The apartheid system in South Africa
The apartheid system proved to have an impact on New Zealand as protests arose due to the opposing perspectives people held on this form of government. The National party who were the governing party from 1948 to 1994 enforced the apartheid system in South Africa. This system was racial segregation enforced by the white minority who oppressed the native black people to gain control. Laws were passed that divided people in South Africa by their race and the races were forced to live apart from each other. The new legislations touched on every aspect of social life including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, the approval of ‘white-only’ jobs and black people not having the right to share facilities with whites. White supremacy was maintained and the black South Africans were regarded as inferior. The apartheid system was a contributing factor to protests against the springbok tour in 1981. New Zealand had divided opinions on whether the apartheid system should affect the tour taking place or not. Many supported equal human rights and opposed the system both actively or passively. New Zealanders were against this for many reasons but an obvious perspective people held was that New Zealand was quite a multicultural country at this time and New Zealand had efforts to keep race equality and were respective of rights throughout the country. Fractions of the county did not show interest in this issue or believed that New Zealand should not be interfering in the political situations in other countries. The apartheid system became very relevant to the New Zealand society when the Springbok tour to New Zealand went ahead in 1981. Major protests ensued, aiming to make clear many New Zealanders' opposition to apartheid and to stop the matches taking place. This was successful for two games, but also had the effect of creating a law and order issue (whether a group of protesters could be allowed to prevent a lawful game taking place.
Reference: www.teara.govt.nz
http://fightback.org.nz
Reference: www.teara.govt.nz
http://fightback.org.nz