The Indomitable Caster Semenya

By Vusi Moloi © 2009

South Africa’s Caster Semenya, an 800m distance runner from a small African village of Limpopo Province, dominated women’s track and field with her lightening speed when she beat the world’s best to clinch a gold medal on day five of the Berlin Olympic Games of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

The powerful Kenyan queen of track and field and defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was unable to match the explosive power and furious speed of Semenya given a jaw dropping distance in which the 18 year old Semenya broke new ground when she set a new record by an incredible 2.45 seconds. Semenya set the new time at 1:55:45 erasing historical records previously set.

The hard to believe athletic prowess and unique style of Semenya wowed the audience and was of such a flawless execution that it hit like a thunderbolt and by the time everything was said and done, Semenya was decked in her proud South African flag while her vanquished competitors were still gasping for air. Interestingly, she briefly showed off a graceful snake dance style flexing its fearsome muscles while looking into the audience in what was a soulful rendition to the African spirits of her beautiful motherland South Africa.

Banned From Addressing the Media

When her time came to bask in the limelight of her phenomenal victory and speak to the international media, she was whisked away and banned from speaking to the media by the IAAF officials who seemingly did not wish her well. This is when things began to take an ugly turn. The new African queen of track and field was now being treated like a suspect who somehow didn’t deserve to be accorded the rights and privileges of her hard won victory.

The English understandably wanted to see their English athlete Jennifer Meadows clinch the limelight but concocting stories that denied Semenya as a deserving female athlete was most cruel. Meadows, for her part, complained that no one in the world was capable of Semenya's athletic achievements and who is Meadows to tell us what African athletes are supposed to be capable of? This is the same line of thinking that has been shoved down our throat like Isaac Newton who tells us in Physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction even though he never tested every phenomenon to establish if that was the case.

Some English commentators went even further to suggest that Semenya was a man who had had a sex change to gain an unfair advantage. Since this writer is an African village boy and a goat herder, to have a sex change in an African village would be equivalent to going to the moon on a flying saucer powered by the lungs of a donkey. I don’t think anyone would go very far with that. The hurtful reports and comments leveled against the indomitable African queen were championed by the countries of England and Australia who represent the bastions of the White establishment.

The treatment of this young girl was harsh. Semenya is a young African girl who should have been rewarded and protected for exerting herself through hard work, self-discipline and exceeding the high standards she had set for herself in the tradition of her African village. Instead she has been exposed to a battery of mental cruelty and emotional trauma by the White establishment a harsh experience that she will forever remember as having exacted punishment for her work ethic. On the one hand the White establishment at the IAAF has upheld mediocrity and underperformance while on the other telling us of great rewards associated with hard work, sportsmanship and positive thinking. Even the feminists were not there to come to the defense of the African girl.

Gender Verification

In giving in to some strident demands that Semenya be subjected to gender verification testing, the IAAF has set a precedent in ordering Semenya to undergo this battery of cruel and humiliating gender verification tests even though her accusers could not advance any material evidence to back up their character assassinating claims. Moreover, IAAF is pressing ahead with these harsh tests despite a birth certificate which attests to her womanness. Another noteworthy fact is that the compulsory gender screenings by the IAAF were stopped in 1992 and Semenya is the first woman in more than fifteen years to be subjected to this scientifically unreliable procedure which is why it was stopped in the first place.

It was shocking that many English commentators believed that Semenya had no vagina and that she was hiding something between her legs which is why her shorts were different from others.

The English Yahoo Sport UK & Ireland Eurosport on August 21 published one of its reader's comments:

"...Caster Semenya is the fastest junior MAN in the world.-
Nobody should be surprised at the demanded gender test byt he IAAF - it so obviously is not a woman - a woman doesn't have an @#$% like that nor does she have a face like that or a lunch box joggling around in the shorts when she is running - UNMASK THAT TRANNY BLOKE NOW !!!"

The English publication itself had this to say about Semenya:
"20:40: Caster Semenya HAS DESTROYED THE FIELD - this South African is only 18 but has completely destroyed the opposition in a time of 1.55.46. The gender question will just get louder after a performance like this. BRONZE FOR JENNY MEADOWS OF BRITAIN - she came very late near the end to nick a medal ahead of Yuliya Krevsun of Ukraine and she very nearly got the silver ahead of Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei."

Notice how the beautiful queen Semenya is portrayed in a negative light of a destroyer and her gold medal is omitted while her loser English competitor Jennifer Meadows is recast in a positive light of an athlete who came from behind to clinch a medal even coming within a hair’s breadth of beating another African queen of track and field Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei. This voodoo style in which an enterprising attempt is designed to make us believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable is legendary in modern history where the English reign supreme. In fact the above description of Semenya echoes the stereotypical portrayal of an African descended woman in Hollywood movies where she is typically portrayed as angry, bitter, uncompromising, and acting like a man.

Gender Accusations Not New

Interestingly, the English media tell us that the IAAF is justified in subjecting Semenya to this prohibitively expensive gender verification process since other athletes like the Polish-American Stanisława Walasiewicz competed in women’s sports when she was a male. Well the fact is that the case of Stanisława Walasiewicz is special. The main casualties of the gender tests have been non-English athletes particularly those coming from socialist countries like Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia, among others.

Stanisława Walasiewicz is an exception because she embraced the English and their way of life to an extent that she changed her name to the English name of Stella Walsh. For her part she accused her competitor Helen Stephens (an English female athlete) as a man. Helen Stephens was a personal friend of a Black athlete and sports legend in his own right Jesse Owen. Some saw this relationship as an act of racial betrayal which led to Helen Stephens having to prove an obvious fact that she was a woman.

While the gender verification test carried out on Stephens established she was indeed a woman, the real truth came out when Stella Walsh was killed in an armed robbery crossfire where the autopsy revealed that Stella Walsh was in fact a male.

What is interesting in this case is that Stella Walsh was protected by the English establishment and she never had to undergo any gender verification test. Another famous case of protecting the English athletes from gender verification was that of Princess Anne of England who was exempted from undergoing a compulsory gender verification test for the Montreal Summer Olympic Games of 1976 while the non-English athletes were required to undergo the invasive procedure. Athletes like Santhi Soundarajan had their career destroyed by the pseudoscience of gender verification. Soundarajan went into deep depression where she attempted to take her life but bounced back with remarkable resilience. She is reported to be a successful coach who has established her own school where her athletes have won an impressive array of medals.

Intellectual Queen of Sports Science

Semenya is not only the ruling queen of track and field, this unconquerable young queen is also a brilliant mind of Sports Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Semenya’s University of Pretoria and her professors and friends have been consistently supportive of her despite those who are working hard to vilify the new queen of track and field. Her parents, her village and roommates stand behind their legendary athlete who has rewritten the history books of track and field.

Conclusion

The new African champion and the indomitable African queen of track and field has unleashed her athletic prowess on the world stage and the White establishment does not know what to make of her. A stereotypical response characterized by colonial attitudes is both hurtful and regrettable in modern times. The time has arrived for the White establishment to smell the coffee and divest itself of colonial baggage towards the African queen Semenya and begin to treat her as an equal deserving of the rights and privileges of an irrefutable queen who has conquered the world with a strong support of her beautiful motherland South Africa.

About the Author

A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.