A word from Willemse might have been helpful

IT is perhaps for the better that Ashwin Willemse is taking the SuperSport matter to the Equality Court; shoehorning the controversy within a racial context will restore moral order and present the readily outraged with a familiar, comforting paradigm.

More than a month has passed since the former Springbok walked off a live broadcast, accusing his stunned fellow analysts Nick Mallett and Naas Botha of “patronising” him.

Not having the slightest clue as to what had led to this display, woke South Africa immediately assumed racism. After all, had Willemse not complained of being labelled a quota player and undermined by colleagues he then duly labelled apartheid players?

SuperSport management has interviewed all parties concerned. These were positive talks, they said; all three analysts were prepared to work together and they found no suggestion of racism in the incident. But, despite the “good progress initially”, SuperSport failed to resolve the matter and then instructed a senior advocate, Vincent Maleka, to review of the incident.

Willemse refused to take part in the inquiry, which cleared Mallett and Botha of racism. His lawyer, Nqobizitha Mlilo, now labelled Maleka’s review as “fruitless” and one-sided. His client insists otherwise, and so they’re off to find, uh, a finding of racism.

Here at the Mahogany Ridge there has been some speculation about the wisdom of approaching the Equality Court — especially after turning down the Maleka review and, in effect, really wasting everyone else’s time and money in the process.

Of course, Willemse was within his rights to do just that. But what is it that the doughty defence types remind the beak of at such times? “Male fides, m’lud. Very male fides. Bad faith all round.”

On a perhaps pragmatic principle, Willemse’s absence from the proceedings means that Maleka’s ruling is entirely appropriate.

Without his version of events to contradict the evidence from SuperSport anchor Motshodisi Mohono and studio producer Mandla Ntsibande — that is, no racism whatsoever — what other finding could Maleka come up with?

Had Willemse participated it would have been a different kettle of fish calling the pot black altogether. One experience of subtle and less than overt racism versus two opposing experiences of subtle and less than overt racism. Quite the post-modern moment.

Mallett and Botha would then have been sidelined. Two shell- shocked rugby pundits of the “European question” — to borrow the terminology of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ official racial gauleiter, Dali Mpofu — looking on in helpless frustration.

Rugby is a hard game, and perhaps brutal. As the former England captain Martin Johnson put it once: “We all get cut and we all get stitched up. We get stud marks down our bodies, we break bones and we lose teeth. We play rugby.”

Indeed they do. But for all the hurly-burly, rugby is a uniquely ennobling sport, enriching all who kit out and scrum down for the local XV with a deep and abiding sense of fair play. You can imagine then what it must be like to pull on a Bok jersey.

Unlike football, or even cricket, there’s a bit of honour about the field. What happens in the ruck and maul, all the grabbing of balls and tugging at the trousers and pulling of shirts and what have you, tends to stay there. After the game, everyone’s friends and they joke about the stitches and concussion over a few beers.

As one who has no doubt experienced and enjoyed such camaraderie, it is perhaps unseemly that Willemse should be made to feel as if he was only on the team to sit on the subs bench and come out at half-time with a tray of the proverbial sliced oranges.

Maleka’s report does mention that Willemse must leave the studios to enjoy a cigarette, often when a game is in progress. This is ludicrous.

Willemse should be allowed to smoke in the studio and while he is presenting his analyses of the big games. This would send an important message to the youth.

Elsewhere the report reveals that it is SuperSport policy that black analysts be the preferred operators of the big touch-screen monitor in the studio because of “its sophistication and in order to undermine the publicly held view that they do not have the technical skill-set or craft to operate sophisticated equipment”.

This is a deeply patronising attitude, and Maleka is correct in recommending that Mallett and Botha also get a chance to play with the touch-screen monitor. If not, they, too, may have grounds to approach the courts.