GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Ashwin Willemse and the evil of racial quotas

One of the more interesting responses to the hysteria that followed Ashwin Willemse’s very public fallout with his fellow Supersport panelists was this interview with with Vuyo Mhaga, spokesperson for minister of sport and recreation.

Among other things, he said, "Maybe we need to move away from this discussion of quotas. Let’s talk about transformation generally. Because black people are starting to feel insulted — that they are unable to really come out as their own and actually, you know, as the capable athletes that they are."

That is a fairly enlightened statement. Remarkable, too, given the ANC government’s absolute and unrelenting determination to impose racial quotas on South African sport. Certainly, the party has been brutal on anyone who has, in the past, suggested the idea to be problematic in any way.

By way of illustration, in 2005, Desmond Tutu said the following: "I don’t want tokenism [in sport], it’s an insult to everybody. And there are so many occasions when it seems black players are there to satisfy demands of transformation. That is not good for the morale of the individual or the team. People talk of two or three black players in a team but what is the difference between two, three, five or six? If they are good enough, they should be there, of course. I don’t like our guys carrying this additional burden.

"I doubt that we are going to see dramatic changes until the sport at the lower levels is developed sufficiently. We still do not have enough or adequate facilities in what are still black townships. Until you really get down to ensuring ... such facilities are created ... at lower levels like schools and clubs, you won’t be able to develop the talent that there is."

In response, the ANC went nuclear. ANC chairperson of the sports portfolio committee Butana Komphela suggested the sentiment akin to no less than "high treason", attached to which, in many countries, comes no less than the penalty of death.

Komphela, a man who once said, "I know nothing about [sport] but I know the policy position of the ANC around it," embodied the ANC’s blinkered fundamentalism better than most. He is not alone, however, nor is the idea limited to sport. ANC chairperson of the party’s economic committee said in 2013, "[Apartheid architect Hendrik] Verwoerd used the quota system, therefore we should too! We unashamedly say we will use quotas in every sector of the economy."

But Willemse has put the spotlight on the problem in a way few have done before. We still don’t know what led to his on-air remarks, but we do have a transcript of what he said. And it included the following: "As a player, I’ve been called a quota for a long time and I’ve worked very hard to earn the respect I have now."

Willemse didn’t have the longest Springbok career, just 19 caps, but at his best he was the best, literally. In 2003, SA Rugby named him Player of the Year, Most Promising Player of the Year, and Players’ Player of the Year.

The real problem, however, is this: one needn’t be a "quota player" for the label to be maliciously applied to you. Clearly, Willemse has had it said to him often in the past. You can only imagine how devastating that must be. And, you can be sure, it is an idea racially abused; that is, used primarily to disparage black, Indian and Coloured athletes, rather than white players.

One of the more heartfelt and moving testimonies about the impact of this sort of slur came from another Springbok wing, Breyton Paulse, in 2005. It is worth setting out in full because it captures the evil inherent to the idea of quotas and how easily and cruelly it can be abused.

Paulse said then: "People should not use us as tokens. It is so discriminating. It is against our integrity. I wasn’t ready the first time I was chosen for the South African squad and I was unhappy. I needed about three more years to get ready for it and had the feeling I was only there because of other considerations. I was very cross at the way it was implemented. There have definitely been players whose careers have been ruined by this. I won’t name names but they have been fast-tracked onto the scene and, sadly, that didn’t do them any good and they disappeared. But for my character, my spirit-base and determination, I would probably have disappeared, too. That sort of thing makes you think and can harm you: the consequences are bad.

You start to doubt yourself and negative things creep into your mind. People have been put in there because of their colour; and that is wrong ... This tokenism is definitely wrong and will create divisions in the team. Supporters are also fed up with it. People are not stupid.

—  Breyton Paulse

"You start to doubt yourself and negative things creep into your mind. People have been put in there because of their colour; and that is wrong. You can’t just put someone in. You must give the players a support structure and provide the opportunity for them to help themselves get to where they want to be. This tokenism is definitely wrong and will create divisions in the team. Supporters are also fed up with it. People are not stupid; they cannot be fooled. You cannot play with reality. Obviously, after democracy, transformation was going to happen, and originally I supported it. But the manner in which it has come across has been wrong for both sides. There is a better way you can nurture people. You can’t just take them from the bottom and put them at the top. They must put themselves at the top. This happens ... in business."

It’s a devastating description. But still the ANC persists with the policy. Having dismally failed to develop talent through academies and training — which, if the party had done since 1994, would have long since solved the problem — it has, much as with land reform, found itself a victim of its own incompetence; forced to resort to racial engineering in the face of its failure to nurture skill and talent.

A mockery

The party’s insistence has, in its time, produced some outcomes that can only be described as bizarre. This from a 2010 Reuters story on our domestic netball league: "Central Gauteng, composed of seven black players, beat Boland, a team with black and white players, 41-39. But Boland were given an extra six goals for complying with the quota policy to encourage mixed teams, winning the match 45-41. According to Netball SA policy, teams are required to maintain a ratio of seven black and five white players, or seven white and five black, in a squad of 12."

Which professional athlete, who wakes up and from dawn till dusk strives with everything they have to be the absolute best, would want to be part of this sort of a charade? It is to mock their very purpose in life. It is utterly and totally insulting. Former Proteas bowler Makhaya Ntini once put it like this: "One thing I do not want is for us to be called affirmative action players. That’s bad for black players and bad for South African cricket. I want to play, first and foremost, with good players, the best players in a winning team."

Ntini had to battle with abuse of the term "quota player" himself, regardless of his talent or his motivation — and he is a legend. But the ANC doesn’t care about problems like that. In all sectors of South African life, people are merely useful metaphors for an ideology. Their own experience counts for nothing.

Which professional athlete, who wakes up and from dawn till dusk strives with everything they have to be the absolute best, would want to be part of this sort of a charade?

Like Ntini, Willemse and Paulse demonstrate that the problem applies not just to those people chosen to comply with a racial quota but those selected on merit alone. The very idea of a "racial quota" introduces self-doubt and, when abused, enforces doubt, negatively and directly affecting those it is supposed to be uplifting. Few ideas are more insidious. Credit to those who have fought against them from the get go. Ironically, what Willemse has taught all those who advocate for quotas, is just how destructive the idea can be.

That abuse is encouraged by sporting authorities in SA, charged with ensuring demographic representivity. No one, from the players to the public, is ever told exactly how quotas work in practice — who is selected on the basis of race and who is selected on the basis of ability. There is just an insistence that the policy be applied and the backroom dealing no one is privy to. And that is most cruel to the black, Indian and Coloured players to whom they are applied: they know quotas apply, they don’t know if they apply to them.

These two forces — formal ambiguous authority and informal abuse and hate — feed off each other, in a horrible, vicious circle of uncertainty and doubt. What sort of madness is that? If you want to destroy confidence and self-belief, this is how you do it.

Perhaps then, like the ANC, this pernicious idea will now be revisited, and some pressure applied to the ANC to abandon it.

Of course, the party will never explain where exactly it draws the line between "transformation" and "quotas" but that the idea of being labelled a "quota player" is now deemed problematic is at least a step in the right direction. It is a start. As for those who resort to malicious abuse of the idea, to racially denigrate or disparage, well, shame on them. They are no more and no less of a disgrace than the ANC. But don’t be fooled, it is the ANC, through ambiguity and uncertainty, that has given them the space to play the hateful game they play.

• Van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations.