
In 1971 the South African Rugby league team was scheduled to tour Australia and were on their way to Brisbane as part of the tour. But well before that, a movement against the pro-apartheid National Government of South Africa, that had been in power since the end of the second world war.
Protesters gathered outside the Tower Mill Hotel where the South African team was staying, demanding an end to apartheid and an end to the tour, but then Premier Joh Belkie-Peterson moved the game from Ballymore to the Exhibition Grounds, declared a state of emergency that would last a month and brutally cracked down on protesters, including reassigning 600 rural police to quell the protests.
The tour did end up going ahead, but it marked an early point in a campaign of international pressure on the Nationalists and turned a spotlight on the abuses of the Belkie-Peterson Government.
This is the topic of one of the panels at the Brisbane Writers Festival this year, Political Football, the radical history of the Anti-apartheid protests in Brisbane, on the 50th anniversary of the event.
Alexis Pink interviews Anthony Abrahams, former Australian Rugby player and the lead voice in the sport at the time for severing sporting ties with apartheid South Africa.
[Photo courtesy of the Brisbane Writers Festival]

Your 10am Zedlines with Stella, Eden, Sarah and Vivek.

Your 9am Zedlines with Eden, Vivek and Sarah.

Your 8am Zedlines with Stella, Sarah and Vivek.

Your 11AM Zedlines with Lachlan and Hailey

Your 10AM Zedlines with Cass and Georgie.

Your 9AM Zedlines with Lachlan and Hailey.
Image Credit: youngestchild, Flickr

Your 8AM Zedlines with Hailey, Cass, Lachlan and Georgie.
Image credit: Kai Stachowiak

Your 11AM Zedlines with Clementine and Livinia

Your 10AM Zedlines with Clementine and Livinia

Your 9AM Zedlines with Livinia, Mack and Clementine

Your 8AM Zedlines with Clementine and Livinia
IMG: From Wikimedia Under CC3.0

Your 11AM Zedlines with Miko, Niamh and Sarah
Image via Wage Peace

Your 10am Zedlines with Miko, Niamh & Sarah. (IMG: Via Wikimedia Commons)

Your 9AM Zedlines with Sarah, Niamh & Miko. (Image via Ben Pennings)

Your 11AM Zedlines with Charlie and Yuchen (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Your (messy) 10AM Zedlines with Asha, Ava and Dan (Images via Wikimedia Commons)

Your 9AM Zedlines with Charlie and Yuchen (Image via Public Domain Pictures)

Your 8AM Zedlines with Asha, Ava and Dan (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Your 11AM Zedlines with HG, Stella, Sarah, and Eden

Your 10AM Zedlines with Alec, Sarah, Vivek, and Eden

Your 9am Zedlines with Em, Vivek and Stella.

Your 8am Zedlines with Vivek, Em and Alec

Your 11AM Zedlines with Hailey and Georgie

Your 10AM Zedlines with Cass and Lachlan
Image credit: Vera Kratochvil

Your 9AM Zedlines with Cass and Hailey

Your 8AM Zedlines with Lachlan and Georgie.
Image Credit: Foran Lawn & Yard.

Your 11AM Zedlines with Livinia and Clementine

Your 10AM Zedlines with Livinia and Clementine