After the Struggle
What Next for the Anti-Apartheid Movement?
Leadership, 1993
2,200 words
The pickets have gone from the pavement outside the South African Consulate in New
York. The curtain has closed on the chorus of demonstrators comparing the South African government to Nazis. The print shops that thrived on anti-apartheid pamphlets now get their business from expatriate Haitians. Free Mandela T -Shirts are extinct.
The groups dedicated to ending detention and defending political trialists have lost their funding. Anti-apartheid activists who haven't redefined their role have lost their reason to exist. But the rest of the anti-apartheid movement in America has transformed and coalesced to form South Africa's solidarity movement. Their target: "Son of Apartheid -The Legacy."
However, the phasing out of apartheid laws and the plethora of oppressive legislation that propped up institutionalized racism has removed from the world of social activism one of the most powerfully motivating political systems of our time. Like a circus freak, apartheid's grotesqueness was also its biggest draw. In order to keep South Africa's problems in the public eye, old anti-apartheid institutions have had to shift their stance from adversarial -sometimes bitterly hostile - to promotional and even collaborative. They have to swallow hard, sometimes, and then stand on the same platform as the old enemy as they work for the repeal of trade sanctions.
The solidarity movement still has an abundance of American resources. A directory drawn up by the Institute of International Education in June this year counts 249 organizations, including advocacy groups, university bodies, church-connected organizations and public policy bodies, still actively involved in "South Africa-related" activities. The list does not include many American government bodies involved in South Africa, as well as those "democratization forces" that have been galvanized by South Africa's first democratic election in April. Nor does the list include the thousands of individuals, many of them expatriates and academics, who have played a solo role in the American Anti-Apartheid movement over the past three decades.
Whether the body of activists will stay the course is now the question. Many of the warriors who waged battle on the picket lines, often in bitter weather and late at night, have no stomach for the complicated economic strategies that have replaced protest politics. Some have retired. Many have gone back to South Africa. Lindiwe Mabuza, the African National Congress's chief representative in Washington, estimates that the vast majority of its own activist members have now gone home.
But the ranks "in solidarity" have been swelled by people in the mainstream - Americans and South Africans who find the job of reconstruction more palatable than the adversarial necessities of the anti-apartheid movement. Some are apartheid opponents who disagreed with sanctions. Some are people enchanted by the prospect of just "doing something to help" - expatriates who feel compelled to use their skills, contacts and institutions in the cause of the New South Africa.
"Everyone is rushing in to save South Africa," says Bill Johnston, who, running Episcopal Church People for a Free Southern Africa, spent many years heckling the South African government and contradicting its propaganda. What are they saving South Africa from? "Everything," laughs the crusty veteran activist, "every- thing from communism to chaos."
"The core of the old activists is still around," says Jennifer Davis, a South African who, as executive director of the American Committee on Africa, was at the helm of the anti-apartheid struggle for almost 30 years. The American Committee, with TransAfrica and other advocacy groups, spearheaded the sanctions campaign throughout the '80s. By 1991, 30 states, 120 cities and 150 universities had passed sanctions laws against South Africa. Sanctions campaigners bombarded companies with shareholders' resolutions, pickets and boycott campaigns. Davis claims that over $300 billion in private and public funds were barred from investment in US companies operating in South Africa and 200 American companies withdrew their operations from South Africa.
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THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT in the US takes much credit for helping to put an end to apartheid: Today, the test of their motives is the passion with which they work to strike those sanctions down. That is a test that many Americans - especially local and Federal legislators -are proving keen to pass. In response to preparatory briefings from the ANC, an intensive campaign to roll back sanctions was publicly endorsed by an honor-roll of former pro-sanctions lobbyists and launched the day Nelson Mandela made his call for sanctions repeal. With the help of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Washington Office on Africa - an anti-apartheid lobby group that has been guiding United States policy and briefing Congress on South African issues - a Bill calling for lifting of sanctions and promoting socially responsible investment in South Africa was passed by the Senate the same day. There was such momentum that the Bill was passed without a single amendment or word of debate.
But passage was too fast for some. By the time it got to the House of Representatives, the differences between the ANC and American anti-apartheid lobbyists had emerged. Some Americans didn't want sanctions lifted at all until after the elections. However, an amendment was eventually included that denied Federal funds to local. authorities that failed to lift their trade business barriers by October 1995. The most contentious issue was an amendment promoted by the Black Congressional Caucus calling for codes for corporate conduct for US investors in South Africa. The ANC, reversing its previous position, was adamant that US investors should not be inhibited by American-imposed guidelines or penalties.
After a delay of two months, the Bill finally passed the House and the Senate with a code of conduct amendment anyway. It "urged" US investors to consult with "civil society, particularly churches and trade unions, in promoting responsible codes of corporate conduct". "The bill sets the agenda for future action, but there were questions on issues such as foreign aid and access to loans," says Kristin Lee, executive assistant at the Washington Office on Africa. Calls came from South Africa for nullification of all local state and city sanctions with one act of Congress. That move was also opposed by leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus because, beside the fact that a federal dictate would trample on the autonomy of states, it seemed to disdain the particular concerns of the grassroots groups that had taken years to get the sanctions enacted. One activist snapped: "We don't rule by government fiat in this country - we follow the democratic process."
Lifting sanctions one by one is complicated. However, according to a daily status report issued by the South African Embassy, 90 percent of states with sanctions legislation passed laws calling for their repeal within weeks. Sixty sanctions resolutions were rolled back by the end of October. But calling for repeal doesn't get it done. The legislative procedures involve many hearings and debate in various committees before final approval. California, for example, cannot lift sanctions until the legislative session in 1995.
The SA Embassy's daily status report is part of a concerted effort by the South African diplomatic missions to promote repeal of sanctions. Some old-time anti- apartheid campaigners, who still distrust the National Party, have been distressed to now find themselves in common cause with South African diplomats - people who rigorously opposed sanctions. In those constituencies where apartheid-era definitions of good guys and bad guys prevail, appearing to be acting at the behest of the South African government can still be the political kiss of death. When Harry Schwarz, a long-term opponent of the National Party government, was confronted by pickets at a function in Baltimore, he startled the TV reporters by taking one of the "Down with Apartheid" posters and holding it aloft in an act of endorsement. "They were saying no more than I've been saying for 40 years," said the South African ambassador to the US.
South African diplomats say they have encountered no negative response to their sanctions repeal efforts. But their presence has become counter-productive, says Dumisani Kumalo, the South African expatriate whose energy and charm identified him, more than any other individual, with the divestment movement -in the '80s. "Most of the people now working to get sanctions lifted are the same ones who worked to get them in place," he says. "Mr. Divestment" is at it again, criss-crossing the United States, but this time lobbying for the repeal of the business barriers he helped put in place.
In spite of an appeal by the ANC that there be no legislated codes of conduct for US businesses and that the "P"- ...word (penalties) be purged from the whole debate, many local authorities have included in their repea llegislation clauses calling for socially responsible investment, and guidelines for corporate conduct. "There are those in the solidarity movement who no longer regard the ANC as the Oracle, and keep their ears closer to the unions and churches in South Africa," says Kumalo. According to Tom Karis, the American academic, author and expert on black nationalist politics in South Africa, the Pan- Africanist Congress has a strong influence in the solidarity movement in some cities.
The ANC'S announcement that guidelines for corporate conduct should be decided by the new government in South Africa is widely endorsed. However, whether because this is a policy change, or because it has a "mind your own business" tone, it has irritated some lobbyists. "Of course the new government must legislate its own standards for business practices," says Kumalo. "But American churches and unions require a code of conduct for US corporations operating everywhere - not just South Africa. They know from their experience of corporate practices before the civil rights movement, before the Sullivan Code in South Africa and even now, with widespread disregard for environmental standards, that guidelines and monitors are necessary."
The Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility, an ecumenical body which, for years, has hounded US companies that operated in South Africa, is now also promoting socially responsible investment and a code of conduct drawn up by the South African Council of Churches and the South African Catholic Bishops Conference. Donna Katzin, Director of the ICCR'S South Africa Programme, insists that the only difference between American anti-apartheid groups and the ANC on the code issue is "linguistic". "Like the ANC, we don't believe the language of legislation should enforce compliance with any code of conduct. We encourage participation."
The most visible maverick is the Rev Leon Sullivan, author of the Sullivan Code which governed American corporate practices in South Africa until Sullivan called for US businesses to withdraw in 1986. He has startled the pro-investment lobby by asking for a code of conduct that would apply not just to US firms, but to all foreign companies operating in South Africa. Sullivan also wants a "monitoring mechanism" which would report to US stockholders, investors, consumers, states, municipalities and government officials on compliance. Sounding like a neo-sanctions man, he calls for "necessary action" to be taken in the US against any firms with poor compliance records, including refusal of loans and licenses and consumer boycotts.
Daniel O'Flaherty, executive director of the United States-South Africa Business Council warns that saber-rattling about codes and monitoring will dampen the interest of US executives. "There's a limit to how much compliance and supervision is acceptable before you will invest instead in, say, Malaysia or Thailand." !n fact, the number of companies pursuing non-equity links such as licensing or distribution agreements has jumped from 109 in 1987 to 430 last month, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Centre, a Washington-based monitoring organization which kept tabs on investment in South Africa throughout the sanctions era and continues to do so. The IRRC notes that few big companies are rushing to make the kind of investments that create jobs.
The biggest inhibitor, says the ANC'S Lindiwe Mabuza, is the fear of political instability, nurtured by the violence in South Africa. Apart from appeals to the United States to pressure the De Klerk government into taking action to stop the violence and occasionally targeting the role of Paramount Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi in allegedly promoting it, there's little that the solidarity movement here can do besides promote the kind of investment that will further social stability.
MANY South Africa-watchers are awaiting the April 27 election - outcome, turnout and any violence that is attendant - before they commit to investment, social programmes, or philanthropic funding. However, says Davis of the American Committee, while the elections have galvanized many people, the real challenge to the solidarity movement is "the long haul -how to keep the backbone of the anti- apartheid movement strong through the next complicated process". That includes explaining to those who are confused by the ANC'S new realpolitik that the organization’s evolving policies reflect the fact it is now a government-in-waiting, not a liberation movement.
Davis, a South African who has spent 20 years running ACOA, has seen five African governments go through the same transition - Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and now South Africa. “There was a period immediately after independence when the new governments lost connection with their solidarity movements. My concern is that we don't,” says David, “that we remain vigilant on US policies towards South Africa and keep our connections with the grassroots groups that need aid and assistance."
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