The covenant - James A. Michener [625]
'Have you heard?' Frikkie bellowed as he rushed into the kitchen. 'Tour's been canceled.'
'Not officially,' Jopie said, his hands sweating.
Then came the appalling bulletin: 'It is now confirmed that the Springbok tour of Australia and New Zealand has been canceled.'
Marius fell into a chair, staring pitifully at the brothers. 'It's like you said, Jopie. The world thinks we're skunks.'
The three rugby players huddled at the radio, shaken by the urgent bulletins that flooded the air, and when the ugly story was fully verified, Saltwood was amazed by the violence of the men's reactions.
'It's criminal!' Marius shouted. 'Using sport as a weapon of confrontation. A game's a game, and politics should have nothing to do with it.'
'I'll teach them politics,' Jopie thundered. 'I'll fly to New Zealand and break those protestors in half, one by one.'
'It's not the ordinary citizens,' Marius said. 'It's the damned press.'
'The press in all countries should be muzzled,' Frikkie stormed, but at this moment the minister of sports, came on the radio to console the nation, and he was bidding them be of good spirit despite the shattering blow, when Sannie burst into the kitchen, weeping. 'Oh, Jopie! Oh, dear Frikkie! They've stolen your glorious tour from you!' She ran to the cousins and kissed them; Jopie gulped so deeply that Philip feared he might burst into tears, but instead he went about the room, knocking his fist against door-jambs.
Then came more shocking news: 'In New Zealand the agitation against our Springboks was led by a South African citizen, one Fred Stabler, who himself used to play rugby for Rhodes University in Grahamstown. This agitator has moved through both North Island and South, spreading the poison about what he calls apartheid, and he raised such a virulent storm that the New Zealand government had to intervene and order the tour to be canceled. In Australia, at least, it was native-borns who led the agitation. In New Zealand it was one of our own.'
Gloom settled over the Van Doorn kitchen as the Afrikaners realized the full impact of this decision. A generation of fine young athletes would never know whether they could match courage with the ferocious All-Blacks. The great good feelings that welled up when a touring side ran onto the field against New Zealand would be lost. It was important when a South African tennis player was barred from competing in world tennis, a thing to be deplored, but when a whole rugby team was denied an opportunity to win the green blazer, it was a national scandal, and men of all stripe were finally driven to wonder if perchance their nation was on the wrong track.
This self-exploration was intensified next day when newspapers carried full reports from New Zealand, and one Auckland paper, long a defender of South African teams, editorialized:
Through the years this newspaper had prided itself on being a champion of restraint in dealing with the thorny problem of South African rugby. In i960, when our Maoris were threatened with expulsion because their skins were not white, we apologized for the backward attitudes of a nation grappling with a serious problem. In 1965, when in the heat of one of our grandest victories Prime Minister Verwoerd announced that henceforth no New Zealand team containing Maoris would ever again be welcomed in South Africa, we discounted his threat as one given in despair over the unexpectedly poor showing of his Springboks. And in 1976, when all the world condemned us for sending the All-Blacks to perform in a country so ridden with racial hatred, we supported the tour. And even when the refereeing proved disgracefully one-sided, we argued that any All-Black-Springbok championship series was worth the effort, and we urged our boys and our nation to enjoy it.
But we can no longer see anything to be gained by allowing sport, however noble its intentions, to be used to shore up a racist regime. Belatedly, and with the saddest