South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s: History Gr 12 Black Consciousness PDF

Topic Unit X XX 1 South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s Key question: What was the nature of the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s? What was the impact of the nature of the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s in the liberation movements? Background ANC and PAC had been banned for nearly 10 yea...

Topic Unit X XX 1 South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s Key question: What was the nature of the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s? What was the impact of the nature of the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s in the liberation movements? Background ANC and PAC had been banned for nearly 10 years, and their leaders imprisoned or driven into exile. Extreme security laws set out by the apartheid government made it illegal to do any act that could be seen as advancing the cause of the banned movements. Millions of blacks were removed from white-owned farmland and dumped into impoverished areas known as Bantustans. Blacks faced constant pass raids, arrests and imprisonment for breaking petty apartheid laws. Meanwhile the South African economy boomed as overseas investors poured money into South Africa and profited from high returns on these investments. This mostly benefited the whites in the country. But apartheid would not last – from the early 1970s new forms of resistance began to emerge within the country. ANC = established itself as a strong and legitimate representative of the South African people in many countries in Europe, America and Central Asia. This led to the revival of civil society in South Africa and the eventual end of apartheid. Nature of the apartheid state in the 1970s and 1980s The theory of apartheid planning 76 Late 1960s: Grand apartheid The government set about establishing 10 rural self-governing ‘tribal homelands’ or bantustans. The plan was that they would eventually become independent ethnic ‘nations’. 87% of the land would thus be South Africa, where only whites could be citizens the remaining 13% would be ‘independent’ countries for the different black nations: Zulus; Xhosa; Venda; and so on. → black people would thus have NO citizen rights in South Africa. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook Unit XX 1 In practice, however, apartheid could never bring the stability, harmony and prosperity that its planners dreamed about, because: The rural bantustans were desperately poor and could never become viable nations. Apartheid policies would get in the way of what a growing industrial economy needed most: a stable and educated black workforce living in the cities who would become consumers of manufactured goods. Black South Africans would never willingly accept apartheid, and it could only be enforced with ever-increasing repression as black resistance re-emerged. Economic growth and its consequences Late 1960s and early 1970s: SA’s economy was booming. Growth was financed by British, European & American investors. Commercial agriculture became mechanised. There was massive black migration into the cities with people seeking work. Africans were arrested under the pass laws and sent back to the homelands. Black families in the homelands remained mostly unemployed. Few blacks benefited from this rapid economic growth, but white South Africans became one of the richest communities in the world. Independence of the homelands There were some sections of the black elite in the homelands who were prepared to cooperate with the apartheid government’s policies in return for high positions in the homeland bureaucracies. In 1976 the Transkei under the so-called ‘Paramount Chief of the Xhosa’, Kaizer Matanzima, became the first black homeland to accept its independence. The corrupt and authoritarian homeland leaders of Bophutatswana, Ciskei and Venda also accepted their ‘independence’ during the 1980s (known as the TBVC countries). Apartheid policies under the National Party Deliberately sought to divide blacks into separate ethnic and racial groups. Bilingualism (Afrikaans and English) was promoted as these were the official languages. The government fostered exclusively white national sports teams and cultural events. The state controlled all radio and television, cultivating white fear. Government propaganda portrayed the ANC as being a front for Soviet communism. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook 77 Unit XX 1 Opposition – underground, in prison and in exile For 10 years after the Rivonia Trial in 1964, the ANC, its leaders and symbols virtually disappeared inside South Africa. Extreme security laws made it illegal to publish or talk about anything to do with the mass resistance of the 1950s. New laws gave the police powers The Terrorism Act of 1967 to arrest and detain people without Police could arrest, detain and trial. interrogate – for an unlimited Hundreds of activists were issued period and without charging them with ‘banning orders’, which meant in court – anyone whom they that they could not leave the areas thought had committed or was where they lived. about to commit a ‘terrorist act’, Constant pass raids, arrests and or whom they thought might have imprisonment for breaking petty information about any such act. apartheid laws intimidated people. The list of terrorist acts was very broad and included, for example, There were THREE different types of any act that might promote opposition during this time: hostility between blacks and whites in South Africa. Opposition in exile Many detainees were savagely tortured and some were killed during interrogation, including The external leadership of the ANC Steve Biko. began the slow process of rebuilding the ANC outside South Africa. In the West, ANC was seen as the legitimate voice of oppressed black South Africans. ANC president Oliver Tambo built good relationships with liberal anti-apartheid groups in Britain and Western Europe. ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) gained support from the Soviet Union to establish and train units of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in newly independent African countries, like Zambia and Tanzania. Mirroring the armed liberation struggles of the 1960s in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the ANC adopted a military strategy too. 1967 and 1968: Armed MK units fought alongside units of the Zimbabwe people’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) in a series of clashes with the Rhodesian security forces. Although the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) supported both the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the PAC remained a small splintered organisation based in Tanzania. While these battles were unsuccessful, they gave hope for the future of the opposition movement. 1 78 © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook Unit XX 1 2 Most of the black leaders of the ANC, MK and the PAC were sentenced to long prison terms on Robben Island. The harsh prison conditions included racist abuse, hard labour in rock quarries, severe punishments for breaking prison regulations, solitary confinement, deprivation of food and humiliating body searches. But, it also led to strategies of survival amongst the prisoners that would inevitably bring greater cohesion. Prisoners came together to organise hunger strikes and other acts of defiance that led to significant improvements, such as sports events, cultural activities, literacy training and political education programmes. The ANC in particular was able to maintain a strong political organisation in prison, and upon their release, individuals were able to strongly influence the shape of the freedom struggle within their own communities. 3 Opposition in prison Opposition underground inside South Africa The most significant black political movement to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s was the black consciousness movement (BCM). Other developments were also taking place that would later give rise to the mass democratic movement of the 1980s. The more the white government demonised the ANC and Communist Party, the more legitimacy they began to achieve in the eyes of black South Africans. It was clear that the ANC had survived in exile and was beginning to mobilise again. The turning point: Mid-1970s 1971: A few trained MK activists re-entered SA and began to set up underground political cells; ANC pamphlets started to circulate. 1973: Oil crisis and economic recession; a number of strikes unfolded in the same year. 1975: Victorious armed struggles led to independence in Mozambique and Angola. 1976: The Soweto Uprising was a watershed moment in the country’s history. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook 79 Topic Unit 2 XX X 1 Challenge of Black Consciousness to the apartheid state Key question: In what ways did Black Consciousness challenge the apartheid state? The origins of Black Consciousness (BC) Late 1960s & 1970s: new generation of young black students, professionals and community workers came together with a shared kind of thinking known as “black consciousness”. → a new black cultural identity that was proud, assertive and modern. By 1976 BC = ‘a way of life’, mobilising the youth in schools across SA. These young leaders would play a vital role in the revival of the ANC in the coming years. Nature & aims of Black Consciousness 1968: a group of black student leaders including Steve Biko broke away from the non-racial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Formed the South African Students Organisation (SASO). SASO declared itself to be a black organisation working for the liberation of blacks in South Africa at two levels – from psychological oppression as well as from political oppression and exploitation. SASO was the first consciously BC organisation to clearly express the nature and aims of black consciousness. It said: blacks needed first to fight for psychological liberation, and the only way to liberate their minds would be to break off all contact with whites and form their own independent black organisations. black people must build up their own value systems, see themselves as selfdefined and not defined by others. black people wield power as a cohesive group. Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) In 1971 SASO organised a number of meetings with black community, church, youth and cultural organisations to see if they could launch a united black consciousness movement (BCM). 80 Some, including Steve Biko, felt that blacks needed more time to develop confidence before openly organising to challenge the state. But other BC leaders were impatient and in 1971 the Black People’s Convention (BPC) was formed. Meanwhile, Black Consciousness literature and journalism flourished. Steve Biko became editor of the BPC’s Black Review in which the ideas of BC were publicly debated. Some newspapers, like the East London Daily Dispatch (edited by Donald Woods) carried a special column that was often written by Biko. The BPC did not have the deep community roots of the banned ANC and it failed to mobilise mass support in black communities. Most of its members were students and members of SASO. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook Unit XX 21 In contrast, the BCM was much more successful among black high school students who were attracted to the militant language and defiance of authority. 1974 SASO and the BPC organised a mass public rally to celebrate Frelimo’s victory over Portuguese colonialism in Durban in defiance of a government ban on public meetings. As a result, police attacked the crowd of over 5 000 people, beating and arresting hundreds. Nine SASO and BPC leaders were detained for many months without trial. Eventually they were charged under the Terrorism Act. Steve Biko’s role Government perceptions of Black Consciousness: Born in King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape in 1946, after matriculating went on to study medicine at the University of Natal in 1966. Became the first president of SASO when it broke away from NUSAS in 1968. → Believed that NUSAS was dominated by white liberals who could not free themselves from their privileged position in society. Edited the influential journal Black Review until he was banned in 1973 and continued to write anonymously after that. Biko’s words informed many of BC’s central ideas. He embodied: the spirit of community that existed among BC activists. the defiance and fearlessness, refusing to be intimidated by authority no matter what the state did to him. As one of the first BC leaders to be banned by the state in 1973, Biko constantly broke his banning orders and used the courts as a way for getting his messages across. 1973: Biko and 7 other BC leaders were served with banning orders that forced them to move to isolated locations across the country. The state charged that expressing BC ideas in public was an act of terrorism. This was affirmed by Judge Boshoff in the SASO-BPC trial in 1975. He felt that the ideas of BC, in emphasising group cohesion and solidarity, encouraged feelings of hostility between blacks and whites, and that this constituted an act of terrorism. The challenge of Black Consciousness to the state In 1977, 18 black consciousness, media and church organisations were banned. These included SASO, BPC, the South African Council of Churches and the World newspaper, under its editor Percy Qoboza. August 1977 Biko was arrested in Walmer, Port Elizabeth after secretly visiting activists in Cape Town → detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act and brutally assaulted by police in prison and died of his injuries on 12 September in Pretoria. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook 81 Unit XX 21 The 1976 Soweto uprising and Black Consciousness: In the mid-1970s, the South African Students Movement (SASM) was formed to protest against inferior black education in South Africa. Clearly many leaders of SASM were influenced by black consciousness thinking and had contact with BC leaders. SASM activists played a key role in organising the peaceful protest marches (against instruction in Afrikaans) in June 1976 in Soweto. However, the intense state reaction to the marches turned a peaceful protest into a nationwide explosion of youth anger and frustration. Police shot into crowds of school children killing hundreds. Students reacted by setting fire to schools and government buildings. As the massacres continued, workers began to organise stay-at-homes in support of community demands and in protest at the savage repression of the state. By 1979 the struggles of the youth, the communities and workers in the factories were slowly coming together. The legacy of Black Consciousness on South African politics The legacy of BC does not lie in the organisations it created, but in the ideas it generated. 82 The bannings and detentions of 1977 meant the end of BC as an open political movement in South Africa. But the anger, the defiance and the symbols remained. After 1977 the remaining BC leaders were divided over what strategies to follow next. Many had begun to feel that BC had fulfilled its purpose and that the best way to proceed in the struggle against apartheid was to re-establish links with ANC structures both in exile and increasingly underground in SA. During the 1980s, many of the leaders that emerged in the non-racial UDF, ANC and trade unions were activists that had cut their political teeth in the BCM. This list includes Mosioua Lekota, Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa. However, not all BC leaders were happy about the revival of the ANC and the nonracialism of the mass democratic movement of the 1980s. In 1978 a group of BC leaders formed the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO). By 1979 state repression had restored the appearance of calm. But this time they had only succeeded in pushing activists underground. Meanwhile, the forces of resistance were beginning to devise new strategies. © Via Afrika Publishers » History 12 Study Guide eBook