Internal resistance to apartheid

Internal resistance to apartheid
Part of the decolonisation of Africa

Nelson Mandela burns his passbook in 1960 as part of a civil disobedience campaign.
Date4 June 1948 – 10 May 1994
(45 years, 11 months and 6 days)[note 1]
Location
South Africa
Result

Military stalemate between MK and South African security forces[2][3]
Bilateral negotiations to end apartheid[4]

Territorial
changes		 Integration of the bantustans, change of provincial borders in South Africa.
Belligerents
AVF
AWB		 MK (ANC/SACP)
AZANLA (AZAPO)
APLA (PAC)
ARM
SAYRCO
UDF (non-violent resistance only)
Torch Commando
Commanders and leaders
Constand Viljoen
Eugène Terre'Blanche		 Oliver Tambo
Nelson Mandela
Winnie Mandela
Joe Slovo
Joe Modise
Moses Mabhida
Moses Kotane
Walter Sisulu
Govan Mbeki
Raymond Mhlaba
Lennox Lagu
Sailor Malan
Casualties and losses
21,000 dead as a result of political violence (1948–94)[5]
Part of a series on
Apartheid
Organisations
People
Places
Related topics

Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors of South African society and took forms ranging from social movements and passive resistance to guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.[6][4]

Apartheid was adopted as a formal South African government policy by the NP following their victory in the 1948 general election.[7] From the early 1950s, the African National Congress (ANC) initiated its Defiance Campaign of passive resistance.[1] Subsequent civil disobedience protests targeted curfews, pass laws, and "petty apartheid" segregation in public facilities. Some anti-apartheid demonstrations resulted in widespread rioting in Port Elizabeth and East London in 1952, but organised destruction of property was not deliberately employed until 1959.[8] That year, anger over pass laws and environmental regulations perceived as unjust by black farmers resulted in a series of arsons targeting sugarcane plantations.[8] Organisations such as the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) remained preoccupied with organising student strikes and work boycotts between 1959 and 1960.[8] Following the Sharpeville massacre, some anti-apartheid movements, including the ANC and PAC, began a shift in tactics from peaceful non-cooperation to the formation of armed resistance wings.[9]

Mass strikes and student demonstrations continued into the 1970s, powered by growing black unemployment, the unpopularity of the South African Border War, and a newly assertive Black Consciousness Movement.[10] The brutal suppression of the 1976 Soweto uprising radicalised a generation of black activists and greatly bolstered the strength of the ANC's guerrilla force, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).[11] From 1976 to 1987 MK carried out a series of successful bomb attacks targeting government facilities, transportation lines, power stations, and other civil infrastructure. South Africa's military often retaliated by raiding ANC safe houses in neighbouring states.[12]

The NP made several attempts to reform the apartheid system, beginning with the Constitutional Referendum of 1983. This introduced the Tricameral Parliament, which allowed for some parliamentary representation of Coloureds and Indians, but continued to deny political rights to black South Africans.[4] The resulting controversy triggered a new wave of anti-apartheid social movements and community groups which articulated their interests through a national front in politics, the United Democratic Front (UDF).[4] Simultaneously, inter-factional rivalry between the ANC, the PAC and the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), a third militant force, escalated into sectarian violence as the three groups fought for influence.[13] The government took the opportunity to declare a state of emergency in 1986 and detain thousands of its political opponents without trial.[14]

Secret bilateral negotiations to end apartheid commenced in 1987 as the National Party reacted to increased external pressure and the atmosphere of political unrest.[4] Leading ANC officials such as Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu were released from prison between 1987 and 1989, and in 1990 the ANC and PAC were formally delisted as banned organisations by President F. W. de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela was released from prison. The same year, MK reached a formal ceasefire with the South African Defence Force.[13] Further apartheid laws were abolished on 17 June 1991, and multiparty negotiations proceeded until the first multi-racial general election held in April 1994.[15]

  1. ^ a b "The Defiance Campaign". South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid Building Democracy. Archived from the original on 1 December 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  2. ^ du Toit, Pierre (2001). South Africa's Brittle Peace: The Problem of Post-Settlement Violence. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 90–94. ISBN 978-0333779187.
  3. ^ Powell, Jonathan (2015). Terrorists at the Table: Why Negotiating is the Only Way to Peace. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 146–147. ISBN 978-1250069887.
  4. ^ a b c d e Thomas, Scott (1995). The Diplomacy of Liberation: The Foreign Relations of the ANC Since 1960. London: Tauris Academic Studies. pp. 202–210. ISBN 978-1850439936.
  5. ^ Ugorji, Basil (2012). From Cultural Justice to Inter-Ethnic Mediation: A Reflection on the Possibility of Ethno-Religious Mediation in Africa. Denver: Outskirts Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-1432788353.
  6. ^ Tom Lodge, "Action against Apartheid in South Africa, 1983–94", in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 213–30. ISBN 978-0-19-955201-6.
  7. ^ Ottoway, Marina (1993). South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order. Washington: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 23–26. ISBN 978-0815767152.
  8. ^ a b c Lodge, Tim (2011). Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and Its Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 31–34. ISBN 978-0192801852.
  9. ^ Morton, Stephen (2013). States of Emergency: Colonialism, Literature and Law. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 94–96. ISBN 978-1846318498.
  10. ^ Jacklyn Cock, Laurie Nathan (1989). War and Society: The Militarisation of South Africa. New Africa Books. pp. 135–136. ISBN 978-0-86486-115-3.
  11. ^ Ottoway, Marina (1993). South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order. Washington: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 50–52. ISBN 978-0815767152.
  12. ^ Minter, William (1994). Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. pp. 114–117. ISBN 978-1439216187.
  13. ^ a b Mitchell, Thomas (2008). Native vs Settler: Ethnic Conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 194–196. ISBN 978-0313313578.
  14. ^ Pandey, Satish Chandra (2006). International Terrorism and the Contemporary World. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, Publishers. pp. 197–199. ISBN 978-8176256384.
  15. ^ Myre, Greg (18 June 1991). "South Africa ends racial classifications". Southeast Missourian. Cape Girardeau. Retrieved 18 August 2016.


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