How to get people to care about problems far away, let alone act against them, is a perennial problem for global activism. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement managed to achieve it by refracting the injustices of apartheid South Africa into a highly localised grassroots cause, writes Matt Graham.

The British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), founded in 1959, encouraged people to collectively join the struggle for human rights, equality, and democracy in South Africa. It has been described as “the most widespread and successful non-party political organisation of the twentieth century”.

The UK and South Africa share close political, economic, and cultural links that were shaped by a shared colonial history. The sheer depth of this relationship left almost no part of Britain untouched by political, economic, and cultural connections to apartheid. For example, even Dundee’s Chamber of Commerce sent regular trade missions to South Africa, while representatives of the apartheid government were invited to events organised by the Welsh Arts Council.  As the anti-apartheid struggle gradually evolved, dedicated activists across the UK were able to expose and campaign against these links.

The aim of the AAM was to communicate and frame the injustices of apartheid to the public and to mobilise them into action. Although opposition to apartheid may seem uncontentious today, at times the AAM struggled to challenge entrenched political and economic interests and to change public attitudes. The reluctance of the British government to take decisive action was framed by Cold War concerns and fears over domestic job losses if sanctions were imposed. This was no simple task and one that took commitment, perseverance, and determination. The history of the anti-apartheid struggle in Britain is therefore the story of thousands of ordinary people, who devoted enormous amounts of time and energy to help the cause.

By the 1980s, the AAM was an impactful social movement with a national platform. For more than three decades it launched a range of innovative campaigns, the most recognisable being those against international sports teams visiting South Africa, musicians who toured South Africa, and crucially, multinationals such as Barclays Bank and Shell who continued to do business with the country.

One of the greatest successes of this international solidarity campaign was to promote Nelson Mandela as the embodiment of the struggle in the 1980s. The Free Nelson Mandela campaign provided a powerful symbol that acted as a focal point for resistance. This was epitomised by the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute at Wembley Stadium in 1988, which made him the most famous prisoner in the world. Only a year before, the then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher had called the ANC, which Mandela led, a “typical terrorist organisation”.

The anti-apartheid cause steady emergence into a widespread and popular British movement was backed by the existence of a network of local groups. The AAM encouraged the creation of local groups across Britain to ensure that it could build a nationwide base of supporters, raise greater awareness of apartheid, and enable multiple opportunities for people to participate in acts of solidarity. By 1987, there were 187 local AAM groups, which represented almost every region in Britain.

Perhaps the most significant element of anti-apartheid activism was the sense of individual agency it provided to this international cause. Ordinary people could make small, often very personal choices regarding consumerism or leisure activities, which collectively created a national momentum that did impact South Africa, and its allies. The anti-apartheid campaign enabled people to think globally but act locally. The most common example was the boycott of South African products, or the pickets of local shops organised by AAM groups, and other allied organisations. For instance, activists campaigned against the Scottish-based supermarket William Low’s, and the Exeter group created a local apartheid free shopping guide.

The local experience

The enormous diversity within the AAM and its associated structures has not been properly acknowledged. Individual experiences differed markedly depending on why they had initially engaged with the cause (encompassing humanitarian, moral, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, etc. motivations) and on where they were based. There was not a singular ‘experience’ of anti-apartheid in Britain, despite all being members of the same movement.

A crucial driver behind these differences was that local AAM groups had significant levels of autonomy to implement policies and campaigns devised by the central structures of the movement. The AAM created a nationally approved message to ensure a level of consistency across Britain and coordinated targets for campaigns. But it was up to the local groups to disseminate and act upon these. What transpired was an assortment of activities that could differ significantly from location to location.

The AAM groups were products of their local environment, and they sought to adapt the anti-apartheid message and activities to reflect the communities they operated within. A crucial purpose of the AAM was to identify and campaign against the British connections that existed to the apartheid state no matter what they were. Given the historic ties between Britain and South Africa there was a varied and at times surprising array of political, social and economic relationships to apartheid.

The local groups were an invaluable resource in identifying and devising often highly specific campaigns against local industries, cultural institutions, and sports. There were economic campaigns against North Sea oil companies in Aberdeen, coal mining in South Wales, and car manufacturing in Coventry, in which these industries were used as a way of publicising how they contributed to sustaining the apartheid system, and as a physical site of protests.

Meanwhile, symbolic connections to South Africa were deemed no less worthy of attention. Grassroots actions included the Southport group campaigning against South African representation at their annual flower show, the Monmouthshire group protesting against a male voice choir tour of the country, and the Stratford group objecting to the apartheid flag being flown at the Shakespeare celebrations.

While it is important to emphasise that it was the sustained actions by the people of South Africa that enabled them to achieve freedom, the international solidarity movement certainly contributed to this outcome. The AAM’s structure ensured individual activists who believed apartheid was a moral aberration could take collective action at a grassroots level campaign. Through boycotts, petitions and rallies, they could contribute to a larger international cause.

The AAM was by no means the homogeneous entity it is sometimes presented as. Individuals joined and engaged with this transnational cause, and how the geographic location often shaped the nature of activism. All in the name of one cause, the end of apartheid in South Africa, which was achieved in 1994.

The blog is based on a journal article by the author and Christopher Fevre: International Solidarity at the Grassroots: A Case Study of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Photo credit: Alan Denney used with permission CC BY-NC-SA 2.0