Mobilizing Morality: The World Council of Churches and its Programme to Combat Racism, 1969-1994

[The WCC's decision to help fund liberation movements] means that these churchmen have abandoned the very faith and hope to which Christianity is dedicated. ¹

Q: So you actually approve of the WCC's action of giving aid to liberation movements?

A: I welcome it as a gesture of goodwill, but I do not believe it is going to solve any problems. It is a token, that's all, not even a drop into the bucket. ²

Ours is the Programme to Combat Racism. The word "combat" has to be taken seriously. . . . If our task is one of combat, then the strategy must necessarily be military. We must identify and locate the enemy, estimate our resources, choose our weapons, train our forces, enlist some allies, and go to war with a modicum of determination. . . . [If the problem is attacked at a global level], we bring the war very close to our own constituency as [the] World Council of Churches. ³

I. Introduction

The struggle against apartheid involved thousands of groups around the world. NGOs from a wide variety of backgrounds joined international efforts to attack the racist underpinnings of the former minority government of South Africa, and to assist liberation movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) in their struggle. Among the organizations most involved--and most challenged by the confrontation--was the World Council of Churches (WCC). Its efforts over a quarter-century, through the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), provide one of the most interesting examples of mobilizing morality on behalf of human rights. Networks of activists encouraged by the PCR sought a variety of social, economic, and political changes, ranging from racism against Australian aboriginals to the empowerment of Dalit peoples in India to entrenched discrimination against Japanese Burakumin. Throughout this period, its major attention was focused on institutionalized white racism, especially as manifested in southern Africa.

Established in the late 1960s, at a time of significant international social ferment, the PCR exemplifies what Keck and Sikkink deemed "symbolic politics." ⁴ This strategy--one of the most important available to NGOs, but perhaps the most difficult to evaluate in terms of "success" is based upon marked differences in strength between the NGOs and the government(s) involved. Keck and Sikkink propose examining the impact of networks--"forms of organization characterized by voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange." ⁵ The repertoire that "activists beyond borders" can use includes information, symbolic, leverage, and accountability strategies. But how can one best "measure" changes in policies resulting from actions that are largely symbolic in nature? A partial answer comes through examining the PCR as the core of a network that modified popular attitudes and government policies toward South Africa, particularly in Western Europe.

The transnational advocacy network the WCC built focused on the central value of equality. First, no person, created in the divine image, should be victimized against based on his or her racial background. This moral imperative lay at the heart of the PRC. Its actions were premised on this core belief. Second, it concentrated on empowerment, arguing that Christians should support the efforts of the weak and poor. Through this argument, the PCR sought means whereby economic and political power would be transferred. Obviously, this was not an easy message to sell to the privileged and well-off!

The PCR mobilized morality on the basis of facts as well as religious belief. Providing information about the nature of racism, pressing governments, churches, and even corporations for accountability, and leveraging change through the mobilization of change, were thus also central parts of the WCC's strategies. Keck and Sikkink deem these "information politics" and "leverage politics." Indeed, it was only by multiplying efforts made in Geneva, Switzerland, literally millions of times that "success" could be achieved. That a professional staff of three (and occasionally...