Paul Lewis: Contrition just politics

It's good that the NZRU has finally apologised to Maori, even if it was late and forced by South African sports minister Arnold Stofile - the man who thinks Bryan Williams and Sid Going were "hated" by black and coloured South Africans for going on the 1970 All Black tour of the Republic.

Here you go, Arnold. Thwwrrrrsssputttttt. That's the sound of a giant raspberry being blown in your direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries, to borrow a classic Monty Python quote.

It was enough, in last week's Sunday News, to point out reasons why the New Zealand Rugby Union should apologise to Maori for their exclusion from past tours. He didn't need to stick the boot into BG and Super Sid.

Stofile's apology, on behalf of the South African government, paved the way for similar sentiments for the NZRU and the South African Rugby Board. It took more of the political ground from both and made the NZRU seem even more a bunch of cavemen warming their nuts over a fire.

Stofile, meanwhile, made Williams and Going seem like Uncle Toms who enraged the local population by turning up in white South Africa and bolstering the apartheid regime.

Stofile said that, although Going and Williams became great heroes to black South Africans, "we hated/despised them for selfishly looking at their aspirations whilst trampling on those of black South Africa".

Anyone who went on the All Black tours of South Africa from 1928 to 1976 is open to the same criticism - although it was odd Arnold didn't mention Blair Furlong and Henare "Buff" Milner, both Maori and both on that same 1970 tour.

Didn't you hate them too, Arnold? Probably not, because they weren't as famous and therefore of less use in making a political point.

Here's a passage from Terry McLean's book Battling The Boks, published after the 1970 tour: "Non-whites at matches, non-whites here and there, professed total admiration for them.

One saw a yearning among non-whites to reach out to, and physically touch Williams - this in part because he was obviously olive-skinned and so could be identified as one of themselves.

The attitude of the Coloureds and Africans toward the All Blacks was touching. It was affectionate.

The All Blacks had no colour bar in their team. Ergo, they were super-beings."

There's something not quite right about Stofile's description. How does one hate "great heroes"? Contradiction in terms, surely.

It's just politics, you see, the great stain on the way all countries - and most sports bodies - govern themselves.

I am reminded of e.e. Cummings' immortal quote: "A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man". No mention of colour there. Truth in politics is that which cannot be proven false - like Stofile's statement that, 40 years ago, non-white South Africans despised Williams and Going.

Stofile is a member of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela's ruling party after the first free elections. The ANC, rightly lionised for ending apartheid, have since gone on to less glorious achievements.

They include corruption, support for Robert Mugabe's evil regime in Zimbabwe and the so-called black empowerment programme which made a few of those who sat close to the power in the ANC rich but did little for millions of others.

More than a million white South Africans fled the country, taking with them abilities which might have been well used.

In the meantime, the lot of non-white South Africans is actually worse than under apartheid. Unemployment is up, as is crime, the shantytowns are far bigger and poorer.

The notion of equality and apology may seem a little less wonderful when you live in a shantytown with no running water or sewerage system.

The politics of the land is still based on colour. Many expat South Africans say they couldn't live with a system that rewards people, ironically, for the colour of their skin.

The whites' sons and daughters could become highly qualified in medicine, engineering, architecture or whatever - but the jobs often go to someone less qualified; of different colour. This is the platform from which Arnold Stofile casts the rocks of hate at Williams and Going.

Still, let's hope the political apology wrung out of the NZRU heals things and that the NZRU does something far, far more important now - putting in place a real future for Maori rugby, rather than letting it slip back into the wilderness.

In sport - Stofile's portfolio - South Africa is going through a period of "transformation" players.

Translation: non-whites promoted to the national side ahead of whites, to ensure the game becomes genuinely multi-racial. Right idea, wrong practice.

Thanks for the apology, Arnold. It was a great demonstration of why they can seem insincere (ie politically motivated) and not altogether credible.

We await with interest your apology to the white rugby players who missed out on the Springboks because their place was taken by someone because of the colour of their skin.