Human Rights Day: Sharpeville Massacre united the world against apartheid, but SA sporting isolation took too long – ask the All Blacks

Comment by Mike Greenaway

The international media coverage of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 was the first time South Africa’s reality was brought to a wider audience, but although England Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called for “winds of change in South Africa”, it was an eternity before the breeze became a tornado.

Governments around the world questioned their relationship with South Africa, and sport was a major area to come under the microscope.

To continue to engage with teams like the “whites-only” Springboks was to condone the apartheid government.

But there was a cumbersome lag between protests and the actual discontinuation of sporting contact. This was best illustrated by the New Zealand All Blacks’ ambiguous relationship with the Springboks.

For many older New Zealanders, it is a matter of embarrassment that the All Blacks continued to play against the Boks until 1981, and even in 1986, a “rebel” New Zealand team toured South Africa.

New Zealand is one of the most peaceful countries in the world, yet two of their biggest events of civil discord were because the All Blacks could not bring themselves to halt play against their arch-rivals.

In 1976, the All Blacks had toured South Africa and 25 African countries responded by boycotting the Montreal Olympics because of New Zealand’s presence, sparking massive debates among divided New Zealanders.

But this was dwarfed by what happened when the Springboks toured New Zealand in 1981.

The presence of the South Africans incited violent demonstrations. Thousands of policemen were mobilised as Kiwi fought Kiwi in the streets outside match venues.

The Springboks and All Blacks had been bitter rivals since 1921 and world leaders in rugby. They measured themselves against each other for decades, even if – for the All Blacks – it meant shutting down their consciences for the tours to and from New Zealand.

It was on March 21, 1960, that 69 people demonstrating at Sharpeville against the pass laws were killed by police, with 180 wounded.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the massacre and demanded the end of apartheid.

The defiant South African government imposed a state of emergency, and banned the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress.

Just two months after Sharpeville, with the smoke having barely cleared, the All Blacks arrived in South Africa for a 26-match tour.

Not only did they tour, but it is scarcely believable that the New Zealand Rugby Union kowtowed to their South African counterparts by bringing an all-white team – they had been told that no Maoris were welcome.

The Springboks won the series, as they had done in 1949 and 1928, and that can only partly explain – but does not excuse – why the All Blacks kept insisting on returning to South Africa to try and win their first series.

The Kiwis also liked taking revenge on the Springboks, and invited them to tour in 1965.

While the tour was free of the demonstrations that erupted in1981, there was excruciating embarrassment for the Springboks when, back in South Africa, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd said that the All Blacks team set to tour in 1967 would have to remain free of Maoris.

Verwoerd’s timing could not have been worse, because his speech came during the week the touring Boks played a match against the New Zealand Maori team.

The Boks had been warmly entertained at a traditional Maori reception.

This time, the New Zealand government showed stronger mettle, and cancelled the proposed 1967 tour.

The tour was rescheduled for 1970 after Verwoerd’s successor, John Vorster, relented and allowed Polynesian All Blacks Sid Going and Bryan Williams to tour as “honorary whites”, a hugely insulting term.

The Springboks’ planned tour of New Zealand in 1973 was cancelled by the NZ government, but the All Blacks agreed to tour South Africa in 1976.

Like their 1960 visit, their timing was uncanny – two weeks before their arrival, 176 black youths had lost their lives in what became known as the Soweto Uprising.

New Zealanders voiced their discontent, and Prime Minister Robert Muldoon signed the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement, which committed British Commonwealth countries to disbanding sporting contact with South Africa.

Yet four years later, the Springboks were back in New Zealand, and five years later, an unofficial All Blacks team, known as the Cavaliers, toured the Republic.

But the world was changing as communist Russia collapsed. Apartheid South Africa’s strategic position on the tip of southern Africa became irrelevant.

The Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1989, and Nelson Mandela was released from prison a year later.

Five years on, the All Blacks were once more playing the Springboks, this time in the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Mandela’s pre-match appearance in a Springbok jersey was a miracle that stunned the world – if the Springboks had been regarded as warriors of white oppression, Ellis Park was their fortress.

When Madiba walked out onto the pitch before a crowd of 70,000 (the majority of them Afrikaners) in captain Francois Pienaar’s No 6 jersey, it was a seismic symbol of forgiveness. The crowd responded by cheering for him.

Remembering Madiba as we do, he would have also forgiven the All Blacks for their ambivalent position on the Springboks, and loved watching them fail once more on the highveld.