Internal resistance to South African apartheid
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Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa
came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protest
s, passive resistance and armed insurrection. It came from both black activists like Steve Biko
and Desmond Tutu
as well as white activists like Harry Schwarz
, Joe Slovo
and Trevor Huddleston
. By the 1980s there was continuous interplay between violent and non-violent action, and this interplay was a notable feature of the rebellion against apartheid from 1983 until South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994.
(ANC) became the primary force in opposition to the government after its conservative leadership was superseded by the organisation's Youth League
(ANCYL) in 1949. Led by Walter Sisulu
, Nelson Mandela
and Oliver Tambo
, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme which combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with those of Marxism
. They brought the notion that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns.
Once the ANCYL had taken control of the ANC, the organization advocated a policy of open defiance and resistance for the first time. This unleashed the 1950s Programme of Action, instituted in 1949, which laid emphasis on the right of the African people to freedom under the flag of African Nationalism. It laid out plans for strike
s, boycott
s, and civil disobedience
, resulting in occasionally violent clashes, with mass protests, stay-aways, boycotts and strikes predominating. The 1950 May Day
stay-away was a strong, successful expression of black grievances.
In 1952 the Joint Planning Council, made up of members from the ANC, the South African Indian Congress
as well as the Coloured People's Congress, agreed on a plan for the defiance of unfair laws. They wrote to the Prime Minister, DF Malan
and demanded that he repeal the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act
, the Bantu Administration Act and other legislation, warning that refusal to do so would be met with a campaign of defiance. The Prime Minister was haughty in his rejoinder, referring the Council to the Native Affairs Department and threatening to treat insolence callously.
The Programme of Action was launched with the Defiance Campaign in June 1952. By defying the laws, the organisation hoped for mass arrests with which the government would be unable to cope. Nelson Mandela led a crowd of fifty men down the streets of a white area in Johannesburg after the 11 pm curfew that forbade black peoples' presence. The group was apprehended, but the rest of the country followed its example. Defiance spread throughout the country and black people disregarded racial laws by, for example, walking through "whites only" entries. At the campaign's zenith, in September 1952, more than 2,500 people from 24 different towns had been arrested for defying various laws.
By the end of the campaign, the government arrested 8,000 people, but was forced to temporarily relax its apartheid legislation. In addition, as a direct result of the campaign, membership of the ANC increased and attention was drawn to apartheid's injustices. Once things had calmed down, however, the government responded with an iron fist, taking several supreme measures—among which were the Unlawful Organisations Act, the Suppression of Communism Act
, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Procedures Act. Thus, in the longer term, this spelt defeat for the resistance movement. In December 1952, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and eighteen others were tried under the Suppression of Communism Act for leading the Defiance Campaign
. They received nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act stated that "[a]ny person who in any way whatsoever advises, encourages, incites, commands, aids or procures any other person [...] or uses language calculated to cause any other person to commit an offence by way of protest against a law [...] shall be guilty of an offence".
The government also constricted the regulation on separate amenities. Protesters had argued to the courts that different amenities for different races ought to be of an equal standard. The Separate Amenities Act removed the façade of mere separation; it gave the owners of public amenities the right to bar people on the basis of colour or race and made it lawful for different races to be treated inequitably. Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and other famous ANC, Indian Congress and trade union chiefs were all vetoed under the Suppression of Communism Act. The proscription meant that the headship was now restricted to its homes and adjacent areas and they were banned from attending public gatherings.
Though cruelly limited, the movement was still able to struggle against the oppressive instruments of the state. More importantly, collaboration between the ANC and NIC had increased and strengthened through the Defiance Campaign. Support for the ANC and its endeavours increased. In August 1953, the ANC Cape conference suggested an Assembly of the people.
Meanwhile, on the global stage, India
demanded that apartheid be challenged by the United Nations
. It led to the establishment of a UN commission on apartheid. This first encouraged black South Africans in their campaign, but, after five months, the African and Indian Congresses opted to call it off because of the increasing number of riots, strikes and heavier sentences on those who took part. During the campaign, almost 8,000 black and Indian people had been detained. At the same time, however, ANC membership grew from 7,000 to 100,000, and the number of subdivisions went from fourteen at the start of the campaign to 87 at its end. There was also a change in headship. Shortly before the campaign's end, Albert Luthuli was elected as the new ANC president.
A National Convention of all South Africans was proposed by Professor ZK Matthews at the Cape ANC conference on 15 August 1953. The intention was to chew over the national problems on an all-inclusive basis and outline a manifesto of amity. In March 1954, the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) met and founded the National Action Council for the Congress of the People. Delegates were drawn from each of these establishments and a nationwide organiser was assigned. A campaign was publicised for the drafting of a freedom charter, and a call was made for 10,000 unpaid assistants to help with the conscription of views from across the country and the organisation of the Congress of the People. Demands were documented and sent to the local board of the National Action Council in preparation for drafting the Charter.
The Congress of the People was held from 26 to 27 of June 1955 in Kliptown
, just south of Johannesburg
. Under the attentive gaze of the constabulary, 3,000 delegates gathered to revise and accept the Freedom Charter
that had been endorsed by the ANC's National Executive on the eve of the Congress. Among the organisations present were the Indian Congress and the ANC. The Freedom Charter, which articulated a vision for South Africa radically different to the partition policy of apartheid, emphasising that South Africa should be a just and non-racial society. It called for a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified state and stated that all people should be treated equally before the law, that land should be "shared among those who work it" and that the people should "share in the country's wealth" -- a statement which has often been interpreted as a call for socialist nationalisation. The congress delegates had consented to almost all the sections of the charter when the police announced that they suspected treason and recorded the names and addresses of all those present.
In 1956 the Federation of South African Women was founded and led by Lilian Ngoyi
and the more famous Helen Joseph
. On 9 August that year, the women marched on the Union Buildings
in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. On the morning of December 5, 1956, however, the police detained 156 Congress Alliance leaders. 104 African, 23 white, 21 Indian and eight Coloured people were charged with high treason and plotting a violent overthrow of the state, to be replaced by a communist government. The charge was based on statements and speeches made during both the Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People. The Freedom Charter was used as proof of the Alliance's communist intent and their conspiracy to oust the government. The State relied greatly on the evidence of Professor Arthur Murray, an ostensible authority on Marxism
and Communism
. His evidence was that the ANC papers were full of such communist terms as "comrade
" and "proletariat
", often found in the writings of Lenin and Stalin. Halfway through the drawn-out trial, charges against 61 of the accused were withdrawn, and, five years after their arrest, the remaining thirty were acquitted after the court held that the state had failed to prove its case.
. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organized by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3,000 to 20,000. The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville massacre
. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC policy. Before Sharpeville those advocating the use of organized violence, such as Nelson Mandela, had been marginalized as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville Mandela was allowed to launch his guerilla struggle (called the "M" Plan). Hence, from 1961 the ANC adopted terrorist
tactics, such as intimidation, bombing, murder and sabotage. Although their units detonated bombs in restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and in front of government buildings over the following years, the military wings of the ANC
and PAC
were never a military threat to the state.
signalled that the South African government was not going to yield to the mood of black nationalism then sweeping across Africa, and that white South Africans did not accept that they were "colonials" to be swept into the sea by "decolonization". Sharpeville thus foreshadowed the coming conflict between black nationalists and Afrikaner nationalists over the next thirty years.
In the wake of the shooting, a massive stay-away
from work was organised and demonstrations continued. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd
declared a state of emergency
, giving security forces the right to detain people without trial
. Over 18,000 were arrest
ed, including much of the ANC and PAC leadership, and both organizations were banned. The National Party government felt that outlawing the ANC and PAC would discontinue their operations. This was not the case. Some leaders went into exile abroad, while others stayed in South Africa and pursued the fight domestically. They went underground and initiated secret armed opposition groups.
The ANC and PAC ran campaigns of sabotage
and terrorism through their armed wings, Umkhonto we Sizwe
(Spear of the Nation, MK) and Poqo ("Pure" or "Alone"). The ANC leader, Chief Albert Luthuli, did not support an armed struggle, but there was growing backing for a violent struggle as people became more and more aggravated by the government's aversion to hearing them out. In June 1961 the ANC executive concurred on the formation of an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe
(MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation".
Nelson Mandela
, who was the commander of the ANC's military wing (MK), had developed the "M Plan" (Mandela Plan), a programme of controlled sabotage, launching a guerilla war modelled upon the FLN's struggle in Algeria
. Its policy involved the targeting of state buildings for sabotage without resorting to murder. On 16 December 1961 MK carried out its first acts of sabotage by assaulting post offices and other structures in Johannesburg
, Port Elizabeth and Durban
. Many other acts of sabotage would take place over the next few years. In its first eighteen months, MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage, but despite its policy, some deaths did occur. The headquarters were at Liliesleaf Farm
in Rivonia
, just outside Johannesburg.
Mandela began planning for MK members to be given military training outside South Africa and managed to slip past authorities as he himself moved in and out of the country, earning him the moniker "The Black Pimpernel". Mandela initially resisted arrest within South Africa, but in August 1962, after receiving some inside information, the police put up a roadblock and captured him. MK's success declined after this, and the police infiltrated the organisation.
A witch-hunt was launched against the dissident establishments. Many people were outlawed or placed under house arrest. In this way, the ANC net was shattered by the mid-1960s. Some people were held in detention, where they were often tormented or executed. In 1963, through a leak from informant
Gerard Ludi, the police found the location of the MK headquarters at Lilliesleaf. In July, they raided the farm and arrested many major leaders of the ANC and MK, including Walter Sisulu
, Govan Mbeki
and Ahmed Kathrada
. They were detained and indicted with sabotage and attempting to bring down the government. At the same time, police collected evidence to be used in the trial, which enabled them to arrest other such people, like Denis Goldberg
. Especially harmful was the information on Operation Mayibuye (Operation Comeback), a plan for bringing exiles back into the country. It also revealed that MK was planning to use guerrilla warfare
.
Some ANC members, including Oliver Tambo
, avoided capture and escaped South Africa to pursue the ANC's interests from beyond the country's boundaries. Tambo was to lead the ANC in exile for another thirty years. Many supporters also left South Africa for military training under MK.
The PAC's secretive martial arm was called Poqo, meaning "go it alone" or "pure" in the Xhosa tongue. Poqo was prepared to take lives in the quest for liberation. It murdered whites, police informants and black people who supported the government. It arranged a national revolution in order to conquer the white government, but poor organization and in-house nuisances crippled the PAC and Poqo.
The PAC did not have adequate direction. When Robert Sobukwe
(jailed following the Sharpeville massacre
) was discharged from Robben Island
in 1969, he was placed under house arrest in Kimberley
until he died in 1978. Police repeatedly lengthened his incarceration through the "Sobukwe clause", which permitted the state to detain people even after they had served their sentences. Many other PAC principals were taken into custody on 21 March 1960, and those released were hampered by bans.
The PAC's management difficulties also existed in exile. When they were outlawed, PAC leaders set up headquarters, in among places, Dar es Salaam
, London and the United States. In 1962, Potlako Leballo (1915–1986) left the country for Maseru
, Basutoland
, and became the PAC's acting president. He and Mandela had arranged to meet but Mandela was arrested the day before Leballo reached Basutoland. When British intelligence in Maseru warned the South Africans that two female PAC couriers had crossed into South Africa to deliver letters the police confiscated correspondence addressed to 70 PAC cells. A wave arrests followed, and 3,246 PAC and Poqo members went to jail. This led to the crumpling of the PAC within South Africa, also because a large arms shipment from Ghana via Egypt failed to make a landing.
Leballo also annoyed external PAC leaders through his attempt, with Sobukwe's assent, to militarize the external party structure on Maoist Red Army lines. In 1968, the OAU Liberation Committee stepped in to back Leballo but the PAC was eventually expelled from Maseru (where it was allied to the opposition Basutoland Congress Party) and Lusaka (which was friendlier to the ANC). All in all, MK ran a far more successful guerilla campaign than Poqo. Between 1974 and 1976 Leballo trained the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) in Libya and then 500 Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) troops. American pressures split the PAC into a "reformist-diplomatic" group under Sibeko, Make, and Pokela; and a Maoist group under Leballo based in Ghana and Ugandan (Museveni) resistance controlled areas of Zaire (Congo). The 500 strong APLA force was destroyed by the Tanzanian military at Chunya on March 11, 1980 for refusing to accept the reformist-diplomatic leadership. Leballo was influential in the South African 1985 student risings and pivotal in removing Leabua Jonathan's regime in Lesotho, the stress of which caused his death. The PAC never recovered from the 1980 massacre of Leballo's troops and his death and won a paltry 1.2% of the vote in the 1994 South African election.
The widely-publicized Rivonia Trial
began in October 1963. Ten men stood accused of treason
, trying to depose the government and sabotage. Nelson Mandela
was tried, along with those arrested at Lilliesleaf and another 24 co-conspirators. Many of these people, however, had already fled the country, Tambo being but one.
The ANC used the lawsuit to draw international interest to its cause. During the trial, Mandela gave his legendary "I am prepared to die" diatribe. In June 1964, eight were found guilty of terrorism
, sabotage, planning and executing guerilla warfare, and working towards an armed invasion of the country. The treason
charge was dropped. All eight were sentenced to life imprisonment. They did not get the death penalty
, as this hazarded too much international criticism. Goldberg was sent to the Pretoria jail, and the other seven were all banished to the prison on Robben Island. Bram Fischer
, the defence trial attorney, was himself arrested and tried shortly thereafter. The instructions that Mandela gave to make MK an African force were ignored: it continued to be organized and led by the SACP. Consequently there were serious mutinies in Angolan camps by Soweto and Cape student recruits angry at the corrupt and brutal consequences of minority control.
The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council
, and was a major force in the introduction of international sanctions
against the South African government. After Sharpeville the ANC and PAC were banned. The South African Communist Party
denied it existed, having dissolved in 1950 to escape banning as the CPSA. Leaders like Mandela and Sobukwe were either in jail
or in exile
.
By incarcerating leaders of MK and the ANC, the government was able to break the potency of the ANC within South Africa's borders, and greatly affect its efficiency outside of them. The ANC faced many problems in the aftermath of the Rivonia Trial, its inner administration cruelly afflicted. Exiled leaders understood that conveying skilled guerrillas into South Africa would be complicated, as bordering states were unfriendly towards the ANC. Mozambique
was still a Portuguese colony, Rhodesia
(now Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (now Botswana) were still in colonial hands, and South West Africa
(now Namibia) was controlled by the South African government. Thus, by 1964, the government had essentially broken the activist movements. The first armed invasion in South Africa's history by an African force was curiously the 1978 attack by the Lesotho Liberation (Army (LLA), a 178 strong force trained by Leballo, which was mostly wiped out in 1979. A second LLA was the creature of South African intelligence services backed by former CIA operatives (Ray Steiner Cline), former Rhodesian Army personnel, and anti-communist American and Asian organizations.
At the same time, international criticism of apartheid increased. The United Nations denounced the trial and commenced steps for the introduction of sanctions. The PAC and Poqo persisted in their activities through the late 1960s and 1970s, but, because of their use of violence, members were under continuous police surveillance, and there were few acts of damaging sabotage. The ANC looked into ways of infiltrating South Africa in spite of its dearth of internal structure.
Although the ANC attempted to reconstruct itself, there would be no real action until the 1970s, when striking militancy began to reappear. At the end of the 1960s, new organisations and ideas would form to confront apartheid. The next key act of opposition would come only in 1976, however, with the Soweto uprising.
The government's effort at defeating all opposition had been effective. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homeland
s, and relocating blacks into these homelands. In 1966, Verwoerd
was stabbed to death in parliament, but his policies continued under B.J. Vorster
and later P.W. Botha
.
After the banning of the ANC and PAC, and the Rivonia Trial
, the struggle within South Africa had been dealt a stern blow. The age bracket that had seen the Sharpeville Massacre
had become apathetic in its gloom and despair. This changed in the late 1960s and most notably from the mid-1970s, when new devotion came from the latest, more radical generation. During this epoch, new anti-apartheid ideas and establishments were created, and they gathered support from across South Africa.
The surfacing of the South African Black Consciousness Movement was influenced by its American equivalent, the American Black Power
movement, and directors such as Malcolm X
. African heads like Kenneth Kaunda
also stirred ideas of autonomy and Black Pride by means of their anti-colonialist writings. Scholars grew in assurance and became far more candid about the NP's bigoted policies and the repression of the black people.
During the 1970s, resistance gained force, first channelled through trade union
s and strikes, and then spearheaded by the South African Students' Organisation
, under the charismatic leadership of Steve Biko
. A medical student, Biko was the main force behind the growth of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement
, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride
, and non-violent opposition to apartheid.
Founded by Biko, the BC faction materialised out of the ideas of the civil rights movement
and Black Power
movement in the USA. The motto of the movement was "Black is Beautiful", first made popular by boxer Mohammed Ali. BC endorsed black pride and African customs, and did much to alter feelings of inadequacy, while also raising awareness of the fallacy of blacks being seen as inferior. It defied practices and merchandise that were meant to make black people "whiter", such as hair straighteners and skin lighteners. Western culture was toured as destructive and alien to Africa. Black people became conscious of their own distinctive identity and self-worth, and grew more outspoken about their right to freedom.
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was the first student representative, but it had a principally white membership, and black students saw this as an impediment. White students had concerns more scholastic than political, and, although the administration was multi-racial, it was not tackling many of the issues of the mounting number of black students since 1960. This resulted in the 1967 creation of the University Christian Movement (UCM), an organisation rooted in African-American philosophy.
In July 1967, the annual NUSAS symposium took place at Rhodes University
in Grahamstown
. White students were permitted to dwell on university grounds, but black students were relegated to an abode further away in a church vestibule. This later led to the creation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), under Steve Biko, in 1969.
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was an umbrella organisation for groups such as SASO. It was created in 1967, and among its members were the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), the black Community Programme (which directed welfare schemes for blacks), the Black People's Convention (which, at first, attempted to unite charitable associations like that for the Education and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa) and the South African Students Movement (SASM), which represented high-school learners. The BPC finally expanded into a political administration, with Steve Biko as its honorary president.
When the BCM's principles were illuminated, a number of fresh organisations, staunch in their endorsement of black liberation, came into being. AZAPO was only launched in 1978, a long time after the birth of the BCM, as a medium for its message.
The BCM drew most of its backing from high schools and tertiary institutions. Black Consciousness ethics were crucial in lifting consciousness amongst black people of their value and right to a better existence, along with the need to insist on these. The BCM's non-violent approach subsided in favour of a more radical element as its resolve to attain liberty was met with state hostility.
After the carnage in Soweto the ANC's Nelson Mandela grudgingly concurred that bloodshed was the only means left to convince the NP to accede to commands for an end to its apartheid policy. A subversive plan of terror was mapped out, with Steve Biko and the BCM to the fore. The BCM and other opinionated elements were prohibited during the 1970s because the government saw them as dangerous. Black Consciousness in South Africa adopted a drastic theory, much like socialism, as the liberation movement progressed to challenging class divisions and shifting from an ethnic stress to focusing more on non-racialism. The BCM became more worried about the destiny of the black people as workers, believing that "economic and political exploitation has reduced the black people into a class".
With Black Consciousness increasing throughout black communities, a number of other organisations were formed to combat apartheid. In 1972, the Black People's Convention was founded, and the black Allied Worker's Union, formed in 1973, focused on black labour matters. The black Community Programmes gave attention to the more global issues of black communities. School learners began to confront the Bantu education policy, designed to prepare them to be second-class citizens. They created the South African Student's Movement (SASM). It was particularly popular in Soweto, where the 1976 insurrection against Bantu Education would prove to be a crossroads in the fight against apartheid.
Taken into custody on 18 August 1977, Steve Biko was brutally tortured by unidentified security personnel until he lapsed into a coma
. He went for three days without medical treatment and finally died in Pretoria. At the subsequent inquest, the magistrate
ruled that no-one was to blame, but the South African Medical Association
eventually took action against the doctors who had failed to treat Biko.
There was tremendous reaction both within and outside South Africa. Foreign countries imposed even more stringent sanctions than those which had come before, and the United Nations
imposed an arms embargo
. Young blacks inside South Africa committed themselves even more fervently to the struggle against apartheid, under the catchphrase "Liberation before education
". Black communities became highly politicised.
The Black Consciousness Movement began to change its focus during the 1980s from being on issues of nation and community to issues of class and, perhaps as a result, had far less of an impact than in the mid-'seventies. Still, there is some evidence to suggest that it retained at least some influence, particularly in workers' organisations.
The role of Black Consciousness could be clearly seen in the approach of the National Forum, which believed that the struggle ought to hold little or no place for whites. This ideal, of blacks leading the resistance campaign, was an important aim of the traditional BC groups, and it shaped the thinking of many 'eighties activists, most notably the workforce. Furthermore, the NF focused on workers' issues, which became more and more important to BC supporters.
The Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) was the leading BC group of the 1980s. It got most of its support from young black men and women—many of them educated at colleges and universities. The organisation had a lot of support in Soweto and also amongst journalists, helping to popularise its views. It focused, too, on workers' issues, but it refused to form any ties with whites.
Although it did not achieve quite the same groundswell support that it had in the late 1970s, BC still influenced the thinking of a few resistance groups.
The decree was resented deeply by blacks as Afrikaans was widely viewed, in the words of Desmond Tutu, then Dean of Johannesburg as "the language of the oppressor". Teacher organizations such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa objected to the decree.
The resentment grew until April 30, 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. Students formed an Action Committee (later known as the Soweto Students’ Representative Council) that organized a mass rally for June 16, 1976. The protest was intended to be peaceful.
In a confrontation with police, who had barricaded the road along the intended route, stones were thrown. Attempts to disperse the crowd with dogs and tear gas failed; when the police saw they were surrounded by the students, they fired shots into the crowd, at which point pandemonium broke out.
In the first day of rioting 23 people were killed in escalating violence. The following day 1,500 heavily armed police officers were deployed to Soweto. Crowd control methods used by South African police at the time included mainly dispersement techniques, and many of the officers shot indiscriminately, killing many people.
SASM gave support to its members with school work and exams, and with progress from lower school levels to university. Security forces pestered its members continually until, in 1973, some of its leaders fled the country. In 1974 and 1975, some affiliates were captured and tried under the Suppression of Communism and Terrorism Acts. This flagged the SASM's progress. Many school headmasters and -mistresses forbade the organisation from playing a role in their schools.
When the Southern Transvaal local Bantu Education Department concluded that all junior secondary black students had to be taught in Afrikaans in 1974, SASM limbs at Naledi High and Orlando West Secondary Schools opted to vent their grievances on school books and refused to attend their schools This form of struggle spread fast to other schools in Soweto and hit boiling point around 8 June 1976. When law enforcement attempted to arrest a regional SASM secretary, they were stoned and had their cars torched.
On 13 June 1976, nearly 400 SASM associates gathered and chose to start a movement for mass action. An Action Committee was shaped with two agents from each school in Soweto. This board became known as the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC). The protest was set aside for 16 June 1976, and the organisers were determined only to use aggression if they were assaulted by the police.
By 1963, one of the few envoys for tertiary students was the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Although the organisation was meant to be non-racial and anti-government, it was made up primarily of white English students from customarily broad-minded universities such as those in Natal, Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Grahamstown. These students were had compassion for the effort against the state. By 1967, however, NUSAS was forbidden from functioning on black universities, making it almost impossible for black Student Representative Councils to join the union.
Police employed tear gas and violence against the strikers, but could not apprehend the masses of people involved. The strikers never chose individuals to stand for them, because these people would be the first to be detained. Blacks were not permitted trade unions, which meant that the government could not act against any particular individuals. Strikes usually concluded when income boosts were tendered, but these were generally lower than had initially been insisted upon.
The Durban strikes soon extended to other parts of the country. 1973 and 1974 saw a countrywide amplification of labour opposition. There was also an increasingly buoyancy among black workers as they found that the state did not retort as harshly as they had expected. They thus began to form trade unions, even though these remained illegitimate and unofficial.
After 1976, trade unions and their workers began to play a massive role in the fight against apartheid. With their thousands of members, the trade unions had great strength in numbers, and this they used to their advantage, campaigning for the rights of black workers and forcing the government to make changes to its apartheid policies. Importantly, trade unions filled the gap left by banned political parties. They assumed tremendous importance because they could act on a wide variety of issues and problems for their people—and not only work-related ones, as links between work issues and broader community grievances became more palpable.
Fewer trade-union officials (harassed less by the police and army) were jailed than political leaders in the townships. Union members could meet and make plans within the factory. In this way, trade unions played a pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid, and their efforts generally had wide community support.
In 1979, one year after Botha's accession to power, black trade unions were legalized, and their role in the resistance struggle grew to all-new proportions. Prior to 1979, black trade unions had had no legal clout in dealings with employers. All strikes that took place were illegal, but they did help to establish the trade unions and their collective cause. Although the legalisation of black trade unions gave workers the legal right to strike, it also gave the government a degree of control over them, as they all had to be registered and hand in their membership records to the government. They were not allowed to support political parties either, and it goes without saying that some trade unions did not comply.
Later in 1979, the FOSATU body was formed, followed by the Council of Unions of South Africa (COSAS). It was influenced strongly by the ideas of Black Consciousness and wanted to work to ensure black leadership of unions.
The establishment of the trade-union federations led to greater unity amongst the workers. The tremendous size of the federations gave them increased voice and power. 1980 saw thousands of black high-school and university students boycotting their schools, and a country-wide protest over wages, rents and bus fares. In 1982, there were 394 strikes involving 141,571 workers. FOSATU and CUSA grew from a mere 70,000 members in 1979 to 320,000 by 1983, the year of the establishment of first the National Forum and then the UDF. Both of these had an important impact, but the latter was far more influential.
With the establishment of the new constitution in 1984, the biggest and longest black uprising exploded in the Vaal Triangle. COSAS and FOSATU organised the longest stay-away in South African history, and, all told, there were 469 strikes that year, amounting to 378,000 hours in lost business time.
In accordance with the State of Emergency in 1985, COSAS was banned and many UDF leaders arrested. A meeting between white business leaders and those of the ANC in Zambia brought about the formation of COSATU in 1985. The newly-formed trade-union governing body, committed to improved working conditions and the fight against apartheid, organised a nationwide strike the following year, and a new State of Emergency was declared. It did not take long for COSATU's membership to grow to 500,000.
With South Africa facing a neigh-unprecedented shortage of skilled white labour, the government was forced to allow black people to fill the vacancies. This, in turn, led to an increase in spending on black, coloured and Indian education.
Still, there were divides amongst the trade-union faction, which had the membership of only ten per cent of the country's workforce. Not all trade unions joined the federations, while agricultural and domestic workers did not even have a trade union to join and were thus more liable. Nevertheless, by the end of this period, the unions had emerged as one of the most effective vehicles for black opposition.
Beyers Naudé
left the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church
and founded the Christian Institute, bringing white and black people together. He, along with the Institute, were banned in 1977, but he later became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches
(SACC), a religious association which supported anti-apartheid activities. Significantly, it also refused to condemn violence as a means of ending apartheid.
Frank Chikane
was another general secretary of the SACC. He was detained four times because of his criticism of the government and once allegedly had an attempt on his life, initiated by Adriaan Vlok
, former Minister of Law and Order.
The charismatic Archbishop Desmond Tutu was yet another general secretary of the SACC. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1984 and used his position and popularity to denounce the government and its policies. On 29 February 1988 Tutu, and a number of other church leaders, were arrested during a protest in front of the parliamentary buildings in Cape Town.
Alan Boesak led the World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(WARC). He was very influential in founding the UDF and was once jailed for a month after organising a march demanding the release of Nelson Mandela.
Although church leaders were not totally immune to prosecution, they were able to criticise the government more freely than the leaders of militant groups. They were pivotal in altering public opinion regarding apartheid policies.
Later in 1989, the MDM organised a number of peaceful marches against the State of Emergency (extended to four years now) in the major cities. Even though these marches were illegal, no-one was arrested—evidence that apartheid was coming to an end and that the government's hold was weakening.
Although the MDM emerged only very late into the struggle, it did add to the effective resistance that the government faced, organising a series of protests and further uniting the opposition movement. Certainly, it was characteristic of the "mass resistance" which characterised the 'eighties: many organisations were united, dealing with different aspects of the fight against apartheid and its implications.
Some aid workers present during the MDM's existence claim that it was actually little more than a socialist front organization for terrorists that would use violence to "bolster" support.http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/12/night-christmas-became-real.html
, whose MP Helen Suzman
provided for many years the only Parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could.
Harry Schwarz
was in minority opposition politics for over 40 years and was one of the most prominent opponents of the National Party
and its policy of apartheid. After assisting in the 1948 general election, Schwarz and others formed the Torch Commando
, an ex-soldiers' movement to protest against the disenfranchisement of the coloured people in South Africa. Beginning in the 1960s, when he was Leader of the Opposition
in the Transvaal
, he became well-known and achieved prominence as a race relations and economic reformist in the United Party
. An early and powerful advocate of non-violent resistance, he signed the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith
with Mangosuthu Buthelezi
in 1974, that enshrined the principles of peaceful negotiated transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by black and white political leaders in South Africa. In 1975 he led a break away from the United Party, due to its lame duck approach to criticism of apartheid and became leader of the new Reform Party
that led to the realignment of opposition politics in South Africa. Schwarz was one of the defence attorneys in the infamous Rivonia Trial
, defending Jimmy Kantor
, who was Nelson Mandela
's lawyer until he too was arrested and charged. Through the 1970s and 1980s in Parliament he was amongst the most forthright and effective campaigners against apartheid, who was feared by many National Party ministers.
Helen Zille
, an Afrikaner
anti-apartheid activist, exposed a police cover-up
regarding the death of Black Consciousness founder Steve Biko
as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail. Zille was active in the Black Sash
, an organisation of white women formed in 1955 to oppose the removal of Coloured (mixed-race) voters from the Cape Province
voters' roll. Even after that failure, however, it went on assisting blacks with issues such as pass laws, housing and unemployment.
Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party
, whose leader Joe Slovo
was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Whites also played a significant role in opposing apartheid during the 1980s through the United Democratic Front
and End Conscription Campaign
. The latter was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of white males into the South African military. The ECC's support-base was not particularly large, but the government still saw fit to ban it 1988.
The army played a major role in the government's maintenance of its apartheid policies. It was expanded considerably to fight the resistance, and more money was being spent on increasing its effectiveness. It is estimated that something between R4-billion and R5-billion was spent on defence in the mid-'eighties. Conscription
was used to increase the size of the army, with stiff prison sentences imposed for draft evasion or desertion
. Only white males were conscripted, but volunteers from other races were also drawn in. The army was used to fight battles on South African borders and in neighbouring states, against the liberation movements and the countries that supported them. During the 1980s, the military was also used to repress township uprisings, which saw support for the ECC increase markedly.
Cultural opposition to apartheid came from internationally known writers like Breyten Breytenbach
, André Brink
and Alan Paton
(who founded the Liberal Party of South Africa) and clerics like Beyers Naudé
.
Some of the first violent resistance to the system was organised by the African Resistance Movement (ARM) who were responsible for setting off bombs at power stations and notably the Park Station bomb. The membership of this group was virtually all drawn from the marginalized white intellectual scene. Founded in the 1960s, many of ARM's members had been part of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Unlike pro-peace opposition NUSAS, however, ARM was a radical organisation. Its backing came mostly from Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. By 1964, though, ARM ceased to exist, most of its members having been arrested or fled the country.
On 24 July 1964, Frederick John Harris, an associate of ARM, deposited a time bomb in the Johannesburg station. One person was slain, and 22 were injured. Harris explained that he had wanted to show that ARM was still in existence, but both ARM and the ANC slammed his actions. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1965.
. They demanded the independence of their country and their people. These female activists were rarely at the head of the main organizations, at least at the beginning of the movement, but were nonetheless prime actors. One of the earliest organization was The Bantu Women's League founded in 1913. In the 1930s and 1940s, female activists were strongly present in trade union movements, which also served as a vehicle for future organization. In the 1950s, organizations specifically for women were created such as the ANC Women's League(ANCWL) or a Women's Council within the South West Africa People's Organization(SWAPO). In April 1954, the more global Federation of South African Women (FSAW or FedSAW) was founded with the objective to fight against racism and oppression of women as well as to make African women understand that they had rights both as human beings and as women. While female actvists fought along men and participated to demonstrations and guerrilla movements, FSAW and ANCWL also acted independently and organized bus boycotts, campaigns against restrictive passes in 1956 in Pretoria
and in Sharpeville in 1960. 20.000 women attended these kind of demonstrations. Many participants were arrested, forced into exile or imprisoned such as Lilian Ngoyi
. In 1958, 2000 women were arrested during an anti-pass campaign. After the Sharpeville Massacre
, however, many organizations such as FSAW were banned and went underground.
At the same time South African women fought against gender discrimination and called for rights specific to women, such as family, children, gender equality and access to education. At a conference in Johannesburg
in 1954, the Federation of South African Women adopted the "Women's Charter", which focused on rights specific to women both as women and mothers. The Charter referred both to human rights, women's rights and asked for universal equality and national liberation. In 1955, in a document drafted in preparation for the Congress of People, the FSAW made more demands, including free education for children, proper housing facilities and good working conditions, such as the abolition of child labor and a minimum wage.
The difficulty for these local movements was to raise global awareness in order to truly have an impact. Yet, their actions and demands gradually attracted the attention of the United Nations and put pressure on the international community. In 1954, Lilian Ngoyi
attended the World Congress of Women in Lausanne
, Switzerland
. Later, in 1975, the ANC was present at the 1975 United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen and in 1980 an essay on the role of women in the liberation movement was prepared for the United Nations World Conference. This has been crucial in the recognition of Southern African women and their role in the anti-apartheid movement.
Among important activists during the liberation movement were Ida Ntwana, Lilian Ngoyi
, Helen Joseph
, Dorothy Nyembe. Lilian Ngoyi joined the ANC National Executive and was elected first vice-president and later president of FSAW in 1959. Many of these leaders served long prison sentences.
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
s, passive resistance and armed insurrection. It came from both black activists like Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
and Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
as well as white activists like Harry Schwarz
Harry Schwarz
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.Schwarz rose from the childhood poverty he...
, Joe Slovo
Joe Slovo
For Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town, see: Joe Slovo .Joe Slovo was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party , and leading member of the African National Congress.-Life:Slovo was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South...
and Trevor Huddleston
Trevor Huddleston
Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston CR, KCMG was an English Anglican bishop. He was most well known for his anti-apartheid activism and his 'Prayer for Africa'...
. By the 1980s there was continuous interplay between violent and non-violent action, and this interplay was a notable feature of the rebellion against apartheid from 1983 until South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994.
ANC
Although its creation predated apartheid, the African National CongressAfrican National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC) became the primary force in opposition to the government after its conservative leadership was superseded by the organisation's Youth League
African National Congress Youth League
The African National Congress Youth League is the youth wing of the African National Congress.-Foundation:Its foundation in 1944 by Nick Gombart, Ashley Peter Mda, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo marked the rise of a new generation of leadership of South Africa's black African...
(ANCYL) in 1949. Led by Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
and Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme which combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with those of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. They brought the notion that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns.
Once the ANCYL had taken control of the ANC, the organization advocated a policy of open defiance and resistance for the first time. This unleashed the 1950s Programme of Action, instituted in 1949, which laid emphasis on the right of the African people to freedom under the flag of African Nationalism. It laid out plans for strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
s, boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s, and civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
, resulting in occasionally violent clashes, with mass protests, stay-aways, boycotts and strikes predominating. The 1950 May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
stay-away was a strong, successful expression of black grievances.
In 1952 the Joint Planning Council, made up of members from the ANC, the South African Indian Congress
South African Indian Congress
The South African Indian Congress was an organization founded in 1924 in Natal , South Africa. The congress is famous for its strong participation by Mahatma Gandhi and other prominent South African Indian figures during the time. Umar Hajee Ahmed Jhaveri was elected the first president of the...
as well as the Coloured People's Congress, agreed on a plan for the defiance of unfair laws. They wrote to the Prime Minister, DF Malan
Daniel François Malan
Daniel François Malan , more commonly known as D.F. Malan, was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. He is seen as a champion of Afrikaner nationalism. His National Party government came to power on the program of apartheid and began its comprehensive implementation.- Biography...
and demanded that he repeal the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act
Group Areas Act
The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act of parliament created under the apartheid government of South Africa on 27th April 1950. The act assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid...
, the Bantu Administration Act and other legislation, warning that refusal to do so would be met with a campaign of defiance. The Prime Minister was haughty in his rejoinder, referring the Council to the Native Affairs Department and threatening to treat insolence callously.
The Programme of Action was launched with the Defiance Campaign in June 1952. By defying the laws, the organisation hoped for mass arrests with which the government would be unable to cope. Nelson Mandela led a crowd of fifty men down the streets of a white area in Johannesburg after the 11 pm curfew that forbade black peoples' presence. The group was apprehended, but the rest of the country followed its example. Defiance spread throughout the country and black people disregarded racial laws by, for example, walking through "whites only" entries. At the campaign's zenith, in September 1952, more than 2,500 people from 24 different towns had been arrested for defying various laws.
By the end of the campaign, the government arrested 8,000 people, but was forced to temporarily relax its apartheid legislation. In addition, as a direct result of the campaign, membership of the ANC increased and attention was drawn to apartheid's injustices. Once things had calmed down, however, the government responded with an iron fist, taking several supreme measures—among which were the Unlawful Organisations Act, the Suppression of Communism Act
Suppression of Communism Act
The Suppression of Communism Act, No. 44 of 1950 was legislation of the national government in South Africa, passed on June 26 of that year , which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa and proscribed the ideology of communism, defined by the government as any scheme that aimed "at...
, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Procedures Act. Thus, in the longer term, this spelt defeat for the resistance movement. In December 1952, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and eighteen others were tried under the Suppression of Communism Act for leading the Defiance Campaign
Defiance Campaign
The Defiance Campaign against Unjust Laws was presented by the African National Congress at a conference held in Bloemfontein, South Africa in December 1951....
. They received nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act stated that "[a]ny person who in any way whatsoever advises, encourages, incites, commands, aids or procures any other person [...] or uses language calculated to cause any other person to commit an offence by way of protest against a law [...] shall be guilty of an offence".
The government also constricted the regulation on separate amenities. Protesters had argued to the courts that different amenities for different races ought to be of an equal standard. The Separate Amenities Act removed the façade of mere separation; it gave the owners of public amenities the right to bar people on the basis of colour or race and made it lawful for different races to be treated inequitably. Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and other famous ANC, Indian Congress and trade union chiefs were all vetoed under the Suppression of Communism Act. The proscription meant that the headship was now restricted to its homes and adjacent areas and they were banned from attending public gatherings.
Though cruelly limited, the movement was still able to struggle against the oppressive instruments of the state. More importantly, collaboration between the ANC and NIC had increased and strengthened through the Defiance Campaign. Support for the ANC and its endeavours increased. In August 1953, the ANC Cape conference suggested an Assembly of the people.
Meanwhile, on the global stage, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
demanded that apartheid be challenged by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. It led to the establishment of a UN commission on apartheid. This first encouraged black South Africans in their campaign, but, after five months, the African and Indian Congresses opted to call it off because of the increasing number of riots, strikes and heavier sentences on those who took part. During the campaign, almost 8,000 black and Indian people had been detained. At the same time, however, ANC membership grew from 7,000 to 100,000, and the number of subdivisions went from fourteen at the start of the campaign to 87 at its end. There was also a change in headship. Shortly before the campaign's end, Albert Luthuli was elected as the new ANC president.
A National Convention of all South Africans was proposed by Professor ZK Matthews at the Cape ANC conference on 15 August 1953. The intention was to chew over the national problems on an all-inclusive basis and outline a manifesto of amity. In March 1954, the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) met and founded the National Action Council for the Congress of the People. Delegates were drawn from each of these establishments and a nationwide organiser was assigned. A campaign was publicised for the drafting of a freedom charter, and a call was made for 10,000 unpaid assistants to help with the conscription of views from across the country and the organisation of the Congress of the People. Demands were documented and sent to the local board of the National Action Council in preparation for drafting the Charter.
The Congress of the People was held from 26 to 27 of June 1955 in Kliptown
Kliptown
Kliptown is a suburb of the formerly black township of Soweto in Gauteng, South Africa, located about 17 km south-west of Johannesburg. The population of Kliptown is between 38,000 and 45,000 . Kliptown is the oldest residential district of Soweto, and was first laid out in 1891 on land which...
, just south of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. Under the attentive gaze of the constabulary, 3,000 delegates gathered to revise and accept the Freedom Charter
Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies - the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress...
that had been endorsed by the ANC's National Executive on the eve of the Congress. Among the organisations present were the Indian Congress and the ANC. The Freedom Charter, which articulated a vision for South Africa radically different to the partition policy of apartheid, emphasising that South Africa should be a just and non-racial society. It called for a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified state and stated that all people should be treated equally before the law, that land should be "shared among those who work it" and that the people should "share in the country's wealth" -- a statement which has often been interpreted as a call for socialist nationalisation. The congress delegates had consented to almost all the sections of the charter when the police announced that they suspected treason and recorded the names and addresses of all those present.
In 1956 the Federation of South African Women was founded and led by Lilian Ngoyi
Lilian Ngoyi
Lillian Masediba Ngoyi "Ma Ngoyi", , was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress, and helped launch the Federation of South African Women.Ngoyi joined the ANC Women's League in 1952; she was at that stage a...
and the more famous Helen Joseph
Helen Joseph
Helen Joseph , a South African anti-apartheid activist, was born in Easebourne near Midhurst West Sussex, England and graduated from King's College London, in 1927. After working as a teacher in India for three years, Helen came to South Africa in 1931, where she met and married Billie Joseph...
. On 9 August that year, the women marched on the Union Buildings
Union Buildings
The Union Buildings form the official seat of the South African government and also house the offices of the President of South Africa. The imposing buildings are located in Pretoria, atop Meintjieskop at the Northern end of Arcadia, close to historic Church Square and the Voortrekker Monument...
in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. On the morning of December 5, 1956, however, the police detained 156 Congress Alliance leaders. 104 African, 23 white, 21 Indian and eight Coloured people were charged with high treason and plotting a violent overthrow of the state, to be replaced by a communist government. The charge was based on statements and speeches made during both the Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People. The Freedom Charter was used as proof of the Alliance's communist intent and their conspiracy to oust the government. The State relied greatly on the evidence of Professor Arthur Murray, an ostensible authority on Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. His evidence was that the ANC papers were full of such communist terms as "comrade
Comrade
Comrade means "friend", "colleague", or "ally". The word comes from French camarade. The term is frequently used by left-wing organizations around the globe. "Comrade" has often become a stock phrase and form of address. This word has its regional equivalents available in many...
" and "proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
", often found in the writings of Lenin and Stalin. Halfway through the drawn-out trial, charges against 61 of the accused were withdrawn, and, five years after their arrest, the remaining thirty were acquitted after the court held that the state had failed to prove its case.
PAC and the Sharpeville massacre
In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations against the pass lawsPass laws
Pass laws in South Africa were designed to segregate the population and limit severely the movements of the non-white populace. This legislation was one of the dominant features of the country's apartheid system. The Black population were required to carry these pass books with them when outside...
. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organized by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3,000 to 20,000. The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC policy. Before Sharpeville those advocating the use of organized violence, such as Nelson Mandela, had been marginalized as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville Mandela was allowed to launch his guerilla struggle (called the "M" Plan). Hence, from 1961 the ANC adopted terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
tactics, such as intimidation, bombing, murder and sabotage. Although their units detonated bombs in restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and in front of government buildings over the following years, the military wings of the ANC
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
and PAC
Azanian People's Liberation Army
The Azanian People's Liberation Army was the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa. It was originally called Poqo.-History:...
were never a military threat to the state.
Resistance goes underground
SharpevilleSharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
signalled that the South African government was not going to yield to the mood of black nationalism then sweeping across Africa, and that white South Africans did not accept that they were "colonials" to be swept into the sea by "decolonization". Sharpeville thus foreshadowed the coming conflict between black nationalists and Afrikaner nationalists over the next thirty years.
In the wake of the shooting, a massive stay-away
Stay away
A stay away, also known as a stay-away or stayaway, is a form of protest where people are told to "stay away" from work, similar to a general strike.- In Zimbabwe :...
from work was organised and demonstrations continued. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd , commonly identified as H.F. Verwoerd, was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966...
declared a state of emergency
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
, giving security forces the right to detain people without trial
Trial (law)
In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...
. Over 18,000 were arrest
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
ed, including much of the ANC and PAC leadership, and both organizations were banned. The National Party government felt that outlawing the ANC and PAC would discontinue their operations. This was not the case. Some leaders went into exile abroad, while others stayed in South Africa and pursued the fight domestically. They went underground and initiated secret armed opposition groups.
The ANC and PAC ran campaigns of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and terrorism through their armed wings, Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
(Spear of the Nation, MK) and Poqo ("Pure" or "Alone"). The ANC leader, Chief Albert Luthuli, did not support an armed struggle, but there was growing backing for a violent struggle as people became more and more aggravated by the government's aversion to hearing them out. In June 1961 the ANC executive concurred on the formation of an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
(MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation".
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, who was the commander of the ANC's military wing (MK), had developed the "M Plan" (Mandela Plan), a programme of controlled sabotage, launching a guerilla war modelled upon the FLN's struggle in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. Its policy involved the targeting of state buildings for sabotage without resorting to murder. On 16 December 1961 MK carried out its first acts of sabotage by assaulting post offices and other structures in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, Port Elizabeth and Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. Many other acts of sabotage would take place over the next few years. In its first eighteen months, MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage, but despite its policy, some deaths did occur. The headquarters were at Liliesleaf Farm
Liliesleaf Farm
Liliesleaf Farm in northern Johannesburg, South Africa was the farm used secretly by African National Congress activists in the 1960s and was the location where many prominent African National Congress leaders were arrested, leading to the Rivonia Trial....
in Rivonia
Rivonia, Gauteng
Rivonia is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Sandton area. It is located in Region 3. Rivonia is one of the most affluent residential and business suburbs of Johannesburg, and regarded as the hub of upstart I.T. companies...
, just outside Johannesburg.
Mandela began planning for MK members to be given military training outside South Africa and managed to slip past authorities as he himself moved in and out of the country, earning him the moniker "The Black Pimpernel". Mandela initially resisted arrest within South Africa, but in August 1962, after receiving some inside information, the police put up a roadblock and captured him. MK's success declined after this, and the police infiltrated the organisation.
A witch-hunt was launched against the dissident establishments. Many people were outlawed or placed under house arrest. In this way, the ANC net was shattered by the mid-1960s. Some people were held in detention, where they were often tormented or executed. In 1963, through a leak from informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
Gerard Ludi, the police found the location of the MK headquarters at Lilliesleaf. In July, they raided the farm and arrested many major leaders of the ANC and MK, including Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
, Govan Mbeki
Govan Mbeki
Govan Archibald Mvuyelwa Mbeki was a South African politician, and father of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki and political economist Moeletsi Mbeki...
and Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada is a South African politician and former political prisoner and anti-apartheid activist....
. They were detained and indicted with sabotage and attempting to bring down the government. At the same time, police collected evidence to be used in the trial, which enabled them to arrest other such people, like Denis Goldberg
Denis Goldberg
Denis Goldberg is a South African social campaigner, who was active in the struggle against apartheid and was imprisoned along with other key members of the anti-apartheid movement....
. Especially harmful was the information on Operation Mayibuye (Operation Comeback), a plan for bringing exiles back into the country. It also revealed that MK was planning to use guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
.
Some ANC members, including Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
, avoided capture and escaped South Africa to pursue the ANC's interests from beyond the country's boundaries. Tambo was to lead the ANC in exile for another thirty years. Many supporters also left South Africa for military training under MK.
The PAC's secretive martial arm was called Poqo, meaning "go it alone" or "pure" in the Xhosa tongue. Poqo was prepared to take lives in the quest for liberation. It murdered whites, police informants and black people who supported the government. It arranged a national revolution in order to conquer the white government, but poor organization and in-house nuisances crippled the PAC and Poqo.
The PAC did not have adequate direction. When Robert Sobukwe
Robert Sobukwe
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was a South African political dissident, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress in opposition to the apartheid regime. In 2004 Sobukwe was voted 42nd in the SABC3's Great South Africans....
(jailed following the Sharpeville massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
) was discharged from Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
in 1969, he was placed under house arrest in Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
until he died in 1978. Police repeatedly lengthened his incarceration through the "Sobukwe clause", which permitted the state to detain people even after they had served their sentences. Many other PAC principals were taken into custody on 21 March 1960, and those released were hampered by bans.
The PAC's management difficulties also existed in exile. When they were outlawed, PAC leaders set up headquarters, in among places, Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
, London and the United States. In 1962, Potlako Leballo (1915–1986) left the country for Maseru
Maseru
Maseru is the capital of Lesotho. It is also the capital of the Maseru District. Located on the Caledon River, bordering South Africa, Maseru is Lesotho's only sizable city, with a population of approximately 227,880 . The city was established as a police camp and assigned as the capital after the...
, Basutoland
Basutoland
Basutoland or officially the Territory of Basutoland, was a British Crown colony established in 1884 after the Cape Colony's inability to control the territory...
, and became the PAC's acting president. He and Mandela had arranged to meet but Mandela was arrested the day before Leballo reached Basutoland. When British intelligence in Maseru warned the South Africans that two female PAC couriers had crossed into South Africa to deliver letters the police confiscated correspondence addressed to 70 PAC cells. A wave arrests followed, and 3,246 PAC and Poqo members went to jail. This led to the crumpling of the PAC within South Africa, also because a large arms shipment from Ghana via Egypt failed to make a landing.
Leballo also annoyed external PAC leaders through his attempt, with Sobukwe's assent, to militarize the external party structure on Maoist Red Army lines. In 1968, the OAU Liberation Committee stepped in to back Leballo but the PAC was eventually expelled from Maseru (where it was allied to the opposition Basutoland Congress Party) and Lusaka (which was friendlier to the ANC). All in all, MK ran a far more successful guerilla campaign than Poqo. Between 1974 and 1976 Leballo trained the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) in Libya and then 500 Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) troops. American pressures split the PAC into a "reformist-diplomatic" group under Sibeko, Make, and Pokela; and a Maoist group under Leballo based in Ghana and Ugandan (Museveni) resistance controlled areas of Zaire (Congo). The 500 strong APLA force was destroyed by the Tanzanian military at Chunya on March 11, 1980 for refusing to accept the reformist-diplomatic leadership. Leballo was influential in the South African 1985 student risings and pivotal in removing Leabua Jonathan's regime in Lesotho, the stress of which caused his death. The PAC never recovered from the 1980 massacre of Leballo's troops and his death and won a paltry 1.2% of the vote in the 1994 South African election.
The widely-publicized Rivonia Trial
Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system.-Origins:...
began in October 1963. Ten men stood accused of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, trying to depose the government and sabotage. Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
was tried, along with those arrested at Lilliesleaf and another 24 co-conspirators. Many of these people, however, had already fled the country, Tambo being but one.
The ANC used the lawsuit to draw international interest to its cause. During the trial, Mandela gave his legendary "I am prepared to die" diatribe. In June 1964, eight were found guilty of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, sabotage, planning and executing guerilla warfare, and working towards an armed invasion of the country. The treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
charge was dropped. All eight were sentenced to life imprisonment. They did not get the death penalty
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, as this hazarded too much international criticism. Goldberg was sent to the Pretoria jail, and the other seven were all banished to the prison on Robben Island. Bram Fischer
Bram Fischer
Abram Louis Fischer, commonly known as Bram Fischer, was a South African lawyer of Afrikaner descent, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial.-Tributes:Fischer is widely acknowledged as a key figure in...
, the defence trial attorney, was himself arrested and tried shortly thereafter. The instructions that Mandela gave to make MK an African force were ignored: it continued to be organized and led by the SACP. Consequently there were serious mutinies in Angolan camps by Soweto and Cape student recruits angry at the corrupt and brutal consequences of minority control.
The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
, and was a major force in the introduction of international sanctions
International sanctions
International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally.There are several types of sanctions....
against the South African government. After Sharpeville the ANC and PAC were banned. The South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party is a political party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H...
denied it existed, having dissolved in 1950 to escape banning as the CPSA. Leaders like Mandela and Sobukwe were either in jail
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
or in exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
.
By incarcerating leaders of MK and the ANC, the government was able to break the potency of the ANC within South Africa's borders, and greatly affect its efficiency outside of them. The ANC faced many problems in the aftermath of the Rivonia Trial, its inner administration cruelly afflicted. Exiled leaders understood that conveying skilled guerrillas into South Africa would be complicated, as bordering states were unfriendly towards the ANC. Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
was still a Portuguese colony, Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
(now Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (now Botswana) were still in colonial hands, and South West Africa
South West Africa
South-West Africa was the name that was used for the modern day Republic of Namibia during the earlier eras when the territory was controlled by the German Empire and later by South Africa....
(now Namibia) was controlled by the South African government. Thus, by 1964, the government had essentially broken the activist movements. The first armed invasion in South Africa's history by an African force was curiously the 1978 attack by the Lesotho Liberation (Army (LLA), a 178 strong force trained by Leballo, which was mostly wiped out in 1979. A second LLA was the creature of South African intelligence services backed by former CIA operatives (Ray Steiner Cline), former Rhodesian Army personnel, and anti-communist American and Asian organizations.
At the same time, international criticism of apartheid increased. The United Nations denounced the trial and commenced steps for the introduction of sanctions. The PAC and Poqo persisted in their activities through the late 1960s and 1970s, but, because of their use of violence, members were under continuous police surveillance, and there were few acts of damaging sabotage. The ANC looked into ways of infiltrating South Africa in spite of its dearth of internal structure.
Although the ANC attempted to reconstruct itself, there would be no real action until the 1970s, when striking militancy began to reappear. At the end of the 1960s, new organisations and ideas would form to confront apartheid. The next key act of opposition would come only in 1976, however, with the Soweto uprising.
The government's effort at defeating all opposition had been effective. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homeland
Homeland
A homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
s, and relocating blacks into these homelands. In 1966, Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd , commonly identified as H.F. Verwoerd, was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966...
was stabbed to death in parliament, but his policies continued under B.J. Vorster
B.J. Vorster
Balthazar Johannes Vorster , better known as John Vorster, served as the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and as the fourth State President of South Africa from 1978 to 1979...
and later P.W. Botha
Pieter Willem Botha
Pieter Willem Botha , commonly known as "P. W." and Die Groot Krokodil , was the prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president from 1984 to 1989.First elected to Parliament in 1948, Botha was for eleven years head of the Afrikaner National Party and the...
.
Black Consciousness Movement
Prior to the 1960s, the NP government had been most effective in crushing anti-apartheid opposition within South Africa by outlawing movements like the ANC and PAC, and driving their leaders into exile or captivity. This planted the seeds for the struggle, particularly at such tertiary-education organisations as the University of the North and Zululand University. These institutions were fashioned out of the Extension of University Education Act of 1959, which guaranteed that black and white students would be taught individually and inequitably.After the banning of the ANC and PAC, and the Rivonia Trial
Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system.-Origins:...
, the struggle within South Africa had been dealt a stern blow. The age bracket that had seen the Sharpeville Massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
had become apathetic in its gloom and despair. This changed in the late 1960s and most notably from the mid-1970s, when new devotion came from the latest, more radical generation. During this epoch, new anti-apartheid ideas and establishments were created, and they gathered support from across South Africa.
The surfacing of the South African Black Consciousness Movement was influenced by its American equivalent, the American Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement, and directors such as Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
. African heads like Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth David Kaunda, known as KK, served as the first President of Zambia, from 1964 to 1991.-Early life:Kaunda was the youngest of eight children. He was born at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali, Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia...
also stirred ideas of autonomy and Black Pride by means of their anti-colonialist writings. Scholars grew in assurance and became far more candid about the NP's bigoted policies and the repression of the black people.
During the 1970s, resistance gained force, first channelled through trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s and strikes, and then spearheaded by the South African Students' Organisation
South African Students' Organisation
The South African Students' Organisation was a body of South African students who resisted apartheid through political action. The organization was formed in 1968, spearheaded by Steve Biko, and played a major role in the Black Consciousness Movement....
, under the charismatic leadership of Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
. A medical student, Biko was the main force behind the growth of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement
Black Consciousness Movement
The Black Consciousness Movement was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in...
, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride
Black pride
Black pride is a slogan indicating pride in being black. Related movements include black nationalism and Afrocentrism.The slogan has been used in the United States by African Americans to celebrate heritage and personal pride. The black pride movement is closely linked with the developments of the...
, and non-violent opposition to apartheid.
Founded by Biko, the BC faction materialised out of the ideas of the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
and Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement in the USA. The motto of the movement was "Black is Beautiful", first made popular by boxer Mohammed Ali. BC endorsed black pride and African customs, and did much to alter feelings of inadequacy, while also raising awareness of the fallacy of blacks being seen as inferior. It defied practices and merchandise that were meant to make black people "whiter", such as hair straighteners and skin lighteners. Western culture was toured as destructive and alien to Africa. Black people became conscious of their own distinctive identity and self-worth, and grew more outspoken about their right to freedom.
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was the first student representative, but it had a principally white membership, and black students saw this as an impediment. White students had concerns more scholastic than political, and, although the administration was multi-racial, it was not tackling many of the issues of the mounting number of black students since 1960. This resulted in the 1967 creation of the University Christian Movement (UCM), an organisation rooted in African-American philosophy.
In July 1967, the annual NUSAS symposium took place at Rhodes University
Rhodes University
Rhodes University is a public research university located in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, established in 1904. It is the province’s oldest university, and is one of the four universities in the province...
in Grahamstown
Grahamstown
Grahamstown is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa and is the seat of the Makana municipality. The population of greater Grahamstown, as of 2003, was 124,758. The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799 of which 77.4% were black,...
. White students were permitted to dwell on university grounds, but black students were relegated to an abode further away in a church vestibule. This later led to the creation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), under Steve Biko, in 1969.
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was an umbrella organisation for groups such as SASO. It was created in 1967, and among its members were the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), the black Community Programme (which directed welfare schemes for blacks), the Black People's Convention (which, at first, attempted to unite charitable associations like that for the Education and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa) and the South African Students Movement (SASM), which represented high-school learners. The BPC finally expanded into a political administration, with Steve Biko as its honorary president.
When the BCM's principles were illuminated, a number of fresh organisations, staunch in their endorsement of black liberation, came into being. AZAPO was only launched in 1978, a long time after the birth of the BCM, as a medium for its message.
The BCM drew most of its backing from high schools and tertiary institutions. Black Consciousness ethics were crucial in lifting consciousness amongst black people of their value and right to a better existence, along with the need to insist on these. The BCM's non-violent approach subsided in favour of a more radical element as its resolve to attain liberty was met with state hostility.
After the carnage in Soweto the ANC's Nelson Mandela grudgingly concurred that bloodshed was the only means left to convince the NP to accede to commands for an end to its apartheid policy. A subversive plan of terror was mapped out, with Steve Biko and the BCM to the fore. The BCM and other opinionated elements were prohibited during the 1970s because the government saw them as dangerous. Black Consciousness in South Africa adopted a drastic theory, much like socialism, as the liberation movement progressed to challenging class divisions and shifting from an ethnic stress to focusing more on non-racialism. The BCM became more worried about the destiny of the black people as workers, believing that "economic and political exploitation has reduced the black people into a class".
With Black Consciousness increasing throughout black communities, a number of other organisations were formed to combat apartheid. In 1972, the Black People's Convention was founded, and the black Allied Worker's Union, formed in 1973, focused on black labour matters. The black Community Programmes gave attention to the more global issues of black communities. School learners began to confront the Bantu education policy, designed to prepare them to be second-class citizens. They created the South African Student's Movement (SASM). It was particularly popular in Soweto, where the 1976 insurrection against Bantu Education would prove to be a crossroads in the fight against apartheid.
Taken into custody on 18 August 1977, Steve Biko was brutally tortured by unidentified security personnel until he lapsed into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. He went for three days without medical treatment and finally died in Pretoria. At the subsequent inquest, the magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
ruled that no-one was to blame, but the South African Medical Association
South African Medical Association
The South African Medical Association is a trade union for doctors in South Africa. It is affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions.-External links:* ....
eventually took action against the doctors who had failed to treat Biko.
There was tremendous reaction both within and outside South Africa. Foreign countries imposed even more stringent sanctions than those which had come before, and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
imposed an arms embargo
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418, adopted unanimously on 4 November 1977, imposed a mandatory arms embargo against apartheid South Africa. This resolution differed from the earlier Resolution 282, which was only voluntary...
. Young blacks inside South Africa committed themselves even more fervently to the struggle against apartheid, under the catchphrase "Liberation before education
Liberation before education
Liberation before education was a slogan of some activists in South Africa from 1976 in rejecting the education offered black children in Apartheid-era South Africa .-External links:* *...
". Black communities became highly politicised.
The Black Consciousness Movement began to change its focus during the 1980s from being on issues of nation and community to issues of class and, perhaps as a result, had far less of an impact than in the mid-'seventies. Still, there is some evidence to suggest that it retained at least some influence, particularly in workers' organisations.
The role of Black Consciousness could be clearly seen in the approach of the National Forum, which believed that the struggle ought to hold little or no place for whites. This ideal, of blacks leading the resistance campaign, was an important aim of the traditional BC groups, and it shaped the thinking of many 'eighties activists, most notably the workforce. Furthermore, the NF focused on workers' issues, which became more and more important to BC supporters.
The Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) was the leading BC group of the 1980s. It got most of its support from young black men and women—many of them educated at colleges and universities. The organisation had a lot of support in Soweto and also amongst journalists, helping to popularise its views. It focused, too, on workers' issues, but it refused to form any ties with whites.
Although it did not achieve quite the same groundswell support that it had in the late 1970s, BC still influenced the thinking of a few resistance groups.
The Soweto uprising
In 1974 the Afrikaans Medium Decree forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. The intention was to forcibly reverse the decline of Afrikaans among black Africans. The Afrikaner-dominated government used the clause of the 1909 Constitution that recognized only English and Afrikaans as official languages as pretext to do so.The decree was resented deeply by blacks as Afrikaans was widely viewed, in the words of Desmond Tutu, then Dean of Johannesburg as "the language of the oppressor". Teacher organizations such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa objected to the decree.
The resentment grew until April 30, 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. Students formed an Action Committee (later known as the Soweto Students’ Representative Council) that organized a mass rally for June 16, 1976. The protest was intended to be peaceful.
In a confrontation with police, who had barricaded the road along the intended route, stones were thrown. Attempts to disperse the crowd with dogs and tear gas failed; when the police saw they were surrounded by the students, they fired shots into the crowd, at which point pandemonium broke out.
In the first day of rioting 23 people were killed in escalating violence. The following day 1,500 heavily armed police officers were deployed to Soweto. Crowd control methods used by South African police at the time included mainly dispersement techniques, and many of the officers shot indiscriminately, killing many people.
Student organisations
Student organisations played a significant role in the Soweto uprisings, and after 1976 protests by school children became frequent. There were two major urban school boycotts, in 1980 and 1983. Both involved black, Indian and coloured children, and both went on for months. There were also extended protests in rural areas in 1985 and 1986. In all of these areas, schools were closed and thousands of students, teachers and parents were arrested.South African Students Movement
Students from Orlando West and Diepkloof High Schools (both in Soweto) created the African Students Movement in 1970. This spread to the Eastern Cape and Transvaal, drawing other high schools. In March 1972, the South African Students Movement (SASM) was instituted.SASM gave support to its members with school work and exams, and with progress from lower school levels to university. Security forces pestered its members continually until, in 1973, some of its leaders fled the country. In 1974 and 1975, some affiliates were captured and tried under the Suppression of Communism and Terrorism Acts. This flagged the SASM's progress. Many school headmasters and -mistresses forbade the organisation from playing a role in their schools.
When the Southern Transvaal local Bantu Education Department concluded that all junior secondary black students had to be taught in Afrikaans in 1974, SASM limbs at Naledi High and Orlando West Secondary Schools opted to vent their grievances on school books and refused to attend their schools This form of struggle spread fast to other schools in Soweto and hit boiling point around 8 June 1976. When law enforcement attempted to arrest a regional SASM secretary, they were stoned and had their cars torched.
On 13 June 1976, nearly 400 SASM associates gathered and chose to start a movement for mass action. An Action Committee was shaped with two agents from each school in Soweto. This board became known as the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC). The protest was set aside for 16 June 1976, and the organisers were determined only to use aggression if they were assaulted by the police.
National Union of South African Students
After the Sharpeville Massacre, some black student organisations came out but were short-lived under state proscription and antagonism from university powers. They were also unsuccessful in cooperating effectively with one another, resulting in a dearth of harmony and force.By 1963, one of the few envoys for tertiary students was the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Although the organisation was meant to be non-racial and anti-government, it was made up primarily of white English students from customarily broad-minded universities such as those in Natal, Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Grahamstown. These students were had compassion for the effort against the state. By 1967, however, NUSAS was forbidden from functioning on black universities, making it almost impossible for black Student Representative Councils to join the union.
South African Students Organisation
Growing displeasure among black students and the expansion of Black Consciousness led to the incarnation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) at Turfloop. In July 1969, Steve Biko became the organisation's inaugural head. This boosted the mood of the students and the Black Consciousness Movement. By means of the unified configuration of SASO, the principles of Black Consciousness came to the forefront as a fresh incentive for the strugglers.Congress of South African Students
The Congress of South African Students (COSAS) was aimed at coordinating the education struggle and organised strikes, boycotts and mass protests around community issues. After 1976 it made a number of demands from the Department of Education and Training (DET), including the scrapping of matric examination fees. It barred many DET officials from entering schools, demanded that all students pass their exams -- "pass one, pass all" -- and disrupted exams.National Education Crisis Committee
In 1986, following school boycotts, the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) was constituted from parents, teachers and students. It encouraged students to return to their studies, taking on forms of protest less disruptive to their education. Consumer boycotts were recommended instead and teachers and students were encouraged to work together to develop an alternative education system.Trade-Union movement
In 1973, the world's fiscal boom came to an end. At the same time, labour action in South Africa was renewed, and there were a number of strikes in Durban. The abuse of black workers had been vogue, and, as a consequence, there were many black people being paid too little on which to live. A strike, commenced in January by 2,000 workers of the Coronation Brick and Tile Company for a pay raise (from under R10 to R20 a week), drew a lot hype and encouraged other workers to do the same. Strikes for higher wages, improved working conditions and the end of exploitation occurred throughout this period.Police employed tear gas and violence against the strikers, but could not apprehend the masses of people involved. The strikers never chose individuals to stand for them, because these people would be the first to be detained. Blacks were not permitted trade unions, which meant that the government could not act against any particular individuals. Strikes usually concluded when income boosts were tendered, but these were generally lower than had initially been insisted upon.
The Durban strikes soon extended to other parts of the country. 1973 and 1974 saw a countrywide amplification of labour opposition. There was also an increasingly buoyancy among black workers as they found that the state did not retort as harshly as they had expected. They thus began to form trade unions, even though these remained illegitimate and unofficial.
After 1976, trade unions and their workers began to play a massive role in the fight against apartheid. With their thousands of members, the trade unions had great strength in numbers, and this they used to their advantage, campaigning for the rights of black workers and forcing the government to make changes to its apartheid policies. Importantly, trade unions filled the gap left by banned political parties. They assumed tremendous importance because they could act on a wide variety of issues and problems for their people—and not only work-related ones, as links between work issues and broader community grievances became more palpable.
Fewer trade-union officials (harassed less by the police and army) were jailed than political leaders in the townships. Union members could meet and make plans within the factory. In this way, trade unions played a pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid, and their efforts generally had wide community support.
In 1979, one year after Botha's accession to power, black trade unions were legalized, and their role in the resistance struggle grew to all-new proportions. Prior to 1979, black trade unions had had no legal clout in dealings with employers. All strikes that took place were illegal, but they did help to establish the trade unions and their collective cause. Although the legalisation of black trade unions gave workers the legal right to strike, it also gave the government a degree of control over them, as they all had to be registered and hand in their membership records to the government. They were not allowed to support political parties either, and it goes without saying that some trade unions did not comply.
Later in 1979, the FOSATU body was formed, followed by the Council of Unions of South Africa (COSAS). It was influenced strongly by the ideas of Black Consciousness and wanted to work to ensure black leadership of unions.
The establishment of the trade-union federations led to greater unity amongst the workers. The tremendous size of the federations gave them increased voice and power. 1980 saw thousands of black high-school and university students boycotting their schools, and a country-wide protest over wages, rents and bus fares. In 1982, there were 394 strikes involving 141,571 workers. FOSATU and CUSA grew from a mere 70,000 members in 1979 to 320,000 by 1983, the year of the establishment of first the National Forum and then the UDF. Both of these had an important impact, but the latter was far more influential.
With the establishment of the new constitution in 1984, the biggest and longest black uprising exploded in the Vaal Triangle. COSAS and FOSATU organised the longest stay-away in South African history, and, all told, there were 469 strikes that year, amounting to 378,000 hours in lost business time.
In accordance with the State of Emergency in 1985, COSAS was banned and many UDF leaders arrested. A meeting between white business leaders and those of the ANC in Zambia brought about the formation of COSATU in 1985. The newly-formed trade-union governing body, committed to improved working conditions and the fight against apartheid, organised a nationwide strike the following year, and a new State of Emergency was declared. It did not take long for COSATU's membership to grow to 500,000.
With South Africa facing a neigh-unprecedented shortage of skilled white labour, the government was forced to allow black people to fill the vacancies. This, in turn, led to an increase in spending on black, coloured and Indian education.
Still, there were divides amongst the trade-union faction, which had the membership of only ten per cent of the country's workforce. Not all trade unions joined the federations, while agricultural and domestic workers did not even have a trade union to join and were thus more liable. Nevertheless, by the end of this period, the unions had emerged as one of the most effective vehicles for black opposition.
Churches
The government's suppression of anti-Apartheid political parties limited their influence but not church activism. The government was far less likely to attack or arrest religious leaders, allowing them to potentially be more politically active in the struggle. The government did, however, take action against some churches.Beyers Naudé
Beyers Naudé
Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé was a South African cleric, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist...
left the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
and founded the Christian Institute, bringing white and black people together. He, along with the Institute, were banned in 1977, but he later became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches
South African Council of Churches
The South African Council of Churches is an interdenominational forum in South Africa. It was a prominent anti-apartheid organisation during the years of apartheid in South Africa. Its leaders have included Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé and Frank Chikane....
(SACC), a religious association which supported anti-apartheid activities. Significantly, it also refused to condemn violence as a means of ending apartheid.
Frank Chikane
Frank Chikane
Frank Chikane is a South African civil servant, writer and cleric. He is a member of the African National Congress.-Biography:...
was another general secretary of the SACC. He was detained four times because of his criticism of the government and once allegedly had an attempt on his life, initiated by Adriaan Vlok
Adriaan Vlok
Adriaan Johannes Vlok was Minister of Law and Order in South Africa from 1986 to 1991 in the final years of the apartheid era...
, former Minister of Law and Order.
The charismatic Archbishop Desmond Tutu was yet another general secretary of the SACC. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1984 and used his position and popularity to denounce the government and its policies. On 29 February 1988 Tutu, and a number of other church leaders, were arrested during a protest in front of the parliamentary buildings in Cape Town.
Alan Boesak led the World Alliance of Reformed Churches
World Alliance of Reformed Churches
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches is a fellowship of more than 200 churches with roots in the 16th-century Reformation, and particularly in the theology of John Calvin...
(WARC). He was very influential in founding the UDF and was once jailed for a month after organising a march demanding the release of Nelson Mandela.
Although church leaders were not totally immune to prosecution, they were able to criticise the government more freely than the leaders of militant groups. They were pivotal in altering public opinion regarding apartheid policies.
MDM
The Mass Democratic Movement played a brief but very important role in the struggle. Formed in 1989, it was made up of an alliance between the UDF and COSATU, and organised a campaign aimed at ending segregation in hospitals, schools and beaches. The campaign proved successful and managed to bring segregation to an end. Some historians, however, argue that this occurred because the government had planned to end segregation anyway and did not, therefore, feel at all threatened by the MDM's action.Later in 1989, the MDM organised a number of peaceful marches against the State of Emergency (extended to four years now) in the major cities. Even though these marches were illegal, no-one was arrested—evidence that apartheid was coming to an end and that the government's hold was weakening.
Although the MDM emerged only very late into the struggle, it did add to the effective resistance that the government faced, organising a series of protests and further uniting the opposition movement. Certainly, it was characteristic of the "mass resistance" which characterised the 'eighties: many organisations were united, dealing with different aspects of the fight against apartheid and its implications.
Some aid workers present during the MDM's existence claim that it was actually little more than a socialist front organization for terrorists that would use violence to "bolster" support.http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/12/night-christmas-became-real.html
White resistance
While the majority of white South African voters supported the apartheid system, a minority opposed it. In parliamentary elections during the 1970s and 1980s between 15% and 20% of white voters voted for the liberal Progressive PartyProgressive Party (South Africa)
The Progressive Party was a liberal party in South Africa that opposed the ruling National Party's policies of apartheid, and championed the Rule of Law. For years its only member of parliament was Helen Suzman...
, whose MP Helen Suzman
Helen Suzman
Helen Suzman, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.-Biography:Helen Suzman, a life-long citizen of South Africa, was born as Helen Gavronsky in 1917 to Jewish immigrants....
provided for many years the only Parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could.
Harry Schwarz
Harry Schwarz
Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and long-time political opposition leader against apartheid, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the country’s transition to representative democracy.Schwarz rose from the childhood poverty he...
was in minority opposition politics for over 40 years and was one of the most prominent opponents of the National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
and its policy of apartheid. After assisting in the 1948 general election, Schwarz and others formed the Torch Commando
Torch Commando
The Torch Commando was born out of the work of the Springbok Legion, a South African organisation of World War II veterans, founded in 1941 during the second world war by progressive anti-fascist servicemen, and the War Veterans Action Committee established with the involvement of Springbok...
, an ex-soldiers' movement to protest against the disenfranchisement of the coloured people in South Africa. Beginning in the 1960s, when he was Leader of the Opposition
Opposition (parliamentary)
Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. Note that this article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state...
in the Transvaal
Transvaal Province
Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...
, he became well-known and achieved prominence as a race relations and economic reformist in the United Party
United Party (South Africa)
The United Party was South Africa's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948. It was formed by a merger of most of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog's National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts, plus the remnants of the Unionist Party...
. An early and powerful advocate of non-violent resistance, he signed the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith
Mahlabatini Declaration
The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith was a statement of core principles laid down by South African political leaders Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz on 4 January 1974. It was signed in Mahlabatini, KwaZulu-Natal, hence its name...
with Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a South African Zulu politician who founded the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975 and continues to lead the party today.His praise name is Shenge.-Early life:...
in 1974, that enshrined the principles of peaceful negotiated transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by black and white political leaders in South Africa. In 1975 he led a break away from the United Party, due to its lame duck approach to criticism of apartheid and became leader of the new Reform Party
Reform Party (South Africa)
The Reform Party was an anti-apartheid political party that existed for just five months in 1975 and is one of the predecessor parties to the Democratic Alliance...
that led to the realignment of opposition politics in South Africa. Schwarz was one of the defence attorneys in the infamous Rivonia Trial
Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to overthrow the apartheid system.-Origins:...
, defending Jimmy Kantor
James Kantor
James Kantor was a South African Lawyer. He was Nelson Mandela's lawyer in the Rivonia Trial until he too was arrested and was charged with the same crimes as Mandela. Harry Schwarz, a close friend and a well-known politician, stepped in to act as his defense in the trial...
, who was Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
's lawyer until he too was arrested and charged. Through the 1970s and 1980s in Parliament he was amongst the most forthright and effective campaigners against apartheid, who was feared by many National Party ministers.
Helen Zille
Helen Zille
Helen Zille is the Premier of the Western Cape, a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, leader of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance political party, and a former Mayor of Cape Town.Zille is a former journalist and anti-apartheid activist, and famously exposed the truth...
, an Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
anti-apartheid activist, exposed a police cover-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
regarding the death of Black Consciousness founder Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail. Zille was active in the Black Sash
Black Sash
The Black Sash was a non-violent white women's resistance organization founded in 1955 in South Africa by Jean Sinclair. The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government...
, an organisation of white women formed in 1955 to oppose the removal of Coloured (mixed-race) voters from the Cape Province
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...
voters' roll. Even after that failure, however, it went on assisting blacks with issues such as pass laws, housing and unemployment.
Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party
South African Communist Party is a political party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H...
, whose leader Joe Slovo
Joe Slovo
For Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town, see: Joe Slovo .Joe Slovo was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party , and leading member of the African National Congress.-Life:Slovo was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South...
was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Whites also played a significant role in opposing apartheid during the 1980s through the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
and End Conscription Campaign
End Conscription Campaign
The End Conscription Campaign was an anti-apartheid organisation allied to the United Democratic Front and composed of conscientious objectors and their supporters in South Africa...
. The latter was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of white males into the South African military. The ECC's support-base was not particularly large, but the government still saw fit to ban it 1988.
The army played a major role in the government's maintenance of its apartheid policies. It was expanded considerably to fight the resistance, and more money was being spent on increasing its effectiveness. It is estimated that something between R4-billion and R5-billion was spent on defence in the mid-'eighties. Conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
was used to increase the size of the army, with stiff prison sentences imposed for draft evasion or desertion
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
. Only white males were conscripted, but volunteers from other races were also drawn in. The army was used to fight battles on South African borders and in neighbouring states, against the liberation movements and the countries that supported them. During the 1980s, the military was also used to repress township uprisings, which saw support for the ECC increase markedly.
Cultural opposition to apartheid came from internationally known writers like Breyten Breytenbach
Breyten Breytenbach
Breyten Breytenbach is a South African writer and painter with French citizenship.-Biography:Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, Western Cape, approximately 180 km from Cape Town and 100 km from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas...
, André Brink
André Brink
André Philippus Brink, OIS, is a South African novelist. He writes in Afrikaans and English and is a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town....
and Alan Paton
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Paton was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.-Family:Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province , the son of a minor civil servant. After attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Natal in his hometown, followed...
(who founded the Liberal Party of South Africa) and clerics like Beyers Naudé
Beyers Naudé
Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé was a South African cleric, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist...
.
Some of the first violent resistance to the system was organised by the African Resistance Movement (ARM) who were responsible for setting off bombs at power stations and notably the Park Station bomb. The membership of this group was virtually all drawn from the marginalized white intellectual scene. Founded in the 1960s, many of ARM's members had been part of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Unlike pro-peace opposition NUSAS, however, ARM was a radical organisation. Its backing came mostly from Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. By 1964, though, ARM ceased to exist, most of its members having been arrested or fled the country.
On 24 July 1964, Frederick John Harris, an associate of ARM, deposited a time bomb in the Johannesburg station. One person was slain, and 22 were injured. Harris explained that he had wanted to show that ARM was still in existence, but both ARM and the ANC slammed his actions. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1965.
Role of women
South African women greatly participated in the anti-apartheid and liberation movements that took hold of South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. They demanded the independence of their country and their people. These female activists were rarely at the head of the main organizations, at least at the beginning of the movement, but were nonetheless prime actors. One of the earliest organization was The Bantu Women's League founded in 1913. In the 1930s and 1940s, female activists were strongly present in trade union movements, which also served as a vehicle for future organization. In the 1950s, organizations specifically for women were created such as the ANC Women's League(ANCWL) or a Women's Council within the South West Africa People's Organization(SWAPO). In April 1954, the more global Federation of South African Women (FSAW or FedSAW) was founded with the objective to fight against racism and oppression of women as well as to make African women understand that they had rights both as human beings and as women. While female actvists fought along men and participated to demonstrations and guerrilla movements, FSAW and ANCWL also acted independently and organized bus boycotts, campaigns against restrictive passes in 1956 in Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
and in Sharpeville in 1960. 20.000 women attended these kind of demonstrations. Many participants were arrested, forced into exile or imprisoned such as Lilian Ngoyi
Lilian Ngoyi
Lillian Masediba Ngoyi "Ma Ngoyi", , was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress, and helped launch the Federation of South African Women.Ngoyi joined the ANC Women's League in 1952; she was at that stage a...
. In 1958, 2000 women were arrested during an anti-pass campaign. After the Sharpeville Massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
, however, many organizations such as FSAW were banned and went underground.
At the same time South African women fought against gender discrimination and called for rights specific to women, such as family, children, gender equality and access to education. At a conference in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
in 1954, the Federation of South African Women adopted the "Women's Charter", which focused on rights specific to women both as women and mothers. The Charter referred both to human rights, women's rights and asked for universal equality and national liberation. In 1955, in a document drafted in preparation for the Congress of People, the FSAW made more demands, including free education for children, proper housing facilities and good working conditions, such as the abolition of child labor and a minimum wage.
The difficulty for these local movements was to raise global awareness in order to truly have an impact. Yet, their actions and demands gradually attracted the attention of the United Nations and put pressure on the international community. In 1954, Lilian Ngoyi
Lilian Ngoyi
Lillian Masediba Ngoyi "Ma Ngoyi", , was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress, and helped launch the Federation of South African Women.Ngoyi joined the ANC Women's League in 1952; she was at that stage a...
attended the World Congress of Women in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Later, in 1975, the ANC was present at the 1975 United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen and in 1980 an essay on the role of women in the liberation movement was prepared for the United Nations World Conference. This has been crucial in the recognition of Southern African women and their role in the anti-apartheid movement.
Among important activists during the liberation movement were Ida Ntwana, Lilian Ngoyi
Lilian Ngoyi
Lillian Masediba Ngoyi "Ma Ngoyi", , was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress, and helped launch the Federation of South African Women.Ngoyi joined the ANC Women's League in 1952; she was at that stage a...
, Helen Joseph
Helen Joseph
Helen Joseph , a South African anti-apartheid activist, was born in Easebourne near Midhurst West Sussex, England and graduated from King's College London, in 1927. After working as a teacher in India for three years, Helen came to South Africa in 1931, where she met and married Billie Joseph...
, Dorothy Nyembe. Lilian Ngoyi joined the ANC National Executive and was elected first vice-president and later president of FSAW in 1959. Many of these leaders served long prison sentences.