Join the "multi-racial" throng

This year the South African Government made a major propaganda effort to use the 1973 South African Games to divert attention from the demand for the elimination of racial discrimination in sport. The Games were widely publicised as being "multi-national" or "multiracial", and one cabinet minister called the Games "a milestone in South Africa's history". After the Games were over the same man proclaimed: "Rejoice, the beloved country", in a nauseating reference to Alan Paton's famous novel attacking apartheid.—"Cry the Beloved Country".

Immediately after the Games had finished, a South African group called the 'Committee for Fairness in Sport' placed an advertisement in newspapers in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which attacked "certain pressure groups" for discouraging local athletes from joining the "multi-racial throng" at the Games. "These are the same groups which insist that South Africa should be barred from international competition until it practises sport on a basis of nondiscrimination. In Pretoria at the South African Games competition was strictly on merit - regardless of race, colour, creed or religion. Who is Discriminating Now?"

Observers at the Games have rejected the claim that "competition was strictly on merit". On his return to the United States Stan Wright, chairman of the men's track and field committee of the United States Amateur Athletics Union, stated "The South African Games were an attempt to project the country's programmes in a good light, but I don't think it succeeded at all".

Wright rejected South African Government claims that the Games were "multinational" or "multi-racial" as "a lot of baloney".

"The Minister of Sport (Dr Koornhof) admitted to me that multi-racial and multinational are political terms".

"The term multi-racial is used when you're talking to liberals and want to stimulate them, and multi-national is used when you're talking to the conservatives whom yon don't want to arouse".