{"id":1240,"date":"2015-05-10T20:56:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T19:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.lycee.nl\/?page_id=1240"},"modified":"2015-05-10T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:34:08","slug":"part-four","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/?page_id=1240","title":{"rendered":"part four: reigniting the struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Peter Gabriel - Biko\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/luVpsM3YAgw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Reigniting the Struggle &#8211; The 1970s through the Release of Nelson Mandela<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to<\/em><br \/>\n<em>emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of\u00a0the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression\u2014the\u00a0blackness of their skin\u2014and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind\u00a0them to perpetual servitude.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Steve Biko, &#8220;The Quest for a True Humanity,&#8221; I Write What I Like, 1978<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter a decade of relative quiescence due to the government crackdown on liberation<br \/>\nmovements in the early 1960s, black workers and students reignited resistance against<br \/>\napartheid in the 1970s. The apartheid regime responded with a mix of harsh repression and\u00a0modest reforms inside South Africa and violent attacks on the liberation movements and their\u00a0allies outside the country. Yet a combination of growing protest, international support, and\u00a0significant changes in the political context of the region changed the balance of power by 1990,\u00a0when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and negotiations for a new democratic South\u00a0Africa began in earnest.<br \/>\nUnrest among workers in the manufacturing sector erupted into wildcat strikes in January<br \/>\n1973 in Durban. Discontent was high among the city\u2019s 165,000 African factory workers, whose\u00a0lack of union rights was made worse by the combined effect of high inflation and shortage of\u00a0manufacturing jobs. As one group of workers won wage increases, others would walk out on\u00a0strike. Stoppages soon spread to factories on the Rand and the Eastern Cape. Unable to stop\u00a0the strikes or replace trained workers in high demand, companies accepted strikers\u2019 demands in\u00a0order to restart production. As a result of the successful strikes of 1973, independent labor\u00a0unions emerged, which further politicized industrial workplaces and forced the government to\u00a0extend some labor rights to Africans (e.g. the right to strike), thus conceding the central\u00a0importance of black workers to apartheid capitalism.<br \/>\nIn addition to more militant workers, new youth and Black Consciousness groups developed in\u00a0South Africa in the late 1960s and expanded their influence in the early 1970s. These young\u00a0men and women were informed by the experiences of African liberation struggles, especially in\u00a0Mozambique, Angola, and Zimbabwe, and by black theology and the Black Power movement\u00a0in the United States. The major figure of this movement was Stephen Bantu Biko, whose\u00a0inspired leadership of the Black Consciousness Movement and death at the hands of police\u00a0in 1977 made him a martyr. Calling for self-help, racial pride, and psychological liberation, Biko\u00a0and his supporters worked autonomously from white liberals. The emergence of black student\u00a0groups, often inspired by black consciousness, was a new and powerful development in the<br \/>\n1970s.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.mg.co.za\/crop\/content\/images\/2014\/06\/12\/june161976018mgonline_landscape.jpg\/676x380\/\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\nA watershed event in the history of South Africa\u2019s struggle against apartheid took place on<br \/>\nJune 16, 1976. Acting independently of the African National Congress and other formal political\u00a0organizations, thousands of primary and secondary school students in Soweto &#8211; the massive\u00a0African township in Johannesburg (Soweto is an acronym for South Western Townships) &#8211;\u00a0marched peacefully against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in the\u00a0classroom. Police fired into the crowd to stop the demonstration, killing and wounding many\u00a0students. Thirteen-year-old Hector Pieterson was one of the first youths to be killed. Sam\u00a0Nzima\u2019s famous photograph of Pieterson bleeding to death in the arms of a fellow teenager\u00a0shocked the world. Nzima and Peter Magubane (working for the Rand Daily Mail) captured the\u00a0popular and spontaneous nature of the protests, which eventually spread across the country\u00a0and lasted into 1977. Tens of thousands of people were jailed and tortured.<br \/>\nAfter 1976 many young black South Africans left South Africa for neighboring countries to join\u00a0the armed struggle. Some exiles attended the ANC\u2019s Solomon Mahlangu Freedom School\u00a0(Somafco) in Tanzania where political and standard education went hand in hand. Bolstered by\u00a0the arrival of so many young men and women, the ANC\u2019s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe\u00a0(MK), carried out isolated guerilla activities inside South Africa. For example, in December 1982,\u00a0it blew up the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town (which had not yet begun\u00a0operation), which cost $500 million in damages. These and other guerrilla actions meant that\u00a0MK took on almost mythical proportions among the youth, even though the ANC\u2019s armed faction\u00a0could not seriously challenge the South African military forces.<br \/>\nMeanwhile, the world community increasingly isolated the apartheid regime. In 1975,<br \/>\nMozambique and Angola became independent from Portugal, and in 1980 black majority rule\u00a0was finally achieved in neighboring Zimbabwe. Namibia, too, fought a sustained war for\u00a0independence (which it eventually won in 1989). Pretoria destabilized the &#8220;frontline states&#8221; (i.e.\u00a0neighboring countries) by conducting invasions and assassinations and fomenting civil war by\u00a0backing groups such as Renamo in Mozambique and UNITA in Angola, at very large human\u00a0cost. South Africa also conducted military raids into Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and\u00a0Zambia. Despite the apartheid regime\u2019s aggressive campaigns, the frontline states continued to\u00a0support the South African liberation movements politically and through material support. Overall,\u00a0these developments meant that white minority-rule in southern Africa had finally begun to\u00a0crack.<br \/>\nAs opposition to apartheid continued to grow in South Africa and around the world, Pretoria\u00a0pursued a divide-and-rule strategy, especially through support for homeland leaders. Between\u00a01976 and 1981, it granted Transkei, Ciskei, Boputhatswana, and Venda a very limited form of\u00a0political &#8220;independence,&#8221; which was not recognized by the international community. By the\u00a0mid-1980s this policy led to heightened conflict in black communities. Most notably, Inkatha,\u00a0a Zulu ethnic nationalist movement led by Gatsha Buthelezi, head of the KwaZulu homeland,\u00a0challenged the power of the ANC and its allies and brought a wave of political violence that\u00a0swept across the Rand and Natal. By the early 1990s, this conflict had caused more than\u00a010,000 deaths.<br \/>\nPrime Minister P. W. Botha assumed power in 1978 and introduced some reforms to appease\u00a0international criticism and defuse growing resistance at home. Black unions grew rapidly\u00a0following the 1979 Wiehahn Commission&#8217;s recommendations to legalize African trade unions.<br \/>\nIn 1983, in the face of mounting pressure from the world community and some South African\u00a0business leaders, P.W. Botha called a whites-only referendum and changed the constitution to\u00a0create a Tricameral Parliament. The new parliament featured separate, but token, legislatures\u00a0for Coloureds and Indians, in addition to the all-powerful and all-white House of Assembly.<br \/>\nAfricans, representing nearly three-quarters of the population, remained totally excluded. This\u00a0purely cosmetic reform had the unintended effect of unifying and radicalizing opponents of\u00a0apartheid. The overwhelming majority of Coloured and Indian voters boycotted the election for\u00a0these new bodies and, instead, many of them united with Africans in growing mass protests.<br \/>\nThe United Democratic Front (UDF) was created in 1983 to provide a forum to oppose the<br \/>\nTricameral Constitution. It came to include more than five hundred political, labor, youth, sport,\u00a0religious, and community organizations from across the country. The UDF adopted the Freedom\u00a0Charter, and linked itself increasingly openly with the still-banned African National Congress.<br \/>\nYouths were active in the UDF and continued to demonstrate over education issues. The<br \/>\nemergence of indigenous liberation theology and the increased brutality of the state toward<br \/>\npeople advocating equality and justice pushed religious organizations into the UDF, exemplified\u00a0by the activism of Desmond Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. White\u00a0protest voices were increasingly heard: anti-conscription and underground ANC activists, such\u00a0as Raymond Suttner, went to jail; Afrikaner rebels, including the poet Breyten Breytenbach and\u00a0cleric Beyers Naud\u00e9, spoke out; and organizations such as the Black Sash, formed by white\u00a0women in 1955, continued to campaign vigorously against apartheid.<br \/>\nUnion growth culminated in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions<br \/>\n(COSATU) in December 1985. COSATU soon became the country\u2019s largest labor federation,\u00a0with 500,000 members in thirty-three unions, most notably the National Union of Mineworkers.\u00a0COSATU adopted the ANC\u2019s Freedom Charter principles and linked up with the UDF. When\u00a0UDF leaders were arrested, COSATU leaders often took their place. The combined power of the\u00a0UDF and COSATU was a major factor in forcing the apartheid regime to negotiate. Their\u00a0national influence was grounded in the efforts of many community activists and workers\u00a0throughout the country. For example, Mandlenkosi Makhoba, a metalworker on the East Rand,\u00a0was active in union opposition to apartheid. Emma Mashinini was a textile worker who was\u00a0jailed in the 1980s for her union leadership. After working for thirteen years at a Natal factory\u00a0that made tires for the military vehicles used against people in his township, Alfred Qabula\u00a0became a popular &#8220;worker poet,&#8221; reciting the oral literary genre of izibongo (praises) at labor\u00a0and political meetings.<br \/>\nThe broad unity of the UDF and the militancy of the unions posed real threats to the domination\u00a0of the apartheid state. As a result, the government struck back in mid-1985 by declaring a State\u00a0of Emergency (martial law). It banned eighteen political organizations; it gave police broad\u00a0powers to stop &#8220;unrest activities&#8221;; and imposed heavy censorship on media coverage of anti-apartheid\u00a0activities. In addition, army troops were deployed in African townships for the first\u00a0time; tens of thousands of people were detained.<br \/>\nFreedom songs served to inspire and bind together protestors in the face of bullets and<br \/>\nsjamboks (metal-tipped whips). The ANC anthem, Nkosi Sikelel&#8217; iAfrika, and a new militant<br \/>\ndance, the toyi-toyi, imported from guerrilla camps in Zimbabwe, were widely heard at mass\u00a0demonstrations and activists\u2019 funerals that attracted large crowds and became politicized.<br \/>\n&#8220;People\u2019s poets&#8221; such as Mzhwakhe Mbuli captured the imagination of crowds with their militant\u00a0poetry.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MZWAKHE MBULI - The Day Shall Dawn\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jVKp1KzgMtw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=x0n_YxtK4is<\/p>\n<p>Resistance arts blossomed also in exile. For instance, the ANC musical group\u00a0&#8220;Amandla!&#8221; (meaning &#8220;power&#8221; in Xhosa and Zulu) toured the world spreading the anti-apartheid\u00a0message in song, and the Medu Arts Ensemble performed in Botswana. Young South Africans\u00a0creatively employed these new cultural forms of political expression, sometimes in alliance with\u00a0gangsters and criminals (tsotsis). Outside South Africa, filmmakers Richard Attenborough (Cry\u00a0Freedom) and Peter Davis produced powerful feature films and documentaries that captured the\u00a0public imagination in the West and strengthened the anti-apartheid movement.<\/p>\n<p>The experiences of individuals who were imprisoned and in exile form an important part of the\u00a0story of political activism in this period. Nomaindia Mfeketo, an ANC underground operative in\u00a0the 1980s, had her baby while in a prison cell. White and Indian South Africans also were\u00a0incarcerated for their resistance. The prison diaries of Ruth First, Fatima Meer, and Raymond\u00a0Suttner show how torture failed to break the spirit of opponents of apartheid; they each\u00a0rebounded upon their release to continue the struggle by publicizing their ordeals. Lesser known\u00a0were the men and women of the underground, such as Robert McBride and Jean Middleton.<br \/>\nThe published memoirs, diaries, letters, and biographies of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Walter\u00a0and Eleanor Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, and Eddie Daniels among others, capture\u00a0the actions, moods, and memories of prisoners on Robben Island, which they skillfully\u00a0transformed into a &#8220;university of struggle.&#8221; The Robben Island experience of shared\u00a0incarceration and political debate brought together ANC veterans such as Mandela and Mbeki\u00a0with the youthful &#8220;1976 generation&#8221;; this interaction helped to overcome ideological and\u00a0generational differences between the prisoners and laid the foundations for a new democratic\u00a0culture. The ANC in exile, led by Oliver Tambo, through its political and diplomatic work,\u00a0continued to build support around the world for its &#8220;government-in-waiting&#8221;, which could\u00a0truthfully boast of having more diplomatic representation than Pretoria.<br \/>\nIn 1985, President P.W. Botha was expected to give a &#8220;crossing of the Rubicon&#8221; address to\u00a0announce a significant break with apartheid; instead he aggressively reiterated his &#8220;total<br \/>\nstrategy&#8221; first articulated more than ten years earlier against what was described as the &#8220;total\u00a0onslaught&#8221; of a &#8220;Communist threat&#8221; to South Africa. This speech prompted increased<br \/>\ninternational sanctions and isolation that threatened to cripple the South African economy.<br \/>\nFinancial sanctions were very effective. Banks ceased rolling over loans, which led to a flight of\u00a0capital from the country and a plunge in the value of the South Africa\u2019s currency, the rand. In\u00a01986, the United States, Europe, and the British Commonwealth imposed comprehensive\u00a0sanctions, although oil and arms continued to reach the apartheid state secretly. Cultural and\u00a0sporting boycotts further isolated the white community.<br \/>\nIn addition to these events taking place inside South Africa, the international anti-apartheid<br \/>\nmovement made a major contribution to ending white domination. It developed a successful\u00a0form of global networking and social movement solidarity that involved large sections of society.<br \/>\nUnions imposed trade bans. Writers and religious leaders spoke out eloquently against<br \/>\napartheid. Musicians, artists, and scholars were drawn into boycotts. Millions took part in rallies\u00a0and concerts that called for the release of Nelson Mandela. The global anti-apartheid movement\u00a0made good use of popular culture and mass media. It used star performers, musicians, rock\u00a0concerts, and pop songs to spread the message of freedom and democracy. People around the\u00a0world watched nightly television news broadcasts showing police dogs and sjambok whips\u00a0tearing into defenseless people. This played an important role in destroying the credibility of the\u00a0Pretoria regime and its supporters. In India and some Scandinavian countries, the anti-apartheid\u00a0movement could rely on the support of government, making the tasks of the resistance\u00a0organizations somewhat easier. The United Nations remained prominent in its opposition to\u00a0apartheid.<br \/>\nIn the United States, the anti-apartheid movement successfully convinced the American public\u00a0and Congress to support sanctions against South Africa.<br \/>\nThere were also many specific campaigns such as the Bank Campaign and Shell Oil boycott,\u00a0based at the United Mineworkers, and fervent organizing by church, student, and community\u00a0groups.<br \/>\nBy the late 1980s, the struggle between the South African government and the liberation<br \/>\nmovements had reached a stalemate. Foreign investment declined while domestic defense\u00a0spending mounted to finance wars and repression. The reforms which dismantled some &#8220;petty&#8221;\u00a0apartheid laws, including the hated pass laws in 1986, did little to stem the hemorrhage of\u00a0capital or to stop mass defiance. However, a different political climate emerged in 1989 with P.\u00a0W. Botha\u2019s replacement by the more pragmatic F. W. de Klerk. And behind the scenes, the\u00a0ongoing crisis prompted secret meetings between Mandela and government officials.<br \/>\nLINKS<br \/>\nAnti-apartheid songs : https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bVmZWrrBulw<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\"><a name=\"_GoBack\"><\/a> South Africa&#8217;s post-apartheid generation: <span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/elrWczhTZBk\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/elrWczhTZBk<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\">SOUTH AFRICA SINCE APARTHEID<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en-US\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2013\/11\/27\/business\/south-africa-since-apartheid\/\">http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2013\/11\/27\/business\/south-africa-since-apartheid\/<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4. Reigniting the Struggle &#8211; The 1970s through the Release of Nelson Mandela &#8220;Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of\u00a0the need to rally together with<span class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1240","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1240\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}