Saleem Badat
The year 1971 was eventful. The third Apollo mission to the moon was launched, and Motown singer Marvin Gaye released What’s Going On, which protested the war and drew attention to the racism and poverty that affected black Americans.
While the Apollo mission sought to test the frontiers of space and science, in South Africa, another mission with more modest ambitions was quietly being stitched together.
The non-racial Southern Africa Lawn Tennis Union (Saltu) prepared to send six promising young black players on a historic four-month tour of Europe. Saltu was an affiliate of the South African Council on Sport, which championed non-racial sport and proclaimed there could be “no normal sport in an abnormal society”.’
Dubbed the “Dhiraj” squad, after tennis champion Jasmat (Dhiraj) Soma, the players included Hiralal (Dhiraj) Soma, Alwyn Solomon, Oscar Woodman, Hoosen Bobat and Cavan Bergman.
The black players’ frontiers were modest – to compete against tennis players irrespective of “race” and nationality, play tournaments in Europe, improve their tennis and be ambassadors for non-racial sport, upholding equality and human dignity as opposed to racism in apartheid sport.
Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice recalls the non-racial 1971 tour of Europe and the political, social and sporting conditions under which it took place.
South Africa in 1971 was a racist and repressive society based on white supremacy and privilege and black oppression.
Black sports persons were denied proper facilities, coaching and opportunities to excel, could not belong to the same clubs as whites or compete in competitions with or against white players.
They could not represent South Africa and were prevented from realising their sporting promise at the highest levels, their ambitions thwarted, their aspirations unfulfilled, and their dreams abandoned and shattered.
Despite constraints, sports persons courageously pursued non-racialism in sport and in the wider society as a principle and ideal, often at great personal cost to themselves.
Despite the odds, some black sportspersons, like golfer Papa Sewogolum, achieved success and prominence nationally and internationally.
Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice highlights the circumstances and dynamics of the 1971 tour and the outstanding and talented young tennis players who undertook it.
It describes the tournaments in which they participated, how they fared, their challenges and adventures, the tour’s impact on them, sporting-wise and personally, and the lessons that were learnt.
At that time, there was shameful collusion between international tennis associations and the racist “whites only” South African tennis body. Their political machinations prevented Hoosen Bobat from becoming the first black South African to compete in the junior Wimbledon championships.
The book argues that post 1994, there has neither been fitting recognition nor reparations for outstanding apartheid-era black tennis players and that the apartheid legacy continues to affect tennis today.
Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice by Saleem Badat, Research Professor in History at the University of the Free State and former vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, was launched on June 18 at the Plumstead Tennis Club
Cape Times