February 12, 2010 – The significance of Nelson Mandela’s decision to wear the Springbok jersey on that historic afternoon, 15 years ago, at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was dramatically highlighted in the documentary, Have You Heard from Johannesburg, which screened at Johannesburg’s Wits University as part of the Free At Last Film Festival.
The film festival, held in association with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, runs from February 11 to 13 in Cape Town, and was in Johannesburg for just one day, February 11, as part of the celebrations surrounding the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.
Showcasing some of the best films about Mr Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement, yesterday’s screening highlighted the role sport played in initiating widespread condemnation of the apartheid government and its racist regime.
Dennis Brutus, a key figure behind the movement to stop international sporting interaction, argues in the documentary that “sport is a religion in South Africa”, and that isolating South Africa from international competition would help undermine the apartheid government.
In 1964, Brutus initiated a campaign to have South Africa banned from the Tokyo Olympic Games. Eventually, with the support of other nations that threatened to boycott the games unless South Africa was excluded, the campaign achieved its ends.
While South Africa was only excluded from the 1964 games, rather than expelled from the Olympics completely, the achievement was the beginning of a process that ultimately saw South Africa’s national teams and athletes excluded from international competition, in every major and minor sporting discipline except rugby, by 1970.
Rugby was seen as the official sport of the South African nation, and while losing the ability to compete internationally in other sports was a blow, the documentary narrates, for white South Africans, being able to compete with their fierce rivals, England, Australia and New Zealand, in rugby, made up for that loss. The way to hurt them, suggested the documentary, was to stop them playing rugby.
In 1969, the Springboks arrived in England to take on the host nation in a series of highly anticipated rugby test matches. Student activism was sweeping the world and the touring side met with unprecedented local resistance as students, expatriated South Africans and British nationals marched, protested and sabotaged matches to undermine the tour.
English demonstrators recall running onto the pitch to distribute broken glass and tacks to make the field unplayable, while others bred rabbits or moles to be released on the grounds during the matches. Other disruptive acts included gumming up the locks at the team’s hotel and driving the tour bus to the middle of nowhere, leaving the confused Springboks to find their own way. The angry protests, clashes with police and deliberate acts of sabotage had the desired effect ,and the tests in 1969 were the last played in England until after Mr Mandela’s release, in 1990.
A similar wave of protests occurred in Australia during the 1971 tour, this time supported, in part, by the Wallaby players. One of the players at the time, Anthony Abrahams, recalls, during a test match in South Africa, seeing police brutalising and eventually killing black spectators after they had booed unsporting play by the Springboks.
It left an indelible mark on him and several of his team mates; they called on the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) to cancel the tour.
While the ARU refused, the Australian public followed the example set in England, and trains, planes, hotels and restaurants refused to carry or serve the team when the Springboks arrived.
By condoning the tour, it was felt, they were supporting racism. The tour was described as a “travelling police circus” and in 1971 Australia joined England in refusing to host South Africa or visit the country on a national tour.
However, despite pressure from the international community, New Zealand continued to host Springbok tours and travelled to the country to play against the South African team.
Increasingly the Springboks became a symbol of racist South Africa, with New Zealand and New Zealanders being tarred with the same brush because of their continued rugby links with the country.
In 1976, a significant year in South Africa’s history, African countries threatened to boycott the Montreal Olympic Games unless New Zealand joined the rest of the world in severing its sporting ties with the apartheid state.
New Zealand refused and 29 countries, most of them African nations, pulled out of the Montreal Olympic Games. It was a tremendous gesture of support from those countries and their athletes, who had worked so hard to be able to compete at the games.
However, New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon refused to budge.
Tension in New Zealand was mounting, with the nation divided between those who refused to condone a racist regime and those who wished to watch what were arguably the two greatest rugby nations of the time, do battle.
Protest action increased and finally, in 1981, New Zealand joined the world in ostracising South Africa.
It was a tremendous blow to the apartheid government and, the documentary claims, had a significant influence on changing white South Africans’ attitudes towards the Nationalist government.
It was against this background of racism, segregation and an unwillingness to respect human dignity that Mr Mandela donned the Springbok jersey in 1995, a year into his presidency, and after South Africa had been readmitted into the international sporting community. It was an act that united the nation, black and white, as the Springboks lifted the trophy in Johannesburg after beating the All Blacks.