Racial segregation and the supremacy of whites had been traditionally accepted in South Africa prior to 1948, but in the general election of that year, Daniel F. Malan officially included the policy of apartheid in the Afrikaner Nationalist party platform, bringing his party to power for the first time. Although most whites acquiesced in the policy, there was bitter and sometimes bloody strife over the degree and stringency of its implementation. 2
The purpose of apartheid was separation of the races: not only of whites from nonwhites, but also of nonwhites from each other, and, among the Africans (called Bantu in South Africa), of one group from another. In addition to the Africans, who constitute about 75% of the total population, those regarded as nonwhite include those people known in the country as Coloured (people of mixed black, Malayan, and white descent) and Asian (mainly of Indian ancestry) populations. 3 Initial emphasis was on restoring the separation of races within the urban areas.
A large segment of the Asian and Coloured populations was forced to relocate out of so-called white areas. African townships that had been overtaken by (white) urban sprawl were demolished and their occupants removed to new townships well beyond city limits. Between the passage of the Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1986, about 1. 5 million Africans were forcibly removed from cities to rural reservations. 4 South Africa gains independence from Great Britain after the passage of the Statute of Westminster by the British Parliament in December 1931 and its acceptance by South Africa in June 1934.
From the formation of the independent country, the white minority controls the government and moves to limit the powers of nonwhites and create special designated areas, or homelands, for them to live. The United Nations adopts a resolution condemning the South African government’s treatment of its Indian minority and asks both South Africa and India to report back as to whether conditions had improved to conform with the U. N. charter. A highly publicized effort by India to prevent South Africa from discriminating against the Indian minority marks the most prominent criticism to date of South Africa’s increasingly divisive racial policies.
See Facts On File print edition 1946, p. 39A] The conservative Afrikaner-dominated National Party wins parliamentary elections and gains control of the South African government. The party, under new Premier Dr. Daniel F. Malan, begins taking steps toward implementing apartheid (apartness), the national policy of racial separation. [See Facts On File print edition 1948, p. 171C2]
Group Areas Act is enacted. It segregates communities and relegates the black population to a minor percentage of the nation’s land. See Facts On File print edition 1950, p. 189M] Population Registrations Act is enacted. It requires all South Africans to register their race with the government. Enactment of pass laws. The laws require blacks to carry passbooks so that the government can regulate their travel through the country. Separate Amenities Act is enacted, establishing separate public facilities for whites and nonwhites. The African National Congress and other opposition groups adopt the Freedom Charter, calling for equal political rights for all races.
Police kill 69 unarmed protesters in Sharpeville. The government bans all opposition groups, may of which begin underground armed struggles for black and mixed-race liberation, including the African National Congress. [See Facts On File print edition 1960, pp. 109F3, 103D3] South Africa becomes a republic. The decision to break from the Commonwealth is prompted by Asian and African Commonwealth member sates’ denunciation of South Africa’s apartheid policies, which it refuses to alter. [See Facts On File print edition 1961, p. 7A1]
U. N. General Assembly President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria suspends South Africa from participating in the remainder of assembly sessions for that year. The following day South Africa recalls it U. N. ambassador and freezes its $1 million annual contribution to the organization. [See Facts On File print edition 1963, p. 935F2] Nelson Mandela, an ANC leader, is convicted of sabotage and trying to overthrow the government. He is sentenced to life in prison. [See Facts On File print edition 1964, p. 197C1]
A student protest in the black township of Soweto against mandatory education in Afrikaans spreads. The government, in an effort to suppress the civil unrest, kills 575 people over eight months. [See Facts On File print edition 1976, p. 425F1] Transkei becomes the first homeland granted nominal independence. The 10 homelands eventually make up about 13% of South African territory. [See Facts On File print edition 1976, p. 813A1] Steven Biko, one of the most influential black student leaders in South Africa, is reported to have died from a hunger strike while in police detention. See Facts On File print edition 1977, p. 707C3] White voters approve a new constitution that creates separate chambers in the legislature for Asians and Coloreds (people of mixed race), although not for blacks. [See South African Whites Approve New Constitution; Limited Power Sharing Set] A national state of emergency is imposed following widespread strikes and riots. The decree gives virtually unlimited powers to the security forces and imposes restrictions on the press. [See South Africa Declares National State of Emergency]
Laws requiring blacks to carry passbooks for identification are scrapped. [See South Africa Snubs U. K. Peace Mission To understand the value and significance of June 9. 6 and appreciate its meaning to millions of oppressed Africans in South Africa, it is necessary to recall that the history of white rule in South Africa is a history of rule by force, violence and massacres. There was shooting and killing of Africans during the 1919 Anti-Pass Campaign, during the strike by 80,000 Rand African Miners and the Port Elizabeth African Workers’ Strike in 1920.
In 1921 the notorious Bulhoek Massacre took place when 163 Africans were killed and 130 wounded. The Bondelswart Massacre of 1922 saw 100 people shot dead and hundreds wounded. People were killed during the Durban beer boycott in 1929, and at Potchefstroom and Durban during the 1930 Anti-Pass Campaign. There were killings at Worcester in 1930, Vereeniging in 1938, and during the Rand Africans Miners’ Strike in 1946. White fascist terror took the reigns of government in 1948 and an era of intensified tyranny and brutal repression started.
The introduction of the Unlawful Organisations Bill (later renamed the Suppression of Communism Act) was followed by the shooting down of 18 Africans during May Day demonstrations in Johannesburg on May 1, 1950. In the same year the ANC called on the African and all other oppressed people and democrats of South Africa to join in unity and solidarity on June 26 in a national stoppage of work — which, for the African, was an act of mass defiance of the law — to honour the victims of decades of white violence and massacres and to assert their resolve to pursue the struggle for freedom despite brutal repression.
In their hundreds of thousands, the people responded to the call and thus June 26 came to be accepted and recognised as our National Day, symbolising the nature and objectives of our struggle for freedom, and providing the occasion for rededication to its noble cause. There are many milestones along the path of struggle that followed June 26 1950 – a path strewn with the bodies of our martyred and maimed compatriots. A few of these milestones are here recalled.
In 1952, determined to wage relentless resistance against fascist rule, the ANC, acting in close co-operation with the South African Indian Congress, galvanised the masses into defiance of apartheid legislation, when, from June 26 to December, more than 8,500 freedom fighters defied the unjust and inhuman laws of South Africa and served jail sentences. This was the finest hour in the development of national political awareness among our people. It brought panic and consternation to the white oppressors and their imperialist allies, and resulted in a spate of draconian legislation designed to contain the revolutionary upsurge of the people.
But three years later, on June 26 1955, a heroic and epoch-making Congress of the People was convened in the face of intimidation and victimisation by the racist government and its police force. From every corner of South Africa delegates and representatives of the people assembled at Kliptown, and despite harassment and constant provocation by hundreds of heavily armed police, they drew up a Freedom Charter, which was a blueprint of the political, economic and social structure that the people of South Africa demanded.
The Freedom Charter, adopted on June 9. 6 and acclaimed by freedom-loving people throughout the world as an historic document, became the basis of a charge of high treason against 156 leaders of the liberation movement arrested in 1956; some of these stood trial for five years. In anger the people rose in militant action to assert the demands of the Freedom Charter. The political struggle raged more fiercely and June 26 assumed an ever-increasing significance for the South African people
The Freedom Charter, in the words of Nelson Mandela, is ‘a beacon to the Congress movement and an inspiration to the people of South Africa’. For the first time all the major democratic forces in the country found a common programme. The Charter was subsequently endorsed by national conferences of the SA Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Congress and the Congress of Democrats; by the SA Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and in the 1962 Programme of the South African Communist Party.
Essentially, the South African Freedom Charter stems from the tradition of the proclamations of rights of the French and American revolutions and echoed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It demands rights which are honoured — at least in theory — in almost every country: an equal say for all in the process of making and administering laws, equal access to education, culture, and economic opportunities for all men and women, regardless of race or colour.
The Charter is not a socialist manifesto. Its demands for the redivision of the land among those who work it, and the nationalisation of mineral wealth and monopoly-owned industry, are clearly attributable to the historical realities of a country where the white minority has forcibly appropriated nearly all the country’s land and assets, rather than adherence to socialist doctrine on the part of all those who made and support the Charter.
Yet, in Mandela’s words, the Freedom Charter is ‘a revolutionary document precisely because the changes it envisages cannot be won without breaking up the economic and political set-up of present South Africa. ‘ It was for this reason that the ruling classes of South Africa regarded the Charter as ‘High Treason’.