The violent liberation struggle against apartheid and its violent legacy: was it worth it?

I start with a rather reactionary title that will not make many people happy as they fought against Apartheid or knew people that died during the anti-Apartheid struggle. My point is not that Apartheid should have been allowed to continue, but that the violent means to combat Apartheid was sure folly. Apartheid was an evil corrupt system that had to go.

I make these claims firstly as a pacifist and secondly as a student of history as well as my understanding of the present. These claims do not arise from a form of religious pacifism as many pacifists’ claims often are, but that of pragmatic pacifism (sometimes conditional). I believe that the costs of war and most forms of inter-personal violence are too substantial and that there are better ways of ending oppression and solving disputes.

The costs of war is never to be measured in a straight forward body count as often the bodies add up long after the conflict is over. Pragmatic pacifism does the longer math involved. How many deaths must accrue after the conflict for the conflict to not have been worth it? How many atrocities make the violent struggle another form of oppression?

A friend mentioned Sharpeville as an example of the futility of non-violent protest. A community marched to the Sharpeville police station demanding to be arrested for not carrying their passes. The police responded by firing on the unarmed crowd massacring 69 people. Many were shot in the back as they tried to flee.

The global reaction to this horror began the unwinding of Apartheid as things were set in motion to isolate South Africa through sports boycotts, removal from the Commonwealth, weapon embargoes as well as a series of United Nations resolutions (not scuttled by any vetoes as so often the case today). Had Sharpeville been a military attack on a police station the world would not have cared less about the number of deaths. The sheer horror of an attack against unarmed people galvanised the world against South Africa.

The decision to embark on a violent struggle with the formation of MK (uMkhonto we Sizwe) was shortly followed by fracturing of alliances between those committed to non-violence as well as the waning of some international support.

The militarised anti-Apartheid struggle developed and expanded. Groups were armed in the townships and Self Defence Units were created. The ANC through MK operatives began a strategy of ‘ungovernability’ where all state organs were made targets and the townships no go areas for the police. The result has been to create an ungovernable people that use violence as there main means of protest and opposition. There is also a generalised lack of compassion for those suffering from violent acts (rape and xenophobia for example).

It is claimed that 4000 people were necklaced with burning tires in the townships of South Africa. While never ANC policy, the unleashing of vigilantes through the Self Defence Units (SDUs) allowed for horrific forms of violent opposition to be created.

The legacy is that people still get necklaced in the townships, and violence plagues this beautiful country. The dehumanisation of those deemed ‘other’ continues and this is why we see that if people go on strike they burn cars, smash shop windows and attack those deemed to be in opposition. If they don’t like foreigners in their neighbourhood, they burn them to death, beat them and drive them out.

The violence developed over the years and became even more extreme into the 1980s on both sides of the conflict. A cycle of violence was created.

During the height of the armed struggle Andrew Zondo planted a bomb at the Sanlam Centre in Amanzimtoti killing five civilians against ANC directives. His actions almost scuttled the negotiations completely. On this matter the ANC’s submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) states: “With regard to those attacks on ‘soft targets’ for which MK personnel were responsible, the ANC does not seek to justify such attacks, but insists that the context in which they occurred is relevant”. Zondo had planted the bomb in retaliation for an attack in Lesotho where nine people were killed by the Apartheid state. Violent actions beget violent reactions. Repression was stepped up as Apartheid state reacted to the crime.

I believe from a logical perspective that had a strategy of non-violent confrontation had continued Apartheid would have fell as quickly and with less of a violent legacy still shackling this country to the past. People have become used to witnessing horrific acts and that is why, for me, the most horrific images of the recent xenophobia was the crowds laughing and cheering in the background as a man was burnt to death.

Apartheid struggle heroes (and wanna be heroes) do not wish to hear that their violent struggle was not worth it. I believe that the violence created to destroy Apartheid also destroyed something humane/human in people and this is what we see today in current violent crime, riots over lack of service delivery, xenophobia, and broad lack of compassion for one another.

Edmund Burke famously condemned pacifism by stating “evil will always flourish when good men do nothing”. My response is not to do “nothing”, but to do something different. And many people did not react violently to oppose Apartheid and I feel that they are the real struggle heroes, and the ones least often commemorated. If people start from a premise that violence will not end suffering then they can begin to imagine a new world.