South Africa: The Violent Alternative

Abstract

In the 1950s when the South African liberation movement headed by the African National Congress conducted a series of mass protest campaigns against White domination the movement won large scale support within the country. This vital struggle also gained considerable recognition internationally and world sympathy and support for the Black victims of apartheid was very great. Yet the campaigns of the fifties failed to dislodge White power and few would argue that the methods of struggle of those days would be effective today. Instead there is a growing acceptance that the situation has deteriorated to the point where violence is endemic in the system and that some form of race war is inevitable. The use of armed force by the liberation movement seems to be a natural consequence of the system of total repression that the government has set up.