Bophuthatswana

It was on a course carved out by Gary Player for a new resort and casino named Sun City in a stretch of semiarid farmland in the north of his native South Africa, a place with a million-dollar name to boot, Bophuthatswana.

It was Ashe who persuaded John McEnroe to give up a million-dollar offer to play a tennis match in Bophuthatswana, making him the first White superstar to reject South Africa’s sportswashing bribes.

The boycott was designed to prevent musicians from performing at South African venues like Sun City, a hotel and casino located in the nominally independent bantustan of Bophuthatswana, an easy drive from Johannesburg and Pretoria. But the boycott covered all aspects of collaborations with South African musicians, and Simon was warned that he might face censure for working in South Africa.

The government of the Bophuthatswana homeland also refused to participate and resisted reincorporation into a united South Africa.

Though Lucas Mangope, the president of Bophuthatswana, had chosen to keep his homeland out of the election, the tide of events soon altered the situation.