GLOBAL ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT

Extract from a speech at Rutgers University, October 8, 2014

by
E .S. Reddy
Former Director, United Nations Centre against Apartheid

At the end of the Second World War, when the colonial revolution began in Asia and parts of
Africa, mass passive resistance was launched by the Indian community in South Africa against a
law which they denounced as the Ghetto Act. Some Africans, Coloured people and whites
joined in solidarity and went to prison. This led within a few years to the Campaign of Defiance
against Unjust Laws a united mass movement for freedom.

Acting on a complaint by the Government of India about the treatment of Indians in South
Africa, the United Nations General Assembly rejected South Africas contention that racial
discrimination was within its domestic jurisdiction, thereby internationalizing South Africas
racial problem. Committees began to be formed in several countries to support the freedom
movement and in the course of time they developed into a global movement.

I would like to begin by referring to some features of this most significant international
movement of the twentieth century.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement was the most global movement of the twentieth
century. (The movement against the war in Vietnam was equally important but was
limited largely to Western countries). It spread to every corner of the world because not
only anti-apartheid and solidarity movements, but trade unions, churches, organizations
of students, youth and women and many others joined the struggle. The United Nations
used its resources and offices to spread information all over the world and encouraged
those organizations and their activities.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement was one in which participants did not have a personal
interest. They were marching, boycotting and going to jail because they were against a

gross injustice to people in another country. Several musicians and sportsmen rejected
offers of millions of dollars to perform in South Africa, because of their opposition to
apartheid.

This movement was one in which activists acted as allies of many governments
especially African governments and India. The United Nations and the Organization of
African Unity recognized that public opinion and public action were crucial to exert
pressure on the few Western Governments which continued to sustain the apartheid
system.

The ANC gave up strict non-violence in 1961 and decided to resort to armed struggle. It
was an unusual armed struggle which resulted in only a few hundred deaths, compared to
tens of thousands in the small countries of Central America and millions in Vietnam and
Algeria. Pacifist leaders of the world showed understanding and were among the leaders
of the anti-apartheid movement.

This movement lasted some five decades. I cannot think of any similar movement which
lasted so long.

It was perhaps the only movement in which sports boycott played a crucial role in
mobilizing millions of people against racism. Musicians and artists made a significant
contribution.

It was one of the movements in which the activities of students (and members of
faculties) were very significant. They were in the vanguard at various stages. I was
impressed with their imagination and their use of latest technology. I need not tell you
that students at Rutgers, Princeton and other institutions in New Jersey made an
important contribution from the late 1970s.


This movement was, in a sense, an international passive resistance movement in
support of a mass movement in South Africa. Two thousand people went to prison in
New Zealand and five hundred in Australia during boycotts of apartheid sports teams.
Hundreds of people went to prison in Britain and many were injured. In the United
States of America, perhaps five thousand people courted imprisonment in the Free
South Africa movement many of them students.

It was a movement in which one individual in prison, who became a symbol of the
struggle, Nelson Mandela, inspired millions of people around the world and received
numerous awards and honors.

I believe this movement not only helped the South Africans in their struggle, but had a
wider influence. It helped in promoting a greater sensitivity to the problem of race and
color and race and gender and a greater recognition of the responsibility of
corporations for the repercussions of their activities.

Freedom of South Africa marked the end of colonial and racist rule in the whole of Africa. It also
marked the end of a shameful era in world history when the people of Africa were humiliated,
exploited and tortured under slavery and colonialism.