Rugby has become part of my life and has taught me many things. What I learned from and through rugby I would also like the boys of our country to share. That is why I am still continuing with the game. If only people could realize that rugby is a medicine, not only for the players, but for the spectators and when we have Internationals in this country they are in fact reunions of thousands and thousands of people. It boils down to this that such occasions take people away from themselves, from the routine work and from boredom and anybody who gets away from himself gets a greater benefit than is generally realized.8
What is surprising here is that it did not dawn on Craven as an academic that it might have been fruitful to interrogate his obsessions more critically. His belief in the ‘restorative’ powers of the game seem to have been taken for granted. If he had been less convinced, he might still have disagreed with Slabbert, but he would have gained in being more sensitive to alternative points of view on the role of rugby in society. In other respects, though, he indulged fully in the academic study of sport, as one of his doctoral theses was on the evolvement of major games.
There is also, in this context, and upon closer reflection, a case to be made that Craven might well have transferred some of the insights he had gained from his doctorate in anthropology – in terms of the specific role allocation in ‘tribal’ societies to ensure their optimum functioning – to the rugby field, refining the role of its different positions for more effective play. But, while he was given to use academic thinking to enhance rugby developments, he was not prone to subjecting the wider context of the game itself to rigorous academic scrutiny.
The administrative and managerial side of rugby, which over time became Craven’s forte, had its own political past. In the Cape, the SARB was for much of its history under the sway of English speakers and anglicised Afrikaners, and it conducted its business in a time-honoured clubbish fashion. There was a distinct disjuncture between the English-orientated board and the great preponderance of Afrikaans-speaking rugby players. Gradually, however, particularly after the Second World War and the National Party’s ascent to power in 1948, more Afrikaners found their way into top administrative positions, and in 1956 Danie Craven was elected as president of the board.
Of undoubted importance in bringing about Afrikaner control of the rugby administration was the Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood). The Broederbond was a secret cultural organisation consisting of elite male Afrikaners. Its actual influence on state policy and high-ranking National Party politicians is probably often exaggerated, but its cultural sway cannot be dismissed. As rugby was considered the ‘national’ game of the Afrikaner, it is not surprising to find that, over the years, the Broederbond gained significant influence in the rugby unions.
Somewhat ironically though, given the general trend, Danie Craven as chair of the board and as a figure destined to occupy that position for successive decades was not a member of the Broederbond. Why was such an important position entrusted to a non-Broeder? Part of the answer is that even though the Broederbond was powerful, it was not omnipotent. Craven, through his long association with rugby in South Africa and his overseas contacts, and by virtue of his forceful personality, managed to attract support from Broeder and non-Broeder alike. Ousting Craven and installing a Broeder would have called for an exceptional effort and a unique candidate to match Craven’s credentials. It seems, too, that in broad ideological terms, the Broederbond was able to live with Craven. While he was more pragmatic and less purist than most Broeders, the division between Craven and the Broederbond was not unbridgeable. Craven had grown used to dealing with Broeders at the University of Stellenbosch, and the rugby world in this respect was no different. Although he was a supporter of the United Party, he was of the opinion that there were also ‘good people’ in the Bond.9 Equally, this did not imply that the two parties trusted each other wholeheartedly. Craven made it clear that he would not tolerate undue interference in rugby affairs by the Broederbond. In turn, at the time of the South African tour to New Zealand in 1956 with Craven as manager, there were widespread rumours that the Broederbond had seen to it that Dan de Villiers, a Broeder, was appointed as assistant manager in order to keep a watchful eye on Craven.
In the long run, though, Craven’s greatest challenge was not having to deal with the Broederbond but rather with the increasing isolation of South African sport under apartheid. Rugby, which was perceived as an Afrikaner game, carried a specific charge and became a prime target. Craven was catapulted into the world of this sporting boycott, which he only haltingly managed to come to terms with, given that the central political thrust often eluded him. To him, with eyes firmly set on rugby, it was a world riddled with contradictions. Neither were matters facilitated by Craven’s personality, which bordered on being cantankerous at times.
The end of the 1960s was a turning point as far as South African rugby relations were concerned. Nothing made this clearer than the 1969–70 tour to Great Britain. Under the guidance of Peter Hain (who had been to school in South Africa and whose family had left the country after harassment by the Security Police in the 1960s), an assortment of anti-apartheid organisations launched large-scale demonstrations against the tour. Through various disruptive tactics, they came close to forcing the South African management to disband the tour. In South Africa, the conduct of the demonstrators was met with stunned indignation. It was unheard of that the cream of South African rugby should be humiliated and insulted by demonstrators whom the Afrikaans press often described as long-haired, unwashed, drug-taking, communist agitators.
On the return of the South African team from the demonstration-ridden tour, Craven declared:
We despise the conduct of the demonstrators, the way in which rugby matches were turned into chaos, the childishness and banalities of the demonstrators. We would like to put it clearly and openly that if these people think that they can influence us or that we shall change our way of life because of demonstrations, they are making a grave error.10
He couldn’t have foreseen at the time that as a result of the interconnectedness between apartheid and sport, the next two decades would be fraught with all kinds of intractable problems. To him, these developments were symptoms of a ‘sick world’ that excluded the interests of sport altogether.11
Gradually, however, after the cancellation of a proposed Springbok tour of New Zealand in 1973, it dawned on South African rugby supporters that the antagonism against racially selected sports teams from South Africa was much greater than they had anticipated. It was the realisation that the anti-apartheid movement in sport was not going to disappear overnight that prompted the National Party government to modify its rigid sports policy. During the 1970s, a convoluted reformulation of National Party policy took place. Outwardly, the impressions of racially integrated sport had to be created. Yet this had to be done without actually sacrificing apartheid principles. As past masters in Orwellian ‘Newspeak’, National Party policymakers devised the notion of ‘multinational’ sport. This was confined to a few special events at top levels only, leaving intact the apartheid pattern of sport lower down the scale; it entailed competition between the four main racial groups (white, African, coloured and Indian) representing separate ‘nations’, or between international teams from abroad and each of these groups individually. On the surface, it could be seen as multiracial sport – whites playing against coloureds, for instance – but it was not multiracial sport in the sense of people of many races freely participating together. Nor was it in any way non-racial sport, organised without reference to racial origins. Thus, ‘multinational’ sport, although it could be mistaken for multiracial sport, was in fact a re-articulation of apartheid ideology. Indeed, as one observer commented at the time: ‘To enter the realm of South African sport is to enter a crazy world where race shapes and distorts everything.’12
By and large, in the early 1970s the organisation of rugby at the top level did not differ much from the government’s ‘multination
al’ policy. Some coloured people played for the South African Rugby Federation (the team was called the Proteas), and African people played for the South African Rugby Association (called the Leopards). On occasion, these teams also went on separate overseas tours – the Proteas to England in 1971 and the Leopards to Italy in 1974. With these tours, the SARB sought to demonstrate that not only white but also African and coloured people were being sent as sporting sides overseas. To those ignorant of the intricacies of South African society, these might have appeared as worthy attempts to promote African and coloured rugby, but in reality they perpetuated apartheid’s racial divisions in sport.
Inevitably, it had already become clear by the mid-1970s that the government’s ‘multinational’ sports policy was not having the desired effect of countering the sporting boycott. Craven’s influential friends in the International Rugby Board (IRB), such as Albert Ferrasse, president of the French Rugby Federation, had impressed upon him the need to field a mixed team against the touring French in 1975. He took the advice to heart. Despite initial rebuffs from Prime Minister B.J. Vorster and the minister of sport, Piet Koornhof, Craven managed to obtain permission for a mixed team to oppose the French in a game at Newlands.
In 1977, Craven also extracted government concessions for mixed national trials. It is possible that his initiatives on this front, at least in part, had to do with an earlier secret meeting he had had with none other than Peter Hain in London. Craven had contacted Hain and met him in the latter’s flat early in 1977. Initially, both parties were understandably apprehensive, but gradually relations thawed and Hain later reflected that ‘[u]nderneath his gruff Afrikaner assertiveness was a traditional, well-mannered gentleman. I rather liked him and sensed that the feeling was mutual.’13 Indeed, and for his part, Craven did not find Hain the ogre that he had imagined. Hain presented Craven with a list of reforms as a starting point for considering the lifting of the sporting boycott. Satisfied that the anti-apartheid activist was not actually anti-sport or anti-rugby, Craven took heart from the meeting without perhaps fully appreciating the enormity of the political challenge.
By that time, especially during the latter part of the 1970s, the political context in South Africa had changed irrevocably, and Craven ran the risk of being overtaken by events. Particularly after the Soweto uprising of 1976, which in retrospect can be seen as the beginning of the end of apartheid, black demands for full political rights had been gaining momentum. Craven, despite taking an anti-apartheid stance publicly, remained essentially conservative in certain vital respects. He readily acknowledged the wrongs of apartheid, but as far as politics was concerned, as late as 1987 he was still only prepared to support a qualified franchise for black people – an option that the Progressive Federal Party, as the white opposition in Parliament for the greater part of the 1980s, had already abandoned in 1978. Politically, Craven could be naive, and this added to the contradictory elements in his make-up.
He was, however, anything but gormless when it came to promoting his own brand of rugby politics, which took the form of rugby clinics across the length and breadth of the country. Between 1982 and 1991, more than 314 clinics had been held, and these were attended by over 88 000 players. These clinics involved children from all races and also led to senior feeder teams, mainly from the platteland, comprising white as well as African and coloured players. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity in organising these events, but it is equally also likely that he was not oblivious to the fact that these camps may have yielded political dividends that could reflect favourably on South Africa as a country where racial mixing on sports fields was now encouraged. Craven was known to be prepared to go to great lengths to get South Africa back into international rugby. In 1983, he was instrumental in arranging a huge press conference, lasting two weeks and involving fifty-five media people from different overseas countries, in order to demonstrate the level of integration (as seen at the clinics, for example) that had been attained in South African rugby. The visitors criss-crossed the country in an expensive exercise totalling R750 000, but the results were considered less than satisfactory.
Perhaps a rounded assessment of Craven’s attempts to draw all races into the game is to be found in a general comment by Chris Laidlaw, All Black scrum half and Oxford scholar. His view of Craven is that
although his basic motive is the preservation of South African Rugby on the international scene, [he] has been a strong advocate of multi-racial sports in the Republic and … is a sensitive, humane and extremely idealistic man beneath his dictatorial facade.14
As black protest started to mount in the 1980s and South Africa moved into the spotlight of world media attention, it became increasingly difficult for the Springboks to compete internationally. The greatest outcry was caused by the New Zealand ‘rebel’ tour of 1986. This took place after the official 1985 All Black tour had been cancelled at the last moment, to the great disappointment of the white South African rugby public. For Craven, this was akin to a national disaster:
I knew people who actually cried openly – grown men … It was a sad moment, and only when a country has actually experienced that kind of monumental disappointment can they appreciate just how South Africans generally and the SARB in particular felt that day.15
White South Africa felt that it had deserved the tour. So did Louis Luyt, the businessman and rugby administrator who was destined to become president of the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU). He was the driving force behind the 1986 tour, which was arranged without informing the New Zealand or South African rugby boards or the IRB.
The rebel tour took place at a time when black townships had become increasingly ungovernable as residents refused to bow to apartheid laws and regulations. Shortly after the tour, the government imposed a suffocating national state of emergency, which allowed for little free political expression. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that the tour, which took place in defiance of the international boycott, evoked strong reactions among anti-apartheid groups.
The tour also had other repercussions. Although Craven was sidelined in the organisation of the visit, once the New Zealanders were in South Africa, he gave the venture his full support. Craven had been in London, attending an IRB meeting, when news of the tour broke. He was caught off-guard but ignored a request by the international board for the players to be sent back to New Zealand. Craven argued that South Africa had deserved a tour by New Zealand and, although he did not approve of the secretive way in which it had been organised, he regarded it as poetic justice after all the tours that had been cancelled as a result of anti-apartheid pressure. His stance on this issue severely strained his relations with the IRB – a body that he had always held in high esteem. In addition, there were strong and persistent rumours that the New Zealanders had been paid to tour South Africa. Craven, well known for his implacable opposition to players being financially rewarded to play the game, would have found this unacceptable.
Ultimately, these ‘rebel’ tours were expedient, short-term opportunistic affairs and ended up being counterproductive, as they turned Craven’s friends at the IRB against the SARB. In its quest for international acceptance, the board, and in particular Craven and Louis Luyt, now realised that they had to explore other avenues that had been closed before. It was under these circumstances that a series of meetings with the African National Congress (ANC) in exile was arranged in, among other places, Harare. The ANC wielded considerable influence in the anti-apartheid sports movement, and Craven argued at the time that the route of South Africa’s readmission to international rugby was through Africa. This was a departure from the earlier policy of relying on ‘friends’ in the IRB.
Craven’s contact with ANC ‘terrorists’ raised the ire of the National Party government (somewhat ironically because less than two years later, the self-same government was to embark on full-scale negotiations with the ANC) as well as that of some SARB members. The media, as was to be expected, made much of th
e meetings with the ANC, but in the end it could point to little of substance that had emerged. Nevertheless, there is some indication that Craven’s willingness to talk to the ANC had a beneficial effect on the opinion of overseas rugby people. Contact with the ANC can also be seen as a harbinger of developments that were to pave the way for rugby unity after 1990.
On 2 February 1990, State President F.W. de Klerk made what was probably the most important speech of any white South African leader in Parliament when he formally unbanned the ANC and other proscribed organisations. This effectively ended thirty years of exile for the country’s major black political organisations.
A number of factors led to this landmark decision: international sanctions had debilitated the economy and restricted room for manoeuvring on the part of the state; internal insurrections had placed further strain on the state, as a recurring cycle of repression and resistance shaped the contours of South African society; armed attacks by the ANC, though never seriously extending the military, had added to increased instability; and the international order had changed with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, leading the state to realise that it could no longer play the West off against the East. De Klerk’s speech signalled the end of apartheid as official state policy. It also meant that the long-standing international sporting boycott of South Africa could be reassessed.
Rugby administrators welcomed De Klerk’s announcement. Craven, as president of the SARB, described it as a ‘wonderfully encouraging move’ that would facilitate South Africa’s re-entry into international sport.16 Other observers were more cautious and warned that the political influence of the National and Olympic Sports Congress (NOSC), affiliated to the ANC, should not be underestimated: until the various establishment and anti-apartheid sporting bodies were united under one banner, and until it was clear that the dismantling of apartheid had become an irreversible process, the chances of foreign tours to South Africa remained slim.
Illuminating Lives Page 19