From Popular Solidarity to From Popular Solidarity to Official Support Emergence of Local Solidarity Committees In response to the SUlL campaign, locally constituted South Africa Committees emerged at the beginning of 1963. Taking the boycott question further than formal demands and statements, they abandoned SUL's exclusive concentration on the youth, broadened the base of the solidarity movement and placed the anti- apartheid struggle on the national political agenda through active mobilization and lobbying. They also widened their scope of action, increasingly paying attention to the rest of the Southern African region. The committees reached their height in 1966, but were then rapidly overshadowed by the Vietnam movement. However, some of them-such as the Lund committeesurvived the turbulent years of the late 1960s and would at the beginning of the 1970s form the nucleus of a second generation solidarity movement with Southern Africa, reorganized as the Africa Groups in Sweden (AGIS). The first local South Africa committees were formed in Lund and Jbnkbping in southern Sweden. Both were set up in support of the SUL campaign,1 but had different origins. The Lund committee was mainly formed by students, who could build upon a long involvement with South Africa at the local university and to a large extent were inspired by resident Southern Africans.2 Billy Modise from ANC played a prominent and active part in the committee's work from the very beginning, later joined by students from Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Jonkhping committee, on the other hand, was almost exclusively the brainchild of one person, Anders Johansson,3 a young journalist 1 Lunds Sydafrikakomnsnitt6: ('Presentation') [no date] (AJC) and Sbdra Vtterbygdens Sydafrikakonunitt6: 'Verksamhetsberattelse for 1963' ('Annual report for 1963'), Jinkiping, 7 February 1964 (AJC). 2 Interview with Billy Modise, Johannesburg, 15 September 1995. 3With Gunnar Helander, Joachim Israel and Per Wistberg, the much younger Anders Johansson played a decisive role for the development of the Swedish solidarity movement with South Africa. As a journalist cum activist, he was instrumental in the broadening of the movement at the local level and in the widening of its scope to other countries in Southern Africa. Joining Dagens Nyheter in 1965, Johansson travelled extensively in Africa, establishing close contacts with the Southern African liberation movements. In February 1968, he was the first international journalist to visit the liberated areas in northern Mozambique. As Dagens Nyheter's first resident Africa correspondent, Johansson was in the second half of the 1970s stationed in Lusaka, Zambia. Seen as a radical, he was not active in Swedish party politics. Introducing himself to the chief editor of the social democratic newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen, he wrote in March 1965: "I am not a member of any political party and I do not intend to become one, as freedom and the highest possible [degree of] independence in my opinion are [...] essential to a journalist. I do not want any fixed political opinions, tied to Tor Sellstrbm working at the local newspaper J6nkbpings-Posten. In common with many others in the Swedish bible belt around Jbnkdping-often called 'the Jerusalem of Sweden'-Johansson was brought up in a free church home with missionary links to Southern Africa.1 His general interest in African affairs started through childhood contacts with the mission, but was later diverted to South Africa and to the ethico-political issue of apartheid. Doing non-armed civic service outside Stockholm,2 he visited the capital for the first time. During the visit, he attended the public meeting on 31 May 1961 organized by the recently formed South Africa Committee, listening to anti-apartheid activists and opinion makers such as Helander, Kauraisa, Tingsten, Vinde and Wbstberg. He later worked closely with Helander in the reorganized national South Africa Committee, serving as its secretary in the mid-1960s. Before the launch of the boycott campaign, Johansson attended one of the preparatory meetings and decided to set up a local support committee in the Jonkdping-Huskvarna region. Originally called the Committee of the Southern Lake Vatter Region for Youth South Africa Action,3 it was formed on 20 February 1963. The Namibian Zedekia Ngavirue was the guest speaker at the committee's first public rally.4 Inspired by SUL and falling under its umbrella, it was constituted by the local branches of the youth leagues of all the Swedish parliamentary parties and by the students' representative councils at the secondary schools in the area. In February 1964, the committee was, however, reorganized, welcoming individual and adult members. It was a small, but politically important departure from SUL's centralized and youth-oriented approach, making it possible to enrol three local members of the Swedish parliament. Johansson was at the same time re-elected chairman of the committee, while the school teacher Siewert Oholm5 was confirmed as vice-chairman. The demands of loyalty to a wider community. [B]ut I am not afraid to take a stand on a controversial issue if I find it necessary" (letter from Anders Johansson to Gunnar Fredriksson, Nol, 12 March 1965) (AJC). 1 Johansson was brought up in a home inspired by the small Free Baptist Union ( Frbaptistsamfundet). The free baptists carried out missionary activities in South Africa, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Mozambique. When Johansson and the J6nkping South Africa Commuittee in 1964 initiated a discussion with the Swedish churches represented in South Africa, requesting them to publicly denounce the apartheid regime, the Free Baptist Union refused to do so. Johansson then broke with his church, later declaring: "I lost my faith [...] over South Africa" (interview with Anders Johanson, Eskilstuna, 19 November 1996). 2 The free baptists were pacifists and refused to do military service. Not without "contradictory emotions", Johansson would, however, be one of the most active proponents of support to the Southern African liberation movements on their own conditions, induding the use of armed force. He later facilitated the publishing of accounts by leading members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, among them Joe Slovo, in Dagens Nyheter and wrote internationally acknowledged articles on FRELIMO's military campaigns in Mozambique. 3 In Swedish, Sbidra Viilterbygdskmm ittinftr Ungdotnens Sydafrika-Aldion. With the broadening of its mandate, it was later called the South Africa Committee of the Southern Lake VAtter Region. Based in Jbnk6ping, it will be referred to as the J6nk6ping Conunittee. 4 Letter from Anders Johansson to the author, [Eskilstuna], 26 April 1998. 5 When Johansson in mid-1964 moved to Gothenburg, Oholm was elected chairman of the committee. Years later, he became a well known talk-show host on Swedish television. From Popular Solidarity to Official Support constitution, programme and objectives were also revised, as well as extended to cover Namibia. The committee should actively and in all permissible ways [...] distribute information about the conditions in South Africa and South West Africa; support the forces that strive for the realization of democracy in [these countries]; and convince the Swedish government, parliament and general public to [do the same].1 The Jiinkoping committee was from the beginning particularly active. From his vantage point at Jbnkbpings-Posten, Johansson could closely follow both the events in South Africa and the national boycott campaign, regularly publishing articles in his own and in other regional newspapers. Downplaying his personal role, he later stated that "I just happened to be a curious, stubborn young man at the right place at the right time. [...] Not many activists were in the same privileged position, which [I] perhaps [used] somewhat questionabl[y] by [today's] journalistic ethics".2 Linking up with SSAK and the Lund committee, within its first year of existence the Jonk6ping committee staged public meetings with Gunnar Helander, Zedekia Ngavirue and Charles Kauraisa from SWANU, Billy Modise from ANC and Arthur Goldreich from MK. Through the secondary schools in Jbnkeping and Huskvarna, it also raised the respectable amount of 40,000 SEK for the placement of black South African students in Sweden.3 In addition, the committee started the first ever news bulletin on South Africa by the Swedish solidarity movement. The modest publication-entitled Sydafrika--was issued in 79 stencilled copies on 21 November 1963, dedicating most of its three pages to the recent visit to Sweden by ANC's Robert Resha and to the forthcoming tour by MK's Arthur Goldreich4 It was the forerunner of the bulletin Syd- och Sydvdstafrika, which at SUL's request5 was published in Lund as a joint venture between the J6nkbping and Lund committees and appeared for the first time on 15 January 1964.6 In turn, Syd- och Sydviistafrika-reflecting the widening of the 1 Anders Johansson: 'Redogtrelse f6r Sbdra Vlttebygdens Sydafrikakonunitt6' ('Report on the Jonkbping South Africa Conunittee'), Ulricehamn, 26 September 1964 (AJC). 2 Letter from Anders Johansson to the author, [Eskilstuna], 26 April 1998. 3 Letter from Anders Johansson to Gbran Ravnsborg, G6teborg, 21 September 1964 (AJC). A number of fund-raising campaigns to sponsor black South African students at Swedish universities and other tertiary institutions were carried out by secondary schools and trade unions in Sweden in the early 1960s. The example of the Sundsvall high school has been mentioned. In 1963, the students at the VAllingby high school in Stockholm similarly collected 8,000 SEK for a student from Cape Town (Vhr Kyrka, No. 1, 1964, p. 5). Zedekia Ngavirue, himself sponsored by the Sundsvall high school, later recalled that it was relatively easy to raise funds in Sweden for students from Southern Africa: "[W]hen we had to increase the number of Namibian students in Sweden, we would appeal to a trade union for bursaries. [...] We got that, for example, for Moses KatJiungua and Godfrey Gaoseb" (interview with Zedekia Ngavirue, Windhoek, 17 March 1995).