‘Dear Oxfam’: consumer-supporter-activism, NGO accountability and the boundaries of the political in the Barclays boycott, 1970-1991

ABSTRACT This article is about complaint-making as a form of political participation in the NGO sector. It focuses on public scrutiny of Oxfam’s use of Barclays Bank during the anti-apartheid boycott of the bank in the 1970s and 1980s and analyses pro-boycott and anti-boycott correspondence to Oxfam during this period. The article uses the Barclays boycott case to illustrate the dynamics of public-institution relationships during a period in which the NGO sector rapidly expanded and professionalised. It argues that not all donors favoured shallow or passive relationships with the NGOs that they supported. In this example, donors mobilised as a distinct type of ‘consumer-supporter-activist’. Finally, the article shows how the Barclays controversy stimulated public debate around the ideal boundaries between the ‘charitable’ and the ‘political’. It argues that apartheid South Africa stimulated far greater public engagement on this issue than other areas of Oxfam’s work.


Introduction
In 1986, after sixteen years as the target of a boycott campaign spearheaded by the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and End Loans to South Africa (ELTSA), Barclays Bank sold its stake in its South African subsidiary Barclays National.As one of South Africa's largest banks and also a visible presence on the British high street, Barclays had become a symbol of British complicity in apartheid and a key target of anti-apartheid campaigners.The New Internationalist heralded Barclays' eventual decision to disinvest as a victory for 'ordinary folk' who were 'thinking globally and acting locally'. 1In the course of the campaign, as well as making personal commitments to boycott Barclays, 'ordinary folk' also took to letter writing to challenge businesses, local councils, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to cease banking with Barclays.This article is about the experience of one of these targets-Oxfam, Britain's largest overseas aid and development charity-and the public scrutiny that it attracted for its banking choices.Oxfam's humanitarian remit differentiated it from most other targets of the boycott in ways that shaped both the charity's own behaviour and also the expectations of the public who chose to interact with it.
This article shows how focusing on a specific boycott target can enrich our understanding of anti-apartheid activism and consumer-activist forms of transnational solidarity -the two related contexts in which the Barclays boycott has largely been discussed to date. 2 Oxfam's boycott experience also has wider relevance to our understanding of the NGO sector and of public-institution relationships (particularly during a period in which the sector rapidly expanded and professionalised).Over fifteen years, Oxfam's public information office responded to hundreds of letters from members of the public about the boycott.This public scrutiny allows us to think about what charities meant to those who contributed to their existence (especially those with loose affiliations such as donors, activists, and self-identified 'supporters') as well as how contingent that meaning was on the broader political climate and, more specifically, on the activities of other networks and movements in civil society.South Africa was a polarising issue in Britain and this played out in the way that the public engaged with Oxfam about the boycott.Oxfam's experience highlights how moments of controversy like the boycott can easily become lightning rods for much broader debates about the ethos of the aid and development sector and the ideal boundary between the 'charitable' and the 'political'.
Oxfam left Barclays for NatWest in 1985, fifteen years after receiving its first letter from a member of the public asking the charity to join the boycott.Three decades later, Oxfam celebrated leaving Barclays as part of a proud tradition of 'taking on the most powerful people, saying what has to be said, [and] campaigning for what is right'.Reflecting on what it described as its 'radical roots' on its 70 th anniversary, Oxfam highlighted the charity's opposition to apartheid as a key moment in this history: Oxfam announced in 1985 that it was going to stop using Barclays Bank because of their support to apartheid South Africa.Oxfam's break with Barclays was followed by student organisations across Britain and many others, and a year later Barclays pulled out of South Africa.This active support of sanctions led to Oxfam being censured by the UK Charity Commission for being too political. 3is account is somewhat misleading.From 1986 onwards, Oxfam's campaigning on South Africa did include advocacy for sanctions and in 1991 the Charity Commission (arbiter for the legitimacy of charitable activity in Britain) did censure Oxfam for engaging in political activity.Yet as this article will illustrate, Oxfam's decisions to leave Barclays and advocate sanctions were not, as the anniversary article seems to suggest, a simple, proactive stand against the 'powerful' but rather a cautious and protracted affair, shaped as much by concerns about the reaction of the British public as by a commitment to its South African beneficiaries.When they left they were following a well-trodden path.Far from being inspired by Oxfam, for example, in the 1970s student organisations had been foremost among those putting pressure on Oxfam to leave Barclays.In the global charity sector, the much more radical Oxfam Canada had left Barclays in 1979, while within Britain Barclays had already lost accounts worth £6 billion a year from councils, students, and other NGOs. 4 'Better late than never', the New Internationalist concluded in 1985, 'but what a missed opportunity'. 5he kind of myth-making at work in Oxfam's 2012 anniversary article is not surprising; charities often tell their histories selectively in order to justify interventions in the present. 6Yet it considerably underplays the influence of the AAM in shaping the context that determined Oxfam's choice to leave Barclays and in doing so obscures a much more interesting history about the relationship between politics, charitable activity and new social movements-a history in which the British public played a key role.While the anniversary article writes about Oxfam as a coherent 'we', working with a shared sense of purpose, this article shows that the reality was much more complex.This is true if one takes 'we' to mean simply Oxfam's paid staff: decisions about the boycott and developing South Africa campaigns fuelled contentious internal debates between those in Oxfam's executive as well as its fundraising, campaigning and field offices.It is even more true if one seeks to understand public participation in the Oxfam 'project'.
Despite the rapid growth in historical work on NGOs over the last decade, the experiences of charities' public supporters have still received relatively little attention.There are obvious logistical reasons for this.Newly catalogued institutional archives may have opened up research into the beliefs and actions of NGOs and their staff, but the agency of their public supporters is often obscured within records that prioritise institutional narratives.This article shows how we might use a largely untapped sourcecorrespondence from the public-to think more about public-NGO relationships. 7hough the majority of public correspondence with NGOs has not been preserved, small pockets have survived, often coalescing around moments of controversy, such as the Barclays boycott.Between 1970 and 1990 Oxfam received more than 400 letters of complaint about its South Africa policies, both from those who wanted them to do more to oppose apartheid and those who wanted them to do less. 8Obviously, the contents of Oxfam's post bags do not offer a straightforward reflection of public opinion, not least because the letters within them typically came from a small minority of more engaged members of the public.Yet, collectively, the complaint letters sent to Oxfam in relation to Barclays give a much richer sense of aspects of the public's engagement with humanitarian causes and charitable NGOs than the quantitative data from surveys and donation income that we might otherwise rely on as indicators of public opinion. 9his article applies insights from a burgeoning field of work that analyses letter-writing and subscriptional practices (such as petitioning) as forms of participatory politics that help to constitute the public sphere. 10Individual letters written to authority figures function as a form of 'citizen feedback-an opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions and seek to endorse or change the behavior of the recipient. 11In her work on letter-writing in 1930s Soviet Russia, for example, Sheila Fitzpatrick observes that letters from the public to the state tended to fall into genres (statements of opinion, appeals for help, threats, complaints, whistle-blowing, and confessionals) which asserted in distinct ways their authors' status as citizens and their relationship to the state. 12So too did the letters the public wrote to Oxfam.They vary significantly in length, tone, formality and objective, ranging from a succinct note that simply asked 'Isn't it a little incongruous that Oxfam banks with Barclays?' to a conversational letter that first asked 'WHY DO OXFAM BANK WITH BARCLAYS?!!', then threatened 'It'd better be a good excuse or I'll come and bring George & the boys' before wondering if Oxfam had 'any jobs going'. 13hile some letters were fairly straightforward complaints-a simple assertion that the letter-writer did not like something Oxfam was doing-many were more complex. 14hose that combined complaint with suggestions for how to improve Oxfam's policies reveal what Branch describes as 'the contours of political debate' at a grassroots level, giving us insights into the criteria that the public used to evaluate charitable activity. 15ome invited discussion and response from Oxfam, seeking to better understand the NGO's position.Others functioned more like personal manifestos, tying their concerns about Oxfam and South Africa to a wider range of issues.There are parallels here with Amy Whipple's analysis of the 100,000 letters of support sent to Enoch Powell in the aftermath of his 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968. 16Just as individuals used their letters of endorsement and encouragement to Powell to articulate their own political identities, so too did those writing letters to Oxfam.
While the letters convey a variety of individual perspectives, they can also be understood as a collective act, mobilised by pressure groups campaigning on South Africa and by the wider consumer-activist movement.By the 1970s letter-writing and complaint making formed a regular part of the repertoire of contention drawn on by campaigning organisations across the political spectrum. 17Distinct from direct action, which might alienate less radical supporters, letter-writing and petitioning were embraced as a widely accessible strategy through which to mobilise 'public opinion' in support of campaign objectives. 18The AAM was particularly enthusiastic in its embrace of these modes of political expression.They made regular use of petitions to national and international authorities throughout the 1970s and 1980s in addition to encouraging their supporters to write to the government, Barclays bank, and other organisations with connections to South Africa. 19These campaigns had a significant impact on how the public understood and enacted their relationship with Oxfam.
As this article will argue, the public, far from being merely passive consumers of charities' advertising, imagined themselves as active stakeholders with both the right and responsibility to arbitrate the consistency of the ethical claims made by NGOs.If, as Hilton et al have suggested, the public increasingly placed their trust in expert-led NGOs in the second half of the twentieth century, the Barclays issue makes clear that they did not give it unconditionally. 20The ease with which Oxfam donors could become exdonors-and supporters could become ex-supporters-empowered the public within an increasingly competitive charity marketplace.Yet, to borrow Hirschman's classic framing, while some chose simply to 'exit' (that is, to stop donating to Oxfam), others chose to exercise their 'voice' in an effort to change the organisation's behaviour, treating Oxfam's actions in relation to South Africa as a 'repairable lapse'. 21Contemporary studies of charities suggest that fundraising cost inefficiency, abuse, and criminality receive the most attention as examples of charities' abuse of public trust.The criticisms of Oxfam's South Africa policy discussed in this article emphasise that perceptions about an organisation's values were also fundamental to public trust.The dynamics of complaint and public accountability at play in the Oxfam case study are an important dimension of postwar British civil society and politics; they challenge oversimplified characterisations of decline and apathy by highlighting the diverse forms that socio-political engagement with charity could take. 22o make this case, the article is organised in four parts.The first discusses how broader trends in consumer activism shaped Oxfam donors' support of the boycott from 1970 to 1985.The second focuses on how Oxfam supporters used boycott correspondence to set out their broader expectations for justice-informed political humanitarianism.The third uses Oxfam's internal deliberations over its South Africa policy to weigh the impact of public scrutiny on Oxfam's actions relative to the other pressures faced by the charity.The final section uses critiques of Oxfam's policies as too political sent between 1985 to 1990 to illustrate how Britain's connections to South Africa and right-wing networks shaped attitudes towards Oxfam and the wider charity sector.

Charitable donors as consumer Activists
Oxfam's experience as a target of the Barclays boycott speaks to the wider history of political consumerism, consumer-citizenship, and consumer-activism. 23From the 1970s, 'the global market' Tehila Sasson argues, 'became a site through which citizens developed new identities as global citizens by shopping at their local supermarkets'. 24The public were increasingly empowered to drive change through the individual consumer choices that they made and the scrutiny that they showed to corporations within the global economy.Consumer activism was mobilised through the multi-faceted and transnational 'fair trade' movement, which emphasised the responsibility of Northern consumers to Southern producers, as well as through campaigns focused on protecting Southern consumers (such as the Nestle Boycott, which challenged Nestle's promotion of infant formula to women in the Third World who did not have the means to use it safely). 25omewhat ironically, given its experience as a target of the boycott, Oxfam itself was an important driver of British participation in global consumer activism.As Oxfam explained to its supporters, 'a cup of tea, a piece of copper wire and a cotton shirt are just three of the things which link you to poverty in the Third World'. 26It was one of several NGOs involved in the Nestle campaign and its import programme 'Helping through Selling' promoted fair trade produce in shops across the country. 27Collectively, initiatives like these generated 'public attentiveness towards the social responsibility of businesses'. 28s scholarship on anti-apartheid activism has shown, the boycott campaign both benefitted from and advanced the politicisation of everyday life and distinct forms of consumer lifestyle politics. 29For more than three decades, the AAM encouraged the public 'to imagine the ways in which they were implicated in the injustice of apartheid'. 30Transnational campaigns to boycott South African cultural and sporting events and produce had been active since 1959 with targets including the 1970 Springbok cricket tour, Outspan oranges, and events at Sun City. 31Following an initial emphasis on culture and produce, by the 1970s the boycott movement became more closely aligned with wider calls for financial disinvestment from South Africa.Within Britain this centred on the banks campaign, launched in the late 1960s, of which Barclays was the biggest target.Broadly, the campaign focused on banks as a source of British investment in South Africa, condemning the fact that Britain was the biggest lender to South Africa.While banks with South African connections were directly targeted-the Nation Union of Students led a successful campaign to stop students signing up for new bank accounts with Barclays, for example-other organisations that used those banks also became embroiled in the boycott. 32Oxfam was one of a wide range of targets whose banking was scrutinised, alongside local nurseries, housing associations, councils, and other NGOs.
Oxfam's experiences can inform conclusions about the general character of antiapartheid boycotts.The fact that Oxfam was consistently targeted by members of the public is evidence of the success of the AAM and ELTSA in mobilising supporters to take on 'monitoring' roles in which they in which they kept track of local supermarkets' stock or paid attention to which organisations banked with Barclays. 33In addition to the letters that Oxfam itself received, the AAM archives also include letters from the public alerting the AAM to the fact that Oxfam banked with Barclays and requesting that they write to Oxfam. 34This supports arguments that during the anti-apartheid campaign, consumer citizenship went 'beyond mere consumer choices' to include more sustained forms activism and protest. 35et movements and individuals adapt their protest repertoires according to the institutions that they target, and Oxfam's status as a charity rather than a commercial seller or service provider meant that its experience as a target was distinct from that of many others.Although the AAM wrote to Oxfam directly to encourage them to leave Barclays, it doesn't appear to have specifically targeted them in a sustained way as part of the public boycott campaign. 36While AAM newsletters did occasionally mention Oxfam's Barclays connection in their letters pages, for example, those writing to Oxfam more often described stumbling across evidence of Oxfam's Barclays connection on their own (such as in newspaper advertisements that listed banking details when telling the public where they could send money). 37I have found no evidence either that local anti-apartheid groups or the central organisation coordinated protests, pickets, or leafletting outside Oxfam shops (as was the case with Barclays bank branches and supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's that carried South African products).What comes across, therefore, is degree of unease about bringing bad publicity to Oxfam.This was likely because many of those who complained were not 'just' customers, they also positioned themselves as supporters and fellow travellers in ways that modified the consumer-activist dynamic.
Charities have, since at least the late nineteenth century, treated the public as consumers.As Roddy, Strange, and Taithe have shown, the charity sector functions as a dynamic marketplace in which organisations compete for the public's attention and money. 38In the post-war period Oxfam established a reputation as an innovator in this field, particularly through its extensive advertising and charity shops, the first of which opened in Oxford in 1948.By the 1980s, now selling fair-trade produce alongside secondhand goods, charity shops reinforced the public's role as charitable consumers by enabling new forms of participation-through-consumption. 39Beyond Oxfam, the consumer-donor model was further reinforced in the mid-1980s with Band Aid's fundraising for the Ethiopian famine, which figured the purchase of a music single as an act of compassion. 40This transactional relationship has often been critiqued as shallow and staff at Oxfam, while impressed by the money raised by Band Aid, were sceptical about its impact on longer-term public engagement with global poverty.The commodification of charity has often gone hand in hand with the depoliticisation of humanitarian crises, discouraging public engagement with the structural causes of poverty. 41n the case of the Barclay's boycott, however, some letter-writers mobilised a modified version of this consumer dynamic in their attempts to get Oxfam to change their policy.In the competitive charity marketplace, donations 'bought' donors the right to be listened to.Rather than indicating a shallow engagement with Oxfam, the public's status as donors rather than members-and the low 'cost-of-exit' attached to this type of affiliation-became a crucial bargaining tool and itself a means of engagement. 42If Oxfam would not leave Barclays, some donors threatened, they would give their money to an organisation that banked elsewhere.Switching donations and allegiances to another charity, as one letter explained, enabled donors to pressure Oxfam without the poor 'losing out'. 43The letters that point to Oxfamalternatives also illustrate how individual members of the public built themselves portfolios of humanitarian and activist activity that were not constrained by a particular institution, but were instead determined by wider moral frameworks for 'doing good' or behaving ethically.As another letter-writer explained, 'I am an active member of Oxfam 2000 [Oxfam's campaigning wing] and send money direct to an Indian self-help project. ..I have many times considered covenanting direct to Oxfam but have not done so because it would involve doing business with Barclays Bank. ...I have decided to covenant some money to War on Want who don't bank with Barclays'. 44Within an increasingly diverse sector, individuals' had considerable agency in shaping their own contributions to humanitarian causes.
Not all letter-writers sought to leverage their financial value to Oxfam.This isn't surprising; individual contributions were typically small and would not have made much financial difference to the charity.What is striking, however, is the evident reluctance of many to stop supporting Oxfam.Some letter writers even included donations in the same envelope as their complaints.Instead, supporters found alternative ways to leverage their loyalty to Oxfam alongside their disaffection with it.To do so, they tapped into the broader assumption that NGOs build legitimacy through widespread public support and sought to emphasise that their views were 'representative' of wider public opinion.The types of representative claims made by pro-boycott letter writers are distinct from the claims to unpolitical 'ordinariness' that were invoked in other examples of massletter writing such as those sent to Enoch Powell in the aftermath of his 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968. 45Rather than presenting themselves as a 'silent majority', letter-writers emphasised their position within broader left political networks.
Many letter writers identified themselves as representatives of the AAM but, significantly, these were not the only affiliations or group characteristics that they referred to.The first wave of letters in 1970 was dominated by those identifying as students.This maps on to the trajectory of the AAM as a whole, which built a lot of its support with young people in the early 1970s.Letter writers also referenced connections to Amnesty International, the Christian Social Movement, the Student Christian Movement, the World Council of Churches, and a local environmental activist group. 46The prominence of religious affiliations among those referenced illustrates the significant role played by religious organisations in establishing the moral foundations of anti-apartheid and legitimising disinvestment. 47ELTSA, for example, focused particularly on the churches and was affiliated to the Student Christian Movement and the Methodist Missionary Society. 48wo members of the Salford Methodist Community Church, for example, wrote together, 'as Christians' to encourage Oxfam to 'join the growing numbers who boycott Barclays'. 49hese wider affiliations are revealing of the interconnectedness of left-wing movements and political identities in this period-of the extent to which those who supported antiapartheid often also supported and identified with other causes.As the next section will show, the cross-pollination of international causes and movements also shaped how individuals critiqued Oxfam and the aspirations they had for the organisation.Letters often moved beyond a simple request or demand for Oxfam to leave Barclays and into a broader assessment of the purpose of humanitarian work.

'If Oxfam is Hungry for change, prove it'
When the Chairman of the Cardiff University Anti-Apartheid Movement branch wrote to Oxfam in the early stages of the boycott, he asked a question that would recur again and again in the pro-boycott letters that arrived at Oxfam House over the next fifteen years: 'What is the point of pouring aid to the underprivileged of the world if you are also giving support (through bank charges and publicity) to the people who keep the underprivileged in their present state?' 50 The Barclays controversy functioned as a lightning rod for longstanding arguments about the responsibilities and effectiveness of humanitarian organisations.As Hugo Slim reminds us, humanitarianism has never been a static concept; this flexibility has consistently fuelled debates about what constitutes legitimate humanitarian action. 51Essentially, should humanitarian organisations seek to engage with or isolate themselves from the political contexts in which they operate?Scholarship about the relationship between humanitarianism, political conflict, and human rights has tended to focus on international legal frameworks, institutional discourses, and policy decisions. 52When the donor public are discussed, they have tended to be conceived as a limiting factor whose ideological conservatism must be pandered to in order to raise the money necessary to do 'good work'. 53Many at Oxfam shared this diagnosis.In the 1960s, for example, Oxfam staffers tussled over concerns that the charity's image would be tarnished by pictures of 'young Oxfam supporters taking part in CND demonstrations or associating with anti-establishment organisations such as trade unions'. 54Similar concerns shaped Oxfam's discussions about its South Africa policy in the 1980s, with one staffer warning that supporting sanctions would 'adversely affect our fundraising'. 55urveys conducted in the late 1990s would seem to support these conclusions: that public trust in charities depends on the perception that they are not political actors. 56hile the final section of this article makes clear that there is some truth to these appraisals, the letters that Oxfam received about its South Africa policies also illustrate the public's potential to act as stimulus to the adoption of a more political approach to campaigning.In doing so, pro-boycott letters call attention to the broader civil society ecosystem within which charities like Oxfam operated.Individual engagement with overseas aid and development charities has always been shaped by what Taithe describes as 'the profound connections between humanitarianism and other forms of activism'. 57As we might expect, the letters show that the AAM and affiliated groups had a significant impact on public expectations about NGO's values, responsibilities, and actions.Letter writers frequently referred to AAM pamphlets, the Barclays 'Shadow Reports' produced in conjunction with ELTSA in the early 1980s, and speeches given by anti-apartheid activist Trevor Huddleston, using this material to inform Oxfam about suffering in South Africa and explain why banking with Barclays was problematic.The way that they used AAM materials to hold Oxfam to account illustrates the broader success of the AAM's aims to give members of the public the tools and information to take on individual campaigning roles.
What is most interesting about this case study, however-and what further indicates that Oxfam had a special status among targets of the Barclays boycott-is how letterwriters looked beyond AAM materials and interwove arguments for disinvestment with broader critiques of humanitarian practice.The argument that banking with Barclays contradicted Oxfam's aims as a humanitarian organisation was by far the most common made by complainers and echoed internal debates in the humanitarian sector that had been growing since the mid-1960s. 58Oxfam banking with Barclays, letter-writers argued, was 'inappropriate', 'incongruous', 'incompatible', and 'singularly ironic'. 59For some complainers the contradiction was so great that it called into question the rest of Oxfam's work.'For Oxfam's sincerity in its relief work to remain credible', argued two students from the University of York, 'all connections with Barclay's Bank should be removed'. 60To make these cases, letter writers drew from a range of sources including Oxfam's own campaigning materials as well as those of smaller more activist NGOs and publications.
The bulk of those writing about the boycott shared Oxfam's stated belief, publicised from the late 1960s onwards, that poverty is political and were supportive of Oxfam's efforts to inform 'people of the deeper implications of the Third World's plight'. 61As one explained, this was often a key factor in their support for the organisation: 'I appreciate that Oxfam probably tries not to be overtly political, but I am also led to believe (and indeed this is one of the reasons why I support your organisation) that Oxfam recognises that poverty is very often (if not always) a "political" issue'. 62The 'so called non-political approach', another argued, 'seems to me to contradict all that Oxfam stands for'. 63The 'political' encompassed different things for different complainers, but included a suite of activities that moved beyond the 'mere' provision of relief.These included 'pointing out the responsibilities of the "North" countries' as well as challenging the 'political systems throughout the world' that 'oppress poor and disadvantaged people' and make Oxfam's work necessary. 64Given Oxfam's stated recognition of the political nature of poverty, letter writers argued, boycotting Barclays was the logical fulfilment of its obligations.
In the 1970s and 1980s the common language used to discuss humanitarian responsibilities 'beyond' relief was that of justice.These discourses built on the critiques of charity as inadequate and/or immoral that had developed both within and beyond the sector in the late 1960s and rested on the belief that politics and economics were inextricably linked. 65Letter writers embraced this language in their condemnation of Oxfam's banking choices, characterising Oxfam as working in the 'field of peace and justice' 66 and 'towards the creation of a more just world'. 67By the mid-1980s they were able to use Oxfam's own promotional materials to hold the charity to account.Oxfam launched 'Hungry for Change' in October 1984 as a 'campaign for justice not hunger'.The initiative was designed to mobilise local campaigning groups to call for greater government spending and debt relief.Alongside awareness-raising fundraising activities, such as sponsored fasts, members were encouraged to sign petitions and contact their local MP.While the campaign did attract the kind of engaged supporters that Oxfam idealised, it also established expectations among those supporters that extended beyond the campaign's initial focus on hunger.As one explained, 'I have just joined the "Hungry for Change" campaign, and on the stickers it says "Oxfam's campaign for justice not hunger".I wonder actually, whether by banking with Barclays we are campaigning as best we might for JUSTICE'. 68'If Oxfam is Hungry for Change', another demanded, 'prove it'. 69xfam's own publicity materials were not the only language through which letter writers sought to explain the charity's ethical responsibilities.While the lion's share of public donations to international causes went to a small set of large NGOs, these organisations were influenced by a much wider set of smaller charities and campaigning organisations.Some of the most detailed critiques of Oxfam's policies came not from the AAM directly, but from those affiliated to organisations that were either splinter groups from Oxfam or had developed with the support of larger humanitarian NGOs in the late 1960s.Third World First (3W1), the Haslemere Group, and Action for World Development were all formed in the late 1960s at a moment in which the search for 'justice' for the global south focused on an inequitable global economic and political system. 70These groups had, since their establishment, provided a home for those with more radical inclinations.Their relationship with the larger NGOs was often productive.For example, 3W1 was founded by young Oxfam supporters in 1969 and received financial and strategic support from Oxfam in its early years.The New Internationalist, established by the founders of 3W1, was also part-funded by Oxfam and Christian Aid in the 1970s.These organisations were valued by the larger charities for their awareness-raising work and, in particular, for their ability to say things that Oxfam and Christian Aid couldn't within the restrictions of charity law or because of concerns about alienating a more conservative support base.But, as the Barclays boycott highlights, the relationship could also be combative and fraught.
The New Internationalist published articles on Oxfam's connection to Barclays in the 1970s and 1980s that were often referred to by letter writers.The Haslemere Group was a key early supporter of the Barclays boycott; as well as joint publications with the AAM, they also regularly discussed Barclays and South Africa in their newsletter Paper Tiger.In 1975 the Haslemere Group wrote an open letter to Oxfam staff which condemned the attitudes of 'Oxfam's senior men' and criticised their lack of dialogue with or knowledge of the ANC [African National Congress of South Africa] and SWAPO [South West Africa People's Organisation of Namibia].'What kind of an organisation is Oxfam?' they asked, 'And, when the crunch comes, whose side will it be on?' 71 The boycott is illustrative of the key role that these smaller organisations and publications played in holding the larger, more 'establishment' NGOs to account as well as in legitimising their political action.

Satisfying stakeholders: the influence of the public on Oxfam's changing South Africa policies
What impact did these pro-boycott letters and their multi-faceted critiques of Oxfam have on the organisation's behaviour?And why might Oxfam have felt compelled to listen to them?When compared to Oxfam's total numbers of donors and volunteers, there simply weren't very many letters.The numbers look even smaller when compared to other citizen letter-writing, such as the outpouring of support that followed Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech in 1968, for example, or to the letters regularly sent to the BBC Complaints Unit and Broadcasting Complaints Commission about matters of taste and decency. 72But, as this section will illustrate, the total number of letters didn't matter as much as whether Oxfam staff saw them as reflective of wider public opinion.
It is with this in mind that we can understand why the first wave of pro-boycott letters to Oxfam in 1970-71 had very little impact on how the charity saw its relationship with its bank.In the early 1970s, though students had enthusiastically taken up the anti-apartheid cause, the level of wider public support was still fairly limited.The movement was, as Gurney describes it, entering its 'difficult decade'. 73When an initial wave of pressure waned in 1971, Oxfam's Deputy Communications Officer, who had been in regular, friendly contact with Barclays wrote: 'We at Oxfam are absolutely delighted that the anti-Barclays Bank campaign has died down, both for selfish reasons (because of its effect on some of our supporters) and because you have been such good friends of ours for so long'. 74Oxfam had a good relationship with Barclays, which it had banked with since the charity was established in 1942 and changing banks would be logistically complex and likely costly.Yet logistics were not the only justification Oxfam offered for staying with Barclays.
In Oxfam's early responses to pro-boycott letters, it took the stance of apologist for Barclays, largely parroting the bank's own justifications for its involvement in Southern Africa and sitting alongside broader arguments about constructive engagement made by Labour in the early 1970s and by the Conservatives throughout the period and.In 1971, for example, Oxfam's communications team reassured concerned donors that Barclays were 'considered by the Republican Government in Southern Africa to be too liberal' and that the bank 'ha [d] given the lead in training Africans to take over responsible positions on their staff'. 75Oxfam explained in the New Internationalist in 1975 that after long debate in the Executive Committee and Council of Management, it had 'decided not to withdraw [its] account from Barclays Bank in the belief that, on balance, the Bank's presence in South Africa does have a liberalising influence'. 76These decisions were in line with Oxfam's broader approach to southern African liberation movements in the 1970s.Until Zimbabwean independence in 1980, as Maggie Black explains, Oxfam had adopted an approach of 'resolute Quakerish fence-sitting' in which they provided support to some of those hurt directly by apartheid but were reluctant to support schemes associated with the liberation movements. 77et in November 1985 Oxfam's Board of Trustees voted 39 to 6 that Oxfam should leave Barclays and move its £40 million account to NatWest. 78What changed Oxfam's mind?And how did Oxfam's ethos as a development organisation change in order to facilitate this move?By 1985 the opinion of most Oxfam staff and a considerable number of volunteers was deemed to be in favour of leaving Barclays.Yet generalised staff opinion was not sufficient to justify such a potentially risky and expensive move, particularly one that might attract the attention of the Charity Commission.Oxfam's Trustees acted on the recommendation of a working group, chaired by former Oxfam director Leslie Kirkley and established in late 1984 when the volume of complaints and wider growth of the boycott movement were no longer possible to ignore.The report condemned the policies of 'constructive engagement' that Oxfam had condoned in the 1970s and pointed to support for disinvestment from South African opponents of apartheid. 79The final case for leaving Barclays was based predominantly on the arguments of two parts of the organisation: The Africa Office (and fieldworkers in Southern Africa) and the Education and Campaigns Team.Both argued that Barclays represented a reputational issue with operational consequences.
Over the course of the 1980s, African NGOs increasingly called for Northern NGOs to engage in advocacy alongside or in replacement of charity work. 80It was within this context that Oxfam's field staff in Southern Africa argued that continuing to bank with Barclays would damage the charity's nascent relationships with indigenous partners in the region.Their concerns reflected long-standing debates within the humanitarian sector about how to engage with and win the trust of local partners, particularly in a post-colonial context.As Skinner sets out, in the 1950s young Africans had already begun to regard western humanitarians with suspicion; for concern to be meaningful, it 'needed to allied with action against racial inequality'. 81In 1978, Mozambique had rejected Oxfam aid on the grounds that it was 'tarnished by its links to projects run by Rhodesian and South African whites'.Equally, Oxfam's 'fence-sitting' policy in Rhodesia meant that it had found it difficult to establish links in newly independent Zimbabwe in the early 1980s; those who had supported the independence movement were distrustful of the organisation's sudden interest. 82n the early 1980s a new generation of Oxfam staff took on roles as Field Directors in Southern Africa supported by a new intake of African field staff.Their input was instrumental in Oxfam's development of a new policy framework in 1981/82 that committed the charity to 'harmonise their grants with the view that the ultimate obstacle to the removal of poverty in South Africa and Namibia was apartheid', a stance that justified the provision of support to ANC and SWAPO refugees in Zambia and Tanzania. 83orrespondence between Oxfam and the AAM in this period suggests that in spite of continuing to bank with Barclays, the two organisations found common ground in their campaigns against political detention in South Africa. 84By 1985, therefore, Oxfam's prior experiences and new staff made them alert to what was at stake in the Barclays decision.Advocacy work-and perhaps especially that which involved reputational risk, as did the Barclays boycott-was increasingly seen as a way of proving solidarity.As the press release explaining Oxfam's decision to leave Barclays concluded, the 'bottom line' was that Oxfam's 'relationships with [its] project partners [were] more important than those with [its] bank'. 85longside the Africa Office's arguments, Oxfam's campaigning staff argued that staying with Barclays would damage the charity's reputation with the British public.In the boycott's early years, protesters were more readily dismissed as 'quixotic' -'a small rabble of idealists presuming to change the investment policy of a powerful multinational corporation'. 86While the AAM was comparatively quiet in the 1970s, by the mid-1980s anti-apartheid activism and the boycott had entered the political mainstream. 87From the early 1980s, there was a growing sense within Oxfam's public information team that the protest could no longer be dealt with on only an individual basis, through detailed replies to each letter-writer.AAM membership increased throughout the 1980s and the number of local AAM groups doubled in the first half of the 1980s. 88By 1985 the ongoing civil war and state of emergency in South Africa was also attracting considerable news coverage: South Africa was on the news and in the press daily.As Kirkley's working group acknowledged, there had been 'a rapid deterioration in the political situation [in South Africa], leading to a worldwide climate of opinion that is outspokenly critical of apartheid and is moving towards disinvestment in one form or another'. 89By 1985, as Fieldhouse suggests, though Thatcher remained committed to constructive engagement, international economic sanctions were also starting to look like a distinct possibility. 90The working group's appraisals therefore illustrate the success of the broader anti-apartheid campaign in making financial disinvestment politically legitimate.Oxfam's statement announcing its decision to leave the bank echoed the language used by the AAM, ELTSA, and letters it had received from the public over the previous fifteen years: 'Barclays' continued presence in South Africa has become a symbol of British economic involvement in apartheid as one of the important pillars of that system'. 91On these terms, they explained, banking with Barclays was incompatible with Oxfam's aims in Southern Africa.
The letters from Oxfam's pro-boycott supporters were influential because they were read both in the context of and as evidence of this growing support for the wider antiapartheid movement and disinvestment more specifically.The volume and the generally reasoned tone of these letters proved to Oxfam director Frank Judd that anti-Barclays protests were not the preserve of the 'loony left', but rather the concern of a 'growing number of moderate, decent people'. 92Between 1980 and 1985 fifteen local authorities closed accounts with Barclays. 93The working group's concerns that Oxfam was increasingly isolated in its loyalty to Barclays were not unfounded-when Oxfam did leave Barclays in 1985, the New Internationalist ran the story under the headline 'Oxfam leading from behind'. 94hile Oxfam's banking practices were only ever the concern of a small minority of its supporters, the pro-boycott minority also had a disproportionate influence because they represented some of Oxfam's most engaged existing supporters and typically belonged to cohorts that Oxfam's Campaigning and Fundraising teams were keen to court.Oxfam's Central Fundraising Director judged that moving from Barclays could cost Oxfam as much as 5% of its covenant income (c.£250,000) from donors who objected to the move, but concluded that its income as a whole would likely increase because leaving Barclays would persuade young people to support Oxfam. 95Pro-boycott supporters' views not only aligned with a new generation of Oxfam staff who saw the charity's goals as to counteract injustices and inequalities, but their actions in writing to Oxfam were precisely the kind that Oxfam's Campaigns team was endorsing in its campaign training.In the mid-1980s many humanitarian and development organisations wanted more from their supporters than the 'compassion and an apolitical commitment to alleviate suffering' that emergency appeals such as Band Aid encouraged. 96In these letters, inconvenient as they might be, Oxfam's campaigns team found proof of the desire for deeper engagement, a desire that some were frustrated was lacking in volunteers elsewhere in the organisation, particularly in its nearly 500 shops. 97Their value to the organisation is evident in the suggestion made by the campaigns team less than a year after leaving Barclays that Oxfam should go back through its correspondence and write anew to proboycott complainers to invite them to join the charity's new South Africa campaign. 98ven though it took a long time to get there, the decision to leave Barclays laid the foundation for further appraisals of Oxfam's Southern Africa policy, acting as a catalyst for a series of campaigning decisions that eventually led to Oxfam's censure by the Charity Commission in 1991. 99In the first half of the 1980s Oxfam had criticised apartheid without making specific policy demands linked to this critique.In light of the constraints of UK charity law, which prohibited charities from making political statements, Oxfam justified its early anti-apartheid advocacy on the grounds that apartheid was causing a humanitarian crisis and that the apartheid state was failing to meet the basic needs of the population.In order to 'best serve the long-term interests of the poor in the region', they argued, Oxfam must also support work to end apartheid. 100In doing so they drew on a humanitarian framing of anti-apartheid activism that had existed since the 1960s. 101The tone and scale of Oxfam's campaigning on South Africa shifted dramatically in the second half of the decade, in line with the growth of the AAM more broadly and the depth of the crisis in South Africa.In 1986, Oxfam launched a major new focus on Southern Africa in order to 'raise public awareness of the poverty black people face because of apartheid' and call attention to political detainees in South Africa. 102Their publications spelled out the connections that made Southern Africa the responsibility of the British public and British government, starting with Britain's role in drawing up the 1910 Union of South Africa, which excluded black representation, and highlighting that the UK was the single biggest investor in South Africa's apartheid-based economy. 103he most controversial aspect of this work was Oxfam's changing stance on sanctions, which formed a small but growing component of these campaigns.In 1986, Oxfam concluded that existing economic sanctions should 'be strengthened' but initially acted only as a mouthpiece for their South African partners, making few public pronouncements about its own policy recommendations. 104Not everyone at Oxfam supported the organisation's new, more political trajectory.At an executive meeting in 1986 Gillian Clarke, for example, predicted that coming out in favour of sanctions would 'be seen as an example of Oxfam becoming a political pressure group left of centre'; Chris Barber worried that it would adversely affect Oxfam's fundraising; and Ian Williams warned that Oxfam could not 'afford the luxury of indulging in political ideology' 105 But by 1987 those keen for a stronger position managed to persuade trustees that a more outspoken approach could appeal to supporters and still sit within the bounds of Charity Law: in campaigning on sanctions, they argued, Oxfam 'was not seeking to change [UK] government policy on South Africa', which was already to opposed apartheid, it was 'only trying to ensure that the existing government policy is most effectively applied'. 106In 1989 they joined the Southern African Coalition, a non-charitable campaigning group that emerged from a conference organised by the British Council of Churches and Christian Aid and that targeted the Heads of Commonwealth Meeting in autumn of that year.In 1990 Oxfam published Front Line Africa: The Right to a Future, which urged the British Government to 'maintain rather than relax pressure on the South African Government'. 107xfam's changing policy took place against a backdrop of continued growth for the AAM and ongoing public boycotts and protests, including the non-stop picket outside the South African Embassy, which lasted from 1986 until 1990. 108The significance of the wider anti-apartheid campaign was less in persuading Oxfam staff of the need for sanctions (the Africa Office had been making this argument on a regular basis) but in creating a climate of public opinion in which Oxfam could take political action.As the Southern Africa Working Group explained in 1986, charity law had effectively prevented Oxfam from campaigning on sanctions until after the issue had emerged 'into an area of legitimate public concern'. 109espite the increasing legitimacy of the AAM and case for disinvestment, sanctions remained a controversial issue.One early pro-boycott letter-writer had asked Oxfam to 'bring the issue out into the open, to lose some conscience money from the Surbiton Women's Guild etc., and perhaps to tangle with the law over charity status etc'. 110The letter writer was prescient.By 1991, Oxfam did tangle with the Charity Commission and, as its South Africa campaigning increased in the second half of the 1980s, it did attract public criticism.As the next section examines, the perception that leaving Barclays indicated a move into more political territory attracted considerable criticism from some of Oxfam's supporters and other members of the public.The terms in which they criticised Oxfam highlight the public's participation in efforts to define the parameters of acceptable charitable activity, the strong emotions attached to South Africa, and the impossibility of satisfying all NGO 'stakeholders' simultaneously.

'My money is not for politics'
In 1984, discussing who Oxfam should target with its educational campaigns, a staffer pondered the makeup of the charity's supporters: were they 'mainly schoolmasters who read the Guardian or retired majors who read the Telegraph?Does the major still give to Oxfam if you tell him the truth and stop feeding him crap?' 111 Humanitarian NGOs typically target their most explicit political messages at a minority of their overall donor base. 112Yet partly by accident and partly by design, Oxfam's changing policy in South Africa became a test case for what happens when a charity's wider donor base is exposed to its more political messaging.Oxfam's decision to leave Barclays was widely reported in November 1985, attracting the attention of a much wider audience than had previously been paying attention to its banking choices.In the two months after the announcement, Oxfam House received at least 279 letters on the subject.Of these, 223 disagreed with the decision, 182 of whom were Oxfam supporters; 148 of these declared that they were withdrawing their financial support. 113It was, an Oxfam staffer noted rather flippantly, 'the biggest thing since parsnip wine!' 114 Not long after this wave of complaints died down, Oxfam drew further attention to its opposition to apartheid by publishing an advert jointly with Christian Aid on sanctions and detentions.Printed in July 1986, the advert explained 'why Christian Aid and Oxfam are speaking out on behalf of those with whom we work', stated that apartheid was a 'direct cause of poverty and suffering', and concluded with the following statement: 'Our South African partners ask us to tell our supporters in the UK and Ireland that whatever hardship sanctions bring in the short term, they want our governments, along with the rest of the international community, to put effective pressure on South African authorities to end apartheid'. 115rucially, Oxfam placed this advert not only in the Guardian where it could have expected to find readers sympathetic to this more political statement of advocacy, but also in the Telegraph and The Times.Oxfam House received at least 30 (and likely many more) letters of complaint about this new campaign. 116While it is impossible to tell how many readers were persuaded by Oxfam's explanations for its opposition to apartheid, we do know-because they wrote in order to tell Oxfam so-that many were not.As with the pro-boycott letters, these letters give further insight into how members of the public expected NGOs to act, the purposes to which they expected their donations to be put, and the justifications they made for not giving.These complaints not only show the hard limits of some sections of the public's 'humanitarian' sentiment, they also illustrate the influence of less-studied cultures of transnational conservative activism and the position of NGOs in relation to the 'new right' politics of late twentieth-century Britain. 117Hostility towards left-wing anti-apartheid protestors (and all that they represented) informed Thatcher's 'anti-anti-apartheid' policies, while sympathy towards Pretoria within the Conservative Party, particularly on its fringes (such as in the Monday Club) provided ongoing justification for policies of constructive engagement. 118This political context also informed public responses to Oxfam's changing policies.
Prior to leaving Barclays, Oxfam had anticipated retaliation from 'the relatively sinister right-wing represented in powerful institutions which may decide that enough is enough and that everything possible must be done to discredit us'. 119As Oxfam's solicitors explained in 1985, there were 'real signs that a concerted effort is being made to challenge the activities of national charities of social concern'. 120Humanitarian NGOs were not the only target, but they were a popular one.The right-wing press had already proven keen to provide fuel to those who might question the motives of humanitarian NGOs.In 1983, for example, the Telegraph ran a series of articles about Oxfam funding a Zimbabwean to study at Ruskin College which included the headline 'Oxfam paid African "guerilla" to study'. 121Similar exposés of humanitarian organisations were also published in European newspapers, whipping up public opinion against them. 122This was not simply a national issue, therefore, but was shaped by transnational networks of conservative organisations who drew connections between anti-communism, white supremacy and at times also Christianity. 123In the 1980s Oxfam, Christian Aid, and War on Want were targeted by Western Goals and the International Freedom Foundation, organisations with roots in Washington, branches in the UK, and complex connections to the apartheid regime and Nicaraguan Contras.Both organisations were instrumental in reporting Oxfam to the Charity Commission and presenting evidence on their Southern Africa and Central America campaigns to the 1991 inquiry. 124he influence and international nature of these networks is particularly evident in one complaint (sent from South Africa) which included an annotated copy of Oxfam's 'Apartheid and Poverty' advertisement (likely cut out from the Telegraph) alongside an annotated leaflet 'Facts First', produced by the Christian Affirmation Campaign and printed in West Sussex, England.The Christian Affirmation Campaign campaigned against liberation theology and was a long-term critic of the World Council of Churches.'Facts First' stated that 'Third World charities like Christian Aid and Oxfam blame poverty and hunger on the greed and indifference of Western nations.This is false: chief causes are the incompetence, corruption and socialist economics of Third World Governments'. 125On the Oxfam advert, next to the claim that '10% of children born in black areas die of malnutrition', the complainant added 'stop breading [sic].Fewer people better life', and next to the claim that 3.2 million black people had been forcibly removed to the barren soil and over-crowded settlements of 'so called 'home-lands', he added 'Let them work the land'.In case Oxfam had any doubt, the final annotation told them to 'forget about my donation'.
Letters to Oxfam illustrate how these wider critiques and political debates shaped individual attitudes to charity.Only a minority of complainers suggested that their objection was to Oxfam's engagement in politics of any kind, arguing that charity should not be political but rather focus on the immediate relief of suffering.These objections seem to reflect what Chris Moores describes as a 'traditional conservative enthusiasm' for ostensibly 'apolitical voluntary life'. 126One complainer, for example, mentioned their sponsorship of a child in Uganda through Save the Children as an example of a legitimate non-political charitable act (sponsorship schemes were criticised by Oxfam and Christian Aid in this period as a paternalist form of charity). 127Far more of the letters, however, went on to specify that it was the type of politics that Oxfam was engaging in that was the problem, illustrating the extent to which public perceptions about charity and their engagements with the NGO sector were highly contingent on other political circumstances.One complained, for example, that Oxfam's new stance was an example of 'destructive left-wing politics', 128 while another accused Oxfam of changing from a 'respected charity' to a 'left-wing anti-South African group'. 129The heightened language that runs through many of these complaints-readers were 'shocked' and 'disgusted' by Oxfam's behaviour 130 -does not seem to have been because of their emotional investment in apolitical charity as a matter of principle but because of the other issues to which this particular transgression was connected.
Of all the regions that Oxfam worked in, South Africa had the closest connections to the British public.More than a century of financial investment, settlement, and military defence in South Africa meant that the country was, as Maggie Black argues, 'tied by history to British hearts and pockets'. 131Oxfam's work in Central America in the 1980s could easily have drawn similar questions from the public about whether to give aid to liberation movements as did their work in South Africa; indeed, it prompted fraught internal deliberations over the course of the decade. 132Yet, as Black has observed, there was little 'echoing resonance of controversy at home'. 133Among those letters critical of Oxfam's new policies, perspectives towards South Africa existed on a spectrum that included explicitly pro-apartheid stances alongside 'anti-anti-apartheid stances'. 134ome letters criticised apartheid but defended Barclays' role in the region, a position that was in line with the policies of constructive engagement that Oxfam itself had endorsed in the 1970s and which the Thatcher government pursued throughout the 1980s. 135Others denied the legitimacy of black liberation movements.Those detained in South Africa were not political prisoners, one Oxfam shopper argued, but 'troublemakers and law breakers, or even terrorists' and were not therefore deserving of Oxfam's sympathies or funds. 136This particular criticism reflects not only public sympathy for the apartheid state but also the broader perception of the ideal humanitarian victim as devoid of political agency, a perception that tended to be reinforced by disaster relief campaigns' emphasis on the decontextualised suffering of children. 137A minority of complainers went further still and explicitly defended the apartheid regime.For example, a representative of the British Management Foundation phoned up the Oxfam office to argue that 'there are NO poor blacks in S Africa, blacks in S. Afr much better off than in neighbouring countries.All independent black states lead to one party Marxist regimes.It's self-righteous, sanctimonious, evil [underlining in original]'. 138This was one of a number of examples that explicitly linked its defence of apartheid South Africa to the Cold War.In contrasting the minority regime in South Africa with independent majorityrule states the letter also illustrates the endurance of pro-apartheid arguments that had emerged at the peak of British decolonisation and equated decolonisation in Africa as the abandonment of white settlers and, on these terms, a betrayal of the white race. 139he letters give a clear sense of the differing boundaries their authors imagined for legitimate and necessary humanitarian action and, moreover, of where they drew the boundaries of 'the political'.In most cases complainers weren't denying that poverty had structural causes that needed redress; rather they offered alternative accounts of those causes and argued for different hierarchies of need to those they saw adopted by Oxfam.While only a minority of letters explicitly defended the apartheid regime, one of the most commonly articulated arguments was that Oxfam should be targeting other regimes before South Africa.Few seemed persuaded by Oxfam's argument that it was Britain's unique connections to South Africa that made them particularly responsible for the poverty caused by apartheid.Instead, complainers argued that 'the South African political system is by no means the only one which aggravates poverty and hardship in the world today'. 140This comparative displacement is revealing both of enduring protectiveness towards white settlers in South Africa and also of pervasive attitudes about the African continent, not just as a place of poverty, but also of misrule.Racist perspectives were often encoded into language used to describe African heads of state, as in the comments 'I also look forward to the day when Africa has banished the Mengistus, Rawlings and other blood-soaked tyrants about whom you seem strangely silent' 141 and 'It would be more appropriate if you addressed yourself to the nasty little dictators who rule so unceremoniously the rest of Africa'. 142thers looked further afield in order to identify causes that were more worthy of Oxfam's attention than South Africa.One writer was particularly concerned with the threat of communism.Rather than Oxfam campaigning in support of South African detainees, he suggested, the charity should seek to persuade Terry Waite (a special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury who had been involved in hostage negotiation in the 1980s) and the Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe to 'go to Belfast to try to prevent Civil war breaking out in the United Kingdom where another "Stooge Party" of Russia ie; the IRA is destroying and murdering innocent people to help Russia in its "Global Marxist Revolution".' 143 This proposal not only highlights the very blurred edges of what people imagined to constitute humanitarian action; it also illustrates how opposition to Oxfam's work in South Africa could sit within a broader global outlook.As Saul Dubow argues, apartheid was a 'touchstone of wider political commitments and affiliations'. 144hat impact did these ongoing complaints have on Oxfam's campaigning strategy?And how does their influence compare to that of pro-boycott complainers?Many of those who wrote to criticise Oxfam's politics may have felt that their position was vindicated by the decision of the 1991 Charity Commission inquiry to censure Oxfam.Yet Oxfam was not particularly contrite.Whereas pro-boycott letter writers were typically assumed to be part of the Oxfam movement (not least because many explicitly identified themselves as such), anti-boycott letter writers were more readily dismissed as outsiders.And while Oxfam tended to assume that the threats levelled by those in favour of the boycott had been made in good faith, many of those complaining about excessive politicking were disregarded as ungenuine.These appraisals reflect the sympathies of Oxfam staff, whose views were typically but not exclusively more aligned with those who supported than those who opposed the boycott.Prior to leaving Barclays, Oxfam had anticipated the tone of much of the criticism it would receive.As one staffer explained, it is a curious paradox that most of this criticism which will accuse Oxfam of getting involved with politics will originate from organisations and/or people primarily concerned with protecting the South African Government from criticism which is in itself a political action 145 The anger, racism, and unorthodox suggestions in some of these letters meant that this vocal minority were not seen by Oxfam as representative of a silent majority-either of their members or the wider public.Instead, criticisms of Oxfam's excessive 'politicking', even when they were accompanied by the withdrawal of donations, were absorbed by Oxfam in their pursuit of a better reputation among its partners in the field and among a 'better class' of supporter in Britain.As Oxfam sought to justify to the Charity Commission in 1990, to not reach a conclusion on sanctions would have given 'the impression of indecisiveness or even moral cowardice both to our beneficiaries in the field and to donors at home and thus would undermine our capacity to continue our work and to attract the vital support which enables us to do so'. 146The 2012 commemorative article on Oxfam's 'radical roots' discussed in the introduction is illustrative of this enduring dynamic.Being censured by the Charity Commission was presented as proof of Oxfam's commitment to campaigning and used by some as an argument for a more rather than less active advocacy role.

Conclusion
In 1987, Oxfam's South Africa Working Group described Oxfam's campaigning on South Africa as 'schizophrenic', driven by the underlying question: 'how much can you push the boat out and not damage the programme?' 147 The 1980s were, in many ways, a hostile climate for charities seeking to integrate aid with calls for political change.Band Aid, perhaps the emblematic charitable event of the decade, was, in Tanya Muller's words, 'instrumental in establishing a hegemonic culture in which moral responsibility towards impoverished parts of an imagined "Africa" is based on pity rather than the demand for justice'. 148As Hilton et al have shown, a 'resurgent Right' frequently 'vented its anger at what it thought constituted left-wing politicking by various NGOs', targeting overseas aid and development organisations alongside domestic charities including Shelter.The government and the scrutineers at the Charity Commission drew and redrew the 'rhetorical line marking the frontier of [charitable] NGO action . . . on an almost constant basis' leaving charities like Oxfam, in the words of their own lawyers, 'groping in an ill lit land'. 149As the Working Party that Oxfam established to examine its relationship with Barclays Bank concluded in 1985, 'it is immensely difficult for charities like Oxfam, trying to grapple with sensitive problems in an increasingly politicised world, to judge the moving boundary between what they can and cannot properly do in relation to what some perceive as "political action"'. 150The polarising status of South Africa within British society heightened the stakes.This article has shown that the public were not passive observers of these dynamics.Through their letters of complaint, they too sought to navigate-and often to shift or reinforce-the boundaries of 'the charitable' in relation to 'the political'.
Collectively, their scrutiny of Oxfam's banking choices and South Africa policies illustrates the complexity and flexibility of the humanitarian sector and of the alternative perspectives that it accommodated in the 1970s and 1980s.Band Aid may have dominated, but it was not the only lens through which the British public understood their relationship with Africa.Scrutiny of Oxfam came not just from a more conservative support base-as has typically been acknowledged-but also from more radical supporters.This highlights how public perceptions of overseas charity and activism in the 1970s and 80s were shaped by a broader ecosystem of right and left-wing movements, organisations and obligations.The significance of the AAM in this case study was less in directly putting pressure on Oxfam to leave Barclays or adopt sanctions, but in creating a climate of public opinion in which it felt safe (or at least worth the risk) for Oxfam to do so.Proboycott letter writers provided evidence of this public opinion that anti-apartheid Oxfam staffers could marshal to persuade more reluctant or cautious members of the organisation.
As Ben Whitaker described it in 1983, moments of controversy aside, Oxfam generally 'managed to combine support from the "lavender and old lace" ladies of Cheltenham to the radicals of Third World First and student groups'. 151While the letters highlight the difficulty of appealing simultaneously to this wide support base, they are also proof of the wide range of people who felt that they had a stake in the charity and who expected their needs and interests to be met by it.Though many of Oxfam's donors may have given in a fairly detached or passive way, the letter-writers discussed in this article showed strong ideological commitments to different components of Oxfam's work: relief, justice, development, 'neutrality', and advocacy.Their engagement is evidence of the dynamics of attachment, loyalty, and belonging that shaped people's engagement with charitable NGOs.
As Hilton has argued, by deciding to give to a particular charity, supporters place their trust in that organisation to possess the expertise necessary to improve lives and to enact that expertise according to a set of values compatible with their own. 152The Barclays episode illustrates that, whatever their views on the ideal nature of charitable work, donors did not entirely 'hand over' responsibility to NGOs, even as NGOs became increasingly professionalised in this period.In general, as Taylor et al have argued, the more professionalised the work of an NGO, the 'less likely it is that lay members will be involved its activities', including policy-making. 153The Barclays boycott illustrates how moments of controversy could interrupt this tendency.Motivated by their interest in South African politics, individuals took active steps to hold a large, bureaucratic and professionalised NGO to account and to shape it according to their own beliefs and priorities.While debates about accountability in the NGO sector have tended to focus on efficiency and effectiveness, the Barclays controversy is interesting because it was fundamentally about values-about what Oxfam stood for and who it stood with. 154Oxfam's apparent failure to uphold a set of values-whether they were understood to be a commitment to justice, or a commitment to apolitical neutrality-undermined donors' own sense of having done good, their ability, as one put it, to 'give in good conscience'.We can assume that the majority of donors who experienced such a disjuncture simply chose the 'exit' option and stopped giving to Oxfam; rather than seeking to influence Oxfam's policy making, perhaps they found another organisation to donate to.But, as this article has shown, not everyone went quietly and many sought to use their voice to influence Oxfam's trajectory. 155his article has uncovered how letter-writers to Oxfam mobilised themselves as a distinct type of 'consumer-supporter-activist'.In their attempts to change Oxfam's behaviour, individuals typically leveraged two loose forms of affiliation, often simultaneously.First, they identified as donors or potential donors, emphasising their financial value to the charity in a way that relatively straightforwardly mimicked other forms of consumer and shareholder activism.Second and, I would argue, more importantly, they identified as supporters of some, if not all, of what they perceived to be Oxfam's objectives.This latter form of affiliation may seem shallow-it carried with it no time or financial commitments-but it was central both to why letter writers thought that Oxfam should listen to them and to why Oxfam eventually took their concerns seriously.It was precisely because NGOs seemed to represent the public's interests and enact their desires (no matter how coincidentally this might have occurred) that the public assumed they had a stake in them.This article illustrates how ideological commitments towards the work carried out by voluntary organisations shaped supporters' expectations and drove their engagement in NGO policy-making, even when they lacked the more formal, 'deeper' ties of membership.The highly emotive way in which apartheid South Africa registered in Oxfam's postbag shows how important wider social movements were (whether in favour or against Pretoria) in shaping the public's engagement with the aid and development sector.Postbag dynamics reveal that in the 1970s and 1980s participatory politics thrived in ways that are often invisible, but which were nevertheless important to both the institution and individual involved.They are a significant but underappreciated feature of the 'age of the NGO' that merit further attention.