“The Nationalist attack was not concentrated on the African people. The Suppression of Communism Act affected every democrat and served as a barrage to keep off the forces of democracy whilst anti-democratic legislation was being passed and enforced.
“The Defiance Campaign uncovered and produced a large body of people of all races, in all parts of the world, who were sympathetic to the cause of the non-European people and of democracy. There was at the time a plan for co-operation between the main non-European political organisations only. Following the lessons of the Defiance Campaign, the need was felt for an organisation through which the ANC and other non-European bodies could make contact with those whites who were prepared to join the non-European in their fight for freedom and democracy.
“In the absence of an organised body of European opinion openly and publicly proclaiming its opposition to the government’s racialist policies and supporting the non-European cause, the political conflict was developing a dangerously black versus white complexion. Such a situation no doubt suited the present government, but it did not suit the ANC nor the movement for liberation, and had to be avoided.
“It was to a packed meeting of Europeans in 1952 that leaders of the ANC and the SAIC appealed for an organisation that would take its stand alongside the three main non-European organisations in their resistance to Nationalist tyranny, which was preparing to arm itself during the 1953 session of Parliament with the Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Public Safety Act, in addition to the Suppression of Communism Act. In response to the appeal, those Europeans who saw the approaching danger to South Africa and to democracy, admitted the justice of our cause and had the courage to identify themselves with that cause, came forward to found the South African Congress of Democrats. Whether they were communists or anti-communists was immaterial. In any event, in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act everybody was a ‘communist’ who disliked the Nationalist government’s policies and said so.
“Whether the men and women who came together as the COD did, or did not, honour Western civilisation or Christian values would have been difficult to say, assuming the question was relevant. The Nationalist government has already claimed that it is protecting Western civilisation and is acting in the name of Christianity. The present leader of the Nationalist Party, Dr Verwoerd, claims that God chose him as Prime Minister and God is supposed to have done this in spite of the sordid tale of misery and disaster which forms part of the record of Dr Verwoerd’s administration and the Department of Native Affairs.
“One might well ask, what would have been the fate of ‘Western’ civilisation if England had withdrawn from the last war when Russia joined the Allies against Germany? Or if America had stayed out of the war because communist Russia was in it?”
WHO CONTROLS WHOM?
“Let us examine the other objection to the alliance of the Congresses, namely that the Congress of Democrats controls the ANC. Can it be said that there is anything which, but for its association or alliance with the COD, the ANC would have done or refrained from doing? It surely cannot be suggested that the ANC would not have conducted a militant struggle against oppression. The main feature of the 1949, annual conference of the ANC was its adoption of a Programme of Action, not a programme of inaction, and in taking this decision, the ANC was not influenced or directed by any other organisation, although, as indicated earlier, it was largely influenced by the politics of the Nationalist Party government. And what the ANC has done since 1949, both before and after the formation of COD, has been to carry out its decisions to embark on militant action.
“It is true that other aspects of the 1949 Programme have not been carried out. These are certainly less hazardous than ‘mass action’ and are no doubt more attractive to those who cannot but have regard to considerations of risk and safety. In fact, it is significant that a large percentage of the brave and courageous men who are busy carrying out a programmed action against COD have had little contact with the campaigns conducted by the ANC since 1949, their source of information about such campaigns being what they read in newspapers and books. One cannot help feeling that had they accorded the 1949 Programme a status in any degree higher than a suitable topic for discussion at academic meetings of political clubs or literary and debating societies, they would know that in the field of political strife the COD has stood, not with the Nationalists, but with the ANC as a friend and ally, and not a dictator and controller, and that it hardly merits being placed in the position of an enemy of the oppressed people.
“It is safe to give the assurance that the present leaders of the ANC will leave it to the Nationalist government and those who sympathise with it, either to attack and victimise any of the Congresses or take steps in the form of propaganda or otherwise, to weaken and undermine the liberatory front.”
INFERIORITY COMPLEX
“If, as has been alleged ad nauseam, the COD has been dominating or controlling the ANC by virtue of the mere fact that it is a ‘white’ organisation, then the COD cannot be blamed for their being ‘superior’. In that event the ‘inferior’ ANC, to save itself from this inevitable control or domination, must either run away from the COD and, necessarily, from the anti-apartheid struggle in which COD is involved, or alternatively, the ANC must join hands with the Nationalist Party and fight the COD. The ANC will do neither.
“Those Africans who believe, or have been influenced by the belief, that they are inferior or cannot hold their own against other groups, are advised to keep out of any alliance with such groups and, prevention being better than cure, to refrain from joining the people in their active struggle for basic human rights, for in such a struggle many races are to be found.
“The ANC is not led by ‘inferiors’. It does not suffer from any nightmares about being controlled or dominated by any organisation; it is not subject to any such control or domination, and will not run away from the political struggle, or from a group or organisation. On the contrary it will continue to lead the movement for liberation against injustice and tyranny to freedom and democracy.”
(New Age, 13 November 1958)
Introduction
When Tambo went into exile in 1960, the process of decolonisation had only recently begun in Africa. Newly independent African states condemned apartheid and began an international drive towards isolating South Africa diplomatically and economically. Resentment against white colonialism was fuelled when on 5 October 1960 white South Africans voted, by the narrowest of margins, to become a Republic, duly declared on 31 May 1961. In March of that year South Africa was forced out of the Commonwealth. The white minority regime withdrew into a laager, protected to the north by a cordon of states in which white supremacy held sway. Its other neighbours, Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland, were nominally independent but actually dominated by South Africa because of migrant labour and economic dependence.
Reacting to the banning of the ANC, the wholesale arrests of leaders and activists, and the clamp down on all public protest, the ANC resolved that the non-violent path could not be sustained. It created a military wing to prepare for a new mode of struggle initially based on sabotage. On 16 December 1961 Umkhonto we Sizwe, with Mandela as Commander-in-Chief, announced its existence with a manifesto and attacks on government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Umkhonto disavowed all types of terrorism and stated that its targets were installations not persons. There followed a year and a half of underground organisation and actions, until in July 1963 most of the top Umkhonto leaders were arrested at Rivonia, near Johannesburg, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
With the gathering storm of state oppression inside South Africa, it was Tambo’s initial task to establish a foreign mission. He devoted himself to fundraising and diplomatic representations in world forums. In June 1960 Tambo was instrumental in establishing a South African United Front with the SAIC, the PAC and SWANU. It lasted until early 1962 when it broke up as a result of PAC hostility to co-operation with the ANC.
By this time the sabotage campaign had begun inside South Africa, while the external mission