Johannesburg, Jan 16 (DPA) There is probably no better argument for the close connection between politics and sport than the apartheid in South Africa. Not only were they intrinsically entwined in the country, sport was then also used as a vehicle to rid the country of its apartheid policy.Apartheid was fundamentally a policy designed to keep economic, political, social and sporting power in the hands of the white population, which constituted a minority of the overall population. Blacks were denied the most basic human rights, including the right to vote.For many years - the policy of apartheid notwithstanding - South Africa participated at the Olympics and at world championships and several South African athletes achieved excellent results in these competitions.All of that changed though in 1960 when the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his famous 'Wind of Change' speech in South Africa.There had, of course, been protest both internally and externally against the racist sports policies of the South African government before 1960, but as more African countries gained independence from their erstwhile colonial masters in the 1960s, this pressure increased dramatically.South Africa was formally expelled from the International Olympic Committee in 1970 - 10 years after last competing at the showpiece of international sport.The country was suspended from football's world controlling body FIFA in 1961. After a visit to the country by the English president of FIFA Stanley Rous, the suspension was lifted a short while later and South African football officials suggested they send an all-white team to the 1966 World Cup in England and an all-black one to Mexico four years later.Not surprisingly, this idea was rejected and the suspension re-imposed. In 1976, after police shot and killed unarmed school pupils protesting against the use of Afrikaans in schools, FIFA expelled the white Football Association of South Africa.Thereafter the pressure on the South African government increased on all levels - sport being one of them.Internally the non-racial South African Council on Sport (SACOS) led the protest, while externally it was the exiled South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC) that was in the forefront of organising resistance to the racist sports policies of South Africa.The main form of resistance used was an international sports boycott, which became an international rallying point for anti-apartheid activists worldwide. Internally, the protest consisted of demonstrations and the refusal to have any contact with those involved in racist sport. Together these measures comprised the so-called sports struggle.To counter this pressure, the South African government introduced a number of superficial changes that allowed sporting contacts between races within strict parameters set down by the government.
(c) Indo-Asian News Service
