Pitched Battle

by Larry Writer

  ‘In one letter, Sir Donald wrote, “I can’t help thinking that a lot of trouble is caused by lack of dialogue; lack of understanding between people of divergent views simply because they won’t talk to one another in a rational way.” He despaired about the fact that although the cricket administration and individual cricketers in South Africa had fought against the apartheid regime, cricket as a sport was being punished because of the South African government’s intransigence. He wrote: “The fact that you are such a cricket lover intrigues me and makes me wonder why you feel so strongly on this apartheid issue.” Then a note of paternalism creeps in: “Do you fully understand the complexity of the issue?”’

  Bradman included in the envelope press clippings about the poor treatment of Russian dissidents in the Soviet Union and an article critical of President Kaunda of Zambia, headlined ‘Another Light Goes Out in Africa’. Says Burgmann, ‘His letters are strangely intimate: “You may disagree with some of my personal convictions. That is your right, but I am dedicated to see that cricket is not the victim of a political philosophy and therefore I would value your reaction to the points I have raised.” Once again, his attitude to young people shines through: “When I was very young I did certain things which in the fullness of time I now see were unreasonable.” However, he does finish a four-page letter by saying, “So in response to your letter I wonder whether you are willing to set down your philosophy so that I can have the chance to evaluate it and a chance to comment.”

  ‘My replies are not recorded for posterity because this was before the age of the photocopying machine and I didn’t bother to take carbon copies. However, my arguments can be followed because I have actually written in long-hand my draft replies all over the Don’s letters to me. I argued that our protests were not against sport as such and certainly not against cricket. I outlined my own cricket-tragic status as having been captain of cricket at school and having not missed a ball bowled in international cricket in Sydney from 1956 to ’65. I was respectful but certainly not overwhelmed by the fact that I was corresponding with a living icon. I continued to point out that although the cricket authorities in South Africa were certainly behaving better than in most other South African sports, they were still imperfect. I also stressed to him the difference between non-racial sport, in which all races compete together with no distinction, and multi-racial sport, where teams of one race play against teams of another race. Sir Donald had problems with this distinction.’

  Burgmann’s pencilled responses beside Sir Donald’s comments are instructive in revealing the unlikely correspondents’ respective mindsets. When he wrote that he believed people had a right to protest peacefully, she countered ‘[protest] only allowed if ineffective’. To his remark that protesters’ use of violence, damaging property and threatening human life, was wrong, she scrawled, ‘apartheid is so much worse than anything we can do’. When Bradman advocated respect for the authority of government, Burgmann shot back that ‘everything Hitler did was legal’. The Don said he believed ‘in the right of a citizen to enjoy entertainment of a peaceful and lawful character and do not think others have any right to prevent such activities’. Burgmann wrote alongside that ‘whites in South Africa are depriving non-whites of these very things’. When he asked her if she really understood the complexity of the issue, she responded, ‘Yes, I am a post-graduate student of political science.’ Bradman offered the truism that, had the 1971 South African cricket team been chosen on merit and with no other criterion, ‘the team would have been exactly the same all-white side’. Burgmann, mindful of the lack of opportunities for non-whites to achieve elite standing in sport, pencilled in, ‘Ask yourself why.’

  After the cricket tour was cancelled, Burgmann wrote to Sir Donald to congratulate him for stating so strongly that Australia would not play against South Africa until their national team was chosen on a non-racial basis, and for not hiding behind the ‘we can’t guarantee the security and safety’ line. ‘I have kept a draft of this letter: “Sir Donald, I was terribly pleased to see that the moral issue of non-racial sport was mentioned in your statement. I speak for many of my friends when I say that although we demonstrated against the football we certainly did not feel happy about having to do the same to the cricketers.” I then indulge in my own ageism by adding, “Personally I love cricket … I watched you play in 1948 but I regret I do not remember because I was only 1.” I finished by wishing him all the best for the success of the World XI tour.’

  Burgmann believed that would be the end of the correspondence, but no. In response to a 1972 comment she made to a journalist that passive protesting was ineffective, Bradman wrote to her again. ‘Dear Meredith, apparently you believe that protesters have a right to use violence, cause damage to property and even human life in “an ideal situation”. I could say to you, “Thank heaven for the optimism of youth” or I could say, “Meredith, when will you grow up? There can never be an ideal situation. What may be ideal for you won’t be ideal for someone else.”’

  Some months later, out of the blue, another letter arrived, and attached was a press clipping about a multi-racial sports event in South Africa. ‘He asked me if this was the sort of change that I was after. Once again, I responded with a discussion about non-racial as opposed to multi-racial sport.’

  Meredith Burgmann has often wondered to what extent the exchange of letters with Bradman influenced his decision to cancel the tour. ‘I was thrilled when Sir Donald’s progressively minded son, John Bradman, said that his father’s correspondence with me helped to cement his decision. John told a journalist that Sir Donald had “found the exchange with her immensely informative. I think he did come to trust her judgment and found her assessment of the situation clearly thought through.” While I’m afraid that the legacy of my early radical activities is to be remembered as the girl in the shocking red wig and bad outfit who ran onto the football field, it is nice to think that I might have helped to convince the head of Australian cricket that a racially selected all-white cricket team was not welcome in Australia in 1971.’

  Neither Bradman nor Burgmann could have known in 1971, but it would be 22 years before any South African sporting team returned to Australia.

  EPILOGUE

  WHAT WAS WON

  The invitation read: ‘The Heroes’ Dinner … To Honour the Seven Wallabies Who Took a Principled Stand Against the All-White Springboks in 1971 … Hosted by The Hon Dr Meredith Burgmann MLC, President of the Legislative Council … In the Presence of His Excellency Mr Zolile Magugu, High Commissioner, Republic of South Africa … Parliament House Sydney … Friday 6 July 2001.’

  The Heroes’ Dinner was held 30 years to the day after the notorious Springboks versus Sydney match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, at which the glittering evening’s host was ignominiously dragged from the field by police for running on during the game.

  Much had changed in 30 years.

  Three decades after the South African rugby tour, some of its leading opponents gathered to raise a glass to the Rugby Seven and reflect on what the anti-apartheid campaigners of 1971 had achieved. South Africa’s prime minister John Vorster, dead now for 17 years, had called them ‘riff-raff’. Today they were heroes.

  The former Wallabies, Jim Boyce, Anthony Abrahams, Paul Darveniza, James Roxburgh, Barry McDonald, Bruce Taafe, and Terry Forman, who had remained firm friends over the years, mixed with the activists from the old days who’d also been invited, as well as politicians past and present, and prominent members of the community. During the dinner, the Rugby Seven sat together at the head table, brothers in arms. Jim Boyce was in Sydney from Moree in rural New South Wales, where he worked with the Indigenous community. Anthony Abrahams, described by Terry Forman as ‘a character right out of Boys’ Own Annual’, was a corporate lawyer with KPMG, still championing causes close to his heart. Dr Paul Darveniza made the short trip from St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, where he was a neurologist. James Roxbur
gh taught English and history in Goulburn. Barry McDonald, as always the life of the party, was an entrepreneur and property developer; Bruce Taafe an international high-flier in the computer industry. Terry Forman, having helped to establish a Rudolf Steiner school in Armidale, rural New South Wales, with his wife, Sophie, was now an agriculturist specialising in environmentally friendly biodynamic farming.

  To attend the dinner, Peter McGregor, who still signed off his letters ‘Love and Rage’, had taken time out from organising demonstrations supporting an independent East Timor and sacked Australian textile workers, and lobbying Prime Minister John Howard to say ‘Sorry’ to Indigenous people. He had never stopped loving and raging. Among his subsequent crusades: he would try to have John Howard, Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock, and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer arrested for committing war crimes in Iraq; and he demonstrated against the Liberal Government’s WorkChoices and what he considered the profligate spending of public money on billionaire Kerry Packer’s state funeral. Meredith Burgmann remained McGregor’s friend. ‘We continued to correspond and send each other information. He and his partner of 28 years, Johanna Trainor, celebrated his 60th birthday party at his home in Newcastle. At first, I thought, “I just don’t have the time to go,” then, “No, I will.” And I’m glad I did, because it was Peter’s goodbye to all of us. None of us realised it at the time. He was giving away his library and he gave me a book. I thought, “This is a bit weird.” Then a couple of months later he left us.’ McGregor would die by his own hand in January 2008 after suffering dementia.

  McGregor’s old friend and colleague in activism John Myrtle (who would speak eloquently at McGregor’s funeral) was, at the time of the Heroes’ Dinner, principal librarian at the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra. ‘My wife, Bronwyn, and I were on a very enjoyable table with the footballers and the South African high commissioner Zolile Magugu and his wife. Bruce Taafe was very funny, and he and his wife, Chez, charmed the high commissioner.’ Remembers Taafe, ‘The Heroes’ Dinner, what an amazing night. Chez and I sat next to Zolile Magugu, and I can’t tell you how many times he thanked us, not me personally, but all of the guys. I looked around that dining room and recognised so many anti-apartheid protesters from 1971 who were now running the country as judges, captains of industry, politicians, academics, professionals … They were all disreputable then. What a difference 30 years makes.’

  Father Richard Buchhorn, who had written the eloquent letter asking other Australian rugby union champions to consider following the lead of the Rugby Seven, was there, as was John Phillips, who almost succeeded in cutting through the SCG goalposts, and another protester, Ray Harrison, whose eye had been injured when he was thrown into barbed wire by police.

  Dr Burgmann circulated throughout the room, ducking in and out of conversations, basking in the goodwill and the presence of old comrades. The former firebrand activist now had a distinguished academic and political career. She’d been elected as a Labor MP in the New South Wales parliament, where in 1999 she became president of the Legislative Council (she would remain in this role until 2007). She would go on to play key roles in aid programs and as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program in Vietnam, East Timor, and the United Arab Emirates, also serving as president of the Australian Council for International Development.

  Denis Freney was much missed at the dinner. The ‘rebel with many causes’ had died of cancer on 2 September 1995. SADAF founder John Brink, too, had passed away on Christmas Eve 1997. Margaret Brink, his wife and fellow anti-apartheid campaigner, was a guest.

  Peter Hain is one who would have been welcome at the Heroes’ Dinner, but was otherwise engaged, fulfilling his duties as secretary of state for work and pensions in the British Labour Government. After his days on the anti-apartheid protest frontline, Hain became Labour MP for Neath in Wales and was subsequently appointed minister of state for foreign affairs, minister of state for Europe, Lord Privy Seal, leader of the House of Commons, and secretary of state for Wales and Northern Ireland. He would retire from politics as Lord Hain in 2015. Hain and Meredith Burgmann remained in touch. Soon after she became president of the New South Wales Legislative Council, Burgmann served as a presiding officer at the Westminster Seminar in London and was invited to a function at the prime minister’s residence, Number 10 Downing Street. ‘Tony Blair was supposed to host the reception but was called away to Camp David, and guess who was the stand-in host? Peter Hain. Can you believe it? The two disreputables from 1971. Peter hosting me at 10 Downing Street! We were standing there with our sherries in our hands, and Peter said, “Well, did you ever think it would come to this?” I never did. You couldn’t invent such a scenario.’

  Sekai Holland and her husband, Jim, weren’t at the dinner either, having long returned to Zimbabwe to contribute to South Africa’s post-liberation nation-building. She founded the progressive Movement for Democratic Change, which opposed Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, and for that in 2007 she would be tortured nearly to death, along with her co-leader Morgan Tsvangirai. She survived and, unbowed and a national treasure, served as Zimbabwean co-minister of state for national healing, reconciliation, and integration in Mugabe’s Government. ‘It’s about forgiveness and working for what’s best for Zimbabwe,’ she told me in 2015. ‘That’s all that matters.’ Inevitably, however, Holland and Mugabe fell out, and today she is once more affecting change from outside Parliament. In 2012, she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, whose citation read: ‘For a lifetime of outstanding courage in campaigning for human rights and democracy, for challenging violence in all its forms and for giving such astute and brave leadership for the empowerment of women.’

  The Heroes’ Dinner began with a Welcome to Country by Indigenous educator Chris Mumbulla and an official welcome from Dr Burgmann. Then Dr Tom Hickie (author of A Sense of Union, the splendid history of Sydney University Rugby Club), who had joined with Burgmann and her colleague and friend Yvette Andrews to organise the celebration, stood and chronicled the events of 1971. Nelson Mandela — kept away by illness — sent a message of congratulation, as did former prime minister Bob Hawke, himself a major figure in the Springbok-tour controversy. Hawke’s message read: ‘I would like to convey to those courageous individuals present tonight …’ — and he named Boyce, Abrahams, Roxburgh, Darveniza, Taafe, McDonald, and Forman — ‘… my best wishes and congratulations for the integrity and fortitude they displayed 30 years ago by refusing to play against the racially-selected Springboks. There is no doubt that those who took a stand in 1971 were ahead of our time in this country. The intrinsic evil of apartheid was not yet widely appreciated and the polls of those days showed us to be very much in the minority. But while leadership, in part, is about listening, it is also by definition about leading and about fighting for principle. I was extremely proud to be head of an Australian trade union movement which widely supported this position … The great courageous vision and integrity of those you honour tonight shines out like a beacon in the history of our country.’

  After a dinner of prawns and smoked salmon, roast fillet of beef and strawberry bavarois, High Commissioner Magugu presented certificates of appreciation to the seven anti-apartheid Wallabies. Anthony Abrahams keeps his close at hand to this day: ‘Presented to Anthony Abrahams in recognition of your personal sacrifice and outstanding contribution to the struggle for racial equality and democratic freedom in South Africa.’

  A vote of thanks was delivered by Lloyd McDermott, the Indigenous rugby champion who declined to tour South Africa in 1963 as an ‘honorary white’.

  The night wrapped up with a toast, followed, according to the official program, by ‘Drunken Singing’.

  Conversation and laughter had flowed. The everyday lives of the Rugby Seven and the agitators of 1971 were filled with family and work and the things that preoccupy us as we enter late middle age, but over the course of the evening there was time and opportunity to r
eflect on their roles in those perilous times, what was achieved, and the changes for good that they had helped to bring about …

  After the Springbok tour of 1971, Australia — along with most other nations — shunned South Africa. One of the first reforms of the Whitlam Labor Government, which on 2 December 1972 ousted William McMahon’s Liberal Party after the conservatives had held power for 23 years, was to announce that no racially selected sporting teams from South Africa were welcome in Australia.

  At the passing of the legislation, just six days after the new Government took office, Australian far-right politician and South African National Party sympathiser Senator Vince Gair, echoing John Vorster, conceded defeat. ‘The cold, sober fact must be faced … the will of a small, vocal, irresponsible but determined minority has prevailed.’

  ‘Would Whitlam have been able to do what he did if we hadn’t had that fight?’ muses Meredith Burgmann. ‘Probably not. The things that we radicals were demanding not only became the policy of the government, but made Australia a better place.’ When Vince Gair invoked the ‘vocal, irresponsible but determined’, he could easily have been talking about Burgmann, who remembers that she and her colleagues celebrated Whitlam’s declaration by letting their hair down. ‘We were so excited. We danced around, threw streamers. We said, “We’ve won. We’ve really won.” Then we asked ourselves, “What do we do now?”’ She shouldn’t have worried. There would be no shortage of causes in the years ahead.

  The ban on contact with South Africa was maintained by Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal Government and the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor Governments. Fraser supported the United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning apartheid in sport in 1976, and his Government backed the Gleneagles Agreement in 1977. At the 1977 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London, leaders joined Commonwealth of Nations secretary-general Sonny Ramphal at the Gleneagles retreat in Scotland to draft the Commonwealth position on South Africa’s apartheid policy. The Gleneagles Agreement called on all members of the Commonwealth to ‘discourage contact and competition’ with South Africa until apartheid was ended.