Dutch post-war history and the anti-apartheid movement

(1960 - 1990)

Background of the Dutch - South African relations

• Dutch East India Company and the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck (1652)

• Dutch colonisation of the Cape province• Anglo-Boer wars (1880 - 1881 and 1899

- 1902)• Dutch sympathy for the Boer - Paul

Kruger

21 March 1960 the Sharpeville massacre

(SA Police killed 69 black South Africans during a protest)

The Netherlands in the 1960s

• Reconstruction of society after WW-II• Pillarization• Cold war and Dutch Atlantic focus• Youth protest - against Vietnam but also

against authorities and bourgeois lifestyle

Anti-apartheid in the 1960s

• South Africa Committee• Anti-communism• Blood ties with the Boer• The changes in the Dutch protestant churches• Civil rights movement in the US• Honorary doctorate for Martin Luther King

Anti-apartheid in the 1970s

• Linking with the student movement• Local groups were initiated• New, inventive action methods• Boycot Outspan• Movement was ideology focussed: Marxism,

‘third world-ism’, anti-imperialism• Dutch anti-apartheid movement - AABN• Breyten Breytenbach - Solidarité - and the

armed struggle

Anti-apartheid and the holocaust

• The holocaust shaped the moral identity of the Dutch

• Racism is the ultimate evil• Apartheid = racism• New insight: Not all Dutch had resisted the Nazi

occupier• Shame about Dutch collaboration with Nazism

1976 - Soweto• This time the movement was much better

prepared - professionalized• Repressive tolerance worked very well in the

Netherlands• Opposition got finance from state• Nowhere more action groups than in the

Netherlands• The target of the movement became the

political centre: Christian democrats• Widening the movement instead of deepening

And then there was Shell

• Shell had violated the UN-embargo against Rhodesia/Zimbabwe

• Talking with Shell• An oil boycott against South Africa?• The debate in parliament• The closure of the political arena

Radicalization

Radicalization

• The squatter movement stepped in• Reaction to the slackening of the movement• Reaction to repressive tolerance• Reaction to the ‘dark decennium of the 1980ies’• Reaction to right wing leaders like Reagan,

Thatcher, Kohl and Lubbers• Actions against Shell• The assaults on MAKRO• Violence works!

Students against apartheid

• Blood ties between Dutch and South African universities

• Free University Amsterdam and Potchefstroom• Students protest against meetings with South

African Universities• Kampen University and the black theology

students - Allan Boesak• Students protest against all contacts with South

Africa• The academic community and Shell

Wageningen

• Working Group South Africa - Wageningen

• ANC support group Wageningen• Anti-apartheidfund Wageningen

University• WUR university news letter taken

hostage by radical students (november 1989)

The biggest social movement in Dutch post war history

• The anti-apartment movement mobilized more people than ever before

• Anti-apartheid became an everyday subject• Companies withdrew from SA• SA products were driven from the Dutch

market• All cultural contacts with SA were banned• But did it really succeed?• Government policies stayed the same

• In the set-off between clergyman and salesman the latter usually wins

• For the Dutch the fight against apartheid was a rehabilitation after WW-II

• Dutch state policies collaborated with the enemy (again)

Success factors• The anti-apartheid movement made it a national, home

struggle• There were concrete things people could do to fight

apartheid• The movement operated strategically • The movement was trustworthy, serious, and realistic• Movement leaders were upright and self sacrificing • The movement had firm international backing (e.g. UN-

embargo)• The movement was authentic (it voiced the opinion of the

ANC)• The movement offered a clear and acceptable alternative

(democratic, non-racial majority rule)