Irrational decision and irrelevant damage

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 10

Irrational decision and irrelevant damage

The Student Representative Council at the University of Canterbury proposes to refuse the 1974 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee the use of student facilities at Ilam should an all-white South African Rugby team tour New Zealand. As a protest against the tour the decision will attract public notice; but it is conspicuous for its illogicality rather than for any useful effect it is likely to have on Rugby authorities here or in South Africa. The only conceivable outcome would be to embarrass the Christchurch Commonwealth Games organisation, which has no influence over the national Rugby authorities, to the disadvantage of the Commonwealth sportsmen of many countries and races who will come to Christchurch in 1974. If the decision is intended to persuade Commonwealth countries to boycott the Games because of the Springbok tour, logic would suggest that the student council should deny membership of the Students’ Association to students from any Commonwealth countries so misguided as to participate in the Games against the student council’s advice. The one proposition is as absurd and as illogical as the other. Would the Students* Association expel from its membership any student who attends a Springbok Rugby match? That indeed would be an interesting form of protest, whatever violence it might do to the principle of freedom of individual conscience and association, a principle on which student organisations normally set much store. Yet the student council’s decision leads to the denial of these freedoms to other citizens. Those who oppose the Springbok tour can be expected to do their utmost to persuade others that the tour is wrong; but they will not do so by devising damaging irrelevancies. A sports event exemplifying the Olympic principle of non-discrimination should be encouraged, not hampered, by the students, who earlier gave it their welcome support.