APARTHEID

Tennis balls, my liege

DOUGLAS BROWN

When we have matched these rackets to

these balls We will in France, by God's grace, play a set Shall strike his father's -crown into the hazard,

Such was King Harry's message to the Dauphin, and the threat was duly carried out in war. It is safe to say that the decision to outlaw South Africa from this year's world tennis championship will have no such consequence. Not only will Mr Vorster's republic remain at peace with the Davis Cup nations, but it will still be a de facto partner in western defence, while its trade with the outside world will profitably continue.

This prompts the question why anti- apartheid manifestations outside South Africa have become peculiarly associated with the irrelevant world of sport. This curious charade has now assumed a quasi- official character, for what otherwise were the Bishops of Southwark, Stepney and Woolwich doing at Twickenham, that win- try Saturday afternoon before Christmas? It almost seemed as if the lords spiritual of the realm had been given a new state func- tion to perform, as exorcists, whereby they assembled in force to tell peaceful and dis- tinguished visitors to this country that they were not wanted.

Enough eyebrows. at any rate, have been raised at the spectacle of an episcopally-led 'demo' against the Springboks to prompt His Lordship of Southwark, the Right Rev- erend Mervyn Stockwood. to offer a written explanation to his flock. It can now be read in the Easter parish magazines of his diocese, and it propounds a novel principle on which, in this spiritual department of immigration control, one class of foreign visitor can be morally distinguished from another.

The Bishop admits to a dislike of 'some' communist governments because of what he mildly describes as 'their refusal to tolerate opposition'. On the other hand he says he would not normally treat Russian visitors to this country in the same way as white South African visitors. The reason he give for this is that, while Russians have virtu- ally no say in the choice of their govern- ment, white South Africans have the vote.

As a bishop, he seems thus to be demand- ing of his people a somewhat detailed knowledge of foreign constitutional practice, while at the same time revealing in himself a most other-worldly detachment from poli- tical reality. The Soviet Union, no less than white South Africa, is technically a demo- cracy, and elections are held there too, although it is true that any group that offered electoral opposition to communist policy would be suppressed. But equally the only white South African group that ever had serious intentions to offer electoral opposition to apartheid. namely, the Liberal party, has been forced by an ingenious law to dissolve.

It is regrettable that this should be so, but there is little that Bishop Stockwood can do about it. Undoubtedly. if a majority of the .white Christians of South Africa had from the beginning made a stand for human equality there would be no apartheid there today. Similarly, if the majority of members of the Russian Orthodox Church had at the time of the revolution made a stand for human liberty, the Soviet Union would not now be subjected to a ruthless form of atheism.

But the Bishop is quite wrong in thinking that this kind of Christian failure is peculiar to people in faraway countries. If it were, he would have no difficulty in persuading our own two major parties to agree to pay our debt of honour to 130,000 dark-skinned British citizens in East Africa. whose arrival here would add scarcely 0,2 per cent to our total population.

When I lived in South Africa I met many recent immigrants from Britain. Some of them had come from South London. and were the kind of people who might well have been devoted churchwardens or sides- men in the parishes for which Bishop Stock- wood is responsible, or prominent members of any other Christian denomination one might name. Alas, all but a tiny fraction of them had taken to their privileges under apartheid as a duck takes to water. No routine pronouncements by their present church leaders, such as the recent one Bishop Stockwood quotes in his letter, are likely to make the slightest difference to their attitude today.

I wonder if the Bishop realises what it means for any individual white South African to offer more than a purely verbal opposition to the social and political system under which he lives? He can do this neg- atively, by refusing to take part in racially exclusive social activities. This, apparently, is what the Bishop would like South African sportsmen to do. But, since all social activities in South Africa are racially exclusive, either by law or by invio- able custom, this would mean that the individual was cutting himself off from society altogether—and leaving society in exactly the same divided state as before.

The alternative is to oppose apartheid actively. In present conditions there is but one way to do this. It involves attempting to pull down the state edifice by violence, at the risk of adding immeasurably to the sum of human misery. Even if it were morally right to act as a saboteur and a killer, there are few people, whether bish- ops or sportsmen, endowed with the degree of heroism required to face the personal consequence of this.

Heedless of this intractable situation, and at a distance of 6,000 miles from it, the Bishop writes: 'A Christian cannot be content to pay lip-service to ideals in a vacuum'. But was he himself not content to do precisely that at Twickenham? The vacuum was in his mind, and the lip-service was ludicrously irrelevant.

Something more sinister is happening, too. Non-racialism, in this facile guise of empty protest. is becoming a kind of sub- stitute religion. This religion has its banner- waving rites and ceremonies, its liturgy of slogans. its psalmody and its devices for creating emotional excitement. But. like most narrowing corruptions of true faith, it has nothing to do with people. If it had, its votaries would forget about situations abroad on which they can exert no influence and turn more of their attention to remedi- able race problems at home. They would not salve their consciences over Brixton by chanting about Johannesburg. Moreover, their religion lacks any co- herent system of moral theology. If it be a sin to play tennis, rugby and cricket with white South Africans it must be an infinitely worse one to trade with them. To be con- sistent the bishops should turn up in full canonicals at Southampton and shake their holy fists at every Union Castle liner that docks there. Much more than that, those who have seats in the House of Lords should advocate mandatory sanctions against South Africa. and. when the consequent naval blockade had led to war, should bless the weapons of destruction that were about to turn southern Africa into a graveyard.

Racial equality, as an aspect of justice, is certainly one of the fruits of the Spirit, and perhaps if all these fruits were more con- fidently preached on the South Bank there would be a chance that this one might ripen. But when it is plucked separately from the Tree of Life and made the subject of a specialised and purely external wor- ship, it quickly withers. There is something frivolous, even blasphemous, in asking the public to associate a basic high principle almost exclusively with sporting fixtures.

To the non-white helots of South Africa race relations are a matter of life and death. It only adds to their sense of hopelessness to learn that Christian leaders on the other side of the world, having totally failed to bring about a change of heart among their own people. can think of nothing better to do than play the fool at ball games,