Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The uneasy special relationship: dynamics and divergencies
- 2 Breakdown: into war, 1895–1899
- 3 Post-war: the myth of magnanimity, 1905–1907
- 4 African interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910
- 5 ‘Greater South Africa’: the struggle for the High Commission Territories, 1910–1961
- 6 The economic dimension: South Africa and the sterling area, 1931–1961
- 7 Britain, the United Nations, and the ‘South African disputes’, 1946–1961
- 8 The political consequences of Seretse Khama and Ruth, 1948–1952
- 9 Containing Afrikanerdom: the geopolitical origins of the Central African Federation, 1948–1953
- 10 Strategy and the transfer of Simon's Town, 1948–1957
- 11 The parting of the ways: the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth, 1951–1961
- 12 Enfeebled lion? How South Africans viewed Britain, 1945–1961
- 13 Springbok reviled: some British reactions to apartheid, 1948–1994
- Epilogue The relationship restored: the return of the new South Africa to the Commonwealth, 1994
- Select bibliography
- Index
13 - Springbok reviled: some British reactions to apartheid, 1948–1994
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The uneasy special relationship: dynamics and divergencies
- 2 Breakdown: into war, 1895–1899
- 3 Post-war: the myth of magnanimity, 1905–1907
- 4 African interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910
- 5 ‘Greater South Africa’: the struggle for the High Commission Territories, 1910–1961
- 6 The economic dimension: South Africa and the sterling area, 1931–1961
- 7 Britain, the United Nations, and the ‘South African disputes’, 1946–1961
- 8 The political consequences of Seretse Khama and Ruth, 1948–1952
- 9 Containing Afrikanerdom: the geopolitical origins of the Central African Federation, 1948–1953
- 10 Strategy and the transfer of Simon's Town, 1948–1957
- 11 The parting of the ways: the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth, 1951–1961
- 12 Enfeebled lion? How South Africans viewed Britain, 1945–1961
- 13 Springbok reviled: some British reactions to apartheid, 1948–1994
- Epilogue The relationship restored: the return of the new South Africa to the Commonwealth, 1994
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the years 1948 to 1994, the British reaction against apartheid did not simply grow steadily in response to a gradually increasing consciousness of apartheid's repugnant realities. Nor was British opinion always neatly divided between antagonism towards apartheid by a progressive Left, and tolerance of apartheid by a racist Right. Indeed, the most striking things about the pattern of British attitudes towards apartheid are the intensity of British criticism of apartheid by both the Right and the Left during the 1950s and early 1960s; the speed with which the unity of British opinion dissolved in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the extent to which British attitudes had intensified and diverged by the 1980s. Overall, the pattern of the British public reaction against apartheid was one of rise, ebb, and resurgence.
To a certain extent, the pattern of British attitudes does correspond to the pattern of repression and resistance in South Africa, with the periods of greatest unrest – first in the 1950s and early 1960s, and then in the late 1970s and 1980s – stimulating the growth of British criticism. Likewise, the relative quiescence of the years 1962 to 1975 coincided with British tolerance or indifference. Yet this does not fully explain either the strength and unity of the early British response to apartheid, or the deep divisions in British opinion that emerged subsequently.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Lion and the SpringbokBritain and South Africa since the Boer War, pp. 307 - 342Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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