It is thirty years since the 1981 Springbok tour took place. It was a “coming of age for New Zealand, a time when the country’s traditional cultural roots and a sense of social justice and progressive idealism crashed head on in spectacular fashion. The collision of those competing values, while violent and spiteful, changed New Zealand forever. We grew up as a nation,” says Michael Cummings.
“It’s difficult to gauge what, if any, impact public opposition to the Springbok tour in New Zealand had in the eventual unravelling of apartheid in South Africa. What is less uncertain though, is the role the tour played in our own progression as a nation,” he says.
Read Michael Cummings’ Editorial in the Manawatu Standard
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Michael Cummings is the editor of the Manawatu Standard
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News category: Analysis and Comment.
