Liberation in South Africa: Civil Strife, Diaspora and Visions Contending

by Ian Liebenberg

 

 

In the broader sense the “liberation struggle” in South Africa spans more than a century. My intention in this article is to provide a chronological description and rudimentary outline of the main trends of liberation efforts and endeavors in South Africa since about the 1870s. I draw on my own work in the field from the past fifteen years as well as other sources.

This article represents an attempt to outline, describe and analyze some of the notable organisations in an inclusive approach, in what is termed “the struggle for liberation” in South Africa. This includes reference to contending visions and ideologies, to various strategies for liberation and to the eventual transition from a minority, authoritarian state to an emerging democracy. In this article the historical clash over power and scarce resources that South Africa (ns) experienced during the 20^th century is dealt with. Finally, some critical and retrospective remarks on the state of historiography and contemporary socio-political and economic debates in South Africa conclude the article.

The content of this contribution is not impartial. My conception of what guides liberation guides the argument[1]. This means that for instance certain movements, notably those organizations that participated in apartheid structures, are excluded from this contribution. Various social movements and/or political organisations registered their vociferous, sometimes, militant resistance against apartheid and minority rule. All of them reflected moral involvement against exclusion and oppression and action in favour of inclusion, justice and economic equality (rather than mere abstract equity).

An effort has been made to reflect an inclusive history of the liberation struggle (even struggles, if you so wish) and its outcomes. Attention is given to the SANNC and the ANC, PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Some minor groups, such as the Liberal Party (LP) and the Armed Resistance Movement (ARM), whose contributions to the struggle for liberation often bordered on the farcical – and were perhaps all the more heroic for that – are also dealt with.

 

This article is about the various movements that followed the stream or vision of political and economic liberation in South Africa away from segregation and economic exploitation. It does not represent a preference for a specific party, movement, organization, institution or liberatory strategy. It aims at inclusiveness in description – and where necessary – in analysis.

 

From territorial war to liberal participation

An historical overview of black and non-racial resistance to white domination has to take congnisance of the fact that armed resistance and political opposition were at times, applied separately and at other times complementary to each other. In this respect South Africa shares similar characteristics with many other communities in their struggles for political and economical liberation and autonomy.

 

There is a second issue that deserves attention. In the aftermath of white settlement, clashes over limited resources such as land, water and grazing fields, began. Later, minerals and gold were added to these historically territorial clashes[2]. These clashes were mostly violent in nature.

Edward Roux recalls an interesting story about the 1818 “Kaffir War”[3] in the Eastern Cape. After Makana’s self-chosen surrender to the British forces, one of his followers remarked to the English commander, Colonel Willshire that:

“The war, British Chiefs, is an unjust one. You are striving to extirpate a people whom you forced to take up arms. When our fathers and the fathers of the Boers first settled in the Suurveld (west of the Fish River), they dwelt together in peace. The flocks grazed on the same hills, their herdsmen smoked together out of the same pipes; they were brothers”.

The tribesman continued:

“We quarreled with Gaika about grass? No business of yours. You sent a commando … we wish for peace. We wish to rest in our huts. We wish to get milk for our children. Our wives wish to till the land. But your troops cover the plains, and swarm in the thickets, where they cannot distinguish man from women and shoot all”.

 

Following the expansion of British colonialism, things only became worse. Territorial clashes increased. The British repeatedly intervened with force.

The last “wars of resistance” as Pampallis refers to them, took place in the 1800s. [4] It was an age of imperialism. Resistance was, according to Pampallis, suppressed by force. The last so-called “Kaffir War” (War of Dispossession) ended in 1878 in the Eastern-Cape.[5] The Sotho-speaking people defeated a British Force at Berea in 1854 and the Orange Free State Boers in the (Ba) Sotho-Boer War of 1885. However these brave but isolated actions were not to stop the colonial “tide of history”. By 1869 Lesotho was annexed and subjected to the British Crown.

After 1879 the Zulu Kingdom was defeated and broken up into chiefdoms controlled by British Authorities. This classic divide-and-rule strategy through indirect leadership and patronage by the colonial powers extended from Uganda in the north to southern Africa. Almost without exception, British imperialists used this strategy. But the Boer Republics also did their part in subjecting the inhabitants of the land to their rule.

After the subjugation of the Bapedi and Venda people by the British in 1877 – 1879 (the Bapedi kept the Boers at bay in clashes during 1852, 1867 and 1869), there were still a few isolated attempts by means of military resistance or armed struggle as reflected in the Mampuru rebellion in the Transvaal (1881) and the Bambatha rebellion in Natal (1906).[6] These were usually dealt with by the ruling colonial regime with a short, sharp show of force.[7]

 

In Suidwes-Afrika (previously Duits-Wes now Namibia) the Bondelswarts rebellion in 1922 was typical of these last but desperate attempts to resist the much better armed enemy/intruders[8].

Mokgethi Motlhabi states:

“It had already become clear to Africans that a different strategy would have to be sought if they were to achieve their goal (of political freedom) at all.[9] On the whole their wars had ended in defeat before the superior military might of the Westerners” [my insertion][10]

 

Precursors to the South African Native National Congress (SANNC)

In 1879 a predominantly black organisation with political objectives was founded. It was called the Native Educational Association (NEA), and it sought to improve black education and introduce social welfare for black people. Various problems were closely examined and black people were encouraged to become involved in the issues that directly affected them, such as the liquor laws, pass laws and education. Although the NEA faced considerable criticism from whites, it could, according to Odendaal, hardly be called radical.

“On the contrary, whites were asked to address meetings and the tone of the leaders was marked by moderation.” [11]

The Imbumba Yama Nyama (IYN) succeeded the NEA. It was pre-eminently a political organisation that emphasized that the struggle for national rights required black unity. The organisation’s strongest support was in the Western Cape, particularly in Port Elizabeth, Cradock, Graaf-Reinet and Colesberg. But the IYN was short-lived. Odendaal also mentions the rise of at least two other black political organisations, the South African Native Association and the Tembu Association. These organisations made the first real efforts to coordinate black action. Through newspapers such as Imvo Zabantsundu and by various other means these organisations air their grievances about the pass laws, “location” regulations, liquor laws and misadministration in black courts[12]. At this stage the ideological framework within which black people operated was still predominantly liberal[13].

 

In the Cape Colony black people had a qualified and limited right to vote. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State their position was quite different. In the independent republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State the constitutional stand was simple and straightforward. There was to be no equality between the Bantu and the Boer, both in church and state. The extension of the franchise to the Bantu in these two Republics was a matter that would never be contemplated. Andre du Toit, however, points out that not all “whites” in the Transvaal accepted this.[14]

The wish to extend the (Cape) liberal tradition to these territories was the incentive behind much of the black politics of the time. This commitment to extend the liberal political framework was also expressed in the Transvaal Native Congress (TNC), founded in 1905, and by the Orange Free State Native Congress. In Natal attempts were also made to broaden the limited franchise regulations. Sebidi indicates that these and other organisations, such as the African Peoples’ Organisation (1903), fought for the strengthening and extension of the liberal tradition. [15]

 

Against this background, the Treaty of Vereeniging between Britain and the defeated republics was according to Sebidi “A world shattering disillusionment to the Africans”. The treaty was the prelude to the formation of the Union of South Africa, which would symbolise the start of their increasing political emasculation. The inclusion of the former ZAR and OFS made enfranchisement impossible.

With regards regard to the so-called “Coloured” population, there are indications that they had been involved in franchise and education campaigns since the turn of the century. Their actions were often planned together with those of black people[16]. Their ideas on liberal ideology favoured an action-directed programme for the extension of a non-racial franchise to brown and black people.

 

The founding of the South African Native National Congress in 1912: The beginnings of a nation-wide organisation

The first half of the twentieth century was characterised by the efforts of white politicians to solve the “Native question”[17] within the framework of a policy of segregation and exclusion. At the same time black people were working within the parameters of an inclusive liberal ideology to achieve political rights. These two frameworks were diametrically opposed to each other.

 

According to Roux, “the history of South Africa ever since 1910 has been a process of the whittling down of native rights”. [18] One result of the establishment of the Union was “the birth of a movement to unite all politically minded Africans in a single national organisation”. Ironically, the National Party was to be established two years later in Bloemfontein. This was a party intended to unite like-minded Afrikaners (and later nearly all white people) over and above language divisions, in favour of a white nationalism that per se simultaneously excluded liberal politics, communism, non-racial equality and black/African nationalism. This was only fourteen years after the humiliating defeat of the Boer Republics at the hands of the British Hegemon in the Anglo-Boer War – a war that was to scar relationships in South Africa for more than a century[19]. It should be mentioned that by the 1980s, white people had achieved a near universal party-political consensus that black people should not be fully accommodated in a “new” political dispensation. Even though it was called a “reform minded”, Verligte or “consociational democracy” (which it was not), black people were excluded in favour of Indian and Coloured people.

 

The South African Native National Congress (SANNC) came into being as a consequence of the South African Native Convention. The latter was convened in reaction to the National Convention in which whites opted for union. The organisers hoped to influence opinion locally and abroad. The Native Convention expressed its objection to the discriminatory clauses in the proposed Union Act and also dispatched a delegation to Britain to protest against the exclusion of blacks from the National Convention, but in vain.

On 8 January 1912 the South African Native National Conference was founded in Bloemfontein. It was a moderate organisation, which pursued national unity, bargaining for equal rights and opportunities for black people. Their strategy was clearly non-violent and non-militant. The period from 1910 to 1960 was:

“on the whole, marked by sometimes powerful, at other times intermittent and hesitant activities of the ANC”, as the SANNC would later be called.[20]

The ideology of the SANNC was still very much a liberal one. It seeks not to overthrow unjust access to land or economic structures but rather to campaign and advocate for access to the prevailing political and economic structures. The passing of the infamous Land Acts presents an example.

 

The era 1912 to 1960: Hopes of inclusion demolished by structures of exclusion

The SANNC immediately sent a deputation to London to dispute the 1913 landownership laws. The notorious Acts would result in black South Africans losing land and to be restricted to their “native land areas”. These laws entailed imposed-from-above segregation without consultation of the people involved. This legislation formed the cornerstone of many more such laws yet to follow. However, whilst the deputation gained only a little success, hope did not fade. At the close of the First World War in 1919, another deputation was sent. Once again, the attempt met with little success. They were told that:

“(The) British Government could not interfere in the internal affairs of the Union of South Africa. They were advised to return to South Africa and humbly submit the grievances of the black man to the union government.”[21]

 

Maylam points out that the SANNC had a clear policy for building black solidarity and gaining non-black support. [22] By 1920, the SANNC, then also beginning to be known as the African National Congress (ANC), made clear its opposition to the principle of segregation.[23] This coincided with an intense debate on the so-called “Hertzog laws”. Black people now perceived a hardening of political segregation.[24]

In the ensuing years the ANC gradually became less active in politics and the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) rose to prominence. The ICU was established in 1919. It achieved reasonable success mobilising the masses under the leadership of Clements Kadalie and George Champion. This was partly due to the solidarity between the ICU and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). The latter was founded in 1921. The second half of the 1920s saw the ICU becoming weakened by infighting and internal inconsistencies.[25] By 1930 the ICU was a thing of the past. Several black labour unions had come into being since 1927, but both the ANC and the ICU were relatively inactive.

 

Ideologically, the period before, during and after the Second World War saw a closer interaction between the CPSA (later SACP), the ANC and other groups. Black labour organisations and the Communist Party forged closer links. The ideology, however, was neither exclusively liberal nor exclusively socialist. Maylam maintains that the acceptance of the Freedom Charter by the ANC was in fact delayed for a long time because it had to accommodate a broad ideological spectrum.

“To some liberals the Charter looked like a socialist programme; for some Marxists the Charter represented the ideals of bourgeois democracy; and for the Africanists the Charter made dangerous concessions to multi-racialism”. [26]

Only in March-April 1956 the Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC.[27]

 

By 1941 the ANC, as the most influential agent within black politics, spoke of enfranchisement for all black people.

“While its ultimate goal was enfranchisement and equal rights for all Africans, in the same way these rights apply to whites, its immediate goal was the removal of ‘special disabilities’ – disabilities created by the many discriminatory laws of the country”. [28]

The claim to full political rights and equal economic opportunities had a liberal basis. The ANC leadership frowned upon militant action. At this stage authorities employed relatively few repressive measures. Usually there was only a “short, sharp show of force”.[29] After 1940 the situation changed rapidly. The liberal elements within the movement found themselves increasingly questioned by those who favoured a more radical attitude. Dissent within the ANC continued to grow in the 1950s after gaining a foothold in the Youth League in the 1940s. Concentrated efforts also started to build workers solidarity with in view “to harness workers demands for economic amelioration to a political cause”[30] This was to be the first of new political rumblings in the stomach of the South African polity.

 

Attempting access to the core? An extended ideology and new strategies

Not only was the black ideology broadened during 1942 to 1952. The search for radically different alternatives began. Gerhart asserts that:

“The world of social and political ferment” in 1943 was [a] very different [one] from [earlier]. It was a harsher world, one in which Africans with access to education were growing up with fewer illusions about the nature of white rule”.[31]

It became clear to the disenfranchised that access to the economic core of the new apartheid state was denied. To be without a vote equaled to be on the periphery of income and status – and the latter coincided with race. The racial nature of the political economy became crystal clear …

Gerhart continues:

“A profound scepticism regarding white motives and the promises of “trusteeship” had set in, faith in the inevitability of enlightenment was dead, and a new mood of defiance and self-assertion was taking its place in setting standards of thought and behaviour among younger Africans.”[32]

 

This attitude was reflected in the new content with which the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) sought to infuse black thinking. As early as 1943 the view was expressed that “freedom, democracy, Christianity and human decency could not be attained until all “races” in South Africa participated therein”, reports Motlhabi.[33]

The Youth League added the following element to the existing ideological paradigm: “The fundamental aims of this creed [African Nationalism] were to create a single entity out of heterogeneous groupings of Africans, to free Africa as a whole and South Africa in particular from foreign domination and leadership; and to make it possible for Africa to make her own contribution to human progress and happiness”. The long-term goal of the ANCYL was “true democracy”, which guaranteed minority rights in a democratic constitution. The immediate goal of its political action was “direct representation of Africans in parliament on a democratic basis” and “Freedom in our Lifetime” was the League’s motto.[34]

 

This nationalism was defined in such broad terms that it was possible to include other groups and individuals. All that was lacking was “its elaboration and the devising of a suitable strategy to accompany it.” In 1940 revolutionary language was not yet commonly used. Motlhabi refers, for instance, to the “creation of a society in South Africa based on the upholding of democratic values” without “advocating a revolutionary overthrow of the minority regime”.[35] Motlhabi labeled the political rhetoric of the time as “reformistic”, being orientated towards political reform rather than an overthrow of systems.

It was hoped that the white government would accommodate the “reformist” black ideology in its point of view. This hope was dashed as it became increasingly clear that whites, particularly the Afrikaners, were purposefully striving to attain an exclusive (Afrikaner) dominance of power – politically but also in the economic sphere.

In any event, the onus would be on the ANCYL to extend its ideological orientation accordingly and to renew its strategy. A year after the National Party came to power, the ANCYL decided on a programme of action. Non-collaboration with government institutions was among the strategies it advocated. It recommended boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience as part of a strategy of resistance. Chief Albert Luthuli (then leader of the ANC) argues that 1949 brought a “fundamental change of policy and method” by the ANC.

 

In the opinion of Luthuli, the National Party’s takeover of power and the implementation of a series of apartheid laws left no doubt that a programme of action had to be created and diligently followed.[36] The years 1950 and 1951 were characterised by sporadic demonstrations and a joint planning committee was initiated by the ANC.

The committee was the forerunner of the Defiance Campaign of 1952, which was decided upon in 1951 at the National Conference of the ANC in Bloemfontein. Luthuli argues why this campaign was preferred to other strategies:

“Had Congress ever been an organisation which placed reliance on bloodshed and violence, things would have been simpler. What we have aimed to do in South Africa is to bring the white man to his senses and not to slaughter him. Our desire has been that he should co-operate with us, and we with him … Congress has adapted itself to the real needs of the situation. And with each adaptation we have brought ourselves and our country nearer to the vision of a homeland where man may eventually live at peace with neighbours of all races – because they are really neighbours, not white masters and other-race servants.”

From this we may deduct that there was a definite aversion to violence as an instrument for change at the time. This led to a philosophy of peaceful, though active resistance.

 

The Defiance Campaign: Elements of Liberalism, Mass-action and the first rumblings of nation-wide resistance?

In 1950 peaceful opposition on a large scale was still possible. In 1952 the Defiance Campaign was launched as “a protest based on our claim for human dignity”, contends Chief Luthuli[37]. The target of the Campaign was unjust, oppressive laws. The intention was to disobey these laws, suffering arrest, assault and penalty if need be without violence.

The campaign lasted about four months and involved a wide range of people. It started in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, but soon spread to the Eastern and Western Cape, Durban and Bloemfontein. More than 8 000 people were arrested. The ANC leadership was apprehended under the Suppression of Communism Act and brought to trial and subsequently given suspended sentences. This clampdown by the state made further organised resistance impossible and the Defiance Campaign came to a stop. The campaign’s greatest value lay in its popularising the ANC. Despite clear but peaceful opposition, the era was characterised by the implementation of further apartheid legislation, like the notorious Bantu Education Act (1953).

 

The Congress Alliance and reaction to it: A spiral of hardening attitudes and increased structural violence

By 1953 the ANC’s decision to co-operate with other groups was taken further. At the same time it was clear that white people, inclusive of Afrikaners, were not willing to share scarce economical resources, nor democratise the economy. Neither liberal reforms, nor more substantial consideration of “opening up” the economy was on the agenda. Both liberal appeals to reform and more radical restructuring of economics were rejected.

The ANC already co-operated with the South African Indian Congress. In addition, alliances were also entered into with the South African Coloured Peoples’ Organisation (SACPO) and the South African Congress of Democrats (COD). This closer contact culminated in the preparations for and the holding of the Kliptown Conference/Congress of the People, where the Freedom Charter was adopted. The Freedom Charter became the policy document of the organisation. Some historians maintain that the document was a declaration of comprehensive nationalism and that the manifesto deviates from the idea of “Africa for the Africans”.

For Luthuli the document was:

“..line by line the direct outcome of conditions – harsh, oppressive and unjust conditions. It attempted to give a flesh and blood meaning, in the South African setting, to such words as democracy, freedom, liberty”.[38]

One may be tempted to argue that a conceptual analysis of these words by Luthuli points to the embeddedness of the African experience in harsh economic conditions, yet was verbalized in liberal terminology, rather than radical.

The Freedom Charter left room for criticism and debate about its application and meaning. A debate that still continues today. Within a year of the Kliptown Conference, the ANC officially accepted the document. Ideologically, the charter was an attempt at reconciliation.

“It endeavored to link liberal multi-racial capitalistic ideas with more socialist orientations. It did have the advantage that, as a conciliatory document, it could mobilise support over a broad spectrum”.

The document did not represent a specific ideology because “its authors seem to have taken care to respond to a broad range of interests”, according to Lodge.[39]

 

This attempted inclusive/popular approach brought its own problems. Hudson[40] regarded the Freedom Charter as “notoriously ambiguous”[41]. The clause on the economy in particular, unleashed an ideological and semantic controversy. The Africanists dismissed the document as too incluse and “foreign to African Nationalism”[42]. Some people saw the Charter as anti-capitalist, but according to Hudson[43], it does not necessarily rally the “people of the land” to a socialist praxis. For Cronin and Suttner the Freedom Charter[44] is:

“a document that seeks to win support of all those who oppose apartheid “all classes and strata who have an interest in its destruction” [45]

By 1987 the Freedom Charter was no longer regarded as a blueprint for socialism. Some saw in it a clear pointer to a mixed economy.

“Thus while the Charter is not a socialist document it puts forward the democratic demand for an end to exclusive control of the South African economy by monopoly capital – both national and international”,

in the words of Andrew Boraine[46].

 

The government reacted sharply to the formulation of the document. In 1956 the leaders of the Congress were arrested and a lengthy treason trial followed. However, the state could never prove that the group that issued the Kliptown Declaration had envisaged a communist state. Shortly after the promulgation of the Prohibited Organisations Act, 1960 (Act 34 of 1960) the ANC and the PAC were declared illegal. Such hard-hitting action did not succeed in bringing the resistance to an end.[47]

 

The whole exercise failed to convince the Africanists. To them it was not only contrary to the idea of “building the nation” as they saw it, but, apart form a limited definition of nationalism, it was based on an alliance with Europeans which would undermine the Africanist conception of the objective of freedom per se. The multiracial nature of the Congress was regarded as contrary to the objectives and interests of Black Nationalism.[48] These conflicting ideological orientations rendered further cooperation between the Africanists and the groups within the Congress Alliance impossible. In spite of this, the Freedom Charter remained a rallying document for the Congress alliance(s) throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s.

In retrospect is easier to argue that the Freedom Charter both within the possible parameters of interpretation, the various meanings attached to it by followers and in terms of sheer political and economical realities pointed towards radical social democratic interpretations of it. Or that it pointed towards at least participatory democracy where the state as servant of the people retained a measure of economical control and initiative. It is my contention that this represents the parameters of future debates on the Freedom Charter specifically and economic strategies generally in South Africa.

 

The rise of Pan Africanism and the PAC: A new ideology or difference in strategies? How many Nationalisms, South Africa?

In 1959 the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), sometimes also called the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, was formed by a group of Africanists opposed to the multiracialism of the ANC. The Africanists understood South Africa to be a colonial country where the basic contradiction was racial and could only be resolved through racial conflict. Also, Africans naturally embraced ethnic nationalism, which only had to be encouraged for the masses to rise in revolution.[49]

 

The breach with the ANC occurred because it was perceived as deviating from its “original” tradition. The Africanist philosophy included brown people and some Indians, the “non-collaborators with the system”, in the term “African people”. Certain groups, however, were excluded because of their opportunistic participation in the privileges that were provided by the existence of a white regime. That the notion of being an Africanist, was at least for some inclusive, is illustrated by Patrick Duncan, a white activist, becoming a member of the PAC and accepted by members of the PAC as such.

The short-term objectives of the PAC, namely the abolition of the pass laws and the improvement of wages and working conditions, often coincided with those of the ANC. The long-term objectives, however, were in conflict with those of the ANC. Briefly put these objectives amounted to a government of Africans, by Africans and for Africans, but with a broadening of the concept “African” to include “everybody who owes his loyalty only to Africa and accepts the democratic rule of an African majority”.[50] The philosophical foundations of Pan Africanism were described as such by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, at the PAC launch in 1959:

“Here is a tree, rooted in African soil nourished with the waters from the rivers of Africa, come and sit under its shade and become with us, the leaves of the same branch and branches of the same tree”.[51]

Sobukwe and others pointed out that such an approach should not be equated with exclusivity, but that eventually there would be no reasons:

“why in a free and democratic Africa, a predominantly black electorate should not return a white man to Parliament, for colour will count for nothing in a free Africa”.

Motlhabi echoes Mangaliso Sobukwe in his socio-ethical analysis of resistance to apartheid.[52] Cooperation with other organisations was acceptable, provided they had no vested interests in the current political and economical regime.

In his evaluation of the movement, Motlhabi[53] finds that the PAC has consistently maintained its original point of view. This was the weakness of the PAC. On the contrary, the strength of the ANC lay in its ability to continuously and pragmatically adapt its ideology, one may argue.

The value of the PAC was that it marked the beginning of a new era in black political awareness and response. Although it cannot be seen as a forerunner of the Black Consciousness Movement, it did contain elements that would receiver greater attention in the latter.

 

The banning of the ANC and PAC ushered in a period that was less successful for the PAC than for the ANC. The PAC could muster little support at home and abroad. Moreover, the organisation was torn apart by internal strife and leadership issues.

After it was banned, the ANC started to function underground. A direct result of being banned was that the organisation became ideologically more radical. The armed struggle was accepted as a modus operandi. The ANC started cooperating more closely with other banned organisations. The military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was established in cooperation with the South African Communist Party. In 1963, a large number of the ANC’s leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested. Most of them received long gaol sentences. Subsequently the ANC regrouped abroad and gained momentum. Lodge points out that by the mid-1980s the ANC recovered its:

 “political supremacy and its success in re-establishing itself at the centre of gravity in black politics” [54].

 

According to Tambo, the president of the ANC at that time, the struggle for liberation was:

“… not merely a struggle against apartheid; it is a struggle for power, for full citizenship in a society where there is no discrimination. It [the Black opposition] can be defined as a mass movement of all anti-racists, all anti-colonialists, and all opponents of related systems”.[55]

In comparing the words of Chief Luthuli with that of O R Tambo one may remark that the issue was no longer one of individual freedoms or rights, but rather the restructuring (democratization) of the economy. The introduction of class and the vision of economic equality were to bring about a qualitatively different debate that is even today a benchmark of South African political and economic debates. The debate on a future economic pathway for South Africa has increased in fervor.

“Political analysts say Mbeki’s re-election (at the 2002 ANC conference) as leader is assured, but debate with and about the progressive critics he has labeled “ultra-leftists” is likely to dominate …”[56]

Ever since the Lobatsi and Morogoro Conference in 1962 and 1969 respectively, the ANC had become a factor to be reckoned with. At the Kabwe Conference (1985) it was decided to intensify the “people’s war”. Consequently the guerilla action of the ANC increased. The threat that it posed was that it had become a legitimate opposition to the Apartheid government. The visit of the Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) confirmed that by 1986 the ANC’s international stature had grown significantly and that it: “outperformed” the PAC who was locked in partial limbo and Diaspora. The published report of the EPG made it clear that the ANC ought to play a role in any process of political negotiation.[57]

 

The ANC was not the only ideological actor on the South African political stage when it was unbanned by the besieged De Klerk regime in 1990. In our history various social movements and/or political organisations registered their vociferous and active resistance against apartheid, segregation, exclusion and minority rule. All of them reflected an intense moral involvement against exclusion and oppression and action in favour of inclusion, justice and equality. They included amongst others, the Trotskyites, trade unions such as SACTU, COSATU and NACTU, the United Democratic Front (UDF), the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM – a broader movement than just ANC exiles and their cohorts), the Marxists Workers’ Tendency (MWT), the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), Christian groups such as SPROCAS and the Christian Institute (CI), the Centre for Intergroup Studies (Abe Baily Institute) and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA).[58] They all played a significant role, albeit in different ways and on different levels.[59]

 

Smaller organizations: Idealist and purist, but not unimportant

I have chosen here to discuss three much smaller parties/groups that also played a significant role. A role incidentally, far greater than the numbers of people involved and the short time during which some of them were in existence. Furthermore their small size and duration did not prevent them from taking important principled positions and thereby raising life-important issues. Issues that still are part of the South African political discourse and concern the polity - and indeed will continue to do so. These organisations were the Armed Resistance Movement (1962-1965), the Liberal Party of South Africa (1953-1968) and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South Africa (1970-)

 

ARM

The African Resistance Movement (ARM) existed for a short while. It was formed as a leftwing, mostly white resistance group after the Sharpeville crisis. It numbered about fifty mainly white middle-class South Africans. ARM’s aim was the destruction of Apartheid and with it the National Party Government. They “had no clear idea of how this was to be achieved”.[60]

In its short, very active life its story “touched the bizarre and paradoxical …”.

 “Eventually their programme of action extended ultimately, simply to the decision to defy the might of the (apartheid) state through acts of sabotage”,

 Andries du Toit informs us[61].

As an organisation they were ill prepared but they hoped that their acts of sabotage would spark a mass uprising. Their interaction with (black) communities or any other prominent outside network was insignificant. They had no knowledge of armed resistance, nor access to arms and weaponry suited to guerilla warfare. They consisted of politically widely different, but headstrong people, deeply divided on strategy and with divergent personal approaches and agendas. Above all, they were confined to only the Transvaal Province, the politically most active province and hence the most closely monitored province by South African security police. Some described them as:

 “amateurish intellectuals, naïve, arrogant and egotistical, who played with fire and got their fingers burnt”[62].

“The ethos that grew (in the movement) was an ethos of plainspoken commitment and raw courage … Sabotage was closely linked to the fight for apparent obvious truths … the ideological debate was (merely) obfuscating the issues”[63].

Power pylons and a power-substation were targeted. Many in South Africa were struck, if not awed by this bravado. But things were running headlong to an end. One member of the group John Harris obtained explosives and set off a bomb at the Johannesburg station. Twenty-three people amongst them a young girl surnamed Koekemoer, were injured when the bomb went off on platforms five and six in an “only whites” part of the station. The Rand Daily Mail spoke of “a station blast horror” and the Afrikaans newspaper Die Transvaler, called it “a callous attack on innocent people”. Both newspapers mentioned that “whites” seemed to be involved[64] (Incidentally this action took place long before the ANC debated “soft targets” as part of their armed resistance campaign). Amongst the ARM and National Liberation Committee (NLC) members arrested in the course of the campaign were sixteen members of the Liberal Party “frustrated with the (Liberal Party’s) inability to adapt to the revolutionary situation”.[65]

 

Within a few months after committing acts of sabotage such as blowing up of pylons and the infamous Harris bomb on Johannesburg station, the security police rounded the ARM/NLC up.

What then was ARM’s value? Du Toit[66] argues:

“they had been a grouping who tried to make the basis of unity with their fellow South Africans, not ideological commitment or doctrinal correctness, but the simple fact of common citizenship.”[67]

 

Liberalism or suicide: The Liberal Party makes an affirmative statement

At the risk of being somewhat controversial, one could argue that the sixteen liberals that were arrested with the ARM/NCL militants were perhaps the only liberals in South African history that took liberalism and its revolutionary implications seriously and to its activist limits. They proved that liberals, in times of severe oppression could remain “revolutionary liberal” rather than merely pretend opposition to authoritarian systems while benefiting financially - as the “liberal opposition parties” in South Africa and elsewhere have done. In South Africa for example, later liberal-orientated parties never questioned the exploitative nature of capitalism, but rather debated it’s streamlining. They co-existed with Christian Nationalism through the Union-, the Republic of South Africa (1961 -) and Tri-cameral Parliament (1983 – 1990) while severe capitalist exploitation; oppression and regional destabilization characterized the epoch.[68]

One would however, at least in my opinion, not be “fair” to South African historiography if the role of non-violent, but consequent liberal activism within the Liberal Party (LP) of South Africa is not discussed.

“In these circumstances one must have a big dose of humanity, a big dose of a sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into dogmatic extremes, into cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, in acts that serve as examples, as a moving force”.[69]

The way in which the Liberal Party of South Africa “lived and died” may be construed in this manner.

 

In May 1968 the Liberal Party of South Africa came to an end. Following the The Prevention of Political Interference Bill, prohibiting non-racial political activities, the LP publicly declared itself to be going to the political cemetery of South Africa under the banner “Freedom Farewell”. The Liberal Party (LP):

“arose from the United Party’s inability and unwillingness to actively challenge the stream of apartheid legislation”,

argues the historian and journalist Gert van der Westhuizen.[70]

 

The Liberal Association and the Torch Commando established the LP. These organisations consisted of ex-servicemen from WWII. They strongly challenged the National Party’s endeavours to remove Coloured voters from the common roll. It’s establishment was met with cautious optimism as well as outright rejection.

However, without the blessing of major black organisations (the PAC and ANC), it met with scepticism from multi-racial organisations such as the Congress of Democrats (COD) and the Communist Party. All the same it entered the arena of extra-parliamentary protest politics. It was an attempt at peaceful but active opposition. This modus operandi was rejected by mainstream black liberation movements and treated with outright ridicule and harassment by the government.

For some, however, the LP’s efforts had value.

“The LP did have a capacity to bring people of diverse views together and to get them to work together. It (had) the potential to act as an agent for change”,

Van der Westhuizen quotes an ex-member of the LP.[71]

Eventually torn apart by the strains caused by militant reaction to apartheid and growing authoritarianism and repression from the NP government it “chose to commit suicide” in public in 1968.

What was the LP’s value in “life and death”? Van der Westhuizen argues:

“They were willing to go further in the search for true freedom in South Africa than any other white-controlled party, with the exception of the Communist Party and the COD.”[72]

These statements by Van der Westhuizen must be seen against the background of other so called “liberal-type” parties like the United Party (UP), the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) and the Democratic Party (DP)/Democratic Alliance (DA). These parties in contrast to the Liberal Party chose to embrace capitalism as an exploitative economic system in a class-based society from the 1950s onwards up till today. Amidst increasing authoritarianism, the latter parties paid lip service to liberalism, while filling their pockets under apartheid and using regulated cheap labour. The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the South African Students’ Association (SASO), Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) and the SACP made correctly these criticisms against the “liberals” of the latter sort. Van der Westhuizen observes about he LP:

“There was never again a white-controlled party that fought under the banner of true liberalism (equality rather than equity and freedom and brother/sisterhood – my addition) for the unconditional freedom of all South Africa’s inhabitants”.[73]

 

The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM): A moral stance against racism

During the 1970s black consciousness made its appearance. It held the view that liberation could be attained only through the black experience.[74] During the late sixties the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) broke away from white-controlled movements such as the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). From the black consciousness point of view, liberation was a comprehensive concept that covered existential, political and economic liberation. It was driven by a unique experience of suppression. Violence as a means of liberation was rejected. BC supporters also strongly rejected liberalism.

SASO and groups such as the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) increasingly asked more critical questions on the state, liberalism, poverty and the uniqueness of racial oppression in a capitalist society. This more radical/militant and informed approach resulted in tougher measures by the government.[75] In 1977 SASO was banned. Perceived militant black-orientated groups continued the struggle for liberation in spite of banning actions. Even during the 1980s when repression escalated alongside the so-called “reform” under PW Botha, the BC debates continued to play a role in the liberation discourse.

 

When the National Forum (NF) broadly identifying with BC came into being in 1983, it consisted of more than 170 organisations. These included labour movements with black consciousness leanings. For black consciousness adherents it was a reaction to the new “reform” dispensation. The National Forum adopted the Manifesto of the Azanian People.

This was a socialist document based on four principles: Anti-racism, Anti-imperialism, Non-collaboration with the oppressor and his political instruments, Working-class organisations and opposition to all ruling-class parties argue Leatt et al.[76]

 

Black Consciousness rejected liberalism and the prominence given to Marxism (more specifically Marxism-Leninism) as a tool of analysis. Given the entrance of labour organizations into the BC fold and visa versa, this principled and purist position could not hold. A retrospective look at the interaction, contestation and agglutination of various positions in socio-political movements such evolvement was to be expected. With the coming of the National Forum there developed a class approach ideology that was rooted in the black worker’s experience of suppression according to Leatt[77].

This was not surprising given our history. Earlier on I indicated that the selective appropriation of scarce resources underlies political and ideological struggles in South Africa. None of the movements (even conservative or reactionary ones) can finally divorce their political paradigms, strategies and tactics from the political economy of South Africa that was – and still is – based on unequal access to scare values held by a seemingly self-perpetuating elite. While the economics and access/non-access dictate politics, the proto- ideologies such as Black and White Nationalism, non-racial Liberalism, non-racial Socialism, Black Consciousness and (Pan) African Nationalism provided an intellectual framework to communicate the struggle over scarce resources, and provided action programs to the followers of each group. One may be tempted to suggest that little regarding issues of access to resources has changed since 1994 in this respect. The new elite/middle class is somewhat bigger, poverty and riches have been non-racialised but underlying this we still find supreme inequality comparable to colonial and apartheid days.

Alexander at the time summarised the task of the National Forum as follows:

“The positive historical task of black workers in solving the national question in South Africa is the construction of the (socialist) nation of Azania. This construction takes place in all the dimensions of the social formation, i.e. economically, politically and ideologically.” [78]

 

Other developments need to be mentioned. In August 1983 the non-racial United Democratic Front (UDF) was founded in reaction to the “new dispensation”. The UDF was based on a non-racial populist ideology and strove for a new South Africa on the basis of one person, one vote. It consisted of more than 400 affiliated organisations and represented a wide political spectrum. Unlike the National Forum, the UDF was more aligned to the multi- or non-racial ideological framework of the ANC, but less Afro-nationalistic in its approach. The UDF (which developed an “objectivity” or own organic process) was broadly aligned at the time with, yet distinct from the ANC-in-exile and its leadership.[79] These different contextual formations would introduce much later (circa 1998) distinct differences in the South African political discourse. And the last words on this is far from being spoken as the ANC leadership (dominated by the exiles) edges closer to a preference for Thatcherist, neo-liberal and centralist politics.[80]

The other broad movement/ideological approach included the PAC and the National Forum and later also the Pan-Africanist Movement. Although the latter two groups shared a common opponent in apartheid, they had their differences. According to Leatt et al these had their origin in the ANC/PAC rift.[81] Sebidi also maintains that these differences could be traced back to the break between the ANC and the PAC.

Sebidi holds that black consciousness is a more sophisticated approach to the struggle for freedom. It is “an attitude of mind, a way of life”. Sebidi warns that:

“it might be too early to say whether there would be two divergent ideologies in the long term … [It] remains to be seen whether it was a shift at the level of principles [i.e. ideology] or merely the level of strategies and tactics.” [82]

My own interpretation of the ideological split is that it was related to a deep distrust (even hate) for liberalism, an ideology that paid lip service to equity (rather than equality) and “reform”, while actively increasing economic exploitation of poorer people regardless of race.

 

Conclusions

Opposition politics gradually shifted from a liberal to a radical ideological orientation in South African history. This shift was the result of unsuccessful efforts from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the 1950s to obtain access to scarce political and economic resources in South Africa by means of liberal and moderate political participation. The forties and fifties brought a further shift. The demands intensified and the strategies became more militant. This was brought to a head by the ANC’s acceptance of the Freedom Charter and its participation in the Congress of the People. In 1959 the PAC was established. Henceforth, black politics was characterised by two distinctive ideological orientations, each with its own philosophy of resistance to the structure of apartheid.

The ANC and other multi-racial groupings such as the United Democratic Front, propagated a mixed economy and were in favour of a political system of “one person, one vote” in a unitary state. By contrast, the Africanist groups such as the PAC, AZAPO/AZANYU, AZAZM, the Unity Movement, the National Forum and the Pan-Africanist Movement were oriented towards Pan-Africanism and black-consciousness. In his rejection of a liberal, multi-racial approach Biko said:

“It never occurred to the liberals that the integration they insisted upon was impossible to achieve. One has to overhaul the whole system in South Africa before hoping to get black and white walking hand in hand to oppose a common enemy”.[83]

Biko also strongly rejected political involvement on the grounds of a sense of guilt and asked for motivated and committed participation towards comprehensive notion/life attitude liberation from suppression. After “the struggle”, Africanists would have been prepared to accept an inclusive nationalism, Alexander argues[84]. The economic ideology of the groups mentioned above leans towards African and/or workers’ socialism. Some argue that only the Pan-Africanists and/or BC orientated groups rejected “foreign” influences and theories. A second look at South Africans in their search for a just distribution of scarce resources and in constructing a social identity – in my opinion at least – leads us to the notion that many South Africans are rather skeptical about imported theories or solutions. As far back as the Transvaal Republic there were differences between President Paul Kruger and State Attorney, Christiaan Smuts about the importance of importing Dutch “experts of state” and the models that they brought along. The PAC was not the only ones to reject “prescriptions from outside”, i.e. Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Liberalism. And it seems that South Africans eventually topple leaders that move too far outside the parameters of finding South African solutions for South African problems (This of course is my personal opinion and more research on this is needed before one can claim sound knowledge around this issue).

 

At the beginning of the nineteen sixties the exclusive white ideology began to consolidate and entrench itself through repressive measures. At the same time increasingly radical black ideologies were developing with accompanying resistance. This ushered in the period of crisis for apartheid. In the eighties the government tried to resolve the crisis by means of a “new dispensation” and the state of emergency. An era of totalitarian repression dawned. During the eighties, in an effort to retain power, the two-pronged strategy of “total onslaught” and “reform” was initiated.

 

By 1990, when FW de Klerk became president, the government, after more than forty years in power and under increasing foreign and internal pressure reluctantly began paving the way for transformation through negotiation by unbanning the ANC and other banned groups. An era of hard bargaining and transition ensued (1990-1993). The interim constitution was accepted in 1993. The first democratic elections took place in 1994. In 1996 South Africa became a constitutional democracy when the new Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) was passed by the South African parliament.

 

To build a democratic culture with a strong emphasis on human rights, to redistribute and generate scarce resources, foster social tolerance and economic growth for all, without reverting to authoritarianism has become our constitutional legacy. The responsibility to maintain and extend this inheritance to all South Africans regardless of their backgrounds or social identity groups on a principled non-racial basis is now the joint imperative of our citizenry and political leadership. Obviously our historical clashes for power has to be harnessed into the building of a democratic citizenry. But the nation of citizens also has to contend with the increasing non-racialisation of poverty, crime and the challenges of self-perpetuating elitism. No easy challenge for those that are policy-makers, civil community activists or historiographers. Shared, rather than exclusive recollection could assist in the process of making democracy and thus constructing a history of a nation of democratic citizens in progress. During the Copenhagen Workshop 2002 Colin Bundy argued:

“In South Africa, that process of shared recollection should remain an aspiration for academic historians. It is also crucial to imagining the nation”.[85]