Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0319/03197.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 43KB | 668 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03197}
$Pretitle{293}
$Title{South Africa
Chapter 1E.   Black African Resistance (1940s-50s)}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James L. McLaughlin}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{black
south
government
africa
african
white
party
coloured
national
blacks}
$Date{1980}
$Log{Black South African*0319701.scf
}
Country:     South Africa
Book:        South Africa, A Country Study
Author:      James L. McLaughlin
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1980

Chapter 1E.   Black African Resistance (1940s-50s)

     During World War II the African National Congress (ANC) continued its
policy of seeking amelioration of Black grievances by approaches to the
central government. The ANC tended to be divided between those prepared to
work through the Natives Representative Council and those willing to
cooperate with elements in the White community and some Coloured groups in
more direct but still non-violent protests. A sizable number of ANC members
supported a policy of independent Black African action, preferring separation
from other groups, including the South African Communist Party (SACP), and
favoring a boycott of all government-sponsored bodies. In 1944 those favoring
this more radical policy formed an elitist pressure group within the ANC
called the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). Among its adherents
were the emerging Black nationalist leaders Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, and
Robert Sobukwe.

     In 1946 the government's suppression of a strike in the gold mines, led
by the fairly large and effective but short-lived non-White trade unions that
had been formed during the favorable labor period of World War II, resulted
in the total abandonment of the Natives Representative Council by the Black
members. The same year marked a turning point for the Asian organizations.
The Natal Indian Congress, which had been in existence since the early 1900s,
passed into the control of militant and left-wing Hindu leaders led by Yousuf
M. Dadoo, a longtime SACP member, and began to cooperate with Black and
Coloured movements. More conservative Indian elements, led largely by Muslim
businessmen, formed a new group, the Natal Indian Organization.

     In 1949, responding to the new wave of social discrimination ushered in
by the Nationalist government, the militant ANCYL persuaded the ANC as a whole
to adopt its program of action, which called for an end to petitions and
deputations, and endorsed boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience. The ANCYL
was inspired by militant Black nationalism and Gandhi's nonviolent techniques.

     The change of policy transformed the ANC from a discussion forum to an
action group using mass demonstrations and pressure. A convention held in
December 1951 formally adopted a resolution to be presented to the government
calling for the repeal of the pass laws and the Suppression of Communism Act
of 1950 (the vagueness of which allowed it to be used more against Black
organizations than against communist groups). The resolution also called for
an end to the forced displacement of Blacks from urban areas and to the
National Party's efforts to place Coloureds on a separate voting roll. In June
1952, after the expected government rejection of their demands, the ANC (and
some Indians and Coloureds) began a large-scale passive resistance campaign.
More than 8,000 people, chiefly Blacks but including a number of Indians and
Coloureds, volunteered to violate the pass and segregation laws and were
jailed. As a result of the popular support gained, the organization grew from
a small body numbering some 15,000 members to a politically powerful
organization of 100,000. Although the defiance campaign was unsuccessful in
its efforts to force the government to repeal some of the undesirable
legislation, it consolidated Black sentiment, gave training to future leaders,
and achieved great international publicity.

     In June 1955 the Congress of the People, an association of antiracist
groups-Black, Coloured, and Asian-and White sympathizers adopted the Freedom
Charter, demanding a government of all South Africans without racial
discrimination. Harassed by the police, 156 members of this congress were
later arrested and charged with high treason. After protracted trials they
were eventually acquitted, but the government had demonstrated that it
regarded political activity aimed at racial equality as subversive.

     In 1958 a group within the ANCYL led by Sobukwe walked out of the ANC to
found the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). Greatly affected by Ghana's newly
acquired independence and by the slogans of Pan-Africanism as espoused by
Kwame Nkrumah, the group, composed of the younger Black leaders, urged greater
militancy, racial assertiveness, and identification with that philosophy. The
Pan-Africanism that the new group professed had always been latent within the
ANC and other movements, but it had not become manifest earlier because of the
ANC's close ties with a very small number of Whites and a somewhat larger
number of Asians who worked for the Black cause. Sobukwe believed that the
vast majority of Blacks would follow a purely Black leadership if it could
arouse their racial consciousness and was prepared to lead them in the
struggle against the racial laws. The PAC believed that the White regime could
be brought to an end by passive disobedience if it could be done on a massive
enough scale.

     Preempting demonstrations planned by the ANC, the PAC called for a mass
disobedience campaign against the pass laws beginning March 21, 1960. It ended
the same day with the Sharpeville tragedy, in which sixty-eight Blacks were
killed and 180 injured when panicky White policemen turned their guns on a
peaceful if noisy crowd of demonstrators who had appeared at the police
station seeking to be arrested for failure to carry their passbooks. A general
strike called by the ANC paralyzed the country for three weeks. Widespread
arrests and detentions followed, and the ANC and PAC were banned.

     New security laws were passed between 1961 and 1965 permitting the
government to censor the published statements of any banned person. Additional
powers were granted to the security police, and severe punishment was imposed
for actions falling within a broad definition of sabotage.

     Activists of both the ANC and the PAC reacted to the banning of their
organizations by forming small underground units. The ANC-related Umkonto we
Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) carried out sabotage of public utilities while the
PAC group, Poqo (We Alone) aimed at conducting acts of terrorism. According to
Umkonto leader Mandela, speaking at his 1964 trial for sabotage, the White
government's actions of the previous sixteen years had ended all hope of using
peaceful means to improve the situation of the Black majority.

     Attempts at sabotage had limited success. A small number of powerlines,
bridges, train stations, and radio towers were blown up in the early and
mid-1960s, but these acts did little harm to the country's economy. Within a
few years the police were easily able to infiltrate and apparently destroy all
the organizations dedicated to violent action. Nearly 200 mass political and
sabotage trials were held in a three-year period ending in December 1965, and
1,300 persons were sentenced to an average term of seven years in prison. The
most important of the trials arose from the arrest of a large group of the
major leaders of the banned ANC while they were assembled at a meeting at
Rivonia near Johannesburg in July 1963. A number of ANC and PAC leaders were,
however, able to escape to other countries, chiefly in Africa, to set up
exile headquarters. The imprisoned leaders, particularly Mandela and Sobukwe,
and the banned elder of the ANC, Albert Luthuli, who was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1960 for his preaching of nonviolence, remained important
symbols to many Blacks.

Years of Challenge (1968-76)

     By 1968 the National Party had been in office for twenty years,