Kathy Devine wrote this report after her trip to South African in 1995, in which she met with people with whom she worked in the movement to free South Africa, including some workers at U.S. companies such as Caterpillar. She reviews the strong resistance to the apartheid government and the increased repression and media blackout. The Mass Democratic Movement used such tactics as school, sanitation and rent strikes (rent was paid to the regime), and most importantly sanctions. The basic theory was that if you make the economic system collapse and make whites PAY for apartheid, they would eventually let it go. Outside South Africa, South African whites could not participate in sports and...
Kathy Devine wrote this report after her trip to South African in 1995, in which she met with people with whom she worked in the movement to free South Africa, including some workers at U.S. companies such as Caterpillar. She reviews the strong resistance to the apartheid government and the increased repression and media blackout. The Mass Democratic Movement used such tactics as school, sanitation and rent strikes (rent was paid to the regime), and most importantly sanctions. The basic theory was that if you make the economic system collapse and make whites PAY for apartheid, they would eventually let it go. Outside South Africa, South African whites could not participate in sports and musicians could not play; banks could not exchange currencies; and multinational corporations started to pull out. In multiple ways, millions of Americans helped bring about a free South Africa. Impassioned advocates included Rev. Martin Luther King, Arthur Ashe, UAW President Owen Bieber, Mineworkers President Richard Trumka and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President Bill Lucy. Devine reports that, in South Africa, she also sought to learn about the status of the revolution there. Illiteracy and land rights are still major challenges. She speaks of the need to fight racism and exploitation of workers in "our own backyards" in the United States and also that these are international issues. People engaged in this struggle in the United States can continue to learn from people in South Africa. [Devine was co-coordinator of the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid, which ceased to exist in May 1994.]
