Changes in S.A. sport “window dressing”

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 12

Changes in S.A. sport “window dressing”

By

JOHN WILSON

In three articles which appeared on this page last week, W. A. Hadlee suggested that because several South African sports were now “totally integrated" and “nonracial.” they should be readmitted to international forums and conferences. He in effect accused opponents of all sporting contacts with South Africa of not taking changes in the administration of certain sports into account and suggested that to insist on maintaining a complete sporting isolation of South Africa until the apartheid system is dismantled is unfair since South Africa is already well down that road, at least on sports fields. That there have been changes in South Africa’s sports policy is undeniable, although only South Africa's most determined supporters suggest that all or even most racial discrimination in South African sport has ended. But the South African Government has moved from insisting as it once did that there be no interracial competition within South Africa and no mixing of races in teams to compete at home and abroad. South African blacks and whites do compete with and against each othei- at certain sporting events in South Africa and multi-racial teams represent South Africa at some international events. No South African leader would be heard today saying what Vorster said when he was Prime Minister: “No mixed sports between whites and non-whites will be practised locally irrespective of the standard of proficiency . . . because our policy has nothing to do with proficiency or lack of proficiency.” But how significant are the changes which have been made? Perhaps the first thing to note is that the situation at present is confusingly complicated — perhaps deliberately so, to make it easier to give an impression that significant modifications have been made to the system of apartheid

without real changes being allowed. It should be simplicity itself — if the South African Govern-, ment were genuine in trying to base participation in all sports in the country on proficiency, not race — to make clear and major steps towards having a single, non-racial controlling body for all sports. Instead, the situation today is that some sports have exclusively white controlling bodies; some have white controlling bodies with which non-white bodies are affiliated or associated: some have quite separate white and non-white controlling bodies for racially separated teams; and a few have a single, national controlling body for white and non-white participants alike. The black sports bodies which accept affiliation to white organisations, so that black South African sportsmen can compete abroad or compete at home against white players, enjoy Government support, but have to accept conditions which bring them under tight Government control. The large number of nonracial sports bodies (some affiliated to the South African Council on Sport — 5.A.C.0.5.) which have refused to join in international and inter-racial sport on the Government’s terms are denied opportunities to compete abroad; their leaders are harassed and intimidated; they are denied grounds and facilities and news about their events is kept out of the media.

The difficulties imposed on black sporting bodies which refuse to go along with the Government's policies emphasises the extent to which — although the policies permit some inter-racial competition and some multiracial teams, and even allows some blacks to represent South Africa — the Government has not touched the political and economic heart of apartheid itself. Thus, although South African sports policies have required minor relaxations, under special cir-

cumstances, of even such a central law as the Group Areas Act. the act itself remains fully in force. This is the basis for claims that South Africa's “non-racial" sports policy is a veneer over apartheid itself and does not signal any significant change to the system as a whole.

Perhaps the key point is that so long as the basic law’s of apartheid remain in force, it will be impossible for all sport in South Africa to be played on a truly non-racial basis. This is partly because, under apartheid, blacks are economically exploited and deprived. "It is’ impossible,” a South African group opposed to apartheid has pointed out, “to play normal sport where the rich can impose such high fees and subscriptions that it is obviously way above the means of the poor black man.” The economic obstacles in the way of black sportspeople participating fully in South African sport include poor health care from childhood, restricted leisure opportunities and grossly inferior facilities. Government spending on sport for blacks and whites follows the same grossly inequitable pattern of spending on education, health services and the like.

But more importantly, the changes in South Africa's sports policies have to be seen in the context of the South African Government’s “total strategy” —key elements of which are the elimination of “petty apartheid” and fostering the emergence of a “buffer” black middle-class which is to be "bought off” into accepting the continuing subjection of the great majority of black people with social and economic concessions which give them something of the “good life” white South Africans enjoy.

Part of doing away with apartheid's more petty restrictions and of buying support from a partly privileged black middle class is to permit enough multi-racial sport to give people outside South Africa, and the privileged

blacks within, the illusion that blacks now enjoy what the privileged whites enjoy. When the changes in South Africa's sports policies are seen in the light of such a “total strategy” it becomes clearer that they are changes within the framework of the apartheid system and intended to give that system a longer life rather than to hasten its demise.

And there can be no dispute with the contention that so long as the system of apartheid remains intact, truly non-racial sports are impossible. In the mid-1970s an officer of S.A.C.O.S. said: “I cannot foresee a non-racial sports policy within a segregated political system. To have a non-racial sports policy means a definite

change in the political system of this country. You simply cannot have the system of. apartheid on the statute book and expect sport to be nonracial.” The slogan S.A.C.O.S. works to is more succinct: “No normal sport in an abnormal society.” S.A.C.O.S. is adamant that only when blacks have political and economic equality with whites will truly non-racial sport be possible. “Only when all oppressive, discriminatory laws are abolished can there be equal opportunities and merit selection.” It is easy to dismiss S.A.C.O.S. (as Mr Hadlee did) as not speaking for the majority of non-racial sports teams in South Africa. But what other voices are there? None, because others

speaking out against racial sport in South Africa have been silenced or (like the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) forced into'exile. To the extent that the oppressed in South Africa can be heard on sporting contact with South Africa, through S.A.C.O.S. and other groups, their rejection of even the modified sporting policies of the South African Government cannot be doubted.

Perhaps" a last, telling, word can be given to a South African newspaper opposed to apartheid, the “Muslim News." Commenting on a report of the Human ' Sciences Research Council of South Africa which in effect endorsed the policy of cosmetic change in sports policy. the newspaper asked: What type of mentality is this that will allow people to play together as a non-racial mass . . . but will not allow them to be educated together under the best circumstances so that they may use their corporate brilliance for the benefit of the entire country?

What type of mentality is this that will allow sportsmen to hug and kiss one another on the sports field but will not allow them to live in houses of their own choice?

What type of mentality is this that can tolerate people in an area for the sake of sport but would outlaw them two hours later in the very same area when on an ordinary social visit?

What type of mentality is this that will allow people freely to exercise their vote in a sports meeting but would deny those same people a vote in parliamentary elections? What type of mentality is this that would accept people as equals in sports bodies but as subordinates and foreigners in all other forms of social endeavour? Mr Hadlee failed to see that these are the important questions to ask about the changes in South Africa’s sports policies. While they remain hanging in the air it is hard to regard the changes as anything more than window dressing.