Ousting South Africa: Olympic clashes of 1968

Michelle Sikes

doi:10.18820/24150479/aa50i2.1

Abstract

South Africa modified its sport policy, though not its national policy of apartheid, prior to the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Black and white South African athletes would compete as one team at the Olympics for the first time. This reversal of its previous all- white policy persuaded the majority of IOC members to accept South Africa’s participation at the 1968 Olympics. African nations were the first to withdraw in protest. Taking this stand, despite South Africa’s concessions, they sought nothing less than the end of apartheid itself. Recognising that a detailed historical interrogation can shed light on the struggles, politics, limitations, and achievements of social justice in and through sport, this article demonstrates when and how these different visions of social justice emerged, gained traction, and were resisted when it came to apartheid South Africa.

Highlights

“South Africa does not need to fear that the international sports federation would try to stop her going to [the 1968 Olympic Games in] Mexico,” crowed Frank Braun, President of the South African National Olympic Committee (SANOC)
African nations’ sports officials held firm in their mission to keep South Africa from the games, while the white IOC establishment sought to accommodate it. Both cast their actions in terms of achieving social justice for black South Africans
Contrary to claims that before the 1970s, the sole objective of the international community’s boycott was to integrate South African sport, at the heart of African delegates’ decision to deny South Africans access to the games was the larger moral challenge that white minority rule posed to other African states

Summary

Introduction

“South Africa does not need to fear that the international sports federation would try to stop her going to [the 1968 Olympic Games in] Mexico,” crowed Frank Braun, President of the South African National Olympic Committee (SANOC). Elated by the. International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) decision to invite South Africa to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Braun could not foresee the authority of the “senior body” being countermanded He rebuked “the African countries who wanted to boycott the Games [as] cutting off their noses to spite their faces” (“No Fear Over Mexico – Braun,” Rand Daily Mail, 18 Feb 1968: 1). African nations were prepared to withhold athletic prowess and forego Olympic glory in 1968 for the purpose of jettisoning white minority rule from the continent These countries did not boycott the 1968 Mexico City Games to integrate South African sport. They did so to rid Africa of apartheid entirely. The process of negotiating South Africa’s involvement in the 1968 games revealed both the limits of that power and the range of objectives that were to be achieved by sanctioning South Africa in the realm of sport in the late 1960s

Optimism for Olympism: “outward-looking” changes

Reactions to South Africa’s reinstatement

The IOC succumbs

Conclusion