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| UDF Poster |
In
January 1983, Allan Boesak called for the formation of a front to
oppose specific apartheid constitutional changes, and after a series
of regional conferences, the United Democratic Front was launched in
Cape Town in August. Boesak says that fifteen hundred people were
present, representing 500 organisations and all sectors of society.
The listing of the Front’s eventual affiliates included trade
unions, youth and student movements, women’s and religious groups,
civic associations, political parties and a range of support and
professional groups. Within the next few years, the Front embraced
almost 1,000 affiliated groups. Because of the UDF’s capacity to
provide national political and ideological coordination to these
affiliates, radical political action ‘assumed an increasingly
organised form’, says Swilling, ‘enhancing its power and
effectiveness.’ As
previously with the BCM, the arrival of the UDF was not welcomed by
the ANC.
