Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!keith
From: keith@whuxl.UUCP (TITUS)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Gay Games II & South African participation
Message-ID: <991@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 11:16:18 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.991
Posted: Thu Feb 13 11:16:18 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 01:44:08 EST
References: <1690@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 60

Ron Rizzo writes:

> I've read that despite an original assurance that South African players
> would not be invited (because of the all-white makeup of South African
> teams and the longstanding international boycott in athletics), the
> organizers of Gay Games II have accepted an all-white South African
> contingent to the Games.  
> 
> Does anybody out in the Bay area know what kinds of pressure/protest
> are being brought to bear on the organizers, and if they're likely to
> revoke South Africa's invitation?
> 
> I ask because I'm thinking about attending the games, and maybe even
> participating in squash racquets (I don't remember whether the Bay
> area, in exception to the rest of the West, has squash courts).
> 
> I don't think everyone should cancel their participation without waiting
> a decent interval to see if the decision can be revoked (the Games are
> scheduled for this summer).  Mainstream athletics has many other
> international sporting events besides the Olympics.  Gay Games is the
> only international gay sporting event I know of, and the only national
> one besides the Gay Rodeo (though gay outdoors clubs now have an
> international organization, IGLOO).  On the other hand, athletic
> apartheid practiced by gay South Africans is inexcusable, however
> difficult the situation of even white gays may be in South Africa.
> If the Gay Games II organizers don't revoke their decision, I think
> everyone should boycott the Games.  I will.
> 
> 

While I have been a avid reader and sometimes poster to this net, I must
disagree with Ron on this article.  The curse of politics has cast a shadow
on the 1980 and 1984 Olympic games and I would hope the gay community is 
not that small minded as to exclude anyone based upon a policy that is set
by their government and that they have little control over.  

If we think we have it bad in this country, just imagine how suppressed the
gay life is in South Africa.  I had done some reading on the subject and 
it appeared that their's was not an easy lot.  Most, if not all the gay clubs
and culture is in the major cities, ie. Johannesburg, CapeTown, Durban,
Pretoria, where blacks and coloureds are not even allowed to be at night
whether they were gay or not.  In that light, how would there be a large
interaction of the two races to socialize in the first place.  It is a 
government sponsored policy of separation of the races.  Even in this
country, it was not official until 1965 that a law proclaimed it illegal
to discriminate on the basis of race or colour.  And socially, whether
we want to believe it or not, the invisible practice of dicrimination
goes on, even though it is not government sanctioned.  

I do not condone apartheid, and I do not condone communism.  However, I 
would not exclude athletes from East Germany, the Soviet Union, Hungary,
etc... from participating in a sporting event.  Just because the government
sponsors something I do not agree with is no reason for me to write 
off the people of its country.  We as gays, have a hard enough time
dealing with our own situations, lets not make it worse.

Keith Titus
Bell Laboratories, Whippany, NJ