New Approaches to High Apartheid and Anti-Apartheid

Abstract

This contribution draws together comments made by the author to several recent conferences on the era of `high' apartheid in South Africa. It addresses the rise of the anti-movement in Europe and elsewhere, arguing that anti-apartheid should be seen not only as a transnational movement but also as a series of discrete local struggles with distinctly national features. Specifically, it argues that 'anti-apartheid' bore different connotations in Britain, Western Europe, north America and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. In drawing attention to the power of language, the article suggests the need to distinguish between 'anti-apartheid', 'pro-apartheid' and 'anti-anti-apartheid'. The article also highlights some of the exceptional features of high apartheid as an ideology of modernisation.