CAUSES OF THE PROTEST
SOCIAL The intensity and pervasiveness of the protests against the 1981 Springbok Tour were indicative of a number of increasingly evident social and political changes that were occurring at the time. The tour of a South African rugby team during a period when Apartheid legislation was still in effect struck a nerve with New Zealanders. The motivation for the protest movement was found in an expanding awareness of international issues that came about due to improved media circulation and technological advances that brought the struggles of black South Africans to a worldwide audience.
A key cause of the protests at the 1981 Springbok Tour was increased opposition to the Apartheid regime. The Soweto riots in 1976, where police shot down peaceful student protests and killed more than 170 young people, were well-covered by media outlets and the international community was affronted with the violent realities of racial segregation and discrimination. Directly after events unfolded in Soweto, the New Zealand Rugby Union sent a delegation of All Blacks to play South Africa on their home ground. The outrage expressed at this decision was strongly palpable - later that year, the Montreal Summer Olympics was boycotted by 20 African nations after the IOC refused to exclude New Zealand from that year's Games. The combination of these events sparked feelings of social injustice among New Zealanders, and many began to speak out more openly against apartheid.
Several politicised protest groups had been formed to voice support for the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s. The protestors of the time had experienced political conciousness through opposing nuclear testing and the Vietnam War, and most had a university degree and came from an educated, middle-class background. Many anti-apartheid groups adjusted their objectives to focus specifically on the Springbok tour - for example, HART (Halt All Racist Tours) in 1969. These groups promoted a sense of unity and of solidarity with the oppressed Black majority in South Africa, and their campaigns, meetings and mobilisations prior to the commencement of the Tour drew many supporters. Opinion polls at the time indicated that the majority of those questioned who lived in one of the four main centres (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton) opposed the tour. This indicated a growing rift in social pattern and in opinion between rural and urban New Zealand, a rift that led to many violent clashes - not only between the protestors and police but also between anti- and pro-tour individuals and groups. Those who were a part of the anti-tour movement were seen as troublemakers, and Muldoon accused them of spreading 'lies about New Zealand' overseas. One of the major effects of the Tour on New Zealand society was that it made obvious the social differences between the provincial population of the country and those who lived in the urban areas. The Tour drew attention to the differences in how society viewed race relations and race equality in our own country. |
POLITICAL The 1981 Tour was a political issue from the outset. Earlier, in 1968, the United Nations called for a boycott on sporting contact with South Africa in order to put pressure on the South African government. Prior to 1970, contact between the All Blacks and the Springboks involved only white players. The exclusion of Maori from touring teams led many to believe that New Zealand was allowing the racial attitudes of South Africa to infect our own society. The anti-apartheid movement became increasingly convinced of the ability of sporting isolation to force monumental change. For this reason, many citizens (especially those from educated, urban areas) began to oppose sporting contact with apartheid-era South Africa.
In 1973, Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk postponed a Springbok tour planned for that year on the grounds that it would 'engender the greatest eruption of violence this country has ever known'. Many New Zealanders at this time believed that the mixing of politics and sport was inappropriate, and Labour no doubt lost support from rugby fans when it came to the 1975 election. Robert Muldoon , the new National leader, maintained that his party would welcome the Springboks to New Zealand - and National won by a landslide victory that year. Those who opposed future sporting contact with the Springboks were buoyed by the signing of the Gleneagles Agreement in 1977. This agreement, signed by nations of the Commonwealth, stated that: "Heads of Government specially welcomed the belief, unanimously expressed at their meeting, that there were unlikely to be future sporting contacts of any significance between Commonwealth countries or their nationals and South Africa while that country continues to pursue the detestable policy of Apartheid." Despite signing this agreement, Muldoon left the final decision on such rugby tours to the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU). He refused to intervene and stop the tour after it was announced by the NZRU on the 12th of September 1980 - three years to the day after the death of Steve Biko, a major Black Conciousness leader. Muldoon was probably reluctant to stand against the tour for political reasons. He had promised in the 1975 election that the All Blacks would meet the Springboks again during his term, and he wanted to hold onto National votes in the provinces - where support for rugby was greater and the belief that 'politics and sport don't mix' was more prevalent. Had the Government interfered to stop the Tour at this time, it would have been at the risk of jeopardising a National success at the General Elections later that year. It was not yet clear to anyone what the economic and social consequences of the Tour would be, and Muldoon appeared to be willing to take the risk.
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IN THE SHORT TERM...
By the time the Tour was announced in September 1980, the fears of the anti-apartheid movement - that the New Zealand Government would fail to act - were confirmed. Desperation ensued: it was plainly obvious to the protest groups and to the general public that there was no longer any point in relying on diplomacy or even the terms of the Gleneagles Agreement. It was now up to the citizen population of New Zealand to demonstrate against what they saw as an unjust and shameful event - to prove to the world that their country would not support a racist tour, despite the actions of their Government and Rugby Union. Both these parties left the responsibility of preventing a tour with the other, and so nationwide mobilisations began among anti-tour groups in May.