Joanna Cobley History Dept College of Arts UC Challenging the dominant a story about stopping racism sexism and violence against women Donna Awatere amp Ripeka Evans Maori Warrior Queens of the ID: 458844
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Slide1
THE SPRINGBOK TOUR OF ’81.
Joanna Cobley, History Dept, College of Arts, UCSlide2
Challenging the dominant – a story about
stopping racism, sexism and violence against women.
Donna Awatere &
Ripeka
Evans, Maori Warrior Queens of the
Patu
Squad.Slide3
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)Slide4
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.Slide5
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.Slide6
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?
p
84
. Slide7
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.Slide8
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.Slide9
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.’Slide10
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.Slide11
PROTEST CONTEXT
Influence of international counter-culture movements: Environmental activism
: Save Lake Manapouri 1959-72.
Peace politics:
stop nuclear testing in the Pacific, 1960-86.
2
nd
& 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).Slide12
OTHER FACTORS
1970s & early 1980s marked by:Rising unemploymentWage and price freezes
Rapidly rising inflation
& a general decline in living standards, nationally…..Slide13
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.Slide14
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).Slide15
POLICE PELTED WITH EGGS & FLOURSlide16
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.Slide17
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, 1977Slide18
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/rangatira-in-the-blood-donna-awatere-huata-1998
Slide19
HAMILTON: GAME CANCELLEDSlide20
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.Slide21
HAMILTON, 25 JULY ‘81Slide22
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?Slide23
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?