Anti-Apartheid Movement

From a global perspective, the anti-apartheid movement was one of the most significant social movements during the postwar era. In addition to the South African liberation movements, the transnational anti-apartheid network connected thousands of groups and organizations, including solidarity organizations; unions; women's, youth, and student organizations; and radical churches on all continents. This “movement of movements” lasted for more than three decades, from the late 1950s to 1994, when the first democratic elections in South Africa were held. In this sense, the antiapartheid movement took part in the construction of a global civil society during the Cold War.

The broader global civil society campaign against apartheid was initiated in December 1958 at the All-African People's Conference in Accra, when the South African Congress Alliance made a call for an international boycott of South African goods. The International Confederation of Trade Unions responded to the call in 1959, encouraging all its member organizations to appeal to its members to boycott South African goods, as did the anticolonial Committee of African Organizations in London. At a meeting in Holborn Hall in London in 1959, organized by the Committee of African Organizations and addressed by, among others, Julius Nyerere, then president of the Tanganyika Africa National Union, a boycott committee was formed, and soon it evolved into the independent Boycott Movement, which in 1960 changed its name to the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). In March 1960, the campaign was fueled by the shots in Sharpeville (where South African police killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration), which was reported globally by the media and caused a moral outrage all over the world. In various countries, anti-apartheid protests occurred, demanding that governments and the United Nations put pressure on the South African government to end apartheid. As a “postcolonial capital,” London became a crucial node in the emerging transnational network of South African exile activists, organizations, and activities. Further, two of the most important organizations in the transnational solidarity network had their base in London: the International Defence and Aid Fund and the AAM, the latter becoming a key organization in the context of British new social movements. This early history of the anti-apartheid movement points to the significant role of anticolonial movements in the global South in the construction of transnational and global political cultures emerging with the new social movements from the 1960s onward.

In retrospect, transnational support for the struggle against apartheid in South Africa might appear to have been something uncontroversial in most parts of the world, but it was not an easy affair to sustain such support through the decades. The movement's key issue, to support the liberation movement's call for sanctions, was especially controversial.

In the process of its transnational campaigns, the anti-apartheid movement targeted supranational organizations, like the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the European Union. In the United Nations and the Commonwealth, apartheid presented a dilemma to the leading nations of the Western bloc: On the one hand apartheid, in a profound way, contradicted the values that were the cornerstones of the liberal hegemony of the Western world after World War II. On the other hand, South Africa was regarded as an ally in the Cold War struggle. This led the United States, Britain, and France to publicly condemn apartheid while at the same time blocking sanctions against South Africa in the UN Security Council. As the movement operated simultaneously in the context of different national civil societies and in the context of global civil society, it also made democratic claims that were related both to national and to global publics. The most important strategy in this respect was the consumer boycott. For example, the leading solidarity organization, the British AAM, defined the boycott act as “voting for sanctions” and referred to opinion polls showing an overwhelming popular support for boycotts. In this process, the movement claimed that there was also global popular support for its cause, referring [Page 70]to successful transnational boycott campaigns and petitions. For example, at the Commonwealth meeting in Bahamas in 1985, Abdul Minty of AAM presented a declaration urging for sanctions that was signed by organizations that represented 18 million people.

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