Unlike the Prime Minister I have a clear memory of where I stood on the 1981 Springbok Rugby tour of New Zealand. I was unashamedly pro-tour. Not that I went to any of the matches. I may well have attempted to go if they had been any played in our neck of the woods, but I was content to view the games on TV - well at least those contests that were allowed to go ahead.
I was not pro-apartheid; I personally didn’t know anyone who was, but I went along with the mantra that politics and sport don’t mix as expounded by Ces Blazey, Ron Don and Rob Muldoon and was less enamoured with the contrary view put to us by John Minto, Trevor Richards and Tom Newnham.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and after witnessing the worldwide awe in which the late great Nelson Mandela was held I can only conclude that I got it all wrong.
But we were the product of the times and the information we had of South Africa meant we thought we understood why the segregation of the races may have been inevitable.
We were taught for instance that the Boers and the British migrated to the cooler end of the African continent which at the time was sparsely populated. After warring amongst themselves they eventually built a thriving industrialised state whereby black Africans came from far and wide to share in the wealth.
Unfortunately border controls were not in place and soon the 2 million Europeans were overwhelmed by 6 million native Africans which was an impossible situation for the economy to absorb. Ghettos sprang up and crime was rampant due to the inequality between rich whites and poor blacks.
Further we were told the colour of a person’s skin was not the issue, but it was more of a cultural divide.
We knew of the abhorrent genital mutilation that some African tribes practiced and we saw newsreels at the “pictures” of a custom whereby black people would cut the jugular vein in the neck of cows, collect the blood and then drink it. We watched with horror as the cattle-beast subsequently staggered and died on the screen before us. Excessive examples perhaps, but we could be excused for assuming they were mainstream.
So somehow we had an understanding, or perhaps a misunderstanding of the reasoning behind some form of segregation.
We also had a grudging admiration for the Afrikaners as we witnessed their prowess on the rugby field. Yet we despised them for the very same reason in a confused dichotomy of thought.
In 1981 I don’t think we’d heard of Nelson Mandela. If we had we would have believed that he was a terrorist who led a militant sabotage campaign against the ruling South African National government and was sentenced to life in prison where he subsequently languished for 27 years.
We might have even thought that he was lucky to get such a light sentence. Back then there were plenty of folk in this country who would have welcomed the return of the death penalty and even today many say a life sentence should mean whole of life.
Meanwhile for the black majority day to day life itself was not too rosy. The South African police force proved the old adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Despite this Mandela it seems got on well with his jailers and it was a Messianic “Madiba” that emerged from Robben Island and against all odds, and using a forgiving spirit not seen for two thousand years, reunited a country that was on the brink of anarchy.
He was elected President of the previously divided nation and set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that amazingly forgave those who had committed the most heinous acts of inhumane cruelty.
The rest as they say is history, but history hasn’t been all that kind to the rainbow nation.
John Minto, the national organiser of the Halt All Racist Tours movement was nominated for the Companion of O. R. Tambo Award by a South African government official, but asked for the bid to be withdrawn.
The Tambo Award is the highest honour given to non-South Africans in recognition of friendship, co-operation and support.
In an open letter to South African president Thabo Mbeki, Minto lambasted the African National Congress government which he said had side-lined social and economic rights.
“When we protested and marched into police batons and barbed wire here in the struggle against apartheid, we were not fighting for a small black elite to become millionaires. We were fighting for a better South Africa for all its citizens. The faces at the top have changed from white to black, but the substance of the change is an illusion,” wrote the disenchanted protester.
But nothing is in vain and Nelson Mandela’s lack of resentment is a stunning example to us all. Four presidents and seventy-five heads of state attended his memorial service exhibiting the high regard in which he was held.
John Key attended; I bet he will never forget that.
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