DEAR Editor,-
With regards to the Ashwin Willemse case, Willemse’s walking off-set during a live broadcast was both disgraceful and unforgivable. The petulance he revealed so publicly was totally unprofessional.
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Unfortunately it also provoked thoughts about such behavioural refinements as culture, class, maturity, dignity, grace, stability, intellect and discretion. These are delicate commodities, difficult to define, but we all recognise them when we see them and miss them when we don’t.
That Willemse felt affronted or even persecuted is irrelevant. He accepted a job with Supersport. He was paid to do it. His employer and the public had the right to expect a professional commitment to his appointed tasks and the best possible application of his mind to the business of delivering an analytical opinion on rugby.
If he had a basket of smouldering laundry gathering mould in his conscience, the studio floor was not the place to empty it. He had enough hours, days and months off the set to unpack all his personal issues with Supersport management, the program producer, the anchor, Nick Mallet, Naas Botha and an anger management therapist.
If his bruised psyche could not have been healed through those channels, he should have done the decent thing and resigned from his contract with the broadcaster.
Not live, on air, but with the decorum and dignity that befits one who has achieved at the highest levels in the sport, earned respect and become somewhat of a role model for aspiring young players.
The indiscreet and unprofessional way in which he chose to unburden his personal perceptions of being patronised was an embarrassment to the producers, the anchor and the viewing public. Of course, a significant element of that public has experienced, first-hand, many painful issues with racially-based injustices of the past.
They would naturally burst into a ‘Mexican Wave’ of euphoria and applaud Willemse’s boot crashing into the face of decorum. Some have even joined in, adding a few cracked ribs for good measure.
The impulse of their reaction is a different matter and makes material for one of the probing talk shows that are broadcast each week. But the grandstanding petulance of Willemse’s walkout is indefensible and calls for a public apology by him.
JACQUES SELLSCHOP
Marina Beach
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