Chapter 15

In the course of this book we have endeavoured to depict the awakening of a people. The evolving of the organisation, the All African Convention, has been dynamically bound up with this process of awakening. Its ideas, its policy and programme are an expression of new ideas and a new outlook foreshadowing the nature of the struggles to come. We are but at the threshold of a great movement which will arouse stirring events in its wake. It might be said that the All African Convention marks the beginning of a new epoch where for the first time our struggles are guided by a set of principles, where every issue is viewed and tackled in the light of these principles, where our approach to every problem is guided by them.

For the first time in our struggles a tradition is being established for consistent and principled action along a definite, course. It is a tradition of struggle undertaken by men and women who, having established their objective and clearly formulated the method of carrying it out, labour steadfastly in the full realisation that victory is not just around the corner. It will be a long and protracted struggle. This is a tradition that our youth will inherit and which will fortify and steel them when they in turn must take their place in the fight.

If we have dealt with the Congress leadership in detail, it is not with any desire to recite their misdeeds; and least of all are we concerned with personalities. We have done so with the object of bringing home certain important lessons. Those individuals who constitute the Congress leadership are part of our body politic. They are remnants of our past history and they reflect old habits and modes of thought.

There are certain weaknesses inherited from our past, which are hard to slough off. These flow in part from a lack of understanding of our tasks. Having failed to analyse the nature of society and discern the motive power driving the various forces in it, the old leaders were not able to take up their proper positions. They were unable to fix their bearings in the vast sea of political crosscurrents and steer a straight and steady course towards their goal. Their failure to grasp the nature of the conflicting forces in South African society, and therefore to understand the destiny of the national movement, robbed them of the possibility to embark on a serious struggle. For them it was a question of educating the oppressor as to the sufferings of the Black man with a view to changing their hearts.

This outlook dictated their political tactics of petitions, deputations, etc. It dictated also their attitude to their organisations and towards the people. Their organisations were no more than a means of reinforcing their petitions. They did not see them as fighting organs. That is what explains their pre-occupation with organising the small vocal section to the exclusion of the vast masses of the uneducated. This also gave rise to another train; of attitudes. Each local leader tended to use his organisation in i a spirit of partisanship and expected his followers to do likewise. But once remove the raison d'être of an organisation—the driving power of its existence—then it turns in upon itself. It becomes a question of personal prestige: who is more important than another and who has a greater following, etc. Young men and women growing up in this atmosphere learn to look upon an organisation as a means of enhancing their own social position. This gives rise to petty jealousies, which find their way even amongst those who are genuinely devoted to the cause of their people.

There is another aspect of the matter, which, though it is closely connected with the preceding, belongs more properly to the domain of political thought. The failure of the leaders to see the struggle in its entirety has given rise to a certain parochialism. The various local leaders lived an isolated existence, each one pre­occupied with petty local reforms without relating them to the rest and losing sight of the fundamental questions. This in turn has tended to reinforce the organisational exclusiveness, the rivalries, etc. All these, then, are some of the weakness inherited from the past.

If we are to make any progress we must start with a full knowledge of those weaknesses. We must pose clearly the fundamental tasks, see the struggle in its entirety, arm ourselves with understanding and the determination that arises from it. A great responsibility develops upon the intellectuals to bring to the movement a knowledge and a full consciousness of its tasks.

But they have first to arm themselves with ideological weapons. History is rich with the accumulated experiences of other peoples and nationalities who have gone through similar Struggles and had the same aspirations as the oppressed in South Africa. If the young intellectuals would drink from the well of knowledge of the past, study and draw sustenance from this rich treasure, which is the heritage of mankind; if they could see their struggles as part of the whole, of the forward march of mankind, and find inspiration in the struggles and successes of the other oppressed peoples throughout the world to-day—then they would not feel weighing upon them so heavily the pressure of the local tyranny.

If they understood their tasks and realised what they are called upon to contribute to the struggle, then they would not rest until they had gone out to the people, till they felt that their ideas were taking shape and finding practical application in the daily struggles of the masses. The people are ready, more than ready for a lead. The leadership dare not let them down. It falls upon the All African Convention, the federal body which is the mouthpiece of the African people, to give them that lead.

March, 1950

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