It was about an hour after the Springboks’ opening match of Rugby World Cup 2023 – a comfortable 18-3 win over Scotland. A reporter, during a media conference in the bowels of Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, put it to Bok skipper Siya Kolisi that he is one of the most important people in Africa. Not just sportsperson, but person.

It wasn’t hyperbole; the reporter explained that he had recently been at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. There, journalists who knew almost nothing about rugby were speaking about Kolisi as one of Africa’s most important voices and faces.

The humble Kolisi was slightly embarrassed by the question, considering any answer in the affirmative would’ve come across as extremely conceited.

“I don’t see myself like that. I want to be a role model for my kids, my brother and sister,” Kolisi said. “If I see myself as a giant it is not going to take me anywhere. Especially around the team – the team is far bigger than the individual.

“We come from a nation where you think of ‘we’ before ‘I’. That makes it easy for me to keep grounded.”

Fortunately, Kolisi’s humility and inclusiveness are not public relations creations, where he has one persona under the glare of the spotlight and another in private.

What you see is what you get with Kolisi. And what you get is a man who cares deeply about his family, faith, team and country. He always considers the voiceless and the powerless in almost everything he does and says. Because who else will, in this country?

He has grown in stature as a leader of one of the greatest teams ever assembled and has emerged as the type of leader this country is crying out for – and not just in sports.

It’s in the simple gestures and the “we” before “me” philosophy, which has failed pretty much every politician in this country, which raise Kolisi above being pigeonholed simply as “rugby player”.

Those same politicians who were falling over themselves to bask in the reflected glory of the Springboks don’t realise or don’t care that they’re the target of Kolisi’s angst when he speaks of the suffering masses and the struggles faced by South Africans in their everyday lives.

What makes the Bok skipper so deserving of this accolade in 2023, besides the obvious success of his team, is how he ensured we were all included in the journey.

Kolisi and his Boks are genuine. Their actions show it. They live it every day. They may be the chosen few, but they carry us all with them into battle.

And many of them, led by Kolisi, do more away from the field. Makazole Mapimpi is an advocate against gender-based violence, Damian Willemse and his mother run a feeding scheme in Strand, and Kolisi himself has a foundation that is literally saving lives and educating people. Others are also involved in various charity work.

Kolisi, through his own incredible backstory of rising from poverty to reaching the top of the sporting world, inspires his own team. They in turn understand that they cannot, and will not, only play for one sector of society.

And the way he stands up for others, or how he shares the glory, underlines why he is the person we could all benefit from emulating a little. When Manie Libbok was struggling with his goal-kicking, Kolisi didn’t try to evade the issue. He confronted it head-on.

“We play as a team, and sometimes you are not good at one thing on the day. If somebody is lacking somewhere, somebody else takes over,” he said.

“It’s the same as me, sometimes I don’t know what to call in the game. Duane [Vermeulen] will make the call, Eben [Etzebeth] will call… You can’t have everything on the day, sometimes you lack somewhere, and that’s why we all work together.”

Kolisi even reached out to England flank Tom Curry when he suffered some horrible online and social media abuse after accusing Bongi Mbonambi of a racial slur.

Despite the Boks standing behind Mbonambi and an investigation clearing the hooker, Kolisi still had the decency to empathise with Curry, who became the target of some disgusting abuse. It’s that sense of justice and humanity that makes Kolisi far more than “just” a rugby player. He is in some ways the moral compass of the nation – South Africa’s true north and Mzansi’s beacon of hope.

How we chose the winners

This marks the third consecutive year of a collaborative effort between the Daily Maverick newsroom and our readers in picking the winners of our annual People of the Year special feature.

The curated list, crafted by Daily Maverick journalists and editors across 15 categories, received responses from almost 28,000 of you within a week to cast your votes, determining the worthy recipients of the 15 titles.

Internationally, our editorial team deemed both Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas as Villains of the Year, whereas readers voted solely for Netanyahu. In the world-shaking events of 2023, there certainly would have been some notable individuals and entities we missed. We invite you to tell us who they are. A big shoutout to those who’ve already sent in their category suggestions to consider next time. – Heather Robertson, DM168 editor

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.