PART II: UNEQUAL, TRANSITIONAL CONTEXT
2. Introduction: ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts’
2.9 A concise history of peacebuilding practices in South Africa
2.9.1 Traces of nascent long-term peacebuilding
It would be short-sighted to start an analysis of long-term peacebuilding in South Africa only from the period of ‘toenadering’ (rapprochement between mainly the ANC, big business and the NP during the mid eighties and later widening out to other political formations and parties). The move towards a negotiated settlement that culminated in South Africa’s Constitution of 1996 has a long history. Relevant sections from the constitutions of the three main liberation movements, read through a peacebuilding lens, suggest that these entities, while using differing means at times, had broadly compatible goals, which roughly translate into political, social and economic justice for all South Africans, particularly the oppressed African majority as their stated goals.
Under its Aims and Objectives, relevant sections of AZAPO’s constitution of 1978 as amended and adopted in (2002:3) reads:
(iii) To recapture and restore political, economic and social power to all Azanians,
(vi) To work towards the unity of all people in order to maximise efforts at the total liberation of all the oppressed and exploited.
Under its Objectives, a relevant section of the PAC’s constitution (2000:1) reads that it seeks to:
2.2 [F]ight for the overthrow of all forms of domination, including neo- colonial domination, for economic empowerment of the African and for implementation and maintenance of the right to self-determination of the African people in a non-racial and unitary state
Under its Aims and Objectives relevant sections of the ANC’s amended constitution (2007:2) reads that it will:
71 2.4 Fight for social justice and to eliminate the vast inequalities created by
apartheid and the system of national oppression.
2.6 Promote economic development for the benefit of all.
2.7 Support and advance the cause of women’s emancipation
2.8 Support and advance the cause of national liberation, development, world peace, dis-armament and environmentally sustainable development.
2.9 Support and promote the struggle for the rights of children and the disabled.
I focus narrowly on the inclusive sections of these constitutions, as the purpose of this discussion is not to clarify what Azapo and the PAC mean by ‘Africans’, and ‘Azanians’.
I seek to establish their bona fides in terms of positive peace, by focusing on words and sentiments which are inclusive of every South African, such as ‘all’, ‘unity’, ‘non-racial’,
‘unitary state’ and other evidence of inclusion. The purpose is to show that on the left;
the taking up of arms against the apartheid state was tactical in an overall strategy to free the majority of South Africans from oppression; whereas on the right, political entities sought to entrench white supremacy.
In its submission to the TRC in 1996, the ANC distinguished its counter-violence, through Umkonto We’Siswe (MK) from that of the apartheid state by asserting that ‘it would be morally wrong and legally incorrect to equate apartheid with the resistance against it’, since resistance was ‘rooted in human dignity and human rights’, while apartheid was ‘an affront to humanity itself’.
The ANC’s politico-military stance placed political work above military work. The first point in annexure ‘D’ to the ANC’s ‘Green book’ (1979) states:
We have always felt that political work is primary and that everything else flows from it.
Similarly, APLA, the military wing of the PAC in their submission to the TRC in 1996 reiterated:
When the PAC was formed in 1959, no provision was made in its
operational structures for the establishment of a military wing. The situation changed with the massacre of our people at Sharpeville and Langa in the opening days of our positive campaign launched in March 1960. In
September 1961 the foundation for the military wing of the PAC was laid [
…] The reconciliation conference of members of the National Executive
72 Committee … in 1967 endorsed the organisation’s stand on an armed
struggle and set up a revolutionary command …
It is evident that a political approach took precedence over a military approach and that armed struggle was a tactic used by liberation movements to advance the strategy of negotiation that particularly the ANC sought since its inception. South Africans found a way to de-escalate violence even when, according to Gastrow (1995:5), ‘unprecedented political strife and violence’ erupted during 1990 which, ‘replaced 1989 as the worst year of political violence in modern South African history, with 3, 699 persons killed (a 163 percent increase over 1989’).
2.9.2 ‘Talks and talks about talks’
It could be argued that more recent events such as South Africa’s relatively peaceful transition to democracy, suggest that at least some of the parties were drawing on age old traditions that enabled them to consider ‘talks’ instead of pursuing protracted, intractable violence. I bracket for a moment the combined effect of the end of the cold war,
apartheid South Africa’s unenviable economic position, internal and international pressure, the enlightened self interest of South African and foreign countries, and other concealed reasons that ordinary citizens are not privy to, that drove parties to the negotiation table.
The talks between the ANC and big business, as well as Nelson Mandela’s conciliatory gestures (from within the apartheid criminal justice system), to the Apartheid State in the 1980s, signalled the fact that armed struggle was merely a device to force the National Party to the negotiation table, as confirmed in ANC policy documents quoted above. This is confirmed by Neville Alexander who states that the ANC’s turn to armed struggle after the Sharpeville massacre, was a ‘classical continuation of policy by other means’
(2002:46), which he characterises as “armed propaganda”. He argues that the ANC, ‘in spite of its often militant rhetoric, was the ideal ‘valid interlocutor’ and ready to take over the reins of government’ (p.48).
When the diverse parties sat around the negotiation table, they co-operated with each other - albeit antagonistically and with several breakdowns - to reach their goals. It has been suggested before that:
73 [D]uring the South African multi-party negotiations, some parties wanted an
‘absence of violence’ and the ‘presence of political and socio-economic justice’ ; others simply wanted an absence of violence and were content with the status quo; yet others had only sectoral interests at heart. However, they all had a common interest; they all sought Peace, albeit by differing means and differing definitions. (Henkeman, 1998:9).
After 1994 very few white people admitted that they voted for the National Party and many effectively distanced themselves from the consequences that apartheid had on black people and thus freed themselves from co-responsibility to build a society of equals.
From my standpoint, the need for people to lie about their support for apartheid, suggests that they perceive it as wrong. It might suggest that the TRC made people aware of exactly what the system was about and opened their eyes. Alternatively, the full truth of the extent of their complicity in human rights infringements, violations and abuses might have been too much to bear and so they escaped into denial. Neo-liberal economic
orthodoxy and corruption by many within the ruling party play a role (these are discussed in several places in this thesis). Whatever the reasons, the slow pace of change in South Africa throws white privilege and black poverty into sharp relief and it focuses attention on within-group inequality as many educated, skilled and politically connected black people are seen to have deracialised the middle class (this notion is questioned in chapter four section 4.6.6). Cohen’s (2001) theory of denial, referred to in more detail in chapter nine, provides a way to comprehend the South African psyche somewhat.