The epitaph on the granite base of the statue in the English town of Bedford simply states, “No white person has done more for South Africa than Trevor Huddleston,” the words of Nelson Mandela.
I don’t know if Father Trevor, as we used to call him in Sophiatown, would be totally comfortable with the fact that a 12-word précis of his life should include the descriptor, “white”. Why did Madiba not use a nationalist or professional reference instead, such as, “No English person” or, “No Christian person”?
No. Madiba was right. When we grew up, the colour of our skins was what defined who we were, where we lived and what we were allowed to be. It was fundamentally important that Trevor Huddleston was white.
His kindness and compassion, his servant leadership, were evidence that not all white people had horns and tails. He taught us that the limitations imposed on us by apartheid were in fact false ceilings, that the sky was the limit.
One of the earliest and most painful memories of my childhood is accompanying my father, a school principal, to the shop – I think it was in Ventersdorp – and witnessing him being humiliated by a young white shop assistant… being addressed, “Ja, boy?” by one much younger than himself, and being forced to swallow his pride.
But I believe the most defining moment of my life occurred when I was about nine years old, outside the Blind Institute in Roodepoort where my mother was a domestic worker. We were standing on the stoep when this tall white man in a black cassock, and a hat, swept by. I did not know that it was Trevor Huddleston. He doffed his hat in greeting my mother.
I was relatively stunned at the time, but only later came to realise the extent to which it had blown my mind that a white man would doff his hat to my mother. It was something I could never have imagined. The impossible was possible.
I subsequently discovered that this was quite consistent with Trevor Huddleston’s theology: that every person is of significance, of infinite value, because they are created in the image of God.
A few years after that meeting in the street, I was admitted to Coronation Hospital, in Coronationville, where I was diagnosed with TB. I was to spend 20 months in hospital. Trevor Huddleston visited me regularly; he made me feel very special.
I remember drawing a birthday card for Father Trevor in 1947, and later listening to the wireless broadcast of the wedding service of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh.
It was not that I was extra-special in any way. He made so many people feel special, everyone he touched. He was one of us, a member of our family, God’s family. When he wore a white cassock it quickly became grubby from all the little hands that tugged him and hugged him. Then he’d shoo us out of the office because he had to meet someone “important”. The fact is, he made us all feel important – because we all are!
There was a boy called Hugh, for example, who – like me – was pretty much a little township nobody. Hugh was pretty good at blowing the trumpet, not that he could afford one of his own. The next thing, Father Trevor made contact with Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong and a trumpet for Hugh was on its way from the US. Bra Hugh Masekela went on to become one of the world’s top trumpeters.
Of course, Father Trevor was eventually to leave Sophiatown. After 13 years of service, in 1956, he returned to England. In 1960 he was appointed Bishop of Tanzania, and in 1978, Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean. He was a founder member of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, was appointed vice-president of the movement in 1961 (serving for 20 years), and served as president from 1981 to 1994.
Trevor Huddleston’s humanity, and the passion with which he opposed apartheid – and other injustices and indignities – were attributes I have sought to emulate throughout my life.
As a nation that is still seized with the necessary process of healing the divisions of its past, we would do well not to allow the contributions of giants, such as Father Trevor, to be lost in the mists of time.
This is an extract from Desmond and the Very Mean Word. Text copyright 2013 by Desmond M Tutu. Illustrations copyright 2013 by AG Ford. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press.
Tomorrow is the centenary of Father Huddleston’s birth in Bedford, England. This article is the first in an ongoing, occasional series provided to the Cape Times by the Desmond TutuDesmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
Today is 16 June, a public holiday (vacation to our American friends) commemorating the race riots of 1976 in Soweto. Every year I dread the arrival of 16 June, incongruously called “Youth Day”, because it represents the acme of the anti-white propaganda calendar in South Africa.
Even the country’s biggest beer company, SAB Miller, participates in the onslaught, with an “artistic” rendition of the dead Hector Pieterson’s famous photo which you can see lower down here. I will save you the real photo, either because you have seen it many times already, or because we are all aware of how images are debased through constant repetition. You needn’t have read any of the theories of Walter Benjamin or Jean Baudrillard about the loss of authenticity or receding reality to understand that.
US First Lady Michelle Obama visits Hector Pieterson Memorial, 22 June 2011
To South African leftists, black nationalists, radical theologians and persons of that ilk, Hector Pieterson or his image represents common currency. There is even now a Hector Pieterson Memorial which is touted to tourists. It has already been visited by Michelle Obama and will soon be inspected by her husband, Barack, whose first visit to South Africa is imminent. It seems that Chinese tourists go to the Voortrekker Monument while American tourists prefer the Hector Pieterson Memorial. Probably, it speaks to them of their own race riots, as well as the interminable arguments around them and how whites are always, in the final analysis, to blame for black violence and mayhem.
Now get this: Hector Pieterson was shot by a black policeman., not a white one. To the crazed, left-wing propagandists on their crusade against the last vestiges of white or Western civilization, the race of the policeman is immaterial. It suffices that the previous white South African government “made him pull the trigger”, like whites always “make blacks do things” or by some intricate racial dialectic cause them to commit crime, not to do well at school or undermine their value system so they end up taking bribes in positions of authority. According to eyewitness reports, Hector Pieterson, who was supposed to be at school that day but sauntered along to see some of the protest action, simply “wandered into the line of fire” between a large crowd of stone-throwing youths and a small group of policemen defending themselves after the mob had not responded to earlier warning shots fired over their heads.
South African Breweries (SAB Miller) has just published this version of the Hector Pieterson image, as a “positive” message to the multiracial youth of South Africa (Click to enlarge)
The photograph in question was taken by one Sam Nzima who worked for a black newspaper called The World at the time. It shows Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo after being hit by a stray bullet not intended for him. The shooter being black, you could call it “friendly fire” or black-on-black violence. Hector’s sister, Antoinette Sithole, runs beside them and is obviously distressed. Here is the beer commercial version of the photograph which puts an entirely new “spin” on it, as being a message addressed to the multiracial youth of South Africa. Note also that Hector Pieterson has suddenly become white in SAB Miller’s “reworking” of Sam Nzima’s image.
SAB Miller became the second biggest beer company in the world as a result of two things:
The thirst of black South Africans for its products.
The fact that apartheid or white rule in the country placed enough buying power in the hands of blacks to afford so-called “clear beer”, as opposed to the African or “Bantu beer” traditionally consumed by blacks.
Not so long ago, I read someone’s Ph.D. thesis on the role of advertising in post-1994 South Africa and SAB, having the biggest “ad spend” in the country, also did the most “to shape our new identity”.
Until I saw SA Breweries’ appropriation of the Sam Nzima photograph, I had not been aware of how intimately the beer company had been involved in the whole Hector Pieterson cult! Apparently there exists a “shebeen route”, the Soweto equivalent of the Cape wine route, whereby one may visit “The world of beer”, showing a traditional (and in those days, illegal) black tavern or “shebeen”, and then move onto the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Winnie Mandela’s garage museum. After reading Rian Malan’s article in the latest Noseweek, one could safely say that Winnie Mandela has so many skeletons in her cupboard that she needs a garage to put them in. Unfortunately, the article is not available online, but perhaps someone needs to scan and OCR it to make a bootleg or “shebeen copy” available to enlighten the public on the real Winnie Mandela. Nelson Mandela’s wife (they have since been divorced) had 14-year old Stompie Moeketsi murdered but was protected by both the ANC and the dying National Party government from prosecution. Why? Because she was famous. And black, no doubt.
But let’s not digress and keep to our main topic, which is the 1976 race riot, flatteringly referred to by journalists and academics as an “uprising”. An article in the New Age newspaper, written by Zwelinzima L Sizani, an ANC official, is subtitled: “How we lost our fear of the regime in the days leading to June 16 1976 and the events that changed history.” Like SA Breweries, Sizani is also busy appropriating the riot for his party which played a very marginal, if any, role at the time.
Within the mythology of the New South Africa – why our country’s name has not been changed during all the other name changes I do not know – the Soweto riots were the “turning point”. On 16 June blacks “rose up against the white regime” which was “forcing Afrikaans down the throats of black schoolchildren”. In response – or so we are told – the rioters went on the rampage, killed a Jewish doctor caring for their sick, looted some beer halls and burned down government buildings, including some of their own schools.
‘The recent slogan of “Kill a Boer, kill a farmer” represents a prolongation of the Jew-killing, school-burning mentality of 37 years ago.’
I know that in South Africa there exists a certain inversion of values, at least among our ubiquitous leftist commentators and historians. They consider terrorism, which is decried elsewhere in the world, as the apotheosis of virtue. Every time Afrikaans street names are changed, they ransack the lists of past terrorists and killers of civilians for “heroes” to name streets in Pretoria after, such as Solomon Mahlangu. Within this mindset it is perhaps understandable that killing a philanthropic Jew, Dr. Melville Edelstein, and burning schools are considered exemplary acts which we should celebrate every year on a national holiday. With SAB Miller and other big companies tossing in some ad spend to keep the propaganda going.
The recent slogan of “Kill a Boer, kill a farmer” represents a prolongation of the Jew-killing, school-burning mentality of 37 years ago. If the Gauteng education department under Mrs. Barbara Creecy could burn down a few schools, especially Afrikaans schools, they would consider it a great contribution to this country’s intellectual development. No functional school must be left alone, is the revamped version of the slogan of yore: “Liberation before education.”
The Soweto riots of 1976 are used retroactively to justify the extremist racism and chauvinism meted out to Afrikaners today. In 1976, only a small minority of blacks and white English leftists were anti-Afrikaans. Thanks to the constant stream of ethnic hatred and propaganda, a real hatred against Afrikaans exists at present, fuelling farm murders and ethnic attacks.
The notion that anybody in the history of South Africa – or Azania as the Left calls it – has ever been forced to learn Afrikaans or learn in Afrikaans is so preposterous, it is almost laughable. Yet it suits a lot of people to repeat this fallacy mindlessly every year, including the adherents to the creed that Azania is really a British colony that should speak English only. The multiculturalist, anti-Western British Council probably loves it. For 200 years Afrikaans has survived against all odds, being suppressed under the British Empire and now under its successor, the Bantu Empire.
The denial of language rights to Afrikaners is even more pervasive in the twenty-first century than in the nineteenth in the Cape Colony. English has always been “rammed down our throats”, together with the sickening propaganda that our children are forced to learn for exams at school. It includes history, which means ANC history and the biography of Nelson Mendala, and an idiotic subject called “Life Orientation”. Given the preponderance of English in business and in the media, Afrikaans has never been the dominant language in South Africa. Yet in the Life Orientation handbook at school it is stated: “Under apartheid Afrikaans was the dominant language in South Africa.” I suppose we wrote more books than anybody else in this country, which must have been a crime.
One of those prolific Afrikaans writers is Jaap Steyn, a retired professor of linguistics and one of the greatest minds to come out of South Africa. He wrote a 500–page tome on Afrikaans entitled Tuiste in eie taal (At home in one’s own language). The section on the Soweto riots contains some interesting facts:
In only one of the seven Soweto schools protesting against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in 1976 was the language used as such, and then only in one subject, History;
the English Academy of South Africa was waging a major campaign in black schools to get them to use English, whereas there was no such campaign by any Afrikaans organisation;
unlike a small coterie of white English leftists in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, blacks did not hate Afrikaans. During a competition for school choirs in Soweto, twelve of the sixteen choirs in the senior division sang in Afrikaans and only four in English.
According to Steyn, the economic damage of the riots included the following:
More than 100 buildings of the West Rand Bantu Administration Council were damaged or destroyed;
250 liquor stores and beer halls were looted or destroyed;
170 shops were looted or destroyed;
25 health clinics were burnt down;
8 banks were destroyed;
a number of libraries, post offices, hotels, churches, community halls, magistrate’s courts and gas stations were burnt down;
several 100 vehicles were burnt and up to a third of the 926 buses belonging to the Public Utility Transport Corporation (Putco) were attacked.
While liberals and leftists consider such acts of arson and wanton destruction as “heroic”, the question has to be asked: Why? After all, the ANC government announced only recently that from next year all children in the country will have to learn an African language at school, including white children. No predominantly white and Afrikaans school is preparing to riot and their teachers are not encouraging them to do so.
On 27 June 1976 the editor of the Zulu newspaper, Ilanga, Obed Kunene, wrote in the Sunday Tribune: “Blacks do not destroy facilities… They destroy symbols of the entire system devised by Whites for them… When riots come… all the institutions and services that bear the stamp of White authority become prime targets…”
By the same token, Afrikaners should now be burning every government building in sight, as the reverse holds true: Thanks to their demographic superiority, blacks enjoy political power over us at all levels and decide what is good for us, including what our children should learn at school and in what language they may study at university.
But seeing the Soweto riots as a merely black-white affair, as did the editor of Ilanga in 1976, is simplistic. For long periods white and black have been able to coexist more or less peacefully, but separately, in South Africa. Whenever there was outside interference or incitement of blacks, mayhem broke loose. A deeper analysis of the Soweto riots would reveal the role played by the British Churches such as the Anglican Church and by the so-called Christian Institute, funded by the German churches. They organised and encouraged the Soweto pupils, many of whom were in their twenties as blacks in those days started school at a higher age than whites, to protest and oppose even the study of Afrikaans literature.
‘Affirmative shopping’ as theft is euphemistically called in South Africa, takes place openly in a supermarket in Sasolburg
The problem with the riot-as-revolt theory is that since the advent of black rule in South Africa, we have had as many, if not more, riots than ever before! When someone had stolen cables along the railroad tracks, making trains late, the historic Pretoria statioin was set alight by blacks. Other trains were burnt out too. Not a day goes by when one does not read about “service delivery protests”. Tyres are burnt and vehicles stoned, similarly to the riots of 1976. Blacks seem to be revolting against their own government and municipalities, which they themselves had voted in. They also burn the same “symbols of oppression” as before: councillors’ homes, community centres, municipal offices, libraries, cars and still loot shops and liquor stores. In January this year, black South Africans exercised their right to loot in Sasolburg, south of Johannesburg and pictures again show burnt-out vechicles and a liquor store being ransacked.
In the United States too, race riots have been a feature of that country’s political life. When the four policemen who had assaulted Rodney King were acquitted in 1992, the Los Angeles riots ensued. During those riots, 53 people were killed and more than 2000 injured. In Britain, France, Sweden and elsewhere, burning and looting have become a way for their immigrant communities to express themselvesA recent modish term in South Africa has been the “grammar of blackness” on which I commented a few days ago in White guilt, Coloured faith. Perhaps riots are the grammar of blackness, as they often seem incomprehensible to the white mind. Winnie Mandela famously said: “With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country”, the “necklace” being placing a petrol-filled tyre around the victim’s neck and igniting it.
The point to understand is that the burning has never stopped and “liberation” continues to this day.
In the Johannesburg Sunday Times I discovered the following amazing pronouncement this week, on the subject of a name change for Pretoria, our capital: “What we should accept is that victors always rewrite history and ensure their dominance is not only felt but seen.”
I may be alone in this, but I refuse to accept that because we have been conquered by propaganda, we should perpetuate the disinformation ourselves. None of the leftist fairy tale of South African history, including the Soweto riots, will stand up to closer scrutiny. There is no continuous “march to freedom” performed by South African blacks. Between the Rivonia trial where Mandela and his comrades were jailed and the Soweto riots, we discern a discontinuity or “epistemological break”. The Soweto riots must be seen as a more or less isolated event.
Neither is there continuity between the riots and the National Party’s ultimate capitulation and absorption by the ANC. FW de Klerk and Roelf Meyer betrayed their own electorate and supporters in all but surrendering to the ANC. Perhaps they were bribed or influenced by foreign powers, but they took that decision by themselves and for peculiarly idiosyncratic and personal reasons.
Like schoolchildren are fond of saying: “It’s random!” There is nothing in South Africa’s past that made the present nightmare a necessity. The Soweto riots could have been triggered by some other event that may have had nothing to do with Afrikaans at all. Like a Rodney King or soccer violence or the presence of foreign Africans in Soweto. Currently, we are seeing a lot of looting and killing around so-called xenophobia. The shops of Somali traders in black areas are regularly attacked, looted and their proprietors assaulted or murdered. So “liberation” continues.
Michelle Obama has already reaffirmed the myth of Soweto by visiting the Hector Pieterson memorial and no doubt her husband Barack will do the same during his coming visit to South Africa. He has already booked a visit to Mandela’s prison cell on Robben island, off Cape Town.
As in the dystopian novels of George Orwell, we are living through a powerful artificial consciousness, a pseudo-reality fabricated by the mass media, academia and the advertising industry. In this story the rioters are the heroes and Dr. Melville Edelstein or the Afrikaner education officials of Soweto are the villains
It constitutes rule by propaganda, domination by (dis)information. We have seen how Tony Blair lied to the world about weapons of mass destruction in Irak. The truth is what you can get away with. Or as it is bluntly put by the Sunday Times:
“What we should accept is that victors always rewrite history and ensure their dominance is not only felt but seen.”
I wonder what Orwell would have thought about that axiom.
Former president Nelson Mandela is doing better, his grandson Mandla said on Saturday.
Addressing mourners at the funeral of the former president’s cousin Florence Mandela in Qunu, Eastern Cape, Mandla spoke about his grandfather’s condition in Xhosa.
“He is doing better,” Mandla said.
Mandla left soon after the service ended. He declined to speak to reporters.
The former president has spent a week in a hospital for a recurring lung infection.
A group of villagers and family gathered in a large white tent erected in a yard not far from the Mandela family graveyard in Qunu for the funeral service.
Friends and family also paid tribute to Florence during a service led by a Methodist priest.
The priest welcomed the media during the service and acknowledging their presence in Qunu since “our great father fell sick”.
On Friday, Mandela’s former wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela visited the former president with her daughter Zindzi. His granddaughter Tukwini and three other relatives also visited.
The presidency had described Mandela’s condition as “serious, but stable”.
President Jacob Zuma, accompanied by African National Congress treasurer general Zweli Mkhize, visited him on Thursday.
“Madiba’s health continues to improve but his condition remains serious,” Zuma said in a statement issued afterwards. – Sapa
There was little activity outside former president Nelson Mandela’s house in Houghton in northern Johannesburg on Wednesday as the ailing icon entered his fifth day in hospital.
A small contingent of media has been stationed outside his home since the news of his admission to a Pretoria hospital on Saturday.
A police officer patrolled the street in front of the residence on Wednesday morning.
At around 9.45am a black Mercedes-Benz with dark tinted windows entered the black gates to the house. A while later two cars were seen leaving.
As people drove past the house they slowed down to take a look at all the cars and the media contingent.
A woman got out of her car to read the stones with well wishes left for the former statesman outside the house.
On Saturday, the presidency announced that Mandela had been admitted to hospital in the early hours of the morning and was in a “serious but stable” condition.
His condition has remained unchanged since then.
The presidency said on Tuesday that the doctors treating Mandela had given President Jacob Zuma a thorough briefing on Monday night.
“President Zuma has full confidence in the medical team, and is satisfied that they are doing their best to make Madiba better,” spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement.
Mandela was still in a “serious but stable” condition.
More than 10 outside broadcast vehicles were parked close to one of the entrances at the hospital on Wednesday where Mandela was believed to be admitted.
Security remained tight at the facility, with six police officers manning each entrance. All cars entering the facility were searched.
Family members have been seen arriving at the hospital over the past two days.
On Tuesday, Mandela’s ex-wife, African National Congress MP Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, left the hospital before 6pm.
She and her daughter Zindzi were driven off in a black Audi, escorted by a white Mercedes Benz. Both cars had flashing blue police lights.
Mandela’s two other daughters, Makaziwe and Zenani, who is South Africa’s ambassador to Argentina, were also seen at the hospital on Tuesday.
His wife Graca Machel has reportedly been at his bed-side since his admission.
This is the third time this year the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been hospitalised.
At the end of March and in April, he spent nine days in hospital receiving treatment for recurring lung problems.
Earlier in March, he was admitted to a Pretoria hospital for a scheduled check-up and was discharged the following day. – Sapa
As former president Nelson Mandela spends his fourth day in hospital, his home village of Qunu was preparing for throngs of visitors, the Sowetan reported.
Some residents were preparing to turn their homes into home-stay accommodation, as they said there might not be enough place in the village should the ailing icon die, according to the report.
Villagers, who did not want to be named, told the newspaper there were only three bed and breakfasts (B&B) in the village.
An employee at one of the residences said the house had been converted into a 10-room B&B and had previously accommodated many foreigners who came to the village to see Mandela’s home.
Nowinothi Geledwana, 63, told the newspaper she had previously rented out some rooms in her house and expected to do so again, should there be a demand.
“I have about three to four rooms that are available and can be rented out should people prefer home-stay accommodation in Qunu,” Geledwana was quoted as saying.
“I really don’t know how much I will charge for them, but I’m sure I will make some profit.”
Apart from accommodation provided by residents, the Nelson Mandela Museum in the village also had accommodation for 60 people, while there was a plush guesthouse less than 10km from Qunu.
The Star newspaper reported the Mandela family in Qunu was preparing for another relative’s funeral.
Florence Mandela, the wife of one of the son’s of the elder statesman’s uncle, died last week aged 96.
Florence’s funeral would be held on Saturday. – SAPA
Winnie Mandela, wearing a purple jacket, leaving the hospital. Credit: APTN
Relatives of Nelson Mandela yesterday spent hours with him at the Pretoria hospital at which he is being treated for a recurring lung infection. His former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and two female relatives, arrived at Mediclinic Heart Hospital just after 3pm yesterday.
Shortly before that Mandela’s daughter from his first marriage, Makaziwe, had arrived.
Then came his grandson, Ndaba, and his eldest daughter by Madikizela-Mandela, Zindzi, and two other relatives.
They all left shortly after 5pm.
Mandela spent his third day in hospital after being rushed from his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, at about 1.30am on Saturday when his condition deteriorated.
The Presidency yesterday again released only sketchy details about Madiba’s condition.
“Former president Nelson Mandela remains in hospital and his condition is unchanged.
“President Jacob Zuma reiterates his call for South Africa to pray for Madiba and the family during this time,” The Presidency said.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said on Saturday that Mandela was in a “serious but stable condition” and was breathing on his own.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the ruling party had to rely on Maharaj for updates on Mandela’s condition.
“Our assumption [in the absence of constant updates] is that his condition is unchanged,” Mthembu said.
Well-wishes for the world icon continued to pour in yesterday. The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation “thanked God” for the “extraordinary gift” of Mandela and wished him a speedy recovery.
“Tata Mandela once again endures the ravages of time in hospital. Our prayers are for his comfort and his dignity,” the organisation said.
African Union Commission chairman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said: “I am sending him our fervent prayers and numerous get-well-soon messages from the entire staff of the union. We give him courage and urge him carry on”. – SAPA/timeslive.co.za
A fence was erected on Monday evening next to one of the entrances of the Pretoria hospital where former President Nelson Mandela was believed to be.
Police officers set up the barrier where numerous journalists had been camped out, close to a busy street in Arcadia. Tshwane metro police officers ordered journalists to move their cars.
There was speculation that President Jacob Zuma was expected to arrive at the hospital.
Around 10 uniformed policemen stood at the entrance, along with officers in civilian clothes. Several police cars were driven into and out of the hospital. All vehicles entering the hospital premises were inspected.
Earlier on Monday presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj said Mandela was receiving intensive care.
“Today the doctors are saying his condition is unchanged,” he told reporters from his office at the Union Buildings.
“He is under expert attention and they [doctors] are doing everything to keep him comfortable.” Maharaj said a report in The Star suggesting the Mandela family had barred ANC and government officials from visiting Madiba was unfortunate.
“It’s very unfortunate that one particular newspaper chose to run with that as a headline. I’ve read that report and it has no single source it attributes to, except three unnamed sources.
“There are restrictions which arise from the fact that Madiba is under intensive care. Those are medical restrictions to control movement of people [to exclude the] possibility of visitors bringing infection into the environment,” said Maharaj.
The Star newspaper reported that the Mandela family had taken charge of the 94-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner’s hospital stay, banning everyone, including government leaders and senior party officials, from visiting him.
The African National Congress on Monday said it was unaware of this.
Maharaj confirmed Zuma was scheduled to visit Mandela in hospital, but did not say when.
“As head of state, president Zuma will visit at the appropriate time. We just want Madiba to get better.” ANC MP and Mandela’s ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, had also been at the hospital. – Sapa
When Margaret Thatcher died, British leftists and her Labour Party enemies threw “death parties” in a distasteful display of Schadenfreude. Whether Mandela will die today or live to be a hundred is irrelevant to my argument, as the idea of his death has already provoked a number of reactions, including a tweet from BNP leader Nick Griffin:
“Saint #nelsonmandela on last legs it seems. Make sure to avoid BBC when the murdering old terrorist croaks. It’ll be nauseating.”
Griffin’s tweet caused outrage in British newspapers and on Twitter itself. It is not entirely in good taste, but by the standards set by Thatcher’s detractors with their “death parties” it seems to be in keeping with the Zeitgeist.
For a moment I wondered whether we, the victims of Mandela’s movement, should start organising death parties, in case he does “exchange the temporal for the eternal” as the Afrikaans saying goes. I suppose we could all come dressed in camo with plastic AK-47s.
Americans use the term “disconnect” when they mean “disparity”. It’s not really part of my vocabulary but it sounds right when I say there is a disconnect between the global image of “Saint Nelson Mandela” and the man. Here we have someone who wandered onto the world stage by mistake, almost like an extra, and got applauded for being the hero.
Worse, Mandela is one of the last dinosaurs of a bygone, socialist-revolutionary age. In the early 1960s when he engaged in a botched attempt at revolution, Fidel Castro, Mao Tse Tung and their African imitators were still seen as heroes. In May 1968, the rioting French students in Paris had heard of Mao but not Mandela, yet they could just as well have put his face on a few posters. In the 1980s when I lived in Paris the French Communist Party had a monopoly on the Free Mandela slogan in France, as if they had bought the franchise from the bunch of death-party-celebrating Labour and Anglican fanatics in London.
The Church of England must be the first church in history that had engaged in money laundering to further urban terrorism in South Africa. The radical cleric, Canon Collins, oversaw the whole operation from a back office at St. Paul’s Cathedral. If only the B.I.S. in Basle had been more proactive in curtailing money laundering, they could have spared the lives of many civilians who died in ANC terrorist incidents in South Africa.
Unlike Mao, who wrote some nice poetry and became famous for his Little Red Book of revolutionary maxims, I strongly suspect that Mandela never wrote anything. He was surrounded by a bunch of white or Indian communist advisers and handlers who wrote his speeches and who more or less told him what to do. His speech from the dock at the Rivonia trial was “edited” by author Nadine Gordimer and journalist Anthony Sampson. Gordimer also “edited” his voluminous autobiography, Long walk to freedom.
Nowadays the school history books in South Africa contain naked propaganda, just like in any erstwhile East-European totalitarian state. Our children studying those books for exams are led to believe that Mandela was imprisoned for his “opposition to apartheid”, whatever that might mean.
In reality, he had already engaged in a campaign of sabotage and terror, but was found out in time by the South African police. In a post 9/11 world, and if Mandela had planned anything against the USA, he would simply have been eliminated by American special forces like Osama Bin Laden, with Hillary Clinton cackling some Caesarian paraphrase.
Like all terrorists, Mandela had embraced the dubious moral principle of “the end justifies the means”. Even after his first failed attempt for which he had been jailed for life in SA after a fair trial, prosecuted not by an Afrikaner but by a South African jew, Percy Yutar, Mandela must have ordered or acquiesced in the terror campaign masterminded by the devious Joe Slovo from London.
If ever Saint Mandela sailed on a cloud to heaven as his global leftist and liberal admirers foresee, he could announce at the pearly gates: “My organisation never had an army worth mentioning, but we did place bombs in restaurants.” The infamous Wimpy bombing campaign of the 1980s killed and maimed a large number of civilians all over the country. But the ANC’s biggest “success” if one could call it that, was the so-called Church Street Bomb in Pretoria that exploded on 20 May 1983, killing 19 civilians and injuring more than 200,
The ANC’s terror campaign in the 1980s was no different to that waged by other extremist organisations all over the world. If Mandela had given the go-ahead for the Boston Marathon bombing on 15 April this year, would his reputation as “a man of peace” have been affected at all?
I daresay the world would have looked upon him somewhat differently if that had been the case. Why then is Mandela revered for having been a member of an extremist, crypto-communist “liberation movement” that bombed innocent people in the street, in Wimpy fast-food restaurants and that placed limpet mines on farm roads, killing not only white farmers but also their black workers?
Even if Mandela’s bloodthirsty teleology could have been justified by the end goal of “democracy” (belatedly replacing a communist class revolution in the early 1990s), it would still have been a vicious way of pursuing power. However, South Africa today is hardly a democracy. At best it is a violent, corrupt and crime-ridden oligarchy run by Mandela’s ex-terrorists.
Mandela’s legacy of terror against rural people, perhaps inspired by some Maoist creed, lives on today in the form of farm murders whereby our farmers are regularly attacked, tortured and killed in the cruelest ways imaginable. A local TV documentary on farm murders was appositely entitled “A bloody harvest”.
The mainstream media world-wide, particularly the BBC, may have cynically elevated Mandela to the holy status he has today, but the bloody harvest we are living through is as much his as the rest of the ANC with its shadowy characters who have successfully converted from perpetrators of random violence to looters of the public purse.
It is an intriguing question whether, for liberal journalists in the MSM, terror in the name of Islamic jihad may not be acceptable but in furthering black power it is. One type of terrorist bows to Mecca but the other thrusts his fist into the air shouting “amandla!” (power!”; therein lies all the difference, it seems.
Mandela and his cohort of self-styled revolutionaries have destabilised South Africa and we may be doomed to experience nihilistic violence forever in the form of bands of criminals or ethnic killers attacking us at random.
South Africa has a so-called model constitution. I do not care much for the constitution, for the ANC never respected the Geneva convention when it visited terror upon us. It seems as if their nameless war continues to this day, still without respecting the rules of civilised warfare. Of what use is the constitution if there is no real peace, no real safety?
Lately I have spent some time in Wimpy bars here in Johannesburg where they offer free wifi. They have been revamped, but still contain that 1960s American “diner” look that makes you think of Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein.
Inside the Wimpy they have a large letter W in a corner sometimes, an upside down M. As in Mandela. It is comforting that the ubiquitous South African Wimpy bar will outlive Mandela, the smiling old terrorist. Only when his entire generation of crazed extremists will have died out, may we make some political progress in South Africa.
No-one can feel secure in this country. There is menace everywhere. But somehow when Mandela dies I will feel a little bit safer typing an email in the Wimpy.
The Johannesburg Drill Hall, a 'national heritage site'
One of Johannesburg’s heritage sites, the Drill Hall, is in a derelict state despite getting a R10 million upgrade in 2004, The Times reported on Monday.
The Drill Hall was the venue of the 1956 preliminary hearings of the treason trial in which former president Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu were among the 156 accused.
The historic site is now a home for struggling artists.
In May, unpaid debt led to power cuts, but electricity was restored after discussions with City Power.
The SA National Defence Force vacated the premises in the 1990s, and over 350 homeless families moved in.
After a series of fires, which nearly destroyed the building, it was refurbished in 2004 by the City of Johannesburg.
The R10 million makeover was said to have been intended to promote art, culture, and social upliftment, according to the newspaper.
The new Drill Hall was to provide skills training and child-care facilities, and be a platform for emerging artists.
The Times said it recently visited the building which revealed a different state of affairs.
The entrance was draped in coloured plastic as part of an art exhibition, but the main courtyard, once the hall in which the treason trial hearings were held, was in disarray.
Five metre high concrete pillars, that bore aluminium plaques on which the names of the treason trialists were inscribed, had mostly been destroyed.
Fewer than 20 remained intact, but the pillars bearing the names of Mandela and Sisulu were not among them. – Sapa
Newspapers speculated on the health of former president Nelson Mandela on Monday morning, more than two days since the last update on his condition was made public.
“Mandela Lockdown”, read The Star newspaper’s front page headline, accompanied by a report on his family apparently banning government and senior African National Congress officials from visiting the anti-apartheid icon.
Without citing sources, The Star said it “understood” that the family had barred visitors.
It quoted “three highly placed government sources” who said Mandela’s condition was “scary”.
The Presidency issued a statement on Saturday morning, saying he was in a “serious but stable” condition after being admitted to a Pretoria hospital early on Saturday morning due to a recurring lung infection.
But since then, no official update has been available.
The Times newspaper reported on Monday morning that there had been no change in his condition.
“No news as world holds its breath,” read the daily’s headline.
Afrikaans newspaper Beeld, quoted ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu as saying nobody knew when “God would call Madiba”.
The Sowetan’s front page read: “Nation unites in prayer”, quoting unnamed family members saying his condition had not changed and was “still serious”.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia’s page on Mandela was vandalised, and “updated”, saying he died on June 9, but this was quickly fixed again.
At the weekend, a fake Twitter account using talk show host Piers Morgan’s name, announced the “tragic news” that Mandela had died in his sleep. This was retweeted more than 1300 times. But it soon became clear in the Twitter-sphere that the tweet was a hoax.
Mandela has been in and out of hospital in the past few years. In April this year, he spent nine days in hospital receiving treatment for recurring lung problems.
In December last year, Mandela underwent an operation to remove gallstones and treat the recurring lung infection. He was discharged after an 18-day stay and placed under home-based high care at his Houghton home.
In January, the presidency said Mandela had made a full recovery from the surgery and continued to improve. In February last year he was admitted to hospital for a stomach ailment.
In January 2011, a virtual void of information marked Mandela’s admission to Johannesburg specialist care Milpark Hospital. With very little information to go on at that time, speculation was rife and reports of his death started running on social networks.
Finally, on January 28, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Surgeon General Vejaynand Ramlakan addressed a media briefing on his health.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, which customarily managed publicity for the 94-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, only broke its silence on Monday, January 31, 2011.
This was after then Sunday Independent editor Makhudu Sefara wrote an item called “The making of an unnecessary crisis”. – Sapa
Nelson Mandela, center right, sings with supporters and the accused during the first treason trial outside the Drill Hall in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1956.
I am the First Accused.
I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.
At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case.
Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.
I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.
In the statement which I am about to make I shall correct certain false impressions which have been created by State witnesses. Amongst other things, I will demonstrate that certain of the acts referred to in the evidence were not and could not have been committed by Umkhonto. I will also deal with the relationship between the African National Congress and Umkhonto, and with the part which I personally have played in the affairs of both organizations. I shall deal also with the part played by the Communist Party. In order to explain these matters properly, I will have to explain what Umkhonto set out to achieve; what methods it prescribed for the achievement of these objects, and why these methods were chosen. I will also have to explain how I became involved in the activities of these organizations.
I deny that Umkhonto was responsible for a number of acts which clearly fell outside the policy of the organization, and which have been charged in the indictment against us. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, but to demonstrate that they could not have been authorized by Umkhonto, I want to refer briefly to the roots and policy of the organization.
I have already mentioned that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto. I, and the others who started the organization, did so for two reasons. Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.
But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed Umkhonto were all members of the African National Congress, and had behind us the ANC tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group, be it black or white. We did not want an interracial war, and tried to avoid it to the last minute. If the Court is in doubt about this, it will be seen that the whole history of our organization bears out what I have said, and what I will subsequently say, when I describe the tactics which Umkhonto decided to adopt. I want, therefore, to say something about the African National Congress.
The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act. For thirty-seven years – that is until 1949 – it adhered strictly to a constitutional struggle. It put forward demands and resolutions; it sent delegations to the Government in the belief that African grievances could be settled through peaceful discussion and that Africans could advance gradually to full political rights. But White Governments remained unmoved, and the rights of Africans became less instead of becoming greater. In the words of my leader, Chief Lutuli, who became President of the ANC in 1952, and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
“Who will deny that thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all.”
Even after 1949, the ANC remained determined to avoid violence. At this time, however, there was a change from the strictly constitutional means of protest which had been employed in the past. The change was embodied in a decision which was taken to protest against apartheid legislation by peaceful, but unlawful, demonstrations against certain laws. Pursuant to this policy the ANC launched the Defiance Campaign, in which I was placed in charge of volunteers. This campaign was based on the principles of passive resistance. More than 8,500 people defied apartheid laws and went to jail. Yet there was not a single instance of violence in the course of this campaign on the part of any defier. I and nineteen colleagues were convicted for the role which we played in organizing the campaign, but our sentences were suspended mainly because the Judge found that discipline and non-violence had been stressed throughout. This was the time when the volunteer section of the ANC was established, and when the word ‘Amadelakufa’ was first used: this was the time when the volunteers were asked to take a pledge to uphold certain principles. Evidence dealing with volunteers and their pledges has been introduced into this case, but completely out of context. The volunteers were not, and are not, the soldiers of a black army pledged to fight a civil war against the whites. They were, and are, dedicated workers who are prepared to lead campaigns initiated by the ANC to distribute leaflets, to organize strikes, or do whatever the particular campaign required. They are called volunteers because they volunteer to face the penalties of imprisonment and whipping which are now prescribed by the legislature for such acts.
During the Defiance Campaign, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed. These Statutes provided harsher penalties for offences committed by way of protests against laws. Despite this, the protests continued and the ANC adhered to its policy of non-violence. In 1956, 156 leading members of the Congress Alliance, including myself, were arrested on a charge of high treason and charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. The non-violent policy of the ANC was put in issue by the State, but when the Court gave judgement some five years later, it found that the ANC did not have a policy of violence. We were acquitted on all counts, which included a count that the ANC sought to set up a communist state in place of the existing regime. The Government has always sought to label all its opponents as communists. This allegation has been repeated in the present case, but as I will show, the ANC is not, and never has been, a communist organization.
In 1960 there was the shooting at Sharpeville, which resulted in the proclamation of a state of emergency and the declaration of the ANC as an unlawful organization. My colleagues and I, after careful consideration, decided that we would not obey this decree. The African people were not part of the Government and did not make the laws by which they were governed. We believed in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that ‘the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the Government,’ and for us to accept the banning was equivalent to accepting the silencing of the Africans for all time. The ANC refused to dissolve, but instead went underground. We believed it was our duty to preserve this organization which had been built up with almost fifty years of unremitting toil. I have no doubt that no self-respecting White political organization would disband itself if declared illegal by a government in which it had no say.
In 1960 the Government held a referendum which led to the establishment of the Republic. Africans, who constituted approximately 70 per cent of the population of South Africa, were not entitled to vote, and were not even consulted about the proposed constitutional change. All of us were apprehensive of our future under the proposed White Republic, and a resolution was taken to hold an All-In African Conference to call for a National Convention, and to organize mass demonstrations on the eve of the unwanted Republic, if the Government failed to call the Convention. The conference was attended by Africans of various political persuasions. I was the Secretary of the conference and undertook to be responsible for organizing the national stay-at-home which was subsequently called to coincide with the declaration of the Republic. As all strikes by Africans are illegal, the person organizing such a strike must avoid arrest. I was chosen to be this person, and consequently I had to leave my home and family and my practice and go into hiding to avoid arrest.
The stay-at-home, in accordance with ANC policy, was to be a peaceful demonstration. Careful instructions were given to organizers and members to avoid any recourse to violence. The Government’s answer was to introduce new and harsher laws, to mobilize its armed forces, and to send Saracens, armed vehicles, and soldiers into the townships in a massive show of force designed to intimidate the people. This was an indication that the Government had decided to rule by force alone, and this decision was a milestone on the road to Umkhonto.
Some of this may appear irrelevant to this trial. In fact, I believe none of it is irrelevant because it will, I hope, enable the Court to appreciate the attitude eventually adopted by the various persons and bodies concerned in the National Liberation Movement. When I went to jail in 1962, the dominant idea was that loss of life should be avoided. I now know that this was still so in 1963.
I must return to June 1961. What were we, the leaders of our people, to do? Were we to give in to the show of force and the implied threat against future action, or were we to fight it and, if so, how?
We had no doubt that we had to continue the fight. Anything else would have been abject surrender. Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue the fight. We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. It may not be easy for this Court to understand, but it is a fact that for a long time the people had been talking of violence – of the day when they would fight the White man and win back their country – and we, the leaders of the ANC, had nevertheless always prevailed upon them to avoid violence and to pursue peaceful methods. When some of us discussed this in May and June of 1961, it could not be denied that our policy to achieve a non-racial State by non-violence had achieved nothing, and that our followers were beginning to lose confidence in this policy and were developing disturbing ideas of terrorism.
It must not be forgotten that by this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene. There had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances. In 1961 there had been riots in Warmbaths, and all this time the Transkei had been a seething mass of unrest. Each disturbance pointed clearly to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out – it showed that a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it. Already small groups had arisen in the urban areas and were spontaneously making plans for violent forms of political struggle. There now arose a danger that these groups would adopt terrorism against Africans, as well as Whites, if not properly directed. Particularly disturbing was the type of violence engendered in places such as Zeerust, Sekhukhuniland, and Pondoland amongst Africans. It was increasingly taking the form, not of struggle against the Government – though this is what prompted it – but of civil strife amongst themselves, conducted in such a way that it could not hope to achieve anything other than a loss of life and bitterness.
At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.
This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the Government had left us with no other choice. In the Manifesto of Umkhonto published on 16 December 1961, which is Exhibit AD, we said:
“The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices – submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom.”
This was our feeling in June of 1961 when we decided to press for a change in the policy of the National Liberation Movement. I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did.
We who had taken this decision started to consult leaders of various organizations, including the ANC. I will not say whom we spoke to, or what they said, but I wish to deal with the role of the African National Congress in this phase of the struggle, and with the policy and objectives of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
As far as the ANC was concerned, it formed a clear view which can be summarized as follows:
It was a mass political organization with a political function to fulfil. Its members had joined on the express policy of non-violence.
Because of all this, it could not and would not undertake violence. This must be stressed. One cannot turn such a body into the small, closely knit organization required for sabotage. Nor would this be politically correct, because it would result in members ceasing to carry out this essential activity: political propaganda and organization. Nor was it permissible to change the whole nature of the organization.
On the other hand, in view of this situation I have described, the ANC was prepared to depart from its fifty-year-old policy of non-violence to this extent that it would no longer disapprove of properly controlled violence. Hence members who undertook such activity would not be subject to disciplinary action by the ANC.
I say ‘properly controlled violence’ because I made it clear that if I formed the organization I would at all times subject it to the political guidance of the ANC and would not undertake any different form of activity from that contemplated without the consent of the ANC. And I shall now tell the Court how that form of violence came to be determined.
As a result of this decision, Umkhonto was formed in November 1961. When we took this decision, and subsequently formulated our plans, the ANC heritage of non-violence and racial harmony was very much with us. We felt that the country was drifting towards a civil war in which Blacks and Whites would fight each other. We viewed the situation with alarm. Civil war could mean the destruction of what the ANC stood for; with civil war, racial peace would be more difficult than ever to achieve. We already have examples in South African history of the results of war. It has taken more than fifty years for the scars of the South African War to disappear. How much longer would it take to eradicate the scars of inter-racial civil war, which could not be fought without a great loss of life on both sides?
The avoidance of civil war had dominated our thinking for many years, but when we decided to adopt violence as part of our policy, we realized that we might one day have to face the prospect of such a war. This had to be taken into account in formulating our plans. We required a plan which was flexible and which permitted us to act in accordance with the needs of the times; above all, the plan had to be one which recognized civil war as the last resort, and left the decision on this question to the future. We did not want to be committed to civil war, but we wanted to be ready if it became inevitable.
Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first method and to exhaust it before taking any other decision.
In the light of our political background the choice was a logical one. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality. This is what we felt at the time, and this is what we said in our Manifesto (Exhibit AD):
“We of Umkhonto we Sizwe have always sought to achieve liberation without bloodshed and civil clash. We hope, even at this late hour, that our first actions will awaken everyone to a realization of the disastrous situation to which the Nationalist policy is leading. We hope that we will bring the Government and its supporters to their senses before it is too late, so that both the Government and its policies can be changed before matters reach the desperate state of civil war.”
The initial plan was based on a careful analysis of the political and economic situation of our country. We believed that South Africa depended to a large extent on foreign capital and foreign trade. We felt that planned destruction of power plants, and interference with rail and telephone communications, would tend to scare away capital from the country, make it more difficult for goods from the industrial areas to reach the seaports on schedule, and would in the long run be a heavy drain on the economic life of the country, thus compelling the voters of the country to reconsider their position.
Attacks on the economic life-lines of the country were to be linked with sabotage on Government buildings and other symbols of apartheid. These attacks would serve as a source of inspiration to our people. In addition, they would provide an outlet for those people who were urging the adoption of violent methods and would enable us to give concrete proof to our followers that we had adopted a stronger line and were fighting back against Government violence.
In addition, if mass action were successfully organized, and mass reprisals taken, we felt that sympathy for our cause would be roused in other countries, and that greater pressure would be brought to bear on the South African Government.
This then was the plan. Umkhonto was to perform sabotage, and strict instructions were given to its members right from the start, that on no account were they to injure or kill people in planning or carrying out operations. These instructions have been referred to in the evidence of ‘Mr. X’ and ‘Mr. Z.’
The affairs of the Umkhonto were controlled and directed by a National High Command, which had powers of co-option and which could, and did, appoint Regional Commands. The High Command was the body which determined tactics and targets and was in charge of training and finance. Under the High Command there were Regional Commands which were responsible for the direction of the local sabotage groups. Within the framework of the policy laid down by the National High Command, the Regional Commands had authority to select the targets to be attacked. They had no authority to go beyond the prescribed framework and thus had no authority to embark upon acts which endangered life, or which did not fit into the overall plan of sabotage. For instance, Umkhonto members were forbidden ever to go armed into operation. Incidentally, the terms High Command and Regional Command were an importation from the Jewish national underground organization Irgun Zvai Leumi, which operated in Israel between 1944 and 1948.
Umkhonto had its first operation on 16 December 1961, when Government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban were attacked. The selection of targets is proof of the policy to which I have referred. Had we intended to attack life we would have selected targets where people congregated and not empty buildings and power stations. The sabotage which was committed before 16 December 1961 was the work of isolated groups and had no connection whatever with Umkhonto. In fact, some of these and a number of later acts were claimed by other organizations.
The Manifesto of Umkhonto was issued on the day that operations commenced. The response to our actions and Manifesto among the white population was characteristically violent. The Government threatened to take strong action, and called upon its supporters to stand firm and to ignore the demands of the Africans. The Whites failed to respond by suggesting change; they responded to our call by suggesting the laager.
In contrast, the response of the Africans was one of encouragement. Suddenly there was hope again. Things were happening. People in the townships became eager for political news. A great deal of enthusiasm was generated by the initial successes, and people began to speculate on how soon freedom would be obtained.
But we in Umkhonto weighed up the white response with anxiety. The lines were being drawn. The whites and blacks were moving into separate camps, and the prospects of avoiding a civil war were made less. The white newspapers carried reports that sabotage would be punished by death. If this was so, how could we continue to keep Africans away from terrorism?
Already scores of Africans had died as a result of racial friction. In 1920 when the famous leader, Masabala, was held in Port Elizabeth jail, twenty-four of a group of Africans who had gathered to demand his release were killed by the police and white civilians. In 1921 more than one hundred Africans died in the Bulhoek affair. In 1924 over two hundred Africans were killed when the Administrator of South-West Africa led a force against a group which had rebelled against the imposition of dog tax. On 1 May 1950, eighteen Africans died as a result of police shootings during the strike. On 21 March 1960, sixty-nine unarmed Africans died at Sharpeville.
How many more Sharpevilles would there be in the history of our country? And how many more Sharpevilles could the country stand without violence and terror becoming the order of the day? And what would happen to our people when that stage was reached? In the long run we felt certain we must succeed, but at what cost to ourselves and the rest of the country? And if this happened, how could black and white ever live together again in peace and harmony? These were the problems that faced us, and these were our decisions.
Experience convinced us that rebellion would offer the Government limitless opportunities for the indiscriminate slaughter of our people. But it was precisely because the soil of South Africa is already drenched with the blood of innocent Africans that we felt it our duty to make preparations as a long-term undertaking to use force in order to defend ourselves against force. If war were inevitable, we wanted the fight to be conducted on terms most favorable to our people. The fight which held out prospects best for us and the least risk of life to both sides was guerrilla warfare. We decided, therefore, in our preparations for the future, to make provision for the possibility of guerrilla warfare.
All whites undergo compulsory military training, but no such training was given to Africans. It was in our view essential to build up a nucleus of trained men who would be able to provide the leadership which would be required if guerrilla warfare started. We had to prepare for such a situation before it became too late to make proper preparations. It was also necessary to build up a nucleus of men trained in civil administration and other professions, so that Africans would be equipped to participate in the government of this country as soon as they were allowed to do so.
At this stage it was decided that I should attend the Conference of the Pan-African Freedom Movement for Central, East, and Southern Africa, which was to be held early in 1962 in Addis Ababa, and, because of our need for preparation, it was also decided that, after the conference, I would undertake a tour of the African States with a view to obtaining facilities for the training of soldiers, and that I would also solicit scholarships for the higher education of matriculated Africans. Training in both fields would be necessary, even if changes came about by peaceful means. Administrators would be necessary who would be willing and able to administer a non-racial State and so would men be necessary to control the army and police force of such a State.
It was on this note that I left South Africa to proceed to Addis Ababa as a delegate of the ANC. My tour was a success. Wherever I went I met sympathy for our cause and promises of help. All Africa was united against the stand of White South Africa, and even in London I was received with great sympathy by political leaders, such as Mr. Gaitskell and Mr. Grimond. In Africa I was promised support by such men as Julius Nyerere, now President of Tanganyika; Mr. Kawawa, then Prime Minister of Tanganyika; Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; General Abboud, President of the Sudan; Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia; Ben Bella, now President of Algeria; Modibo Keita, President of Mali; Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal; Sekou Toure, President of Guinea; President Tubman of Liberia; and Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda. It was Ben Bella who invited me to visit Oujda, the Headquarters of the Algerian Army of National Liberation, the visit which is described in my diary, one of the Exhibits.
I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them. Notes of lectures which I received in Algeria are contained in Exhibit 16, produced in evidence. Summaries of books on guerrilla warfare and military strategy have also been produced. I have already admitted that these documents are in my writing, and I acknowledge that I made these studies to equip myself for the role which I might have to play if the struggle drifted into guerrilla warfare. I approached this question as every African Nationalist should do. I was completely objective. The Court will see that I attempted to examine all types of authority on the subject – from the East and from the West, going back to the classic work of Clausewitz, and covering such a variety as Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara on the one hand, and the writings on the Anglo-Boer War on the other. Of course, these notes are merely summaries of the books I read and do not contain my personal views.
I also made arrangements for our recruits to undergo military training. But here it was impossible to organize any scheme without the co-operation of the ANC offices in Africa. I consequently obtained the permission of the ANC in South Africa to do this. To this extent then there was a departure from the original decision of the ANC, but it applied outside South Africa only. The first batch of recruits actually arrived in Tanganyika when I was passing through that country on my way back to South Africa.
I returned to South Africa and reported to my colleagues on the results of my trip. On my return I found that there had been little alteration in the political scene save that the threat of a death penalty for sabotage had now become a fact. The attitude of my colleagues in Umkhonto was much the same as it had been before I left. They were feeling their way cautiously and felt that it would be a long time before the possibilities of sabotage were exhausted. In fact, the view was expressed by some that the training of recruits was premature. This is recorded by me in the document which is Exhibit R.14. After a full discussion, however, it was decided to go ahead with the plans for military training because of the fact that it would take many years to build up a sufficient nucleus of trained soldiers to start a guerrilla campaign, and whatever happened, the training would be of value.
I wish to turn now to certain general allegations made in this case by the State. But before doing so, I wish to revert to certain occurrences said by witnesses to have happened in Port Elizabeth and East London. I am referring to the bombing of private houses of pro-Government persons during September, October and November 1962. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, nor what provocation had been given. But if what I have said already is accepted, then it is clear that these acts had nothing to do with the carrying out of the policy of Umkhonto.
One of the chief allegations in the indictment is that the ANC was a party to a general conspiracy to commit sabotage. I have already explained why this is incorrect but how, externally, there was a departure from the original principle laid down by the ANC. There has, of course, been overlapping of functions internally as well, because there is a difference between a resolution adopted in the atmosphere of a committee room and the concrete difficulties that arise in the field of practical activity. At a later stage the position was further affected by bannings and house arrests, and by persons leaving the country to take up political work abroad. This led to individuals having to do work in different capacities. But though this may have blurred the distinction between Umkhonto and the ANC, it by no means abolished that distinction. Great care was taken to keep the activities of the two organizations in South Africa distinct. The ANC remained a mass political body of Africans only carrying on the type of political work they had conducted prior to 1961. Umkhonto remained a small organization recruiting its members from different races and organizations and trying to achieve its own particular object. The fact that members of Umkhonto were recruited from the ANC, and the fact that persons served both organizations, like Solomon Mbanjwa, did not, in our view, change the nature of the ANC or give it a policy of violence. This overlapping of officers, however, was more the exception than the rule. This is why persons such as ‘Mr. X’ and ‘Mr. Z,’ who were on the Regional Command of their respective areas, did not participate in any of the ANC committees or activities, and why people such as Mr. Bennett Mashiyana and Mr. Reginald Ndubi did not hear of sabotage at their ANC meetings.
Another of the allegations in the indictment is that Rivonia was the headquarters of Umkhonto. This is not true of the time when I was there. I was told, of course, and knew that certain of the activities of the Communist Party were carried on there. But this is no reason (as I shall presently explain) why I should not use the place.
I came there in the following manner:
As already indicated, early in April 1961 I went underground to organize the May general strike. My work entailed travelling throughout the country, living now in African townships, then in country villages and again in cities.
During the second half of the year I started visiting the Parktown home of Arthur Goldreich, where I used to meet my family privately. Although I had no direct political association with him, I had known Arthur Goldreich socially since 1958.
In October, Arthur Goldreich informed me that he was moving out of town and offered me a hiding place there. A few days thereafter, he arranged for Michael Harmel to take me to Rivonia. I naturally found Rivonia an ideal place for the man who lived the life of an outlaw. Up to that time I had been compelled to live indoors during the daytime and could only venture out under cover of darkness. But at Liliesleaf [farm, Rivonia,] I could live differently and work far more efficiently.
For obvious reasons, I had to disguise myself and I assumed the fictitious name of David. In December, Arthur Goldreich and his family moved in. I stayed there until I went abroad on 11 January 1962. As already indicated, I returned in July 1962 and was arrested in Natal on 5 August.
Up to the time of my arrest, Liliesleaf farm was the headquarters of neither the African National Congress nor Umkhonto. With the exception of myself, none of the officials or members of these bodies lived there, no meetings of the governing bodies were ever held there, and no activities connected with them were either organized or directed from there. On numerous occasions during my stay at Liliesleaf farm I met both the Executive Committee of the ANC, as well as the NHC, but such meetings were held elsewhere and not on the farm.
Whilst staying at Liliesleaf farm, I frequently visited Arthur Goldreich in the main house and he also paid me visits in my room. We had numerous political discussions covering a variety of subjects. We discussed ideological and practical questions, the Congress Alliance, Umkhonto and its activities generally, and his experiences as a soldier in the Palmach, the military wing of the Haganah. Haganah was the political authority of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine.
Because of what I had got to know of Goldreich, I recommended on my return to South Africa that he should be recruited to Umkhonto. I do not know of my personal knowledge whether this was done.
Another of the allegations made by the State is that the aims and objects of the ANC and the Communist Party are the same. I wish to deal with this and with my own political position, because I must assume that the State may try to argue from certain Exhibits that I tried to introduce Marxism into the ANC. The allegation as to the ANC is false. This is an old allegation which was disproved at the Treason Trial and which has again reared its head. But since the allegation has been made again, I shall deal with it as well as with the relationship between the ANC and the Communist Party and Umkhonto and that party.
The ideological creed of the ANC is, and always has been, the creed of African Nationalism. It is not the concept of African Nationalism expressed in the cry, ‘Drive the White man into the sea.’ The African Nationalism for which the ANC stands is the concept of freedom and fulfilment for the African people in their own land. The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the ‘Freedom Charter.’ It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. It calls for redistribution, but not nationalization, of land; it provides for nationalization of mines, banks, and monopoly industry, because big monopolies are owned by one race only, and without such nationalization racial domination would be perpetuated despite the spread of political power. It would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies. In this respect the ANC’s policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalization of the gold mines which, at that time, were controlled by foreign capital. Under the Freedom Charter, nationalization would take place in an economy based on private enterprise. The realization of the Freedom Charter would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class. The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.
As far as the Communist Party is concerned, and if I understand its policy correctly, it stands for the establishment of a State based on the principles of Marxism. Although it is prepared to work for the Freedom Charter, as a short term solution to the problems created by white supremacy, it regards the Freedom Charter as the beginning, and not the end, of its program.
The ANC, unlike the Communist Party, admitted Africans only as members. Its chief goal was, and is, for the African people to win unity and full political rights. The Communist Party’s main aim, on the other hand, was to remove the capitalists and to replace them with a working-class government. The Communist Party sought to emphasize class distinctions whilst the ANC seeks to harmonize them. This is a vital distinction.
It is true that there has often been close co-operation between the ANC and the Communist Party. But co-operation is merely proof of a common goal – in this case the removal of white supremacy – and is not proof of a complete community of interests.
The history of the world is full of similar examples. Perhaps the most striking illustration is to be found in the co-operation between Great Britain, the United States of America, and the Soviet Union in the fight against Hitler. Nobody but Hitler would have dared to suggest that such co-operation turned Churchill or Roosevelt into communists or communist tools, or that Britain and America were working to bring about a communist world.
Another instance of such co-operation is to be found precisely in Umkhonto. Shortly after Umkhonto was constituted, I was informed by some of its members that the Communist Party would support Umkhonto, and this then occurred. At a later stage the support was made openly.
I believe that communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. Thus communists have played an important role in the freedom struggles fought in countries such as Malaya, Algeria, and Indonesia, yet none of these States today are communist countries. Similarly in the underground resistance movements which sprung up in Europe during the last World War, communists played an important role. Even General Chiang Kai-Shek, today one of the bitterest enemies of communism, fought together with the communists against the ruling class in the struggle which led to his assumption of power in China in the 1930s.
This pattern of co-operation between communists and non-communists has been repeated in the National Liberation Movement of South Africa. Prior to the banning of the Communist Party, joint campaigns involving the Communist Party and the Congress movements were accepted practice. African communists could, and did, become members of the ANC, and some served on the National, Provincial, and local committees. Amongst those who served on the National Executive are Albert Nzula, a former Secretary of the Communist Party, Moses Kotane, another former Secretary, and J. B. Marks, a former member of the Central Committee.
I joined the ANC in 1944, and in my younger days I held the view that the policy of admitting communists to the ANC, and the close co-operation which existed at times on specific issues between the ANC and the Communist Party, would lead to a watering down of the concept of African Nationalism. At that stage I was a member of the African National Congress Youth League, and was one of a group which moved for the expulsion of communists from the ANC. This proposal was heavily defeated. Amongst those who voted against the proposal were some of the most conservative sections of African political opinion. They defended the policy on the ground that from its inception the ANC was formed and built up, not as a political party with one school of political thought, but as a Parliament of the African people, accommodating people of various political convictions, all united by the common goal of national liberation. I was eventually won over to this point of view and I have upheld it ever since.
It is perhaps difficult for white South Africans, with an ingrained prejudice against communism, to understand why experienced African politicians so readily accept communists as their friends. But to us the reason is obvious. Theoretical differences amongst those fighting against oppression is a luxury we cannot afford at this stage. What is more, for many decades communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us; talk with us, live with us, and work with us. They were the only political group which was prepared to work with the Africans for the attainment of political rights and a stake in society. Because of this, there are many Africans who, today, tend to equate freedom with communism. They are supported in this belief by a legislature which brands all exponents of democratic government and African freedom as communists and bans many of them (who are not communists) under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although I have never been a member of the Communist Party, I myself have been named under that pernicious Act because of the role I played in the Defiance Campaign. I have also been banned and imprisoned under that Act.
It is not only in internal politics that we count communists as amongst those who support our cause. In the international field, communist countries have always come to our aid. In the United Nations and other Councils of the world the communist bloc has supported the Afro-Asian struggle against colonialism and often seems to be more sympathetic to our plight than some of the Western powers. Although there is a universal condemnation of apartheid, the communist bloc speaks out against it with a louder voice than most of the white world. In these circumstances, it would take a brash young politician, such as I was in 1949, to proclaim that the Communists are our enemies.
I turn now to my own position. I have denied that I am a communist, and I think that in the circumstances I am obliged to state exactly what my political beliefs are.
I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot. After all, I was born in Umtata, forty-six years ago. My guardian was my cousin, who was the acting paramount chief of Tembuland, and I am related both to the present paramount chief of Tembuland, Sabata Dalindyebo, and to Kaizer Matanzima, the Chief Minister of the Transkei.
Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my admiration of the structure and organization of early African societies in this country. The land, then the main means of production, belonged to the tribe. There were no rich or poor and there was no exploitation.
It is true, as I have already stated, that I have been influenced by Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the new independent States. Such widely different persons as Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty. But this does not mean we are Marxists.
Indeed, for my own part, I believe that it is open to debate whether the Communist Party has any specific role to play at this particular stage of our political struggle. The basic task at the present moment is the removal of race discrimination and the attainment of democratic rights on the basis of the Freedom Charter. In so far as that Party furthers this task, I welcome its assistance. I realize that it is one of the means by which people of all races can be drawn into our struggle.
From my reading of Marxist literature and from conversations with Marxists, I have gained the impression that communists regard the parliamentary system of the West as undemocratic and reactionary. But, on the contrary, I am an admirer of such a system.
The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.
I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country’s system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fails to arouse my admiration.
The American Congress, that country’s doctrine of separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouses in me similar sentiments.
I have been influenced in my thinking by both West and East. All this has led me to feel that in my search for a political formula, I should be absolutely impartial and objective. I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism. I must leave myself free to borrow the best from the West and from the East . . .
There are certain Exhibits which suggest that we received financial support from abroad, and I wish to deal with this question.
Our political struggle has always been financed from internal sources – from funds raised by our own people and by our own supporters. Whenever we had a special campaign or an important political case – for example, the Treason Trial – we received financial assistance from sympathetic individuals and organizations in the Western countries. We had never felt it necessary to go beyond these sources.
But when in 1961 the Umkhonto was formed, and a new phase of struggle introduced, we realized that these events would make a heavy call on our slender resources, and that the scale of our activities would be hampered by the lack of funds. One of my instructions, as I went abroad in January 1962, was to raise funds from the African states.
I must add that, whilst abroad, I had discussions with leaders of political movements in Africa and discovered that almost every single one of them, in areas which had still not attained independence, had received all forms of assistance from the socialist countries, as well as from the West, including that of financial support. I also discovered that some well-known African states, all of them non-communists, and even anti-communists, had received similar assistance.
On my return to the Republic, I made a strong recommendation to the ANC that we should not confine ourselves to Africa and the Western countries, but that we should also send a mission to the socialist countries to raise the funds which we so urgently needed.
I have been told that after I was convicted such a mission was sent, but I am not prepared to name any countries to which it went, nor am I at liberty to disclose the names of the organizations and countries which gave us support or promised to do so.
As I understand the State case, and in particular the evidence of ‘Mr. X,’ the suggestion is that Umkhonto was the inspiration of the Communist Party which sought by playing upon imaginary grievances to enroll the African people into an army which ostensibly was to fight for African freedom, but in reality was fighting for a communist state. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact the suggestion is preposterous. Umkhonto was formed by Africans to further their struggle for freedom in their own land. Communists and others supported the movement, and we only wish that more sections of the community would join us.
Our fight is against real, and not imaginary, hardships or, to use the language of the State Prosecutor, ‘so-called hardships.’ Basically, we fight against two features which are the hallmarks of African life in South Africa and which are entrenched by legislation which we seek to have repealed. These features are poverty and lack of human dignity, and we do not need communists or so-called ‘agitators’ to teach us about these things.
South Africa is the richest country in Africa, and could be one of the richest countries in the world. But it is a land of extremes and remarkable contrasts. The whites enjoy what may well be the highest standard of living in the world, whilst Africans live in poverty and misery. Forty per cent of the Africans live in hopelessly overcrowded and, in some cases, drought-stricken Reserves, where soil erosion and the overworking of the soil makes it impossible for them to live properly off the land. Thirty per cent are laborers, labor tenants, and squatters on white farms and work and live under conditions similar to those of the serfs of the Middle Ages. The other 30 per cent live in towns where they have developed economic and social habits which bring them closer in many respects to white standards. Yet most Africans, even in this group, are impoverished by low incomes and high cost of living.
The highest-paid and the most prosperous section of urban African life is in Johannesburg. Yet their actual position is desperate. The latest figures were given on 25 March 1964 by Mr. Carr, Manager of the Johannesburg Non-European Affairs Department. The poverty datum line for the average African family in Johannesburg (according to Mr. Carr’s department) is R42.84 per month. He showed that the average monthly wage is R32.24 and that 46 per cent of all African families in Johannesburg do not earn enough to keep them going.
Poverty goes hand in hand with malnutrition and disease. The incidence of malnutrition and deficiency diseases is very high amongst Africans. Tuberculosis, pellagra, kwashiorkor, gastro-enteritis, and scurvy bring death and destruction of health. The incidence of infant mortality is one of the highest in the world. According to the Medical Officer of Health for Pretoria, tuberculosis kills forty people a day (almost all Africans), and in 1961 there were 58,491 new cases reported. These diseases not only destroy the vital organs of the body, but they result in retarded mental conditions and lack of initiative, and reduce powers of concentration. The secondary results of such conditions affect the whole community and the standard of work performed by African laborers.
The complaint of Africans, however, is not only that they are poor and the whites are rich, but that the laws which are made by the whites are designed to preserve this situation. There are two ways to break out of poverty. The first is by formal education, and the second is by the worker acquiring a greater skill at his work and thus higher wages. As far as Africans are concerned, both these avenues of advancement are deliberately curtailed by legislation.
The present Government has always sought to hamper Africans in their search for education. One of their early acts, after coming into power, was to stop subsidies for African school feeding. Many African children who attended schools depended on this supplement to their diet. This was a cruel act.
There is compulsory education for all white children at virtually no cost to their parents, be they rich or poor. Similar facilities are not provided for the African children, though there are some who receive such assistance. African children, however, generally have to pay more for their schooling than whites. According to figures quoted by the South African Institute of Race Relations in its 1963 journal, approximately 40 per cent of African children in the age group between seven to fourteen do not attend school. For those who do attend school, the standards are vastly different from those afforded to white children. In 1960-61 the per capita Government spending on African students at State-aided schools was estimated at R12.46. In the same years, the per capita spending on white children in the Cape Province (which are the only figures available to me) was R144.57. Although there are no figures available to me, it can be stated, without doubt, that the white children on whom R144.57 per head was being spent all came from wealthier homes than African children on whom R12.46 per head was being spent.
The quality of education is also different. According to the Bantu Educational Journal, only 5,660 African children in the whole of South Africa passed their Junior Certificate in 1962, and in that year only 362 passed matric. This is presumably consistent with the policy of Bantu education about which the present Prime Minister said, during the debate on the Bantu Education Bill in 1953:
“When I have control of Native education I will reform it so that Natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them . . . People who believe in equality are not desirable teachers for Natives. When my Department controls Native education it will know for what class of higher education a Native is fitted, and whether he will have a chance in life to use his knowledge.”
The other main obstacle to the economic advancement of the African is the industrial color-bar under which all the better jobs of industry are reserved for Whites only. Moreover, Africans who do obtain employment in the unskilled and semi-skilled occupations which are open to them are not allowed to form trade unions which have recognition under the Industrial Conciliation Act. This means that strikes of African workers are illegal, and that they are denied the right of collective bargaining which is permitted to the better-paid White workers. The discrimination in the policy of successive South African Governments towards African workers is demonstrated by the so-called ‘civilized labor policy’ under which sheltered, unskilled Government jobs are found for those white workers who cannot make the grade in industry, at wages which far exceed the earnings of the average African employee in industry.
The Government often answers its critics by saying that Africans in South Africa are economically better off than the inhabitants of the other countries in Africa. I do not know whether this statement is true and doubt whether any comparison can be made without having regard to the cost-of-living index in such countries. But even if it is true, as far as the African people are concerned it is irrelevant. Our complaint is not that we are poor by comparison with people in other countries, but that we are poor by comparison with the white people in our own country, and that we are prevented by legislation from altering this imbalance.
The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority. Legislation designed to preserve white supremacy entrenches this notion. Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans. When anything has to be carried or cleaned the white man will look around for an African to do it for him, whether the African is employed by him or not. Because of this sort of attitude, whites tend to regard Africans as a separate breed. They do not look upon them as people with families of their own; they do not realize that they have emotions – that they fall in love like white people do; that they want to be with their wives and children like white people want to be with theirs; that they want to earn enough money to support their families properly, to feed and clothe them and send them to school. And what ‘house-boy’ or ‘garden-boy’ or laborer can ever hope to do this?
Pass laws, which to the Africans are among the most hated bits of legislation in South Africa, render any African liable to police surveillance at any time. I doubt whether there is a single African male in South Africa who has not at some stage had a brush with the police over his pass. Hundreds and thousands of Africans are thrown into jail each year under pass laws. Even worse than this is the fact that pass laws keep husband and wife apart and lead to the breakdown of family life.
Poverty and the breakdown of family life have secondary effects. Children wander about the streets of the townships because they have no schools to go to, or no money to enable them to go to school, or no parents at home to see that they go to school, because both parents (if there be two) have to work to keep the family alive. This leads to a breakdown in moral standards, to an alarming rise in illegitimacy, and to growing violence which erupts not only politically, but everywhere. Life in the townships is dangerous. There is not a day that goes by without somebody being stabbed or assaulted. And violence is carried out of the townships in the white living areas. People are afraid to walk alone in the streets after dark. Housebreakings and robberies are increasing, despite the fact that the death sentence can now be imposed for such offences. Death sentences cannot cure the festering sore.
Africans want to be paid a living wage. Africans want to perform work which they are capable of doing, and not work which the Government declares them to be capable of. Africans want to be allowed to live where they obtain work, and not be endorsed out of an area because they were not born there. Africans want to be allowed to own land in places where they work, and not to be obliged to live in rented houses which they can never call their own. Africans want to be part of the general population, and not confined to living in their own ghettoes. African men want to have their wives and children to live with them where they work, and not be forced into an unnatural existence in men’s hostels. African women want to be with their menfolk and not be left permanently widowed in the Reserves. Africans want to be allowed out after eleven o’clock at night and not to be confined to their rooms like little children. Africans want to be allowed to travel in their own country and to seek work where they want to and not where the Labor Bureau tells them to. Africans want a just share in the whole of South Africa; they want security and a stake in society.
Above all, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.
But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on color, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy.
This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Nelson Mandela – April 20, 1964
Post-note: On June 11, 1964, at the conclusion of the trial, Mandela was found guilty on four charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He began his sentence in the notorious Robben Island Prison, a maximum security prison on a small island off the coast near Cape Town. A worldwide campaign to free Mandela began in the 1980s and resulted in his release on February 11, 1990, at age 71, after 27 years in prison. In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa’s President F.W. de Klerk for their peaceful efforts to bring a non-racial democracy to South Africa. Black South Africans voted for the first time in the 1994 election that brought Mandela the presidency of South Africa.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela was in a “serious but stable” condition after being taken to hospital early on Saturday with a recurring lung infection, the government said in a statement.
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero and the country’s first black president has been in hospital three times since December and has been battling this bout of the infection for several days, it said.
“This morning at about 1:30 a.m. (7.30 p.m. EDT On Friday) his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition,” the government said.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told local television Mandela’s condition was “serious this time”.
“The situation is serious this time but doctors have assured us he is comfortable,” he told television station eNCA.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate stepped down as president in 1999 and has not been politically active for about a decade. – Reuters
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe criticises Nelson Mandela for being too soft on whites, in a documentary giving a rare and intimate look into the family life of one of Africa’s longest serving and most vilified leaders.
In a cosy lunch setting with his wife and children, the 89-year old speaks on a wide range of issues from his controversial hold on power, to his relationships with former British premiers Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.
The two-and-a-half hour interview, described in detail by British and South African media ahead of its airing, shows the usually bellicose and sharp-tongued Mugabe as a loving family man.
Dali Tambo, the son of South African anti-apartheid hero Oliver Tambo, produced the documentary, which will be broadcast on South African public television next Sunday.
In the programme Tambo dines with Mugabe’s family at his wife Grace’s dairy farm.
The interview comes just months before crucial general elections in the country which in recent decades has gone from being the breadbasket of southern Africa to its biggest problem child.
One of Africa’s most popular liberation leaders, Mugabe has clashed with the West over controversial policies which saw white-owned farms violently seized over a decade ago.
In neighbouring South Africa, where white land ownership is still a flashpoint, Mugabe says former president Nelson Mandela was not hard enough.
He said former colonial masters Britain — with whom he has had a fraught relationship over the land grabs — “will praise you only if you are doing things that please them”.
“Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks),” Mugabe said of his former South African counterpart.
“That’s being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint,” he is quoted from the documentary in South Africa’s Sunday Independent.
Despite Mugabe’s disagreements with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who died in April, he says he preferred the Iron Lady to her later successor Tony Blair.
“Mrs Thatcher, you could trust her. But of course what happened later was a different story with the Labour Party and Blair, who you could never trust,” said Mugabe.
“Who can ever believe what Mr Blair says? Here we call him Bliar.”
But despite having governed for 32 years, Africa’s oldest ruler also insists on staying in power.
According to The Guardian in Britain, the topic of the upcoming vote unleashes Mugabe’s fiery rhetoric as he bangs his fist on an armrest and insists: “There is a fight to fight.”
“My people still need me,” he told Tambo.
“And when people still need you to lead them, it’s not time, sir, it doesn’t matter how old you are, to say goodbye.”
Mugabe is currently sharing power with his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai after violent disputed polls in 2008. No date has yet been set for this year’s elections although Mugabe is pressing for them to go ahead as soon as possible.
Tambo, 54, brushed off criticism that the programme — which will air as part of his “People of the South” television series that profiles celebrities and public figures — polishes Mugabe’s image ahead of the vote.
He told the Sunday Independent that he had also interviewed Rhodesian leader Ian Smith for a previous series.
Mugabe was “warm, charismatic and very humorous”, Tambo said.
According to The Guardian, Mugabe pours out his heart during the meal on his love for his wife and their “oneness”.
In unusual candour Mugabe also explains his affair with Grace while still married to his sickly first wife Sally — he wanted to give his mother grandchilden.
“As Sally was still going through her last few days, although it might have appeared to some as cruel, I said to myself ‘well, it’s not just myself needing children, my mother has all the time said, ah, am I going to die without seeing grandchildren’.”
He married Grace, his secretary over 40 years his junior, after Sally Mugabe died in 1992.
The couple have three children. – Sapa
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The epitaph on the granite base of the statue in the English town of Bedford simply states, “No white person has done more for South Africa than Trevor Huddleston,” the words of Nelson Mandela.
