Badges

The Springbok rugby tour of Australia, June–August 1971, met with huge protests all over the country. The first two games, played in Adelaide and Perth, were disrupted by students. In Sydney, members of the building workers trade union tried to saw down the goalposts. Queensland’s provincial government declared a month-long State of Emergency in response to the protests. Because of the scale of the demonstrations, the Springbok cricket tour, scheduled for September 1971, was called off. This badge was produced by the British AAM to show its support for the protests.

This badge reproduced the cover design from the Penguin Books edition of ‘The South African Connection’, published in 1973. The book contested the argument that the growth of manufacturing industry in South Africa would bring about the end of apartheid and set out the case for disinvestment. 

Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau won their independence from Portugal in 1975 after a protracted guerrilla war. This badge was produced by the Mozambique Angola and Guine Information Centre (MAGIC), set up as the Mozambique and Guine Information Centre in August 1975. MAGIC published a bi-monthly magazine about developments in the former Portuguese colonies and recruited volunteers to work in Mozambique.

Leeds students produced this badge to promote their campaign to persuade Leeds University to sell its shares in companies with South African interests. They set up Leeds University South Africa Anti-Investment Group as part of the drive to persuade universities to disinvest from South Africa co-ordinated by the NUS-AAM student network in the 1970s. In response to student pressure, the university sold its holdings in ICI in 1973 and agreed to disinvest from firms whose South African involvement exceeded 5% of their total interests. 

Badge produced in the run-up to the Lancaster House talks on the future of Zimbabwe in the summer of 1979. The AAM campaigned to stop the Conservative government elected in May 1979 from recognising the Muzorewa government in Zimbabwe and against any agreement that would not lead to majority rule. In June 1979 it joined with other groups to set up the Zimbabwe Emergency Campaign Committee.

Badge produced for the AAM campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela in response to a petition launched by the Sunday Post in South Africa in 1980. The AAM distributed thousands of badges, leaflets and stickers calling for Mandela’s release. A ‘Free Mandela’ declaration was endorsed by British MPs, trade unions, playwrights, musicians and academics.

The AAM Women’s Committee produced this badge soon after its formation in the summer of 1980. 

In February 1981, workers at Wilson-Rowntree’s East London factory were sacked for striking in protest at the dismissal of three colleagues. Wilson-Rowntree was a subsidiary of the British company Rowntree-Mackintosh. The AAM campaigned with the British unions GMWU, USDAW and TGWU  to make the company reinstate the sacked workers and recognise the South African Allied Workers Union.