Post by Kiwi Frontline on Aug 20, 2021 13:07:18 GMT 12
WHERE WERE YOU IN ’81? - K R Bolton
The Springbok tour of 1981 was apparently a defining moment for many New Zealanders. Forty years ago, during July, August and September, New Zealand came as close to civil war as it has seen. The National Government stubbornly resisted pressures from without and within to end relations with South Africa and ‘halt all racist tours’, as the primary anti-apartheid organisation was called; better known by its acronym of HART.
There was grassroots sympathy for South Africa, largely but not wholly based on the usual commitment by New Zealanders to rugby, and an instinctive antipathy towards ‘stirrers’. The policy of the National Government was that politics and sport should not be conflated; that there should not be travel restrictions based on politics, and that the government should not intervene in such rights of the individual. The position was weak at best. However, one could support South Africa, while avoiding the smear of ‘racism’......
theeuropeannewzealander.net/2021/08/13/where-were-you-in-81/
The Springbok tour of 1981 was apparently a defining moment for many New Zealanders. Forty years ago, during July, August and September, New Zealand came as close to civil war as it has seen. The National Government stubbornly resisted pressures from without and within to end relations with South Africa and ‘halt all racist tours’, as the primary anti-apartheid organisation was called; better known by its acronym of HART.
There was grassroots sympathy for South Africa, largely but not wholly based on the usual commitment by New Zealanders to rugby, and an instinctive antipathy towards ‘stirrers’. The policy of the National Government was that politics and sport should not be conflated; that there should not be travel restrictions based on politics, and that the government should not intervene in such rights of the individual. The position was weak at best. However, one could support South Africa, while avoiding the smear of ‘racism’......
theeuropeannewzealander.net/2021/08/13/where-were-you-in-81/