October 7 would have been Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s, 94th birthday. As a church leader, he galvanised international support for the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa during the 1980s. He travelled extensively, appealing to Western governments and institutions to isolate the racist regime. His moral authority and tireless advocacy helped shift global opinion, contributing significantly to the implementation of sanctions that weakened the apartheid government and aided its collapse.

 He unrelentingly pursued the USA and the UK who stubbornly resisted the sanctions call even when other trade partners had isolated South Africa. Consequently, his harassment by the apartheid security police intensified, he and Mrs Tutu’s passports were withdrawn, he was the subject of a state sponsored smear campaign, and he earned the ire of white South Africa. Many were subsequently unhappy when he was appointed the first black Archbishop in the Anglican Church in Cape Town, during his sanctions campaign in 1986.

Tutu saw first-hand the power of global citizen action and later reflected that apartheid’s defeat would not have been possible without international support. It is no surprise then, that a significant section of his archive covers his global solidarity work in support of other oppressed peoples, with files for countries from almost every letter of the alphabet. 

As a South African anti-apartheid activist, I recall that it took a multi-pronged strategy, implemented over many years, to end apartheid. The strategy was known as the four pillars of struggle: mass mobilisation, underground work, armed struggle and international solidarity. While these pillars worked in tandem, the latter was very significant in debilitating the apartheid economy, amongst other aspects, through consumer boycotts and economic sanctions. For a short history of sanctions in the South African case read the chapter by internationalist, Ronnie Kasrils, in Generation Palestine (2013).

Kasrils (an ANC leader who served as cabinet minister in democratic South Africa) writes that after apartheid ended some of the former apartheid cabinet ministers admitted that when their longtime partner, Barclays Bank, divested they were shocked into facing the urgent need for change. Driven by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the success of global solidarity necessitated commitment from citizens(consumers), private companies and governments. To state the obvious, boycotts can only work when others heed the call. 

A deep dive into Tutu’s file on Palestine left me struck once more by the parallels between international, official government responses to the two struggles: the issue of Advisory Opinions by the ICJ (International Court of Justice), notices of violation of International Law, Human Rights reports and more so the similarity in how the oppressors respond with impunity and blatant disrespect for international law, supported to the last by the US and the UK governments.

This is meticulously recorded in Judge Navi Pillay’s recently launched final report as chair of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Territory of Palestine.  She told journalists that international law on genocide is absolute – it is illegal no matter what the circumstances. She stated that all states have “a legal obligation to stop the commission of genocide”.  

Tutu’s moral guidance is sorely needed as we now remember October 7 also as the date when military occupation became genocide in Gaza in 2023. Tutu and many other leaders warned long ago that serious measures were needed to end the occupation. In 2002 he urged: “If apartheid ended, so can the occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined.” 

The Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) was launched twenty years ago, on 9 July 2005, by a broad spectrum of civil society organisations representing the indigenous people of occupied Palestine, as a non-violent response to their oppression. A hundred and seventy organisations including trade unions, refugee networks and women’s organisations launched BDS in commemoration of the first anniversary of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion declaring the Israeli West Bank wall a violation of international law.

The BDS campaign is said to be the most widely supported call to action across Palestine’s civil society, including those in exile and Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is important as it demonstrates that the oppressed people of Palestine have chosen the strategy and they have called on the rest of us to support.  BDS can only work if humanity does its part and if you are not already a conscious shopper or investor, this is what you are called to do now. 

Tutu explicitly and consistently endorsed BDS as a peaceful, non-violent strategy in his speeches and media statements. He wrote letters and advocated for the US and the UK governments and various institutions including the Anglican Church to divest from companies that were complicit in the military occupation of the Palestinian territories. 

In 2011 he congratulated the University of Johannesburg (UJ) for breaking ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University.

Tutu’s archive also reveals that the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RtoP) already acknowledged all the atrocities that have recently been amplified. Its esteemed participants had identified clear responses for global civil action and proposals for international authorities and governments to consider. The third international session of the RToP occurred in Cape Town, November 5-7, 2011. In his opening address, Tutu charged the gathering to seek a path to peace built on the premise that “no matter where you come from or what you wear on your head – even if you wear no headdress at all – we are members of one family, the human family, God’s family.”

It is 14 years since that session confirmed the systematic, institutionalised nature of the crimes against the oppressed people of Palestine. Through witness testimony it confirmed two crimes against humanity: that of a “particularly aggravated” form of apartheid and that of persecution of the indigenous people of Palestine (including the Bedouin communities in southern Israel) through displacement, destruction and military attacks on ordinary people.  The Tribunal called on all states and civil society to, among others, implement BDS.

Indeed, every evil action has already been identified, and solutions have been tabled repeatedly. Yet, and despite the latest ceasefire, the merciless massacres and colonial expansion persist in what Palestinian legal scholar , Rabea Eghbariah, refers to as the ongoing nakba. In both the South African and the Palestinian cases, systematic discrimination and violations of international law have been extensively documented by international bodies. However, the political will to impose comprehensive sanctions is not present in the case of Palestine.  This inconsistency in the international community has raised many questions, such as, why universal human rights seemingly do not apply to Palestinian people. 

Is this because Palestine is viewed as a catalyst for challenging the remnants of colonialism: white nationalism, supremacism, Zionism, rising fascism and the expansion of global capitalism in other nations under siege such as the DRC, Sudan, South Sudan and Syria?  Or because of what leading commentators, scholars and writers consider the colonial reckoning that is now approaching the Five Eye settler colonies as well?  The stakes are high and so we need to step up the pressure on apartheid Israel, especially given the murder of families returning to their demolished homes since the so-called ceasefire of 10 October 2025.  

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese’s latest report gives us pause to consider the power of corporations and our counter-power as consumers. Her previous report lists the companies profiting from the genocide (some long before) who should be pressured to divest or stop trading. 

The fall of apartheid South Africa stands as powerful testimony to the possibilities of international unity. That same spirit can shift the dynamics in favour of Palestine’s indigenous people. The question is whether we have the moral courage to act on what we know to be right with consistency, regardless of political convenience or pressure to remain silent.

In his foreword to the book Generation Palestine (2013) Tutu stated:

“The BDS movement is an essential component of Palestine’s struggle and humanity’s struggle for justice and true human liberation – it must be supported by us all.”

While he was concerned about war and genocide in many parts of the world, Tutu is well documented on Palestine.  It was the cruel impacts of apartheid South Africa’s forced removal of families that propelled him to seek economic sanctions in the 1980s.  As the perilous situation of Palestinian families escalates, we know that he would have rattled Western nations until sanity prevails. Despite bearing the brunt of his stance on Zionism, Tutu would have been hard to suppress at this time.

But he is no longer present. You and I and those same tools that helped dismantle apartheid South Africa remain. 

Check the list of businesses to boycott on the BDS website or from your local Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) network.  Ask your pension fund/financial advisor, and even your church, if they are investing in any of the companies listed in Albanese’s report.  Pressure your trade union to use worker power to stop your company supplying goods or services to support Israel. 

As Archbishop Tutu wrote, international pressure helped to end apartheid in South Africa and it can do so again in occupied Palestine “but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined.”

* Charlene Houston is Archive Manager for the Archbishop Tutu Intellectual Property Trust in South Africa, supporter of the PSC and is a PhD candidate focusing on decoloniality and re-indigeneity in the heritage sector.  She writes in her personal capacity.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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