Albert Luthuli: The End of Nonviolence
Author(s): Ezekiel Mphahlele
Source: Africa Today, Vol. 14, No. 4, Trends in African Liberation Movements (Aug., 1967),
pp. 1-3
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4184807
Accessed: 01-05-2020 12:03 UTC
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
WASHINGTON MEMO-Front Cover
Conference on Admission and Guidance of African
COMMENTARY
U.K.-U.S. Parliamentary Conference
Concludes Session
Students
Ezekiel
Mphahlele
George
Fred
Shepherd
Burke
------
---
1
3
3
New
-
-
----------
-
Quarterly
19
-19
African Students to Serve in VISTA -19
LITERARY
ARTICLES
Guerilla Warfare and African Liberation Movements 3
Colin Legum
African Liberation Movements: Spring 1967 - 10
George M. Houser
Emerging Ideological Patterns Among Southern African Students -- -- --_-_-_- 13
John Strong
The Liberation of Spanish Guinea --- 17
Tilden J. LeMelle with Saturnino Ibongo
ACTION NOTES
African Aid and Legal Defense Fund Gives $50,000 19
Project Africa _ - - - - 19
Southern African Student Program _ - - 19
The Blacks-A Dialogue Across the Seas-Ezekiel
Mphahlele - ----------20
BOOK REVIEWS
U.S. and U.S.S.R. Aid to Developing Countries: A
Comparative Study of India, Turkey, and the U.A.R.Leo Tansky --- 23
Africa: The Politics of Unity-An Analysis of a
Contemporary Social Movement-Immanuel Wallerstein
---23
The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History-ed. by E. Stokes and R. Brown - _ -23
State and Society in Independent North Africa-ed.
by Leon Carl Brown- 23
Copyright 1967, Africa Today Associates, c/o Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver,
University Park Campus, Denver, Colorado 80201
COMMENTARY
Albert Luthuli: The End of Nonviolence
down in court, disowned the ANC and denied all
responsibility for the campaign. That was the end
of him, which marked the ascendancy from almost
complete obscurity of Chief Luthuli to the position
matically recently in a train accident. He was
of president. The plea of non-violence got the
under a Government ban which restricted him to
ANC off on a suspended sentence.
his small home area of Groutville in Natal. Ov7er
In 1955, the Freedom Charter was adopted by
the last few years he had been suffering from high
blood pressure.
what was to be called the Congress Alliancethrough a joint planning council representing the
Albert Luthuli was chief of a Zulu clan and
ANC, the South African Indian and Coloured
was a notable figure in church circles. He conPeople's Congresses, the Congress of Democrats
ceived his role in politics as a Christian leader,
(a white organization). This important document
and yet, unlike several presidents of the African
laid down the principles for a non-racial South
National Congress and its leadership before him,
African society.
he endorsed an action program that had been laid
Chief Luthuli had been brought up on Chrisdown under the initiative of the ANC Youth
tian principles and had been strongly influenced
League in 1949. This program was a turning point
by white Liberals of Alan Paton's stamp; also by
in ANC tactics. It began to see itself as a militant
the generally patronizing attitude of the Natal
but non-violent movement, no more content to
English towards the Zulu.s. He came relatively late
send telegrams of protest to white Cabinet miniin his life into the top ranks of the ANC and so
sters or beg for a gentleman's interview with them
it
was to be expected that he should not find it
from time to time.
easy to unbend and keep in step with the ANC's
The Defiance Campaign of 1952-3 was the first
insistence that non-violence is a weapon or tactic,
thrust. Thousands of Africans, Indians and
not a principle like passive resistance in the
Coloureds (people of mixed descent), under the
Gandhian sense; that situations must always dicleadership of the ANC, were arrested for civil
tate from time to time whether or not it should
disobedience. The leaders were arraigned in court
be used. Chief Luthuli, on the other hand, became,
for incitement to public violence and the flouting
like Martin Luther King, the very embodiment of
of laws. Dr. J. S. Moroka, the then president, broke non-violence.
Chief Albert Luthuli, former president of the
African National Congress of South Africa, was
a controversial man when he died rather undra-
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X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~p,
In the Treason Trial of 1957-1961, the government used the Freedom Charter as its chief weapon of indictment against the Congress Alliance:
it tried to prove that the document was a communist-inspired one because of its socialist char-
acter, that it purported to incite non-whites to
overthrow the government by means of violence.
The government lost its case.
In 1960 the Sharpeville massacre occurred,
following a meeting called by the Pan-Africanist
Congress, a splinter-group that had broken away
from the ANC on the grounds that it had become
a "-multi-racial" movement by allying itself with
non-blacks. The PAC also charged that the ANC
had become communist-directed in that a number
of the Congress of Democrats were also members
of the Communist Party. The PAC insisted that
the South African struggle was a black-white con-
flict and whites, Indians or Coloureds could never
sincerely identify themselves with the sufferings
of the Africans, not being themselves similarly
underprivileged or oppressed at all. The ANC
denied all these charges. It is true that the ANC
has no provision of membership for non-Africans.
The Communist Party, which had never been
numerically strong, was driven underground; the
Congresses, except the Indian Congress, were
banned; the ANC took to a program of violence
and reaffirmed its stand on the Freedom Charter.
For a long while Luthuli was hardly spoken about.
Nelson Mandela took things in hand. He skipped
the country to organize African support for the
black man's cause in South Africa. After eluding
the police several times, he was arrested and tried.
His now famous court oration is a most lucid and
powerful record of political thinking, tracing its
evolution from conciliation to revolution. He was
given a long jail sentence. At the "Rivonia Trial",
Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other leaders
were indicted under the Sabotage Act. Other ANC
leaders, like Oliver Tambo, Moses Kotane were
sent out of the country secretly in order to set up
an ANC office in exile. The PAC did likewise. The
ANC leaders and hundreds of others of both organizations were sent to Robben Island for life,
there to join Robert Sobukwe, leader of the PanAfrican Congress.
2
Chief Luthuli was left behind. He did not
break his ban, nor did he say anything either in
condemnation or endorsement of the direction the
ANC was going. Of course, as a banned man, he
could not be quoted in South Africa, but -he could
have, if he had chosen to do so, used the world
press or the Scandinavian platform when he went
to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Whatever communication he may have had with the exiled ANC
in Dar-es-Salaam concerning his latest attitudes
towards the movement will not be known for a
long time. Quite clearly, history overtook him. If,
because of the ANC's empirical view of nonviolence, it had decided on violence in 1952 instead
of non-violent civil disobedience, the government
would have jailed the leaders under already existing legislation like the Riotous Assemblies Act,
the Suppression of Communism and so on. All
the subsequent legislation would have been shortcircuited to snuff out all further resistence politics.
Even if the ANC had continued to exist after such
a hypothetical crisis, it is inconceivable that
Luthuli would have wanted to lead it or have
been called upon to do so.
The Nobel Peace Prize for Luthuli may have
been interpreted as implying that the Scandinavians were investing in non-violence in South Africa. Events were already proving that this would
be expecting too much in a situation like that.
It was thus awkward for Luthuli (and not for the
ANC) to find himself invested with a prize for a
religious-political creed his organization now
found irrelevant. Martin Luther King could hardly
have found himself in a similarly awkward position. Negro political opinion in the United States
is as diverse, diffuse, and pluralistic as is the
constitution of Negro society. There is a growing
Negro middle class and proletariat which, together
with some gains made at the conference table
from time to time, must be a deterrent to sustained unified violence. In South Africa, the Africans have been levelled down. The constitution
of the country leaves no room for an honorable
settlement.
It can never be said, however, that, left to
himself, Chief Luthuli would have settled for
Bantustans-the most comprehensive area of
capitulation. Nor was he prepared to bargain for
less than unconditional citizenship and majority
rule within a non-racial society.
Pan-Africanist Congress objections to the
ANC have now become largely academic. Events
have broken down the Congress Alliance, which
had never been conceived as absolute anyhow,
and the ANC is still a purely black movement
maintaining a discretionary liaison with the exiled
friendly groups. The PAC had at least one white
member, the late Patrick Duncan. Its non-racialism must certainly cut across their continued
charge against the Freedom Charter-that, among
other provisions, the document wants Africans to
share the land with those who stole it from them.
Both organizations see violence as the only way
out now.
It was Chief Luthuli who, when asked why
the ANC accommodated communists in the Congress Alliance, said very wisely that the struggle
AFRICA
TODAY
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in South Africa could not afford to make nice
distinctions between ideologies; that its paramount
and primary aim was to create a just and nonracial society, and afterwards political ideas could
regroup. Nelson Mandela was to reaffirm this at
his solo trial, i.e. before Rivonia, and to state his
belief that ultimately communism would become
irrelevant in a South Africa society. In the meantime, the PAC has sought and received financial
assistance from Peking.
Ezekiel Mphahlele
Congo Intervention Again
The Congo (Kinshasa) has become the major
area of unilateral American intervention in Afri-
ca; and several influential American Senators are
concerned that it may become another Carribean.
The occasion for the latest intervention has
been the White Mercenary-led rebellion in the
North Eastern section, beginning in Kisangani
this summer. When news of its disbandment
the confusion of the Congo, certain propositions,
derived from past experience, offer guidelines to
conducting our policy. The first should be allegiance to the general concept of non-intervention
as defined by the United Nations Security Council
following the last Congolese crisis. The UN resolution endorsed intervention only as a multilateral operation. It clearly opposed the unilateral
reached Commando No. 6 simultaneously with the
support action of the Stanleyville and recent C-130
type.
arrest of Tshombe in Algiers, they rebelled, taking a numer of pro-Tshombe Katanganese (1500)
The U. S. and Congolese Governments have
with them. The Armee Nationale Congolaise was
not to date sought to bring the dispute before
not able to constrain the strongly-armed rebel
either the OAU or the United Nations. Neverthecolumn and President Mobuto called upon the
less, an attempt to revive the old Katanga secesU. S. to assist in the transportation of re-inforcesion by foreign mercenary nationals is clearly
ments. The U. S. promptly complied by sending
within the jurisdiction of both these agencies.
three C-130 transports with 150 American serviceInterventionists argue there is no time for
men. However, at least two of these transport
such deliberations that may result in no action.
planes were soon withdrawn when a storm of proIn the meantime anti-white riots may generate in
test arose among United States Senators.
the Congo, and secession is stirred in Katanga.
Whether U. S. intervention of this kind is
This, then, raises the second proposition that
justified is related to the history of our intervenSenators Fulbright, McCarthy and Russell have
tion in the Congo. Initial U. S. Intervention was
put before us. Is it the role of the United States
in close association with the United Nations Peace
to help police every insurrection and civil war
Keeping Operation, 1960-64. At a cost of some
involving countries friendly to the United States?
$400 million to the U. S. and the- supply of GlobeThey argue that it is not. We do not, they believe,
master planes we helped hold the Congo together
have the resources to cope with the innumerable
by defeating the Katanga secession. This has been
insurrections of this type and moreover, it is the
widely hailed as an effective and justified action
function of newly-established governments to deal
in support of world peace and Congolese unity.
with these problems. They will either resolve
The second phase of U. S. intervention came
them for themselves in time or they will create
in 1964 with the Stanleyville rebellion and the
for themselves new governments.
elevation to power of Maurice Tshombe. This took
This Congo incident illuminates the principles
a strictly unilateral turn, as the UN departed
of non-intervention more clearly for us because
from the Congo in June 1964. The United States
the Cold War is not involved. The mercenaries
condoned and supported with money, planes and
have no direct outside support though they may
pilots the Tshombe Government's drive against
have sympathy from the White Supremacy
the Stanleyville rebels, culminating in the famous
regimes. The Congo Government can deal with
Stanleyville drop in November 1964 of Belgian
the insurrection itself and if it needs outside supparatroopers from American planes. This action
port, let other African states or the United Naaroused empassioned protest at the United Nations
tions supply what is necessary to bring to an end
bv even moderate African leaders. Many informed
this unsavory episode of white hired guns gone
Western observers questioned its necessity. The
amok in the Congo. They should receive no mercy
State Department attempted to defend this action
or sanctuary from the West. Africans might rein terms of humanitarian concern for hostages and
member it was an African Government who first
the legal request of the Congolese Government.
sickened the body politic by employing this virus.
But the essential difference was the unilateral and
If, as a result of this affair, a consciousness of
"colonial character" of the operation.
the limits of our military interventionary power
The present rebellion has quite a different
dawns on the American society, we will have
origin and direction. These are White Mercenaries
something to be grateful for, even to White Merwithout significant outside support who have
cenaries.
seized territory and are making threats against
the national Government of the Congo. Despite
George Shepherd
The Meaning of African Liberation Movements
Change in Southern Africa is dependent upon
two sets of forces, one endogenous and one exo-
genous. The liberation movements, although indigenous, must be classified among the exogenous
3
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