04 | Boycott! | The Grapefruit Ladies

It's 1984, and in Dublin, Ireland, 21 year old shop assistant Mary Manning refuses to sell a South African grapefruit. Her action draws world attention to the campaign to hit Apartheid where it hurts, by crippling the South African economy. At the same time a young Australian seaman starts a global ban on shipping oil to South Africa. How South Africans won their freedom from the racist Apartheid regime, and the Australians who helped them fight for it.

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  It's July the 19th, 1984. A fresh summer's morning in downtown Dublin. And 21-year-old Mary Manning is on her way to work.

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  I was working in Dun Storrs on Henry Street, which is a large supermarket in Ireland.

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  Everyone in Ireland knows Dun's supermarkets. There is Irish as Bunnings is Australian. So Mary's on the bus, travelling into work, thinking about, well, what most young people are thinking about.

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  My main goal was getting money to go out the following weekend or buy towels or do something. I travelled into work as normal, not knowing that this was going to be a day that would completely change my life.

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  Oh, boy. Will it ever.

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  Mary's in a union, and the union's asked its members not to handle any fresh produce that's been imported from South Africa. No unpacking it, no ringing it up at the cash register. And today's the first day of the action.

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  Mary knows what a boycott is. It's when you stop dealing with a company or a country to protest its cruelty or exploitation. But she doesn't know much about what's going on in South Africa.

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  We'd heard the word apart, that we couldn't even pronounce it properly. We'd heard Nelson Mandela and maybe Steve Beakow. We didn't know anything about really what was happening in South Africa.

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  Still, she's a loyal unionist, so when organisers call for a boycott, she jumps right in. That first morning, Mary stands at the till. Her manager's watching her super closely, and it's making Mary very, very nervous. When a customer brings a South African grapefruit to her register, Mary makes a decision that will change not only her life, it will change the course of a movement.

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  I could see she had two grapefruits, and I was thinking to myself, don't go to my register. But she came to my register anyway, and I said to her that I couldn't handle them. We had a union policy in support of the black people of South Africa. We were refusing to handle South African goods. And she was fine to boycott the goods. I was told I was suspended indefinitely.

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  Suspended indefinitely. 10 other Dun's workers are suspended that day too. They all go on strike. The union's anticipating this, and it sets up a picket line right out at the front of the main store. One of its first supporters is legendary black South African unionist Nimrod Sejaque. He'd been a member of the African National Congress, the ANC, back home in the 1950s, and had been arrested and detained at one point with Nelson Mandela. He'd managed to leave the country and eventually made his way to Ireland to live in exile as a political refugee. On those long days on the picket, Nimrod tells Mary about life under apartheid, about

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  the violence and the racism and the injustice. But he explains it in a very Irish way.

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  He told us that, like, South Africa was like a pint of Guinness. I think at the time, there were 33 million black people, were ruled by about 2 million white people, and the white people sat on top of the black people, like a pint of Guinness. So they kept the black down. So I suppose that was kind of something that we could visualize. Once we started to learn what was happening over there, you couldn't unsee it.

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  Trust a South African and an Irish woman to bond over beer. Little does Mary Manning know that refusing to sell a single grapefruit will change the course of history.

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  I'm Sisongem Simang, and on ABC Rewind, this is Boycott: The Fight to End Apartheid. Episode four, The Grapefruit Ladies.

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  That same July in 1984, as Mary Manning's refusing to scan grapefruit in Dublin, I am sleepless in Canada. Until now, I've grown up in the ANC community in exile, first in Lusaka and then in Nairobi, Kenya. But we're citizens of nowhere, and my mom desperately wants us kids to be citizens of somewhere. And so we've settled in Canada. But because South Africa's in the news all the time, 10-year-old me worries a lot. I see police tankers, tear gas, and bullets shooting at black people.

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  South Africa is starting to go up in flames. It's turning into a holocaust.

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  Crossroads dawn. The wreckage from yesterday's fighting still smoulders. So does the anger, so will the war.

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  These people of Crossroads, they were coming out of the police vehicles. We were looking at them, straight at them.

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  And that keeps me wide awake at night. I have zero idea that all around the world, an army of ordinary people like Mary Manning is taking action to help kids like me be free from the shackles of apartheid. While I'm in bed worrying, the anti-apartheid movement has honed in on a clear tactic. To end apartheid, the flow of money has to stop. No money for sport, no money for culture, or for South African businesses. Governments are going to have to make hard decisions. Question is, will they have the courage to do so?

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  Unless the major Western countries impose sanctions against South Africa as a means of prodding further reforms, the black population will turn to violence.

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  We in the West have to try and understand that the desire for political freedom, the desire for political rights, burns just as fiercely in the mind and the heart of a black as it does in our own.

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  Until now, the most prolific boycotts have been on the sporting field. The Australian government banned white-only South African teams after the controversial Springbok rugby tour in 1971. But behind the headlines, it's trade unions leading the fight against apartheid, both inside and outside South Africa. And why are unions so involved? Well, sorry to go all Karl Marx on you, but that saying, "Workers of the world unite", it's been with us a long time, since the 1850s at least. And solidarity's been a core principle of union organizing ever since. No matter where workers happen to live, they support each other. So, unions everywhere have been agitating for economic boycotts

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  ever since the South African Communist Party and the ANC first asked them to in the late 1950s. It's been a slow burn, but it's now, in the 1980s, that things really kick off internationally.

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  A few years before Mary's grapefruit moment, a young Australian merchant seaman called Joe Deacon flies into Cape Town to join a cargo ship. He jumps in a taxi at the airport with his mate Wally Pritchett. They head for the dock, and it doesn't take long before they're confronted by the reality of apartheid.

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  On one side of the road, on the left-hand side of the road as we're driving, we see shanty towns with a barbed wire fence. Yet on the other side of the road, we've got these palatial homes.

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  Joe and Wally are stunned.

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  They've been hearing about apartheid through their union, the Seamen's Union of Australia. But seeing it for themselves is something else.

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  We said to the driver, "What does this mean?" And the driver said it very, very sharp and very short in two words, pointing to the left-hand side where the shanty towns were, "Blacked", pointing to the other side where the palatial homes were, "Wait".

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  And I thought, "Well, we..." And when we bedded down in our hotel waiting for our vessel to bring it back to Australia, all through the night, you hear screaming, you hear gunshots. And that was my introduction to apartheid. And I was very determined from then on that I am going to play some sort of part in its downfall.

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  If you're a seaman who works on cargo ships loaded with the oil that the apartheid regime needs to fuel its economy, obviously, it's only natural to use your voice to spark an oil embargo. When they get back to Australia, Wally and Joe take their plan to stop the supply of oil to South Africa to the head of the Australian Maritime Union's Pat Garrity.

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  And Pat said, "Yes, yes, but you need to do your homework, son. It needs to be a worldwide movement."

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  Of course it does. Why go for anything less?

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  So Wally gets in touch with the Danish Siemens Union.

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  Because the Danes, even though we had ships going to South Africa, the Danes had many tankers going there.

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  It turns out that oil is apartheid's Achilles' heel. Because South Africa has no commercial oil reserves, none. It relies entirely on oil imports. So if you can stop oil getting into the country, then you just might be able to stop the army and the police from using its tanks, planes and helicopters to terrorize the black population. And of course, slow down the entire economy while you're at it. Soon enough, Australia's three maritime unions have convinced workers on ships and docks in Australia, Denmark and Britain to stop working on all vessels taking oil to South Africa.

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  It got off the ground like a rocket.

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  Through the Fireman Decades, the union members who manned the tugs,

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  they played a massive part in delaying ships, in stopping ships. Port workers refused to handle the lines of some vessels that they knew were trading with racist South Africa.

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  And that had a massive effect.

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  There are times when South Africa only has enough oil to last a week.

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  The cost of oil imports doubles, and that hits the apartheid economy hard. But shipping companies don't like this. It hurts their bottom line. So they fight back against the boycott.

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  They were threatening the union. Never stopped me from doing what I had to do. People were getting slaughtered by the colonialist machine. And we're going to sit there and twiddle our thumbs? No, we're not. And we said, in no uncertain terms, you could shove 45D of the Trade Practices Act where the sun doesn't shine.

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  Shove those writs where the sun don't shine. I love it. All this resistance just makes the maritime workers even more radical. Australian unions are in close contact with unions in South Africa. In fact, their actions are almost always inspired by what's happening there. And boy, is there a lot happening. When government cracks down hard on black South Africans in the mid 80s, Australian unions expand their boycott, refusing to offload, pack up, or sell anything to do with South Africa, not just oil.

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  A black ban on all things South African starts from midnight tonight. It's aimed at bringing about what's described as progressive change in South Africa and the payment of proper award provisions to South African unionists.

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  Australian postal workers refuse to process mail to South Africa. If you've got family or friends in South Africa, tough titties. And telecom workers refuse to connect international phone calls to and from the South African embassy in Canberra. Let them figure out how to communicate with their racist prime minister in Pretoria.

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  It's a move which opposition leader John Howard has likened to shooting oneself in the foot. It's a futile exercise in terms of helping the blacks in South Africa. And it will probably backfire on a lot of Australians, and I think that's regrettable.

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  I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that John Howard was on the wrong side of history on this one. There was nothing futile about helping black people in South Africa.

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  In 1980 South Africa, life for black people is as bad as it's ever been.

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  There is repression, there is death, there is detention of even children, there is torture, there is killings of activists inside prisons. There is hanging, but there is resistance, marches, defiance, defiance.

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  Zwelin Zima Vavi is the general secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions. He's also a bit of a hero of mine. Vavi was born into a very poor family, one of 15 kids. And he grew up in a small rural village in the northern Cape, his father an itinerant farm worker.

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  I know the life of evictions, of dismissal of the parents, of my father sitting on the middle of nowhere in the roadside, in the coldest northern Cape winter, all of us camping under the donkey cart and all of us waiting for him to return. And he would walk all day, having dismissed from this farm, looking for opportunities in the next farms. And he will return empty-handed.

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  Vavi doesn't go to school. Like so many little ones, he works, putting up fences, feeding animals. And in his part of the country, the farms produce nuts and citrus fruits. Yep, including those grapefruits at the heart of Mary's strike. He grows up listening to stories about the treatment his parents and older siblings have had to endure.

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  What really developed my political consciousness was the stories at home, in the fireplace. The stories will start almost every evening. The dismissals, the beating up of certain so-and-so.

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  Vavi stores all this away until he's working his first job as a young man in the 1980s.

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  Now, I need you to picture this. Young Vavi is recruited to work in a mine. He's got no real choice. There are no other jobs, and he's poor. The mining company puts him on a train with thousands of other black workers. And he's sent to the colossal Anglo-American gold mine on the reef, just outside Johannesburg. His identity pass is stamped. Vavi's only allowed to be in Johannesburg for work. When he gets to the mine, he's taken to the Worker Hostel, where he'll live.

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  We were 15,000 workers.

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  In the hostel system, in their segregation, Zulus, Kosas, Pondos, Batas, Swatis, Mozambicans, Shangans, the Sutu, this side. The apartheid was being reinforced right into the single-sex hostel line. The single-sex hostel was like living inside a Parakaite prison. It was like a concentration camp.

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  Vavi and the 15,000 men he works with are only allowed to visit home once a year at Christmas. That's the only time they can see their wives, their kids, their family and friends. This whole arrangement, the mine recruiter in rural areas, the train, the pass, the hostel, and the once-a-year visit, it's the crucible of apartheid. It makes the companies very rich, it keeps the workers very poor, and controls the movement of the black population. It's the primary reason apartheid exists. It's also the reason mine workers are at the forefront of pushing for change. By the 1980s, these horrendous conditions have led to the formation

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  of a powerful new black union, the National Union of Mine Workers, the N U M. One of its founders is Cyril Ramaphosa, the current president of South Africa, and Vavi's a very active member.

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  There is a conscious effort to make apartheid unworkable. There's defiance campaign after defiance campaign.

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  And the funerals.

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  The slogan there was, every time they kill one, they conscientize 10 more black people to fight. Every time they kill 10, they conscientize 1,000 more. And every time they kill 100, they conscientize millions of people to join the struggle. So every funeral was a rally.

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  As the unions mobilize inside South Africa, the temperature is getting high.

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  This weekend, after a year of almost continuous violence in which 500 people have died, the South African government has imposed a state of emergency in an attempt to extinguish protest against the country's apartheid laws.

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  In 1985, the South African government declares a total state of emergency as it tries to control the deepening unrest. It gives security forces "shoot to kill" powers, and there are mass detentions.

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  According to the daily police bulletin, 792 people have now been arrested. But despite the arrests, violent deaths in the townships are continuing. Four people were killed in the township of Davetown in the last 24 hours, when police say army and riot units opened fire on a crowd that was stoning police vehicles.

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  It's incredibly violent. The apartheid government has a taste for blood, and it cracks down hard. But the repression is met with a rising tide of defiance.

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  Black political parties, like the ANC and the PAC, were banned back in the 1960s. But in 1979, under international pressure, the apartheid government legalizes black unions. And by the 1980s, they are mushrooming. They form the Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU. And around the world, unions take their cue from what COSATU is saying and doing. COSATU is talking with Australian unions, mailing them videos with intel about what's happening on the ground. Kim Sattler's a unionist and an anti-apartheid activist here in Australia, and she's watching those tapes.

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  And we'd all sit in a room and watch these really dark, poorly filmed, terrible-sound videos. But we got it from the horse's mouth. And when the boycott campaigns began and the messing with that message here in Australia was, "You can't do boycott because it will stop people from being able to work, and they will lose their jobs." COSATU actually had the workers who were directly affected that, telling us how important it was for them that we did boycott. And we tried to follow their guide around what to boycott.

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  Saying that boycotts will only hurt black people in South Africa is an argument regularly thrown at by supporters of apartheid and by businesses and governments that don't want to lose money under trade sanctions with South Africa. Kim knows it's absolute BS. If the news wasn't enough, the tapes make it very clear: South African workers want boycotts and sanctions. So, at a moment of levity here, she decides to create a bit of mischief in the freezer aisle of a well-known supermarket that stocks South African goods.

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  We imported a lot of fish from South Africa in that period. And one of the first things I remember doing was taking all the fish out of the frozen fish cabinets in the supermarkets and just leaving it out to thaw while I did my shopping.

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  Oof, the stench of apartheid making its way through the aisles of the supermarket. Other activists, like Paul Kaplan and Perth, are also madly targeting companies doing business with South Africa.

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  For months, we went weekly on a Saturday morning to a different store.

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  Two, three, four. Then shopping cold stores. Five, six, seven, eight. Cold sales apartheid.

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  Picoted it, put up our signs and banners, distributed leaflets telling people not to buy South African products, and going to various Shell petrol stations and picketing them and telling people not to not to fill up with Shell.

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  But here's the problem: a heap of individuals are taking extraordinary action against apartheid all around the world. There are trade unions doing what they can, sporting bodies banning South Africa from competing, but the movement needs economic sanctions. It needs governments to put their money where their mouth is and stop trading with South Africa. This is the next big fight. Historian Peter Lim has done the sums. During apartheid, Australia is making more money off trade with South Africa than ever before.

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  From 1965 to 1992, Australian exports actually rose from 22 million to 334 million, with companies such as BHP, IXL profiting from trade with apartheid, even sometimes at the expense of Australian jobs. I mean, the Labor Government in WA in the 80s imported railway bogies or suspension from South Africa, even at a time when they were opposing apartheid. Rio Tinto Zinc made massive profits from mines in South Africa.

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  In other words...

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  The dollar spoke louder than morality.

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  The dollar spoke louder than morality. Ain't that the truth? Given the lack of action from political leaders, the movement focuses on isolating South Africa, not just economically, but like, literally. The movement wants to make it hard for white South Africans to fly around the world as if nothing is wrong with their lifestyles. So, South African Airways becomes a big target.

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  One of our big focuses was South African Airways shopfront. We would picket it regularly, but in the end, South African Airways had to abandon that shopfront altogether and go up onto the second floor with security and everything.

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  It's only a small win, but it contributes to a bigger payoff a few years later, when in 1987, the Australian government banned South African Airways from flying into Australia. One step closer to isolation.

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  We went into the airport and sang and danced and chanted in joy as one of our main targets had been subject to the boycott at last.

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  Back in Dublin, Mary Manning and her colleagues are eight months into picketing Dunce supermarkets. There's some pretty miserable Irish weather, but the picketers are there regardless. This is the young Mary, speaking with the Irish broadcaster RTE back in 1985.

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  I have quite an awful lot of ground support out there for us. It surprised us to see how much support there was. But then again, you're always going to get downright racist, which...

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  Are there racist around?

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  There are, which is... We never thought at the beginning of the strike that there was actually racist living in this country, but it's amazing how many people there are. We've been called [BLEEP] lovers. It shocked us to think that people thought that way about a person, that the only difference is the colour of their skin. Like, we were told all the blacks are forest, the jungle, they're only out of the trees, you know? And it really shocked us, you know?

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  As Mary spends her days on the picket line, our family is living in Canada. And Baba's working for a big international charity, which runs humanitarian projects in different African countries. He's gone for long stretches, and my mum carries the load on her own. We have zero contact with friends and family in South Africa. Baba's still not allowed back into the country. But we see enough on the news to know what's happening there.

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  Another four people have been killed in the last 24 hours. But how did they die? Kerry Weal put that question to the police public relations officer in Pretoria, Major Van Royen.

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  The mob was dispersed with shotgun and rifle fire, so I take it they were shot.

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  By your security forces?

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  Yes, oh yes.

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  Well, does that give you concern at all?

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  Oh yes, most definitely. We don't like to shoot people.

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  But revolution is in the air, and another new organisation is in town: the United Democratic Front. Now, unlike the unions, the UDF is a little harder for the government to dismiss, because the UDF is an alliance. It includes unions, but it's also got neighbourhood associations, young people's organisations, and crucially, church groups. These other groups give the UDF cover, because it's one thing to fight a union, it's another to fight the church.

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  Now let me tell you something. South Africans are deeply religious. And so it's no surprise that a priest emerges as a key leader of the UDF. And he's not just any priest. His name is Bishop Desmond Tutu, a black bishop, and he's a remarkable man.

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  The day anybody can show me that the Bible supports apartheid, that day, I will take my Bible and tear it into little strips, and I will stop being a Christian.

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  Desmond Tutu wears the Anglican Church's purple cassock with a tasseled belt around his waist, like what medieval monks wore. And he's slight, with a twinkle in his eye and a laugh that fills the room. But his stature is deceiving. Desmond Tutu is a force. His words have power. Bishop Tutu regularly puts his body on the line, standing with his arms outstretched to protect protesters from the police. And his message is consistent. He doesn't preach moderation.

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  We do not want apartheid reformed. We don't, I mean, who wants a Frankenstein reformed? We want apartheid destroyed.

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  Bishop Desmond Tutu's efforts gained global recognition. And in October 1984, he's awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On his way to Sweden to pick up his prize, Tutu makes an important stopover. He's heard about the Duns shop workers in Dublin, who refused to scan South African produce. And so Bishop Tutu visits Mary Manning and her fellow protesters.

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  That was one of the big turning points because you had the priests and nuns putting up an argument that you're hurting black people of South Africa. Well, here is a black bishop of South Africa, who is saying, no, we should be commended for what we're doing. So people started to kind of say, well, you know, maybe they're not wrong. Maybe there is something in this. Because he was a religious man, it made a lot of people who were using the religious aspect of it, you know, they couldn't use that argument anymore.

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  It's been a really hard few months for Mary and the other strikers. They're being slammed in the media, labeled troublemakers. But now, a man of the cloth, a Nobel laureate is on their side. And Ireland starts to see that the Dunstore workers may be more than just fringe radicals.

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  While the striking grapefruit ladies are getting a boost, in Australia, on the other side of the world, the anti-apartheid movement has a major setback. Ever since the controversial Springbok rugby tour in 1971, Australia's ban on playing South African sporting teams has held strong. South Africa's also been kicked out of the Olympics. It's in sporting Siberia. But then, an Australian cricket tour of South Africa is announced. It's a shocking development, and a flagrant thumbing of the nose to the anti-apartheid movement that thought it had won this fight, but apparently not.

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  The proposed tour of South Africa by Australian cricketers has struck a raw nerve with the Hawke government. The prime minister has opposed the trip and threatened that the players involved can expect close scrutiny of their financial affairs by the tax office.

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  I respect the right of people to have a different point of view, but on the issue of race and colour, this government is immovable. I and this government will not change our view about that obnoxious system of apartheid.

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  Graham Yellips, one of the cricketers, offered a chance to go. And for him, well, the decision's pretty cut and dried.

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  We're over there purely and simply to play cricket, and we're not concerned with the politics of the country.

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  These days, you can earn millions playing cricket overseas. But in the 80s, if you play cricket for Australia, you also need a day job. Players only make about 12 grand a year.

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  The rebel players are being offered $200,000 to go on the tour. It's a huge amount of money at the time. So for many of them, it's a no brainer. Australian baseballer Carl Rackaman also says yes to the tour.

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  Obviously, there was going to be some criticism. But it wasn't something that was unexpected and it wasn't something that really bothered us that much. There was polls taken that showed we had something like 70% support from the Australian public. So that was probably more important to us than than the few critics. Most people and certainly myself, we went for financial considerations. That was the bottom line and this was a lot of insurance for my future.

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  The Hawk government calls the players mercenaries. But the public's thinking, if the government's not prepared to take a stand and stop trading with South Africa, why should cricketers take the fall? Lots of players, including Australian captain Alan Border, refused to join the rebels. But star West Australian player Kim Hughes does sign up and protesters make him pay. They travel from one suburban cricket pitch to another, disrupting his Perth club games. Until one day, someone gets hurt.

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  An ABC reporter called Debbie Bishop, who was a fearless reporter. She went to Kim Hughes' home ground, Florett. She was confronted by the manager of Florett Club and thrown down the stairs and had her arm broken.

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  The night before, someone not part of our group had damaged the cricket pitch at Stephens Obel. So when we arrived on the Saturday with our batters and placards, the police were there in large numbers. And then suddenly, the TRG, the Tactical Response Group, swooped on us and arrested five of us, including me, chucked us in the paddy wagons.

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  Once again, police violence is used against sports protesters.

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  At backyard barbecues, school pickups, around the proverbial water cooler, everyone in Perth's talking about the Rebel Cricket Tour. One of them is a socially conscious young man who's part of a church youth group.

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  We had a regular group meeting that we called the Third World Group, and we'd actually talk about Third World and social justice issues.

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  His name is Simon White. Simon and his mates are trying to work out what playing cricket has to do with supporting apartheid. How do sports boycotts help anything? They want to write about this for the church newsletter, The Natt, and they're trying to work out who to talk to about this when old mate Derek pipes up.

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  And our friend Derek said, "Well, before I left work, I looked it up, and I've got Desmond Tutu's phone number.

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  Why don't we give him a call?"

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  What? I have so many questions about this. They seriously think they can call up the Nobel Prize-winning Bishop Desmond Tutu, who spends his days mediating conflict in apartheid South Africa? Bless.

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  And we were just like, "You can't do that. We can't just call up the guy." And he said, "Why not? We've got his number. Let's give it a go." So we called up the phone. Somebody answered, and we said, "Can we speak to Bishop Tutu?"

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  This is ridiculous.

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  And the person who answered the phone said, "Hold on a minute."

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  And then we were talking to Bishop Tutu. And we just said to him, "Oh, hi, you know, we're kind of a bit starstruck here that we just explained who we were. We're a group of people in a small group attached to a church, and we wanted to ask him." So he proceeded to spend the next half an hour talking to us what the Rebel Cricket Tour meant for people in South Africa.

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  Do you remember what he said specifically?

• 35:12Speaker 26

  Obviously, he was totally against it. He saw these people as mercenaries. He, of course, talked about sports and politics and said how you can't distinguish between the two and how this is hitting a regime where it hurts. It was just a lovely connection with a guy who I think was such a charismatic figure in that period.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  And such a hero.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  I'll end up marrying this man, Simon White. Clearly, we were always meant to find our way to each other.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Anyhow, despite all the protests, the cricket tour goes ahead.

• 35:53Speaker 27

  Despite international condemnation of their lucrative two-season tour, he said the rebels were proud of their actions. And Hughes answered criticisms that his team was made up of cricketing has-beens.

• 36:06Speaker 28

  We've got a new name for the team that's called the A-Team. The players' performances on the field will be just the same as if they were in the official cricket side.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  For the record, White South Africa wins most of the games. But it's not just cricket. Pretty soon, a rebel Australian rugby team also tours. And it's equally controversial. But that's enough about sport. I'm getting a headache.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  A year after Mary Manning refused to scan that South African grapefruit, the Dunn store workers are still out of work, still on the picket line outside the main shopfront in central Dublin. Mary and her colleagues are surviving on a small stipend from the union, 21 pounds a week. They're still considered troublemakers, even if their support is growing slightly. But when Bishop Desmond Tutu visits them on his way to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize, he invites them to South Africa so they can see apartheid for themselves. They spend months fundraising for their affairs. And finally, Mary and her eight colleagues board a flight to Johannesburg. They are so excited.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  For most of them, it's their first time overseas.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  But when they land...

• 37:29Speaker 02

  We noticed there was a load of soldiers on the tarmac. And kind of didn't think anything about it because we just saw this. We didn't know what it was like over there. And we were brought into the airport. And we were approached by someone in the airport and they said, "Follow us." So there was 32 armed guards, some in front, some behind us, going up three or four flights of stairs.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Are a few shop assistants from Ireland really that much of a threat to the security of South Africa that they need 32 armed men?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  The women are terrified by the presence of so many men with guns. After all...

• 38:06Speaker 02

  The only news we heard was coming from South Africans, people falling out of windows and falling downstairs.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  They've heard the stories about the special branch police throwing activists out of windows and pushing them down stairwells.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  So we were terrified. I mean, literally, nobody knew where we were at this stage.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Mary and her friends spend eight hours in an airless room at the airport, confused, tired, and anxious. Then finally, they're told they can't enter the country. They won't get to see apartheid and segregation for themselves, won't get to talk to black South Africans to hear firsthand about the violence and their repression. And they won't be able to visit with their friend in the purple dress, Bishop Tutu. The government's refusal to let them in backfires.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  This was probably the worst thing that they could have done because when we got home the next day, it was the front page of the papers. That drew much more attention to what was happening over there as well.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Once again, the apartheid government's extreme response has helped activists make their point.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Mary Manning and the Dunstow workers hold the picket line for almost three years. Then, in April 1987, the Irish government stuns the world when it announces a ban on all South African goods. Not just grapefruit, but all fruits and biscuits, nuts, wines, everything. Far more than the workers had ever imagined possible. Ireland is the first Western country to do this, and it's a huge win for the movement.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Today, the Dunstow workers are famous in Ireland. They're affectionately known as the Grapefruit Ladies. Proof that the journey of a thousand miles really can begin with just one small step, or with a single grapefruit.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Next time on Boycott, the power of music.

• 40:17Speaker 29

  There are times when a record comes to bring people together in a way that makes them feel that they do have the power to make a difference, and Free Nelson Mandela is one of those kind of songs.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  As artists like Billy Bragg and Peter Gabriel take the message to the world stage, will global leaders follow Ireland and finally stop trading with South Africa?

• 40:36Speaker 30

  If you have the black people calling for sanctions to force the government to change the nature of a Tadita regime, then can you deny them that support? That's the question which the Commonwealth is going to have to answer.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  To bring the country to its knees.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  I'm Sisongem Simang, and this has been an ABC Rewind production for Radio National.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  And if you've stuck around till the end, a little treat for you. We're going to lighten the mood and give the last word today to comedian David Neill, who tells the final chapter in the story of the Grapefruit Ladies.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  That was enough to get the attention of a guy on Robben Island in South Africa on his long walk to freedom, who went, jeez, once in a while you hear about people taking actions on your behalf that are so far disconnected from you, but it does connect you and inspire you. I have to meet these Grapefruit Ladies. That was Nelson Mandela, and he flew to Ireland in 1990 to meet the Grapefruit Ladies. But here's the wonderful thing, by the time he flew there, the Irish government had become the first Western country in the whole world to ban the import and sale of all goods from South Africa, thereby helping end apartheid with a fruit that we don't fecking like.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  It's just a wonderful bit of history I love that all too often gets forgotten, but Nelson Mandela never forgot it. When he passed away, he made sure the ladies were invited guests of honour at his funeral, should they wish to attend, and they did attend in a free South Africa that they helped create. And it was only around that time Nimrod, the one black guy who showed up, he got round to telling the ladies who he actually was. He'd been Nelson Mandela's cellmate on Robben Island. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew Irish people love speaking up for other oppressed people. He knew we love hip-hop, that we thought we were a little bit black. I tell you that story because the leader of those ten white ladies was called Karen, so you never know.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Your country needs a positive Karen story right now more than ever.

• 42:36Speaker 31

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