Botha's Babylon and the big brawl: Reflections on the way that the regime of PW Botha viewed the international anti-apartheid campaign

Abstract

During the early 1980s violent political conflict erupted across South Africa. The violence soon developed a dynamism, which seemed irrevocable as it hammered on with unprecedented intensity. Centering mainly around those forces in favour of the political status quo and those against it, apartheid's violent crisis quickly caught the eyes and ears of the world. The international anti-apartheid movement lobbied across the globe in an attempt to end the carnage that was the apartheid crucible. Spurned on by the anti-apartheid movement the international community gave expression to their contempt for apartheid and that which it symbolized through a wide variety of anti-apartheid measures.