Spears back in the Super 14???!

[tragic]

What I thought was interesting about SA was that while they had dismantled the legal trappings of apartheid, the government finds it necessary, in the interests of "positive discrimination", to ask businesses to regularly report on the "colour" of their staff ("white", "blacK", "coloured") and where they are in the business. Given that these categories are fairly arbitrary (under apartheid one could apply to change one's designation), I'm not sure how businesses report accurately on these numbers.
There were targets for how many "blacks" there should be at certain levels in businesses. There were also training responsibilities - the businesses give the government money, at the end of the year they prove they've spent that amount on training for all employees, and then the government refunds that money (that was my understanding, anyhow - am happy to stand corrected).
So, there's definitely a "stick" approach to transformation, probably due to there not being too many carrots to wave around.
What this means is that the rugby may be getting caught up in the same system, but I'm not sure how this applies to national sporting teams - surely the coaching staff, administration, etc, would and should be more subject to such systems rather than the actual players?
I'm no fan of Jake (to put it mildly), but he has a very, very difficult job if this is what is going on.

[Shaun]

Back it up young fella, you obviously know more about it than we do and by the lenghth of this thread and it's content we are interested to know more

Innforcer I'm sure you have come accross articles about what is going down in South Africa right now. Blacks are being shifted into posistions higher than their classifications. Why you may ask is this happening, this is how the government would answer "because we can!". They do not care about South Africa, they care about their own well being and what is happening now, not the future. For example the 2010 World Cup soccer will be played in South Africa, what a mess this will be. Do you think the government have thought about building new stadiums??? creating a better transport system, rather than the lethal 20 in one taxis??? NO of course they have not. They are likley to want to use the rugby stadiums which will be in use in the Super 14 season. What is likley to occur is that some South African teams will be forced away from their home grounds and likley to have to play extra away games... SA politics...

[The Lone Hydrangea]

Shaunmarn can you give me the breakup of white, black and coloured South Africans? .Ie percentage.

[Shaun]

Africans are in the majority at 37.2-million, constituting 79.4% of the total population. The white population is estimated at 4.4-million (9.3%), the coloured population at 4.1-million (8.8%) and the Indian/Asian population at 1.1-million (2.5%).

[Ren]

Innforcer I'm sure you have come accross articles about what is going down in South Africa right now. Blacks are being shifted into posistions higher than their classifications. Why you may ask is this happening, this is how the government would answer "because we can!". They do not care about South Africa, they care about their own well being and what is happening now, not the future. For example the 2010 World Cup soccer will be played in South Africa, what a mess this will be. Do you think the government have thought about building new stadiums??? creating a better transport system, rather than the lethal 20 in one taxis??? NO of course they have not. They are likley to want to use the rugby stadiums which will be in use in the Super 14 season. What is likley to occur is that some South African teams will be forced away from their home grounds and likley to have to play extra away games... SA politics...

I have to completly agree with Shaun...South Africa will turn into Zimbabwe very soon, which is why Shaun and me along with thousands of others white's have moved out of SA, Apartheid was bad, but now the entire country is grounding down, and not all too slowly.

[The Lone Hydrangea]

Thanks dude.