Documents - Part One: The All Africa Convention

Document 13. "The Challenge" and 'The Alternative." Extracts from pamphlet, The Crisis, by Selby Msimang, 1936 [?]

THE CHALLENGE

My friends and countrymen, let us now admit, both publicly and in our conscience, that Parliament and the white people of South Africa have disowned us, flirted and trifled with our loyalty. They have treated us as rebels, nay, they have declared we are not part of the South African community. Whatever it means, I am satisfied in my mind that if we do no longer form part of the community which constitutes Parliament and the Government of the Union of South Africa, we have to belong to some authority other than the present, or we shall have to admit that we are slaves and outcasts in our fatherland. If we refuse to be made slaves then we should seek emancipation by such means as the dictates of self-preservation may lead us to.

In one of our resolutions, we have expressed a desire "to appeal to the King and Parliament of Great Britain as the present representatives of the original beneficent donors of the Cape Native Vote, for an expression of their opinion in the event of such treasured gift being abrogated by His Majesty's Government in the Union of South Africa without reason." That resolution has not been transmitted, for its terms convey the meaning that such an appeal will be made immediately the Executive Committee is assured that the measure approaches its final stages. In any event, it is not my business nor my place to decry, but to act in faith and honesty as directed. What is uppermost in my mind is that we have reached a point in our national life where and when we should have recourse to the law of self-preservation, which is in the hands of the highest tribunal of our conscience as a race. I believe it is nothing but right, as we did with the Union Government, to protest as never before and say, whatever is the result of this colossal blunder, we wash our hands of it and accept the challenge.

What do we mean or what should we mean when we say we accept the challenge? What is the meaning of this challenge to us? General Smuts, in his rectorial address at St. Andrews University in Scotland, told the world that "to suppose that in the modem world you can dispense with freedom in human government, that you can govern without the free consent of the governed, is to fly in the face of decent human nature as well as of the facts of history." To me, therefore, it means that we have been thrown out of the purview and tutelage of the Union Government. The idea of a trusteeship, even of the kind a stepmother may possess, has been abrogated. It is therefore for us to choose whether or not we shall approach the situation thus created for us in a cringing attitude, begging to be taken over once more like unrequired foster children to be dealt with anyhow by the callous and iron-hearted stepmother. Or accept the challenge by demanding our freedom as completely as it is the privilege of people who do not form part of the community to which the Government of the day belongs. In other words, if we accept that we are a separate community from that represented by the Union Government, are we willing to be dependent on its grudging benevolence? General Hertzog has told the world that the first duty of the white man is to himself, and that we have no right to ask the Government or Europeans of South Africa to do anything that may jeopardise their supremacy.

My candid and conscientious reply to the question is that we can no longer loyally serve and be subject to a government which has openly disowned us and told us in brutal language that we can never, never be free. The choice therefore is not ours. The law of self preservation demands that we should seek avenues likely to lead us out of this incubus to which we have been thrust against our will. We have it on the authority of General Smuts, the present Minister of Justice, that "freedom is the most ineradicable craving of human nature; without it peace, contentment, and happiness, and even manhood itself, are not pos­sible." If we feel we are sufficiently human to have the craving for freedom, and feel that we cannot surrender our freedom whatever it is or give up what chances we had heretofore for eventually reaching the highest pinnacle of our manhood, then it behoves us to accept General Hertzog's challenge by declaring our refusal to be made slaves and to suffer him to traffic with our freedom in order to uphold the white man's supremacy. If we feel we cannot conscientiously accept the challenge, all I can say, as a man and patriot, is that it were better to die now than to live to see our children carried into economic bondage and into a dungeon to perish of hunger. For me, it is better indeed to spend the remaining years of my normal life behind prison bars than witness with my own eyes the misery of the children I swore before God to protect, love and cherish as a gift more precious than life.

I am under no illusion. I know that behind this brutal injustice is the reliance of the powers-that-be on the stupendous and murderous modern weapons of war and the advantage they have thereby against us-defenceless people. In spite of a well organised defence force, of all the deadly instruments of war and the most pagan militarism that can be given play, if my countrymen are possessed of a soul which can never perish by machine guns and artificial war devices, that soul will fight a righteous battle under the invincible captaincy of the gods who made our worthy forefathers what they were. We owe it to them that we have so far, in humility and self-sacrifice, made ourselves indispensable in every walk of life and refused to be extinct as the Red Indians and other aborigines who no longer are. If we have the soul to resist the machinations of the oppressor, I know of no power in the world and under the sun to conquer us; I know of no influence capable of persuading us to suffer degradation and shame and to suffer ourselves to be made the pawn in the big game of "topdoggism" and arrogance. That, my countrymen, is the challenge.

THE ALTERNATIVE

I see in the horizon two alternatives indicating the way to freedom. The vision which gave to the Colonists a century ago the determination, the will and self-denial on the emancipation of their slaves to search more land for them to be free, makes me feel its presence and power in this crisis. I am able to see that we have no alternative but to accept the position as created by the Native Bills, that is, that we are not part of the South African community and that the interests of the Europeans are not bound together with our own. In other words, that between the European and ourselves there is no longer any community of interests.

This means to me that, that being the case, and as we share the country with the Europeans who have chosen to segregate us from them territorially, economically, politically and otherwise, it behoves us to demand a complete segregation on a fifty-fifty basis to enable us to establish our own State and government wherein to exercise our political, economic and social independence without the inconvenience of islands dotted all over the country. This alternative has already been advanced in our resolution on the Representation of Natives Bill, viz.: "The political segregation of the two races can only be justly carried out by means of the creation of separate States." I repeat, it is not our choice and of our own volition. We have in our resolution informed the Government that this creation of two States is undesirable. But the Government has decided that we should think about it and agitate for it as never man sought his freedom. No sacrifice, however bitter, should deter us from seeing to it that we ultimately gain this objective. For my part I do not see why the Government should not seize on it since it is by way of completing its programme for making this a white man's country.

Another alternative is contained in the book, "Bayete," by the distinguished champion of the Native Bills, Chairman of the Native Affairs Commission and the Honourable Member for Zululand, Mr. G. Heaton Nicholls, M.P., to whom we owe an irredeemable debt of gratitude for this book. In this book, Mr. Nicholls indicates to us the way and method we should adopt to seize the reins of government and regain all the freedom we have lost since the advent of the white man in this country. It is the only way short of the creation of two States. It calls for no machine guns, no bombs nor aeroplanes. That weapon is a power in itself in that it is the power of the soul, the indestructible something that is in man--the Sword of God. It is the will and determination to be free, the ineradicable craving of human nature, without which we certainly must agree to perish or be made slaves.

I have used elsewhere the expression that we should agitate. But what type of agitation do I mean? Agitations may serve to create mob psychology, but may not rouse and fire the soul, create determination and self-denial for the cause of freedom. Yet in the end, mob psychology is an element for good, and simplifies the task of the leaders whose soul is fired with the desire to disarm the enemy. We must have intense organisation and persistent education of the masses along systematic and persuasive lines, capable of removing mental inactivity and usher in knowledge of the dangers of our existing relationship with the Europeans who seek domination and economic subjection. When that knowledge has increased and our people are conscious of their fate, then shall we hope and begin to see visions and to dream the dreams of freedom. Let us not forget that the white man, who has made us believe he is better civilised than we are, has had to descend so low as to resurrect century-old memories that he may find a pretext with which to appease his conscience when he avenges himself upon us for the "wrongs" alleged to have been committed by Great Britain against his fore­fathers. We have in the past succeeded in aping him in many things-some extremely undesirable. Why cannot we emulate him now in this crisis and make ourselves a free people?

The practicability of the first alternative depends on the government and the white people who feel that this country is not safe for them if they live side by side with us. To achieve the ideal of a White South Africa which does not entail the enslavement of the African race, they need not hesitate to establish two territorial States on an equal basis. Their sense of justice (if there be any left) should persuade them to release one-half of the area of the Union and have "Whiteman Territory" and "Blackman Territory." They cannot have it both ways. We should therefore demand that the present Native Land Bill be withdrawn and another introduced forthwith giving effect to a vertical territorial segregation. I used the word "demand" advisedly, for is not this loaf baked by the white man? If we have to accept it, let us have the whole. There should be no halves about it.

The second alternative depends'upon ourselves. I see in this crisis the hand of Fate stretching out to free us. General Hertzog and all his lieutenants may prove yet the instruments by which we will forge our liberation. Bantudom now sees the clouds gathering in the horizon and seeks to gather her children under her strong wings. Shall we prove cowards and flee from her strength? God forbids. Perhaps in this crisis we may live, if we dare, to witness the fulfilment of General Smuts's philosophy broadcast to the world in these great words:

"To suppose that in the modern world you can dispense with freedom in human government, that you can govern without the free consent of the governed, is to fly in the face of decent human nature as well as of the facts of history."

We may live to see, if we have the soul and the righteous determination to do and dare, the history of the overthrow of the Russian Empire by the governed, repeated in this our dear Fatherland.
NKOSI SIKELELA I AFRIKA.

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