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"Budd, Zola"
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Olympic collision : the story of Mary Decker and Zola Budd
\"Dual biography of Mary Decker and Zola Budd and the infamous Olympic incident that binds them together\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Sport, Thatcher and Apartheid Politics: The Zola Budd Affair
On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg bound for Britain. Through the manoeuvrings of the London-based
Daily Mail
newspaper, Budd fled apartheid South Africa for the opportunity to compete on the international stage under the representative colours of Great Britain. To forward his own commercial agenda, Sir David English, chief editor of the
Daily Mail
and a personal friend of the British Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, pressured the Home Office into awarding British citizenship to the 5000-metre world-record holder. This article seeks to examine the Zola Budd affair in four interrelated ways. First, we argue that it should be read within the context of the Thatcher government's pursuit of 'constructive engagement' with South Africa and its concomitant opposition to growing international calls for economic sanctions and firmer cultural boycotts against the country. Second, the Zola Budd affair revealed the growing tensions in the British Conservative Party and among officials within different branches of government regarding engagement with the South African regime. Third, the government's handling of Zola Budd exposed an arbitrary and unfair immigration system that legislated in favour of white migrants from the Old Commonwealth. Under the government's redrawn immigration policies, Zola Budd fitted seamlessly within the racial and cultural image of Thatcher's modern Britain. Finally, this article argues that the Zola Budd affair further aligned anti-apartheid and anti-Thatcher activists who grew to become virtually synonymous with one another during Thatcher's premiership.
Journal Article
