Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Background of anti-apartheid movement: ANC and the early development of apartheid 1948-1950s
Since the Dutch began to colonize South Africa in the 17th century, they pushed aside the native
population to consolidate power in the hands of whites, whom they believed to be superior. But in
1948, the victory of the Nationalist Party in all-white elections opened an even more oppressive chapter
in the history of South Africa. As a party leader declared, "Our motto is to maintain white supremacy for
all time to comeby force if necessary."
The new apartheid ("apartness" in Afrikaans) laws would maintain white supremacy by forcing all South
Africans to identify as European, Indian, colored (mixed-race), or African, and segregating these races
from each other as much as possible. It governed every aspect of life in South Africa. White South
Africans lived privileged lives while the black majority was discriminated against in virtually all areas of
life. Non-whites were forcibly relocated to isolated, poverty-stricken areas, made to obtain permission
to travel, blocked from voting and participation in government, not allowed to marry whites, and were
largely barred from owning land.
The African National Congress ANC was the major institutional vehicle of the resistance to the
governments increased introduction of racist and repressive laws. Although its creation predated
apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) only assumed a significant role in South African political
life in 1949.
ANC:
It became the primary force in opposition to the government after its conservative leadership was
superseded by the organizations Youth League (ANCYL) in 1949.
From then onward, the ANC used a variety of strategies from emphasizing legal forms of protest and
shifting to a more militant nonviolent direct action campaign in the early 1950s and then advocating
violent resistance to the imposition of apartheid in South Africa. This prompted open defiance against
the government, and action against pass and other restrictive laws.
In the aftermath of World War II, the ANC adopted new plans to push for black freedom and equality.
Walter Sisulu was appointed Secretary General of the ANC, and it adopted a more militant anti-
apartheid strategy. This action transformed the ANC from a reactive group organizing protest
movements to a proactive mass organization. Sisulu worked tirelessly to foment social, political, and
economic change despite growing oppression from the white South African government. The ANC
initiated a Defiance Campaign in 1952 to challenge the apartheid laws and overtax the legal system by
violating the apartheid laws and forcing the arrest of violators. The plan was to fill the jails and keep the
police force working at full force until it became ineffective.
Two additional campaigns during the 1950s helped to solidify the anti-apartheid movement. The ANC,
the South African Indian Congress, the South African Colored People's Congress, the South African
Congress of Democrats, and the South African Congress of Trade Unions joined forces to establish the
Congress Alliance. This group was responsible for the Freedom Charter and convening a Congress of the
People. Individuals and groups from all over South Africa submitted ideas to the Congress about the
type of society in which they wanted to live. Ideas were adopted by acclamation by the more than 3,000
delegates at the Congress of the people on June 25, 1955 (often referred to as Freedom Day). These two
campaigns united the anti-apartheid forces in South Africa.
In 1952, Albert Luthuli became president of the ANC. In 1953, he was banned under the Suppression of
Communism Act and unable to participate in public meetings. At least 41 other leaders of the ANC also
were banned. In 1956, the white South African government arrested 156 members of the AAM and
charged them with high treason. Whereas the majority of those arrested were African (104), 8 colored,
21 Indian, and 23 whites also were arrested. Ultimately, only 30 of the 156 faced charges, and finally in
1961, all charges were dropped. The arrests were attempts to harass and intimidate leaders and put an
end to antiapartheid protests. This repression of movement leaders did not stop people's resistance
efforts. On August 9, 1956, nearly 20,000 women took part in an antipass law march in Pretoria. In 1957,
a bus boycott was organized in Alexandria to protest cost increases. Thousands of residents walked as
many as 10 miles to work until prices were reduced. Other boycotts and work stoppages continued in
these years.
Objectives of ANC:
Early Resistance
During the 1940s, the Communist Party of South Africa organized political resistance to the government,
for example through bus boycotts and protests against housing policies. In 1944, the ANC set up a youth
wing which began to get involved in these mass protests. Official ANC policy changed in 1949 when it
adopted the youth-wing-influenced Programme of Action, a pledge to resist the recently imposed
apartheid system through strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience.
Nonviolent Confrontation
ANC resistance remained largely nonviolent throughout the 1950s. The 1952 Defiance Campaign
involved people volunteering to break the law, for example by entering whites only parks, breaking
curfew and refusing to carry their identity passes. Around 8,000 people were arrested. The campaign did
not meet its goal of breaking apartheid, but ANC membership rose from 7,000 to 100,000. State action
in heavily fining or even jailing participants forced the ANC to abandon the campaign after a few
months. ANC leader Albert Lutuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 for his role in this
nonviolent campaign of resistance.
Despite the ANC's increasing militancy, its aims were still reformist, seeking to change the existing
system, rather than revolutionary. In 1955 the ANC brought together nearly 3,000 delegates of all races
in Kliptown in the Transvaal to adopt the Freedom Charter. This remarkable document, which affirms
that South Africa belongs to all its people, remains to this day the clearest statement of the guiding
principles of the ANC. It emphasizes that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on
the will of the people and the people in South Africa had been robbed of their birthrights to land, liberty,
and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality. It stated that, Every man and
woman shall have the right to vote for and stand as candidates for all bodies which make laws.
Armed Resistance
After the Sharpville massacre in 1960, when police killed 69 protestors and wounded a further 180,
attitudes within the ANC began to harden. The following year, ANC activists, including Nelson Mandela,
formed an armed wing called Umkhonto weSizwe, or Spear of the Nation, popularly known as MK.
Although the armed resistance campaign initially focused on acts of sabotage, such as the destruction of
electricity pylons, in the 1970s and 1980s the campaign escalated to include attacks on police stations
and car bombs.
Oliver Tambo was the ANC president-in-exile from 1967 to 1991, and he was charged with mobilizing
international opinion. In exile, Tambo's efforts supported the combined armed struggle and mass
political actions in South Africa as he mobilized international support. He organized and raised funds for
an armed struggle, negotiated with other governments to house and train liberation forces, maintained
contact with ANC forces within South Africa and developed diplomatic missions with other countries. He
eventually established missions in 27 countries.
The ANC encouraged the international community to pressure the South African government for change
by imposing a series of boycotts. Playwrights refused to let their works be performed in South Africa,
actors refused the right to broadcast TV programs and films on South African stations, and the 240,000-
strong Associated Actors and Artists of America unanimously agreed not to work in South Africa.
Overseas tours by all-white South African sports teams were met with protests, and South African
athletes were unable to compete in the Olympic Games between 1964 and 1992.
As the anti-apartheid movement gained international support, it gained strength from a series of
campaigns: an academic boycott of South African universities and scholars, a sports boycott that banned
South African teams from the World Cup and the Olympics, and a divestment campaign that drained
economic assets from the country. As the anti-apartheid movement grew to a global scale, the
international community recognized its leaders with Nobel Peace Prizes for Desmond Tutu in 1984 and
for Nelson Mandela in 1993.
In total, the number of tactics used during the anti-apartheid struggle was enormous, and included the
following:
Protest and Persuasion
Noncooperation
Strikes and stay-aways organized by labor groups, especially the Congress of South African Trade
Unions;
Economic boycotts such as those organized by Mkhuseli Jack and others in Port Elizabeth;
School boycotts;
International sanctions, divestment, and boycotts;
Sports and cultural boycotts;
Establishment of alternative institutions e.g., o The National Education Crisis Committee, o Street
committees and area committees, o Peoples courts, o Alternative parks named after movement heroes
(e.g., Nelson Mandela Park, Steve Biko Park);
Inter-racial bridge-building, social visits as social disobedience;
Civil disobedience:
Refusal to serve in the South African military
Ultimately, the local and international pressure on the South African regime led to the realization that
"the time for negotiation has arrived," as the countrys new president, F.W. de Klerk, said in 1989. The
next year, Mandela was released from prison, and the apartheid laws were repealed. After negotiations,
democratic elections were held in 1994, and Mandela was elected president of the new South Africa.
The country would become a parliamentary democracy based on the one man, one vote principle, and
for five years, all major political parties would be represented in a transitional government.
After decades of apartheid, Mandela declared, "never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again
experience the oppression of one by another.
Ensuing Events:
Although the nonwhite population gained what former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere called flag
independence by gaining the vote and electing an ANC-dominated government, the countrys
economy, civil service, and military remain largely dominated by the white minority, forcing continued
compromise and power struggles. The difficult transition was facilitated in part by the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which attempted to repair the gap
between the races by getting the ugly truth of the apartheid regime out into the open, enacting
sentences on the worst offenders, and then seeking to find ways of reconciling the conflicting parties.