Search all library resources

Selling apartheid : South Africa's global propaganda war

Tells the story of South Africa's shocking propaganda campaign which sold apartheid across the world.This book lays bare the global propaganda war waged by the South African government in the attempt to bolster support for their apartheid regime. The world-wide campaign consisted of the government burnishing its image overseas, selling apartheid to the US and the UK in particular. Costing around $100 million annually, and run with vigourous efficiency for fifty years, the campaign drew in an elaborate network of supporters, including global corporations with business operations in South Africa, conservative religious organisations, and an unlikely coalition of liberal black clergy and anti-communist black conservatives aligned with right-wing Cold War politicians. Journalist Ron Nixon brings together interviews with key players, and thousands of previously unreleased records from US, British and South African archives, to provide a fast-paced and historically rich account of a little-known history.

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection

Selling apartheid : South Africa's global propaganda war

On the morning of 8 June 1988 dozens of children from Washington DC schools arrived at the United States capitol, carrying a small black doll to deliver to the lawmakers. Each doll represented a child who would be harmed by the sanctions congress had recently imposed on South Africa. This event was organised by a group calling itself the Wake up America coalition, headed by the Reverend Kenneth A. Frazier, a black American. Years later the event would be revealed as part of an elaborate campaign aimed at turning the American public against further sanctions on South Africa. It was one of many in a nearly 50-year lobbying and propaganda campaign by the apartheid government to improve its image in the United States and other countries. Official estimates put annual spending on the campaign at about $100-million a year, though the true amount might never be known. This book tells the story of the South African propaganda campaign, run with military precision, which involved a worldwide network of supporters, including global corporations with business operations in South Africa, conservative religious organisations and an unlikely coalition of liberal US black clergy and anti-communist black conservatives aligned with right-wing Cold War politicians. A large focus of the campaign was put on the United States because as its one-time coordinator, Eschel Rhoodie, wrote: "America dominates Western thought as far as Africa is concerned." Not even the exposure of the programme by South African journalists in the late 1970s, which would bring down a president and send Rhoodie on the run, would stop the worldwide campaign. In fact, it would expand and morph into a much larger and subtler operation. It would end in the early 1990s, only after domestic problems caused the government to focus its energies on issues at home. Selling apartheid will tell the story of this global apartheid campaign. Interviews with many of the players, South African government ministers and civil servants, corporate leaders, anti-apartheid leaders and others, provide a behind-the-scenes look at the attempt to sell apartheid abroad. In addition, thousands of previously unreleased records from both the South African and the United States archives will help shed light on the scope of the campaign and reveal an astonishing story.

James White

James White is a troubled twenty-something trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. He retreats further into a self-destructive, hedonistic lifestyle, but as his mother battles a serious illness James is forced to take control of his life. As the pressure on him mounts, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely.