The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 3: International Solidarity, Part 3

The International Solidarity Movement emerged out of post-World War II anti-colonial struggles, and drew on the organisational capacity initially of South African anti-apartheid organisations, liberation movements and exiles. It matured in the post-colonial period and in the context of the Cold War. As a global social movement, it engaged in national and global collective action aimed at social action and transformation. Its modes of protest, research and knowledge dissemination, forms of mobilisation and the knitting of global networks make it unique. It is not simply the sum of its constituent parts, or even its membership, or reach. It was the locus of global solidarity and action. It reached globally and in so doing drew individual and collective acts of anti-apartheid into a broader common political space that transcended national boundaries. Forms of anti-apartheid action in multiple political spaces in many spheres and arenas became one of the defining characteristics of the International Solidarity Movement as a global social movement.