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Phil Williams: Idealism and Apartheid.

Philip Williams reported this story on Sunday, June 30, 2013 07:05:00

ELIZABETH JACKSON: It was four decades ago now, but our Europe correspondent, Philip Williams, was reminded by the focus on Nelson Mandela over the last few weeks of his own heroic struggle against apartheid.

You might wonder what a callow youth in middle class Canberra could add to that battle; let's hear his story.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Forty-two years ago back in 1971, I decided I would make my stand against state-sponsored racism.

The opportunity came with the South African Springbok rugby tour of Australia - a sporting event that became a battleground.

At every game, police and barbed wire kept the demonstrators off the pitch. There were hundreds of arrests and many accusations of police brutality.

We lived in Canberra at the time, and I was 13 - a man in my own mind. Time to take action; look out South Africa.

That July winter's day my father told me specifically I was not allowed to go near the game at Manuka Oval. "Of course not Dad, I wouldn't dream of it."

(Sound of chanting and rioting)

Four hundred police from New South Wales were drafted in to boost the Commonwealth force. A large wire fence was erected around the oval and the chanting began.

CROWD CHANT: Go home, racists! Go home, racists!

PHILIP WILLIAMS: "Go home, racists", hundreds of anti-apartheid protesters shouted, followed by flares and various other objects thrown onto the pitch.

There were dozens of arrests.

While all this was going on, a very nervous year seven schoolboy was preparing to make his activist debut.

My weapon of choice was a whistle, the logic being that if the players couldn't tell whether it was the ref or the riff raff, they would run around in small circles, declare defeat, and pretty soon the whole nasty white government would crumble.

But first, how to smuggle in a whistle when everyone was being searched? In your undies of course - not the most comfortable start, but the revolutionary struggle rarely is.

Safe inside and on the stands, I pulled out my whistle, and yes, gave it a quick wipe with my Narrabundah High jumper and blew as hard as I could.

It felt good so good, for a second at least, until I became aware of a very large presence right behind me - the biggest New South Wales copper the Goulburn academy had ever given a uniform to.

"You blow that one more time and I'll shove that whistle up your arse", he said, and I believed him.

So there I was, exercising my citizen's rights to rail against international injustice - the next five seconds were the longest of my life.

If I don't blow the whistle again, the system will have beaten me and the South African regime won't dissolve.

But if I do, he might make good on his promise, and I might be arrested, and Dad will find out, and then I'll be in real trouble.

You know I chose the heroic path, accepting the system, however cruel to me in the short term, would eventually be beaten.

Actually the truth is that internal battle ended in my total capitulation. The whistle went back in my pocket, the undies option no longer needed as my dirty little secret was all too obvious by now.

And so for the rest of the match I stood frustrated and angry, not with the government in a country I'd never been, or even the "Haystacks" Calhoun-size policeman towering and glowering over me, but my own lack of courage when it came to the crunch.

I learned two things that day: that policemen can be quite rude, and that conviction takes courage and that day, I failed my own test.

I'm sure Nelson Mandela faced his own whistle moments, but he just kept on blowing until the game did stop, the players confused and demoralised, and the government did cave in.

He inspired lesser men and women to rise above their own fears.

Perhaps if I had known his story back, then my whistle may have sounded twice before being relocated in my general being by a member of the New South Wales constabulary, and before my Dad found out and deprived me of pocket money and freedom for several years.

More than likely though, even Nelson Mandela could not have inspired and restored my courage and honour, but that is exactly what he did for millions in his country and who knows how many others across the world.

Courage and inspiration: Nelson Mandela.

I just wish you had been standing with me on that cold July afternoon at Manuka Oval in July 1971.

This is Philip Williams somewhere in the 70s for Correspondents Report.

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