A brief history of the Non-Stop Picket

From 1986 – 1990 the supporters of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group [City Group] maintained a Non-Stop Picket outside the South African Embassy in Trafalgar Square calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. City Group was formed by Norma Kitson (an exiled ANC member), her children, friends and supporters (including, crucially, members of the Revolutionary Communist Group) in 1982. City Group’s unconditional solidarity with all liberation movements in South Africa and Namibia (not just the ANC and SWAPO, but also the Pan-Africanist Congress and AZAPO amongst others) and its principled linking of the struggle against apartheid with anti-racism in Britain led to group’s eventual expulsion from the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. City Group deployed diverse tactics, including direct action, to express its solidarity with those opposed to apartheid. Its support for those sidelined by the exiled leadership of the ANC was valued by activists in South Africa. The Picket played a key role as a ‘convergence space’ through which transnational activist discourses and practices addressing the politics of race were articulated. As such, an analysis of its political culture is important and overdue.

The Picket was a highly visible protest against apartheid. Through its constant presence, the Picket developed a distinctive appearance, culture and sense of community. Bright hand-sewn banners (often in black, green and gold, the colours of the ANC) provided a backdrop to the Picket, declaring its raison d’etre and picketers carried placards which declared their solidarity and commented on topical events and campaigns in South Africa. Members of the picket would leaflet and petition passers-by, whilst others made impromptu speeches on a megaphone or sang South African freedom songs. Larger themed rallies were held on Friday evenings, and on Thursdays the Picket’s numbers swelled as supporters danced to the music of a group of street musicians, the Horns of Jericho. The culture of the Picket not only conveyed its political message of solidarity, but helped individual participants define their personal identities.

Norma Kitson, June 1987 (Source: Gavin Brown)

Positioned on the pavement directly outside South Africa House, the picket was strategically placed to draw attention to apartheid and bring pressure to bear on the regime’s representatives and allies in the UK. The Embassy repeatedly brought pressure on the British Government to ban the protest, and for nearly two months in 1987 (6th May – 2nd July), the Picket was removed from outside the Embassy by the Metropolitan Police (following an action in which three City Group activists threw several gallons of red paint over the entrance to the Embassy). During this period, the Picket relocated to the steps of nearby St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church and activists repeatedly risked arrest to break the police ban on their protest and defend the right to protest outside the Embassy. The police used an arcane Victorian bylaw, “Commissioner’s Directions”, which allowed the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to curtail public gatherings within a mile of Parliament, to allow MPs free movement to go about their business, to ban the Picket during this period. Eventually, the ban was broken when four MPs protested outside the Embassy alongside other picketers and the police were unable to justify the ban any longer. In total 173 people were arrested during City Group’s campaign to break the police ban and defend the right to protest. All charges were eventually thrown out of court.

City Group’s activism was not restricted to Trafalgar Square: picketers took direct action against apartheid across the UK and toured the country mobilising solidarity. These extended campaigns of direct action away from the Non- Stop Picket included ‘trolley protests’ against the sale of South African goods in supermarkets across London, where activists filled trolleys with South African produce, took them to the checkout and then refused to pay for them. At their most effective, these protests could tie up the majority of checkouts in a targeted supermarket simultaneously. In a similar vein, City Group organised frequent occupations of the South African Airways (SAA) offices in Oxford Circus through their “No Rights? No Flights!” campaign. These offices were frequently closed through successive occupations several times in a day. As the security staff at the SAA offices increasingly recognised protestors, activists needed to utilise more and more imaginative disguises to enable their initial access to the premises – during one women-only protest on South African Women’s Day in 1988 a large party of women, varying in age from their mid-teens to their seventies, occupied the SAA offices dressed as nuns and a class of convent girls. Finally, City Group activists took direct action at sporting venues around the UK, including pitch invasions at various athletics tracks and cricket grounds, in protest at sportsmen and women who had broken the sports boycott of South Africa.

The geography of the Non-Stop Picket extended beyond its location and its relationship with the struggle in South Africa. The combination of the Picket’s central location and its expression of solidarity through confrontation with the representatives of apartheid attracted a broad and diverse group of (mostly) young activists from the UK and beyond. The Picket provided ‘uncommon ground’ through which friendship networks developed that crossed boundaries of nationality, ethnicity and social difference. At times, the Picket became something of a haven for young street homeless people living in the West End, although their involvement was often shortlived and marked by the reassertion of social hierarchies by more settled and privileged members of the Picket. The social and political life of the Picket had a particular emotional geography through which individuals overcame social isolation, transformed their sense of self, and enjoyed being ‘unruly’ in public space. These entangled personal and political motivations are crucial to a holistic analysis of the Non-Stop Picket and transnational solidarity activism more broadly.

Share your photos of the Non-Stop Picket

I spent an enjoyable afternoon last week with the photographer, Paul Mattsson, looking through negatives and contact sheets of photos he took of the Non-Stop Picket in the 1980s.  Paul got involved in the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group very early on and his photos date from 1983 onwards.  As the more of the negatives are scanned, some of those images will begin appearing on this blog.

Paul has set up a Non-Stop Picket flickr account where people can share their photos of events on and around the Non-Stop Picket. Please share details of this site and feel free to comment and add details to the photos that are already there. If anyone wants to upload images please email cityaa@btinternet.com for log in details.

Networks of activists: the lost art of mobilizing

I’ve been reading two things this week that have inspired this post.  The first is Paul Mason’s latest book, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere, about the worldwide anti-austerity protests of the last few years and the events of the Arab Spring.  The second was a short column in issue 9 of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group’s newsletter Non-Stop News published in August 1986.

In his book, Mason makes much of the role of the ‘networked individual’ –  proficient in using Twitter, writing blogs and multitasking on social media – in recent protest movements.  The 1986 article reminds us how activism was pursued before the revolution in social media technologies of the last decade.  The fact that it was published in a cheaply printed, four-page, A4 gate-fold newsletter sold on the Non-Stop Picket of the South African Embassy (and related protests) for 10 pence is in itself indicative of how social movement communication strategies have changed in the last twenty-five years.

The article opens with the following assessment:

Many new people have become involved for the first time in the struggle against apartheid by joining the Non-Stop Picket.  There are thousands more throughout London and Britain who want to take action.  We have to let them know about the Non-Stop Picket. City Group is organising for that. We need you to help.

It goes on to list six actions that supporters could take to mobilize new people to take action against apartheid with and through the Non-Stop Picket.  None of these techniques has completely disappeared from activist repertoires; but, almost all of them have now been eclipsed by the use of the internet and social media both by grassroots activists and professional campaigning organisations.

First, supporters were encouraged to place posters about the Non-Stop Picket around London.  The article suggests placing these in bookshops, community centres, libraries and local shops.  This list in itself describes the social geography of a lost London – where are the radical and community bookshops now?  The checklist studiously avoids calling on activists to flypost posters on the streets – although this was a common practice.  As major rallies approached, flyposting crews would be organised out of City Group’s weekly meetings to cover key areas of London in posters.   At the time, flyposting was a staple means of publicising protests.  Today it is exceptionally rare.  The demise of this practice has much to do with the rise of new communication technologies.  It also a reflection of the increasing privatisation of public space – there are fewer places to paste posters and the surveillance and regulation of this activity is far greater.

City Group leaflet advertising the launch of the Non-Stop Picket

Second, the article called on activists to distribute leaflets about the Non-Stop Picket at local tube stations during rush hours.  Recently, Ken Livingstone’s mayoral campaign has been mobilising support in this way, but that is largely because he is campaigning about the cost of public transport in London.

The third call to action was for City Group supporters to attend the public meetings of other campaigns to leaflet, talk to people and announce the Non-Stop Picket.  Whilst some campaign groups continue to hold public meetings, there do not seem to be as many as there were a quarter of a century ago, when the London listings magazine City Limits would devote a page each week to protests, demonstrations and political meetings across London.  The fourth call was related to this, and that was to encourage   supporters to get other campaigns and organisations that they were involved with to pledge as a collective to undertake a regular shift on the Non-Stop Picket.  In this way, City Group was actively attempting to foster reciprocal networks of solidarity between campaigning organisations and community groups of various kinds.  There was an implicit assumption within this call that individual activists would be affiliated to and involved with multiple campaigns.

The fifth action called on City Group supporters to place adverts or letters in their local papers and the newsletters of other organisations publicising the Non-Stop Picket.

The final action was directed at supporters outside London.  They were encouraged to book a minibus and organise for a group of friends to visit the Non-Stop Picket.  In exchange, City Group promised to arrange accommodation for visitors travelling from outside London to join their protests.

Panther House, location of City Group's office

In addition to all these mobilizing practices, City Group activists spent many evenings sat on the phone in the group’s small rented office calling supporters and sympathetic contacts, encouraging them to attend rallies and pledge regular shifts on the Picket.  The office served as an additional resource for building networks of activists.  There were many other small, grassroots campaign groups based in the same office building. Over time, through (mostly) chance conversations in the building’s canteen, at print shop based in the building or over a pint in pub opposite, reciprocal networks of support were built between City Group and several of these other campaigns.

While social media technologies clearly have many advantages for activists, I question  whether the relative demise of older, lo-fi techniques have impacted negatively on the ways in which activist groups interact both with each other and with wider publics.  A tweet is quick and has the potential to be spread far and wide with just the click of a button; but there is something important about explaining or defending a political idea through face-to-face interaction.  That these older techniques are used less frequently now is not just a result of the development of new communication technologies, it is also a reflection of the changing social geography of urban public space and the continuing professionalization of much campaigning.

Celebrating Mandela’s Release: Trafalgar Square, 11 February 1990

On the day of Nelson Mandela’s release from jail thousands of people converged on the South African Embassy in London’s Trafalgar Square to celebrate the occasion.  For the previous 46 months, the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group had maintained their Non-Stop Picket for the release of Mandela on that pavement.  Although only a small proportion of the crowd who gathered on the day of his release had ever directly participated in the Picket, its continuous presence over those four years had clearly seeped into Londoners’ consciousness.  That day, the pavement outside the South African Embassy became the place to be.

The crowd anticipating Mandela's release (Photo: Jon Kempster)

Something of the atmosphere that day was captured by Tony Benn in his published diary The End of an Era (1994):

Had a phone call telling me that Mandela would be released today and  asking me to go to Trafalgar Square at 12.30. There were hundreds of people gathered there, and the organisers were, of course the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group, who have been picketing outside Trafalgar Square non-stop for 1395 days…  People were singing and waving there arms and kissing and hugging. Somebody had draped on Nelson’s column a banner with the words ‘Nelson Mandela’s Column’…  It was a marvellous event… I don’t think there has been anything like it since 1945 when the war ended. On television live from Cape Town was Mandela, this tall, slim, distinguished man with a strong voice, walking out of prison and reaffirming the need for the armed struggle.

One former City Group activist gives his own account of the day (including an interesting observation about Tony Benn’s reception by some in the crowd):

I arrived fairly early in the morning when it was still very quiet. Other City Group people began to arrive, and it started like a typical City Group rally. ANC people were there too and setting up a stage and amplification equipment. They were actually very friendly and appreciated our presence. As more and more young black South Africans arrived, it became more and more and ANC event.  “Free Nelson Mandela” and Miriam Makeba records were sounded through the amplifiers. Speeches were made, by various people, including Tony Benn, who was heckled by some about the 1967 Namibian uranium incident. The young South Africans started to sing, and then they were toyi toying. It was wonderful! I felt as though I was at a real South African celebration and I was too!  The general atmosphere was electrifying although I did encounter a small amount of hostility when I took a break from singing and dancing to distribute leaflets to the crowd. “I didn’t come here for this!” snarled an indignant woman. But most people were joyful about the great news and full of admiration for what we’d done. (Francis)

For those who had been a regular part of the Non-Stop Picket, this was a day of celebration.  It was the culmination of what they had been campaigning for and provided a genuine sense of victory.  When asked if there were specific days on the Picket that they particularly remembered, many former picketers identified this day:

The demo when Nelson Mandela was released and we just shut London down.  ….  I lost my voice for three days. I still get emotional when I see him on TV (Jacky)

And of course the day Mandela was released. The incredible swell of people, completely taking the police by surprise until we took over Trafalgar Square. … A wonderful day. It started out quite small with a sense of “is it really happening” I think. I can’t quite remember who was on the megaphone when the announcement came over (Richard perhaps?). The crowds grew and grew, the police couldn’t cope. There was impromptu partying and music making on the steps of [St Martin-in-the-Fields church], and just hundreds of people. (Nicole)

Many young people from across the world had been part of the Non-Stop Picket over the previous four years.  For those who had left London by the time of Mandela’s release, not being present on the Picket on the day of his release was (and still is) a source of hurt and regret. Beth’s comments give a clear sense of this:

[I] was already back in Brazil….   I felt as if I had run miles, to fall some inches from the finish line….was awful not to be there.

Large crowd celebrates Mandela’s release (Photo: Annie)

Francis’s comments [above] demonstrate a generosity of spirit and a recognition that that day was a day of celebration not just for City Group activists, but for exiled ANC members and other progressive South Africans in the UK, as well as a far wider layer of people who were against apartheid.  If relations between the ANC and City Group had been tense for many years [as I have outlined in other blog posts], on 11 February 1990 (despite some tense exchanges between individuals) a spirit of temporary cooperation more or less held.  Nevertheless, many regular picketers felt quite territorial about the pavement and pointedly questioned where these hundreds of revellers had been for the previous four years.

Although City Group had always stated that they would maintain the Non-Stop Picket until Mandela’s release, the protest did not end the day he walked free from jail.  The Non-Stop Picket kept going for another fortnight.  In part this extension occurred out of concern that the apartheid regime were not acting in good faith and that restrictions might be placed on Mandela’s freedom, or that right-wing paramilitaries might make an attempt on his life.  The delay also gave City Group time to plan their strategy for campaigning post-Picket and allowed the group to come together to celebrate their achievements, closing down the Picket on their own terms.  The final day of the Picket, as I shall explain in the near future, provoked a far more mixed emotional response from picketers.

Were you in Trafalgar Square on 11 February 1990? What are your memories of the day?

Preparing for Mandela’s Release

On 2 February 1990, at the opening of the new (whites-only) Parliament in South Africa, President FW De Klerk announced the unbanning of the African National Congress, the Pan-Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party.  He also announced that Nelson Mandela was soon to be released from goal.  

From the release of Walter Sisulu and other leading prisoners the previous October, it had become increasingly clear that Mandela’s release was going to be forthcoming.  Since the 19 April 1986, the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group had maintained a Non-Stop Picket outside the South African Embassy in London and had pledged to stay there until Mandela was released from prison.  With that event finally on the horizon, City Group suddenly had to prepare for the end of this long-running protest and make plans for a new phase of solidarity activism.  Here I include an extract from a letter that City Group sent to its members and supporters on 18 January, outlining they planned to respond to the announcement of Mandela’s release.

City Group plans for Mandela's release

On the day of the announcement, City Group held a celebration rally outside the South African Embassy, as planned.  In typical fashion, the police did not allow the celebrations go unscathed – during the day they arrested one picketer, Leigh, for attempting to tie the black, green and gold colours of the ANC to the gates of the South African Embassy.  The relationship of the anti-apartheid protestors to the space outside the Embassy had always been highly contested and it remained so until the very end of apartheid.

If you were part of the Non-Stop Picket, how did you feel when you heard that Mandela would be released?

Doing time: two picketers jailed

I’ve written over the last couple of weeks about two events from January 1989 that impacted on the network of activists around the Non-Stop Picket of the South African Embassy.  Quite soon after the deportation of Viraj Mendis and the death of Terry O’Halloran, a third trauma struck the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group.  On 2 February 1989 (the same day as Terry O’Halloran’s funeral), two City Group activists, Dave and Simon, were sentenced to 60 and 28 days in jail respectively (although they served far less than this).  Their trial at Bow Street Magistrates court resulted from their arrests, along with two others, the previous July when they had defended the Non-Stop Picket from provocation and attack by two disgruntled former picketers.

City Group responded quickly to the imprisonment of Dave and Simon.  Behind the scenes, the legal team sprang into action to secure their release.  On the streets, City Group demonstrated their solidarity with their imprisoned comrades.  The following day, instead of the normal Friday night rally outside the South African Embassy, City Group converged outside the Lambeth Holding Centre.  In front of the place where Dave and Simon were detained they held a noisy solidarity picket to let them know they were not forgotten.  Although the focus of City Group’s political activism was offering solidarity to those struggling against apartheid in South Africa, at times, the culture of solidarity had to be directed closer to home. This legal solidarity work was (partially) successful.  Dave and Simon only served a few days in gaol, but they were released on stringent bail conditions that restricted their political activity.

Our research is not yet at a stage where we can evaluate what impact a deportation, a death and two imprisonments had on City Group’s work and its membership.  But, it seems unlikely that these three traumatic events within a few weeks did not have an impact on the morale of the Group and interpersonal dynamics within it. 

This case highlights the complex temporalities on life on the Picket.  What did it mean to be ‘non-stop’?  The Picket, from the start, was inspired by the urgency of ending apartheid.  City Group pledged to maintain the Picket until Nelson Mandela was released from gaol.  Undoubtedly, that took longer than key activists anticipated when the Picket was launched in 1986.  Over the (nearly) four years that the Non-Stop Picket existed, it developed a cycle of annual events that structured its political calendar – Nelson Mandela’s birthday, South African Women’s Day, the anniversary of the Soweto uprising, and the anniversary of the start of the Picket itself.  Events were also held to mark milestones in the Picket’s existence – 100, 500 and 1000 days.  Life on the Picket was structured by the shifts on the weekly rota. The relative ease of covering these shifts was affected not just by the rhythms of the (working) week, but also by seasonal cycles.  When the Picket was well-attended and the sun was shining, a six-hour shift could fly by; but time dragged when there were only two people on a shift and the weather was miserable.  But, just as these rhythms and cycles of different duration became somewhat predictable, time also looped in other ways that were less easy to anticipate.  As the imprisonment of these two picketers demonstrates, a chance event on the picket one summer afternoon (resulting from an even earlier disagreement) might lead to an arrest that took some time to come to court, with the consequences not being felt until months later.  The unexpected imprisonment of two activists required City Group to invest time in their defence.  Although people put in ‘extra time’ in response to these emergencies, such events also took time away from other political work.  This project was always established with the intention of studying the spatial aspects of the Non-Stop Picket, but as it has progressed I find myself thinking more and more about how time was experienced in that place – its duration, its rhythms and its varying pace.

Heated solidarity

The winter of 1986/87, the Non-Stop Picket’s first, was a cold one.  The pavement outside the South African Embassy was very exposed to the elements – the wind, in particular, seemed to gather force as it crossed Trafalgar Square.  The City of London Anti-Apartheid Group’s protestors standing on that pavement had no source of shelter from the wind, rain and cold temperatures.  During the day, if there were enough people on the Picket, people took turns to warm up and dry out in local cafes, but on cold nights there were no such ‘luxuries’.

As ever, City Group was inventive in thinking about solutions to this problem.  With images of industrial picket lines in their minds, City Group took a decision to try to install a coal-fired brazier on the Picket.  Of course, City Group were aware that this innovation was likely to be hotly contested by the Metropolitan Police, so they ensured that a ‘celebrity’ supporter was there to witness the first lighting of the brazier and so were press photographers. 

In early January 1987, Councillor Bob Crossman, the Mayor of the London Borough of Islington attended the Picket in this capacity.  Once the brazier was set, a regular member of the Non-Stop Picket attempted to light it.  The police on duty promptly threatened them with arrest.  Next, Bob Crossman stepped forward and lit the burner.  The police did not threaten him with arrest, but did quickly extinguish the fire.  He later wrote a letter to the Metropolitan Police complaining about this discrepancy.

Lighting the brazier (Source: City AA Archives)

Following this attempt to light the brazier it was confiscated by the police. City Group spent £300 taking an injunction against them for the return of their property and went to court in pursuit of this case on 16 January 1987.  [Note: our archival research has not yet revealed what the outcome of this court case was - can anyone help us out?].

The next winter a further attempt was made to light a brazier on a cold winter’s evening – this time with comic results.  On that evening in December 1987 the pickets lit the brazier and the police on duty duly called the fire brigade to put it out. When the fire fighters arrived and appraised the situation they refused to extinguish the brazier.  Frustrated by this act of solidarity, the police then tried to extinguish it themselves.  They were not entirely successfully in this, so they decided to remove the brazier from the Picket, and drove off with smoke still billowing from the back of their van.

There is, perhaps, a tendency to think of solidarity as a grand gesture that makes a large political statement.  In contrast, the actions of Bob Crossman and the anonymous fire fighters demonstrate that small acts of solidarity (even if they are ultimately unsuccessful) can still be important.  In both cases, it appears that the Mayor and the fire fighters recognised the importance of the Non-Stop Picket’s cause and undertook small, mundane acts of care that were intended to make the pursuit of that cause easier.  In thinking about the flows of solidarity that passed through the Non-Stop Picket, it is as important to remember these small acts focused on the picket itself, as it is the demonstrations, donations and material aid for the liberation movements in South Africa.

Terry O’Halloran (1952 – 1989)

When researching last week’s blog post about Viraj Mendis, I was reminded that within days of Viraj’s deportation the network of activists associated with the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group suffered another significant loss.  On 23 January 1989, Terry O’Halloran died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 36.

Terry O'Halloran (1 May 1952 - 23 January 1989)

Terry O’Halloran was a journalist.  He had been secretary and then chair of the London Freelance Branch of the National Union of Journalists and sat on the NUJ’s Ethics Council.  Within the Ethics Council he fought for the union to fully implement its codes of practice to tackle the endemic racism within the British press. He was central to winning the NUJ to a position of supporting all sections of the liberation movement in South Africa.

Terry had a long-standing, regular shift on the Non-Stop Picket. Within City Group, he used his journalistic skills to good effect.  Terry was centrally involved in the production of early issues of the group’s newsletter Non-Stop News – in particular, he wrote about press censorship under apartheid and covered several of City Group’s court cases.  In December 1986, he arranged for four leading members of the NUJ to attend a rally on the Non-Stop Picket with the union’s national banner. This was followed up in January 1987 with a special City Group meeting on the theme of “Apartheid – press censorship” at which Terry spoke alongside Aidan White of The Guardian.

Terry’s partner, Simone, was also a long-term City Group activist and was one of the women picketers subjected to sexual harassment and assault during an arrest in September 1986 [see Hands Off Women Picketers].

Terry had been a member of the Revolutionary Communist Group for nearly 14 years, leaving only a few months before his death – although he continued to work closely with them, writing for Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! In addition to contributing to their South African solidarity work, he was central to their Irish solidarity activism and to their work supporting prisoners’ rights.

More than 200 people attended Terry’s funeral on 2 February, squeezed into a tiny chapel at the crematorium in Streatham, South London.  Sinn Fein sent a floral tribute in the form of the Irish tricolour; the RCG a hammer and sickle made from red carnations.  The City Group Singers sang at his funeral, as they had done the night before when City Group laid flowers on the gates of the South African Embassy in Terry’s memory.

Over the coming months, we plan to add a new page to this blog, containing obituaries and memories of former City Group activists who died during the period of the Non-Stop Picket and in the two decades since its end.  Terry O’Halloran will, of course, be amongst them.  For now, I am left wondering what the impact of double blow of Viraj Mendis’s deportation and Terry O’Halloran’s death had on the organisational capacity of City Group at the time.  Of course, Terry’s comrades said “Don’t mourn, organise!” and, to some extent, we did; but, that huge sense of loss must also have impacted on key individuals and affected interpersonal dynamics within the group.

What are your memories of Terry?