Abstract:
This historical study explores the development of the World Council of
Churches’ (WCC) Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), 1969–1994, and its
campaign against apartheid in South Africa. It demonstrates how church-state
relations can be understood as ‘resistance’, but takes the analysis further by
arguing that the PCR, as an external transnational, ecumenical lobby with
intimate links to South African political radicalism, as well as exiled militant
formations among the liberation movements, sanctified revolutionary action in
dealing with white supremacy. It succeeded in marshalling a broad range of
international opinion by creating an agency dedicated to the eradication of
racism within the structures of the WCC. Increasingly diverse membership
enabled it to act decisively outside the constraints of pre-eminent Western
interests, theology and diplomacy, drawing more directly on strands of
Liberation Theology and the politics of non-alignment.
The thesis, based on extensive archival research in Geneva and South Africa,
covers the growing activism of the PCR in the 1970s and 1980s, tracing its
aims, projects and achievements under the various WCC general Assemblies
at Uppsala, Nairobi, Vancouver and Canberra between 1968 and 1991. The
PCR applied multiple strategies to attack apartheid, including special funding
to the African National Congress, Pan Africanist Congress and South African
Congress of Trade Unions, action research and anti-racism programmes to
inform and influence churches in different parts of the world to join the anti apartheid struggle.
The WCC and PCR provided a space for debate across a range of ideological
contestation. This was a function of its location in Geneva, its broad
ecumenism and its openness to representing the interests of oppressed
communities. Its attraction to political action, civil society lobbies and
philanthropic enterprises contributed to its effectiveness as a ‘think tank’ for
liberation, distinct from defined party-political forums or secular international
human rights agencies. It therefore represented a ‘clearing house’ for ideas
about democratic transformation and social change. Even though the PCR
drew fire for its support of armed struggle, it succeeded in fostering dialogue
among liberals and radicals, opposing political factions and competing
international interests in rethinking South Africa’s future between 1969 and
1994.
