The newly formed Nelson Mandela Scottish Memorial Foundation (NMSMF) is planning to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela in Glasgow to celebrate his centenary in 1918.
The Foundation was launched in October at an event at Glasgow City Chambers. Trustees include Sir Alex Ferguson and the Lord Provost of Glasgow. Glasgow already has a square named after Mandela – the former site of the apartheid regime’s Glasgow consulate. For more news of the Foundation’s plans go to https://mandelascottishmemorial.org
The centenary of Oliver Tambo’s birth on 27 October 1917 will be celebrated in South Africa and Britain. Tambo led the ANC during the long years when Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders were imprisoned on Robben Island.
His dedication, incorruptibility and vision meant that the ANC survived to take part in the negotiations which led to South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. In Britain the OR Tambo Centenary Committee is organising a lecture at South Africa House by Judge Albie Sachs on 26 October 2017. There will also be a competition for a piece of artwork celebrating Tambo’s vision for school students in the London Borough of Haringey, where Tambo’s family lived during their exile from South Africa.
Scotland was in the forefront of the international campaign against apartheid. The country had a strong missionary tradition in Southern Africa; this was one of the sources of the more radical internationalism demonstrated in its support for the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
In 1981 Glasgow became the first city to make Nelson Mandela an honorary citizen and Scotland is still twinned with the Eastern Cape in South Africa. A new film, ‘South Africa, Scotland and Apartheid’ tells this story.
London Recruits will tell the sensational story of the young women and men who undertook secret missions for the ANC in the bleakest years of the apartheid regime. The film will be out later this year.
In March 1970 Liverpool students occupied the university’s Senate House to press demands that included disinvestment from South Africa and the resignation of the University’s Chancellor, the Marquess of Salisbury.
Nine students, including Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow, were suspended and one, Pete Cresswell, was expelled. Pete never did get the degree he had spent three years working for. Last December, 46 years later, Liverpool University gave him an honorary degree. In this video Jon Snow remembers the sit-in and pays tribute to Pete: https://twitter.com/livuninews/status/806863029388398592
Leeds Women Against Apartheid was formed in 1986 to bring together women in support of their sisters in South Africa and Namibia. The group reached out to women’s organisations in West Yorkshire, raising funds for women in Southern Africa, boycotting apartheid goods and holding day schools publicising the situation of women under apartheid.
It was linked to a women’s group in Soshunguve township, near Pretoria. These leaflets and posters are from the collection of LWAA publicity material held by the Feminist Archive North (FAN)
British Museum, 27 October–28 February 2017
This major exhibition tells South Africa’s history through its art, from the rock art made by the country’s earliest peoples to 20th century works combating apartheid and pieces that illustrate the post-apartheid transformation.
The exhibition includes badges and other rmaterial from the Anti-Apartheid Movement. http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/south_africa.aspx
London Recruits will tell the sensational story of the young women and men who undertook secret missions for the ANC in the bleakest years of the apartheid regime.
This exciting film project is making a final push to reach its funding target. You can read about it here.
16 June 2016 is the 40th anniversary of the uprising by Soweto school students which marked the beginning of the end of apartheid. Thousands of young people defied police bullets and hundreds were killed and injured. Over the next year many were detained and tortured, and others went into exile.
In London former student activists, historians and journalists will discuss the legacy of Soweto at a symposium at the Institute of Education, Bedford Way, WC1 on 16 June, 5–8pm. ‘Remember Soweto’
Scotland’s role in the international anti-apartheid movement will be the focus of an extended version of the ‘Forward to Freedom’ exhibition at the Scottish Parliament, 1–5 February. Four Scottish local authorities gave Nelson Mandela the freedom of their cities and the Scottish AA Committee brought together trade union, church and student support for anti-apartheid campaigns.
The exhibition features Mandela’s visit to Glasgow in 1993 and Scotland’s role in the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa. It will be at Midlothian Libraries, 8–26 February; Aberdeen City Libraries, 29 February–2 April; and Glasgow Caledonian University, 4–29 April.