in Guernsey, providing the Germans with triumphant photographic evidence of their occupation of British soil.
This reminded me of the Prussian soldier, Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz – a man with a long name but a short message: War is the continuation of politics by other means.
I would have wanted to add that international sport is the continuation of war by other means but, dammit, George Orwell stole a march on me when he wrote in 1945 that international sport was mimic war.
I can therefore probably only add to Orwell and Guernsey 1940 by stating: Mimic foot soldiers march through mimic wars.
And so, with the greatest humility, I herewith report on my role and that of mimic soldier, Hannes, in the events that took place in the Battle Zone Marseille over the first weekend of October 2007 during the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War.
On our Air France flight I swore I saw another mimic soldier reading the French military magazine, Le Drapeau Blanc (The White Flag), with a front page article on arm exercises to hold up your hands three times longer.
We flew to Marseille, which became the birthplace of the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, when 500 volunteers marched from there to Paris singing the Marseillaise as a rallying call to arms during the French Revolution.
And so it came to pass that, right there in Marseille, Hannes and I noticed a slight French schizophrenia.
Introduce yourself and the French will gently respond that they are enchanted to meet you by saying “enchanté”. Unfortunately French mimic soldiers have a more antagonistic message to foreigners when they sing their anthem and boom out the refrain:
To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march!
Let us march!
Until impure blood
Waters our furrows!
I must confess that I am actually quite fond of my blood circulation and I was therefore glad that, over our weekend in Marseille, the French were obliged to battle against New Zealand on faraway foreign acres of furrows. Nonetheless, on the night after the French victory at the Battle of Cardiff there was such a din of blaring hooters in the streets of the South of France that I expected at any time to see 500 French volunteers forming battalions and advancing towards Paris.
During the time Hannes and I saw action in Marseille we experienced excellent logistics (trains, buses and underground connections) but the mustering of mimic troops was so intense that we landed in our first scrum in the double-decker train on the way to our clandestine support for England in the mimic clash against Australia.
I can report back that the English victors were so overcome with joy that 500 of them immediately stormed out of the Stade Vélodrome and marched on Paris singing the inciting song: We Bonked Matilda, We Bonked Matilda!
In the dark hours before the battle between South Africa and Fiji, Hannes and I soothed our nerves with a few fizzy adult beverages in Marseille’s Old Harbour – a misnomer really because the Germans bombed the old harbour out of this world in the war.
But then, what you don’t see is what you get in France.
However, I did actually see something special in action in the Old Harbour - Darwin’s theory of evolution.
With intense superficial research I discovered two new offshoots from Wise Man (Homo Sapiens) namely mimic soldier Rugby Man (a considerate species herding according to group colour) and Vuvuzela Man (an inconsiderate, cross-eyed species of green and gold loners with long plastic trumpets and South African accents).
Vuvuzela Man sits in enclosed spaces, such as restaurants, and compensates for his obvious Freudian male physical shortcomings by blowing on very long plastic trumpets, called Vuvuzelas, chasing away Rugby man with a monotonous loud fanfare that rhymes with I’m-an-idiot! I’m-an-idiot!
Could someone not please capture the African inventor of the Vuvuzela, tie him up for 80 minutes (preferably by his Freudian physical shortcomings) and blow two Vuvuzelas incessantly in his ears?
Hannes, my brother in mimic arms, gave Vuvuzela man a scowl that was strong enough for a push over try under the goalposts against the whole Fijian scrum.
In the end South Africa did not have to make use of Hannes’s scowl to beat Fiji because South Africa had their secret attack weapons Lucky Ball® and FiveCannonTry™. Fiji’s star player was Verrihitaklar Andayelokaarti.
The victory brought about great collective effervescence among all South African mimic troops but, at the same time, it created collective despondency among all those wretched wounded Australian mimic soldiers who had spilled over in support of Fiji from the previous day’s Battle against England.
It was poignantly sad to experience so closely at hand so many tragic cases of Australian NBDV (National Brain Defect Virus).
The Battle against Fiji was extremely tiring – even for the 30 players - but Hannes and I were at such a peak in our watch fitness that we survived the ordeal and were able afterwards to celebrate with thousands of other mimic soldiers at several liquid victory festivities hosted at pavement oases.
As I write this report the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War is, of course, still raging in France.
I sincerely hope that, as mimic soldiers, our humble military mimic service and tactical inputs in Battle Zone Marseille will have contributed to World Peace – or, at least, victory for our own forces.
I predict our official V-day on 20 October 2007.
We must remain courageous and not lose spirit.
Remember, fatalism is a dying philosophy.
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