Julian Drew
FOR two-time world cross country champion Zola Pieterse, the chance to finally compete in her favourite event on home turf must be an occasion she has long looked forward to. Although she is not in the best form of her career after giving birth in October, she is unlikely to be spared the harsh glare of the media spotlight.
Going quietly without fanfare to the same starting line, however, will be somebody else for whom the opportunity to take part in Saturday’s world cross country championships in Stellenbosch will be just as sweet. Anne Hare from New Zealand was, in her own words, ”the spark that started the fire” which led to the then Zola Budd withdrawing from the English team to contest the 1988 world cross country championships in Auckland.
For this staunch anti-apartheid activist, the very fact that the championships are taking place in a democratic South Africa is proof enough that her actions were not in vain.
Now 31, Hare was exposed at an early age to the cause which led her to withdraw from the New Zealand squad for the 1988 championships. Her Edinburgh-born father, Jock McKenzie, who was known as Black Jack from the sun-blackened complexion he gained plying his trade as a scaffolding labourer, was a firebrand unionist who was also a member of the Halt All Racist Tours (Hart) organisation.
”I guess I was already a fairly progressive person when the Springbok rugby team came to New Zealand in 1981, so I didn’t hesitate to get involved in the campaign to stop the tour,” recalls Hare. Her father was one of the organisers of the protest march in her home town of Wellington and, as a 16-year-old schoolgirl, she was quickly embroiled in the campaign which split the country in two and threatened the very fabric of New Zealand society. ”I can still remember the exhilarating feeling I got from being involved with so many people campaigning against apartheid,” says Hare.
But she was also a promising runner, and by the age of 18 she had become an international athlete. When the world cross country championships were to be staged in her country in April 1988, she was chosen for the squad to prepare for them.
”The team hadn’t even been selected when I heard that the African countries were going to pull out because Zola Budd was going to compete. Although a lot of people felt sorry for her, it was clear that she wasn’t actually English and she was just using her passport to compete. She wasn’t prepared to denounce apartheid and it was an obvious focal point for the African countries to make a stand,” says Hare.
It was Budd’s naivety to think that she could get away with sitting on the fence on the apartheid issue which led to her downfall. Like the Springbok tour to New Zealand in 1981, there was no middle ground as far as apartheid was concerned. Having steadfastly refused to criticise apartheid, Budd’s situation was exacerbated by the large amount of time she spent in South Africa during 1987 to treat a serious injury, and the African countries in the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) called for her suspension when it was reported, erroneously, that she had taken part in a race in Brakpan and presented prizes at another.
”Because of my political beliefs I had to ask myself what comes first, my run around the race course in Auckland or the rights of 30 million black people in South Africa? I wrote a letter to Athletics New Zealand (ANZ) stating my reasons for withdrawing from the squad. I didn’t intend it to be a public statement, but someone from ANZ must have told the media and soon the story was in all the papers.
”I got a letter from Sam Ramsamy (the then president of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee) thanking me for my stand, and then a few weeks later, Zola got booted out of the team and the African countries called off their boycott,” says Hare. Budd actually withdrew from the English team a month before the championships for fear of jeopardising the position of her teammates and was later suspended by the IAAF for one year.
Hare admits she was a bit apprehensive about coming to South Africa because of her past involvements, but she was convinced to come by Trevor Richards who was one of the founders of Hart.
”Trevor told me it would be good if I came because maybe I could meet Sam Ramsamy and some of the other people who were involved then. I’ve contacted quite a few people since I arrived, like Kader Asmal (a former member of Sanroc), but I think a lot of them are too busy to meet someone like me just for pleasantries. Sam Ramsamy’s been very good though and I’m going to have breakfast with him. I’m also meeting Father Michael Lapsley for lunch,” says Hare. Lapsley is a former Hart activist who lost an eye and both hands in a letter bomb attack and is now working for a trauma centre in Cape Town.
Ironically, Hare is good friends with several South Africans from her time spent on the American road circuit and two of them, Colleen de Reuck and Simon Morolong, are in the South African teams competing on Saturday.
She is currently enjoying the best phase of her career and is ranked fourth on the United States road running circuit. She has qualified three times for the Olympics this year and hopes to go to Atlanta. But while she doesn’t expect to be challenging for honours on Saturday, she is aiming for a respectable top 30 finish. One gets the feeling, however, that for Anne Hare, just crossing the finish line will be the end of a crusade that will finally bring to a close a very long and eventful chapter in her life.