Transnational Histories of Southern Africa’s Liberation Movements offers new perspectives on southern Africa’s wars of national liberation, drawing on extensive oral historical and archival research. Assuming neither the primacy of nationalist loyalties as they exist today nor any single path to liberation, the book unpicks any notion of a straightforward imposition of Cold War ideologies or strategic interests on liberation wars. This approach adds new dimensions to the rich literatures on the Global Cold War and on solidarity movements. The contributors trace the ways that ideas and practices were made, adopted, and circulated through time and space through a focus on African soldiers, politicians and diplomats. The book also asks what motivated the men and women who crossed borders to join liberation movements, how Cold War influences were acted upon, interpreted and used, and why certain moments, venues and relations took on exaggerated importance. The connections among liberation movements, between them and their hosts, and across an extraordinarily diverse set of external actors reveal surprising exchanges and lasting legacies that have too often been obscured by the assertion of monolithic national histories. Tracing an extraordinarily diverse set of interactions and exchanges, Transnational Histories of Southern Africa’s Liberation Movements will be of great interest to scholars of Southern Africa, Transnational History, the Cold War and African Politics. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

In the global context of the Cold War, the relationship between liberation movements and Eastern European states obviously changed and transformed. Similarly, forms of (material) aid and (ideological) encouragement underwent changes over time. The articles assembled in this volume argue that the traditional Cold War geography of bi-polar competition with the United States is not sufficient to fully grasp these transformations. The question of which side of the ideological divide was more successful (or lucky) in impacting actors and societies in the global south is still relevant, yet the Cold War perspective falls short in unfolding the complex geographies of connections and the multipolarity of actions and transactions that exists until today. Acknowledging the complexities of liberation movements in globalization processes, the papers thus argue that activities need to be understood in their local context, including personal agendas and internal conflicts, rather than relying primarily on the traditional frame of Cold War competition. They point to the agency of individual activists in both "Africa" and "Eastern Europe" and the lessons, practices and languages that were derived from their often contradictory encounters. In Southern African Liberation Movements, authors from South Africa, Portugal, Austria and Germany ask: What role did actors in both Southern Africa and Eastern Europe play? What can we learn by looking at biographies in a time of increasing racial and international conflict? And which "creative solutions" need to be found, to combine efforts of actors from various ideological camps? Building on archival sources from various regions in different languages, case studies presented in the edition try to encounter the lack of a coherent state of the art. They aim at combining the sometimes scarce sources with qualitative interviews to give answers to the many open questions regarding Southern African liberation movements and their connections to the "East".

This book explores the global history of anti-apartheid and international solidarity with southern African freedom struggles from the 1960s. It examines the institutions, campaigns and ideological frameworks that defined the globalization of anti-apartheid, the ways in which the concept of solidarity was mediated by individuals, organizations and states, and considers the multiplicity of actors and interactions involved in generating and sustaining anti-apartheid around the world. It includes detailed accounts of key case studies from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, which illustrate the complex relationships between local and global agendas, as well as the diverse political cultures embodied in anti-apartheid. Taken together, these examples reveal the tensions and synergies, transnational webs and local contingencies that helped to create the sense of ‘being global’ that united worldwide anti-apartheid campaigns.

"In his characteristically engaging conversational style, combining intimate first-hand knowledge and lightly-worn scholarship with strong opinions, John Saul takes the reader vividly into the heart of the Canadian and American movements that supported the anti-apartheid and liberation struggles in southern Africa." -- Colin Leys, co-editor, The Socialist Register "Solidarity is the soul of the workers' movement. This is a book about one of history's greatest international solidarity movements: the anti-apartheid movement and that in support of the southern African liberation struggles more generally. It provides an inspiring and incisive account that raises sharply the question of what could have been had our revolution not lost its way by succumbing to neo-liberalism's false hopes and dead-end solutions." -- Trevor Ngwane, veteran South African activist and writer "John Saul offers far more than a comprehensive analysis of the historical development of Southern African solidarity movements in North America. He issues a call for an emancipatory politics and practice that locates battles for liberation in a larger context and in relationship to each other. He also challenges us to demystify the national liberation movements many of us worshiped in order to see not only their strengths and weaknesses, but in order to understand the forces that have ground many of them to a halt. What an outstanding piece of writing!" -- Bill Fletcher, Jr., former President of TransAfrica Forum; host of The Global African on Telesur-English.

In 1969, the Swedish parliament endorsed a policy of direct assistance to the liberation movements in Southern Africa. Sweden thus became the first Western country to enter into a relationship with organizations that elsewhere in the West were shunned as "Communist" or "terrorist." This book-the first in a two-volume study on Sweden & the regional struggles for majority rule & national independence-traces the background to the relationship. Presenting the actors & factors behind the support to MPLA of Angola, FRELIMO of Mozambique, SWAPO of Namibia, ZANU & ZAPU of Zimbabwe, & ANC of South Africa, it addresses the question why Sweden established close relations with the very movements that eventually would assume state power in their respective countries. The second volume (later this year) will discuss how the support was expressed, covering the period from 1970 until the democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.

In 1969, the Swedish parliament endorsed a policy of direct assistance to the liberation movements in Southern Africa. Sweden thus became the first Western country to enter into a relationship with organizations that elsewhere in the West were shunned as "Communist" or "terrorist." This book-the first in a two-volume study on Sweden & the regional struggles for majority rule & national independence-traces the background to the relationship. Presenting the actors & factors behind the support to MPLA of Angola, FRELIMO of Mozambique, SWAPO of Namibia, ZANU & ZAPU of Zimbabwe, & ANC of South Africa, it addresses the question why Sweden established close relations with the very movements that eventually would assume state power in their respective countries. The second volume (later this year) will discuss how the support was expressed, covering the period from 1970 until the democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.