Here is the third part of the teacher's resource booklet, posted for your comments and relevant inputs. Please don't hold back. So far, the feedback from those who have read the booklet been very positive. This year, the 55th anniversary of the massacre and the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, there may be more controversy than usual around this event. The ANC dissidents who broke off to form the PAC pretended to reject all of the ANC tactics of 1950s, especially the Freedom Charter campaign, while at the same time trying to steal the legacy of those campaigns and tactics. This history of rejection combined with impersonation of the ANC has repeated itself many times, most recently with COPE and currently, again, with the EFF. In this connection, see also Cde Thabo Thwala's "New Age" article, posted here yesterday.
_____ Part 3 The ANC and the PAC Writing on 1 September 1959, six months before the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960, Walter Sisulu wrote: “In recent months much has been published in the South African press about the ‘Africanists’ and their attempt to capture the leadership of the African National Congress. The struggle reached a climax at the Transvaal Provincial Conference of the A.N.C., held under the auspices of the National Executive on the 1st and 2nd November, 1958. The Africanists attempted to ‘pack’ the conference, but most of their supporters failed to qualify as delegates. They then tried to break up the conference by force, and, when this attempt was defeated, they withdrew, announcing that they were leaving Congress and intended forming a new organisation. Sisulu explained that the dispute had begun when a National Workers’ Conference of March, 1958 had resolved to organise a 3-day stayaway against the whites-only general election of April, 1958, and for a demand for a minimum wage of ₤1 per day. Two ANC “Africanists”, Madzunya and Leballo, campaigned publicly against the stayaway. For this they were expelled from the ANC. The last stand of these sectarians was the meeting described above. The PAC launched in April, 1959. The ANC national conference of December 1959 decided on new action against the pass laws, with the mass burning of passes all over the country on a series of dates. The first date was to be March 31, 1960. The ANC worked steadily towards that target in the ensuing months. Only on March 18 did Robert Sobukwe announce that the PAC campaign would start on March 21, with a call to the African people to leave their passes at home and surrender themselves for arrest at the nearest police station. March 21 was chosen so as to up-stage the ANC. The PAC's demand for a minimum monthly wage of £35 was likewise an attempt to steal the long-standing Congress Alliance campaign for £1 a day. The PAC founding conference also adopted the ANC anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", the ANC’s slogan "Mayibuye" and the colours of the ANC flag (though not the design) as its own. The PAC was in practice a copy-cat organisation - one of many down the years that have tried to steal the ANC’s identity. In the PAC case, the result was tragic. The events of Monday, March 21, showed the Pan-Africanists to be a strong force in only two areas, in parts of Cape Town, and in the Sharpeville-Evaton-Vereeniging complex. In all other centres the PAC’s campaign elicited practically no response. In Johannesburg, Sobukwe's stronghold, only 200 people surrendered themselves for arrest; in Durban 12, in Port Elizabeth none. The ANC in the late 1950s was large in membership, popular, well organised, and well prepared for struggle, approaching the 50th Anniversary of its founding. The massacres of Sharpeville and Langa on Monday, 21 March 1960 were at gatherings called by the Pan-Africanist Congress, and not by the African National Congress. It was done by people whose origin was in the ANC, but who wanted to claim the legitimacy of the larger and much older mother body, for themselves alone. This contest within the ranks of the oppressed masses exposed the general movement and its ordinary followers to danger. The massacre followed. The PAC did not shoot anybody on that day. It was the apartheid police who did the killing. But the question as to whether the massacre would have happened if the PAC had not broken ranks, and tried to steal the ANC’s show, is still an open one. In considering this question, it would be a mistake to ignore the broader question of what tactics were appropriate, or wise. In practice this was always a problem for the liberation movement. The question being: To what extent should the masses be led into harm’s way? How much suffering should the masses be asked to bear? The Defiance Campaign of the early 1950s – a campaign against the pass laws - had been called off for the reason that the regime was punishing the ordinary people too hard for it. It was replaced by the campaign for the Freedom Charter. The “Satyagraha” (non-violent protest) campaign led by Thambi Naidoo and M K Gandhi prior to the First World War was also eventually called off for the same reason. In April, 1958 the planned 3-day stay-at-home had been called off after one day by the ANC leadership (without consulting SACTU). The decision as to what action to undertake always weighed heavily upon the leadership. Yet the plan of the ANC for 31 March 1960 was a provocative one. Leaders and members were to burn their passes in public. This did happen to an extent. The ANC’s first response to the Sharpeville massacre was to call a day of mourning on the 28th, and public pass-book-burnings happened on that day. In the end, the blame for the slaughter at Sharpeville lies with the brutal colonial apartheid regime, and not with the people who challenged the regime. In Mueda, Mozambique, less than three months later, the Portuguese colonialists shot and killed more than 500 black people who had gathered in the town to petition the Portuguese governor of the province. This was on 16 June, 1960. It motivated the FRELIMO armed struggle that removed the Portuguese rulers, 15 years later, in 1975. -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . 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