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Racism in South African Sport Racism in South African Sport http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1980_14 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Racism in South African Sport Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 12/80 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; Pather, M. N. Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1980-04-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1980-00-00 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description Contains statement made before the Special Committee against Apartheid. Promotion of sport. Mixed sport. The Population Registration Act. Reservation of Seperate Amenities Act. Bantu Laws Amendment Act. Native Laws Amendment Act. Native Consolidation Act of 1945. South African Council on Sport. Format extent 6 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1980_14 http://www.aluka.org NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* April 1980 RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICAN SPORT by M. N. Pather Ser ial This statement was made before the Special Committee against Apartheid on 28 March 1980. Mr. Pather is the Honorary Secretary of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS). *All material in these notes and documents may be freely reprinted. Acknowledgement, together with a copy of the publication containing the reprint, would be appreciated. 80-0925 12/80 -1- A good deal of attention is being directed at the moment, in the principal cities of the world, to the question of South African sport, particularly since two self- appointed commissions of inquiry have recently visited the Republic of South Africa and as some of the members of the commissions had expressed an opinion in favour of the changes within the sport structure of South Africa, It is a well known fact that the National Party in South Africa, which is the Government of the day, since its coming to power and during its thirty long years of rule, has pursued a policy of separate development. It decreed where the different race groups should live, which schools and universities the children and students must attend, what type of work they should do, where they could be hospitalized for treatment and medical attention, and where they could engage in sports. The separate-development ideology is unique but not uncommon to South Africans and their overseas friends. The Government legislated to separate the different race groups born and bred in the country and basically forbids four fifths of the country's population, purely on the grounds of race and colour, to have any say in the affairs of a local municipality or in the administration of the affairs of the country. The population of South Africa consists of 765,000 Asians, 2,431,000 Coloureds, 4,363,000 whites and 18,759,000 Africans, including about three million living in the Transkei. Asians, Coloureds and Africans are referred to as non-whites or blacks. The black people of South Africa, in the eyes of the white person, are second-class citizens and the ruling white dominates the blacks, enjoying supremacy. In nearly every country, the Government annually budgets for the promotion of sport. In South Africa too, a budget is made, but with a difference. The black sportspersons must look to their black councils for assistance whilst the white sportspersons receive a substantial sum from the Government. The allocation can be compared with the annual grant made for education. The white schoolchild receives R649, whereas the black child receives R68. There is no law against mixed sport. But there are nearly 300 laws affecting the lives of the black people, and the most notorious law is the Group Area Act, No. 36 of 1966, together with Proclamations R26 of 1965 and R228 of 1973. Several other laws like: The Population Registration Act, No. 30 of 1950 Reservation of Seperate Amenities Act, No 49 of 1953 Bantu Laws Amendment Act, No 76 of 1963 Native Laws Amendment Act, No. 36 of 1957 and Native (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act of 1945 have a direct bearing on sport, thereby precluding and preventing mixed play. In terms of the Group Areas Act a person of one race is disqualified in an area proclaimed for another race. A white or a Coloured or an Asian may not enter an area set aside for the African unless that person applies and obtains the necessary permission from authorities dealing with the affairs of the African people. In this regard it will be relevant to quote the charge made on the Watson family in Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, and the subsequent prosecution of Cheeky Watson, a rugby player enrolled with the KWOBU affiliate of the South African Rugby Union, a counterpart of Dr. Danie Craven's white body. The effect of the Group Areas Act is evident in this case. Watson appealed against the sentence passed on him at a lower court, but the judge of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. Cheeky Watson stands a convicted person all because he entered an area reserved for a particular race group. When a commission of inquiry from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) visited South Africa during early 1978, the then Minister of Sport, Dr. Piet Koornhof, in an edict handed to the President of the world body, Mr. Phillipe Chatrier, stated that no permits were required by tennis players to play on the courts. But in the next sentence of the same paragraph the Minister stated that the organizers must apply to the authorities for an annual certificate for spectator seating. The ITF president is not on record as having objected to the inclusion of that Government provision. But he is on record as having called the Southern African Lawn Tennis Union, the tennis body which at that time objected to that provision, dissident and reactionary. He went on to say that he apportioned blame upon the said union for the state in which the game of tennis found itself in South Africa. Although South Africa tells the world that sport is now completely integrated, the Minister of Sport and Recreation made it very clear in Parliament on 21 May 1979 that the eight guidelines formulated in 1976 - including the guideline that sportsmen and sportswomen of the white, Coloured, Indian and black people belong to their own clubs and control, arrange and manage their own sports matters - are still valid. He further emphasized that deviations are the exception and not the rule; "The NAtionalist Party reaffirms its well-known standpoints on sport as formulated in 1976 as general and fundamental guidelines to be pursued wherever practicable. Exceptional circumstances do not always permit of consistent implementation of the mentioned guidelines and it is recognized that special arrangements are justified in such circumstances. But unnecessary deviations must be guarded against and exceptions must be dealt with in such a way that they do, in fact, prove the rule." (Minister of Sport and Recreation - South Africa House of Assembly Debates (Hansard), 21 May 1979). White South Africa's present Minister of Sport and Recreation, Punt Janson, in trying to provide a new veneer for apartheid sport, has now engaged in an exercise in semantics while at the same time reiterating that this "involves no policy change but only a change in procedure aimed at streamlining the present systems." This change in procedure" was necessary because the apartheid word "permit" had to be replaced by more "acceptable" words for international consumption. The words "consultation" and "co-operation" are now official terms for permits. No provisions of the permit system, which was created to by-pass Apartheid legislation and to provide for some degree of mixing for internationa consumption, have been rescinded. But by word substitution white South Africa hopes to deceive the world that "permits" are no longer needed to participate in sport. All the laws that directly affect the playing of mixed sport are still embedded in the statute books, blacks must still undergo the humiliation of being treated like second-class citizens for a few snort concessions - and to endorse the passport of the white sportsperson for international participation. So long as legislation which affects sport directly or indirectly remains on the statute books it is not possible to play non-racial sport. Permits, by whatever name they are called, will always regulate and control the degree of mixing on the sports field. The changes effected in South African sport, can, therefore, only be cosmetic and never fundamental - not until the relevant laws are revoked. Non-racialism in sport means the complete rejection of any restriction or limitation on membership of any club, institution or organization of any person on the basis of race, colour, ethnic origin, or language.
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