Second pages
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REFLECT ON
Sport Boycotts and the End of Apartheid
S P O RT S
Some twenty-nine African, Asian, and Caribbean
nations boycotted the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
They were responding to calls by the South African
Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) and the
Organization of African Unity to boycott any event
that included South Africa or any nation that maintained sporting ties with apartheid South Africa. The
New Zealand rugby team had recently toured South
Africa, and even though rugby is not an Olympic sport,
the sporting link between New Zealand and South
Africa was enough to trigger the boycott.
Opposition to the apartheid regime in South
Africa—in which a minority white population routinely violated the political, social, cultural, and human
rights of the majority black and “coloured” population
(e.g., no participation in elections or on national sport
teams)—was led by the African National Congress
(ANC). In addition to attempting to organize economic
and other boycotts of South Africa, the popularity of
sports with white South Africans was also targeted.
Initially, few wealthy nations and national and
international sport organizations joined the sporting
boycott. The IOC, after declaring that sports and
politics should not be mixed, reluctantly endorsed the
exclusion of South Africa from the Olympics in 1970.
The New Zealand government did not attempt to
prevent the national rugby team from competing in
South Africa, and the IOC and the Montreal organizing committee (and the Canadian government) did not
attempt to prevent New Zealand from competing in
the Olympics.
The Montreal boycott seems to have galvanized
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the
sporting world into more wholehearted support of the
Anti-Apartheid movement. At the next meeting of
Commonwealth prime ministers at Gleneagles in
Scotland, Trudeau managed to include the sporting
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boycott of South Africa on the agenda. The Commonwealth prime ministers signed the Gleneagles Agreement (1977), endorsing and promising to enforce the
boycott. Other governments and sport organizations
followed, and, by 1985, South Africa was almost completely isolated from the world sport community.
The end of apartheid was signalled by the release of
Nelson Mandela and other members of the ANC
(1991) and the first open elections in South Africa
(1994), which are now defining moments of the late
twentieth century. The first multi-racial team representing South Africa appeared at the Barcelona Olympics (1992). A number of commentators have expressed
the view that sporting boycotts were even more successful than trade embargos (which were routinely violated) and consumer boycotts in helping to bring about
an end to apartheid. In recognition of his anti-apartheid
work, Sam Ramsamy, the president of SANROC,
was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the
University of Toronto shortly before the Barcelona
Olympics.
Nelson Mandela, who had been an accomplished
amateur boxer, said that “sport can create hope where
once there was only despair.” Although they are
unpopular with athletes and sport organizations, we
think that boycotts of sports, in a well-planned and
well-organized campaign, that also includes intense
economic and diplomatic sanctions against a nation
whose actions offend the world community,1 and in a
just cause, can also bring about hope. And it could do
so in the future. What do you think?
1Two
scholars in the social sciences of sports, Bruce Kidd
in Canada and Richard Lapchick in the U.S., were actively
involved in the campaign against apartheid sports.
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