As a 1981 anti-tour protester I welcome next year’s visit by some of the 1981 Springbok squad.
Captain Wynand Claassen
is in make-amends mode. He sees the visit as ‘apologising in a way’ because his team ‘were actually the instigators’ of the mayhem during the tour. No doubt the 1981 team members will meet some of the protesters like myself.
Claassen welcomed the apologies by the South African Rugby Union and the South African government for the exclusion of Maori players on All Black visits to New Zealand in 1928, 1949 and 1960.
However, we are
still waiting for an apology
from the New Zealand Government, which in the day fully backed those “all-white” tours, and organised official Parliamentary farewells.
While they are at it, our current government should apologise for the Muldoon Government backing apartheid sport in 1981.