by Larry Writer
In his introduction, Robertson espoused that racial discrimination loomed ‘as the most corrosive global issue of our times’ and that Australia was playing a dangerous game by continuing to welcome sporting tours by racially selected teams such as the South African rugby and cricket sides. In so doing, Australia risked being relegated to pariah status itself. Robertson rued that the decision to invite teams such as those from South Africa was in the hands of sporting officials, ‘a class not renowned for breadth of vision’, who wanted only to ‘promote international contests at all costs and against all comers’, and politicians, who were ‘reluctant to interfere in any way with national pastimes’ and so risk unpopularity with the electorate.
‘The following interview is with four members of the Australian rugby union team which for three months [sic] last year toured South Africa and Rhodesia. The players are: James Roxburgh, final year law student at Sydney University, Paul Darveniza, a doctor currently doing his residency year at St Vincent’s Hospital, Barry McDonald, who has studied Arts at Sydney University, and Bruce Taafe, a systems analyst on the way to becoming a chartered accountant.
‘What sort of racial policy,’ asked Robertson, ‘will move a sportsman to deny himself the highest accolade — that of representing his country in an international Test? What relationship, if any, does a Test against South Africa bear to the concept of international representative sport? These questions, central to Australia’s future policy, are now answered by those whose views are entitled to greatest respect — the players who have directly experienced sporting apartheid.’
The interview began …
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: How did you feel when you first heard of your selection for the [1969] South African tour?
PAUL DARVENIZA: Exhilarated. The particular country we were to play in didn’t seem all that significant at that stage. I knew something of South Africa’s race policies, but certainly didn’t think they would affect the tour.
BRUCE TAAFE: As far as I was concerned we had been selected to play sport, and politics just didn’t come into it. Before we left, the South African Embassy sent me a wad of tourist literature which was pretty impressive and made me feel that apartheid was a workable policy.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: You were never on the defensive, even after the [Sydney University] Students’ Representative Council (SRC) wrote asking you to consider your position in light of the known facts of South Africa’s sporting policies?
JAMES ROXBURGH: I had a detached, academic sort of disagreement with apartheid theory, but thought I was entitled to see the place for myself before making any judgments. The SRC ultimatum came much too late to prick any consciences — one week before we were due to fly out. We had been asked to declare whether we would be available months before, and that was the time when these questions should have been raised.
BARRY MCDONALD: It’s no secret that Anthony Abrahams had a few qualms — he had studied [apartheid] pretty carefully. But he decided against pulling out, which would have been pointless without support from other team members. At that stage I had no idea how unjust apartheid is and the Australian Rugby Union officials had warned us against discussing it during the tour.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: What was your first experience of apartheid? Can you recall a specific incident which brought it to your notice, or did you take it in more as a pattern of life?
JAMES ROXBURGH: I was struck by the ‘blacks only’ and ‘whites only’ entrances to post offices and lavatories, and so on, but really it was the whole attitude towards the non-whites. We were never allowed to meet them as social equals — we were taken to gawk at their tribal dances … but although they were everywhere, they were always kept ‘beneath’ us, as menials.
PAUL DARVENIZA: At the party on our arrival all our waiters were black, and some of the local whites treated them like dirt. It was this personal degradation of the black man which hit me like a brick — and it was the first example of thousands to follow.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: To what extent were you aware of apartheid at particular matches — how is the policy manifest in the game itself, quite aside from the discriminatory selection of all-white teams?
BARRY MCDONALD: I suppose the most obvious thing is the special section for non-whites, which is usually surrounded by barbed wire. I remember particularly our last Test, at Bloemfontein, where coloureds were allowed in for the first time at that ground, just how minute their section was. And of course it was the worst position, right behind the goalposts.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Were the non-white spectator areas invariably the worst on the field?
PAUL DARVENIZA: Yes, always. And often the coloureds would have to watch from outside the actual oval, from vantage points across a road, or up a tree.
BARRY MCDONALD: At those games where non-white spectators were allowed, they gave us phenomenal support. They would always barrack for the Wallabies, and were very excited when we won. They made us feel that we were playing for them against the whites. I used to feel embarrassed when we lost, as if we had let them down.
JAMES ROXBURGH: I vividly remember one game at Oudtshoorn. The score had been see-sawing from the start, and late in the match we went in for a try that put us ahead. The blacks, as usual behind the goalposts, roared with excitement, and in their enthusiasm a few edged onto the ground. That was the signal for the police wagons to arrive, and for police to club several Africans. Police with Alsatians patrolled the black sections for the rest of the match.
BARRY MCDONALD: We were really kept away from the black populace. Young African kids swarmed at us on our way to most matches wanting autographs, but it was very much ‘white football’ played against a backdrop of white crowds, with the concession of a minimal number of black seats. The only official occasion on which we met non-whites was at a reception in Cape Town by the Cape Coloured rugby team … The club president said how anxious they were to play against international sides, and how much they would have liked to play against us. He added that although they could not play us in South Africa, they hoped to be allowed to send coloured sides to Australia, and to play against us there.
Robertson then asked about the ‘reports, hotly denied by Australian Rugby Union officials, of players being shadowed by South African Security Police’. Darveniza explained the warnings that he and Anthony Abrahams received after visiting activists and non-whites (related in Chapter 4).
PAUL DARVENIZA: And there were numerous other occasions. Anthony was warned many times, usually via anonymous phone calls to team management, that he was being followed and should watch his step. Often at social functions, people would warn him — sometimes in the sense of ‘a word of friendly advice’ sort of thing — that he would bring serious trouble upon the heads of the non-whites he was attempting to fraternise with. We were told that there was a group of South African politicians — the Herzog followers — ready to seize upon any ‘incident’ for political capital in their crusade to make South African life even more racist than it is now.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Did you feel that the warmth of your welcome in South Africa had a dimension going beyond the football — a kind of reflection of the country’s growing international isolationism?
BRUCE TAAFE, BARRY MCDONALD: Yes, definitely.
JAMES ROXBURGH: Everywhere we went we were given civic receptions and each time the local mayor would remark how alike [Australia’s and South Africa’s] ideas and policies were. There is no doubt at all that South African officials made use of the tour on this propaganda level, and of course the infuriating thing was that we had to stand mum. We were guests in the country, accepting its hospitality, so our tongues were tied.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: So the South Africans welcomed the tour as an Australian endorsement of their apartheid policies?
JAMES ROXBURGH: I felt that, yes.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Did this embarrass you?
JAMES ROXBURGH: Very much.
BRUCE TAAFE: Some South Africans we met were so brutal towards the blacks, and yet could turn around and be quite hospitable to us.
PAUL DARVENIZA: Mind you, we were pretty unpopular in some quarters. We were well-behaved — there was none of the vandalism sometimes associated with rugby tours — but most of us did challenge South Africans we met over their apartheid policies, and we quickly fell out of favour in some quarters for this.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Was this questioning attitude confined to team members with university backgrounds?
PAUL DARVENIZA: No. Initially, I suppose, it was restricted to Anthony Abrahams, but it quickly spread through the team. It just became so obvious to all of us how apartheid really worked, how there was nothing ‘equal’ about it …
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Was the tour very big news in the South African press?
JAMES ROXBURGH: Extremely. Every Test received more headlines than a rugby league grand final in Sydney.
BARRY MCDONALD: I thought winning meant much more to the South Africans than it would to Australian sport followers. I’ve never seen anything like the insults heaped upon the Australian reserves watching the matches from ‘whites only’ stands whenever we scored, or the demonstrations of hysterical self-satisfaction whenever we went down. Often our reserves came close to being involved in brawls with jeering local supporters extolling their own side’s superiority. You would never get this sort of bad sportsmanship in Australia towards representatives of the visiting nation.
PAUL DARVENIZA: I don’t know, you might get a few beer cans from the Sydney Cricket Ground Hill.
BARRY MCDONALD: As we said earlier, whenever non-whites were in the crowd, they made us feel we were playing for them. On several occasions when I was reserve, and sitting with Afrikaners during a match, I was quite embarrassed. When Australia scored, our hosts would look sour, while a fantastic cheer would go up from the black people behind the goalposts. It was obvious to me, it was obvious to them, that the non-whites not only refused to acknowledge the South African team as representing them, but enthusiastically identified with the visitors.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Do you think any members of the team without a university background reacted differently to the examples of apartheid you came across?
JAMES ROXBURGH: No. That’s not a valid distinction at all. Some of the team members may believe that you can isolate sport and politics, but I think it could be said that everybody felt disgusted with some elements of apartheid we saw. For instance, we went on a coach tour of Sharpeville and after driving through native slums the bus pulled up outside a couple of much better European-style homes, probably given to influential Bantus and used as display pieces for tourists. The officials hopped out and the idea was that we should just walk through these homes without asking their owners’ permission. Well, out of 28 blokes on that bus, 26 sat tight. We just weren’t going to degrade the occupants by barging through their home.
BARRY MCDONALD: It was a completely spontaneous reaction. Very embarrassing for the officials, who had no one to take through the homes.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Now comes the $64,000 question. Having spent three months touring the country, should Australia send a touring team to South Africa again?
BARRY MCDONALD: I say definitely not. The impression we give by doing this — or the impression the South African press and public officials give for us — is that we agree with apartheid, we officially endorse racist sport. We were horrified when, during the tour, the South African pentathlon team was excluded from an international competition and the Australian [pentathlon] team pulled out in sympathy. The Australian action received wide praise and publicity [in South Africa], with the implication that we ‘understood’ South Africa’s problems, that we endorsed her policies. The [Australian] pentathlon people just don’t know what’s going on in that country, or how their action was used to encourage it. You must understand just how big sport is over there, how much it means to the country’s image, and what a fantastic influence it can have on local politics. When we were there, the … controversy over whether Maori All Blacks should be allowed into the country was the major political issue. Sport is used in South Africa as a major political weapon — and Australia, by sending teams, is strengthening the hand of the supporters of apartheid.
PAUL DARVENIZA: I will not play against South Africa again. We should not send teams to South Africa, but if they are officially invited we should not condemn them for coming. But for myself, I will play against South Africans neither here nor in their own country. I will certainly not be playing in their tour next year [1971].
BRUCE TAAFE: I have to qualify all this a little. I could play against South Africa again, but only if I played against a team truly representative of that country. I would not insist on a change in the whole [South African] political structure, but I would insist on a democratic selection of team members, black or white, from all over the country.
JAMES ROXBURGH: The problem with that view is that there is simply no equality of opportunity to participate in rugby training and good local competition. Most Bantus cannot afford a pair of football boots anyway. There are just no pre-conditions, no machinery, to allow a representative selection. I agree with Barry and Paul — I could not play against South Africa again while apartheid is a way of life in that country. I suppose I was at fault to some extent in going without knowing enough about the country and its policies. But after three months in the place I am involved, and caring as I do, I think it’s wrong to send teams there. I can’t distinguish between the politics and the sport — South Africa certainly doesn’t. It was the first country to mix the two concepts, to run its sport as a political venture.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: How would you meet the argument that if you refuse to play South Africa because of its internal policies, you should also refuse to play communist countries?
JAMES ROXBURGH: I would play against a country like Russia, because its policies when applied to sport do not involve the degradation of human values, which is the thing so terribly wrong about apartheid. The civilised world — democratic and communist — seems to accept that discrimination solely on grounds of colour is immoral in most contexts, and especially in sport, which should improve human relations. Yet discrimination solely on racial grounds is the basis of South African sport. If Russian policy was to tell other countries that only card-carrying communists from those countries could be included in teams to visit Russia, then Russia would be doing much the same as South Africa is doing at present.
BRUCE TAAFE: I don’t hold with communism, but I would be available to play against Russia if I knew that the teams I was playing against had been genuinely selected from the whole country, or locality, district etc, and that most of the population had not been arbitrarily excluded from selection because of the colour of their skin.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: What about the argument that by sending teams to South Africa we bring the people there into contact with more civilised values and give an example of broadmindedness that South Africa might be encouraged to follow?
PAUL DARVENIZA: But the contrary is true. International sport and particularly victory in international sport is used to bolster the ‘white supremacy’ myth. Rather than any civilised values rubbing off, an Australian tour hardens existing attitudes and strengthens the hand of advocates of sporting apartheid, because it implies Australia’s approval of that system. We must face the fact that in South Africa sport is politics — and very powerful politics at that. During the tour we were unable to mingle with ordinary people in any real sense — and you saw what happened to Tony Abrahams and me when we tried! Our whole trip was organised by the South Africans in such a way that it emphasised that representative international sport was the prerogative of the whites, that the non-whites were inferior persons to be kept away from us and allowed small blocks of seats in unfavourable positions, and that Australia as a sporting nation endorsed all of thi
s.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Do you believe that if a substantial number of sportsmen take your view, this would exert some leverage on the South African National Party Government’s internal politics?
JAMES ROXBURGH: It would certainly be very keenly felt by the South African white population because of the elevated place given to sport in their community. But it is hard to say how it would affect the policies of the National Party government.
BRUCE TAAFE: Sport is such a big thing there that if we isolated them completely they would be forced to reconstruct the whole apartheid system.
BARRY MCDONALD: A total boycott would boost the morale of the blacks tremendously.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Finally, what sort of attitude is the Australian Rugby Union likely to adopt to future tours?
JAMES ROXBURGH: It is hard to blame the Australian Rugby Union because in the past there has not been any general feeling among the players themselves that Australia should not play against South Africa. A general feeling among the players must precede any action from the ARU, rather than the other way around.
PAUL DARVENIZA: I just don’t think the ARU realises how Australian tours are used for pro-apartheid propaganda purposes, how we become pawns in a bigger game of international politics. But they will swim with the tide, and when the man in the street realises what is happening, and says we should not play, then I think the ARU will change its policy and refuse to lend Australian support to the most vicious sporting policy in the world.
Like Anthony Abrahams’ letter from South Africa to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Geoffrey Robertson interview when published in The Australian sparked a deluge of letters to newspaper editors. Apartheid and the Springbok tour were well and truly on the national agenda. Australians were thinking and arguing.
‘I’d love to say that Rox, Darv, Barry, Terry, and I got together and made a pact not to play,’ says Bruce Taafe. ‘While we were all against playing, we hadn’t actually decided to make a joint stand and come out and say so. It took Geoffrey Robertson to put us on the spot, and once he did that, when he asked us in his Blackacre interview if we’d play against the Springboks and we told him we wouldn’t, there was no turning back.’
