Apartheid Internationalism: Canadian Activism in Defence of White Rule in Southern Africa, 1965–94.

This article examines the Canadian involvement in "apartheid internationalism," a transnational movement from 1965 to 1994 that supported or excused white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia without centralized organization but through shared right-wing political networks. Canadian activists, ranging from corporate executives and clergy to far-right groups and conservative politicians, expressed variants of white supremacism often framed by anti-communism and conservative Christian beliefs, and they engaged in propaganda, sympathetic journalism, and lobbying against sanctions and divestment. The movement was decentralized yet interconnected, with participants relying on personal travel experiences and drawing parallels between racial policies in southern Africa and Indigenous issues in Canada. The article highlights how this conservative and authoritarian internationalism coexisted alongside liberal and leftist responses to decolonization, revealing a complex dimension of Canada's transnational history shaped by race, politics, and economic interests.