Anti-apartheid Movement Research Articles

“Proceed to some other port where our flag may fly in air that is not tainted with the stench of apartheid” – The intersection between the domestic and international anti-apartheid campaign and American naval visits to South Africa, 1948–1967

The introduction of apartheid in 1948 with its extensive suite of discriminatory laws, had a wide-ranging impact on South Africa’s international relations. Despite an ever-growing global anti-apartheid movement and calls for the country’s total isolation, the country succeeded in maintaining naval relations with several nations. As a result, it frequently hosted shipping crews from Europe and Northern America, mostly on flag-displaying missions. During these visits, non-White sailors were subjected to South Africa’s racial laws and entertained separately from their White counterparts. In following the principle of respecting “local law and custom”, commanders of vessels became willing collaborators in enforcing apartheid. Over two decades (1948–1967), racially-defined events and activities at segregated facilities became a standard feature of these visits. Under the influence of the local and American activists who viewed their civil rights- and anti-apartheid struggle as a common one, all forms of collaboration with the racist regime, were roundly condemned. By 1967, as a result of continuous mobilisation and the use of a diversity of mechanisms, the American anti-apartheid movement in co-operation with their local counterparts, succeeded in, among others, forcing a change in their country’s naval policy and its relations with South Africa. Effectively this led to the termination of American naval flag-display visits to South African ports from 1967-1994.

“Siyahamba”: The Origins and Significance of a South African Chorus

Despite the enduring international popularity of the Zulu Christian chorus “Siyahamba” as a song of protest and praise, South African ethnomusicologists have not yet investigated its origins as well as its cultural and political significance. This article reports the results of an historical study which indicated that the earliest documented performance of the chorus took place in Dundee in the current uMzinyathi district of the former Natal province (now KwaZulu-Natal or KZN), South Africa, in 1952. No earlier publications or handwritten records of its score or lyrics have been found. However, it appears that this musical work has a longer undocumented history, connected to rural Methodist or Pentecostalist communities of the province. It originated in a church environment as a devotional chorus and grew to be closely associated with the anti-apartheid movement after it was adopted by the international campaign against the racist regime from the mid-1980s. “Siyahamba” has been perceived both locally and internationally as a popular song of praise with a strong political significance thanks to the popular songbook Freedom Is Coming by Anders Nyberg, the Swedish-South African composer and choral conductor, who made the earliest known field recording of the chorus, and dozens of influential hymnals that include “Siyahamba”. Chanted at rallies and public events, the historic South African tune continues to encourage campaigners for change worldwide.

Yehuda Shemariah Kaplan

Yehuda Shemariah Kaplan was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. After graduating he spent his early career in South Africa, working in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Boksburg, and Germiston,...

'A last stubborn outpost of a past epoch': The Communist Party of Great Britain, national liberation in Zimbabwe and anti-imperialist solidarity

The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had been involved in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist campaigns since the 1920s and in the late 1950s, its members were instrumental in the founding of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). In the 1960s and 1970s, this extended to support for the national liberation movement in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, the CPGB threw its support behind the Soviet-backed Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), instead of their rival, the Chinese-backed Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). When both groups entered into a short-term military and political alliance in 1976, the Patriotic Front, this posed a possible problem for the Communist Party and the AAM, but publicly these British organisations proclaimed solidarity with newly created PF. However this expression of solidarity and internationalist links quickly untangled after the 1980 elections, which were convincingly won by ZANU-PF and left the CPGB's traditional allies, ZAPU, with a small share of seats in the national parliament. This article explores the contours of the relationship between the CPGB, the broader Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and its links with the organisations in Zimbabwe during the war of national liberation, examining the opportunities and limits presented by this campaign of anti-imperial solidarity.

Celebrity and Protest in the Anti-Apartheid Movement

ABSTRACT This special issue proposes to juxtapose accounts of anti-apartheid protest and solidarity efforts with the field of celebrity studies in order to deepen our understanding of both through their conjunction. As our contributors show, opponents of apartheid in South Africa and beyond were cognisant of the importance of cultivating ties with local and global media, as well as with individuals who enjoyed easy access to the media as a consequence of their “celebrity capital” (Olivier Driessens, “Celebrity Capital: Redefining Celebrity using Field Theory,” Theory and Society 42 (2013)). This introduction to the special issue revisits the notion of “networked celebrity” (F. Turner and C. Larson, “Network Celebrity: Entrepreneurship and the New Public Intellectuals,” Public Culture 27, 1 (75) (2015)) in order to set the stage for the case histories that follow. Rather than considering the actions of individual women and men of renown with respect either to their individual “consecration” as celebrities in Pierre Bourdieu's well-known sense, or their capacity to extract individual benefit from it, the emphasis falls on understanding various manifestations of celebrity culture that take their bearings from the collaborative and decentred nature of the global protest against apartheid. The special issue challenges the individualising emphasis of celebrity studies and its predominantly metropolitan orientation, while offering a new set of perspectives on the transnational dimensions of the global anti-apartheid struggle.

Nelson Mandela’s “Show Trials”: An Analysis of Press Coverage of Mandela’s Court Appearances

ABSTRACT The figure of Nelson Mandela looms large in twentieth-century history. Beloved by celebrities around the globe, critics have noted his unique charisma—referred to as “Madiba magic” —and his ability to enchant audiences. Despite this, there have been few analyses of his construction as a celebrity politician, most likely because of celebrity’s association with frivolity and lack of substance—which sits poorly with our sense of Mandela. There have been particularly few examinations of his portrayal prior to imprisonment, when the seeds of the Mandela myth were sown. This paper examines some of the early press coverage, focusing on Mandela’s “performances” in court. The paper argues that Mandela, helped by others, had a canny ability to pre-empt reactions to his appearance, and worked hard to direct his own image for political purposes. In addition, while Madikizela-Mandela’s role in raising awareness of her husband’s fate is well known, the paper shows how, even at this early stage, Mandela’s prominence and machismo depended on her feminine visibility. Mandela’s famed speech from the dock also founded a new moral tradition of protest and set the stage for his resurrection as the symbol of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Not Merely a Newsworthy Commodity: Jean-Paul Sartre's Engagement in the Struggle Against Apartheid

ABSTRACT Jean-Paul Sartre's renown and intellectual celebrity grew as a function of his engagement in Third World struggles. Sartre's public image as a champion of the oppressed is so entrenched that it might seem self-evident that he played a leading role in the anti-apartheid struggle. However, his actual contribution to the South African struggle appears to be at odds with the way it is inscribed in collective memory. This article examines the incongruity between Sartre's actual involvement in the struggle against apartheid and his enduring image as a champion of the anti-racist struggle in South Africa. Archival research into Sartre's publications, public appearances and travels in France and abroad notes only three occasions on which Sartre made a direct reference to apartheid—the first in June 1963, the second in October 1964 and the third in November 1966. Tracing Sartre's involvement chronologically, the article seeks to map more precisely the nature of Sartre's contribution, commitment and responsibility to the French anti-apartheid movement, to uncover different facets of Sartre as a celebrity and a public intellectual, and to offer a better understanding of the period following the Algerian War in France with regard to Third World struggles.

Anti-Black Violence, Police Brutality, White Supremacy

256 Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Statement of the Feminist Studies Editorial Collective June 3, 2020 Anti-Black Violence, Police Brutality, White Supremacy We collectively represent the oldest journal of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship in the United States. We write this statement in the midst of events that magnify a long history of unceasing anti-Black violence in the United States, and we do so to express our pain, rage, and vigilance. Along with this statement, we make available for open access our most recent articles about Black protest. The mass protests in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, among many, many other African Americans, remind us of the words of Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks: revolt occurred “because it became impossible for [them] to breathe.”1 The current uprisings are part of a long history of Black resistance and liberation movements—the Haitian revolution, Black Power and the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Apartheid movement —that have inspired other freedom movements around the world. But they are also distinct because of their roots in the Movement for Black Lives, which was founded and organized by queer Black women to create a world that values Black life and centers Black joy. This movement affirms the work and intellectual labor of Black women and queer, 1. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, new ed., trans. Charles Lam Markmann (1952; London: Pluto, 2008), 176.  257 trans, and disabled people who use feminist and queer pedagogies to critique hierarchical organizations and charismatic leaders. The uprisings take place in the third month of a COVID-19 pandemic that has devastated Black lives. The healthcare system has long failed Black people, but especially so under an administration determined to gut the Affordable Care Act. Low-paid healthcare workers, janitors, domestic workers, transportation workers, and those working in the gig economy have been forced to work without proper personal protective equipment, belying the notion that they are “essential” workers. Racial capitalism has rendered vast numbers of people disposable through staggering layoffs . The US state’s failure in the domains of health and economic protection stands in especially stark contrast to its spectacularly militarist crackdowns on protesters using tear gas, rubber bullets, and low-flying army helicopters. The Trump administration’s necropolitics are on full display: it has determined who will live and who will die by enacting violence in the name of preserving law and order and by pursuing neglect and austerity measures that have so far contributed to the deaths of approximately 200,000 people and a deadly economic collapse. As uprisings continue and cities burn across the country and popular media and conservative portrayals decry violence toward property, we reiterate our commitment to challenge violence against people— structural and physical—and the environments they inhabit. We recognize that racialized narratives shape the violence and note how, when white bodies instigate violence, it is often overlooked. We acknowledge and condemn the hardships that property damage causes to those who are economically struggling. But we refuse to be distracted from the key principle: the non-negotiable value of Black lives, minds, and bodies. As we collectively grieve specific lives lost, we also know there are countless others whose names we will never hear. The unrest we see is the culmination of years of terror visited upon Black people of all kinds. The death of Black men at the hands of the police has now provoked a series of protests, but until the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, we had never seen such large-scale protests over the death of a Black woman. And we see over and over again that queer and trans people such as Tony McDade who die at the hands of the police are not grieved publicly, their humanity not seen. We salute projects such as #SayHerName and #BlackTransLivesMatter that have raised awareness of the depth of state violence against all Black people. 258 We recognize the bravery of those who protest white supremacy and stand in solidarity with them—amid a deadly pandemic, people are putting their lives at risk for this principle. Their demands for change...

Occupational reconstructions: resources for social transformation in challenging times

Occupational reconstructions: resources for social transformation in challenging times

The ‘Casserole’ Constitution: The South African Constitution and International Law

The transition from authoritarianism and apartheid to constitutional democracy in South Africa came at the end of a decades long global struggle to end apartheid. Arguably the global anti-apartheid movement was the most significant human rights movement of the late 20th century. Louis B. Sohn and Henry Richardson, both eminent international law scholars, have noted how the struggle against apartheid influenced and impacted the development of international law, especially then evolving international principles aimed at eliminating racism and apartheid. Indeed, with the passage of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in 1973, apartheid was declared a crime against humanity. In this essay I reflect on the impact and the role of international law in the drafting of the South African constitution as well as in the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. I also address the challenges of incorporating international human rights law into the constitutional project, and in particular the possibilities for generating a vigorous democracy and wide respect for human rights through such incorporation. The central question that I raise is whether universality as a value, norm or consensus, as reflected as part of the international law corpus, is sufficient to impel compliance, especially at the local level.

‘Wij waren nette mensen, wij gooiden geen stenen’

Abstract ‘We were fine people; we did not throw stones.’ Debates in the early Dutch anti-apartheid movement about solidarity with violent resistance to apartheid in South-Africa In 1956 the first Dutch anti-apartheid movement, the Comité Zuid-Afrika (CZA), was found. Following the example of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, the CZA modelled itself as a politically representative moderate movement that was based on solidarity with the oppressed black population in South-Africa. As this article shows, the meaning of this solidarity became fiercely contested within the movement after the African National Congress (ANC) shifted from non-violent action towards armed resistance in the wake of the Sharpeville bloodbath in 1960. Following David Featherstone’s conceptualization of solidarity as a ‘relationship’ that is not a static given, this research shows that solidarity was constantly being contested and redefined in debates between individual members of the CZA. Within the movement many feared that solidarity, once declared, was by definition unconditional. The CZA eventually defined its relationship of solidarity with the ANC as support for non-violent resistance only. Its successor, the Anti-ApartheidsBeweging Nederland (AABN), which like other international anti-apartheid movements in the early 1970s was led by younger and more ideological activists, defined solidarity as unconditional. This different understanding of solidarity made this second generation of anti-apartheid activists participants in the violent resistance against apartheid.

“We Are Worried Mothers:” A Panel of “Ordinary South Africans” on US Capitol Hill

ABSTRACT In 1986, a “panel of ordinary South Africans” addressed members of the US Congress. Their visit did not command as much attention as would the visit of (future president) Nelson Mandela in 1990 or as did (former prime minister) Jan Smuts in 1930. Yet, for an increasing number of Americans watching closely, it represented a momentous public rebuttal to apartheid. The visit responded to ongoing celebrity protests and built public support for sanctions. While many Americans instigating “designer arrests” believed that they spoke for South Africans, in 1986, physicians, activists, and children who had faced detention spoke for themselves on foreign soil, becoming embroiled in attendant tension and harassment on their way home. An examination of the records of the Southern Africa Project and the US Congress reveals that, while the embassy protests were catalytic, this panel of “ordinary South Africans” on the Hill—and, subsequently, on national and international television—provided public faces for anti-apartheid movements in ways that celebrities certainly could not. As such, it is necessary to examine the factors leading to the panel, its impact on US anti-apartheid politics, and places of connection with youth activism and celebrity protest generally.

Violence for a Good Cause? The Role of Violent Tactics in West German Solidarity Campaigns for Better Working and Living Conditions in the Global South in the 1980s

AbstractTaking up Frank Trentmann's suggestion of ‘widening the historical frame’ in which we analyse the fair trade movement, this article explores the entangled history of violent and peaceful tactics in two transnational solidarity campaigns in West Germany the 1980s: the German anti-Apartheid movement and a campaign for women workers in a South Korean garment factory. Both campaigns had the aim to improve the living and working conditions of producers in the Global South and were characterised by a complex interplay of peaceful and militant tactics ranging from boycott calls to arson attacks and bombings. Although more research into the impact of violent protest is needed, the two case studies suggest that the use of violent protest tactics can contribute towards the success of protest movements if it attracts considerable media attention, the targeted companies face significant social and political pressure and the cumulative disruption costs clearly exceed the concession costs.

“Trevor is ‘News’”: Celebrity as Protest in the Early Anti-Apartheid Struggle, 1948–1960

ABSTRACT Celebrity culture was a crucial, though unrecognised, component of the early anti-apartheid struggle. Between 1948 and the foundation of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) in Britain in 1960, activists discovered celebrity to be a valuable political tool. The strategic use of celebrity secured media coverage, mobilised support for the struggle, and built a transnational network of activists and collaborative institutions. By analysing celebrity as a tool of protest in the pre-Sharpeville era, this article will illuminate its centrality in the future “war of representation” between South African authorities and global anti-apartheid protest. I focus on British Anglican priest and anti-apartheid activist Trevor Huddleston who reached international fame in the early 1950s as a leader of the moral crusade against apartheid. The South African state increased its offensive on Huddleston as his reputation grew, leading to his recall to England in late 1955. The Huddleston affair instructed both sides about the promises and perils of the use of celebrity in the global war over public opinion. I argue that this standoff was a precursor of the 1970s campaign of propaganda and disinformation that the South African government launched to counter anti-apartheid movements in the West.

Black Power in the Boardroom: Corporate America, the Sullivan Principles, and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle

This article traces the history of General Motors’ first black director, Leon Sullivan, and his involvement with the Sullivan Principles, a corporate code of conduct for U.S. companies doing business in Apartheid South Africa. Building on and furthering the postwar civil rights and anti-colonial struggles, the international anti-apartheid movement brought together students, union workers, and religious leaders in an effort to draw attention to the horrors of Apartheid in South Africa. Whereas many left-leaning activists advocated sanctions and divestment, others, Sullivan among them, helped lead the way in drafting an alternative strategy for American business, one focused on corporate-sponsored black empowerment. Moving beyond both narrow criticisms of Sullivan as a “sellout” and corporate propaganda touting the benefits of the Sullivan Principles, this work draws on corporate and “movement” records to reveal the complex negotiations between white and black executives as they worked to situate themselves in relation to anti-racist movements in the Unites States and South Africa. In doing so, it furthermore reveals the links between modern corporate social responsibility and the fight for Black Power within the corporation.

South Africa’s Journey from Socialism to Human Rights: The True Confessions of an Errant Socialist

Abstract This article explores the possibilities and pitfalls of various methods of human rights advocacy in post-apartheid South Africa. It does so through following the personal journey of the author, first as a socialist in the anti-apartheid movement and later as a leading human rights activist in some of the most successful civil society organizations to emerge in the post-apartheid period. The journey begins in the pre-constitutional period in 1994 (the year South Africa had its first democratic election) and continues through to 2019. It examines the evolution of human rights practice, particularly in relation to access to treatment for HIV/AIDS and the realization of socioeconomic rights to health care services and basic education. It measures its achievements against the discourse of socialists, particularly their critique of using law, the courts and human rights in the quest for equality. It shows how South Africa has a long tradition of human rights activism that stretches back to the colonial and apartheid periods. However, making human rights justiciable in South Africa’s 1996 Constitution was a game-changer that has enabled tangible victories to be achieved through a combination of litigation and social mobilization. Despite this the author believes that this period of advance may now be reaching its limits and he argues that human rights practice now needs a much deeper consideration of its command over matters of economy and private (corporate) power if it is to retain its credibility in twenty-first century struggles for equality and social justice. The article ends with some suggestions about how this can be done.

‘Scottish Exceptionalism?’ Trade Unions and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1976–1994

Since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, historians have begun to explore the role played by the various Anti-Apartheid Movements (AAM) that developed globally in the latter half of the 20th century, although much more work remains to be done. While scholars have begun to explore the history of anti-apartheid opposition in Britain, there has not yet been any systematic study of this within a Scottish context. Such an omission overlooks the fact that activists in Scotland took the decision in 1976 to form the Scottish Committee of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (SAAM), thereby charting their own path within the global struggle to end apartheid. In addressing the question of ‘Scottish exceptionalism’, this article argues for the development of a distinctly Scottish scholarship pertaining to the history of anti-apartheid activism in Britain. It adopts a case-study approach, examining trade union involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle and asking whether this was uniform across Britain. Through a comparative analysis of the responses of both the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), it is argued that, in terms of its support for the liberation movements within South Africa and the AAM in Britain and Scotland, the STUC was, for much of the second half of the 20th century, significantly more forthcoming than its southern counterpart in the cause of anti-apartheid.

Boycotts and Revolution

Abstract This article explores the debates in Canada over the call for Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid South Africa, and demonstrates how the African National Congress (ANC) became a significant reference point for both supporters and critics of the anti-apartheid movement. Through close engagement with Canadian civil society, the ANC built its status as the exclusive voice of South Africans, a position that allowed it to influence the movement’s demands, including its support for armed struggle. Friends of South Africa, unable or unwilling to defend apartheid itself, instead focused their efforts on demonizing and delegitimizing the ANC as terrorists and agents of the Soviet Union—but this failed to significantly damage the reputation of the ANC or weaken the call for boycotts. This article is based on extensive new archival research from sources including the Canadian Mission of the ANC and the Canadian-South African Society (an affiliate of the South Africa Foundation).

Writing from Johannesburg: Nadine Gordimer in the global anti-apartheid movement

ABSTRACTThis article examines how Nadine Gordimer navigated the political exigencies of being an anti-apartheid writer in Johannesburg as the multiracial literary world of the 1950s was destroyed. In the 1950s, her fiction introduced Johannesburg’s counterculture to a global audience, leading to invitations to provide an inside perspective on apartheid. The global witness role that she assumed grew more awkward as she grew more isolated at home, pushing her toward the central commitment of her political life: advancing the freedom of South African writers and readers, by speaking out against censorship and advocating for a national literature that transcended apartheid’s constraints. Drawing upon her archives at the University of the Witwatersrand and Indiana University, this article examines how Gordimer’s life in Johannesburg in an era of exile both made her career possible and made her politics awkward to enact and to write about, as her position made political purity impossible.

남아프리카의 비폭력 평화운동과 근대 일본 · 한국의 과제 : 사티아그라하(Satyagraha) 사상과 운동을 중심으로

There exist common points in the ideology of resistance against colonial rule from the middle of the 19SUPth/SUP Century to the 20SUPth/SUP Century. The first is the recognition that Ego-Centrism is at the core of the European Modernity, in which the others, namely, the colonized, are always deprived of their humanity. The second is the presentation of an alternative Modernity based on indigenous cultures and religions as a protest against colonial occupation, and in this Modernity, ‘immanent (inherent) God’ and ‘transcendental (external) God’ as ‘the others’ are dialectically unified. The third is that this kind of Modernity is related with non-discrimination between oneself and others, and with interconnectedness. In this thinking, there exists a direction for peace-building in a symbiotic society through changing the way of thinking of enemies by non-violence and disobedience. It is generated by religious spirituality.BR In this respect, it is possible to call it ‘Indigenous Modernity’ or ‘Spiritual Modernity’ (Jo Sung Hwan, Ph.D) that could go beyond ‘European Modernity.’ BR We can find this kind of Indigenous Modernity in the thinking of the Satyagraha Movement that was led by Gandhi in South Africa. Through this movement, Indian laborers and Free-Indians united together, regardless of the difference of their religions, and they generated the possibility to build a symbiotic society in multi-racial South Africa and generated the foundation for the Anti-Apartheid Movement, as well as forcing the colonialist Europeans to recognize their human rights.BR In London and Natal, South Africa, Gandhi learned that there existed Ego-Centrism in the European Modernity and it was the basis of their material richness, and ultimately, in order to protect the richness they were doomed to suppress the Non-Europeans. They feared Non-Europeans could become ‘civilized people.’ Gandhi thought that the struggle against oppression had to be based on the liberation from Ego-Centrism, and the struggle was to be generated from the Non-Violence inherent in Satya (Truth). Gandhi found that God immanent (inherent) in everyone and transcendental God are dialectically unified, and through the calling of Spirituality everyone can be active without any Ego-Centrism and thus can stand on the starting point of building a symbiotic society.BR By analyzing the Satyagraha Movement, we can find not only the ideological basis for building the Non-Racial Peace Society in South Africa, but also find similarities with the Dong-Hak Movement (東学運動) and Tanaka Shozo’s thought based on Non-Violence.