South Africa

Return to Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements

Richard Steele, from South Africa, was imprisoned three times in the 1980s for his anti-apartheid activism. During that decade he was caretaker of Phoenix Settlement, Gandhi’s original ashram outside Durban, then worked for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, also based in Durban. He was an activist in the End Conscription Campaign anddescribes this experience and his experience as a white man conscientiously objecting to the regime of apartheid.

On the 25th of February 1980 I was sentenced by a military court in Pretoria to 12 months in military prison for refusing to submit to compulsory military service. I was 23 years old, and had just finished a BA degree in Psychology and English, and a postgraduate teaching diploma at the University of Cape Town.

There are reports that conscription could return to South Africa in 2016 – there has been no conscription in the country since 1994, when the first multi-racial elections took place. According to 'City Press', plans are being finalised for a youth programme that would see young people over the age of 18 sent for military training. According to the website BusinessTech, the ANC-led South African government has claimed that the programme is designed to “combat youth unemployment, instill discipline, patriotism and volunteerism.”

For more information, see News24.com, 'The SA Army wants you(th)', July 2015: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/The-SA-army-wants-youth-20150725

Businesstech.co.za, 'Army conscription may return to South Africa: report', July 2015, http://businesstech.co.za/news/general/94301/army-conscription-may-return-in-south-africa-report/

London: On my daily way back home I often pass by heavily armed police “safe”guarding citizens, infrastructure, life and economy: in the metro, at the station, always watchful.

Christopher McMichael

The South African government’s official policy on borders and immigration is coached in the language of human rights and opening up colonial era boundaries in Africa. But the reality is more authoritarian and brutal – economic migrants and asylum seekers, particularly from other African countries, are regular targets for violent harassment by the police, are illegally denied access to basic services like hospitals or sent to detention facilities. State officials are heavily invested in rhetoric about border security and constantly make ominous statements about foreign threats to the South African homeland, from transnational drug smuggling to rhino poaching. Of course, this is not novel or particular to South Africa. States have historically used physical borders and violence to delineate outsiders from citizens, while also combining military operations outside their territory with domestic policing. This is becoming even more apparent with the modern wars on drugs and terror, in which wars and operations abroad are combined with the extension of surveillance and restrictions on civil liberties.

Laura Pollecutt

During the years of apartheid, discussions were ongoing both inside and outside the country, about how state security institutions would function in a post-apartheid democratic state. These discussions intensified in the dying years of apartheid.

Terry Crawford-Browne

Terry Crawford-Browne is a former international banker who became a peace activist during the 1980s. He lives in Cape Town.

Providence Equity Partners is a global private equity firm focused on media, communications, education and information investments. Providence Equity Partners have a history of profiteering from war, including owning the company U.S.Investigation Services, which trained the violent and secretive 'Emergency Response Unit', an Iraqi paramilitary security organisation. However, Providence are our particular focus this month because the company has just bought an events company called Clarion Events.

Two new projects featuring a broken AK-47 (based on WRI's famous broken rifle logo), have been created by artist Ralph Ziman in Los Angeles and Cape Town. The mural in Los Angeles featured 408 names of victims of gun violence, while the Cape Town piece was painted in the middle of the Manenberg district, an area of Cape Town that has endured years of gang violence.

For photos and other information see the Resistance Project's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/Resistance-Project

A look back at the arts and cultural programme of the WRI conference in Cape Town, July 2014. Film thanks to Muti Films

Planned for the week of the Small Actions, Big Movements WRI conference, this installation in the middle of Cape Town's grand parade was delayed due to the inclement weather. Three months on, we're delighted to see it finally take shape! The broken AK-47 is covered in money, to highlight the corruption amongst those who profit from war.

Description from the artists: "Resistance" is a giant wheat paste public art installation; a world record spanning more than 100 meters. The image is of a broken AK -47. Resistance was born from a conversation between Ralph Ziman and (anti-arms activist) and Terry Crawford-Browne (one of the organisers of the Small Actions, Big Movements WRI conference).

Resistance was inspired by War Resisters' International - an anti-war organization founded in the wake of the First World War. War Resisters has existed for almost a century and has branches all around the world. The logo has always been a rifle, broken in half by a pair of hands.

Photos and footage thanks to the Resistance project and MUTI films.

War Resisters' International held its first quadrennial International Conference in Africa 4-8 July 2014, in Cape Town's City Hall. The conference we co-hosted by the Ceasefire Campaign.

The meeting brought together 220 activists, researchers, and campaigners doing peace and nonviolence work from around the world for five days. Of the 220 participants, over half were African. The public conference followed meetings of the Pan-African Nonviolence and Peacebuilding Network and the Women Peacemakers Program. Before and afterwards WRI's Council and Assembly meetings took place. The meeting will have impacts on WRI as a network for years to come.