Maori All Blacks In South Africa

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31658, 19 April 1968, Page 12

Maori All Blacks In South Africa

The New Zealand Rugby Union has accepted the South African Union’s ' invitation to send its “ national team ” to South Africa in 1970. Although officials in both countries have declined to be more specific, it may also be taken for granted that New Zealand’s “national team*’ means an All Black team including Maoris. The South African Union’s invitation to New Zealand to send a team in 1967 was declined because the South African Government would not lift the restriction on nonwhites playing in visiting teams against white South African teams. The “ No Maoris, No Tour” campaign, which had failed to stop the (all-white) All Blacks from touring South Africa in 1965, succeeded in 1967. Then, in April last year, the South African Prime Minister (Mr Vorster) announced a relaxation of his country’s ban on mixed sport so far as it affected visiting teams. The announcement was somewhat ambiguous; and two days later the president of the New Zealand Union (Mr T. C. Morrison) said it was “still not clear where the New Zealand Rugby “Union stands on this matter”. Twelve months later the New Zealand Union received a formal invitation from the South African Union to send a team in 1970. The South Africans have had ample time to “clear” the invitation with their Government, and individual New Zealand officials have, no doubt, communicated personally with South African officials during the last 12 months.

Any Maoris selected for the 1970 All Blacks need have no fear that they will be “ marked men ” on the field, or that they will be slighted in their hotels oi on any of the formal occasions or social activities arranged for the team. They will hardly need to be told of the need to avoid anything in the nature of provocative behaviour on or off the field. Their pakeha team-mates, and their hosts, will be just as anxious as the Maoris themselves to avoid anything in the nature of an “incident”. Some people, here and in South Africa, may deplore the “ honorary “ white ” status thus conferred on a few visiting footballers; but moderate opinion in both countries acknowledges the South African invitation as a major concession to New Zealand’s principles of racial equality. ; . New Zealand does not condone apartheid by sending a mixed team to play white teams in South Africa. The New Zealand Union was right to insist that it should be free to select its own teams; it cannot presume to tell the South African union how to select its teams. The effect on white South Africans of seeing a mixed team on tour in their own country, however, should be interesting. Tew of the spectators at the All Blacks’ matches in South Africa will have seen an integrated sports team in the flesh; this firsthand evidence that other societies have assimilated people of different races may well sow seeds of doubt, in at least the more receptive minds, about the infallibility of their country's racial dogma.