THE SPRINGBOK TOUR OF ’81.
Joanna Cobley, History Dept, College
of Arts, UC
Challenging the
dominant – a
story about
stopping
racism, sexism
and violence
against women.
Donna Awatere & Ripeka
Evans, Maori Warrior
Queens of the Patu Squad.
RUBGY & THE NATION
• Rugby: a national legend; masculinities; symbol of the
nation’s fitness. First game played in Nelson, 1870.
• Trains: mobilised teams
• Teams: local pride (1875, 1,000 people watched
Temuka play the visiting Christchurch team)
• Equipment: pigs bladder and a (muddy) paddock
• Men: played. 1890’s - 50,000 players & 300 teams
• Women: supported (prior to the formation of
women’s rugby teams)
A BRIEF HISTORY: 1920s
• 1921, Springbok’s first tour to New Zealand:
• Played the ‘New Zealand Natives.’
• Springboks were disgusted at playing against a
band of coloured men.
• Series was a draw.
• 1928, All Black’s first tour to South Africa:
• Agreed to exclude Maori players.
• Springboks won.
1930s
• 1937, Springbok tour to New Zealand:
• Springboks refuse to play against an all-Maori
team; some Maori were in the All Blacks team
though.
• Springboks won.
1940s
• 1948, a formal system of apartheid
established in South Africa.
• 1949, All Black tour to South Africa:
• This is another all-white team.
• Springboks won (again) – “a humiliating affront
to national pride” writes historian Jock Phillips,
in A Mans’ Country? p84.
1950s
• 1956, Springbok tour to New Zealand:
• Maori Women’s Welfare League officially speak out
against their racially selected team.
• All Blacks won.
• 1960, All Black tour to South Africa:
• This is another all-white team.
• Citizens’ All Black Tour Association (CABTA)
formed; 20 regional branches established; ‘No
Maoris No Tour’ slogan; 160,000 New Zealanders
signed an anti-tour petition.
• Maori leadership e.g. Rolland O’Regan, Sir Tipene
O’Regan’s father.
• 4 test matches; draw.
1960s
• 1965, Springbok tour to New Zealand:
• Citizen’s Association for Racial Equality (CARE)
formed (1964, Auckland).
• Attention to racial questions in New Zealand
and internationally.
• Springboks won.
• 1967, Proposed All Black tour to South Africa
• Cancelled: Following rising public unrest &
government pressure, the Rugby Union cancels
the 67 tour.
1970s
• A shift in the protest voice…
• It gets louder, yet another All Black tour is
planned for 1970.
• Halt All Racist Tours (HART) (1970, Auckland
Uni).
• International links
• Called on government to make guidelines for
sporting contacts with South Africa … without
success. Yet,
• 1970 & 1976, All Black tour to South Africa:
• Maori in the team declared ‘honorary whites.’
1973 SPRINGBOK TOUR TO NZ
CANCELLED
• Kirk argued that the
country should not be
put through the social
turmoil that was likely
to result if the tour
proceeded.
• Plus, he didn’t want to
risk a boycott the 1974
Commonwealth Games
to be hosted at QEII in
Christchurch.
PROTEST CONTEXT
• Influence of international counter-culture
movements:
• Environmental activism: Save Lake Manapouri 195972.
• Peace politics: stop nuclear testing in the Pacific,
1960-86.
• 2nd & 3rd wave feminism: lobbying for pay equity,
stopping violence against women, women are not the
second sex, 1970s & 1980s).
• Maori sovereignty: 1975 Land March – brought Maori
political issues to national attention; 1977-8 Bastion
Point Occupation.
• Dawn Raids: protest against deporting Pacific Island
overstayers (1970s).
• Legislation to decriminalise homosexuality (1986).
OTHER FACTORS
• 1970s & early 1980s marked by:
•
•
•
•
Rising unemployment
Wage and price freezes
Rapidly rising inflation
& a general decline in living standards,
nationally…..
TACTICS
• Public, Visible, Loud, Forthright.
• Mass marches, petitions, sit-ins.
• Public education & Consciousness raising (CR).
• Public meetings, writing articles, talking in groups.
• Protesters were trained in how to resist arrest &
protect themselves from police batons and abuse
from tour supporters.
• Linking arms; wearing motor cycle helmets for
protection.
• Students were mobilised:
• 700 UC students attended meetings and engaged in
protest demonstrations.
PROTESTORS & POLICE,
AUCKLAND, 1981
Springboks won most of the games, the match between the Springboks
and NZ Maori was a draw, the All Blacks won 2 games, 2 matches were
cancelled (Hamilton & South Canterbury).
POLICE PELTED WITH EGGS & FLOUR
PUBLIC EDUCATION MESSAGES
• “My country was playing in a sport which
some people had been excluded because of
the colour of their skin. New Zealanders like to
consider themselves racially non-prejudiced.
Our job was to keep on reminding them in
everyway possible of the enormous
contradiction. To try to raise the conscious
level of New Zealanders above rugby, to
humanity. Sport versus morality – where
would our country stand?”
• Source: Tim Shadbolt, Bullshit & Jellybeans
(1971), p160.
MULDOON
1976 Black
African states
boycott the
Montreal
Olympics
BECAUSE of
NZ’s continued
sporting links
with South
Africa.
New Zealand signed
the Gleneagles
Agreement, 1977
MAORI WOMEN’S VOICES
• “It’s a good thing people are marching about
racism in South Africa, because it’s a beginning
point for them to look at racism in New Zealand.
We have apartheid here too, but without the
name.”
• Donna Awatere cited in Sandra Coney, ‘Women
Against the Tour,’ Broadsheet (September, 1981):
11.
• VIEWING: start at 5:16 with Nga Tamatoa stop at
7:33 http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/rangatirain-the-blood-donna-awatere-huata-1998
HAMILTON: GAME CANCELLED
MAORI WOMEN’S VOICES Cont.
• “Going out was terrifying … groups of young
white males were coming at us … and some were
pissed out of their brains. I could smell the
whiskey on the guy that hit (and fractured) my
arm. Michelle got a broken nose and three broken
teeth after being hit by a bottle.”
• “But I say I am fighting for the 20,000 million
blacks who are oppressed, what’s my life beside
20,000 mission lives?”
• Donna Awatere cited in Sandra Coney, ‘Women
Against the Tour,’ Broadsheet (September, 1981):
11.
HAMILTON, 25 JULY ‘81
POST 1981
• CONSEQUENCES:
• No racially segregated selected Springbok
teams were allowed to tour New Zealand.
• KEY QUESTIONS:
• What happened to the race debate?
• What happened to the culture of rugby?
CONCLUSIONS
• Protest: is an expression of National identity.
• What sort of nation was New Zealand?
• 1981 – some thought the world was a ‘white man’s club.’
• “Domestic racism is everyday. Everyday on the streets.
Everyday in the classroom, the courtroom, the factory,
plunket rooms, the welfare home.” Donna Awatere,
1981..
• Consciousness raising: understanding the system of
oppression
• Institutional racism and sexism are still evident
• The conversation and the protest continues….
• QUESTIONS?