Saru changes policy on Maori
3 Dec 2010
Saru has reversed its policy on the New Zealand Maori meaning fixtures between the Springboks and the Maori could take place in future.
Earlier this year, Saru president Regan Hoskins issued a formal apology to Maori players who were excluded from South African tours during apartheid. A number of Maori players became victims of the racist ideology of South Africa’s former government and were denied an opportunity to represent the All Blacks in South Africa.
This apology came after speculation of a Springboks vs NZ Maori match to mark the latter’s centenary. The match was originally scheduled as part of the Springbok warm-ups ahead of the 2009 British & Irish Lions tour but called off when Saru deemed the Maori a team selected along racial lines which conflicts with the South African constitution.
While the 2009 and 2010 opportunities have passed, there will be an opportunity for a match-up in the near future.
‘Saru held its last General Council meeting for the year on Friday in Newlands. The Council agreed to adopt the policy pertaining to the New Zealand Maori, which now paves the way for matches between South African teams and the Maoris,’ a statement read.
‘South Africa will play against any team which has the official blessing of its national governing body,’ added Hoskins.
Other outcomes of this meeting saw Gary Meyer of the KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Union elected as an Executive Council member. He replaces Francois Davids who resigned earlier this year.
Saru CEO Jurie Roux was also elected to accompany Hoskins as the Saru representatives to the IRB, while Dawie Groenewald is the new Saru representative to the Confederation of African Rugby.
243 Comments
3 Dec 2010, 13:34 pm
Policy-shifting dragons!
3 Dec 2010, 13:36 pm
Not playing against the Maori when we have a push for transformation (Transie?) in SA rugby is silly.
3 Dec 2010, 13:42 pm
yawn
3 Dec 2010, 13:44 pm
Wow
schucks
thanks SO much, SARU.
How nice of them.
Its a real privilege
For the SARU.
3 Dec 2010, 13:59 pm
Hmmmmm. This opens the door very wide…
3 Dec 2010, 14:17 pm
Minority against minority.
3 Dec 2010, 14:35 pm
@Black Panther : yawn
who was breaking down whose door for an invite Fanny Pack?
3 Dec 2010, 14:43 pm
@BlackShark : you called?
3 Dec 2010, 15:09 pm
“Gary Meyer of the KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Union”
Not more Sharks, please!
3 Dec 2010, 15:53 pm
@THEBokFan : @7
No need to panic. We’re already in the countdown to SARU changing their mind
Again.
3 Dec 2010, 15:54 pm
@Transformation : There’s a lot of transformation-related stuff here. You views, please!
3 Dec 2010, 15:56 pm
@BlackShark : what exactly, talk to me, don’t be afraid
3 Dec 2010, 16:26 pm
@Transformation : SARU wouldn’t let the Boks play against a team full of d@rkies! The more things change, the more they stay the same
3 Dec 2010, 16:29 pm
@BlackShark : Yes, wait for it…
3 Dec 2010, 22:44 pm
@BlackShark : 13 what you missed is that the SARU constitution prohibited the Boks to play teams that are selected based on race. Technically, the Maori team is picked on the basis of race. The NZRFU is cool with this now SARU have relaxed their OWN constitution, if the home union sanctions the Maori team then the Boks will accept the challenge. It ain’t that hard to understand..
3 Dec 2010, 23:08 pm
it was such a silly decision in the first place.
too much angst in this country about race issues.
just wish saru and the government would relax a little and follow the lead of the rest of the world.
race should no longer be an issue in any decision.
4 Dec 2010, 00:26 am
So, this has to mean that SARU has no objection in principle to a team which is racially-exclusive?
That, in principle, opens the door to a whites-only team from SA.
(No, you can’t object to it on principled grounds now that NZ Maori is given the nod. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.)
4 Dec 2010, 01:39 am
as long as it’s not white south africans being racist it’s all good. Why is it a surprise that Hoskins changed his mind? They never stand their ground anyway. He’s got no morals – no fibre and will sell himself for anything. So bring on the All Black All Blacks – what a joke.
4 Dec 2010, 02:16 am
@Transformation : I get it. Just a bit of mischief-making…
4 Dec 2010, 02:40 am
Within its own country – the NZ Maori team has always been a fly in the ointment of the politically correct, and the bane of a multi-cultural society. Never fails to draw the ire around rugby camp-fires, and is certainly a throwback to colonial patronisation.
Over the years it has fielded lily white, blond haired players, even once a red-head, but is now generally accepted as an invitation team that hunts for international scalps.
Also performs an excellent role in testing the form of possible ABs. .
4 Dec 2010, 04:38 am
I would have thought that a team selected on racial grounds was a thing of the past? Or does this only apply to other shades of colour?
4 Dec 2010, 07:10 am
@BlackShark : i figured you up to somethimg like that…tackler, forget about a slegs blankes team boyyo and stay the **** out of saffa affairs u relinquished ur affiliation years ago. stofile & saru were the first to apologise to the maori for their exclusion even BEFORE their own rugby union did.
in our country we won’t select teams based on race for obvious reasons but if the free people of new zealand want allow scum like you to live amongst them or theyre cool with a team of only maori cats
then it’s their prerogative.
4 Dec 2010, 07:12 am
Well, this opens the door to the white minority in SA to field a “traditional” whites-only team again, in the tradition of the pre-1981 Springboks.
4 Dec 2010, 07:20 am
@TheTackler : keep looking for imaginary “open doors”. u’re just an ‘imi’in new zealand, behave urself. hahahaha
4 Dec 2010, 07:27 am
@Bludeks : Definitely not a thing of the past – still alive and kicking. Only applies to those who can trace a droplet of Maori bloodline. To point out the hypocrisy of the selection method would instantly deem the harbinger a racist.
Oh so true (sign)
To some people – it is not whether things are correct or not, but to feel grieved permanently as if society owes them.
Often when the pendulum in society swings to make a correction, it over compensates, and swings too far.
4 Dec 2010, 07:48 am
@TheTackler : 23:
No it doesn’t Tackles. If the Bok team were predominately black you could argue for a whites only team, but as things stand there’s enough whiteys in the Bok team to not warrant representation in another team.
4 Dec 2010, 09:09 am
@Transformation : I thought that was interesting, Transie, that SA apologised to the Maori before the Kiwis did. I remember reading about all the foot-dragging before they eventually did. Classy.
4 Dec 2010, 09:11 am
@TheTackler : One day IF the Bok team is mostly black, someone may entertain that idea. But like it’s been said, the Bok team is mostly white so you don’t have a leg to stand on.
4 Dec 2010, 09:21 am
@BlackShark : The AB team doesn’t have to be predominantly white in order to justify having a NZ Maori team. In fact, even if the ABs are predominantly brown, the NZ Maori operate as if nothing is different — the racial composition of the non-racial national team is irrelevant.
This is, after all, a matter of solid principle, not one of changing expediencies.
Either the principle of racially-selected teams is 100% acceptable, or it is 100% unacceptable.
Until now, post-unity SARU has ruled it to be 100% unacceptable. Teams HAD to be non-racial. On principle.
Now it’s changed. So, one assumes, it’s now 100% acceptable to have teams which are racially-selected, like NZ Maori. And, by logical extension, local teams which are 100% SA European/white, or 100% African, or 100% coloured etc.
4 Dec 2010, 10:19 am
@TheTackler : @ 29
since when is ‘white’ = a ‘race’ ?
since when is ‘coloured’ = a ‘race’ ?
isnt ‘Africa’ made up of lots of different peoples from different tribes and cultures that dont regard themselves as being 1 and the same ?
Why dont SA select a Xhosa XV ? a Zulu XV ?
I have played against ‘Auckland Samoa’. No problems. Tongans also have regional team in Auckland & Wellington. Pacific teams also exist in LAX (I can verify they hold amazing parties in an isolated shed in the burbs). Aus recently celebrated their ethnic peoples with a game of rugby league – to a Sold Out stadium.
Why is it that Safas regard themselves as the World Experts on Race and then apply policies relevant to their own history, on to others that are completely irrelevant ? You assume we drop everything when Safas talk on race, listen and act accordingly. We dont.
4 Dec 2010, 11:10 am
Whites and coloureds (and Asians and Polynesians and Africans Indians and Eskimoes and.. etc etc) have ALWAYS been races.
Let’s not split hairs here.
4 Dec 2010, 11:30 am
@TheTackler :
utter cr@p
does a 1 white NZer regard himself as the same ‘race’ as a white Afrikaaner ?
does a brown Polynesian regard himself as the same ‘race’ as a brown Pakistani ?
does a yellow *** regard himself as the same ‘race’ as a Chinese ?
does a black African regard himself as the same ‘race’ as an Aborigine ?
Youre talking skin-colour, Tickler. Tell me what other Nation on this Earth uses the word ‘coloured’ ?
4 Dec 2010, 11:30 am
*** = J a p.
4 Dec 2010, 12:29 pm
@Black Panther : Well said, sir. Our obsession with the South African, apartheid construct of race drives me to drink. Our so-called Coloureds, for example, are simply considered black in other countries. In fact, Coloured is a serious slur in the US, for example.
People like Tackler need to have their brainwashing undone.
4 Dec 2010, 12:44 pm
@Black Panther : Yes, a white New Zealander is indeed of exactly the same race as a white Afrikaner. Nobody could tell them apart if they came walking down the street side by side.
A black African is a black, whether he’s from SA Angola or Ghana.
To answer your question re: “coloured” — Americans used the word “coloured” in the 1930s-1960s after dropping the 19th century term “n.egro”. Then, in the 70s they moved to “black”, and then to “African-American” in the late-80s.
But, in SA, coloured people are a distinctly different mixed mulatto race from an admixture of African blacks, San Bushmen, Khoi hottentots and Javanese Indonesians, and there are several million of them — far more than Maori (who are also currently a mixed race)
A Polynesian is a distincly different brown race to a brown Pakistani or Indian (who are of the same race). And a Polynesian from Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga or NZ is different from a Fijian who is Melanesian.
Colours are merely used for convenience, not to split hairs. But separate, easily-identifiable races do exist, even in very admixtured forms.
It doesn’t matter what name you call them. You know who they are. They know who they are. And rules are built around their existence both in politics and also in rugby.
These rules are the polar opposite of “non-racial”.
More’s the pity. ALL rugby ought to be totally non-racial.
4 Dec 2010, 12:50 pm
Tackler is not brainwashed he is simply pointing out the logical assumptions that can be made from this decision, ergo: it is acceptable in SARU’s mind to select teams along racial lines.
Those of you who argue that white and black are not races then merely highlight that, what is called ‘transformation’ is actually discrimination based on the colour of someone’s skin.
Which makes no sense either because I know some Italians and Lebs that are darker than many black people.
I don’t care if NZ is happy to select along racial lines, it is not acceptable in South Africa. Why should we get over ourselves when other countries such as Germany are still sensitve over siies such as Nazism 60 years later. Would Israel like a Palestinian rugby team to play them, or represent them as a minority. Don’t think it’s going to happen.
My point: whether it goes ahead or not the team is a racist selection and SARU apparently doesn’t like racism, except quotas, and then although extremely African, best isn’t black enough because he isn’t South African enough. WTF?
4 Dec 2010, 12:53 pm
Races aren’t a SA construct. They’re a universal construct and this construct enjoys depressingly huge vigour in NZ, where Maori regard themselves as “aboriginal” even though they only settled here 1000 years ago. Australian aboriginals settled there in Oz 40000 years ago, before continental drift shaped the earth we now inhabit. Same with African and European aboriginal populations. Maori are merely first settlers, but settlers nevertheless.
And, in the modern age, being in a place longer doesn’t bestow any special privileges or human rights on you. If a Maori from NZ moves to Australia or Italy and acquires naturalised citizenship after 5 years, that Maori immigrant enjoys every last human right that any native born Australian or Italian does. Not a jot extra. As indeed it ought to be in a non-racial nation. Settling first or last makes no difference.
4 Dec 2010, 13:00 pm
I’d like to invite all my Jewish and Palestinian friends to a Pork Braai at the Wailing Wall next month.
What? You say I am being insensitive to the current relations between groups in Israel?
So what, I don’t understand that, being South African.
4 Dec 2010, 13:10 pm
I suppose that Maori, having 60 percent DNA from Asia (about Taiwan region) would give rights to the Maori rugby team playing in the pan-Asian tournament and admittance to the Asian Five Nation competition. mmmmmm this just more weird.
4 Dec 2010, 13:11 pm
@TheTackler : Are you still trying create a box for yourself. Maybe we should talk about breeding lines rather than race.. Very narrow breeding lines require high levels of inbreeding and in this respect people with a narrow breeding line are termed as Homozygostic whereas people with broad breeding line are called Heterozygostic..
The question you should be raising is what level of inbreeding exists within your family, community or society. Now if you can confirm that you have a narrow breeding line and you wish to preserve it… go and have a chat with your best looking first cousin or sister and tell her about your need to protect the breeding line. Hopefully she will identify with your cause and take one for the family and volk
4 Dec 2010, 13:12 pm
Tickler
you’re talking cr@p.
Your theory above should replace the word ‘race’ with the word ‘colour’. Yours is merely the SA Model of Yesteryear that conveniently lumped Afrikaaners and BritIsh whites together and granted them privileges excluded to others, despite them being racially and culturally different peoples. Still are in many ways, going by the jousts around here.
It is, however, fair to acknowledge that you are considerably more qualified to talk on this subject – being a Safa – than you are about Maoritanga and the Haka. Logic would usually apply that states you shouldn’t confuse the two.
4 Dec 2010, 13:18 pm
@youknowwho : I’m not sure of the point of that post. Are you suggesting the Maori are interbred? Which they are not it seems, there is no 100% Maori person left. So are you then admitting that any form of selection along ‘breeding lines’ is also as false as doing it according to race?
In essence there is no pure bred anything, never was. Should we then do it along class lines… but then some Blacks would be whites and some whites would be black.
Income? Same issue. ‘Culture’ – NOW THEN, there we go, we can discriminate using ‘CULTURE’.
I don’t like the taste of Pakeha so I can’t be Maori.
I don’t like Maas so I can’t be black.
I do like German cars so I could be a Malema.
I am educated so I can’t be a Malema.
4 Dec 2010, 13:21 pm
@Black Panther : BP I think the issue here is not that Kiwis find a Maori team cool, it’s that South Africa, SARU, in our current climate are willing to openly accept even the idea of ‘race’ or whatever it’s called to be a valid way to select a team.
See what I mean? It’s like not understanding why Hindu’s worship cows but leaving them be. It doesn’t mean I would love cows walking all over my streets though.
It’s ‘insensitive’ at this time.
4 Dec 2010, 13:34 pm
GYGT2
thanks for a few isolated words of sanity. And, if you read betw the lines of all my posts here, is exactly what I was saying.
4 Dec 2010, 13:35 pm
@goyougoodthing2 : The point of my post is to evoke a response from a dumbass like yourself and tackler… but to clear things up, I was contesting the notion of race.
We have various constructs beyond breeding lines and as you have noted, culture, income levels, intelligence etc…the nurture elements which we use to discriminate with..
Now breeding lines do affect mental and physical health.. The more Heterozygostic you are, the less genetic defects you carry forward…
WRT the moari, breeding lines have been diluted as you have pointed out but this does not in anyway need to affect Maori Culture which can be adopted by any person.
4 Dec 2010, 13:39 pm
GYGT2
….insofar as it’s a SA situation. And that in SA, it would regarded as ‘insensitive’. In SA.
4 Dec 2010, 13:49 pm
Tickler
btw – can I tell a Afrikaaner male from a White Kiwi male ?
Yes, but only most times.
Can I tell whether a white Safa male is Afrikaaner or Saltie ?
Yes, but only after 2mins of conversation.
4 Dec 2010, 14:09 pm
you call this snotty potty faced Pomeranian prick sane, you gotta have rocks in your head?
The ultimate self confessed racists on this planet are these Pomeranian whitearsed prats that think they somehow ordained with higher class Pomeranian educated levels of intelligence than races of darker hues than them
This GYGTHGfckdup2 is the ultimate example of a racist twat up his own infatuated whiteyarsed A.Hole, him and this other two bit twattyfaced inbred Pomeranian poefta Tackler are like 2 absolute poefta pakeha peas in a pod, stick those Pomeranian outright pakeha racists together and boil them in a pot, then chew their bones and spit them out again, thats about all such indoctrinated soppy white trash is good for.
for these fuckups to contest they are not in the slightest racist when all they ever do is compare one race with another extolling their own soppy whitearsed poefta race as superior shows exactly how f’ng deluded and consequentially racist hypocritical these fucked up ignoramuses actually are.
Either they see race or they don’t see it. if they are constantly comparing races and racist policies then their minds and brains are so infatuated with their own fucked up race to the extent that they are continually seeking opportunities to exalt their own fucked up breeding above another’s. And such is their outright poefta bred hypocrisy, blatant as clear as daylight every syllable they utter is encased in racism, whether you or they see it matters little, what matters is that it is recognized for what it is, outright white inbred superiority complexed racism to the absolute outright degree.
4 Dec 2010, 14:13 pm
@Black Panther : Sorry, it’s not possible. You’re lying.
4 Dec 2010, 14:20 pm
Tackler
if a retired couple walked down the street towards you, she wearing large hair, manicured and brash; he in white chinos and a yellow shirt with a Panama hat and a large gemstone ring on his chubby finger. They’re talking loudly but you can’t hear the accent yet – where are they from
4 Dec 2010, 14:24 pm
@Black Panther : People of different races may — or may not — have the same skin colour. Indians, Aborigines, Polynesians and South African coloureds and lighter-skinned Africans being a case in point.
But there’s no confusing their separate races. Indians have near-identical facial features to white Europeans despite their brown colour. Their noses and lips are decidedly different to those of an Aborigine or an African or a Maori who, in turn, are different from each other.
So skin colour really isn’t “it”. It’s only part of the totality of the “it” we call “race”.
But you’re nitpicking now. I’ll have no more of it.
Only the wilfully ignorant pretends there’s no discernable difference between races. It’s as silly as pretending that there are no real differences between a circle, square and a triangle.
4 Dec 2010, 14:24 pm
Tickler
if 3 women with prams were walking towards you and your partner, refused to look you in the eye, refused to move insofar as you had to temporarily step around the parking meter to avoid them, they didn’t apologise let alone “excuse me” and continued past you as if you didn’t exist.
Where are these women from ?
4 Dec 2010, 14:28 pm
Tickler
if you were picking up a hire car at a busy airport and there was a large single-file queue on 1 side waiting patiently and on the other people pushing directly past them, immediately, demanding service….
Where do the queuing people come from ?
And the people pushing ?
4 Dec 2010, 14:30 pm
Tickler
you’ve paid for a romantic 2nd Honeymoon for u and the Mrs and turn up to the posh hotel. On your way to breakfast in the am, there are towels on every single lounger/chair.
Who put the towels in the chairs ?
4 Dec 2010, 14:34 pm
Generally I believe that people who are comfortable with their differences and shared values, are comfortable talking about matters of race and culture, and those from the ends of the spectrum are generally not liberal and/or humanitarian.
NZ is comfortable with these matters, Australia is becoming less uncomfortable and … The NRL now plays an Aboriginal v Non-Aboriginal match each year to raise money for ..?
If anyone is interested, there is an excellent documentary, called “under the Maori Moon”, which details the history of Maori rugby. You can get it from the thempire dot bz
4 Dec 2010, 14:34 pm
white brown black yellow pink, Maori, Pakeha, African, Afrikaans, English, Dutch, Chinese, Portogoose, Arsestralian, Indonesian, Thai, Tibetan, Mongolian, Caucasian, Aryan, Semitic, Ne’groid,
is simply a misnomer of edification, a stick by which men beat each others backs with
Race is a delusion of in-consequence in the greater scheme of created or evolved humanity
branches of a tree that will in any event wither and disintegrate yet they think the impermanence of white, black, yellow, red and pink to be an absolutely vital matter of social ethnically deduced cataclysmic cleansing
4 Dec 2010, 14:37 pm
tackler you are absolutely obsessed with race.. to the point of utter extraction
4 Dec 2010, 14:42 pm
“South Africa will play against any team which has the official blessing of its national governing body”
Just a thought, during the apartheid days did the boks not have the official blessing of its national governing body.
Its laughable what hypocrites people can be.
4 Dec 2010, 15:21 pm
@Black Panther : # 54 Let me know when you’ve given up on getting anything through his thick skull.
4 Dec 2010, 16:04 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : Pomerania is in Central Europe.
I am descended from many lines, Scottish, English, French and also a hint of Central/Eastern Europe, the region now known as Poland.
So I guess you are technically correct in calling me a Pomeranian, but only about 1/20 extract.
Now be a good boy and take your medicine, my offer is still there to pay for the Doctor, and my car is in need of a wash.
4 Dec 2010, 16:10 pm
@Black Panther : I do like your questions, they are rather amusing.
Interesting though, from a sociological perspective, that in using stereotypes to highlight stereotypes you are, in essence encouraging and in fact strengthening the stereotype and adding to the perceived differences between people of different classes and/or races.
Weird huh.
4 Dec 2010, 16:42 pm
Stereotypes ?
oh, for some reason I thought we were talking Race and/or Colour. Are you now telling me they are 1 and the same ?
4 Dec 2010, 16:43 pm
“for every action, there is a reaction”
(Master Yoda)
4 Dec 2010, 16:47 pm
@Black Panther : No, your stories are about stereotypes, who is stereotypically going to put towels out… then the colour comes in… socioeconomically poor, in service jobs for an hourly wage… would suggest… people of colour from Mexicans to Africans…
4 Dec 2010, 22:04 pm
GYGT2
actually my only ‘point’ is that the lines are blurred. It is not simply ‘colour’ or ‘religion’ or ‘culture’ that makes us humans ‘racist’.
It is, instead, many things not just one thing or the other.
4 Dec 2010, 23:11 pm
The South African Rugby Union have finally opened the way for games to be played against the New Zealand Maori after amending a post-apartheid policy that prevented games against racially-selected sides.
Talks took place between the two nations about the Maori playing the Springboks in Soweto in 2009, as a build-up to last year’s British and Irish Lions tour of the Republic. Plans were shelved because SARU said the Maori were selected on racial lines.
The NZRU also approached SARU this year about the possibility of a South Africa team playing the Maori during their centenary celebrations but were told it couldn’t happen for the same reason.
But yesterday SARU amended their rules, opening up the possibility of a game, or even a tour, in the near future.
“The [General] Council agreed to adopt the policy pertaining to the New Zealand Maori, which now paves the way for matches between South African teams and the Maoris [sic],” SARU said in a statement.
SARU president Oregan Hoskins added: “South Africa will play against any team which has the official blessing of its national governing body.”
The change comes on the back of a surprise apology this year made to Maori players prevented from touring South Africa with the All Blacks in 1928, 1949 and 1960.
They also issued an apology to black players in South Africa who were discriminated against by the apartheid-era rugby administration.
NZRU general manager of professional rugby Neil Sorenson said they hadn’t received official confirmation yet from SARU but he was delighted with the turnaround.
“It’s great news,” he said. “Most New Zealanders celebrate the Maori side. It’s a special side and reflects what New Zealand is about.
“I think most people both here and in South Africa would be excited about the possibility of a New Zealand Maori side in South Africa sometime in the near future. It’s obviously not likely to happen next year because of the World Cup but we will get on the phones this week to see when this could happen.
“It’s more logical for the Maori to tour South Africa rather than for South Africa to play them here during a Tri Nations.”
The New Zealand Maori, who were coached by new Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph, celebrated their centenary this year with wins over England, Ireland and a New Zealand Barbarians outfit. They were inactive in 2009.
The issue of Maori games against South African teams has long been a contentious one.
When New Zealand refused to send a whites-only team to the Republic in 1967, South Africa cancelled the tour. South Africa finally relented in 1970, when three Maori and a Samoan in the All Blacks were considered “honorary whites”.
The Maori played the Springboks when they toured New Zealand in 1921, 1956, 1965 and 1981. A Maori team also played a pre-season tournament in South Africa in 1994.
4 Dec 2010, 23:48 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
Classic, the the biggest papsak drinking racist of them all has an opinion on what and who is racist…….your obsession with white arses, I think, is what needs urgent treatment at the shrinks couch.
5 Dec 2010, 02:37 am
@Black Panther : The queuers are probably English and the shovers probably Italian. The vast majority of them would be of the white race. (If ever you’ve stood on a train platform in both Rome and London, you’d have spotted the contrast first-hand.)
There’s no point to this, is there?
5 Dec 2010, 02:42 am
“Most New Zealanders celebrate the Maori side. It’s a special side and reflects what New Zealand is about.” (Neil Sorenson, NZRU)
Guess what? The same words could have been used by Danie Craven of the SARB in describing the pre-81 Springboks. The all-white team then certainly reflected what SA was all about — a nation where races kept themselves separate, as pretty much still applies to this day, long after the laws enforcing this have ended.
5 Dec 2010, 03:02 am
… three Maori and a Samoan in the All Blacks were considered “honorary whites”.
This was a simple legal expedient at the time. The apartheid laws prohibited hotels, bars and restaurants from serving white and non-white patrons in the same facility. A hotel would have to provide physically-separated dining-rooms, bars, room-blocks etc if a mixed group were to book in there. Hotels at the time therefore catered for only one of the two race categories as far as rooms and lounges went — almost all hotels ran two segregated saloon bars.
In the 1960s the Japanese were interested in investing in SA, particularly in car manufacturing. The hospitality facilities catering for “non-whites” was woefully inadequate to cater for these wealthy Japanese businessmen from Toyota, Mazda, Datsun etc. so the Verwoerd government passed a law allowing certain groups to be officially declared “honorary whites” and this allowed white hotels to legally take in these guests without falling foul of the Separate Amenities Act.
It was a pretty broad-brush exemption: ALL Japanese visitors were henceforth “honorary whites” while all Chinese and Koreans and Taiwanese were all still non-white, even if a hotel receptionist might have had no idea of whether the guest at her desk was Japanese or Chinese or Korean or Taiwanese.
But the existing law, allowing certain visitors to enjoy “honorary white” status, was simply extended to the visiting 1970 All Black team, which contained non-white New Zealand players. It wasn’t a law or an exemption invented specifically for the four players in question; it was one already in use for any Japanese visitors able to prove their nationality.
Gradually it was extended to all Taiwanese too, as Taiwan expanded her economic interests in SA (where, especially in the Eastern Cape, there had been a significant SA-born Chinese population for over a century).
5 Dec 2010, 03:03 am
@TheTackler : To relate the NZ Maori Team to apartheid SA is a spurious argument.
Nobody complained when Shane Howarth and other ex NZers had to prove one of their Grandparents was English , Welsh or Scottish to make the national side. Thats racial selection.
Your argument is ****, displays a racist mentality in itself and the fact you cant see that emphasizes the point.
Racial selection has proven to be only a problem when Europeans do it. Sad but true.
Historically Its always been an challenge for Caucasians not to act in a racist manner to other ethnicities.
Slavery,the Holocaust and Apartheid are some extreme examples.
For the Maori its not about exclusion but inclusion. Its not about putting others down or excluding them but celebrating a unique collectivity. Its a completely different thing to the horrors of apartheid and ridiculous to compare..
5 Dec 2010, 03:51 am
@lapoftherugbygods : It’s not a “spurious” argument at all — both sides are racially-exclusive.
All the whys and the wherefores in the whole world cannot alter that simple fact.
Racial exclusivity is wrong, no matter who does it and for whatever reason.
“Celebrate”, if you like, the awesome superiority of the white South African Springbok team, with its history just as long as and far more illustrious than that of NZ Maori. Or decry it as a racist concept which must not be allowed to draw breath in a world of genuine inclusion and non-racialism.
And then demonstrate your ability to play the ball and not the man by applying the same principle wherever you encounter racial exclusivity.
A principle isn’t a real principle if you allow certain people to make exceptions and exemptions to it. It’s only a real principle if it applies to everybody.
5 Dec 2010, 03:55 am
@lapoftherugbygods : “Historically Its always been an challenge for Caucasians not to act in a racist manner to other ethnicities.”
Not forgetting, of course, the treatment meted out to the Moriori by the Maori iwis.
Cannibalism. Ethnic cleansing. The whole disgusting lot. And not a white man anywhere in sight.
5 Dec 2010, 04:08 am
@TheTackler :
Im not sure you ‘get’ the point the of anyone but yourself, Tickler. But you called me a ‘liar’ for saying I couldnt pick 1 culture from another and, yet, you were quite happy to provide an answer to my hypothetical scenarios on far less facts that meeting/seeing/hearing someone face2face.
But, given your indecent haste to apply a SA Model of what is/not ‘racist’ on a completely different culturally nation like NZ, Im not quite sure that the details bother you.
5 Dec 2010, 05:27 am
My identifications of the queuers and shovers is based on first-hand personal eye-witness experience. That’s the best evidence there is.
And, predictably enough, you didn’t have any cogent point to make. You’ve tried — as other have done — to play the man and not the ball. And, like others have done, you’ve also come a cropper.
There isn’t a “SA model” of what is racial exclusivity or what isn’t. It’s a 100% objective, entirely universal “model” of what racial exclusivity is: simply put, if other races are excluded, it’s ipso facto “racially-exclusive”.
Doesn’t matter how, by whom, when or why.
NZ Maori are racially-exclusive. The pre-1981 Boks were racially-exclusive.
5 Dec 2010, 05:33 am
@Black Panther : Two white men walking down Queen Street, or Courtenay Place — side by side and dressed the same — are indistinguishable by “culture” or by “race” or by “nationality” or by anything at all if the one is from NZ and the other hails from SA.
That’s a fact.
Nobody — least of all you — can tell them apart just from visual appearances. That’s because they’re members of the same race.
You’d need to hear their accents, or pick up some other clues from something other than their appearance to tell them apart.
So that’s that, really. Done and dusted. No hair-splitting, please.
5 Dec 2010, 06:13 am
@lapoftherugbygods : Howarth et al had to prove at least grandparentage to play for Scotland. It is “nationality”, not race. The Scots aren’t a separate race from the other white people of the UK. And the need to prove at least grandparental descent to qualify to play for Scotland was an IRB qualification criterion. The IRB criteria apply even-handedly to everyone of any race and whatever their nationality. You need to meet one of these qualification criteria in order to be eligible for selection for a national team, whether it is length of residency, familial ancestry, place of birth, no prior representative selection, whatever.
Howarth, Laney et al used grandparental ancestry, David Pocock used length of residency, and so on. But the Scots — and the Boks, and the All Blacks and everyone else — place NO barrier on the RACE of those seeking to play for Scotland. They’re 100% racially-inclusive, as everyone ought to be.
NZ Maori are the sole remaining racially-exclusive throwback to the past where racial-exclusivity was more widespread and more broadly tolerated.
5 Dec 2010, 08:51 am
@TheTackler : 69 are you serious? apartheid south africa was a “place where races kept THEMSELVES separate” fark you’re a deluded doos thank goodness you left this country!
what was the Immorality Act tackler, another law passed by the races in south africa to “keep themselves separate”?
5 Dec 2010, 10:43 am
It’s largely true. In the two decades since the Group Areas Act has been abolished, the same areas continue — quite overwhelmingly — to house exactly the same people as they did before Group Areas was scrapped.
It’s the truth and you know it.
And, even though the Immorality Act has been gone for 20 years, there are still very, very few inter-racial marriages.
It’s not as though those laws held back two vast groups energetically straining against the legal barriers to come together. They merely codified into law what was already pre-existing social norm. So, when those laws finally fell, life continued pretty much as it had always done before.
The same birds of a feather continued — and continue still — to flock together.
5 Dec 2010, 11:16 am
@TheTackler : 79 what does “largerly true” actually mean, that sane non-black saffas haven’t moved enmasse to the depressed, valueless human wastelands called townships? LMAO
5 Dec 2010, 11:28 am
@TheTackler :
Oh sure Tickler, whatever you say.
Whatever you say.
Just like the Boks “winning a Series IN NZ”, youre always right arent you.
5 Dec 2010, 16:30 pm
It’s true, black people like to live in shacks. It’s not about not being able to afford a house in the suburbs and a German car, they just prefer keeping it simple.
Like getting up at 5am, no running water, TB, HIV and death by 52. I can see why it sounds amazing.
5 Dec 2010, 19:45 pm
@Transformation : Or that the black nouveau riche haven’t migrated in impressive numbers into white suburbia, but have chosen instead to create pockets of spectacular wealth within their “depressed, valueless human wastelands”.
Birds of a feather…
5 Dec 2010, 19:48 pm
@Black Panther :” youre always right arent you.”
I try to be.
And I also try to use apostrophes and other punctuation in the correct places too.
It’s not a character flaw, you know? It’s a virtue.
5 Dec 2010, 19:53 pm
@TheTackler : The nouveau rich do come to town, to the burbs on Saturday nights to park outside people’s houses and have a boot bar to the delight of sleeping locals.
It’s a delicious treat I tell you.
5 Dec 2010, 20:00 pm
@TheTackler : i like that “black nouveau rich”, as if the majority of these people or their forebearers were ever given an equal chance to be all they can be
besides race tackler, there are other factors that keep saffas “separate”. but you wouldnt know that because u’re wannabe kiwi now
5 Dec 2010, 20:04 pm
Its a ridiculous argument. It is quite clearly a racial selection, but the very large difference lies in the ‘intent’.
The old Springboks and NZ Maori are both racially selected, but the intent is completely different. In the same way as euthenasia and murder both involve killing, but the intent is completely different.
Context is everything where principles and laws are concerned.
5 Dec 2010, 20:27 pm
Pornography and art both involve nudity, but the intent is completely different.
Racing driving and getting stopped by the cops both involve speeding, but the intent is completely different.
Whoring and making love both involve rooting, but the intent is completely different.
Protesting and incitement to harm both involve free speech, but the intent is completely different.
5 Dec 2010, 20:50 pm
@cab : Yo cab.. not sure of the complete context but thats a damn good bit of wisdom that can be used ad nauseum on this site… Respect Dude.. and don’t disappoint me by calling for Frans Steyn to be in a starting line up of a national team even if its darts
5 Dec 2010, 20:55 pm
@cab : Intent is a double edges sword.
The Germans intended to make it a better world, I would suggest their intent was noble, I doubt many Gews would agree.
5 Dec 2010, 22:09 pm
@youknowwho :
Frans is brilliant, just needs to remember who the coach is.
@goyougoodthing2 :
i’m not judging any of the principles or intentions given, merely highlighting the differences. Just as murder and euthenasia both involve killing, yet are understood to be completely different because of the underlying intention, so it is that there is a huge difference between Apartheid Bok and NZ Maori selection.
5 Dec 2010, 22:17 pm
The german intent was not noble in the slightest, it was totally selfish at best and epitomises the very worst of the human animal. A nobel intention is to put others before yourself, not the other way around. That is precisely what nobility, compassion, chivalry and gentlemanliness is all about – all the very best aspects of being human. those krauts were the lowest of the low and the apartheid lot not far behind when all is tallied up.
5 Dec 2010, 22:22 pm
@cab : and because he doesn’t lets all agree that he is useless
5 Dec 2010, 22:25 pm
@youknowwho :
lol, you going to write off an entire culture willy nilly?
let them bash heads, who knows, maybe one day they drink from the same RWC cup.
5 Dec 2010, 23:37 pm
@cab : The intent doesn’t matter in the slightest. The outcome does.
A minority being allowed to have a racially-exclusive team — yes or no?
I say no.
5 Dec 2010, 23:41 pm
@TheTackler :
I say it depends on whether the intention is to exclude based on presumed superiority or mutual respect.
5 Dec 2010, 23:42 pm
@Transformation : Different races accrete in different neighbourhoods everywhere on earth, even if they grew up in countries where no apartheid existed.
London has Brixton and Croydon, New York has Harlem, LA has the Eastern Precincts, Auckland has South Auckland, Wellington has Porirua, Sydney has Redfern…(etc)
Birds of a feather…
5 Dec 2010, 23:45 pm
@cab : The intention doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Racial exclusivity is either wrong or it’s right. Only the outcome matters.
Just as how African “corrective rape” isn’t any less vile than ordinary rape.
5 Dec 2010, 23:54 pm
@TheTackler :
Agreed Tackler. Your argument is 100%. Others may twist and turn but the team is selected along racial lines and is therefore racist. You can’t argue with that! What the heck has a subjective “intent” got to do with it?? Unbelievable.
6 Dec 2010, 00:12 am
But you are defining racial exclusivity so purposefully broadly as to skew the meaning as everyone understands it.
You are arguing for common sense. Well everyone understands the difference between the racial exclusivity of old SARU as compared to the NZ Maori, the difference being based on intention.
Killing is the outcome of murder and euthenasia, but they are very different in nature and treated as such by our social norms and the law. You could refer to either murder or euthenasia as ‘killing’, but you would be so imprecise in using such a blanket generalization as to obfiscate the actual meaning.
As for ‘races’ flocking together, its more like socio-economic groups regardless of colour, which due to economic reasons might inhabit certain neighbourhoods. Many do tend to gravitate to what they think is their own culture, others prefer to mix and enjoy the variety.
The whole thing is ridiculous – i dunno why you are so anti SA.
6 Dec 2010, 00:40 am
Killing is generally accepted as wrong, the exception is when something is suffering, then it is considered not only acceptable, but humane to end that suffering.
Killing is the outcome of murder and euthenasia (mercy killing), but they are not the same thing, and we distinguish between them from the intention underlying the killing. The intention underlying murder is cruelty, whereas that underlying euthenasia is mercy, hence no-one judges these things as equal albeit that the outcome is the same.
The analogy applies directly to racial exclusivity.
Racial exclusivity is generally accepted as wrong, the exception is where it is mutually accepted as a mark of respect for a minority group.
Racial exlusivity is the outcome of old SARU and the NZ Maori selection policies, but they are not the same thing, and we distinguish them from the intention underlying the racial exclusivity. The intent underlying the old SARU policy was forced exclusion of players from national selection to promulagate white supremacy, whereas the intent underlying the NZ Maori selection is voluntary exclusion from a non-national team as a sign of respect for a minority group.
There’s nothing to argue here, your logic is plain wrong, let alone your racial values.
6 Dec 2010, 01:26 am
Racial exclusivity is wrong, per se.
6 Dec 2010, 01:33 am
“….socio-economic groups regardless of colour, which due to economic reasons might inhabit certain neighbourhoods.”
No, it isn’t.
(Even among lower socio-economic groups where choices are severely limited, people generally still seek their own race among whom to live. All over the world. You’ll find very, very few down-and-out struggle-street whites in Harlem or the gangsta ‘Hoods of East LA.)
6 Dec 2010, 01:57 am
Killing is wrong, per se. But murder killing is different from a mercy killing.
Racial exclusibity is wrong, per se. But apartheid SARU exclusivity is different from NZ Maori exclusivity.
As for the socio-economic groups, i dunno about the hoods in donwtown LA, but in London you can go to brixton or islignton and you will see black, brown, yellow living cheek to jowel perfectly happily.
6 Dec 2010, 04:37 am
Racial exclusivity is like rape — whether it’s regular rape or “corrective” rape, it’s still rape and rape is wrong, per se.
(In Brixton, Toxteth and Croydon you’ll not find too many working-age whites living there. White flight has taken place. Only the white pensioners are trapped there — unable to flee. Islington is much more up-market than these three predominantly non-white areas and is predominantly white.)
6 Dec 2010, 05:11 am
While the team selection is racially based, there is no validation process to determine if the person selected is genuinely of Maori stock or just says they are.
So long as the player claims some sort of Maori ancestry, they qualify for selection.
Whether or not this makes a complete mockery of the historical significance of the Maori All Black concept is moot, bit I leave that issue for others to consider.
6 Dec 2010, 05:37 am
Today all players must have their ancestry verified as belonging to a tribe before selection in the team.
Although some question the system as to when does a person not belong to a race due to dilution of the bloodline – which can be debated long and hard with no conclusion.
The Maori Team are a squad of players who are proud of their Maori heritage (no matter how small or large that may be) and should be considered as invitation team that celebrates a culture.
6 Dec 2010, 06:50 am
@No7 : In exactly the same way that members of the white SA minority may wish to “celebrate” their culture…
But will SARU tolerate any such “celebration”?
If they tolerate Maori celebrating it, they logically cannot raise objections to white locals celebrating theirs.
That’s consistency. And consistency is something the rugby world is forever demanding more of.
Let’s see them practise what they preach, for once.
Better still, be consistent in opposing any and all racial exclusivity. Because racial exclusivity is a BAD thing.
6 Dec 2010, 07:36 am
The race card is used too willingly lately through out the world, and for the wrong reasons. And each that uses the race card misses the point. Each has a barrow to push and use race as some sort of God given right. Frankly, it is a smokescreen used by people over the ages, and to the detriment of others.
But something I do feel passionate about is Culture, no matter where it is. Even the Scots have a culture but no-one is declaring them a race of people today. (Once they were Picts.) Several years ago on business, I got roped into attending a band play-off for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Did not mind the bagpipes prior to going but three hours of that bagged horn. Is there only four notes to the thing!!! Drove me mad. Even today the bagpipes make me a little edgy. But as I listened to the noise, I thought of these kilted jocks marching into battle during WW2, obviously not a secret mission, and thought of John Campbell’s thin red line of Scots holding back the Russians from overrunning the Brits at the Crimea, and realised – its their culture and something that they’re rightly proud of and I’d be ignorant not to recognise it. Does one have to like a culture – of course not. But what is likeable is when a group of people are Proud of their Culture.
Unfortunately, some cultures are no longer in existence.
But what comes in recognising and embracing culture is tolerance and sensitivity and I hear what some are saying. Culture is in all of us, our language, phases we use, foods, mannerisms, use of tools, likes and dislikes, and we will only lose our culture when we don’t pass it on to our children.
There will be a day when ALL cultures in SA are celebrated but it will only happen with tolerance and sensitivity, and when some ghosts of the past are properly buried. Rome was not built in day. NZ took some time to come to grips with its unique culture. Aus is still chewing over how to deal with its unique circumstances. Must say, do enjoy seeing the Indigenous people showcase at some the Aus rugby games.
6 Dec 2010, 07:45 am
@No7 :
All very true, the point Tackles is making though is that this knife should be cutting both way (or more specific, a large number of ways) if you so please…but for some reason it does not.
Tolerance of others, it being based on race, gender, religion, culture or whatever is something we can all do better.
6 Dec 2010, 08:29 am
@Slartibartfast : Thanks for the heads up. Should have added – that at no time, lately or historically, has cultural tolerance progressed evenly. It has always been at a deliberate pace, with some getting a larger piece of pie at times, until satisfied and comfortable, will they allow another culture to progress with unique celebrations.
I was trying to make that point with Aus – only of late have they allowed the Indigenous flag, games, and formal occasions – not sure if it has yet reached State occasions .
It is definitely not an even process for all cultures concerned and would be foolhardy to think otherwise. It is mainly due to suspicions of the other culture, and progression is most possible when the suspicions are allayed.
6 Dec 2010, 08:42 am
Should have included – I dont agree with the uneven progression of cultural identity and celebrations, as it more often than not, creates its own conflicts within society, but merely to point out, that is how it occurs.
6 Dec 2010, 08:43 am
@No7 :
Again very true #7, the process does get slightly harder when certain people see the process as an opportunity for pay-back though.
In addition, allaying of fears is fine but I would think tolerance of others should still be high on the agenda. When you see ghosts in every shadow you should sit back and rethink your own strategy as in the process you may be breaking down more than you building.
Oh and lastly, every person disagreeing with you is not wrong but if you open may even teach you something.
6 Dec 2010, 08:50 am
Tackler needs to find another country to haunt if he feels the existence of a racially based team like the Maori carries the stigma of actual racism.
I was brought up in provincial NZ and the local sports clubs were all affiliated to some common association or other.
We had no problem with the likes of YMP – (Young Maori Players), Marist – Catholic’s or Mickey Doolans as the were nicked or the likes of the ethnic Indian community putting up hockey teams and playing in the local competitions.
Who the Fark is this Johnny come lately to pass judgement on our society, when that judgement is so scarred by his experience in a totally alien culture to what we have here in NZ.
6 Dec 2010, 08:58 am
@Brads :
Bud, wind your neck in… he is not passing judgement on NZ society, he is merely pointing out that selecting a team along racial lines is, by definition racist. It’s very simple really. If some folk think there is nothing wrong with that then fine they are entitled to an opinion, but what is then the difference between that and picking a NZ Pakeha team? And would that then be called a racist team?
6 Dec 2010, 09:07 am
@TheTackler : The Springbok team purported toi represent South Africa a nation state. it clearly didn’t.
The NZ Maori team purports to represent Maori an indigenous group with its own language and culture. It does. Its not a facade or a lie as the Springbok team.
Your issue with racial selection is that because of the racist history of some White colonists other of the worlds minority groups have to suffer and not be allowed to represent themselves with pride.
Maori and aborigine and other indigenous groups aint gonna stand for it. The issues are all yours. You cant have white racially selected teams. Tough. Its called karma. You can wear that not us. Its your racist past thats at fault not indigenous races.
If you want to contest the issue. We’ll see you on the park.
6 Dec 2010, 09:40 am
@whatever :
Passing judgement on NZ society is exactly what he is doing – but that judgement is tainted by his experience of racial selection in South Africa.
There is no Pakeha only club movement in NZ, outside of some loser fringe group with a handful of members. Why would there be.
Your argument is irrelevant because the basis of your alternative option does not exist. There is no open group of people in our society that could cobble together enough members to form a team of white only rugby players competitive enough to beat an average high school 1st 15 let alone any adult club team.
There is simply no foundation for such a alternative to be given credence.
If SARU or the RFU or any other national body prohibit their representative teams playing the Maori, that is their right. No one is forcing them to do so.
But condemning the existence of the Maori All Blacks because they are selected on a racial basis and therefore perpetuate racism as some theoretical extension of apartheid is taking righteous bigotry to the extreme.
6 Dec 2010, 09:49 am
I couldn’t care twopence whether Maori and Aborigines are or aren’t “going to stand for it” or not. The all-white Springboks under the old SARB also weren’t going to stand for it when other nations attempted to foist non-racialism on them.
The plantation owners in the American South also weren’t “going to stand for it” when the Yankee north tried to foist anti-slavery laws on them.
But, in the end, an immoral system WILL fall. And racial exclusivity IS immoral.
It’s immoral in SA and it’s immoral in NZ too.
The Kiwis are, like the good ol’ boys of Dixie, still in blissful denial of the beam in their own eye as the pick at the mote in the SA eye.
But it won’t help.
Non-racialism WILL prevail in the end. And it behoves all who celebrate non-racialism to eradicate every last vestige of it, wherever it exists. Even if that is in NZ.
6 Dec 2010, 09:53 am
@TheTackler :
When you get together with John Minto, do you suck each others Kock
6 Dec 2010, 09:54 am
Probably not, because John Minto is a complete tool
6 Dec 2010, 09:55 am
@Brads : The whole notion of “move out unless you accept each and every habit, practice and custom of the country you’ve adopted” is immature, to put it mildly.
Would you have given the same fatuous advice to Mahatma Gandhi when he moved to SA, found the racialism there deplorable and chose to speak out against it and to expose the immorality of it to a wider audience?
I don’t think so.
6 Dec 2010, 09:59 am
@Brads : Where do you draw the line then? What about an all black, slave descendant American basketball team? Or a blacks only soccer team here in SA? These may be almost all black by default, but can you imagine formalising that arrangement? Only in NZ, it seems.
6 Dec 2010, 10:17 am
@TheTackler :
What a poor, poor example to give.
You bring up Gandi as an example to reinforce your bigotry over NZ society, but cast him in the very environment where you formed your opinions.
Gandi, to the best of my knowledge, never visited NZ and I am pretty confident had he done so he would not have launched a crusade on human right over the attitudes he found in the country.
Sure, back 70-80 years ago, by todays standards, New Zealand was a racist society, and we were also a very conservative country.
But taken in context, everyone over the age of 21 had the vote, including women. NZ Women as you know got the vote first in world in the late 1900′s. Maori men got that same right signing the Treaty of Waitangi 50 years earlier.
6 Dec 2010, 10:30 am
Sorry, bigotry is what you have when you SUPPORT racial exclusivity, not when — like Gandhi in SA — you OPPOSE it.
Bigotry isn’t wiped out by only getting a vote.
Get a firmer grip about what bigotry is by simply looking in your own mirror.
6 Dec 2010, 10:31 am
@katman :
You are like Tackler.
You are tainting your outlook on the obnoxious racial regeime that ran SA for 50+ years and probably outright controlled the country a lot longer. But that regime has been gone for 20 years, surely it is time to move on.
Question, do you have a problem with religion. Probably.
I don’t.
I have no problem with Marist clubs or Anglican School old boys forming sports teams.
History tells you that long before race hit the top of the hit parade, religion was the number one desciminator for centuries and still is in a lot of countries.
That does not faze me in accepting a local religion based club as worthy to compete against non sectarian or other religious, racial or even sexually orientated teams.
6 Dec 2010, 10:36 am
The world is not black and white. Blanket generalisations and broadly construed terms are used to distort actual meanings and justify arguments.
The outcome of euthenasia and murder is killing, but they are not the same.
The outcome of pornography and art is nudity, but they are not the same.
The outcome of motor racing and a traffic fine is speeding, but they are not the same.
The outcome of whoring and making lurv is rooting, but they are not the same.
The outcome of peaceful protest and incitement to harm is free speech, but they are not the same.
The outcome of old SARU and NZ Maori selection policy is racial exclusivity, but they are not the same.
In each case, despite the outcome being roughly the same, everyone knows they are not the same and what makes them differ is the underlying intent.
6 Dec 2010, 10:43 am
@TheTackler :
Where did I say the vote was the silver bullet to cure the cancer of anything.
You brought up Gandi’s travels in South Africa. I suggested that had he travelled to NZ instead he would not have had that epiphany experience because the two societies were so different.
Both countries, politically, were dominated by people with a colonial heritage, but there the comparison stops.
6 Dec 2010, 10:48 am
@cab : Okay, in the case of the Maori team, what exactly is that intent? To pay tribute to a proud history of Maori rugby? To honour a rugby tradition that has made this community strong and proud and given their kids hope and dreams?
Because if that’s the case, one could easily justify an all white team by rural boere on the SA platteland. It’s their proud tradition, it symbolises their kids’ hopes and dreams, it’s often what united them and gave them an identity. But do you think this will fly with the IRB, or anyone else?
6 Dec 2010, 10:52 am
The intent may be personal, but the moral judgement thereof is made by the collective.
We all know the intent behind euthenasia is mercy, whereas that behind murder is malice.
We all know the intent behind apartheid SARU policy was forced exlusion from national selection to foster white supremacy, whereas that behind the NZ Maori is voluntary exclusion from a non-national team to foster respect for a minority.
6 Dec 2010, 10:59 am
@Brads : Gandhi objected to racial exclusivity and other exclusivities wherever he found them, be it in SA or the castes in his native India. You wouldn’t think of saying to Gandhi “just accept the way the South Africans do things or else go back home to India”.
The world applauds Gandhi’s speaking out against the racial exclusivity he found in his adopted land.
So, if I point out the racial exclusivity existing in NZ — and there is absolutely no doubt at all that the NZ Maori rugby team is racially-exclusive — I’m doing exactly what Gandhi did: speaking out against an immoral tradition of long standing.
Get used to it. There’s nothing as doomed as an idea whose time has passed. And racial exclusivity is such an idea.
But, if SARU wish to resuscitate such an idea by indulging the NZ Maori team, they cannot escape the hypocrisy of not affording SA’s own racial minority the same indulgence.
6 Dec 2010, 11:00 am
@cab : Intention is irrelevant. Only the outcome counts.
6 Dec 2010, 11:03 am
@cab : The formation of NZ Maori is certainly not VOLUNTARY exclusion. It’s a formal QUALIFICATION for selection that you MUST have some Maori ancestry. There are no exemptions, exceptions or options — it’s mandatory, not voluntary.
6 Dec 2010, 11:08 am
@cab : Racial exclusion IS black and white. Crystal clear. Unless you have traceable evidence of the blood of some Maori ancestor, you are 100% excluded from playing for NZ Maori. It’s like an on/off switch.
Ditto for the old pre-81 Springboks: you had to be classified white. No such classification? You’re excluded.
6 Dec 2010, 11:11 am
@katman :
Again, imo it all depends on the intent underlying the policy.
If SA as a whole today, freely decided that the Boere should have their own non-national team as a mark of respect for a minority group, then that would be fine. The chances of that happening are virtually zero though because of their oppressive past.
However, as you you know NZ do not have the same history and stigma and as such maori and pakeha alike vountary accept such a team as a mark of respect for a minority groups contribution to the country.
In short, the intent behind old SARU policy was disrespectful, rather than the respectful intent underlying the NZ Maori policy. We know the SARU intent was disrespectful because it was an oppressive forced exclusion, whereas we know the NZ Maori intent is respectful because it is an accepted voluntarily exclusion.
6 Dec 2010, 11:14 am
@TheTackler :
If only the outcome counted, you would be prosecuted for a murder sentence if you accidentally killed someone in a motor accidence, as opposed to manslaughter. The putting down of an animal that is suffering would be equated with murder, since by your definition only the outcome, i.e. killing counts.
Absolute nonsense. Your logic is totally faulty.
6 Dec 2010, 11:20 am
@TheTackler :
132, Again you are distorting the situation, purposefully imo.
I am not saying that the qualification for selection is voluntary, instead I am saying that the underlying intent behind the NZ Maori as a system of exlcusion is one that is voluntarily accepted by all the people of NZ as a mark of respect. This is completely different to an exlcusion policy whose underlying intent is to promulgate white supremacy and was not at all voluntarily accepted by all the people of SA.
The difference is stark and clear.
6 Dec 2010, 11:32 am
I’m not distorting a thing.I’m making words mean exactly what they ought to mean. Exclusion on the grounds of not being of the required race to play for NZ Maori is NOT voluntary. It’s mandatory.
Voluntary and mandatory are polar opposites, like black and white.
6 Dec 2010, 11:34 am
@cab : you are wasting your time with Tackler
6 Dec 2010, 11:38 am
Racial exclusion isn’t ever “accidental”. It’s always wilful and deliberate.
So there simply aren’t any of the nuances attached to causing someone’s death, such as by design, by accident, under compulsion in war etc.
Racial exclusion is like armed robbery. You cannot possibly do it by accident.
It’s black-and-white, simple and clear.
6 Dec 2010, 11:41 am
@Transformation : You’re certainly wasting your time trying to turn an incontestable fact into a contestable opinion. It just cannot be done.
Racial exclusion in the NZ Maori team is a fact, not an opinion.
6 Dec 2010, 11:41 am
The NZ Maori exclusion is not voluntarily, but the underlying policy is.
Most kiwis accept the exclusion policy, voluntarily and respectfully.
In SA, neither the exlusion nor the policy were voluntarily accepted.
Most saffas never accepted the exclusion policy, it was forced and disrespectful.
6 Dec 2010, 11:43 am
I cant actually make it any clearer, you are being willfully ignorant.
They are’nt facts at all, merely distortions in your mind.
6 Dec 2010, 11:54 am
Sorry,there’s nothing “ignorant” at all about insisting that words mean what they are supposed to mean. Something mandatory is NOT something voluntary. A recent Herald Digipoll revealed that over 40% of NZ respondents felt that a racially-exclusive NZ Maori team is unacceptable in the modern age, so there isn’t the unanimity you imagine there to be.
Just because most people “accept” an immoral practice doesn’t suddenly make it moral — the abolition of slavery, the caning in schools, or the hanging of murderers happened AGAINST the will of the majority, but it was nevertheless done because it was immoral.
The tide is on its way out on racial exclusivity too. Clinging to it against the flow is futile. It WILL — and MUST — go.
6 Dec 2010, 12:02 pm
And, in the unlikely event of racial exclusivity NOT dying out, then the table is clearly being laid for the return of racially-exclusive teams in SA too, because that hard and noble principle of strict non-racialism will have been fatally undermined. The road to Hell, the old saying goes, is paved with good intentions.
6 Dec 2010, 12:12 pm
The Maori Team – it stands on its own two feet (has identity) without denigration of another culture, and plays a showcase game that was developed in little ole England. The British Empire that mainstreamed the colonial oppression of minorities. Seems ironic but it’s true – one culture is embracing another culture, but which is which? Got it now – it’s multi-cultural.
6 Dec 2010, 12:32 pm
I totally agree that words should be given their appropriate meaning. This is exactly the problem, which is the purposefully inappropriate use of the umbrella term ‘racial exclusivity’ to blur or equate the NZ Maori and SARU Apartheid selection policies.
This is incorrect, they are completely different things. In the same way as the word ‘killing’ would be inappropriately used to describe the completely different acts of euthenasia (mercy killing) and murder (malice killing).
6 Dec 2010, 13:15 pm
@cab : Yep, hear you loud and clear. It was over 40 years after signing a treaty between two sovereign nations, before the Maori got their rugby team under way, and about another 30 years before it was officially sanctioned. Whew!!! That’s a long time between drinks. So being two sovereign nations signing up to a treaty of rights actually leads to comparing NZ to SA, similar to comparing apples with pears.
Btw they also have exclusive rights to harvesting food on the Mutton Bird Islands.
A tribe (name escapes me) in Alaska has the right to hunt two whales each year using traditional methods for their village of 400 people. Hunting season with harpoon and sealskin boats although motor powered, is a tourist attraction and brings in significant income. I don’t have any difficulty with cultural highlights whatsoever.
Now if I played the race card and demanded my rights I’d have to head to Libya, storm into Col Gaddafi’s tent, throw some dried fruits about, and request royalties to the oilfield that lies under the ground where my ancestors had been goat herding several hundred years ago. But I think his nurse or bodyguards would sort me out, well before then.
6 Dec 2010, 20:14 pm
@cab : If you have a rugby team which mandatorily excludes anyone who does not have any racial-genetic heritage, it is without question a “racially-exclusive” team.
NZ Maori is such a team.
The term “racially-exclusive” applies perfectly. And this exclusion is mandatory, not voluntary.
Again, let words have their full, proper meaning: mandatory versus voluntary. Non-racial versus exclusive.
You can’t fudge or weasel away words.
NZ Maori is racially-exclusive.
6 Dec 2010, 22:07 pm
I am not contesting that the selection criteria is racially exclusive.
I am saying that the intent underlying the selection criteria makes the NZ Maori completely different from old SARU. Specifically, the intent behind the racial exclusivity of the NZ Maori is voluntarily and respectful, whereas that behind Aparhteid SARU was forced and disrespectful.
6 Dec 2010, 22:15 pm
@cab : I think the comparison is not necessarily with the old SARU Boks, but with whatever might arise given the precedent set. Who’s to say a new white SA team, all voluntary and respectful and in honour of a proud rugby tradition, won’t be formed to play in exhibition matches? Or, for that matter, a blacks only SA team (which many people would welcome, although I reckon that would turn black rugby into a roadside curio). And given these two possibilities, who’se to say the one is more noble or acceptable than the other. You can see where this is going.
6 Dec 2010, 22:34 pm
too much yakety yak not enough understanding
this is the problem with so called logic, it is so … well,.. stupidly infuriatingly insinuatingly illogical.
people have lost the ability to use their hearts so they try justify their self righteous indignant judgmental-ism with stupid logic
basically one big fat lie, using words like rapiers don’t make anything to be true, only justifiable in an unjustifiable illogical subjective way.
6 Dec 2010, 22:39 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : Those long shifts on foot patrol can be a killer, And the fukkers in the control room play cards and drink coffee. Enough to make any man cranky. But good to have you here, and thank god it’s over.
6 Dec 2010, 22:41 pm
@katman :
yip, theoretically if such a non-national team were to arise and if most of the people of SA were happy for such a team to be selected, then why not. However, practically I cannot really see this happening because of the racial stigma of SA’s history.
The big difference tho is that there can never be allowed a national team, which is racially exclusive, since the point of such a team is not to pay respect to a particular tribe or group, but to select the very best.
6 Dec 2010, 22:47 pm
there is no brain in the heart, you dont ingest more arsenic if you’re already suffering from arsenic poisoning and homeopothy is total horsemanure.
6 Dec 2010, 22:47 pm
@cab : Then why tolerate or humour it at all? Or why do so just because a group is an indigenous minority with a pity card up its sleeve? I find that kind of exception patronising. We’ll let them have their own little team because we feel obliged to respect and, in a way, feel sorry for them? Doesn’t work for me.
6 Dec 2010, 22:48 pm
there is no black or white in the universe, only shades of grey, and there is also no such thing as wrong or right, only dark and light
everything under the sun is subjective and yet everyone still believes they are here forever, till they are not.
6 Dec 2010, 22:50 pm
says the materialist who still can’t fathom if he’s real or not
6 Dec 2010, 22:51 pm
@katman :
truth be told i dont really have a view on the NZ Maori one way or the other, i think its such a non-event in comparison to other issues that it should not even deserve mention.
However, Tackler was implying that the NZ Maori system was the same as old SARU, and that is clearly not the case imo.
6 Dec 2010, 22:52 pm
why do you mean by real?
6 Dec 2010, 22:53 pm
you don’t know how homeopathy works, did your surgeon father tell you it was Dingaan’s sangoma muti witchcraft?
6 Dec 2010, 22:53 pm
@cab : Tackler implies whatever he thinks will get a rise. No real courage of conviction, just well chosen arguments.
6 Dec 2010, 22:54 pm
@cab : Hey, don’t knock horsemanure homeopathy. Skoppie takes it for his gout.
6 Dec 2010, 22:55 pm
Using rugby as political football – tisk tisk
6 Dec 2010, 22:56 pm
real … you know like … real … without any subjective inconclusive non reality … something that is absolutely without any shadow of any doubt perfectly one pointedly not relatively but positively real.
6 Dec 2010, 22:59 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
pa’s an idiot, most doctors are, i dont listen to him, but they still light years ahead of any other alternative system of medicine ever conceived on this planet. i know what homeopathy u are talking about and its ****. I wonder if you actually practice what you preach, when you get sick are you going to head straight to the quack with his admittedly relatively short 200 year of evidence-based medicine or you heading for the homeopath?
@katman :
yes of course you are right on Tackler, but his logic is faulty and can be deconstructed. i think ou doos takes all kinds of ****.
6 Dec 2010, 23:00 pm
arguments are for people who like getting a rise out of beating someone in a game of chess, something like jousting or fencing with words.
it means diddly squat fokol in any great scheme of things because whether you are pink purple blue yellow black brown or white you ain’t here forever, not even a blink of an eye, in fact you are hardly here at all, even when you so categorically convinced you are.
6 Dec 2010, 23:03 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
no such thing, maybe the speed of light, even then probably not.
tho i know you think you;ve seen the Absolute, i reckon you were smoking your horney goat weed.
6 Dec 2010, 23:04 pm
i dont give a fk who wins the argument, but what must i sit idly by and listen to horsemanure rhetoric?
6 Dec 2010, 23:08 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : You see, that’s the problem with you “bigger picture” folk. You end up undervaluing your own existence. I’m here, all right. Plenty of blinks of the eye, but that’s my eye. If you want to judge yourself small and miserable against the vastness of it all, then be my guest.
6 Dec 2010, 23:09 pm
homeopathy works in certain cases, just like allopathy does in others
and its not a johnny come lately remedial method of anti disease treatment either
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, in which practitioners use highly diluted preparations. Based on an ipse dixit axiom formulated by Hahnemann, which he called the law of similars, preparations which cause certain symptoms in healthy individuals are given in diluted form to patients who already exhibit similar symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term succussion, after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect. Homeopaths call this process potentization. Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains. Apart from the symptoms, homeopaths use aspects of the patient’s physical and psychological state in recommending remedies. Homeopathic reference books known as repertories are then consulted, and a remedy is selected based on the totality of symptoms.
Allopathy is a term coined in the early 19th century by Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, as a synonym for mainstream medicine. It was used by homeopaths to highlight the difference they perceived between homeopathy and conventional medicine, and its use remains common among homeopaths. The term derives from the Greek ?????, állos, other, different + ?????, páthos, suffering. The distinction comes from the use in homeopathy of substances that cause similar effects as the symptoms of a disease to treat patients (homeo – meaning similar). The term allopathy was meant to contrast the homeopathic approach with those conventional medical treatments that are different from or which directly counter a patient’s symptoms; hence the terms allopathic and antipathic. Homeopaths saw such symptomatic treatments as “opposites treating opposites”. However, many conventional medical treatments do not fit this definition of allopathy, as they seek to prevent illness, or remove the cause of an illness by acting on the etiology of disease
6 Dec 2010, 23:11 pm
you actually think there are winners and losers, get serious, he’s got an opinion and i have one, thats all there is to it. some will choose to accept one argument and others will choose the other. Its pretty much like every other discussion on here, whether rugby related or not.
In short, its kakpraat, nothing more nothing less, and we all love it.
6 Dec 2010, 23:13 pm
no you fully entitled to give that rhetorical anal doos a dose of his own anal horse manure, by all means, such idiot rhetorical idiots think they are clever, by resorting to some anal form of stupefied subjectively incoherent ‘logic’ which is palpably and anally absolutely and dogmatically illogical.
6 Dec 2010, 23:15 pm
who’s ‘here’ katman, like where is ‘here’ or who are you?
you got some vague inkling of a clue?
6 Dec 2010, 23:16 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
170 ou doosie, i’m sorry but both homeopathy and allopathy are complete nonsense, the saffas seem to have a prediliction for new age twaddle but i’m not one of them. you know what all that **** is based on, the placebo effect, the power of your mind, not to do supernatural healing, but to give you psychosomatic ‘cures’.
there is no medical system that has ever been invented that comes vaguely close to modern peer-reviewed evidence-based medicine, not even vaguely. This all achieved purely through logic and reason.
6 Dec 2010, 23:16 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
Your obsession with, firstly, white ar ses and now anal, is frankly reaching very disturbing proportions. You should go speak to someone soon……
6 Dec 2010, 23:20 pm
its like churning water and expecting goats cheese
arguments for arguments sake, one stupid incongruous intellect trying to outfox the other and neither getting anywhere nearer to any conclusion, mind games of in-consequence that reap zero results.
basically wasting time, that about what it boils down to in a nutshell.
6 Dec 2010, 23:20 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
“Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796″
you
are one
thick
wanker
w a n k e r
6 Dec 2010, 23:21 pm
This universes pretty vast to actually think that anyone knows where they are
6 Dec 2010, 23:24 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : Oh fck me, those are testy questions. I can’t answer them for sure. What does this mean? How do I carry on now?
6 Dec 2010, 23:26 pm
Watching racing metro play Stade Francais. Steyn really playing kuk. he’s not even kicking for posts.
6 Dec 2010, 23:28 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
the
papsak
is getting
in sync
with the
chemicals
roundabout
now
ne
so the bs
is out of
control
of hoe
6 Dec 2010, 23:32 pm
@Porra the Fat and Clever Speedster :
He’s been on the papsak non stop for a week now. Binge doping is not good for one!
6 Dec 2010, 23:32 pm
I have a friend who is a recognized homeopath here and he has achieved cures for cancer amongst other diseases that no amount of chemical or chemotherapy ‘quick fixes’ can or have.
Nothing psychosomatic about homeopathy, or osteopathy, or allopathic or even naturopathic principles of healing for that matter
6 Dec 2010, 23:33 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : This is one area that you and I agree.
6 Dec 2010, 23:33 pm
nah thats bollocks, sorry.
6 Dec 2010, 23:34 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : Does your friend market his cures on Verimark? Because he should.
6 Dec 2010, 23:35 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
i hope
your recognised
friend
has a
cure
for a
**** speaking
dopehead
like you
6 Dec 2010, 23:37 pm
@cab : thats your perogative. My family goes to a GP who practices homeopathy, and my 8 year old son hasn’t needed antibiotics for several years now, where most of his peers are on at least 2 courses a year. He’s not home-schooled, he’s in the general population, so to speak.
That works for us.
Each to their own
6 Dec 2010, 23:37 pm
these okes dilute miniscule quantities of supposed active ingredients, with no scientifically proof as to why or whether they do work, beyond the Placebo affect. They just charging you for water. Look if ppl are fkd with a terminal disease, i wouldnt begrudge them taking comfort in anything be it god or diluted rain drops, but thats not whats going to cure them if there is even a medical cure.
6 Dec 2010, 23:38 pm
@Porra the Fat and Clever Speedster : Ja, what’s the homeopathic version of electro convulsive therapy? Probably like half a litre of Echinacea.
6 Dec 2010, 23:38 pm
skeptical scientists and horse manure doctors should go do some research, nothing so blind as a mind that can’t open, or eyes that won’t see.
Ayuvedic medicine is as old as the hills, and modern practitioners are only recently coming to terms with some of the practices in Ayuvedic medicine that they have so profoundly been missing since the inception of the chemical revolution.
6 Dec 2010, 23:40 pm
@stormersboy :
fair enough, each to their own, imo its total and complete rubbish.
6 Dec 2010, 23:41 pm
Just saw the most classic try. Stad Francais have a long range penalty. Kicker hits the post and the ball bounces back into the winger follwoing up. Literally just fell in his lap, on the full. Try. Racing were fast asleep.
Couldn’t do that again if they tried.
Sorry for talking rugby. Go back to arguing.
6 Dec 2010, 23:42 pm
there’s having an open mind, and then having a mind so open that it falls out.
6 Dec 2010, 23:42 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : Mate, all that “old as the hills” stuff – can those quacks actually explain WHY it supposedly works? Or are we just meant to trust them and their grandmothers’ hand-me-down herbal skills, no questions asked?
6 Dec 2010, 23:44 pm
@cab : Fair comment, however if I shared with you a glipse of the road I’ve had to walk you may understand why I feel the way I do
6 Dec 2010, 23:46 pm
@stormersboy :
sorry to hear, I will shut up
6 Dec 2010, 23:47 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
“skeptical scientists and horse manure doctors”
and then
you get
skop
who is
more
stupid
than both
6 Dec 2010, 23:48 pm
@cab : Not at all, it’s a story with ultimately a happy ending, but as I say, each to their own.
6 Dec 2010, 23:49 pm
@JL1 : quite correct hardly anyone does, yet they so absolutely sure they do.
If they weren’t so delusional they might even be ridiculous
The reality is they don’t even have the foggiest of clues, yet they proclaim with such certainty that which they don’t even begin to conclude.
In other words delusions of grandeur to its absolute illogical insanity.
6 Dec 2010, 23:50 pm
@stormersboy :
good, there is nothing worse imo.
6 Dec 2010, 23:51 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
“In other words delusions of grandeur to its absolute illogical insanity.”
skop
reflecting
inwards
6 Dec 2010, 23:52 pm
200 Ou Doos, but its not the scientists who claim absolutism, its the great seers and spiritualists and religious. I will tell you right now I dont believe anything is absolute. Its you lot that are so certain and sure of it all. Based on what?
6 Dec 2010, 23:57 pm
As usual on this site, the opinions are polarised quite “absolutely”. Which is usually what draws me here, day after day. I often learn something, even if I don’t always agree. Tonight, not so much.
On that note I bid you all good night, and happy debating.
6 Dec 2010, 23:59 pm
@stormersboy :
goodnight
7 Dec 2010, 00:00 am
Live with a medicinal herbalist, totally ignored the mumbo jumbo until the medical profession couldn’t be of any help to me – at all.
So had to fall under the spell of (grrrr) the ‘green witch.’
Cured, but sceptical
7 Dec 2010, 00:03 am
@katman : Do you concur that Hippocrates or Apollo knew wtf they were on about?
Ayuvedic medicine is proven scientific systems of healing and medicine utilizing cures and treatments way beyond the knowledge of modern medicine, and homeopathy is also a system that utilizes forces within nature that modern medicine has yet to become compatible with, yet the principles within the healing methods work due to the potency derived from the power within minimal doses of dilution creating anti combatants to the disease in similar fashion to the way snake serum works, that is similar potions of the disease itself in diluted form combats the prevalent disease within the patient.
7 Dec 2010, 00:04 am
@skopiskoobidoo : We a mere specs in a bigger picture
7 Dec 2010, 00:08 am
@JL1 : correct again
and the scientists are racking their brains to come to terms with the big bang picture they cannot even begin to comprehend.
7 Dec 2010, 00:08 am
@JL1 :
“We a mere specs in a bigger picture”
we are
skop
7 Dec 2010, 00:10 am
@cab : The intent doesn’t matter. Only the outcome matters.
Just like “affirmative action” or “quotas” — they are racially-discriminatory and therefore they’re wrong. Non-racial merit is the only moral option when it comes to selection.
7 Dec 2010, 00:12 am
janee the horsemanure on here tonight is off the charts.
ok Tackler and Ou Doos you win, believe what you must.
7 Dec 2010, 00:14 am
@skopiskoobidoo : I think they have adjusted the earth age 20 times in last 1o years and were caught out dozens of times lying about so called new evidence found
7 Dec 2010, 00:15 am
Actually I don’t by into any method of medicine or curing much, I’m with Socrates here who I think it was who said Know Thyself, and was JC who inferred ‘Physician heal thyself’
7 Dec 2010, 00:19 am
@skopiskoobidoo : This in particular I find quite amusing:
NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project’s seven-year data release in 2010 estimated the age of the universe to be 1.375±0.011×1010 years (13.75 billion years old, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 110 million years).
bwhahahahaha, give or take 110 millions years, now that is funny!
However, this age is based on the assumption that the project’s underlying model is correct; other methods of estimating the age of the universe could give different ages. Assuming an extra background of relativistic particles, for example, can enlarge the error bars of the WMAP constraint by one order of magnitude.
7 Dec 2010, 00:20 am
@JL1 : thing is they won’t ever really know, but at least one can credit them for dying while trying, or trying while dying.
Tackler we not really interested in your black and white checkers game, its actually been check mate a whole long time ago already but you weren’t even aware of it.
7 Dec 2010, 00:22 am
Eish, lotsa bulldust superstitious nonsense being thrown about here…
Heck, a real fool manages to dispute the logic of… logic??? WTF!!?
The God that we get here is rather like the God from the old Bolshevik joke about a communist propagandist who, after his death, finds himself in hell, where he quickly convinces the guards to let him leave and go to heaven. When the devil notices his absence, he pays a visit to God, demanding that He return to hell what belongs to Satan. However, as soon as he addresses God as “my Lord”, God interrupts him: “First, I am not ‘Lord’, but a comrade. Second, are you crazy, talking to fictions? I don’t exist! And third, be short — otherwise, I’ll miss my party cell meeting!
Slavoj Zizek
7 Dec 2010, 00:27 am
To you farking bullshitters on the looney left:
I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of “what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis,” and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position.
With Lenin it was always a substantial commitment. I always have a certain admiration for people who are aware that somebody has to do the job. What I hate about these liberal, pseudo-left, beautiful soul academics is that they are doing what they are doing fully aware that somebody else will do the job for them.
Slavoj Žižek.
7 Dec 2010, 00:28 am
@JL1 : these numbers will keep changing, like words and syllables, numbers are mere speculative inaccurate methods by which human intellect tries to come to terms with relative deduction
there is nothing certain within random speculation, one can speculate and gesticulate and correlate ones theoretical findings till doomsday it won’t ever paint the true perspective picture
Same as Tackler sees morality from one perspective and somebody else might see it from another, both lenses are blurred and inaccurate
Only absolute reality is absolute, all other relative inaccuracies are mere speculations and lead man from one pillar to the next post in search of some vague conclusiveness.
7 Dec 2010, 00:32 am
seems like you up this schizo Croats @ss worse than any Bolshevik or guru worshiper could ever be.
be your own man with your own conclusions or you need this hypothetical pseudo philosopher to make your deductions or think your thoughts for you.
7 Dec 2010, 00:35 am
And that’s the paradox of cinema, the paradox of belief. We don’t simply believe or do not believe. We always believe in a kind of conditional mode. I know very well it’s a fake but, nonetheless, I let myself be emotionally effected.
Slavoj Žižek.
7 Dec 2010, 00:38 am
My relationship towards tulips is inherently Lynchian. I think they are disgusting. Just imagine. Aren’t these some kind of, how do you call it, vag.ina dentata, dental vag.inas threatening to swallow you? I think that flowers are something inherently disgusting. I mean, are people aware what a horrible thing these flowers are? I mean, basically it’s an open invitation to all insects and bees, “Come and sc.rew me,” you know? I think that flowers should be forbidden to children.
Slavoj Zizek – The Elvis Presley of Philosophers
7 Dec 2010, 00:39 am
whats so logical about your emphatic lack of logic?
so called logic is never conclusive only subjective, we can go round in circles forever not even an iota of relevance will be affirmed one way or the other, logically or illogically, subjectively and speculatively, never arriving at anything conclusively simply logically denouncing any absolute lack of any real knowledge.
7 Dec 2010, 00:42 am
your Elvis Presley of philosophers is screwed in the head, no question, just another pseudo fool thinking the sun shines from out his own deluded arsehole, idiot supreme.
7 Dec 2010, 00:46 am
True experience, not fantasy – reality, not lies – is what saves us in the end.
7 Dec 2010, 00:46 am
@skopiskoobidoo : So, a whites-only SA team is hunky-dory then?
Say it out aloud.
Be consistent.
7 Dec 2010, 00:48 am
W]hether or not we know this, whether or not we like it, that puts us in a moral relationship with the thing we came from, too, whether that’s God or whether it’s nature. The God stories go on to make this quite explicit: do this, believe that. The stories of science have moral consequences too, but they convey them more subtly, by implication; we might say more democratically. They depend on our contribution, on our making the effort to understand and concur.
The implication is that true stories are worth telling, and worth getting right, and we have to behave honestly towards them and to the process of doing science in the first place. It’s only through honesty and courage that science can work at all. The Ptolemaic understanding of the solar system was undermined and corrected by the constant pressure of more and more honest reporting: “Yes, we know the planets are supposed to go round the earth in perfect circles, but really, if you look, you don’t see that. You see this instead. Now why do you think that could be? What’s actually going on up there?”
Philip Pullman
7 Dec 2010, 00:48 am
slavoj is a pretentious continental slovac shockjock, he’s more hypoccritical and flip-flip then those you decry – u want clear-thinking done by someone else, go for the tried and tested mad as a hatter berty the bullshitter russell, right up until Godel put his logic into a flat spin. Or else da austrian fellas in your field hayek, schumpeter, etc – who much less showy and much more interesting.
the good news is you seem to be supporting WP, we need to get a message to Grant, tho just dont mention the speedos.
7 Dec 2010, 00:50 am
So basically you fools who deny logic, rationalism and science do not “report honestly”…
In effect, not only are you lying to yourself, but to others too…With your unmitigated bullshit!
7 Dec 2010, 00:53 am
@cab : 228. Yeah you right about Gwantie… I am missing him and Mini-me’s bulldust hypocrisy…
Not so many hypocrites around Keo anymore, other than the odd Kiwi – when not blowing a fuse… There are a higher proportion of superstitious eedjits though…
7 Dec 2010, 00:55 am
@WESTERN PROVINCE – SOUTH AFRICA’S BENCHMARK SINCE 1883 :
yip they obviously had enough of us and relaxing in the tub together.
7 Dec 2010, 01:01 am
@cab : Ja but Zizek is THE modern philosophical authority on subjectivity… An interesting bugger bar none who applies a good mix of “unfashionable” standpoints to modern questions or ways of thinking…
He unusually uses commentary on cinema to make a broader point on different issues…
A sort of Hegelian/Marxist/phsycoanalytical/philosopher… A modern day, unpretentious genius…
7 Dec 2010, 01:02 am
@cab : LOL, in their speedos… Rub a dub dub…
7 Dec 2010, 01:07 am
@WESTERN PROVINCE – SOUTH AFRICA’S BENCHMARK SINCE 1883 :
hehe, night night
PS: when is it my turn to name you? I’ve got a cracker in store.
7 Dec 2010, 01:09 am
You okes with your flat earth good vibrations philosophy… You living in the wrong time… You need to be living in an era when these fantasmagorical medical methods
- all contributed to half the life expectancy of modern day more developed societies – (i.e Visualise something like Zimbabwe or DRC – lots of ayurvedic style mumbo medicine there)
- where they do a great job of preventing the plague, malaria, polio etc… Yeah, all them good vibrations have really been successful
Real Doctor Fred Flintstone stuff there, hey….
7 Dec 2010, 01:10 am
@cab : 234 Next week. Monday.
Cheers
7 Dec 2010, 01:27 am
If you serious about wanting to know the secret of the universe or the secret of yourself then find the correct avenue where you might find it.
No amount of intellectual speculation or reading one mans pseudo philosophical bunkum juxtaposed by another’s or comparing notes and deducing by inaccurate methods of speculative reasoning will bring you anywhere near to know reality from fallacy.
In short the intellect is a blunt tool of limited capacity, it cannot deduce reality as its frame of inaccurate deduction falls short of the spectrum where reality even begins.
Intellect can never know truth from illusion, it is based and steeped within the very illusion it seeks to unfold.
You cannot go to Jupiter or Mars by way of a bob sled pulled by a team of Huskies. If you sincerely in earnest search of truth or reality then seek out the means by which it is achievable, otherwise continue churning water in the hope to get goats cheese. It simply is neither feasible nor possible and is fundamentally a simple waste of time.
In fact its a pretense and a posturing of presumptuous non reasoning, because it is in no way sincere in its desire to know truth from illusion, it is quite satisfied within the delusion it holds as fictitiously real.
7 Dec 2010, 11:28 am
@skopiskoobidoo : Naah.
7 Dec 2010, 20:34 pm
84. TheTackler :
You appear to be one sick puppy. Just for your edification and joy, I by my patronym am classified as “aboriginal Shetland”.
7 Dec 2010, 21:49 pm
@Bludeks : Hmmm? Naaah.
8 Dec 2010, 01:31 am
240. TheTackler
Hmmmph? Jaaah!
9 Dec 2010, 09:33 am
Ehhh…
9 Dec 2010, 16:26 pm
It would be a shame if Tickler let his Special Project die out limply on that flaccid note.
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