The Anti-apartheid movement and King’s

Seamus Branch is a graduated from a BA in Culture, Media and Creative Industries

King’s was much more conservative than its University of London sister institutions, and the history of campus protest at King’s is far less prolific than say its neighbour the London School of Economics, whose Indian South African students in exile formed the South Africa Freedom Association in 1955, which would rename itself the Anti Apartheid Movement (AAM) in 1960 and would play a leading role in anti apartheid activism in the United Kingdom.¹ A poll published by a University of London newspaper suggested that in 1974 43 percent of KCL students believed there was no ‘discrimination of coloured races in Britain’, while only 16 percent of University of London students at large took the same view.² Even those who viewed discrimination as an issue in Britain, such as student Thain Hatherly writing an editorial for the King’s College Review, Lucifer, could not necessarily be classified as allies of their classmates of colour. Hatherly writes: ‘I think racial discrimination here is as bad as apartheid’, before clarifying: ‘I cannot claim complete impartiality, for I am against mixed marriages.’³ King’s too held a real stake in South African economic activities. In 1977 the University of London, of which King’s was and is a member institution, held over £1.1 million worth of investments in companies with subsidiaries in South Africa, compromising over half of its total investments.⁴

While the student body as a whole may not have grasped the implications of systemic discrimination, the student union, a member of the National Union for Students (NUS), operated with an activist mandate. As the KCL branch of the NUS managed and operated on-campus venues and played a role in the extracurricular life of most students, tensions would quickly arise between the Union and the student body at large. The KCL NUS branch, like other progressive societies at the time, viewed its role within the institution as one which should pressure the university to take a stand against apartheid. Politics also seemed to play out through the formation of political societies. The socialist society for example, made clear that: ‘Our major focus this year is on the continuing struggle of the Black people of South Africa. As students of King’s College we are reaping the benefit of the maintenance of the Botha regime in that the College is known to have major investments in companies with major interests in South Africa.’⁵ Students used societies to signal their political affiliations, challenge the university, and each other. While many King’s societies took positions against apartheid, there were no explicitly pro-apartheid societies, although plenty attacked the rhetoric and leanings of the more progressive student groups. Society publications and fliers from the time demonstrate that discussions of Apartheid dominated political discourse at King’s, yet no group would generate more outrage and action on King’s campus than its branch of the NUS.

In the 1970’s Barclays bank became a major target of the anti-apartheid movement at large. As a British business which was also South Africa’s most popular bank, activists identified the institution as one which enabled apartheid: ‘they are involved in raising huge loans for South Africa’s state controlled industries, thus helping indirectly in the financing of South Africa’s massive military expansion’.⁶ The discourse surrounding Barclays would soon make its way into the student politics of King’s. In 1971 the AAM, which had since its early days as a small coalition of LSE students grown into an organisation that mobilised thousands of British anti-apartheid protesters into action, began working directly with the NUS to bring protests onto campuses around the nation. In 1977 KCL’s student union would for the first time take part in a direct anti-apartheid action, banning the use of Barclays Bank cheques at all union shops and bars. In a letter to Magus, the student union newspaper, the Union president pointed out that Barclays was the largest bank in South Africa, paying £9 million to the apartheid government in taxes in October of 1974. This was a grassroots effort which the union hoped would apply pressure on the university to divest: ‘Even though not banking at Barclays would seem a futile thing to do, at least it is something. If we can get the college and the university to divest, the resultant publicity would do a lot of good.’⁷

The pushback to this action against Barclays was swift, with a law student describing the policy in the next issue of Magus as ‘dictatorial’ and in opposition to the institutional and British ‘tradition of freedom and democracy.’⁸ Just over a month later students would flood the union meeting and vote overwhelmingly to overturn the Barclays boycott citing the difficulties and hassles caused to students who held accounts with the bank.⁹ This attitude of ambivalence seems to have dominated the apartheid discourse at King’s. Unlike its more radical sister colleges in the University of London, the student population at King’s spent far less time publicly engaging with issues relating to race and decolonisation. Yet the movement against Barclays championed by other NUS branches would be significant in pushing Barclays out of South Africa. By 1986 when Barclays withdrew business from South Africa, Barclays share of student accounts had fallen to 17 percent following NUS led boycotts making it the least popular of the major British banks for student accounts. ¹⁰ Both the NUS and AAM declared the divestment as major victories for the respective groups.

These boycotts occurred because the Conservative Thatcher Government’s refusal to apply economic sanctions on South Africa forced activists into creating their own sanctions. Apartheid laws, many of which were adapted from laws enacted during Britain’s occupation of the country, were technically enforced by another government, leaving room for British political and educational institutions to distance themselves from the regime. It’s this dissonance that allowed Margaret Thatcher to write in a 1987 letter to AAM’s leader that ‘apartheid is an utterly repulsive and detestable system which must go’, before clarifying, ‘It is absurd to suggest that because the British Government oppose punitive sanctions we ‘stand by’ apartheid’.¹¹ Beyond applying economic pressure to private firms, these boycotts also challenged the assertion that decolonisation gave Britain the ability to wash its hands of the issues arising in its former colonies. They were a refutation to the postcolonial ambivalence that allowed governments and institutions to speak against apartheid whilst simultaneously profiting from it.

Sources

Anti-apartheid Movement Archives: The Boycott Movement – grassroots stories, https://www.aamarchives.org/blog/the-boycott-movement-%E2%80%93-grassroots-stories.html (Accessed 25 June, 2024).

National University of Students and AAM, ‘Boerclay Bank Poster’, 1985, https://www.aamarchives.org/archive/campaigns/barclays-and-shell/po080-boerclaybank.html (Accessed 17 December 2024).

An appeal to Barclays Account Holders Poster, n.d., https://www.aamarchives.org/archive/campaigns/barclays-and-shell/bar16-appeal-to-barclays-account-holders.html (Accessed 17 December 2024).

Letter from Margaret Thatcher to Trevor Huddleston, 10 November, 1987, https://www.aamarchives.org/archive/campaigns/government/gov39-letter-from-margaret-thatcher-to-trevor-huddleston.html (Accessed 17 December 2024).

King’s College London Archives: Serials and Periodicals K/SER1/63, King’s College London, King’s College Review, 1899-1954 (known as Lucifer from1950).

K/SER1/84, Magus, the King’s College London Union Society Student Review, 1974-5. K/SER1/132, Sennet, newspaper of the University of London Union and produced by the London Student Press Association, 1973-9.

Publicity K/PUB/79, King’s Socialists Flyer, n.d.