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Violence for a Good Cause? The Role of Violent Tactics in West German Solidarity Campaigns for Better Working and Living Conditions in the Global South in the 1980s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2019
Abstract
Taking up Frank Trentmann's suggestion of ‘widening the historical frame’ in which we analyse the fair trade movement, this article explores the entangled history of violent and peaceful tactics in two transnational solidarity campaigns in West Germany the 1980s: the German anti-Apartheid movement and a campaign for women workers in a South Korean garment factory. Both campaigns had the aim to improve the living and working conditions of producers in the Global South and were characterised by a complex interplay of peaceful and militant tactics ranging from boycott calls to arson attacks and bombings. Although more research into the impact of violent protest is needed, the two case studies suggest that the use of violent protest tactics can contribute towards the success of protest movements if it attracts considerable media attention, the targeted companies face significant social and political pressure and the cumulative disruption costs clearly exceed the concession costs.
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References
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7 Following Charles Tilly, a campaign is here understood as ‘a sustained, coordinated series of episodes involving similar collective claims on similar or identical targets’, which establishes a link between different social actors, including a ‘group of self-designated claimants, some object(s) of claims, and a public of some kind’. Charles Tilly, Contentious Performances (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 121, 120.
8 When I refer to violent tactics in this context, they need to be understood and analysed as part of broader political campaigns. In this context, political violence ‘tends to be a choreography using different modalities of civil disobedience. … Its tactics include protest marches, hunger strikes, takeovers of public spaces, buildings, occupation of factories or universities. Issues range very broadly, and intertwine with normal politics’. David Apter, ‘Political Violence in Analytical Perspective’, in David Apter, ed., The Legitimization of Violence (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 1–32, 10.
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10 Since many exiles from the Global South and their West German allies referred to themselves as ‘Third World’ activists, I use this term when discussing their groups and activities.
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34 According to the German newsmagazine Spiegel, 5 per cent of all citrus fruit grown in South Africa were exported to West Germany, ‘Kap der guten Früchte’.
35 ‘Kap der guten Früchte’.
36 Luders, ‘The Economics of Movement Success’, 968.
37 Like the ‘Red Army Faction’, also known as ‘Baader-Meinhof Gang’, the Revolutionary Cells were classified as a terrorist organisation by the West German government. Between 1973 and 1995, the group carried out more than 180 attacks. Many of these targeted companies and institutions in West Germany that the group deemed responsible for the exploitation and oppression of people in the Global South, for example branches of the American company International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), the Israeli agricultural export company Agrexco and the consulates of Chile, El Salvador and Turkey.
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39 Die Früchte des Zorns, 405. All translations from German by the author.
40 ‘Kap der guten Früchte’.
41 The Red Zora formed in the mid-1970s as a feminist grouping within the Revolutionary Cells and split off from the group in 1984 to form an independent women's guerrilla. Between 1977 and 1988, the Red Zora claimed responsibility for forty-five arson attacks and bombings, most of which took place in the 1980s, and a few more followed in the 1990s. Many of these attacks adopted central topics in the German women's movement, including abortion, sexual exploitation, trafficking and genetic engineering. The RZ claimed that the struggle against patriarchal oppression was inextricably linked with the struggle against imperialism, racism, classism and other forms of dominance and oppression.
42 Die Früchte des Zorns, 471.
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50 Die Früchte des Zorns, 401.
51 Morgenrath and Wellmer, Deutsches Kapital am Kap, 75.
52 Ibid., 77.
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57 Christa Stolle, ‘Freiwild in der Freihandelszone’, die tageszeitung, 22 Dec. 1986.
58 Ibid.
59 Adler in: Ute Kosczy, Christa Stolle and Jai Sin Pak, Die Bescheidenheit ist vorbei. Koreanische Frauen wehren sich gegen Ausbeutung und ungerechte Weltwirtschaftsstrukturen. Das Beispiel Flair Fashion/Adler (Frankfurt: Entwicklungspolitischer Informationsdienst des Evangelischen Pressedienstes, 1988), 74.
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61 Kosczy et al, ‘Die Bescheidenheit ist vorbei’, 61.
62 Ibid.
63 Sirin Sung, ‘Women Reconciling Paid and Unpaid Work in a Confucian Welfare State: The Case of South Korea’, Social Policy & Administration, 37 (2003), 342–60, 345.
64 Stephanie Seguino, ‘Gender Wage Inequality and Export-Led Growth in South Korea’, Journal of Development Studies, 34 (1997), 102–32, 106.
65 Ibid.
66 Kosczy et al, ‘Die Bescheidenheit ist vorbei’, 6.
67 Ibid., 2.
68 Ibid., 24.
69 Ibid., 72.
70 Ibid., 61.
71 Ibid., 61.
72 Founded by a group of women in Hamburg in 1981, the women's rights organisation Terre des Femmes seeks to support girls and women ‘by means of education and advocacy, campaigning and lobbying, international networking, and individual personal assistance’. Terre des Femmes, ‘About Us’, https://www.frauenrechte.de/online/en/about-us (last visited 26 Oct. 2018).
73 Kosczy et al, ‘Die Bescheidenheit ist vorbei’, 56.
74 Former member of the Red Zora in interview with the author on 17 Aug. 2012.
75 ‘Die “Rote Zora” bezichtigt sich der Anschläge auf Adler’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 Aug. 1987.
76 ‘Adler- Anschlag per Feuerzeug’, die tageszeitung, 24 Sept. 1987.
77 ‘Neuer Anschlag auf eine Filiale von Adler in Berlin’, Neue Züricher Zeitung, 14 Sept. 1987.
78 Kosczy et al., ‘Die Bescheidenheit ist vorbei’, 97.
79 Christa Wichterich, ‘Einen Bärendienst erwiesen’, die tageszeitung, 21 Sept. 1987.
80 Wichterich, ‘Einen Bärendienst erwiesen’.
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92 Wenzel, Südafrika-Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 63.
93 Ibid., 68.