Abstract
The transnational anti-apartheid movement was heavily motivated by the postwar emphasis on human rights and decolonisation, and challenged by Cold War politics and economic interests. The aim of this article is to examine Iceland’s involvement in the anti-apartheid struggles with focus on the establishment of the unified anti-apartheid movement SAGA (Suður-Afríkusamtökin gegn apartheid), its organisation and activities. What were the motives of SAGA’s activists and their subjective experiences? The political background in Iceland is outlined as well as a historical overview of anti-apartheid activities including Iceland’s voting on resolutions against apartheid at UN and adoptions of sanctions against the South African regime. Iceland’s involvement in the antiapartheid struggle was contradictory. During two periods Iceland voted for more radical UN resolutions than did other Western countries, including the Nordic ones. Yet, Iceland adopted sanctions against the South African regime later than the neighbours and the same applies to the establishment of a unified anti-apartheid movement. The branding of the African National Congress (ANC) as communists allowed many to ignore the human right breaches of the South African regime. Most of the activists belonged to left-wing groups or the labour movement, and the relative absence of religious organisations and the Students’ Council of the University of Iceland is notable. Embedded in the transnational anti-apartheid network with particular ways of organisation and mobilisation, the activists became emotionally engaged and worked for a moral cause.
Highlights
During the past decades, the study of social movements has thrived in terms of quantity, scope of inquiry and transformations in theoretical approaches
This article aims to compensate for Sellström’s dismissal of Iceland as relevant for research on the Nordic countries contribution to the liberation of Southern Africa. It describes Iceland’s involvement in the global anti-apartheid struggles with focus on United Nations (UN) voting, adoptions of sanctions against the South African regime and establishment of a unified anti-apartheid movement in Iceland its organisation and activities
It explores in some details the anti-apartheid activists; their actions, motivations and personal engagement
Summary
The study of social movements has thrived in terms of quantity, scope of inquiry and transformations in theoretical approaches. Influenced by social phenomenology and symbolic interactionism greater attention is given to individual activists, their agency, engagement, disengagement, and subjective experiences, and studies that focus on the construction of meaning and the role of emotions in social movements have flourished (Jasper 2011). These have been criticised for their dismissal of politics or for treating political ideology as a by-product of mobilisation
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