Damn Blacks.

Today has seen the racially charged Rugby Union World Cup semi-final between the "Springboks" of South Africa and the "All Blacks" of New Zealand.

Although it is changing now the game has gone professional Rugby Union has this long tradition of being a game you only really start playing properly at university. After graduating you then take a few years off to play at the top level before retiring to get on with your professional career as like a doctor or a lawyer.

This culture may be one possible explanation why some 25 years after the end of apartheid South Africa's rugby team still has so few black players.

After all apartheid has been replaced by a sort of economic apartheid where the white families that did well under the old system continue to do well sending their children - and now grandchildren - off to private school and the best universities while the black families like the Marikana miners riot to earn enough simply to send their kids to school.

The issue of black South Africans access to higher education has been hot news this week. On Wednesday (21/10/15) South Africa's Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene released a mid-term budget. The headline of the budget was a 6% increase in university tuition fees.

Although the South African government will continue to subsidise black university students to make up for the inequalities of the apartheid era this increase risked taking a university education out of the reach and would certainly make it much more expensive.

Needless to say this announcement was met with vigorous protests by students and their supporters. The most violent of these protests occurred on Friday (23/10/15) outside the seat of the South African government - the Union Building - in Pretoria in which saw fires set. rocks thrown and the police responding with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets in some of the worst rioting South Africa has seen since the end of apartheid.

Although for the the most part the protesters have been as ethnically diverse as South Africa is there have been attempts by the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party of Julius Malema to turn the protests into a race issue - in the EFF world everything is a race issue. For example EFF MP's had to be removed from Parliament because they kept disrupting the budget speech with chants of "Fees Must Fall" which was the slogan of the protests.

Malema and the EFF are exactly the sort of people who would support the All Blacks over the Springboks despite New Zealand not exactly being famous for its racial diversity.

For a while now the EFF have been reaching out to South Africa's students in the hope of getting them to act as a street army for the party.

For example they were a driving force behind the protests earlier this year to get the statue of Cecil Rhodes removed from the grounds of Cape Town university in case black students found this symbol of colonialism intimidating. They also want to see the Afrikaans portion of South Africa's multi-lingual national anthem removed for the exact same reason.

I personally don't see either of these as really the main issue facing modern South Africa at the moment.

The EFF's outreach to students is heavily inspired by US President Obama's own Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The fact that EFF is also heavily influenced by Zimbabwe's (nee Rhodesia) Robert Mugabe explains why BLM has really destroyed Obama's credibility as leader.

It was of course further destroyed by BLM's decision to react to the Charleston shooting which had strong links to both apartheid era South Africa and Rhodesia by demanding that statues of US Civil War generals were removed - just like the EFF and Cecil Rhodes.

In response to the Union Building protests South African President Jacob Zuma caved and scrapped the 6% fee increase for at least the next year. This struck me as extremely weak leadership.

If the fee increase is something Zuma needed to introduce for the sake of the national economy then he needs to be prepared to stare down the protests no matter how violent they get. I know I make that sound really tough but it could involve some concessions around the edges such as increasing grants to the poorest students.

If the fee increase isn't something Zuma needed to do for the good of the nation the question is really why the hell did he try doing it in the first place?

It is obvious that Zuma is going to have to do something because aside from the fees issue the rest of the budget was pretty grim. Growth forecasts have been cut from 2 & 2.4% to 1.5 & 1.7%, tax revenues have fallen by R35bn (USD 2.45bn) and government debt has increased to R600bn (USD42bn) pushing South Africa bonds closer to junk status and the country closer to a Greek-style collapse.

Although there are some global pressures such as falling demand for commodities and the flight of investment into the BRIC economies following the 2008 financial meltdown most of South Africa's problems stem from the fact Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) have ruled South Africa as an effective one party state for the past 20 years. The lack of competition has made them fat and lazy.

However I think we all know what the pro-apartheid AWB will blame while the EFF are blaming "Colonialism."

South Africa's problems actually had a lot of relevance to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that concluded in Bonn, Germany on Friday (23/10/15).

For example efforts to create a new climate change agreement are known as the "Durban Platform" after Durban, South Africa where is was conceived. The incompetence US President Obama has show in his support for BLM has also unsettled the negotiations. Finally South Africa is the current head of the Group of 77 (G77) less developed nations in negotiations.

Within those negotiations there was lots of discussion about how nations will switch from making intensity reductions to absolute reductions as their economies grow. I should point out that the peer review process will not only provide that but also a mechanism for nations obligations to reduce as their economies shrink. Sadly that seems to be the path that South Africa is currently on.

The ANC's fat and lazy leadership was on full display during the Bonn meeting. Admittedly speaking on behalf of the wider group South Africa made clear that it would veto any agreement that required all nations - regardless of economic circumstance - to take action to tackle climate change.

This is a very unwise position to take because although all nations will have to take some action there is a lot of freedom in what that action can be depending on a nation's economic circumstance.

For example the Least Developed Countries (LDC) could well fulfil their obligation by teaming up with a charity to provide solar powered lamps to farmers or simply by spending money on adaptation work they were going to do anyway.

There are also a lot of co-benefits to taking action.

Using South Africa as an example under the apartheid system only whites were allowed to live in the cities and suburbs while the blacks were locked away in townships like Soweto. Economics means that much of this system is largely in place forcing the residents of the townships to travel great distances into the cities.

If South Africa were to invest in clean, low carbon transport from the townships to the cities it would help reduce emissions in the transport sector and therefore count towards their contribution. There may even be extra money available to help South Africa solve what is considered a wider social problem.

South Africa's big problem though is the electricity crisis. This too has it's roots in apartheid when they only built enough power stations for the whites. However the ANC has had more then 20 years to build more power stations even if their Communist wing are opposed to it. If South Africa were to build clean, renewable power stations it would certainly count towards the nation's commitments and probably bring money with it.

Although it seemed to just be a rugby match today's game could well have served as a metaphor for many of the issues surrounding South Africa's political woes.

As we saw from the quarter-final against France the All Blacks are simply too good. If they're given the freedom to pass and move the ball around they become able to completely overwhelm their opposition in way that even for a neutral can be painful to watch.

In today's game the Springboks were clearly aware of the danger and focused their efforts on denying the All Blacks the opportunity to establish that devastating rhythm. They did this by tackling the moment any All Black got the ball forcing the break-down and then the ruck.

Although to an outsider it can just look like a pile of men all lying on top of each other there are actually a vast number of highly technical rules that apply during break-downs and rucks. For example you have to stay onside, you can't enter from the side, you have to roll away or release the ball at appropriate time and as always you must never pass the ball forward.

These highly technical rules are actually different depending on whether it is a break-down or a ruck. To confuse matters further the only difference between a break-down and a ruck seems to be that at some point the referee will shout either "Tackle!" meaning it's still a break-down or "Ruck!"

One area where I think rugby is better then football is that it is a great test of character for a player to follow all these complex rules while they're frustrated at the play breaking down and they've got one big bloke stamping on their ankle while another elbows them in the face. As a result self-discipline is considered a big thing in rugby and even the top players sometimes fall short.

A prime example of this occurred on 38 minutes when New Zealand's Kaino got his yellow card. A experienced player at that level knows full well that he can't run in from off-side and go for the ball. But in the heat of the moment that's exactly what he did.

Having not really been forced to play like this all tournament the All Blacks self-discipline was sorely lacking in the first half.

Despite Kaino scoring the only five point try of the half which was converted by Carter for two points the All Blacks still ended the half 12-7 down with all of the Springbok's points coming from three point penalty kicks.

With Kaino still in the sin-bin Carter shocked the 'boks early in the second-half with a three point drop (kick) goal. Beauden Barrett then added a try that was converted by Carter who also scored pretty much the only penalty the 'boks conceded all game.

The big difference though is that while the 'boks were tiring from all the tackling the All Black's discipline dramatically improved. In the first half they conceded nine penalties while in the second they only conceded two both of which were scored.

As a result New Zealand won the game 20-18 and progress to the final while I'm obligated to end this post with the phrase;

"Look what the blacks can achieve when they learn to control themselves!"

21:10 on 24/10/15 (UK date).