Springbok tour

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 16

Springbok tour

Sir, — Yer can’t win! Mr Ron Don keeps telling us that if we have not been to South Africa we cannot speak of the conditions there in relation to the proposed Springbok tour. Not all of us can, or want to, go there. So, we invite someone who has lived there, a South African, Mr M. N. Pather, secretary of the South African Council on Sport, to come here and tell us what it’s like. But the South African Government confiscates his passport. We try to send a TV team there to show it as it is. South Africa refuses it visas. Now we have coming an exiled South African, Mr Sam Ramsamy, chairman of the South African Non-racial Olympic Committee, and in close touch with South African sporting affairs. But the Canterbury Rugby Union asserts that it . will not debate the tour issue with him, or presumably, anyone. When it comes to dealing with rugby officaldom, yer can’t win! Yours, etc., A. J. CAMPBELL. September 21, 1980. Sir, — John Small calls those who object to the present wave of protests against a Springbok tour “paranoid.” I have never seen a more blatant example of paranoia than the hysterical placard-waving protesters we see so frequently on TV; He also says that the South African whites enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world today. I would remind him that black South Africans have a higher standard of living than blacks living anywhere, else on the African continent I do not approve of apartheid, but I do not approve either of one-sided, unjust, discriminatory criticism of the South African Government. To me the clergy in this country are showing a surprising and rather unpleasant lack of Christian charity over this issue and I would think more of them if they were to try to make some constructive approach to the South African Government in an attempt to solve some of the enormous problems it faces in race relations. — Yours, etc., ANNE THOMSON. September 20, 1980. Sir, , — The Communist threat to South Africa does not come from South Africa’s northern “Marxist” neighbours, as R. K. Eatwell (September 19) suggests, but from the apartheid system. The severe inequalities, poverty, and oppression which the apartheid system imposes upon the non-whites of South Africa, encourages their belief in the ideals of equality and prosperity which are inherent in Marxist theory. Whether or not this is a misguided belief, the fact is that apartheid encourages it. Moreover,, the failure of the West to take effective action against apartheid forces its victims to seek friends elsewhere. Hence, they turn to Russia. If R. K. Eatwell is really concerned about the Communist threat to South Africa, and for human rights, then I suggest that he protests against the abhorrence of apartheid by opposing the Springbok tour. — Yours, etc., MARK FLETCHER. September 20, 19S0. Sir, — The N.Z.R.F.U. has a right to compete internationally: but in a democratic society it is required to exercise its rights responsibly. In deciding to invite the Springboks to tour,, the union' has neglected its responsibilities to the Government and people of New Zealand, The union . has placed the Government in. a difficult position both nationally and internationally. It has unnecessarily created an internally divisive issue and has turned the backs, of the Commonwealth on New Zealand. Furthermore, by irresponsibly exercising its right to international competition, it is prepared to restrict the right of other New Zealand sporting bodies to international competition. It is time the naive "majority” realised that no matter how hypocritical it is, sport is a political weapon and has been so since A.D. 90 when Sparta was excluded from the ancient. Olympics for her military activities. — Yours, etc., M. Y. WILKINS. September 19, 1980.