Introduction: Anti-Apartheid in Global History (original) (raw)
Related papers
Solidarity Across Borders: The Transnational Anti-Apartheid Movement
This paper focuses on what from a global perspective must be seen as one of the most significant social movements during the post-war era: the transnational anti-apartheid movement. This movement lasted for more than three decades, from late 1950s to 1994, had a presence on all continents, and can be seen to be part of the construction of a global political culture during the Cold War. The paper argues that the history of the anti-apartheid struggle provides an important historical case for the analysis of present-day global politics—especially in so far thatmovement organizations, action forms, and networks that were formed and developed in the anti-apartheid struggle are present in the contemporary context of the mobilization of a global civil society in relation to neoliberal globalization and supra-national political institutions such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank.
Solidarity Across Borders: The Transnational Anti Apartheid Movement”, Voluntas 17
2006
This paper focuses on what from a global perspective must be seen as one of the most significant social movements during the post-war era: the transnational anti-apartheid movement. This movement lasted for more than three decades, from late 1950s to 1994, had a presence on all continents, and can be seen to be part of the construction of a global political culture during the Cold War. The paper argues that the history of the anti-apartheid struggle provides an important historical case for the analysis of present-day global politicsespecially in so far that movement organizations, action forms, and networks that were formed and developed in the anti-apartheid struggle are present in the contemporary context of the mobilization of a global civil society in relation to neoliberal globalization and supra-national political institutions such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank.
2015
This paper seeks to explore numerous local cases of resistance in South Africa and their connection to global social inequality. The paper links historical and current localized resistance movements to a greater global struggle referred to as “global apartheid.” It shows that similar struggles are ongoing all over the “developing” world, where sentiments of social justice are present, creating a “counter globalization” movement tied to the struggle against global apartheid. This paper also speculates on the overall effectiveness of the notion of global apartheid and its associated movements, and the complications associated with using this term.
The External Struggle against Apartheid: New Perspectives
Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 2016
Stevens reviews Ryan Irwin’s Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order (2012) and Rob Skinner’s The Foundations of Anti-Apartheid: Liberal Humanitarians and Transnational Activists in Britain and the United States, c. 1919–64 (2010), two of the first published studies from an emerging stream of more detached and critical scholarship on the global anti-apartheid movement. The review essay addresses the questions of periodization, strategy, ideology, and the kinds of actors on which scholars focus, highlighting the ways in which these books advance the study of the external struggle against apartheid and the avenues for future research that they suggest.
The Emergence of a Global Civil Society: The Case of Anti-Apartheid
This article argues that 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, made an important contribution to the emergence and consolidation of a global civil society during this period. The transnational anti-apartheid movement lasted for more than three decades, from the late 1950s to 1994, when the first democratic elections in South Africa were held, and it had a presence on all continents. In this sense, the interactions of the anti-apartheid movement were part of the construction of a global political culture during the Cold War. Further, I argue that the history of the anti-apartheid struggle provides an important historical case for the analysis of present-day global politics, as it is evident that the present mobilization of a global civil society in relation to economic globalization and supranational political institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, has historical links to the post-war, transnational political culture of which the anti-apartheid movement formed an important part. Movement organizations, action forms and networks that were formed and developed in the anti-apartheid struggle are present in this contemporary context, making the transnational anti-apartheid movement an important historical resource for contemporary global civil society.
The Meaning(s) of Solidarity: Narratives of Anti- Apartheid Activism
The global anti-apartheid movement mobilised millions of people who took part in boycotts and demonstrations. Despite the significance of the anti-apartheid movement, actual research on its nature as a transnational movement has been meagre. Most research on the anti-apartheid movement has focused on its national aspects, looking, for example, at the Australian, American, British or South African anti-apartheid movements. In this article, I argue that the most crucial aspect of this movement was its construction of transnational networks and forms of action. The central dimensions of the action forms and identification processes of the anti-apartheid struggle are analysed; historical continuities as well as discontinuities are investigated; and the movement is related to relevant political and historical contexts. The analysis is based on historical documents and interviews with 52 activists in four countries, and intends to make a contribution to the interrelated theoretical debates on (a) the relations between ‘new’ and ‘old’ social movements, and (b) transnational activist networks and social movements in a globalising world.
The Globalization of Apartheid
2006
Inequality is intrinsic to the functioning of the modern economy at all levels from the global to the local. The rich and poor are separated physically, kept apart in areas that differ greatly in their standards of living. It is impossible to prevent movement between the two areas in any absolute sense, since the rich need the poor to perform certain tasks for them on the spot (especially personal services and dirty work of all kinds). But movement of this sort is severely restricted, by the use of formal administrative procedures (state law) or by a variety of informal institutions based on cultural prejudice. Systems of classification perform this task for us, of which racism is the prototype and still the single most important means of inclusion and exclusion in our world. There is a great lie at the heart of modern politics. We live in self-proclaimed democracies where all are equally free; and we are committed to these principles on a universal basis. Yet we must justify granting some people inferior rights; otherwise functional economic inequalities would be threatened. This double-think is enshrined at the heart of the modern nation-state. Nationalism is racism without the pretension to being as systematic or global. The neo-liberal conservatives who have dominated world society for several decades had as their principal aim dismantling the social democratic institutions (welfare states) that arose in the mid-twentieth century to protect national workers and their families. This was accompanied by engineering consistent downward pressure on wages through the threat of exporting capital to cheaper countries or importing cheap labour, latterly from eastern Europe. The result in the rich countries is racist xenophobia exacerbated by job insecurity and rising levels of poverty at home. This is the immediate context for the globalization of apartheid as a social principle. And it is echoed in increased security measures aimed at regulating movement in the name of the ‘war on terror’. More than two centuries ago, Kant argued for the ‘cosmopolitan right’ of free movement everywhere. Our world seems to be the opposite of that now. But, sooner or later, economic and political crisis will force a reconsideration of the principles organizing world society. Movement is predicated on some things staying as they are. We need to feel at home, so we build up durable attachments in particular places. Place and movement across distance are contradictory, in that they are hard to combine in practice. Obviously, if virtual movement (communications) can substitute for real movement, this dilemma would be reduced, The digital revolution in communications brings the world closer to each of us and it makes society at distance possible without disturbing our commitments to particular places. This machine revolution bears comparison in human history with the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Indeed our task is to understand the relationship between the two revolutions. The exchange of commodities (markets) and cultural communication (language) are converging. It is now possible to imagine machines as instruments of human freedom rather than the opposite, to be a means of feeling more at home in the world, What is needed is a new free trade movement seeking to dismantle the institutions of national privilege and insisting on movement as a human right. Only then will the better off see any reason to engage with the world outside their fortified enclaves. The world belongs to all human beings and each of us has a right to move in it as we wish. A modified Keynesian programme for the world economy might be one step in that direction, redistributing purchasing power to the impoverished masses. Global capital will only be checked effectively when popular forces are able to mobilize freely. First, however, the world is already seeing a move towards national and regional trade protection. This move is bound to be resisted by the forces of neoliberal globalization – the transnational corporations and countries committed to production for export – with war on an unpredictable scale the likely outcome. Presentation for the first Rethinking Economies workshop ‘Unequal development: the globalization of apartheid’, Goldsmiths College London, 24th March 2006: organized by Catherine Alexander.
This article focuses on the anti-apartheid movement, perhaps the most highly transnationally integrated social movement during the post-war era, and compares it with the contemporary movement for global justice. The article specifically analyses strategies of public communication; the formation of ‘alternative media’ and a movement ‘counterpublic’ with global reach. The major questions addressed in the article are: What were the main strategies of public Communication of the anti-apartheid movement – and what was their impact? How did the counterpublic(s) of anti-apartheid relate to the established media dominating the global public sphere? What are the implications of the case of anti-apartheid for contemporary research and theorising on transnational/global public spheres and counterpublics? What are the similarities and differences between the anti-apartheid movement and the global justice movement regarding strategies of public communication? Theoretically, it raises the question about the concept of ‘society’ and its empirical referent in the context of increasing globalization. It is argued that in the context of social movement studies, there is a need to develop a conceptual framework around the concept of ‘global civil society’.
A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that ‘another world is possible’. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and academic practice in postapartheid South Africa, where community-based movements have emerged primarily in order to access basic services. In particular, it highlights the pivotal role that the state and poor people’s immediate basic needs play in limiting social movements’ contribution towards a transformative development agenda. Paying close attention to poor people’s struggles and needs, the paper argues that there is a sharp disjuncture between the ideologies manufactured by academics, and the worldviews that the working class and poor possess. It concludes by providing insight into the possibilities for post-apartheid political struggles – praxis – to lead to the formation of class consciousness and to a formidable challenge to neoliberalism.