Selling Apartheid: South Africa’s Global Propaganda War

by Rob Nixon

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, South Africa, Africa, Politics, Activism

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 17, 2015

Reviews

[Richard Marney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A “who dunnit” rather than an analytical, historical survey.

The book focuses on a phenomenon through which a generation lived ( including me), where The South African government employed substantial financial resources and a global network of PR firms, journalists, lobbyists and sympathetic politicians to spin the fable that apartheid was actually beneficial to the exploited racial classes.

The book is Informative like a well-written newspaper article but not enlightening as one would have hoped as a serious history…..I guess is a way of putting it!

Having grown up in the US as the country struggled to throw off its Jim Crow past, I realized then as now that many in the country who didn’t / don’t need help from Pretoria to oppose the relaxation of the heinous system of apartheid or similar attitudes today.

[Daniel Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Selling Apartheid” focuses on the public relations campaign that South Africa’s apartheid government conducted over a period of decades: creating supposedly neutral front groups that secretly backed South Africa, recruiting Black spokespersons in support of the apartheid government, co-opting reporters and editors through soft bribes such as free trips to Africa.

All of this took place many years ago. But as I read it, I kept thinking about the present day.

At the most fundamental level, “Selling Apartheid” illustrates how a surprising number of people are willing to sell out their values and shill for a horrible government in exchange for cash.

We see echoes of all this in today’s public relations campaigns in favor of obviously bad things: for the tobacco lobby, for unlimited use of fossil fuels, for the governments of dictatorships such as China and Russia.

Yes, this is a book about a South African government that no longer exists. But "Selling Apartheid" offers broader insights into human avarice and unethical public relations campaigns – insights that will help this book remain relevant for many years to come.

[Neil Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really engaging book. For those interested in the intersection of politics and media studies would be ideal.

[Garrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but kinda slow. I cant believe that we as a society have used the fear of communism as the sole argument against any policy no matter what that betters the lives of the people smh

[Maryam Ibrahim · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a South African student journalist, I was immediately intrigued by this book because I always wondered how Apartheid was viewed by the rest of the world and how it lasted this long when gross violations of human rights were enacted by the South African government.

Ron Nixon’s book called Selling Apartheid tells us all about the South African governments plight to keep their Apartheid ideology afloat and accommodating to the rest of the world, while the rest of the world did not agree with Apartheid.

Nothing is a one-way street in the realm of media and propaganda. The South African government at the time could not keep their ideology above water for long but surprisingly did a really good job at selling it to the main microphone of the world known as the United States.

Having several public relation firms in the United States and spending millions of dollars on perfecting South Africa’s image to the rest of the world, the South African government held close to the United States.

The book itself makes me crave for more information out there, and how to get it. it makes me wonder if those organizations are actually disbanded? Where are those people now? Are they still withholding some records?

Further I question the TRC’s leniency with this campaign of selling Apartheid. By far it also showed me a side of South Africa I hope never comes to light ever again, a desperate attempt to sell a brand whereby your worth is depicted by your skin.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a fascinating read in terms of the topic and the book is well written. A little personal knowledge of what has gone down in recent SA history helps to make more sense of the characters and their machinations.
Various SA Govt workers of the 60s to 90s were able to influence and change some parts of South African history and, in the end, may have delayed the failing of their era by a little. For me, the incredible Public relations industry found in the US is also noteworthy. Without their paid help and their turning of a blind eye to the real motives of the employer, there would have been a quicker end to Apartheid.
I wonder how much more of this truth distortion is happening right now in all countries. And we, as the general public, have no chance of knowing the extent until the memoirs are eventually written.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a fascinating read in terms of the topic and the book is well written. A little personal knowledge of what has gone down in recent SA history helps to make more sense of the characters and their machinations.
Various SA Govt workers of the 60s to 90s were able to influence and change some parts of South African history and, in the end, may have delayed the failing of their era by a little. For me, the incredible Public relations industry found in the US is also noteworthy. Without their paid help and their turning of a blind eye to the real motives of the employer, there would have been a quicker end to Apartheid.
I wonder how much more of this truth distortion is happening right now in all countries. And we, as the general public, have no chance of knowing the extent until the memoirs are eventually written.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you do Palestine solidarity work, this is a MUST-READ. Otherwise, I'm not sure -- it has this weird feel, it kinda reads like it's a summary of another bigger book rather than a book itself? Each chapter sort of lists out a bunch of facts about a particular campaign/deal/etc. undertaken by the Apartheid regime, but then there are no in-text citations, and the citations in the back of the book... well none of them actually covered any of the things in the main text that I wanted to check. But regardless it's an important read, I feel like it's a very *not* well-documented topic [and this means there's low-hanging fruit, to write a more detailed+cited version of this book :P]

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

review to follow