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The Ashwin Willemse TV walkout debacle

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mdaclarke

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The Ashwin Willemse argument highlights what is intellectually dishonest with quotas.

Regardless of whether they are good or bad legal or illegal. (Bad and illegal in my opinion) don't insult my intelligence by imposing a quota and then claiming all the POC selected are there on merit. As this can't be true otherwise there wouldn't be a quota.

For example if there was a netball team in my area and it was stated that at least one had to me male. I am the only male amongst 6 female international players. I am picked because I am male having never picked up a netball in my life. It would be very disingenuous of my to claim I was picked on merit.

Also I don't approve of the RSA minister for sports comments. It is beginning to turn into a witch hunt reminiscent of the "metoo" mess, why bother with Courts or investigations. If someone is accused of racism just lock em up without trial. If someone is accused of rape. Just lock em up with trial. Who cares if they are guilty or not. As long as we feel good.
 
For those that does not know the backstory:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/drama-on-supersport-set-as-willemse-walks-off-20180519

Here is the South African sport minsters response:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Sup...n-over-willemses-supersport-walk-off-20180520

This is going to blow up over the coming week in South Africa. Its going to start a race standoff between white and black people.
We don't actually know what was said yet. the only thing we do know as of now is how Willemse responded to whatever was said or done.
yet the minister quickly called for Mallet and Naas to be fired ! even though none of us knows what lead to this willemse reaction.

The sports minister and many others are jumping into conclusions before we even know the full picture and that to me reeks of a witch hunt against rugby in South Africa.
Just because willemse mentioned Apartheid now everyone are on the case of Mallet and Naas. The problem is that if they didn't say anything inflammatory then people cant simply use apartheid as a point of departure to justify their actions or to criticize the actions of others. Its the easy way out and at least 20 years out of date.



This --political party wants balck people to boycot Supersport untill the white presenters including Nick Mallet, Naas Botha, Kobus Wiese and Toks van der Linde is fired! Based on what i ask? These parties, just like the rest of us dont know what really happened yet but still they make radicall calls like this.


This is how i see it:
  • Political party does not yet know what was said (relies on the only current reports and that is the words of willemse on air)
  • Despite not knowing the context, calls for black people to boycott supersport until white presenters are fired
  • Since there is no basis yet to make these calls the decision by this party must be based on race and therefore clear racism.


Update: https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/revealed-what-caused-former-bok-to-walk-off-set-20180520 Sources now claim to know the reasoning behind the incident.
 
Last edited:
unrated said:
For those that does not know the backstory:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/drama-on-supersport-set-as-willemse-walks-off-20180519

Here is the South African sport minsters response:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Sup...n-over-willemses-supersport-walk-off-20180520

This is going to blow up over the coming week in South Africa. Its going to start a race standoff between white and black people.
We don't actually know what was said yet. the only thing we do know as of now is how Willemse responded to whatever was said or done.
yet the minister quickly called for Mallet and Naas to be fired ! even though none of us knows what lead to this willemse reaction.

The sports minister and many others are jumping into conclusions before we even know the full picture and that to me reeks of a witch hunt against rugby in South Africa.
Just because willemse mentioned Apartheid now everyone are on the case of Mallet and Naas. The problem is that if they didn't say anything inflammatory then people cant simply use apartheid as a point of departure to justify their actions or to criticize the actions of others. Its the easy way out and at least 20 years out of date.



This --political party wants balck people to boycot Supersport untill the white presenters including Nick Mallet, Naas Botha, Kobus Wiese and Toks van der Linde is fired! Based on what i ask? These parties, just like the rest of us dont know what really happened yet but still they make radicall calls like this.

There is of course the possibility that they don't even care what was said they just want to use this opportunity as a cover for removing as much white people from rugby involvement in SA as possible.

This is how i see it:
  • Political party does not yet know what was said (relies on the only current reports and that is the words of willemse on air)
  • Despite not knowing the context calls for black people to boycott supersport until white presenters are fired
  • Since there is no basis yet to make these calls the decision by this party must be based on race and therefore clear racism.
  • If the roles were reversed and willemse was white and mallet was black then Willemse would have been fired immediately


Update: https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/revealed-what-caused-former-bok-to-walk-off-set-20180520 Sources now claim to know the reasoning behind the incident.
Click to expand...


I always think that sport is an easy target for things like this. Much easier for the ANC to pontificate about quotas in rugby than actually do anything to improve the lives of normal south africans. My uncle who lives in Cape Town says that in his opinion despite all the tough talk by the ANC very little has actually changed in the day to day lives of ordinary South African's (white and black) and sports quotas are just a big smokescreen that they hide behind. I know he is only 1 white man but he says he is happy in South Africa, is now a dual national and has no intention of ever returning to the UK.
 
Nothing like an artificial race row to bring the racist ANC goons out. The Sports Minister is proving just as atrocious as her predecessor attacking and accusing white people as a group. She is also building a strawman by saying that Naas and Nick called him a quota, which there is no evidence for. Ashwin just brought that up during his rant. Once again the ANC is trying to construct a reality that doesn't exist.

I'm sure anyone who has watched the Super Sport pre- and post-game analysis (if you haven't search YouTube as every now and then they upload these. They're often about 10-20 mins long) will have picked that Nick Mallet's rugby analysis is superb. He is the draw card. You can clearly see his rugby knowledge is world class. Often SA Rugby Mag does a summary article of just his comments.

Ashwin Willemse on the other hand often struggles to articulate himself and can turn into a bit of a fanboy when the Boks play instead of analysing them objectively. Him and Nick have butted heads before with Ashwin saying that Nick is not being optimistic enough. I have seen him do a good analysis and I've seen do a bad analysis. He is inconsistent in that regard.

It appears that Nick's superior knowledge and analysis has bruised his ego, and he construed that as Nick undermining him. But because Nick is white he has turned it into a race thing. It's absurd and childish.

Once again shows that quotas are illegal and iimmoral, and that cloud has clearly affected Ashwin's self esteem.

It has also showed an underbelly of black people who are very racist in SA. People have attacked Nick and Naas just because they are white with no evidence that Ashwin's actions were justified. Hopefully this is causing some cognitive dissonance in the doubters.
 
So I feel we need to talk about what happened on Saturday evening after the Lions match. here's the video:



So Aswin Willemse just loses it, and in a very public, and extremely unprofessional manner walks off.

There are so many articles that followed this incident afterwards:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/sa-rugby-concerned-by-live-tv-drama-20180521
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/supersport-to-hold-talks-with-mallett-botha-20180521
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Sup...or-non-white-viewers-to-boycott-dstv-20180520
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/former-players-respond-to-willemse-walkout-20180520
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Sup...n-over-willemses-supersport-walk-off-20180520

And this article gives a bit more insight into what happens off camera:
https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRugby/revealed-what-caused-former-bok-to-walk-off-set-20180520

At one stage this incident was trending number 1 on twitter - The same day of a royal wedding...

So let's talk about this, and non-saffas, please feel free to join the conversation. I will also give my point of view on this after a few posts...
 
mdaclarke said:
Regardless of whether they are good or bad legal or illegal. (Bad and illegal in my opinion) don't insult my intelligence by imposing a quota and then claiming all the POC selected are there on merit. As this can't be true otherwise there wouldn't be a quota.
Click to expand...

Just to play devils advocate, and I don't know enough about the situation to have an informed opinion, could you not say the exact opposite as well? Which is what Willemse is saying. POC players can be dismissed easily as quota players if they have a bad game, or simply if a fan or pundit doesn't like them. It diminishes their accomplishments and is an east excuse to bag on them even they are there on merit.



The whole quota thing just seems insane to me, looking in from the outside. I can understand the logic behind it, but an international side should be the best players eligible at the highest level.
If you're implementing a quota system it should be at the lowest levels, that's where it makes more sense IMO. Not everyone has the same opportunities when starting out their career, schools academies clubs scouts etc. are all geared up to favour the richer communities (it's the same in the UK where the majority of pro players are from private schools as they have the money for the beat facilities and coaches etc)
Once everyone is a pro player I think it's a level playing field (for the most part - You'll always get favouritism and bias in some selectors, but not enough for a quota system imo) but not everyone has the same chance to get their foot in the door.
 
Here are my issues:

1. Ashwin Willemse was a quota player, in fact, he was one of the first guys to benefit from the quota project. He wasn't better than other wingers at that time, and he scored a measily 5 tries in 19 occassions for the Springboks. He was a good Super Rugby player yes.

2. Out of the 3 pundits, Nick Naas and Ashwin, it's only Ashwin that doesn't need the job at Supersport. He got R61 million from the Gold Fields BEE programme. While Naas is on the brink of Bankruptcy, and Nick has nothing else to fall back on.

3. Why go the race route?? Ashwin is the one that made this a race issue, and if you look at the discussions they had in the past, Ashwin is the one always pointing to how good players of colour played, he hardly ever says something good about a white player. While Nick and Naas compliments any player that played well, regardless of their colour.

4. I find this very troubling that the ANC, the Sports Minister and so many other people are already on the band wagon, defending Ashwin, and calling Nick and Naas racists. There is no evidence whatsoever to support these claims. Seems to me like this was a planned move.

5. Ashwin mentions that Nick and Naas played in the apartheid era. Yes they did, but what does this have to do with racism?? They had to make a living, and didn't get the big bucks Ashwin got when he played Super Rugby, In fact, Naas went to the USA to play American Football just to try and get decent money. They weren't part of the Apartheid politics, they just played rugby. And now when they are pundits on tv, they still only talk rugby. Out of the 3, Ashwin is the least credible with regard to rugby knowledge, so perhaps this is more of an inferiority complex.

6. In that "Revealed" article I posted, it mentions that Nick and Naas do the research and pick the clips to show, and then Ashwin gets the credit, and Ashwin regularly doesn't pitch up for work or attend functions, while Nick and Naas are example employees... Makes me think that Ashwin was caught out on live tv of not being knowledgeable and was there merely as a "coloured puppet"...
 
TRF_heineken said:
Here are my issues:

5. Ashwin mentions that Nick and Naas played in the apartheid era. Yes they did, but what does this have to do with racism?? They had to make a living, and didn't get the big bucks Ashwin got when he played Super Rugby, In fact, Naas went to the USA to play American Football just to try and get decent money. They weren't part of the Apartheid politics, they just played rugby. And now when they are pundits on tv, they still only talk rugby. Out of the 3, Ashwin is the least credible with regard to rugby knowledge, so perhaps this is more of an inferiority complex.
Click to expand...
I actually think Ashwin was insinuating that he has more "credentials" than them because he played after segregation so he was selected more fairly than them. I think he was specifically taking issue with them because they are the "guys in the chair" calling the shots and not him. Of course anyone who has watched the post game analysis knows it would be undeserved if he got promoted there.
 
Steve-o said:
I actually think Ashwin was insinuating that he has more "credentials" than them because he played after segregation so he was selected more fairly than them. I think he was specifically taking issue with them because they are the "guys in the chair" calling the shots and not him. Of course anyone who has watched the post game analysis knows it would be undeserved if he got promoted there.
Click to expand...

But he doesn't have more credentials than them, regardless of which era they are all from.

Naas won the Currie Cup 9 times! Ashwin 0 times.
Nick won a few things while he was playing for WP, but he largely made a name for himself after the apartheid era as a Coach, where he holds the record of 17 consecutive wins with the Springboks. Ashwin doesn't coach.

He was part of the Kamp Staaldraad group during the 2003 World Cup. He wasn't picked for the 2007 World Cup, and inbetween there isn't much to write about his credentials or achievements...
 
TRF_heineken said:
But he doesn't have more credentials than them, regardless of which era they are all from.

Naas won the Currie Cup 9 times! Ashwin 0 times.
Nick won a few things while he was playing for WP, but he largely made a name for himself after the apartheid era as a Coach, where he holds the record of 17 consecutive wins with the Springboks. Ashwin doesn't coach.

He was part of the Kamp Staaldraad group during the 2003 World Cup. He wasn't picked for the 2007 World Cup, and inbetween there isn't much to write about his credentials or achievements...
Click to expand...
I agree, his stance doesn't appear to gel with reality. As we have no other evidence from him that is my understanding of his point. The blow up appears to be from people trying to interpret what he was "actually" trying to say (the ANC's dribble). Naturally this has led to some broad unsubstantiated claims and has brought the worst out of all races on social media. I'm sure the silent majority of sensible people are withholding comment until a proper investigation is done.

His silence post this walk out is deafening though... If I knew I was in the right and were going to get fired anyway I would happily burn bridges. That's IF I was in the right though. I'm looking forward to when the truth comes out.
 
Steve-o said:
I agree, his stance doesn't appear to gel with reality. As we have no other evidence from him that is my understanding of his point. The blow up appears to be from people trying to interpret what he was "actually" trying to say (the ANC's dribble). Naturally this has led to some broad unsubstantiated claims and has brought the worst out of all races on social media. I'm sure the silent majority of sensible people are withholding comment until a proper investigation is done.

His silence post this walk out is deafening though... If I knew I was in the right and were going to get fired anyway I would happily burn bridges. That's IF I was in the right though. I'm looking forward to when the truth comes out.
Click to expand...

Well apparently Supersport already had a discussion with Ashwin yesterday. And will talk to the others today to complete their investigation.

I'm just curious how this will end, because supersport is going to get hurt the most should they do something irrational. If they fire Nick and Naas without substantial evidence and just go on the word of Ashwin, then Supersport might just as well close down channel 201, because then most of the DSTV premium account holders will cancel their contracts. If the broadcaster suffers here, it will open a whole can of worms, like the Super Rugby broadcasting deal, the Pro14 deal and perhaps future deals...
 
TRF_heineken said:
Well apparently Supersport already had a discussion with Ashwin yesterday. And will talk to the others today to complete their investigation.

I'm just curious how this will end, because supersport is going to get hurt the most should they do something irrational. If they fire Nick and Naas without substantial evidence and just go on the word of Ashwin, then Supersport might just as well close down channel 201, because then most of the DSTV premium account holders will cancel their contracts. If the broadcaster suffers here, it will open a whole can of worms, like the Super Rugby broadcasting deal, the Pro14 deal and perhaps future deals...
Click to expand...
And this is where the international rugby community sitting on their hands, especially NZ, might come back to bite them. NZ has the most to lose if SA rugby starts going down.
 
There is a limit to what the ANC can do. If South Africa was a vacuum then they could what they wanted. However unless they want to withdraw from Super Rugby, the World Cup and the Olympics then they need to follow World Rugby Rules and IOC rules. They are already pushing at the boundaries with transformation I doubt World Rugby and the IOC would tolerate much more.
 
So this is the latest from the Multichoice CEO (group which SuperSport falls under)

http://ewn.co.za/2018/05/21/multichoice-ceo-no-signs-of-racism-in-ashwin-willemse-walk-out-incident

So they've all been interviewed and no racist allegations have surfaced or been brought forward. What I deduct from this is that Ashwin has not advanced the idea that racism is the issue here.

If this is the truth then it will be interesting to see if the prominent people who jumped on that bandwagon will retract their statements. Specifically the Sports Minister.
 
Steve-o said:
So this is the latest from the Multichoice CEO (group which SuperSport falls under)

http://ewn.co.za/2018/05/21/multichoice-ceo-no-signs-of-racism-in-ashwin-willemse-walk-out-incident

So they've all been interviewed and no racist allegations have surfaced or been brought forward. What I deduct from this is that Ashwin has not advanced the idea that racism is the issue here.

If this is the truth then it will be interesting to see if the prominent people who jumped on that bandwagon will retract their statements. Specifically the Sports Minister.
Click to expand...

That won't happen. They already got their word out, and now every staunch ANC follower has used it to overtake facebook.

Those twitter-bots of the ANC is rather quiet today though...

But I think Supersport did a very good job in handling this potential hot-potato situation. And it seems all the relevant parties were together in one room holding discussions and finding middle ground and a way forward.

What is interesting though, is that it seems that nobody will be pinished. And that to me is also not right. Someone has to get some sort of punishment, either for their outburst, or for causing the outburst.
 
If I were Mallet, Botha and Willemese I would keep quiet and just move on. I think that's the best way. asking the ANC's supporters to apologise is pointless and will in all likelihood make things worse. Just forget about it (or try to) and move on.
 

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