by Larry Writer
James Roxburgh, as was the case with all the Wallabies who refused to play the Springboks, tried never to let his strong beliefs about apartheid damage his friendship with fellow players who held different views or were less committed to the anti-apartheid cause. As a man, player, and captain, Roxburgh was respected by such as his Sydney University vice-captain and Wallaby teammate Rupert Rosenblum. Tom Hickie’s brilliant history of Sydney University Rugby Club, A Sense of Union, quotes Rosenblum on how he and Roxburgh were united in their desire for a Sydney University grand-final win in 1970. ‘Roxy was captain that year when we won it [the premiership] — 1970 — so it [South Africa] was a hot issue. And I used to argue about it all the way up to the gate, get out on the field and we’d all play magnificently together and never argue with each other, come off the field and continue the argument. I mean great friendship … [We] felt strongly but you weren’t prepared to do your friendships in for this.’
Rosenblum remained of the belief that the Wallabies had accepted the Springboks’ hospitality in 1969 and it was only right that the Wallabies should reciprocate in 1971. He told Sydney University rugby chronicler Tom Hickie he could understand Abrahams, Darveniza, Roxburgh, Forman, and Abrahams refusing to play against the Springboks, but ‘to get out and wave banners as Roxy and Ant and all these did, was a bit over the hill. [Giving the South Africans] reciprocal hospitality wasn’t an endorsement of their policies.’
Barry McDonald was by now playing at Randwick, and at that dyed-in-the-wool rugby club, virtually all the players and administrators were pro-Springbok tour. Yet McDonald today insists that although he differed from his Galloping Greens teammates, he was never shunned. ‘As far as I’m aware, I received no backlash from my fellow players, whether Wallabies or at Randwick. I still attend reunions and consider these men my friends. They respected my opinion and what we did even if some didn’t agree with it. John Hipwell was one who was against our stand, and he came up to me and shook my hand. He said, “Barry, I’m just here to play football but I respect you and your opinions.”’
Norm Tasker says the good standing of Roxburgh and company among their fellow players, and especially the 1969 Wallabies, was never in danger. ‘Yes, some probably said, “Silly buggers! What are they on about?” But they were brothers, and everyone respected the decision they made. Nor did the rugby administrators who mattered hold a grudge. I’ve no doubt that if James Roxburgh or Barry McDonald had had second thoughts, they’d have been picked for Australia’s next match.’
James Roxburgh bonded over bridge with the Queensland player Barry Honan on the Wallaby tour of South Africa. Back in Australia after his friend’s withdrawal from the Wallabies had become front-page news, Honan told Roxburgh, ‘I think what you’re doing is dishonourable, but I don’t think you’re dishonourable.’ The friendship survived. As did Roxburgh’s relationship with a cousin who ‘saw me handing out CARIS leaflets and glared at me. He apologised in due course.’
Bruce Taafe was the only one of the recalcitrant Wallabies who worked in the commercial sector, and he felt an immediate backlash. ‘My employer was the Dairy Industry Association of Australia, involved in computerising the distribution systems of its associated companies. When I was chosen to tour South Africa with the Wallabies, they gave me a wonderful send-off, but on my return when I went public with my decision not to play against the Boks, the managing director told me to stop speaking out. I told him, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Here’s my resignation.” They were taken aback by that because I was one of the few people in the organisation who knew computers and they needed me. They decided they’d just have to put up with me, warts and all. The managing director said, “Well, can you at least keep it down.”’
Paul Darveniza, however, believes there were some in rugby circles who held a grudge. ‘Most, but not all, got over it,’ he says. ‘A friend recently told me that an ex-Wallaby was still frothing at the mouth over our opposition to the Springbok tour. And there was a rugby dinner, an informal reunion of around ten Wallaby and Springbok players, where a fair bit of alcohol was consumed and the conversation became fixed on racial issues and degenerated into a bit of an ugly scene. Suddenly Rupert Rosenblum gets up and says, “I can no longer stay at this dinner. It’s totally racial. Excuse me and good night to you all!” and he walked out. He has always been his own man. I’m very fond of Rupert.’
‘I have always attended Wallaby reunions and it’s been fine,’ says Jim Boyce. ‘At one reunion, my 1963 teammate Beres Ellwood took firm issue with my position, but he wasn’t angry. I was debating Rupert Rosenblum when a right-winger asked Rupert a Dorothy Dixer, and Rupert admonished him for getting his facts wrong. One fellow who was angry with me and the other guys who refused to play against the Springboks was the journalist Phil Tresidder. He felt that we abused the South Africans’ hospitality by speaking against apartheid. Phil thought we should have kept quiet.’
While the rebels remained onside with a significant sector of the rugby fraternity, there were some rugby writers from the Sydney tabloids The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror who, Barry McDonald says, ‘savaged me in print. “How dare you turn your back on the Wallabies!” Not that I cared what these lightweights said.’ And when McDonald asked his local member how he felt about what McDonald had done, the politician told him to his face that he should be ashamed of himself. ‘And this bloke,’ says McDonald, ‘became the minister for immigration!’ Nor would that be the last time McDonald and his colleagues were lambasted by politicians. By the time the Springbok rugby tour of 1971 was all over, conservatives from the prime minister on down would tear strips from them.
At the same time, in London, Anthony Abrahams was joining demonstrations organised by Peter Hain, the man who had derailed the Springbok rugby tour of Great Britain in 1969–70. Hain’s June 1970 London rallies called on all countries to boycott South African rugby union and cricket teams, cricket and rugby being virtually South Africa’s sole surviving international sports. Abrahams had been gratified to see a number of sporting ties with South Africa severed in recent times — notably, the International Olympic Committee’s ostracism of South Africa in 1970 from the Olympics for violating the first rule of the Olympic Charter: ‘No discrimination is allowed against any country or person on the grounds of race, religion or political affiliation’; and in the same year the nation’s banning from Davis Cup tennis competition, and the cancellation, after the rugby tour turned into a disaster, of South Africa’s cricket tour of England. In 1970, too, the United Nations General Assembly called on ‘all States and organisations to suspend cultural, educational and sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid’.
So Abrahams was incredulous when Charles Blunt confirmed that the Springboks’ 1971 tour of Australia would go ahead. Abrahams wrote to the ARU executive on 28 October 1970, explaining why the tour should be cancelled. Abrahams suggested to the ARU that its ‘fierce affection’ for rugby might be behind its decision to proceed with the tour but criticised it for its ‘too ready acceptance of the South African Government’s version of what is actually going on in South Africa’. Abrahams wrote, ‘Having made an intensive study of the problem of South Africa, both from a theoretical and practical standpoint, I feel that the “sport and politics should not mix” argument denies the actuality of events in South Africa. Rugby in that country is … inextricably involved with, and affected by, politics … The Afrikaner, who in effect controls rugby in South Africa, and many white South Africans generally, do imply some sort of justification for the apartheid system from a rugby victory. Also, the habit remains during sporting tours, on the part of many South Africans, of publicly linking Australia and South Africa in spheres wider than sport.’
CHAPTER 7
CHOOSING SIDES
In late 1970, John Myrtle wrote to Anthony Abrahams in Paris asking him to return to Australi
a to assist the CARIS anti-Springbok campaign. Abrahams was pleased to oblige. ‘John asked me if I’d come out and travel around Australia speaking against the Springbok tour, although CARIS couldn’t promise any money other than what could be raised by passing the hat around. I bought a return charter-flight airfare for 400 pounds. A friend drove me to the airport at, literally, 100 miles an hour so I could catch a plane that took me economy-class from Paris to London to Sydney via Los Angeles, and in April and May 1971 I stumped the country for six weeks. It was an extraordinary experience for a 27-year-old. On April 13, the day I arrived jet-lagged and limbs aching in Australia to start the speaking tour, I held my first political interview. Father Richard Buchhorn met me at the airport and led me into a press conference. There were cameramen, print and radio reporters. Feeling like a piece of meat, I sat down under the hot lights with all the cameras and microphones thrust at me, trying to look composed despite my interminable flight, and said what I’d come to say …’
The message of Abrahams, speaking quietly and authoritatively, was that to welcome the Springbok rugby team to Australia in 1971 was to endorse apartheid. ‘Any sportsman asked to play against South Africa is now thrust into a position where he is making a political statement,’ declared Abrahams. ‘It is too late to still be saying that sport and politics are unrelated. Sport in South Africa does not exist in glorious isolation from politics: it is a direct manifestation of political policy. South African teams are chosen by colour — white only — then ability. The crowds they play before are segregated. If coloured crowds become overenthusiastic in supporting a visiting team, the police will move in and use methods of control which can often be called barbarous. I know, I’ve been there and seen it.’
Apartheid could be dealt a blow if the nations of the world refused to compete against South Africa. ‘Sport in that country is incredible,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the country in the world most keen on sport, especially rugby union. Ordinary South Africans will realise the world is against apartheid when people make their stand against South African sporting tours.’
As the cameras rolled and reporters scribbled in their notepads, Abrahams explained that his role while in Australia would be to ‘muster public opinion and make people aware of the issues involved’. He expected a good hearing because ‘Australians believe in equality, accept a person for what he or she is. We have to say no to a system that promotes progressive denigration of people who happen to be non-white.’
One reporter fired a question at Abrahams that would be asked again and again of Australian anti-apartheid campaigners: ‘Why aren’t you protesting against the ill-treatment of our Aborigines?’ Abrahams was ready for it. ‘I’m often asked if I feel hypocritical opposing apartheid when Australia has a discriminatory migration policy [the White Australia Policy that favoured immigration by European countries, especially Great Britain] and some of our Aboriginals live in a parlous state. I feel very embarrassed about it. I don’t try to justify it. I say I’m opposed to our policy and so are a lot of people in Australia. But the sincerity of the anti-apartheid movement cannot be questioned on the grounds of the government’s so-called White Australia Policy. I’ll help the Aboriginals in any way I can, but I’m concentrating on apartheid in sport because it’s the field I’m in. It’s a social issue that matters to the world, not just South Africa.’
Says Abrahams today, ‘I was fascinated by how, if you had a podium and a microphone, you could have an effect. If you have a mic, you don’t have to resort to the tactics of those who do not. If you want to change the thinking of the middle class, you don’t alienate them. So I wore a suit and was always well prepared and quietly spoken, and treated those who disagreed with me with respect.’
Over those six weeks in 1971, Abrahams spoke in Brisbane and Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne and Perth, in rural New South Wales. He fronted TV, radio, and newspaper media conferences, he addressed Lions and Rotary clubs, sporting bodies, students, trade unions, church congregations, political parties — anyone prepared to give him a hearing.
Often Abrahams shared the podium with Sekai Holland. She and her white Australian husband, Jim, would be crucial in the campaign against the Springboks. Dressed in colourful tribal robes, the 28-year-old black Rhodesian was an inspiring and articulate spokesperson. Abrahams calls Holland ‘one of the truly great people of this world’. Together, they handed out pamphlets at the British Lions versus Queensland rugby match at Brisbane’s Ballymore field in Brisbane on 12 May on the Lions’ way to New Zealand to play the All Blacks. Ballymore, where Abrahams had once been cheered as a player, was enemy territory that day, with some spectators calling him a traitor to rugby and booing Holland for committing the sins of being black and daring to wear her spectacular national dress. ‘The crowd gave us a hostile reception,’ recalls Abrahams, ‘and nobody would sign me into the rugby club afterwards, despite me being a Wallaby and a lifelong rugby man.’
Abrahams felt completely confident standing up and saying his piece on his whistle-stop speaking tour because ‘I was young and I had right on my side … I was heckled pretty fiercely, most notably by some from the extreme right at a rowdy public gathering at the Roma Street Forum in Brisbane. In the crowd was an abusive group from the Australian National Socialist Party. One Nazi called me a dirty Jew. It was ugly stuff. He received a talking-to from Sekai.’ The National Socialists rounded on Holland, only to find themselves outnumbered and surrounded by Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in the crowd. Father Richard Buchhorn was there and would recall in the anthology Australians Against Racism, ‘This Nazi fellow, who was known as The Skull, turned up with a few cronies and they gave Sekai a very bad fright. They attacked her physically as well as verbally. All the Aboriginal people at the meeting got up and crowded around Sekai and took care of her. I don’t think she ever forgot that.’
Anyone who’d stood up to international rugby packs was hardly likely to be cowed by pseudo-stormtroopers, and Abrahams gave the Nazis a tongue-lashing. Pointing at them, coiled in their corner of the auditorium, he declaimed that if National Socialists supported apartheid then apartheid had to be an abomination. ‘Interestingly, the same hecklers turned up at talks all over the country, so they were being funded. By whom, I don’t know.’ (Peter McGregor was convinced that the Nazis were bankrolled by the South African government, although his contention was never proved.)
While Abrahams lost no sleep over offending Nazis and other members of the far right, he says he ‘also received heavy criticism from friends, as well as from good rugby souls whom I definitely did respect who thought I was trying to wreck the game. I stood my ground. Being on that 1969 Wallaby tour instilled in me the belief that in life there are circumstances which compel you to go out on a limb, and no matter how you value your work or sport or how much you cherish your personal life, you have to put that on hold to do what you know is right. That can take internal fortitude and a willingness to face consequences. I believe that the path to self-realisation is connected to the degree to which you are prepared to make a stand. An individual can make a very great difference.’
Abrahams debated Rupert Rosenblum on an ABC-TV current-affairs program. Setting up the confrontation, the moderator noted that ‘Anthony Abrahams faces an almost impossible task, he’s trying to wake up Australian rugby. Rupert Rosenblum on the left is a perfect example of Abrahams’ dilemma. Both men played for Australia on a tour of South Africa.’ Abrahams told Rosenblum, ‘When you play against South Africa, you are standing up in the sporting sphere and accepting the idea of racism in sport. You’re accepting this.’ Countered Rosenblum: ‘You’re assuming a lot of things that I’m supposed to agree with you on and which I’m not agreeing with you at all on. To me, some bloke in Kenya or some man even in England who considers that if I play against the Springboks it makes me a racist, or condones racism, the man’s a nut. It’s just not on. I don’t feel that way. You know I don’t feel that way. In fact, you k
now quite well I have a strong feeling for the coloured ladies. It’s not my fault that we have this overseas image. I’m not the [South African] government, I can’t do anything about the government.’ Abrahams chimed in to drag his friend out of the hole that he had ingenuously dug for himself: ‘Rupert, you are politically aware, and if you agree with me why aren’t you making a stand?’ Replied Rosenblum, ‘Because in my list of priorities [what is happening in South Africa is] too low. It’s a simple matter of priorities. You have to put them somewhere in life and [for me] that happens to be down the bottom.’
When Abrahams was in Queensland staying with federal secretary of the Labor Party Tom Burns, he received a phone call from John Brink in Sydney telling him that his father had had a stroke. ‘The issue was whether to cut the tour and see my father, but as he wasn’t conscious right then and was expected to survive, I went from Brisbane to Melbourne to debate the cricket administrators Ian Johnson and Bob Cowper — who struck me as shrivelled souls and were afraid that if the Springbok rugby tour was called off then the cricket tour by the South Africans would also be cancelled — and the federal attorney-general, the very right-wing Senator Ivor Greenwood. The consensus was that my side won the debate.’
Abrahams was not the only Wallaby battling Nazis. When Paul Darveniza joined John Myrtle and federal Labor leader Gough Whitlam to speak against racism at the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney on 21 March, the meeting was gatecrashed by six National Socialists, who occupied a balcony above the auditorium and continually shouted down the speakers and threw swastika-adorned pamphlets into the crowd. Darveniza, Myrtle, and Whitlam carried on regardless. Given his pugilistic past, Darveniza may have hoped, somewhere deep inside, that the Nazis would not confine themselves to verbal abuse.