Luke Watson, the media and the truth

I’m not Luke Watson’s biggest fan, but this week, the guy has been unjustly vilified by the “conservative” media who, I suspect, have an agenda and are using Watson as a tool to pursue their goals. I might be wrong, but until proven otherwise, I’m convicted to that view. I’m not saying Luke is a saint, he is far from that.

This morning, a journalist friend e-mailed me the transcript of the Watson much-talked about speech that has caused the break-up in relationship between the Western Province flanker and some quarters within the Fourth Estate. If the transcript represents the original speech, then Luke deserves an apology from the Afrikaans media that crucified him, called him names and stopped short of calling him an “Afrikaner hater”.

What Luke did was tell the truth in his speech; he touched the most sensitive nerve in South African rugby politics and as usual, those whom I suspect have a guilty conscience jumped into the bandwagon to lynch Luke simply because they know, deep down, that like many, they are opposed to change. They were more comfortable with the way things were before.

They know that they loathe the idea of black players wearing the Bok jersey for they feel some sort of ownership and “colour exclusivity” to the green and gold. If anything, Luke’s speech is moving and controversial. It is more like a person speaking from the heart.

I’m often amazed by the selective reporting by the same media that hanged Luke to dry this past weekend. When Corne Kriger admitted in his autobiography (that sold many copies) that he sold his teammates out (when, as a captain, he failed to stand up for what was right during the Kaamp Staldraad scandal), journalists, instead of picking on the matter, dwelled on Krige’s golf swing, his life after rugby and shunned away from mentioning the disgrace at Twickenham.

This is the same media that gladly offers apologies for erratic mistakes of white rugby players, but chastises black players to a point where they end up calling them quota tokens. This is the media that, even today, does not want to accept that Peter de Villiers is a rugby man and just like Jake White, should be given a chance to prove his worth. If Peter is not good enough, then he should go, but not before we have given him the benefit of doubt that we gave to those before him, including men like Straueli who led the Boks through their worst months.

Luke says in his speech: “… the final point about transformation, you need to change your nature, you need to change your form and now you need to change your appearance. Your nature is that inner man, your form is the outer man and your appearance is beyond that; it is the beyond, because your appearance now is what they see when they look at you. Appearance by definition: the way that something looks or seems, the way he appears, they way others see it, you say now because you’ve transformed your inner man, you have transformed who you are, now all of a sudden appearance becomes the … of your transformation, appearance becomes when you put that transformation into action, when you step out your boat and begin to walk on the water, when you look at the … and say that the waves have got nothing on me.”

Selective reporting?

At least I’m not doing anything different from what we have seen this week.