Clash on Molesworth St (Wellington) 1981 Springbok tour

[hakaboy6924]

You have to ask yourself why Rob Muldoon insisted on a Springbok tour when every other commonwealth country and indeed almost every country outside Africa refused to sporting exchanges during Apartheid. My mother was on the pitch at rugby park and my father was in the stand throwing cans at them. It is always good to be on the side of history

[MrCairncross]

I remember this as a ten year old, I remember the arguing amongst the adults,I remember Allen Hewson kicking a goal from the sideline to win the series. I remember wondering why people were angry about this fun game my brother and I played all the time with the three Lehmstedt brothers who lived next door.

[pHaZe017]

"the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

[cronusnz]

Thanks to all the Police Officers who did their duty and who in the face of overwhelming numbers held their lines.

[johnnytanini]

Good to see the police beat the fuck out of these scum. Frankly they didn't go far enough. These protestors attempted to usurp the democratic rights of New Zealanders to watch and play rugby. A shame the likes of John Minto weren't taken out for good.

The tragedy was that the 2 best sides in world rugby didn't meet for 11 years after this.

[ausiedeli]

@johnnytanini you fucking idiot

[yayway1]

@johnnytanini fuck you faggot! the police were way to violent and abusing their so called power. if i was there i would have got a baseball bat and fucked up those fucking pigs! fuck the police!

[ak47popper]

@yayway1 How were they too violent? The protestors pushed over one hundred metres past the police line after repeated instructions to stop. If words weren't going to halt the protestors what else would?

'

[DJRU2]

@johnnytanini Aye!?

Fuck your rugby and fuck you Mr Tanini.

Bloody plastic Maori probably likes Hayley Westenra and supports the war for oil.

Do your people a favor and change your name to Panini so people dont think we're all dumb fuck racist, rugby boof, tow the line, sellouts like you.

[johnnytanini]

@DJRU2

Whatever Hori Cunt.

Civil disobedience deserves to be crushed, and I ain't no Maori.

[DJRU2]

@johnnytanini Thank fuck for that!

There goes my concern of being related to a box-head fuckwit like you.

If a foreign government was to occupy NZ then not doing as you're told by them would also constitute civil disobedience. Begging the question, when is civil disobedience morally justified?

You of course would not fight back as you're more than likely foreign yourself, trying a little too hard to be into rugby, buzzy bees and the NZ govt.

But what would I know im just a hori.

[PalmyBruce]

I was in about row 14 of that crowd of protesters going up Molesworth Street. Despite police warnings not to advance, we were urged by the protest marshalls to 'push forward', which of course meant that the ones in the front row would be no-choice-forced into the batons of police warning them not to come any further. The police had protesters coming at them, they used the batons. This changed things. I saw a man hopping in agony from hits on the leg.

[PalmyBruce]

We turned back, and at the cenotaph in the TV camera lights and cameras glistening blood on the head of a woman, the leaders were shouting how it was police brutality. Then the crowd got marshalled into Lambton Quay, heading into town. I asked people round me what the next purpose was. For asking, I was accused of being a plainclothes police, which was totally false.

[PalmyBruce]

A marshall said if I didn't like what was happening, get out. We were in a canyon of buildings, and I saw behind us a lights-off bus over on Stout Street, presumably cops. Cops at the head, concrete and glass on the sides, cops behind. The marshalls asked for crash helmets for the front. I dutifully handed my motorcycle helmet forward, and never got it back.

[PalmyBruce]

To me it was getting really stupid, including kids and grannies all heading into a possible runaway huge brawl and panic stampede, so I walked out - over to the footpath and watched it go by. I contacted the media exposing these things. I rang one of the organisers asking what he thought he was doing. He argued nervously for a while.

[PalmyBruce]

The next week there was a meeting in a hall, managing the protests, he was on the table at front with other organisers. A big man there waited for the committee to quieten things to start, then with all his strength smacked his wooden staff deafeningly down onto the wooden floor , shouting in fury, 'You betrayed us', that he hadn't been allowed to take on the police. Bruce Thomson, in Palmerston North.

[SuperUFB]

I was one of those protestors. I am very very proud of my actions and would do it all again in an instant.

[Tvdhakla]

@SuperUFB - it was quite a time. When NZ had some activism!!!

[ironite23]

this a good example of how people dont listen to a thing police say

[Tvdhakla]

@ironite23 How so?

[Tvdhakla]

THis was a PREMEDITATED action by the Police. Never forget that! The NZ government attacked its OWN people!!!!!

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

Fortunately, Rob Muldoon is dead and Apartheid has fallen...

Remember that all the people of South Africa saw the protest actions at the time and it gave them succour to fight against Apartheid.

[Tvdhakla]

@SuperUFB They didn't and it didn't. As a guy from a South African union said to me at the time. "I started to fight back the day I saw my eleven year old nephew shot in the street in front of me.."

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

It is easy to imagine such a reaction...the point though, is that the protest action was viewed on TVs all over South Africa, it got in under the Apartheid era censors and it provided a mass impetus at the same time.

I know I'm right in some individual cases because I've spoken with South African people of most hues of the Apartheid era...from a Bok cousin of De Klerk to English Saffers, coloured and indian Saffers...

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

It did so give succour to anti-apartheid activists in South Africa...it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

[Tvdhakla]

@SuperUFB - I have never been convinced of that. It struck me then, and now, that it was part of creating a Kiwi mythology.

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

Try going to Johannesburg right fucking now then and asking every coloured person that you find whether the fact that otherwise nonconvicted people in New Zealand were prepared to put their fucking civil liberty on the line to protest for something that they through was worthwhile that got through the South African Apartheid censorial block, through to the minds of the democratic majority of the people of S.A. whether it gave succour...go do that, report back to me your findings.

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

Put your money where your mouth is, go to Johannesburg, find coloured people who're 45+ and ask them whether seeing ordinary New Zealanders putting their civil liberty on the line for their civil liberty and ask them how they viewed the Antitour movement in New Zealand...fucking ask them!!

I already know their answer. I've done the asking...I've been doing it for years, again and again.

I know I'm right and I suspect that you're a racist fuck.

[Tvdhakla]

@SuperUFB - Something of an over reaction on your part.

[Tvdhakla]

South Africans that I know from the anti-apartheid era viewed much of what happened in 1981 NZ in a positive light but they still kept it in context. Clearly it was a part of the battle but, goes without saying, not all of it.

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

Of course it wasn't all of it but it did give something to focus on that was displayed widely in South African despite their having a regime of censorship for decades...Punk rock for example was illegal in South Africa whereas Heavy Metal with relatively less political content was not.

[SuperUFB]

@Tvdhakla

You are full of it.

[nzdethklokfan]

shot g, gota study this shit for my assignment