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South Africa Quota System

Julian87

State Captain
The thing about this I find amusing is that they're already only allowed to have 50% of players in a national team who are white.

How come if you switched that around it's racist but it isn't as it stands?
 

Marius

International Debutant
The thing about this I find amusing is that they're already only allowed to have 50% of players in a national team who are white.

How come if you switched that around it's racist but it isn't as it stands?
That's not true.

It isn't so much a quota as a guide.

In the last T20 we played six of the XI were white (De Kock, Du Plessis, De Villiers, Miller, Morkel and Steyn).

In the last Test we played seven of the XI were white (Smith, Du Plessis, De Villiers, Elgar, Abbott, Steyn, and Morkel).

It is ridiculous though. Take for example a guy like Herschelle Gibbs. He could pass for white and went to Bishops in Cape Town, one of the most exclusive schools in South Africa. How would we decide he is coloured, white, or black? Do we do some sort of pencil test or skin tone test? Do we ask him how he pronounced certain words? What an absolute joke.
 

Marius

International Debutant
What a load of rubbish,

South Africa should pick the best xi regardless of race, religion or Colour
I agree with you, but it's far easier said than done.

SA's history is complex.

That said, trying to transform the top sides, without ensuring that there are facilities for kids who actually want to play the game is ridiculous.

If one drives through rural South Africa where black people live you don't see cricket or rugby fields, you see soccer fields (which are also poorly maintained). If the sports minister is serious about transformation he should put money into development, not through grabbing headlines like he is now.
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
TBF it wasn't so very long ago that NZ kowtowed to the Apartheid regime by not selecting any Maoris or Pacific Islanders when they toured the republic.

Mind you the Lions toured SA as late as 1981 too, long after the SA cricket team had been banished, so glasshouses and all that.
I will have to google that. There are a couple of pieces of our sporting history that aren't discussed in our folk lore. Instead they promote heavily some stand they took on one tour which boiled down to "No Maoris no tour",

Our other piece of shame that is glossed over by our media is that the african countries boycotted an Olympics games all because of us and our links to SA. That was shameful. Luckily I was too young to live through it. I think Muldoon was to blame. Or if he wasn't I will blame him anyway. ;ph34r:
 

Spark

Global Moderator
The thing about this I find amusing is that they're already only allowed to have 50% of players in a national team who are white.

How come if you switched that around it's racist but it isn't as it stands?
Let's give this post a round of applause for the nuanced and deep understanding of South African racial history (and race relations in general), everyone. Must have really been taxing dreaming this one up.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Let's give this post a round of applause for the nuanced and deep understanding of South African racial history (and race relations in general), everyone. Must have really been taxing dreaming this one up.
It was fine until that Mandela bloke ruined everything.
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I understand that the whole apartheid thing was a bid deal etc, but why is this not everyone's view on everything?
You want that to be the case, of course. The point is, being realistic, if you don't have quotas at some point in a situation where a country is coming out of entrenched segregation/ discrimination, how will the players from that part of the population who have been subject to the discrimination get to a point where they will be able to compete on an even keel with those from the more privileged background?

It's similar to the argument re quotas for women on boards or in executive positions. As someone said to me yesterday when that was being discussed "the best person should get the job", and of course that's the case. But unless you have some sort of system in place, it's very hard to break down the Old Boys' network. You have situations where a bloke and a woman with equal qualifications apply for a gig and the bloke gets it because he's played golf with the CEO a few times, or they went to the same tosser school, like the one dermo went to. If you don't take a step to get to the point where the candidates are put on an even keel to begin with, then how do you change the way people think in making their selections?

Ideally you wouldn't need quotas because people would choose players/ employees/ execs properly. But they can be useful in getting a society/ sport/ company to a point where they are no longer looking at anything other than who the best candidate for a spot is.
 
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Burgey

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I mean, having blokes from a more privileged background who get privately coached and have the benefits of the best facilities saying to those who've had very little access to those things "We're on an even playing field. Pick the best players" is a bit like Gina Reinhardt telling average Australians they should work harder for less money to get ahead, when she inherited a mountain of iron ore in the Pilbara from her late father.
 

Burgey

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The thing about this I find amusing is that they're already only allowed to have 50% of players in a national team who are white.

How come if you switched that around it's racist but it isn't as it stands?
Genuine question. Do you really think that?
 

dermo

International Vice-Captain
yeah but that only applies here if we assume there are a large number of equally talented black african players who aren't being selected because of an old system still entrenched in the minds of selectors, which isn't the case.

the thing with south african cricket is the majority of black africans just aren't interested in it, soccer is by far and away the most popular sport in the community and unless the powers that be invest in grassroots cricket in poor areas to encourage young black africans to play there shouldn't be anyone even considering a quota. ffs theres not even that many black africans playing first class cricket in SA.

I understand and agree with the idea that sport is a way to bring much of the country together and to try bring young children out of poverty but this isn't the way to do it.
 

Burgey

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yeah but that only applies here if we assume there are a large number of equally talented black african players who aren't being selected because of an old system still entrenched in the minds of selectors, which isn't the case.

the thing with south african cricket is the majority of black africans just aren't interested in it, soccer is by far and away the most popular sport in the community and unless the powers that be invest in grassroots cricket in poor areas to encourage young black africans to play there shouldn't be anyone even considering a quota. ffs theres not even that many black africans playing first class cricket in SA.

I understand and agree with the idea that sport is a way to bring much of the country together and to try bring young children out of poverty but this isn't the way to do it.
Well, no it doesn't assume that's the case at all. What it acknowledges is there is a massive disparity between the resources available to nurture black talent in SA and that of the established, wealthier and, by no small margin, minority white community.

I mean, I'd wager there are a **** load more blacks in Enlgand interested in football than in cricket too, but there isn't as massive a disparity in socio economic conditions between the races in England as there is in SA, even now (largely because all of England is ****, but you now what I mean), nor is there seen to be a need for some sort of quota system in English cricket.
 

Marius

International Debutant
the thing with south african cricket is the majority of black africans just aren't interested in it, soccer is by far and away the most popular sport in the community and unless the powers that be invest in grassroots cricket in poor areas to encourage young black africans to play there shouldn't be anyone even considering a quota. ffs theres not even that many black africans playing first class cricket in SA.
Could you please give me a link to the survey which shows this.

Thanks.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I will have to google that. There are a couple of pieces of our sporting history that aren't discussed in our folk lore. Instead they promote heavily some stand they took on one tour which boiled down to "No Maoris no tour",
I've read some pieces about non-white New Zealanders not being picked for tours of SA, and others about the poor old saffers being 'disgusted' about finding themselves playing against non-whites in a much earlier tour of NZ. Way back in the 1920's, IIRC.

Obviously my lot haven't always come out of these affairs with much credit though, what with Duleep being dropped after complaints from the SA tourists in 1929, and some piffling affair in 1968, the name of which escapes me.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Difficult as an outsider to pass any useful comment on this - the South Africans know much better than I the nuances of the post-apartheid world, and there are all sorts of issues about positive action, as touched on by Burgey, which make this a horrifically complex and difficult area.

But I'm struck by this:

The South African government says African when it means 'black African'.
Self-evidently there are plenty of white people who've been African for generations. It does strike me as odd that the SA Govt should seek to differentiate white Africans from black Africans on the basis not of colour but of being African.
 

TNT

Banned
Could you please give me a link to the survey which shows this.

Thanks.
I thought it was common knowledge that black SA's prefer soccer.

[h=1]Sport in South Africa[/h]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Sports in South Africa have a passionate following, although they remain largely divided along ethnic lines.
Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in South Africa, particularly amongst blacks who constitute the majority of the population.
South-Africa.jpg
 

Rasimione

U19 Captain
Well it's a lot more complex in south Africa because of what apartheid did to our country. While I do acknowledge that redress needs to take place, , I havea problem with how they doing it. Fundamentally blacks of which I fall under, do not have facilities to play. To put it simply one needs to be well off to play rugby or cricket at a higher level because of resource limitations.

The ruling party is making all this noise because of impeding elections so id not take them seriously. However all I'll say is that the status quo can't continue. It can't be right that representing your country must be done on the basis of how much money mummy and daddy have in the bank.

I really do hope that logical decisions will be made.
 

Marius

International Debutant
Well it's a lot more complex in south Africa because of what apartheid did to our country. While I do acknowledge that redress needs to take place, , I havea problem with how they doing it. Fundamentally blacks of which I fall under, do not have facilities to play. To put it simply one needs to be well off to play rugby or cricket at a higher level because of resource limitations.

The ruling party is making all this noise because of impeding elections so id not take them seriously. However all I'll say is that the status quo can't continue. It can't be right that representing your country must be done on the basis of how much money mummy and daddy have in the bank.

I really do hope that logical decisions will be made.
That's like saying it isn't fair that someone became an accountant, just because their parents were well-off and could afford extra maths lessons and could send their kid to a good university. Must we insist that only 10% of chartered accountants in SA are white because whites make up 10% of the population?

And it is hardly like white kids are all on the same playing field, I would guess 90% of SA's national cricketers come from 10 schools. But I get your point, and I think CSA is trying to do a lot at grassroots to change the situation. This ranting from Mbalula does not help anyone though.
 

Marius

International Debutant
Difficult as an outsider to pass any useful comment on this - the South Africans know much better than I the nuances of the post-apartheid world, and there are all sorts of issues about positive action, as touched on by Burgey, which make this a horrifically complex and difficult area.

But I'm struck by this:



Self-evidently there are plenty of white people who've been African for generations. It does strike me as odd that the SA Govt should seek to differentiate white Africans from black Africans on the basis not of colour but of being African.
The old government called whites Europeans into the '50s or '60s, to be fair. But I agree with you, closest direct link I have to Europe is my maternal grandfather's parents, all my other grandparents were born in SA and in some cases have been in this country since the 1700s.
 

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