A Political Game- a story of Rugby and Apartheid

A Political Game explores an issue whose origins are to be found in the fi rst decades of this century. It is about the battle for the soul of New Zealand, about an affl uent period in our history when internationalism was popular and idealism was affordable.

IN BROAD brush-strokes we learn the context of rugby, politics and apartheid from 1921 through to 1996 and today. What did we do, and why did we do it? What effect did we have not only on New Zealanders attitudes towards sporting and other contacts with South Africa, but on wider related issues such as New Zealands foreign policy? Outside South Africa itself, nowhere was the impact of that countrys racial politics greater than it was in New Zealand. What does this tell us about ourselves? Why was the New Zealand/South Africa rugby connection the subject of such an intense and protracted debate?

Rugby did more than mirror emerging cultural values; it stimulated national pride and national feelings. It brought a nation together, providing a focus for a feeling of unity ...rugby provided the biggest public rituals and celebrations. And it didnt just do that for New Zealanders. It did it also for white South Africans. Nothing it seemed was bigger than the game. Defeats were national disasters. Rugby was godlike. To question that was to question New Zealand.