Speech

The African National Congress in recent years especially the last seven years

This is an excerpt from a special message to the 44lh Annual Meeting of the
ANC held in Bloemfonlein in 1955. It also makes reference to the grouping
within the ANC that Lululi hoped to unite. He urges greater co-ordination
and strategic planning in the attack against apartheid. This speech also
confirms the view that the years following the Defiance Campaign of 1952
were the golden years of the ANC's political programme; a view underplayed
or forgotten during the 1960's when the ANC was banned and the need to justify
the armed struggle became more urgent.

The chief burden of my message is to make a brief appraisal, not flinching
from even an agonizing critical appraisal of the reaction of the African
people in general and the African National Congress in particular, to the
political situation in the Union of South Africa, as it has affected Africans
in recent years. It is a matter of common consent that the African National
Congress has been unusually active in recent years. What is the background
to this activity? Any appraisal of congress activity and the general reaction
of the African people to this activity should be preceded by a brief, if
only cursory, reply to this question -- "What
is the background to our present congress activity?"

The significance of and background to present-day congress activity

In my judgement, this period in the national history of the African people
will go down as one of the most outstanding periods in the all-round political
awakening of the African people, despite the almost insurmountable obstacles
put in their way by the white rulers of South Africa, who have selfishly
created barriers to African progress and advancement in South Africa in order
to promote their own interests.

One of the most significant features in the development of our struggle is
that the African National Congress in recent years, after much internal questioning
and discussion, adopted a militant programme of action in 1949. This programme
was a direct outcome of a conviction that had been growing among the people
that the white people in South Africa had no intention of extending democratic
rights to the non-whites. The discriminatory laws that disgrace the statute
books of successive white governments from colonial times to the present
day are proof enough of the white man's hostility to the progress of Africans
and non-white people in general. The Act of Union itself put the non-whites
outside the orbit of enjoying citizenship rights in a supposedly democratic,
civilized and Christian country. Time and space will not permit the enumeration
of such diabolic discriminatory laws. But can anyone with even a cursory
knowledge of the position affecting the African truly blame them under such
circumstances for having
lost confidence in the declared -- but as yet unexecuted -- good intentions
of the white governments that have in succession ruled South Africa? It is
the numerous bitter experiences and disappointments with white rule that
Africans under the leadership of the African National Congress, came to realize
after their further betrayal in 1936, that the only correct course to take
was no longer merely to struggle for the amelioration of economic and social
disabilities here and there under which they suffered; but to attack the
whole citadel of white supremacy and domination, protected by a network of
discriminatory laws designed to keep the African people and the non-Europeans
in general in a state of perpetual servitude.

Congress, in alliance with its allies in the liberation movement, the South
African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured Peoples' Organization
and latterly the South African Congress of Democrats, has consistently directed
its resources and energies at resisting tyranny and oppression. On June 26,
1950, the congress together with its allies called upon the people of South
Africa to observe this as a day of mourning and prayer, as a protest against
injustice by white governments to non-Europeans. On June 26, 1952, the great
Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign, which was to have a great impact on the
world and South African politics was launched. Since then, all along the
line, the congress has sought to develop in the hearts of the people a spirit
of defiance of anything that degrades human dignity and arbitrarily sets
limits to the development of any person's mental, physical and spiritual
faculties to their utmost. Still on that historic day, June 26, 1955, in
response to a clarion call issued by our congress
movement to the people of South Africa, black and white, the Congress of
the People met at Kliptown and unanimously adopted the Freedom Charter as
the basis for our struggle now and in the future. The charter is now placed
before you for consideration and ratification.

One is happy to record that during this period the African National Congress
has emerged as the universally accepted leader of the liberation movement
in South Africa. In co-operation with other progressive groups, it is building
slowly but surely a solid united front against oppression. No one can deny
that in the last seven years the congress has played no mean part in mobilizing
all progressive forces regardless of race or class, into a growing, formidable
army, which in due course will cleanse South Africa of all traces of domination,
racialism, and exploitation. The initial success which has attended the efforts
of the congress in building up a solid opposition to apartheid has driven
terror into the selfish hearts of the white rulers of South Africa, hence
the shameful ruthlessness of the National Party Government in its attempts
to stem the rising tide of freedom forces about to engulfand destroy this
evil thing, "baaskap apartheid".

Some urgent problems in the present situation of the congress

We would be less than human if we had not made grievous mistakes in our congress
under the Militant Programme of Action which was adopted in 1949. As intelligent
people, we should take cognizance of our failures and shortcomings and God
knows, they are legion -- and try to make them "stepping
stones to success". What are some of these problems and shortcomings?
Here again time and space can allow fleeting mention of only a few.

We have been busily engaged in a laudable effort to establish a spirit of defiance
of unjust laws and treatment along non-violent lines, and in getting Africans
to see that no one is really worthy of freedom until he is prepared to pay
the supreme sacrifice for its attainment and defence. We have, unquestionably,
met with a measure of success in both our objectives, since we can truthfully
claim that congress followers have shown marvellous restraint in the face
of police provocation.

We can also claim that we have established an inner core of bitter-enders in
fighting oppression -- "the
faithful few" of whom we can say as said Sir Winston Churchill to defenders of Britain in
the Battle of Britain during the World War II: "Never have so many owed so much to so few".
But for all this we cannot claim to have prosecuted our campaigns with any
semblance of military efficiency and technique. We cannot say that the Africans
are accepting fast enough the gospel of service and sacrifice for the general
and large good without expecting a personal and at that immediate reward.
They have not accepted fully the basic truth enshrined in the saying no cross,
no crown.

It is time we took stock of methods of planning and prosecuting our campaigns.
I suggest that the incoming National Executive should be charged with the
task of making a study of general organizational machinery with special reference
to its fitness for our present situation.

Faced as we are with the battle for freedom, it seems a wise stand to say that
the African National Congress should no dissipate its energies by indulging
in internal ideological feuds -- a fight on isms. It is not practical and
logical, however, to expect the congress to be colourless ideologically. It should
in some way define or re-define its stand and outlook as regards, for example
its interpretation
of African nationalism which it made the philosophic basis of our struggle
for freedom.

Fighters for freedom in Africa, it is fair to infer, were to be mobilized under
its banner. It is also fair to infer that the African National Congress,
having accepted the fact of the multiracial nature of the country, envisaged
an all-inclusive African Nationalism which, resting on the principle of freedom
for all in a country, unity for all in a country, embraced all people under
African Nationalism regardless of their racial and geographical origin who
resided in Africa and gave their undivided loyalty and allegiance. The congress
should not be ashamed to tell the African people that it is opposed to tribalism
but for obvious practical considerations, it should gradually lead Africans
from these narrow tribal loyalties to the wider loyalty of the brotherhood
of man throughout the world.

There does seem to be laxity in the machinery of the congress resulting
in lack of sound disciplinary behaviour at some congress levels. Manifestations
of such behaviour at any congress level anywhere must create confusion and
uncertainty in the ranks of the congress, especially among the masses, to say
nothing about its most disastrous effect on the dignity of the congress in
the eyes of the world. This observation leads me to dose this aspect of my
agonizing re-appraisal of congress activity by repeating what I suggested earlier,
namely, that it might pay congress handsome dividends in efficiency and dignity
if from time to time, it took stock of its workings and its machinery.

What of the future

Let me dose my message by drawing your attention away from our failures
and disappointments to a vision of the glorious future that awaits us: a South
Africa where all people shall be truly free. Our cause is just and we have
the divine assurance that right must triumph over wrong -- and apartheid is
an evil policy and the methods by which the National Party Government seeks
to get a following among the people are base and false. They are based on submission
through coercion and not through acceptance by love -- the only sure basis for
any lasting acceptance. They are based on acceptance of apartheid by an appeal
to the baser instincts of man: selfishness and greed; personal aggrandizement.

Let us march together to freedom saying: "The
road to freedom may be long and thorny but because our cause is just, the glorious
end -- freedom is ours".

Let us truly pledge to work together in love of freedom for all in our lifetime
not just freedom for "Europeans
only", and as we march, pledge to struggle together for freedom. Let
us draw inspiration from the Freedom Charter -- The people shall govern.

Africa! Mayibuye!
Inkululeko Ngesikathi Sethu!

Yours in the cause of Freedom

A.J. Lutuli

President-General

African National Congress

CLOSE