African Revolutionary Writers, Part 5a
Govan Mbeki
The main item today is
Chapter 7, “The New Offensive: The ANC after 1949”, from “The Struggle for
Liberation in South Africa” by Govan Mbeki, published in 1992 (attached).
Right at the beginning of
this chapter Mbeki recalls the joint ANC/CPSA protest against the Suppression
of Communism Act on May Day, 1950, and the massacre of 18 people on that day by
the National Party regime that had come to power in 1948. This is something
South Africans should always remember on the May Day holiday each year.
Consequent to this massacre,
26 June 1950 was observed with a stay-away as Freedom Day.
Freedom Day was observed
again when the Defiance of Unjust Laws campaign was launched in 1952, and again
in 1955 when the Freedom Charter
was adopted on that date at the Congress of the People in Kliptown.
Note that 26 June, our
original Freedom Day, having to do with the protests against the banning of the
Communist Party - is not a Public Holiday in free South Africa. But 24 September
was made a public “Heritage Day” holiday at the insistence of the Inkatha
Freedom Party (see here).
Govan Mbeki concludes this
chapter with a very good section on the “Africanists”, in terms of events in
which he himself, as he records, was involved in a major capacity. The first
occasion was when the Africanists tried to hi-jack the ANC leadership from the
Treason Trialists, taking advantage of the fact that the latter were locked up.
“Black
exclusivism,” says Mbeki, “presents a misguided solution”.
“What has
characterised all groups that claimed to be opposed to government policies -
groups that either broke away from the ANC like the PAC, or others like the
Liberal Party, Unity Movement (NEUM), Inkatha
and Black Consciousness Movement - has been that instead of opposing the
government directly, they have mounted
campaigns aimed at thwarting those initiated by the ANC,” writes Mbeki, and proceeds to tell the whole
Sharpeville story, when 69 people were shot, fifty years ago, on 21 March 1960;
and then he relates the immediate aftermath.
“At a meeting
of the joint executives of the Congress Alliance in June 1961, the situation
was reviewed and a decision was taken that in all future stay-at-homes, the
possibility of the use of force could not be excluded,” writes Mbeki
To read Govan Mbeki’s book
on-line, click
here.
The question of armed
struggle was settled by the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe on 16 December of
that year, 1961. In tomorrow’s item we
will see how O R Tambo, as the President-General of the ANC, reflected upon all
this heritage in 1969, which was also the year of the ANC’s Morogoro
Conference, where the original “Strategy and Tactics”
document was adopted.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-texts: Govan
Mbeki, The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa, 1992, Chapter 7.
