South Africa hurt by snubs from N.Z.

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33425, 5 January 1974, Page 14

South Africa hurt by snubs from N.Z.

(By

MILES MATTSON)

“Why don’t the Aussies and Kiwis like us any more?” The question is one that many South Africans are asking these days. And the fact that they know the answer is rooted largely in their own country’s crazy race policies does not lessen the hurt that shows in !their eyes.

White South Africans, particularly those of British ancestry who make up about 40 per cent of the country’s 3.9 million whites, have in the past felt a special kinship with Australians and New Zealanders. hi the vast, sparselypopulated expanses of the iSouthern Hemisphere they 'shared the same language and culture. They were founder members of the Commonwealth, fought side by side in two world wars, were friendly rivals on the sports field, and they even drove on the same side of the road.

Since the closure of the Suez Canal much emphasis has been placed in South Africa on the importance of the sea lane round the Cape of Good Hope. South Africa is seen as playing a vital role in keeping the oil and trade routes to Europe open in the face of increasing Soviet naval penetration into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

The strategic case that hasj been made out provides a useful argument for maintaining the Simonstown Agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa and relaxing the arms embargo. It has the support of a fairly influential lobby in the British House of Commons. From this has developed the idea of a southern axis of co-operation in defence, trade and diplomacy, embracing South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and possibly Argentina and Brazil. The notion has been attractive to many South Africans because it tended to mitigate ■ their growing sense of isolation. Forlorn hope But it has turned out to be a forlorn hope. The beginnings of disillusionment came.

with the demonstration-, plaged Springbok Rugby! tour of Australia in 1971.! Many South Africans were shocked that the demonstra-i itions that had done so much damage to sporting ties with; the United Kingdom could be; [so effective in Australia. The Australian Govern-, ment’s attitude towards the tour remained stoically correct, but the writing was on the wall. What country—however much it might dislike having its arm twisted by a vociferous minority of activists — would willingly risk the national trauma and , disruption of another Spring-' ibok tour? Yet even at the highest levels in sporting and gov-, ernment circles the euphoric; belief that the 1973 Rugby i tour of New Zealand would; take place persisted almost! to the end. The inevitable 1 cancellation of the tour was i widely ascribed to the weakkneed attitude of New Zealand’s new Labour Government. Few South Africans bothered to ask themselves why New Zealand, a small country with hundreds of millions of Asians on its doorstep, should be expected to jeopardise its chance of hosting the Commonwealth Games, incur a charge of | racism by association, and risk domestic strife just for the sake of a few games of ■Rugby. But worse shocks were to 'come. Mr Gough Whitlam’s support for African liberation movements — they are i regarded as no more than murderous terrorists in South Africa — was a particularly sore point with South Africans, already dismayed by the new Australian Government’s harsh attitude towards them, including visa restrictions on visitors.

Calculated snub Australia’s decision to sever its long-standing association with South Africa on the directorate of the] International Monetary Fund: and the World Bank was also ] taken as a calculated snub. ' Trade links, which are! often unaffected by ideologi-' cal disputes and differences,! are also threatened. Soon] after Mr Whitlam announced that Australia would support a trade boycott of South Africa if other countries agreed to do the same, the Australian Trade Commissioner in Johannesburg let itl be known that a forthcoming I trade display would be the; last in South Africa. A group of angry businessmen (promptly organised a boycott (of the four-day exhibition, at] lwhich 70 Australian firms] 'were represented. > New Zealand has given ; notice that it will revoke South African trade preferen-i ces at the end of the year. According to the military correspondent of the masscirculation Johannesburg “Sunday Times,” Australia no longer wants South Africa’s help in keeping Russian shipping in the Indian ocean under surveillance. Since Mr Whitlam’s Government took power Australia has shown little interest in South Africa’s sophisticated naval intelligence service. There is also speculation about the future of the 22-year-old partnership between South African Airways and Qantas.

Third world

Mr Whitlam’s hostility to South Africa is seen there as part of a bid to ingratiate himself with the Third World, to which end he has also abused Britain and the United States.

The pro-Govemment South African Broadcasting Corporation recently described him as “a vain, ideologically pompous man” and “a freak interlude in Australian history.” Certainly the ordinary South African has difficulty in reconciling Mr Whitlam’s vituperation with the picture he has of ordinary Australians and New Zealanders — mainly pleasant, friendly young people who come to

■.South Africa on working q holidays. The other end of the once- : vaunted Southern Hemisphere ■i axis is also loosening its links i ■ with South Africa. In September the Argentine Foreign ; Ministry instructed all Rugby I clubs to suspend relations .[with South African'clubs, and >'an invitation to a four-man ' I South African athletics team, j including a black runner, was . withdrawn. . And so the sense of being i out in the cold, rebuffed by f old friends and allies, grows z almost by the week. 1 Honoured place J It is particularly galling I for South Africans past 'i middle age. who remember ' with pride the honoured place i their country had in the ComI I monwealth and the Free World in the days of General ' I Smuts. Yet among hundreds of ' thousands of white voters who have opposed the nationalists and their race policies for more than 25 years, s there is justifiable resentment ? and disgust at the double J standards and facile moral ’ judgments that are so often . applied where South Africa ? is concerned. ’ Nothing can excuse some f of the harsher aspects of apartheid, but it rankles that p the complexities of a <■ I uniquely difficult racial situa« Ition are not generally understood abroad, nor is credit 3 .given for the good that has s been achieved. 3 Nevertheless, white South ® Africans of all political per--3 suasions,, including Afrikaner 3 nationalists, know' that they ’ have entered upon a period " of change in human relations s as profound as the abolition i of slavery was some 150 ’ years ago. Racial discrimination, as a declared policy and instrument of government, will simply not be tolerated in the world today.

They know, too, that solutions can no longer be sought purely on their own terms. But with increasing pressures at home and growing isolation and ostracism abroad, it looks like being a long and difficult haul back to international respectability.