Human Rights and Sporting Contacts

Drawing on the archives of the Ministry of Foreign affairs and Trade this is an account of the history of official relations betwen New Zealand and South Africa, especially as they were affected by the vexed issue of sporting contacts and the international struggle against apartheid.

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In the troubled winter of 1981, the idea that sport and politics should not mix was convincingly defeated as the New Zealand passions for rugby football and for racial justice met head on. Drawing on the archives of the Ministry of Foreign affairs and Trade and on his own experience as a New Zealand diplomat, Malcolm Templeton gives an illuminating account of the history of official relations betwen New Zealand and South Africa, especially as they were affected by the vexed issue of sporting contacts and the international struggle against apartheid. Beginning with a discussion of racism and the rights of one country to interfere in the domestic politics of another, he follows with a narrative tracing the course taken by New Zealand governments and the changes in public opinion in what had become by 1981 one of the most bitter issues the country had ever known. The complex tensions between the Rugby Union and its supporters, the politicians, the civil servants and the general public are fairly and unsentimentally described.