NATIONAL MOVEMENTS AND THE NEW STATES IN AFRICA
Preface
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN NATIONALISM
CHAPTER 2: THE ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR
CHAPTER 3: THE IMPACT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR ON AFRICA
CHAPTER FOUR:THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION
CHAPTER FIVE:THE GHANAIAN REVOLUTION
CHAPTER SIX:THE DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA: UNITY OR BALKANIZATION
CHAPTER SEVEN:PAN AFRICANISM
CHAPTER NINE:NEO-COLONIALISM
CHAPTER TEN:AFRICAN POLITICAL PARTIES: THEIR ROLE IN THE REGAINING OF INDEPENDENCE
CHAPTER ELEVEN:NATIONALISM IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER TWELVE: NATIONALISM IN CONGO
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:NATIONALISM IN TANGANYIKA
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:NATIONALISM IN KENYA: THE DEFEAT OF REGIONALISM
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:MAU- MAU IN KENYA (1952-1956)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:THE ALGERIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:THE ARMED STRUGGLE: THE 1960S AND 1970S
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN MOZAMBIQUE
CHAPTER NINETEEN:THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN ZIMBABWE
CHAPTER TWENTY:THE POLISARIO WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:THE LIBERATION WAR IN NAMIBIA
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO:AFRIKANER AND AFRICAN NATIONALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA
Introduction
Nationalist Party Governments and Polichy 1948-78
Origins and causes of Apartheid
Apartheid laws
The failure of the Bantustans or homelands
AFRICAN NATIONALISM: The fakilure of Gandhism
AFRICAN NATIONALISM: Black consciousness
The beginnings of the armed struggle in South Africa
The reaction to Apartheid
The external reactions
The steps taken by the Whites to end Apartheid
''Reforms" in Apartheid
Factors which favoured the independence of South Africa
Obstacles to South Africa's Independence (1931 - 1994).
The impact of the Apartheid
Reasons for the Increased Opposition To Apartheid After 1945.
The role of the OAU in fighting Apartheid
The role of the UNO in dismantling Apartheid.
The role of Front Line states in fighting Apartheid.
Other factors which helped to dismantle apartheid
The role of the ANC in fighting Apartheid.
NELSON MANDELA
REFERENCES
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE:NATIONALISM IN UGANDA
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR:UGANDA NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT (UNLF) (1979-1980)
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE:PROBLEMS OF DISUNITY: CIVIL WAR IN SUDAN
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:THE ERITREAN SECESSION WAR FROM 1961-1993
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:POLITICAL INSTABILITIES IN THE HORN OF AFRICA.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:SECESSIONISM IN ZAIRE, 1960-
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:THE NIGERIAN CIVIL/ SECESSION WAR, 1967-70
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE:THE CIVIL WAR IN CHAD FROM 1965-1982
CHAPTER THIRTY:THE ANGOLAN CIVIL WAR, 1975-6
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:MOZAMBICAN CIVIL WAR 1977-1994
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO:THE RWANDA REVOLUTION- 1959-1994
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE:THE ZANZIBAR REVOLUTION OF 1964
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:MILITARY COUP D'ETATS
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:THE LIBYAN REVOLUTION- 1969
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX:THE ONE-PARTY SYSTEM
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN:MULTIPARTY SYSTEM
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT:NATIONAL UNITY AND SOCIALISM
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE:AFRICAN CULTURE
CHAPTER FOURTY:REGIONAL AFRICAN ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER FOURTY ONE:POPULATION EXPLOSION IN AFRICA
CHAPTER FOURTY TWO:WARS BETWEEN INDEPENDENT AFRICAN STATES
CHAPTER FOURTY THREE:NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT (NAM)
CHAPTER FOURTY FOUR:MAJOR PROBLEMS OF AFRICA
CHAPTER FOURTY FIVE:THE BEST TECHNIQUES TO PASSING A' LEVEL HISTORY PAPER 1
REFERENCES

The significance of the Soweto rising of June 1976 is twofold. First, it marks a transition from the traditional patterns (since 1912) of Gandhian-style non-violent resistance to a more militantly unco-operative and semi-violent form of protest. The great mass of the protesting school children of Soweto were totally defenceless and all were unarmed; a minority retaliated against police gas and bullets with relatively harmless bottles and stones, rather than turn the other check in the style of Gandhian and Christian pacifism that had characterized the earlier resistance of their parents.

 

Second, the rising, although obviously defeated in the physical sense, marked the outbreak of a widespread national resistance movement involving school children, university students, and urban workers throughout the country - a resistance that continues to the time of writing, and was spearheaded by the new Black Consciousness organizations.

 

The Black Consciousness movement which grew up before 1976 was inspired largely by an outstanding and brilliant young leader, Steve Biko (1946-77). Biko was born in King William's Town in the eastern Cape. He Studied medicine at Natal University where he observed the futility of the multiracial approach to opposition to apartheid of the white-led National Union of South African Students (NUSAS).

Biko became the theoretician of the evolving theory of Black Consciousness, where white power was seen as the enemy and the only answer to it was the gradual building up of black strength. But, according to Biko first of all black awareness of the nature of the problem was necessary; then, when Africans were conscious of the need for self-reliance and independent planning of their aims and tactics, and had sovercome dependence both on white liberals and on ethnicism, they could move forward in unity and in total conviction.

 

Before 1976 the Black Consciousness movement was largely a student movement and a cultural one. It could be said to have started in 1968 when Biko founded the South African Students' Organization (SASO) for black university students. Biko became SASO's first President. Eventually two corresponding organizations were set up: the South African Student Movement (SASM) for secondary school students, and the. Black People's Convention (BPC) for non-Students.

Nelson with his WINNIE MANDELA, " the mother of the struggle" in early her days as a leader of the protracted resistance.

 

In the early 1970s, SASO, SASM and BPC expanded steadily, as they recruited Africans, Coloureds and Asians, and strove to conquer feelings among their members of black inferiority. The movement worked within the law and was non-violent. It excluded whites. As Biko explained: 'We needed time to look at our own problems, and not leave, them to people without experience of the terrible conditions in the black townships or of the system of Bantu education.'} Biko was, however, more than a theoretician.

 

He ran the Zimele Trust Fund, which supported former detainees and their families. He helped to organize self-help schemes, especially clinics. With many of his colleagues he suffered frequently from the political repression of the Vorster government. In 1973 Biko, Barney Pityana and six other Black Consciousness leaders were banned from political involvement. Biko was restricted to his home town for five years. From 1973 to 1977 he was frequently arrested for breaking banning orders, and in 1975 he was held for 75 days without charge or trial. An exiled colleague, Abrahim Tiro, was killed by a parcel bomb posted to him in Botswana in 1974.

 

There is no doubt that the Black Consciousness movement played a role in inspiring and organizing the Soweto rising. The Soweto Students' Representative Council (SSRC) which emerged to lead the rising was strongly influenced by Biko's ideas. However, there were several factors behind the Soweto rising.

 

The secondary school students were not immune from the general discontent at conditions in Johannesburg's South Western Townships, where 1, 500, 000 people lived in housing designed for only 600 000, where 86 per cent of the houses had no electricity and 97 per cent had no running water, where there was only one hospital, and where very high unemployment was exacerbated by the lack of suitable entertainment facilities beyond, a single cinema (always full) and illegal drinking dens in private houses.

 

Blacks had to stay away from the bright lights of central Johannesburg, because only whiles were allowed to go there at night. As a result gangs roamed the streets of Soweto at night; hooliganism, protection rackets, robbery and murder were rife. A thousand people were murdered in Soweto in 1974. In addition, Soweto school pupils, like their counterparts all over South Africa, saw little prospect of 'employment in a deteriorating economic situation. By 1976 the economy was in reverse, with wage increases pegged at a level below that of rising inflation and food and transport costs soaring.

 

Given the general situation in Soweto, and the growing impact of Black Consciousness there, the government's decision to impose compulsory teaching in Afrikaans of Mathematics, History and Geography (50 per cent of the timetable) in African schools was like showing a red rag to a bull. On 17 May 1976 the pupils of Orlando West Junior Secondary School went on strike against the Afrikaans-medium rule.
Over the next month the strike spread to nearby schools. The pupils feared indoctrination in Afrikaner racial theories, VA failing examinations in subjects taught by teachers not fluent in Afrikaans, and gaining educational qualifications in a language that was not international.

 

On 16 June a demonstration of 15 000 pupils was fired on by the police who killed 25 demonstrators. The next day the government relaxed the Afrikaans-medium ruling, but mass disturbances continued because of the accumulation of background discontent and the outrage at the shootings. Eight days of rioting and street fighting ended with several hundred youths being shot or beaten to death by the police, who gave an official estimate of 176 deaths.
The aftermath of the Soweto rising was marked by the emergence of a widespread countrywide resistance movement at first spearheaded by the Black Consciousness orientated SSRC and SASM.

 

In August anti-government rioting broke out in other Rand townships and in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Coloured students held solidarity demonstrations in Cape Town, and in September they battled against the police with petrol bombs. Also in September there were strikes all over the Rand, involving half a million workers.
As opposition developed throughout the country it extended from a focus on education to one which expressed many of the basic grievances of black people; lack of jobs, pitifully low wages, inadequate or non-existent social services, and no control over, or participation in. the decisions affecting their daily lives. Moreover, the new mood of resistance was partly inspired by the victories of the MPLA in Angola. The protest movement in the schools continued into 1977. Soweto schools remained closed for many months.

 

The fact remains, however, that the government managed to contain both the Soweto rising and the general outburst of demonstrations in its aftermath. By the end of 1976, the police had killed a thousand protestors in South Africa. The revolt was limited in area and scope, failing to embrace the 'homelands' and the mineworkers.
But if the wave of protest was contained, it was not suppressed. The schools boycott increased in intensity in 1977. In Soweto few schools reopened. In September 1977, 600 out of 700 Soweto teachers joined the pupils' boycott, which now spread throughout the. A country so that in October 196 000 black students were boycotting their schools. In Soweto opposition also took the form of a struggle against proposed rent increases, led by the SSRC.

 

The increases were postponed and then implemented in three stages a victory of sorts for the SSRC. The same year, 1977, also saw a mass movement of opposition in the western Cape against the shortage of African housing, a situation made worse by Government decisions to demolish squatter shanty towns around Cape Town. The response of the Vorster government to this continuing protest was to resort to terror tactics.

South African political leader Stephen Biko was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement in the late 1960s. He became a martyr for black nationalism in 1977 after he was arrested by the white-minority government, was beaten, and later died in prison.

 

Intensification of state repression in 1977 culminated in the death of Steve Biko in police custody on 12 September of multiple brain and, body injuries. Biko was murdered either on government orders or by an over-zealous torturer. He was the 46th detainee since to the under interrogation.

 

Why was Biko considered by the regime to be so dangerous that he had to be eliminated?
Biko's movement was non-violent; he was not a 'terrorist,' but the government feared that Black Consciousness ideas were undermining apartheid.

Thoughts and ideas are as dangerous to tyranny as is action. Biko was especially -'' dangerous because he had emerged as his country's most articulate, skilful and powerful advocate of non-violent change. He allied political organizational skills to a charismatic personality.
His ideas had won over black students in universities, teacher-training institutes, theological seminaries and secondary schools and those on the SSRC.
The government followed up the murder of Biko by banning the Black Consciousness organization and detaining many of its leaders. The failure of the countrywide protests at Biko's death highlighted the one obvious major weakness of his movement; the vulnerability of non-violent tactics.

 

Paradoxically, by either killing Biko of allowing him to be killed, the Nationalist Party managed to drive many young black South Africans to support violence. With the voices of pacific reason, such as Biko, silenced, the logical (development for Black Nationalism in the eyes of the young was intensification of the guerilla struggle. Thousands of young blacks fled abroad to escape police repression during the period of demonstrations in 1976-7, and to enlist in the ANC guerilla army. They wanted to emulate Samora Machel, the hero of so many young black South Africans, in a victorious war of liberation against white minority rule.

 

South Africa continued to be rocked by school boycotts and workers' strikes. In June 1980 more than a hundred, mainly Coloured, demonstrators were killed in police shootings in Cape Town. The Black Consciousness organizations have been revived (1978) in the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) which linked up with the strike at the Ford motor-car factory in Port Elizabeth. The mass protest movement has spread from Soweto, Cape Town and the eastern Cape to Coloureds in Bloemfontein, Africans and Indians in Durban, and Indians in the Transvaal. However, ethnicism - still remains a serious obstacle to effective black resistance. The best organized black political movement is Inkatha, a Zulu ethnic association revived in 1975 by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, the chief minister of the Kwa-Zulu Bantustan, and used by him to build a mass base of support both in Kwa-Zulu and among Zulu migrant workers in the towns.

 

In some ways Buthelezi remains South Africa's most effective black leader; he has prevented the use of reference books (passes) as the basis of registration in Kwa- Zulu; he has led the opposition to Prime Minister Botha's proposed segregated advisory black council. But the basis of Buthelezi's support is dangerously ethnic; Inkatha is an obstacle to black unity and to the development of Black Consciousness.

National Movements and New States in Africa