The Turn to Armed Struggle
01 CHAP 1, 2 new 28/4/04 4:05 pm Page 53 The turn to armed 2 struggle BERNARD MAGUBANE, PHILIP BONNER, JABULANI SITHOLE, PETER DELIUS, JANET CHERRY, PAT GIBBS AND THOZAMA APRIL Who will deny that 30 years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately and modestly, on a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of many years of modera- tion from the government be it National or United Party? No! On the contrary, the past 30 years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all. ALBERT LUTHULI1 A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no resource but to use the methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire. NELSON MANDELA2 The ANC’s institutional commitment to non-violence was deep-seated and long lasting. For some, this amounted to little more than the pragmatic acknowledgement that resorting to armed struggle under prevailing circum- stances was simply impracticable. For many ANC members, however, non-vio- lence was elevated to the status of a principle. All too often, the two view- points blurred into one, and it took repeated outrage and numerous shocks before the resulting axiomatic non-violent consensus was reached. Among some, it took an equal measure of shock and outrage before a col- lective decision to engage in a still relatively muted and restrained form of armed struggle was taken in the second half of 1961.
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