Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 9. 1ts May 1973
Springboks and Apartheid
Springboks and Apartheid
Kirk played an apparently strange game of capitalist "politics" over the Springbok Tour question. While expressing in a very good fashion why an all-white South African tour would be gravely detrimental to New Zealand's interests, he merely postponed the tour and refused to ban it. For months he manoeuvred in the hope that the Rugby Union would ban the tour without the necessity for him coming out in open conflict against the more reactionary elements in the Labour Party.
What this reveals is the thinking of bourgeois politics. On an issue like this, which is not fundamental to capitalism and which Kirk appears to support (for the reasons given in his letter to the Rugby Union), the leaders of the Labour Party prefer to maintain a progressive stance, rather than have a head on collision with the progressive forces in New Zealand.
However, they are not prepared to mobilise the people, especially the workers, in opposition to apartheid. Instead they engage in manoeuvering in order to defeat the right wing. This is not surprising. All bourgeois Labour-type politicians fear people's movements because in the course of such movements the people learn they can organise themselves and run things for their own benefit—instead of the benefit of the capitalist class.
Despite the despicable "politics" involved in the Tour issue, we can at least be grateful that we have a Prime Minister who expresses moral indignation and repugnance at any racist tour, instead of the smug justification for the tour that came from his predecessor. Mr Kirk must be pressed to take further steps against apartheid, including the banning of trade with South Africa and investment there by New Zealand companies and citizens.