The Campaign that Brought Down a Powerful Government
The South African anti-apartheid movement generated an enduring legacy that led to a global justice orientated civil society. This article looks at how that legacy has endured today.
Civil society has been unable to deal with the climate crisis, rising conflict and the unassailable consolidation of neoliberalism. But the South Africa anti-apartheid campaign achieved a major historical success in contributing to the dismantling of apartheid. Can civil society today learn from that campaign?
Background
The anti-apartheid movement (AAM) emerged during the post-war era, following the election of the National Party in 1948, which then brought in the laws that enabled the system of apartheid in South Africa and the full segregation of whites and blacks, that was effectively a form of white supremacy. It wasn’t long before events in SA caught the attention of activists around the world, particularly in the UK, during an era that was symbolic of the ‘end of Empire’ and where countries, particularly in Africa, were seeking independence from former colonial powers. This was the backdrop that the AAM emerged from.
A paper from the Journal of Southern African Studies charts the emergence of the AAM in the UK. Spearheading the movement in SA was the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), influenced by Gandhi’s independence movement in India. During the 1950s, protests against the regime began to build. This was against a backdrop of a continued clampdown and increased repression by the authorities. However two actions demonstrated how effective boycotting can be.
In the towns of Evaton and Alexandra, residents walked to destinations or used the less efficient rail service instead of buses as a protest against rising fares. After a year, the bus company relented, ‘withdrew the fare increases, agreed to build bus shelters and to run buses to a timetable drawn up in consultation with residents.’ This campaign was grassroots focused and driven mainly by local residents. The effectiveness of the boycott action wasn't lost on the ANC. Despite increased clampdowns by the Government, the ANC agreed to expand its boycott campaign in 1958, with the international community in its sights. Crucially, the US began making promising noises about the apartheid regime:
In October 1958, the US reversed its policy of abstaining on UN resolutions about South Africa and voted for an expression of `regret and concern’ that South Africa had not modified its racial policy.
In protest of having to use passes, the ANC launched an ‘anti-pass’ boycott on Africa day on the 26 June 1959, taking the form of ‘a `Day of Denial’ by not buying anything in the shops and not going to the cinema or to beerhalls.’ A further protest was planned for 21 March 1960. This would involve people going to the police without passes and offering themselves up for arrest. Pushing this was an offshoot of the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). There was acute awareness that such a protest could result in bloodshed. Indeed it was this protest that would change the whole direction of the anti-apartheid campaign.
In the UK, there was reluctance to condemn South Africa (a Conservative Government was in power at the time). The nation was part of the Commonwealth, with important political and business links. But during the 1950s, campaign groups were emerging. It was also a period when former colonial citizens were coming to the UK to find a better life. Three issues captured the mood of the day and became linked to the campaign:
the anti-colonial struggle; peace and nuclear disarmament; and opposition to endemic and growing racism in Britain. By the end of the 1950s, Africa had become a central issue in British politics.
Various groups were already engaged in the campaign. One of those was the Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF), ‘formed in 1954 as a merger of the British branch of the Congress against Imperialism with committees campaigning on Central Africa, Kenya, British Guiana and Bechuanaland’ (now Botswana). There was also a push to get the Labour Party involved in the campaign as well as trade unions. One tactic that emerged from this was the decision of some unions to sell shares in South African companies, a process now commonly referred to as divestment. Also playing a prominent role was the UK Communist Party, despite anti-Communist sentiments during this period.
Students in universities around the country became an important influence in the campaign, with many academics also coming on board. In Scotland, where support had been strong throughout:
the Scottish Union of Students protested to the South African authorities at every stage of the apartheid education Bill’s progress through the South African Parliament. On the day of the Bill’s re-introduction in May 1959, students throughout Scotland wore black armbands and at Glasgow University a fund was launched to help South African students.
A vital contribution to the campaign were South Africans who came to the UK, some of which were students. Emerging from these interactions along with UK sympathisers was the establishment of the South African Freedom Association (SAFA) in 1957. As the decade drew to a close, the influx of South Africans increased. With some prominent members of the African Congress settling in the UK, the momentum was building towards a renewed boycott initiative. 26 June 1959 was a pivotal moment in the campaign. After that the campaign began to expand to the extent that it was becoming overstretched. The campaign needed to shift gear into a new phase.
By the end of the year the campaign had gained some political support, with some elements in Labour coming in in favour, especially after the Party’s defeat in the October general election. Student bodies were coming on board with the Oxbridge universities getting behind the campaign.
Finally at a meeting on 29 December, the committee that had been running the campaign called themselves the Boycott Movement Committee for the first time. One of the first moves was the decision to set up local branches around the country. March 1960 was also set up as a national boycott month. The BMC held its first major conference on 17 January 1960. One of the speakers at the event was Tony Benn:
the breadth of support for the boycott made it `the most remarkable political demonstration for many years’.
This followed on from a formal call from South Africa for an international boycott in November 1959.
Early 1960 became a highly productive period for the campaign as the grassroots extended into a successful national campaign that laid the foundations of what was to follow. Importantly, Labour controlled local authorities came onboard. As thousands of people around the country engaged with March’s boycott demonstrations, gaining a lot of publicity in the process, with its main aim ‘to raise people’s awareness of apartheid and to give them a way of taking action against it.’
A key contributor to the campaign was the peace movement. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) used its considerable resources to push the campaign. At the same time, Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was addressing the South African Government. In a speech in Cape Town he proclaimed:
`I deprecate attempts which are being made in Britain today to organise a consumer boycott of South African goods.’
This effectively consolidated the UK Governments support of apartheid. However there were divisions within the Party. As the month drew to a close, the question was, could the campaign maintain its momentum? That question would be answered by an event that horrified the world and shook the campaign to its core.
The Sharpeville Massacre
Although it was agreed that the campaign would continue beyond the boycott month, what happened in Sharpeville would change the dynamic of the campaign. It led to the Group calling itself the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
On the morning of 21 March 1960, an anti pass protest organised by the PAC marched towards the police station in Sharpeville to give themselves up for arrest for refusing to carry passes. At the police station a scuffle broke out. That was the trigger for what happened next:
According to the police, protesters began to stone them and, without any warning, one of the policemen on the top of an armoured car panicked and opened fire. His colleagues followed suit and opened fire. The firing lasted for approximately two minutes, leaving 69 people dead and, according to the official inquest, 180 people seriously wounded. The policemen were apparently jittery after a recent event in Durban where nine policemen were shot.
Unlike elsewhere on the East Rand where police used baton when charging at resisters, the police at Sharpeville used live ammunition. Eyewitness accounts attest to the fact that the people were given no warning to disperse. Eyewitness accounts and evidence later led to an official inquiry which attested to the fact that large number of people were shot in the back as they were fleeing the scene. The presence of armoured vehicles and air force fighter jets overhead also pointed to unnecessary provocation, especially as the crowd was unarmed and determined to stage a non-violent protest.
In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published its findings on the massacre (pp. 531–540). The conclusion was:
The commission finds that the police deliberately opened fire on an unarmed crowd that had gathered peacefully at Sharpville on 21 march 1960 to protest against the pass laws. The commission finds further that the SAP failed to give the crowd an order to disperse before they began firing and that they continued to fire upon the fleeing crowd, resulting in hundreds of people being shot in the back. As a result of the excessive force used, sixty-nine people were killed and more than 300 injured. The commission finds further that the police failed to facilitate access to medical and/or other assistance to those who were wounded immediately after the march.
The commission finds that many of the participants in the march were apolitical, women and unarmed, and had attended the march because they were opposed to the pass laws. The commission finds, therefore, that many of the people fired upon and injured in the march were not politicised members of any political party, but merely persons opposed to carrying a pass.
The commission finds that many of those injured in the march were placed under police guard in hospital as if they were convicted criminals and, upon release from hospital, were detained for long periods in prison before being formally charged. In the majority of instances when persons so detained appeared in court, the charges were withdrawn.
The commission finds the former state and the minister of police directly responsible for the commission of gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people. Police failed to give an order to disperse and/or adequate time to disperse, relied on live ammunition rather than alternative methods of crowd dispersal and fired in a sustained manner into the back of the crowd, resulting in the death of sixty-nine people and the injury of more than 300.
Unfortunately Sharpeville would not be an isolated incident as further atrocities would be committed during apartheid’s 35 year history.
A Global Civil Society
A paper published in the Journal of Civil Society charts The Emergence of a Global Civil Society: The Case of Anti-Apartheid. Author Håkan Thörn (Göteborg University) outlines the theme of transnational social movements, and that:
the emergence of the transnational anti-apartheid movement which, from a global perspective, must be seen as one of the most significant social movements during the post-war era.
This it is argued was the first movement that would be akin to a form of civil society coming together on a global scale and was effectively ‘part of the construction of a global civil society during the Cold War.’ Two oganisations would be pivotal in developing the transnational solidarity network, the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and the British AAM.
The term ‘transnational’ is important in emphasising the global perspective of the movement. It links in with increased globalisation during the post-war era that allowed for the mobilisation of a global civil society. This linked into the concurrent expansion of economic, political and cultural processes that we see today. As Thörn notes:
while the emergence of the anti-apartheid movement was part of a process of political globalization from below, it developed through constant interaction with the process of political globalization from above, and is manifested in the increasing number of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and institutions during the post-war era.
The UN is cited as an important player in this respect. NGOs have also become prominent players during the post-war era, especially after the end of the cold war:
As the number and activity of NGOs has continued to increase after the end of the Cold War, direct relations between NGOs/INGOs and the UN has continued to become increasingly direct. Enhanced cooperation with NGOs has also been a central issue in the attempts to reform the UN made by UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, who in 1999 wrote:
In the United Nations a few decades ago, the Governments of Member States were virtually the sole players in the international process; non-governmental organisations were seen as mere supporters and mobilisers of public opinion in favour of the goals and values of the UN Charter. Today, the cultural gap between NGOs and the UN is rapidly and happily disappearing . . . NGOs are often on the ground before the international community gives the UN a mandate to act.
But:
The apartheid issue does, however, also underline the ambiguity of the UN as a central institution of global politics, as well as the fact that its structure is defined by the fact that it was constructed during the Cold War era. As an international organization, the UN often reflects and confirms the power hierarchy of the inter-state system. In the Security Council, dominant state powers can block decisions if they contradict their basic national interest, as was the case several times with the issue of effective sanctions against South Africa. However, relatively independent UN organizations, such as the Special Committee Against Apartheid, also provides space for transnational social movements opposing globally dominant state powers. The case of anti-apartheid thus shows that the UN might be perceived as a space of intersection for the processes of globalization from above and below.
These are crucial points and very relevant to another campaign modelled on the AAM (see below).
The AAM itself was a loose and initially disjointed collective, a ‘movement of movements’, which eventually evolved into a more cohesive movement based on a ‘collective identification’. This revolved around the notion of an ‘imagined community’ through which a collective identity could be realised. This concept was developed by Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. In the book, Anderson argues that nationalism is socially constructed through education, media and politics, initially through newspapers then mass media, which psychologically influences the masses. As such, he believes that nationalism was invented during the modern era and that national histories and traditions are imagined.
The movement coalesced through the emergence of social movement organizations. These were both local and international and resulted in the transnational solidarity network that underpinned the AAM. The media is a vital component of any social movement. Thörn points to the distinction of three types of media interaction (John B. Thompson):
face-to-face interaction, which takes place in a context of co-presence,
mediated interaction, which involves communication across distance, through the use of a technical medium (letters, telephone, internet) and
mediated quasi-interaction, which refers to modern mass media, and is characterized by the fact that it is “produced for an indefinite range of potential recipients” and could be defined as “monological”.
He outlines the importance of face-to-face interaction in bringing the global AAM together:
travel was crucial both for the transnational coordination and the social integration of the everyday activities occurring world-wide.
This also involved exiles travelling from South Africa, settling in Britain, bringing information and experience with them, ‘Thus, face-to-face interaction with ‘distant others’ was an integral part of sustained global anti-apartheid activism.’ This pulls in the concept of ‘information politics,’ defined as:
the ability to quickly and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it have the most impact.
These issues will be explored further below.
The AAM also became a cultural movement. This was expressed by individuals wearing T-shirts, badges etc, iconic representations of the movement.
Thörn refers to ‘life politics’, which he defines as:
expressing a new relation between individual and collective political action, emerging in contemporary society, and depending largely on communication through the media.
This concept is explored in Anthony Giddens’ book, Modernity and Self-Identity Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Referring to the role of new social movements he notes:
`Life politics' -- concerned with human self-actualisation, both on the level of the individual and collectively -- emerges from the shadow which `emancipatory politics' has cast.
Giddens distinguishes between emancipatory politics and life politics:
Emancipatory politics:
The freeing of social life from the fixities of tradition and custom.
The reduction or elimination of exploitation, inequality or oppression. Concerned with the divisive distribution of power/resources.
Obeys imperatives suggested by the ethics of justice, equality and participation.
Life politics:
Political decisions flowing from freedom of choice and generative power (power as transformative capacity).
The creation of morally justifiable forms of life that will promote self-actualisation in the context of global interdependence.
Develops ethics concerning the issue `how should we live?' in a post-traditional order and against the backdrop of existential questions.
Giddens goes on to use the example of feminism by outlining the emancipation of women within a patriarchal society, making the transition from traditional housewife and mother:
For in liberating themselves from the home, and from domesticity, women were faced with a closed-off social environment. Women's identities were defined so closely in terms of the home and the family that they `stepped outside' into social settings in which the only available identities were those offered by male stereotypes.
This process of emancipation has largely been achieved. Women can now successfully engage with ‘life politics’ (not withstanding of course a degree of misogyny that still hovers in the background), due to feminist social movements, which in their own right has contributed to rise of wider movements such as the AAM.
This all becomes a part of increasing globalisation. An important component of this is the expression of the individual as a consumer, especially in the conscious decision to boycott South African products. This was exemplified following media coverage of the Sharpeville massacre, which highlighted the presence of the AAM. Yet another aspect was links to apparently unrelated movements such as the anti-nuclear movement, which shared similar cultural elements. This was vital to the movements collective identity, as Thörn puts it:
It was an act through which the individual subject could feel that s/he became part of an imagined global community of solidarity activists. In this sense, the boycott was a form of ‘identification at a distance’ through local action. From this point of view the boycott also emotionally connected grass-roots activists in different parts of the world.
Underpinning the integrity of the AAM was the concept of solidarity, generally defined as a ‘national society’. Here it was ‘interaction at a distance, across national borders’, implying a world society and not just a national affinity. Thörn’s research also revealed intriguing views on other social entities:
With a few exceptions, activists immediately responded to my question by making a distinction between solidarity and charity, the latter of which they associated with a relation of inequality, and with a religious (Christian) rather than a political understanding of social relations. In contrast, ‘solidarity’ was defined as implying a value of social equality and a political analysis of the conditions which created a need for solidarity.
Tying into solidarity and the collective identity and how the movement should express itself are the paradoxical concepts of universalism and particularism. This paper defines the two conflicting entities:
A universalist conception implies an attempt to “find ways of transcending cultural differences to achieve some universal principles—principles binding on all under all or most circumstances,” and asks, “how can we as a community, made up of diverse individuals and groups, find a way to transcend those differences in order to reach a consensus on some matters of common human welfare?” A particularist point of view, on the other hand, means “a respectful interest in the values and ways of life of different cultural and ideological groups and a commitment to taking those interests seriously.”
It was this dichotomy that managed to bind the AAM together. Indeed the whole movement appeared to be a confluence of disparate elements that engaged in both national and international campaigns, ‘making borders of nation states and national identities increasingly porous’. The legacy of ‘post-coloniality’ was an ever-present aura during the post war period.
Its influence on movements today is significant. The current global justice movement, or ‘anti-globalization movement’ shows many similarities. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is modelled on the AAM.
This raises important issues. Another vital component in civil society is the environmental movement, which is predominatly viewed as a separate entity. Yet environmentalism and social justice are inextricably linked. A paper published in Globalization and Health, The critical intersection of environmental and social justice: a commentary, cites the basic point that:
The forces that have contributed to and continue to perpetuate the devastation of the biosphere are the very ones that have caused deep harm to and stark inequities among humans. These crises are mutually reinforcing consequences of the same flawed systems.
It underpins the historical context of colonialism, white supremacy and the consolidation of an elitist power nexus through rampant neoliberalism. This ‘necessarily requires oppression of the masses’ and the overriding assumption that everyone else is inferior. The result is a cultural composition whereby “progress” has led to:
improved health, longevity, and quality of life for an estimated 20–30% of the global population at the systematic expense of the rest.
This has resulted in the unfolding climate crisis and social injustice. Attempts to deal with the problem are effectively part of the problem:
proposed technoscientific “solutions” to the climate crisis are commodified and profitable, further marginalizing those without capital.
Through sophisticated propaganda indoctrination, consumerism has become deeply embed within the psyche, perpetuating:
myths of infinite growth, “sustainable” development, consumerism and technoscientific progress as an avenue to happiness and evidence of success.
Such manipulation has been shown under laboratory conditions through the work of Pavlov, who initially demonstrated how dogs could be conditioned to respond to certain stimuli. His research has contributed to behavioural theory, which has shown similar responses in humans. Indeed Pavlov’s research informed the work of Edward Bernays, the ‘father of public relations,' combining the worlds of psychology/psychoanalysis and behaviorism.
The paper notes how gross domestic product has become the key measure of progress, but points out how this entrenches the system to the detriment of future generations.
Utilitarianism theory is explored. But this fails to take account of the limits of resources that would allow the many to enjoy the fruits of the few. It’s simply unsustainable - good intentions ‘do not necessarily align with maximizing overall good’. This:
raises the challenge of how much capacity an individual in a higher-income setting has to opt out of a system that encourages behaviours that may increase happiness for some at the expense of others.
As such:
Given that those with privilege have been indoctrinated with the idea that wealth concentration and consumption is the key to happiness, despite ample evidence to the contrary, this may be a hard concept to sell.
The paper sums up:
The willingness to challenge existing systems and to center justice will require tremendous humility and spirit of collaboration.
Lets explore further the issues raised above. Firstly, the paper makes reference to a paper that considers a Social Connection Model of responsibility ‘that considers the role and responsibility of both individuals and systems.’ This critique of the paper, Iris Marion Young’s “Social Connection Model” of Responsibility: Clarifying the Meaning of Connection, attempts to clarify the underpinning concepts. Essentially it revolves around people taking responsibility for global injustices, defined as ‘structural injustice.’ This is linked to a ‘liability model’ on which an actor is responsible for some act of wrongdoing. It is argued that:
The social connection model generates a different kind of responsibility than the liability model. It is different from moral responsibility, which would blame individuals for their causal contribution to injustice. It is also different from remedial responsibility, which would prompt individuals to compensate those who are harmed by the structures. Instead, political responsibility is a responsibility without blame to collectively transform the background structural injustice within which we live our lives.
Young uses sweatshop labour as a case study to develop her theories. This is used to expand the idea of ‘dependent connection’, revolving around multiple connections, whereby we all have connections to people who made our clothes, the food we eat, the transport we use - and so on. In theory we all have invisible links in some form or another with thousands of people around the world. So, do we have an ethical responsibility towards any of those people, e.g. those making our clothes in sweatshops? Put simply:
Every mundane and negligible thing that an individual does every day, from turning on the light to drinking water, to watching TV or using a computer, is dependent on the efforts of thousands of other people.
The situation is complex. Workers are being exploited because they need jobs and have no other choice. They depend on western consumers for their wages. If the products were boycotted this may have an adverse impact on their livelihoods. This is a simplified account as there will no doubt be other dynamics at play. But the point is, should we be ethically aware of the situation? The paper argues that:
it is not mere dependency on others that generates political responsibility, but dependency on their exploitation. My being able to purchase cheap clothing does not signal merely that I am dependent on sweatshop laborers, but that I am dependent upon them being exploited.
It is further argued that such exploitation follows a race, gender and class trajectory, resulting in the ‘perpetuation of unjust distributions of resources but also to status inequality’. So, although we may not be aware of the exploitation and are not responsible for it, we still have political responsibility, even if we are ‘objectively constrained by the structures’.
And what about the millions of poor, do we have any responsibility towards them? As such, ‘some argue that it preferable to exploit people than to neglect them’. It is further argued that we depend on the marginalisation of the ‘bottom billion’ in order to maintain our affluence, jobs etc. But as noted, Political responsibility is firstly:
a responsibility toward structures. It is a responsibility to ensure that the structures in which we act are just, not a direct responsibility for the well-being of particular others.
Second, recall that all individuals connected to structural injustice are politically responsible for it. This undermines the claim that it is dependency on the oppression of others that is the relevant form of connection because the oppressed are not dependent on their own oppression, yet they still bear political responsibility for it.
The level of political responsibility that one has depends on their position in the global hierarchy. Some, depending on privilege or status will have a greater responsibility. This also links into the idea of ‘causal connection’. Conceptually this means that something remains in a steady state until some effect alters that state. Here it would be human intervention.
A useful analogy is explored. If a lit cigarette is dropped, is that the cause of a fire? Or is it the presence of oxygen and the pervading dryness? As is explained:
We cite the cause of the fire as the dropping of the lit cigarette because the agent displayed culpable negligence—that is the attributive cause because it was faulty. This implies that the agent had some control over this behavior. By contrast, the presence of oxygen and the dryness of the building are explanatory causal factors or mere conditions.
As such:
The social connection model of responsibility, by contrast, relates to the “mere conditions”—the background conditions that constitute structural injustice.
The social connection model, then, does not seek the attributive cause of a particular effect; rather, it seeks to assign responsibility to all agents involved in creating the background conditions.
In the case of sweatshop labour, consumers are the oxygen or dryness of the building. According to Young, social structures are:
“the accumulated outcomes of the actions of masses of individuals enacting their own projects, often uncoordinated with many others. The combination of actions affects the conditions of the actions of others, often producing outcomes not intended by any of the participating agents”.
Through this, structural injustice is ‘reproduced’, e.g. if I purchase clothes from a shop linked to sweatshops, the practice already exists, but by buying the clothes, the practice is reproduced. In a competitive marketplace, the need for fast-fashion becomes instilled and conditioned into habitual behaviour. Self awareness can generate a shift:
When we are conscious that these conditions are human-made and continually reproduced through our actions, we can work together toward changing them.
Much of this is abstract, but it does have a underlying bearing on the nature of activism. As the paper sums up:
The concept of political responsibility classifies a way of relating to structural injustice, which is to reproduce unjust background conditions through acceptable actions. An individual may not contribute in any significant way to the background structure, but simply by acting within it the individual is reproducing those structures. This generates a political responsibility to struggle against these unjust structures, which recognizes that all agents connected to structural injustice, in the sense that they reproduce the injustice through their actions, share a forward-looking responsibility to work together solidaristically to try to change the structures.
And it is that concept that underpinned the AAM. Another paper, Responsibility in a Global Context: Climate Change, Complexity, and the “Social Connection Model of Responsibility,” explores the concept within an environmental framework. It’s argued that assigning responsibility for causing climate change is complex. Who is responsible then? Or what is responsible?
Advancing technological ‘progress’ has put enormous pressure on planetary resources, requiring immense reserves of power to function. It is argued that ‘technology has become a matter of moral concern.’ Its use has unintended consequences that has previously been beyond our perceptions. It is therefore difficult to attribute responsibility to a process that has been developing since the industrial revolution.
If an individual drives a car, are they responsible for climate change? Or do we attribute responsibility to the car salesperson or the fossil fuel company selling the petrol to power the car? The paper notes:
climate change is the consequence of many individual acts, none of which are obviously wrong, so that, first, apparently innocent acts (such as driving a car) can have devastating consequences. Second, causes and harms cannot be clearly isolated but are quite diffuse. Climate change is a global phenomenon, insensitive to where the emissions that contribute to it take their source. Furthermore, there is no direct relation between the location of emissions and the place where their effects occur. So, third, causes and harms may be remote in space and time.
The question then is how we relate to climate change and accept some degree of responsibility for it? The first argument is that there should be a collective responsibility. In essence, as individuals we are part of a system that emits GHGs. Rich people are responsible for much higher emissions than poor people. It is argued then that a collective responsibility exists at the political level, that it’s here that action should be taken, that:
The nation-state organization is at an appropriate level to act against climate change. It is strategically situated between the international level, where global meetings (such as the successive climate change conferences) are held and agreements are reached, and the local level where people are acting, producing, consuming, traveling, and so on.
In the case of driving a car, if policies endorse an efficient and effective public transport system, that would mitigate the effects produced from private transport. But even here it’s not so so simple. As the paper notes:
states are entangled in conflicts of interest which often make them not up to the task, so that citizens still have to press them to do their duty. …Citizens are certainly required to obey the law, but they also have to change their behaviors and lifestyles. This a matter of personal involvement and collective commitment, which calls for a conception of individual responsibility.
It’s argued that the Social Connection Model can provide a framework for apportioning blame in a legal context, but less so in a wider collective context, ‘where solidarity with the victims is considered more important than coming after the culprit’. Nevertheless it still serves to ‘associate responsibility not with individual wrongdoings, but with social situations in which “some harms come to people as a result of structural social injustice”’. The sweatshop example is again used to explain the complexity of the global system and the indirect relationships relative to this, but everyone is still connected in one form or another. There is also a strong connection here with environmental issues, relatively speaking, as ‘environmental problems raise social justice issues’. As such:
We should apply to environmental problems the distinction made by Young between harms caused by deviations from the norm or the law… and harms which are the outcome of a structural social process as is mostly the case with climate change, which results from an economic system based on fossil fuel consumption.
The paper sums up:
Between individuals and the state, individuals gather in collectives that try to change structural processes by adopting and promoting new lifestyles. This is the politics of civil society associations. And such politics is not limited by national boundaries. Today, civil society is global. Global social mobilizations can grow in a network fashion, independent of central states.
The social connection model of responsibility therefore provides an account of political, forward-looking, collective, civil actions and mobilizations in a global world. Environmental issues and harms are transboundary phenomena which, as such, are to be addressed through a global network.
We now come back full circle to South Africa. Mounting a successful campaign requires an understanding of the concepts underpinning the structures that such campaigns seek to challenge. The above papers provide a conceptual and philosophical insight. Whether it’s environmental, human rights or whatever, there’s a common thread.
Of course the most important tool for any movement is ‘getting the message out’. A key characteristic of the AAM was being able to utilise the media structures of the day.
The Media Landscape
Another paper from Thörn, Social Movements, the Media and the Emergence of a Global Public Sphere: From Anti-Apartheid to Global Justice, analyses the development and implementation of communication strategies used by the anti-apartheid movement. The key concepts addressed are ‘globalization’, ‘social movements’, ‘global public sphere’ and ‘global civil society,’ as well as relating to the formation of a counter-public and how this underpinned campaign strategies (a ‘counter-public’ is an alternative culture or social space to the mainstream). He defines a social movement as:
a form of collective action that articulates a social conflict and ultimately aims at transforming a social order; it is a process of action and interaction involving as a fundamental element the construction of a collective identity, or a sense of community, of ‘us’, sharing a set of values and norms, and ‘others’, i.e. antagonistic actors, or ‘enemies’. Empirically, a social movement can have national, international, transnational or global dimensions, depending on the territoriality of its different forms of collective actions.
Thörn goes on to outline the emergence of a new media space, where TV and the growth of the tabloid press created a platform for globalised media output. Running parallel to this was the emergence of new social movements, who’s ‘identities were defined in anti-establishment terms’ creating ‘alternative political cultures’. The rise of these movements ‘contributed to the emergence of a new global political space’. A core aspect of these movements was the ability to generate communication strategies to ‘quickly and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it has the most impact’.
It wasn’t until the early 1970s that a coherent media strategy began to emerge. It was the ANC that pushed the initiative, establishing the Department of Information and Publicity in London. The ANC set up an international broadcast network of anti-apartheid radio programmes, with financial support from the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid. These broadcasts became known as Radio Freedom. By 1977, the South African Government became acutely aware of just how successful the AAM was becoming and the threat it posed:
In 1977, the annual report of the South African Department of Information stated:
‘When the General Assembly of the UN proclaimed on December 14 last that 1978 was going to be the International Anti-Apartheid Year, it brought to a climax the worst period of anti-South African publicity and hostility in the country’s history’. (Quoted in Sanders, 2000: 63)
The movement employed two key media strategies:
Engaging with global corporate media outlets
The development of an alternative media approach
The former involved direct contact with journalists and the staging of public events to attract media attention. The latter used dedicated information channels; News bulletins, magazines and films and videos. Essentially:
The ultimate aim of the second main strategy was to create an independent platform, an alternative public sphere that would make it possible to address publics directly, thus freeing the movement from any dependence on global media industries. However, it nevertheless became closely interrelated with the first strategy: as anti-apartheid activists early in the process of the struggle realized, building up archives of well-researched information material and photographs created an important base for attracting established media.
It also became a cultural base through the use of posters, T-shirts, books, concerts etc. Creating this sphere of global awareness evolved over the duration of the campaign and became increasingly refined. Playing a vital role right from the beginning was the IDAF, which was established in 1956 by Canon L John Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral. Collins was highly influential, initially working directly with people such as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.
The IDAF played a vital role in representing political prisoners and funding their defence, using well established legal teams. Working with the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, the IDAF managed to secure international funding from sympathetic nations, especially Sweden, which made several donations over the years. With the inevitable banning of the organisation in South Africa in 1966, much of its work was conducted covertly, with security top priority as the South African Government mobilised a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign agianst the IDAF. This was especially true during the 1980s, when the AAC became more intense.
In 1990, as apartheid drew to a close, the IDAF wound up it operations, bringing the organisation to a close. A letter from Oliver Tambo to the UN Trust Fund for South Africa, written shortly after the IDAF was banned, summed up the invaluable role played by the IDAF over the years:
‘In the many years of persecution which our people have known, the Defence and Aid Fund has been a pillar of strength for them, not only because it openly and boldly proclaimed its opposition to apartheid and missed no opportunity in exposing its evils, using the testimony of the victims themselves. It continued to do this despite the sustained campaign of vile and vicious smearing and slander, initiated by the South African government and intended to alienate the support the Fund enjoyed from governments, influential bodies and leading personalities. The aim of the [smear] campaign was to deprive the victims of apartheid of one of the most effective channels of international support, while repressive measures were being intensified to break the morale and spirit of resistance of our people. With the international campaign against the Defence and Aid Fund failing to yield the desired results, the South African government banned South African Defence and Aid Fund, and used this fact to step up its attack on the International Defence and Aid Fund, claiming falsely that this fund is illegal”¦. We have been heartened to by the decision of the International Defence and Aid Fund to continue, as it is continuing to channel funds for the legal defence and aid for our persecuted people, despite the ban on the South African Defence and Aid Fund.’
A cultural campaign was a vital component of the AA struggle, in what Thörn describes as a ‘‘dramaturgical approach’ to public communication.’ An example of this was an event staged in Trafalgar Square in London on the 10th anniversary of Sharpville in 1970:
The spectator first saw a gathering of South Africans (many of them exiles). Then, a number of men dressed in South African police uniforms appeared, aiming at the protesters with guns; and to the sound of recorded gunshots the protesters fell to the ground.
The stunt generated considerable media coverage, not just in the UK but globally. In the 1980s, the cultural boycott became more prolific, with a wider musical dynamic through rock concerts and other forms of cultural expression, with media engagement becoming more sophisticated, helping to raise the profile of the movement.
The AAM would leave a legacy in the form of a Global Justice movement. Many former activists from the AAM would go on to influence this movement. A key component of this was the emergence of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Brazil in 2001, effectively a counter-public to the overt neoliberalism represented by the World Economic Forum.
The internet was just beginning to emerge as the apartheid regime ended. This would eventually take media interaction to a new level. However this would have certain ramifications for global civil society movements. This is because today’s internet is a different beast from the network that was around at the turn of the century. In short, the internet has become just as corporatised as the mainstream. As such, the media ecosystem is completely different from that that existed during apartheid. It is much more challenging for civil society now to create a counter-public. A report from the Transnational Institute (TNI) touches on these issues.
The problem with the internet is governance. In short, the US corporate/political nexus runs the internet. This goes back to its beginnings when, in the 1960s, early communications systems were developed by the US Government for military purposes. These early systems became more sophisticated, becoming local area networks that eventually migrated into US academia. Eventually the world wide web was developed and that’s when the problems started:
various concerned organisations led by the Internet Society, a US-based non-profit organisation of individuals and private companies supplying Internet-related goods and services, facilitated a process that resulted in recommendations that would have led to an internationalisation of the management of Internet domain names and addresses. However, the US government unilaterally rejected those recommendations and in 1998 proposed the creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
As a result, the internet is now controlled by transnational corporations, who ‘largely escape any supervision by national authorities.’ This leads to domination by the few. In other words the internet is becoming increasingly monopolised, with a focus on marketing. What this means is that so-called free services offered online are data collection portals that use personal data for targeting advertising. As the report puts it:
those services are actually methods for extracting profits from users who do not realise that their personal information is valuable.
The internet then has consolidated the digital expansion of neoliberalism. That means in effect that:
current governance arrangements are about maintaining the geo-political and geo-economic dominance of the present incumbents, that is, of the US and its powerful private companies. This creates a vicious circle in which the US uses its existing economic and political power to maintain and promote its own vision of Internet governance in various forums.
Monitoring the internet is the Internet Society Foundation. Unfortunately its calls for an open and democratic internet will likely be continued to be ignored as long as its corporate capture continues. What started off as a democratic space for everyone has now become congested. Social media was seen as the ideal campaign medium. But with the ever encroaching ‘tyranny of algorithms’, the space to maneuver on social media and indeed the wider internet is becoming ever more constrained. But change is in the air as more people are becoming aware of the limitations. The appearance of independent media outlets and alternative social media are starting to make their mark. But this raises a question regarding the future of an effective civil society. Has activism today been relegated to the status of ‘keyboard warriors’?
There are signs of change though. Organisations such as Extinction Rebellion, after unimpressive beginnings, are adopting new tactics - particularity from spin-off groups from the organisation. These appear to have been influenced by the actions of another group, campaigning on what could be described as the new anti-apartheid campaign against Israel. Palestine Action have been making impressive inroads into a highly effective form of civil disobedience. This is something that will be intensively covered in a forthcoming series of articles on Israel.
To wrap up, there can be little doubt that the South African AAM blazed a trail over its 30-odd year history. The BDS movement against Israel is largely modelled on that campaign. But as we’ll see, that particular movement faces many more challenges and obstacles. There are also of course lessons for environmentalists to take home as well. If this article can shed a light, then I have done my part as a ‘keyboard warrior’!
NB: The documentary series Have You Heard From Johannesburg? is well worth watching (screened in the UK as ‘the world against apartheid’).
In the new year I will be publishing my first article on Israel, that covers the history of the Occupation. Look out for Israel Past & Present — A Post Settler-Colonial Apartheid State - Part 1, coming your way.