FACT VS FICTION: A RESPONSE TO JULIUS MALEMA'S BLUE LIES!
Now that the dust has settled, we respond to Julius Malema's article in which he tries to justify his delusion that "Sharpeville events started by the ANC" (see here). The article fails dismally to factually support the loosely held view that PAC hijacked the Positive Action Campaign, aimed at the apartheid pass laws, from the ANC.
It is shameful that the ANC continues to feed its youth with its cheap party political propaganda that has no historical basis against volumes of historical facts and references on the conception, planning, organizing and roll out of the PAC's 21st March 1960 Positive Action Campaign. This response seeks to make a distinction between fact and fiction.
ANC POST - 1944
It is a matter of fact that the African National Congress (ANC) was the first political party of African people to be launched and therefore a forerunner of the African struggle against white domination and fight for freedom as established in 1912. The ANC was set up for the return of African land and to fight against white settler colonialism. The ANC was led mainly by chiefs, teachers and other professionals. The ANC leadership was mainly pursuing a moderate approach and spent most of its time sending delegates to Britain and Pretoria to negotiate a deal to be part of white's only ruling club.It is a matter of fact that the ANC was reasonably harmless to the apartheid regime during this period which led to discontent amongst the youth over strategy, tactics and impact of the ANC in relation to the pace of the liberation struggle.
FORMATION OF THE CONGRESS YOUTH LEAGUE (LATER ANCYL)
The formation of the Congress Youth League in 1944 radically transformed the ANC into a determined political party that sought militant confrontation of the white settler government, freedom and self-determination for African people. The CYL was formed by youth leaders like Anton Lembede (Founding President) AP Mda, Godfrey Pitjie to name but a few. The majority of CYL leaders were Africanists, who rejected collaboration with the white settler oppressor or having white liberals' masquerading as communists, leading our struggle for self-determination.
The CYL developed a Programme of Action in 1949 that was designed to redirect the struggle for self-determination and fast track the return of indigenous African land stolen by white settler colonialist. Amongst the leaders who crafted the Programme of Action were Sobukwe and Godfrey Pitje from Fort Hare CYL branch.
The CYL was able to force the leadership of the ANC to adopt the 1949 Programme of Action as its Programme of Action going forward. The adoption of the 1949 Programme of Action enabled the ANC for the first time in its history to launch a resistance campaign in 1952 called the Defiance Campaign. This enabled the African masses to challenge and defy the white settler colonial authority for the first time since the Bambatha rebellion in 1906. The majority of Africanists leaders like Sobukwe, Mothopeng and many others lost their jobs because of their role in the Defiance Campaign.
The majority of the multi-racialists in the ANC was uncomfortable by the power wilded by the Africanist in the ANC and collaborated with their white friends to smuggle a document that would undermine and lead to the abandonment of the 1949 Programme of Action called ‘Freedom' Charter.
ADOPTION OF THE FREEDOM CHARTER
In a meeting held at Kliptown, the collaborationists in the ANC and their white friends succeeded to smuggle the Freedom Charter, a document that was not known even known by the naïve ANC President General, Chief Albert Luthuli, read his autobiography Let My People Go.
The adoption of this treacherous document reversed all the gains the African masses had made since the adoption of 1949 Programme of Action. This document was premised on the principle that says South Africa belongs to all who lived in it which, by implication meant, that the oppressed and the oppressor were equal, the dispossessed was equal with the dispossessor, the slave was equal to the Master. This was interpreted by the Africanists as betrayal of the highest order. It would be noted that the ‘Freedom' Charter was imposed on party members. Debates were suppressed and those who dared to challenge it were closed down and eventually expelled as it happened with the Africanists at the Transvaal Conference of the ANC in 1958.
THE FORMATION OF THE PAC
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania was formed in 1959, April 6 with the following objectives:
- To Unite and rally the African people into one national front on the basis of African Nationalism.
- To fight for the overthrow of white domination, and for the implementation and maintenance of the right of self determination
- To work and strive for the establishment of the Africanist Socialist Democracy recognizing the primacy of the material and spiritual interests of the human personality
- To propagate educational, cultural and economic advancement of the African people
- To propagate and promote the concept of the federation of Southern Africa and Pan Africanism by promoting unity among peoples of Africa.
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS LEADING TO THE STATUS CAMPAIGN
Conception Phase
The PAC from its very formation indicated its intention of taka radical approach in dealing with the white settler regime, as opposed to the ANC's moderate approach. In a speech Sobukwe delivered in a rally to mark African Heroes Day in 1959, Sobukwe amplified PAC attitude and approach to the liberation struggle. He stated then:
"The issues are clear-cut. The Pan Africanist Congress has done away with equivocation and clever talk. The decks are cleared, and in the arena of South African politics there are today only two adversaries: the oppressor and the oppressed, the master and slave."
At its Founding Congress on the 06 April 1959 PAC adopted 1949 Programme of Action as its guiding programme and resolved to embark on a Positive Action Campaign that would roll out a wave upon wave of activities to challenge the white settler minority regime in pursuit of self determination. The idea of a Positive Action Campaign was conceived in the Founding Congress of the PAC in 1959 which nullifies lies that PAC hijacked the programme days before the ANC initiated its programme.
Planning Phase
On the 24 - 26 December 1959 the PAC held its first inaugural National Conference that adopted anti-past campaign as its first programme to be initiated as part of its Status Campaign adopted at the founding Congress in April 1959. The National Conference also adopted a Plan of Action for the successful roll-out of the campaign. The Conference assigned the National Working Committee (NWC) with the task of monitoring and evaluating the planning and organising for the Status Campaign. The President Robert Sobukwe was given authority to issue the date to launch the campaign.
Organising Phase
The NWC met fortnightly since the December 1959 National Conference to develop strategies and tactics to implement the campaign successfully. It's these meetings that set out Task Forces to handle nationwide planning and organizing for the campaign. It was also at NWC meetings where progress reports were delivered and deliberated upon. It also deployed leaders to different parts of the country to agitate the masses on the ground. Party leaders were tasked to campaign at bus ranks, train stations, churches and elsewhere about the programme. The process of planning and organizing the campaign took almost 10 months of hard work from PAC leaders and party Task Forces, contrary to ANC's blue lies.
Implementation Phase
A veteran of the struggle I.B. Tabata conceded that:
"Mr Sobukwe and PAC read the mood of the masses more correctly than anyone else: hence massive support for the Positive Action Campaign continued to roll in as from March 21."
Following an intense door to door campaign and meetings in different parts of the country addressed by PAC NEC members, the President Robert Sobukwe announced at a Press Conference held in Johannesburg March 18, 1960 that the PAC would launch a first phase of unfolding programme for the liberation of South Africa on March 21 1960. The target of this campaign would be the pas laws...the lynchpin of the system of apartheid in South Africa
An accusation by Malema that PAC organized for the Anti-Pass Campaign under the name of the ANC or Ukhongolose is laughable and founded on childish analysis. It is on record that PAC organized under its banner and Sobukwe`s popularity. The masses who participated in the march were quite aware that they were participating in a PAC event as this was made clear on the pamphlets handed out, communicated during the door to door campaigns done by PAC Task Forces and members and made crystal clear by PAC leaders in their addresses throughout the country.
According to Frankie on his Memoir's on Sharpeville Massacre, he wrote as follows:
"... at the final assembly point, the marchers numbered more than 10 000 men, women and children chanting slogan and singing freedom songs:
Izwe lethu! i-Africa - Our land Africa
Awaphele amapasi - Down with passes
Sobukwe Sikhokhele - Lead us Sobukwe
Forward to independence, Tomorrow the United State of Africa"
Nowhere does he indicate that people were calling ANC names, chanting ANC songs and calling on Luthuli to lead them. Branch leaders who were leading the campaign were well known PAC members and organizers. There was no way the masses could have been misled to believe they were ANC organizers noting that ANC leaders or organizers were well known in the respective communities as it was the oldest party.
South Africa's recently appointed Ambassador to Uganda John Qwelani once observed as follows:
"....Our children are being deliberately misled and brainwashed by the ruling crowd to forget Sharpville and its meaning because their idea is to wipe away forever anything which keeps highlighting the important role played by the Pan Africanist Congress in the fight against oppression and racialism."
To further substantiate the fact that the PAC conceptualized, planned, organized and led the Positive Action Campaign is the fact that ANC leaders refused to participate and were not implicated nor incarcerated for participating or planning the campaign but only PAC leaders and members were arrested and sentenced to Robben Island for organising and leading this historic campaign.
Nelson Mandela is a politician not a saint and therefore everything he wrote in his book ‘Long Walk to Freedom' was written with a political agenda and therefore cannot be accepted as the gospel truth as Malema wants us to believe. Mind you that Mandela and Sobukwe were serious rivals since the days of the CYL; it would be unfair to Sobukwe and PAC to use Mandela's opinion as an arbiter on this historic event of our struggle for liberation noting that Mandela has political interest on the matter in question.
The ANC and Malema should be know that the PAC does not want to be honoured by the ANC for its glorious achievements in the liberation struggle of people but history and posterity would do the honors. We just want them to cease their evil attempts to highjack PAC glories and claiming them as theirs... finish and klaar.
Issued by Kwame Ndebele, Pan Africanist Youth Congress (PAYCO) of Azania president
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
