Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 2. 7th March 1973
Sectarian Sabotage
Sectarian Sabotage
A deliberate attempt is being made by the Socialist Action League to split the anti-apartheid movement. The S.A.L. is trying to organize nation-wide demonstrations on Sharpeville Day in an effort to draw support away from the National Anti-Apartheid Co-ordinating Committee's activities on the day. These plans have received the support of all groups in the anti-apartheid movement.
A couple of weeks ago a small meeting was convened by the Marxist Labour Group to discuss a proposal for a demonstration on Sharpeville Day. The only decision was to hold a further meeting. The Marxist Labour Group (which has about 12 members) has now decided to hold a public meeting tomorrow night at the Central Library Lecture Hall to discuss the idea of mass demonstrations against the Tour. One of the organisations which participated in the Marxist Labour Group's meetings was the Socialist Action League represented by the Wellington co-ordinator of the Young Socialists (the S.A.L's youth organisation), Peter Rotherham. At the first of these meetings Rotherham said that it would be tactically wrong to hold a mass mobilisation for Sharpeville Day because there wouldn't be time to organise it. At a meeting of Wellington H.A.R.T. last Wednesday, 250 supporters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by Rotherham to hold a demonstration on Sharpeville Day. On Saturday, however, Rotherham broke into print in the Dominion to announce that "nation-wide non-disruptive demonstrations" had been called against the Tour on Sharpeville Day, which would involve "those thousands of people who were against disruptive protest".
Constant Attacks on H.A.R.T.
The National Anti-Apartheid Committee's plans for Sharpeville Day were well known to both the S.A.L. and the M.L.G. at the time they were having their initial discussions about demonstrations on Sharpeville Day. The M.L.G., which took the initiative in organising small meetings to discuss its ideas, has been fairly careful to avoid cutting across the plans of the established anti-apartheid groups. The S.A.L. on the other hand, appears not only to have broken away from the discussions organised by the M.L.G. but also to have decided to attempt to upstage the National Committee's plans for Sharpeville Day. In view of the fact that the S.A.L., through its paper Socialist Action, paid no attention to the Tour or anti-apartheid activity last year, apart from constant attacks on H.A.R.T., its latest moves can only be seen as a deliberate sectarian attempt to split the anti-apartheid movement.
At a time when the Government has not yet announced what it will do about the Springbok Tour and there are signs that the South African Government and the South African Rugby Board may try to fool New Zealanders by sending a sham 'multi-racial' team, unity between the groups opposing the tour, and apartheid in general, is vitally important. Although the anti-apartheid movement in New Zealand is supported by individuals and groups covering a wide range of political opinion, those involved in it have always managed to look beyond sectarian squabbling and face up to the real issues of opposing apartheid sport etc. as a united force. Sectarian groups which have in the past let others do all the organisational and educational work against N.Z's contacts with apartheid, and then try to split the movement deserve no support.
Scant Support
Both the Socialist Action League and the Marxist Labour Group are small organisations whose national membership would number less than 50, i.e. about a fifth of the people at the Wellington Hart meeting last week. Neither have ever attracted widespread support as small sections of that part of the international Trotskyite movement which has its headquarters in Paris, the 'United Secretariat' of the Fourth International. Despite their lack of members and popular support, both groups could make a useful contribution to the anti-apartheid movement. It seems however, that in an effort to keep their heads above water they have been prepared to sacrifice unity for the chance of publicity and personal gain.