Strategic Problems In South Africa S Liberation Struggle

The impact of the concept(s) of armed struggle for the notion(s) of democracy in South(ern) Africa is the focus of this paper. Originally submitted to a conference on (Re-) Conceptualising Democracy and Liberation in Southern Africa, held in Windhoek, Namibia during July 2002, it argues from the point of departure of the personal involvement of the author in the issues raised.The author was part of a group which criticised the strategy of armed struggle in the ANC. With this paper he inspires a debate, which can claim relevance for current issues of democracy in South Africa and the Southern African region more generally. Given the degree of personal involvement of its author, this analysis is contemporary history based on personal insights, and provides arguments for a necessary discussion.

This volume is an anthology of thought-pieces about the ANC, contributed by a variety of scholars and thinkers. It gives voice to a variety of perspectives on the subject. The fact that some authors disagree with each other is all part of what will, we hope, be an on-going debate. The book originated from a series of public dialogues that began before the centenary year and continued afterwards, being held at the University of Free State. The first section covers reflections on how knowledge of the history of the ANC has advanced and the position of that history in the general history of the liberation struggle. This section aids a critical appraisal of the state of primary sources used in writing the history of the ANC. Chapters in the second half of the book, consider some of the various contexts in which the ANC has operated, and continues to operate. These include the evolution of the ANC's economic policy and how it has changed over time; the kind of leadership the organisation provided in redefining gender relations and most importantly the ANC and international relations, especially seen from the vantage point of 'progressive internationalism'. The last section examines the evolution of Pan-Africanism in the ANC's ideological development.

After 1948 many opponents of apartheid were forced out of South Africa. This accessible and readable account draws upon interviews with many of those involved to examine how those activists who came to the United Kingdom developed political organisations, social networks, ideologies and identities that supported their time in exile. It examines the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the African National Congress in exile and documents the violent attempts by the South African government to control exile activity. Finally, it investigates how exiles came to terms with the possibility that they might return.

Inkundla Ya Bantu was the only independent African journal to play a significant role in the resistance press against the white minority government. It was launched in 1938 as a moderate African nationalist community paper and would cease publication in 1951, just seven months before the launch of the Defiance Campaign. Ime Ukpanah tells the story of the paper and the people who founded it, later to be key figures in the ANC. Having no official press of its own, the ANC adopted Inkundla Ya Bantu as its PR organ.

How did South Africa embrace "non-racialism"? After centuries of white domination and decades of increasingly savage repression, freedom came to South Africa far later than elsewhere in the continent - and yet was marked by a commitment to non-racialism. Nelson Mandela's Cabinet and government were made up of women and men of all races, and many spoke of the birth of a new 'Rainbow Nation'. How did this come about? How did an African nationalist liberation movement resisting apartheid - a universally denounced violent expression of white supremacy - open its doors to other races, and whites in particular? And what did non-racialism mean? This is the real 'miracle' of South Africa: that at the height of white supremacy and repression, black and white democrats - in their different organisations, coming from vastly different backgrounds and traditions - agreed on one thing: that the future for South Africa would be non-racial.

Black Consciousness in South Africa provides a new perspective on black politics in South Africa. It demonstrates and assesses critically the radical character and aspirations of African resistance to white minority rule. Robert Fatton analyzes the development and radicalization of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement from its inception in the late 1960s to its banning in 1977. He rejects the widely accepted interpretation of the Black Consciousness Movement as an exclusively cultural and racial expression of African resistance to racism. Instead Fatton argues that over the course of its existence, the Movement developed a revolutionary ideology capable of challenging the cultural and political hegemony of apartheid. The Black Consciousness Movement came to be a synthesis of class awareness and black cultural assertiveness. It represented the ethico-political weapon of an oppressed class struggling to reaffirm its humanity through active participation in the demise of a racist and capitalist system.