Glenn Babb

Glenn Robin Ware Babb (born 4 June 1943) is a former politician and diplomat for the former apartheid government in South Africa.

More recently he has been a businessman and entrepreneur.

Babb worked as a schoolteacher in 1964 before continuing his education at Oxford University (Lincoln College).

In 1967, he joined the Department of Foreign Affairs where he produced the book "Prison Administration in South Africa" while in the legal division of the Department.

In 1969 he had his first overseas posting when he was assigned to the South African embassy in Paris where he served as secretary for three years.

During this time he was made Chairman of the Young Diplomats Association of Paris.

He returned to Pretoria in 1972 and was Training Officer with the Department.

He authored the book "Training for the Diplomatic Service".

In 1975, he returned to Paris where he was the embassy's counsellor and then in 1978, he moved to the South African embassy in Rome.

Here he was asked to play cricket for the first Italian international team against the Indian Globetrotters and played in two matches.

In 1981, he again returned to South Africa to become head of the Africa Desk at the Department of Foreign Affairs and held that position for four years.

From 1985 to 1987 he had a high-profile posting in Canada where he was his government's ambassador to Ottawa and made frequent public statements against the anti-apartheid movement and in defence of his government and in opposition to the movement for economic sanctions on and disinvestment from South Africa that the Canadian government was leading internationally.

Babb was educated at Stellenbosch University and at Oxford having been awarded the Joerg Gosteli bursary.

While at Oxford, he rowed with the Lincoln College VIII and was part of the first crew to attempt to beat the Guards' record of fifteen and half hours for rowing from Oxford to London.

Thereafter he joined South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs.

He also earned a law degree from the University of South Africa with a distinction in Constitutional Law.

Glenn Babb was born in Johannesburg to Eric Ware Babb and Ora Constance Loverock, and was educated at St John's College, Johannesburg, a private school for boys.

At St John's he was made Head of House and won the trophy for the best Drum Major in the Witwatersrand Command band competition.

His maternal great-grandfather, Charles Doering, came from a prominent Ontario family (United Empire Loyalists) which owned the Doering Stock and Dairy Farm in Chesterville, Ontario.

Charles Doering with his brother Frederick became the first dentists in Johannesburg.

Frederick famously gave dental treatment to the imprisoned Leander Starr Jameson and his men after the Jameson Raid.

Charles sent his son, Lawrence, to St John's College as a founder pupil in the Union Grounds.

Five generations of his family have attended the same school.

His paternal grandfather, Horace Edwin Babb, was once the owner of The Kraal, a house in Orchards, Johannesburg, where Gandhi took refuge.

He later served on the South African Boxing Board of Control.

Boxing was very much part of the family culture

Babb's mission as Ambassador to Canada began in 1985 while South Africa was in crisis and international pressure on Pretoria was mounting.

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney threatened to break off diplomatic relations with the country when he spoke at the United Nations.

During his two-and-a-half-year posting, Babb appeared on Canadian television more than 132 times and even more frequently on radio.

He heavily lobbied politicians, journalists, intellectuals and universities in support of the Reagan Administration's policy of "constructive engagement" rather than sanctions or divestment.

Babb referred to apartheid as a relatively "benign policy" and a means of controlling "urbanization" and claimed that sanctions would harm South African blacks more than the white minority.

He also said of sanctions, "Whether you shoot the zebra in the white stripe or the black stripe," he said, "you are going to kill the zebra."

He claimed that the disruption of mineral production in South Africa was in the interests of the Soviet Union and that South Africa was the only force standing in the way of an expansion of Soviet intervention in the African continent.

Many of Babb's appearances across Canada were met with protests.

In 1985, when he was speaking at the University of Toronto's Hart House, anti-apartheid activist Lennox Farrell hurled the debating society's ceremonial mace at him.

In Montreal, when entering the private Mount Stephen club to give a speech, club members and Babb were pelted with eggs and snowballs by protesters who called him "racist scum".

In 1986, Babb appeared on the CBC Radio program Sunday Morning to debate Montreal human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler.

The appearance was picketed by 50 anti-apartheid activists.

He was interviewed by the famous Jack Webster in Vancouver who told him: "You're doing very well, laddie".

Glenn Babb married Tracey Dibb on 31 May 2003; Glenn Babb has two sons and two daughters.