Tour could help avoid bloodshed—Mexted

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 13

Tour could help avoid bloodshed —Mexted

PA Wellington This year’s rugby tour of South Africa wil help to prevent a bloody confrontation between races in the republic, says the All Black No. 8 forward, Murray Mexted, in Wellington. Speaking in favour of the tour in a debate with the

leader of Hart, Mr John Minto, chaired by the former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, Mexted said the continued isolation of South Africa could only lead to unprecedented bloodshed. An All Black team containing nine Maoris would show South Africans, particularly Afrikaners, a different attitude to integrated sport. Left alone, Mexted said, those people would become more insular, more isolated, and the more dedicated to their policy of apartheid. “The Afrikaner is a very, very stubborn man,” Mexted said. “He is a pig-headed, dogmatic type of person. In fact, I firmly believe he has got his head buried very, very deeply in the sand. “My concern is that if we don’t give them the opportunity of more contact in a variety of ways, showing a variety of social ideas, they will bury their heads even further in the sand. “The inevitable result to

me will be incredible bloodshed, bloodshed like there hasn’t been seen before. “I believe that with an All Black team and supporters travelling around South Africa it will show them another way, another idea, another thought. “The nine Maoris, nearly a third of our team, will actually show some of these guys how we live and play rugby in a very multi-racial situation.” Mr Minto, saying that his appearance at the debate did not give legitimacy to the All Black tour, argued that the overwhelming majority of black South Africans opposed the All Black visit “Anti-apartheid people round this country have contempt for the decision to tour South Africa and we have contempt for the people who made that decision,” he said. “We don’t want the All Blacks to go to South Africa this year because the black

majority in South Africa have asked this country to give up its rugby contacts as a way of bringing pressure on the South African Government to change its apartheid policies.” Apartheid was a policy of racial oppression which divided families and which allowed 100,000 people to die from starvation in black homelands last year while the South African Government exported food. “Black rugby players in South Africa are vehemently opposed to this tour,” Mr Minto said. “If the Rugby Union say yes to the tour they are saying yes to white South Africans and at the same time they are saying no to black South Africans. Rugby in this country, if it wants to survive, must start to look realistically at what is going on in rugby in South Africa and start making some rugby decisions, start sticking up for the principles of non-racial sport.”