METRO CENTRAL EDUCATION DISTRICT

GRADE 12 HISTORY 16 OCTOBER 2020

COMMON PAPER 2

MARKS:150

TIME:3 HOURS

QUESTION 1

TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENT ENHANCE THE STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID?

SOURCE 1 A

The following article was written by R.T Dolamo in which he places BCM in the context of the liberation struggle against Apartheid.

Black Consciousness was largely a continuation of the struggle for national liberation in South Africa that had been waged by liberation movements such as the African National Congress, the Pan African Congress and the South African Communist Party. The difference was the approach adopted, and the methods and tactics used.

The vision was the same, namely that the oppressed black majority were to be liberated from white supremacy. Black Consciousness helped the black masses to shed an internalised mentality and it laid the ground for self-confident challenge to the apartheid state.

The black person’s low sense of self-esteem fostered political disunity, allowed ethnic leaders and other moderates to usurp (take over) the role of spokespersons for the black masses, and encouraged a dependence on white leadership.

Black Consciousness was meant to be a people’s philosophy for liberation. Young people were targeted to raise the awareness required to fight against apartheid and all that it stood for. There was one common enemy which all oppressed people, regardless of ideology or political affiliation, had to oppose and combat and that was apartheid.

R.T. Dolamo. The Legacy of Black Consciousness: Its continued relevance for democratic South Africa and its significance for theological education. 4 April 2017

SOURCE 1 B

The following extract highlights the views of Steven Bantu Biko and SASO with regard to the Black Consciousness Movement.

Black Consciousness began to be defined “an attitude of the mind” or a “way of life” of black people who believed in their potential and value and saw the need for black people to work together for complete liberation. SASO students explained South Africa’s main problem as twofold: white racism and black acquiescence (acceptance) to that racism. They felt that in general, black people had accepted their own inferiority in society. Without a positive, creative sense of self, black people would not challenge the status quo.

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor (was) in the mind of the oppressed” Biko argued that that Black Consciousness activists worked to change the black mindset, to look inward to build black capacity to realize their own liberation. Biko wrote that colonialism, missionaries and apartheid had made the black man “a shell, a shadow of a man completely defeated, drowning in his own misery …”

The first step, therefore, is to make the black man come to himself; to pump life into his shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity. SASO saw white leadership as an obstacle to black liberation because it stifled black leadership and psychological development… hence the phrase “black man you are on your own”

Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Africa History. February 2007

SOURCE 1C

The following extract vividly demonstrates the influence that the Black Consciousness Movement had on students in Soweto after the introduction of Afrikaans.

Prior to June 1976, the Bantu Education Department ordered African schools to use Afrikaans as the medium, of instruction. Students, parents and teachers alike greatly resented this and several schools went on strike. The Black Parents’ Association(BPA) was formed to mobilise the community behind the students.

The students demanded the withdrawal of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, universal and free education for all, the release of all political prisoners, adequate salaries, and the abandonment of the Bantustan policy. These were bold demands. By linking them with the question of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction the whole controversy assumed a political character that involved every black…….

This country-wide, sustained youth resistance movement was greatly, encouraged when the authorities were forced to withdraw the instruction enforcing the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Their guns and “paid gangsters” had failed to coerce black students, teachers and parents into submission. The black legion had fought and won, in the process emerging as an important force in the country.

With the collapse of white-controlled administration in Soweto, a people’s governing body, the Committee of Ten, emerged under the chairmanship of Dr Nthatho Motlana.

Whither the Black Consciousness Movement? –The O’Malley Archives

SOURCE 1 D: This poster illustrates the message of The Black Consciousness Movement

Redbubble.com/i/poster. Accessed 20.09.2020

QUESTION 2

TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THE TRC ABLE TO REVEAL THE TRUTH WITH REFERENCE TO THE DEATH OF NEIL AGGETT?

SOURCE 2 A

Rich Mkhondo, a prominent South African journalist in the 1980s and 1990s, interviewed in a documentary for the American news channel PBS, in December 1998.

Well, there are quite a number of issues that we have to remember. The first one is the intention of the Truth Commission. It was established to reveal as much as possible the truth of what happened in the past. It’s not possible to establish as full a truth as we can, because, for example, there are many people who don't testify, and there are many people who lied. For me, its [the TRC] is very important, because it confirms some of the things I witnessed as a journalist. It confirms some of the suspicion that we had about some of the disappearances of some of our friends, some of our colleagues, and so on.

I have lot of friends who died, who were killed mysteriously. And now I know... I have family members who didn't know where their loved ones were. And through the Commission People came and said, "I know, I'm the one who buried so and so and point the space or the spot where the person is buried." Then the Truth Commission people went there and exhumed the bodies, and the people are given decent funerals.

..…I think the most important thing to remember here is now we know. It’s quite important to emphasise that. Now we know what happened. You know during the bad days of apartheid, there were many people, particularly white South Africans, who lived in cloud kukula(coocooland). They just did not know what was going on in the townships.

www.pbs.org.newshour//bb/africa. December 1998

13

SOURCE 2B

An extract from Judge Chris Nicholson's speech at the launch of the book "Death of an Idealist- In search of Neil Aggett" by Beverly Naidoo. 11 October 2012

In an age when idealism is in the decline, if it has not died completely-certainly in our political life in South Africa- it is refreshing to learn again how one man tried to take up the cudgels for the working class.

As a qualified doctor, he did not seek out a comfortable practice in the centre of the city, catering for the ailments of the rich. He worked at night at casualty in order to make money to fund his trade union work.

.... My impression is that some of the interrogators were fanatically anti-union and anticommunist, but there were also sadists, who enjoyed the power they exercised as policemen, over a dedicated activist and doctor.

Always lurking behind the police, were the politicians, demanding an end to the strikes, demonstrations, and waves of protests by a seething mass of rightless persons.

So dramatic are the descriptions of the torture that Neil underwent that we are left in no doubt that the most benign description of his death was an induced suicide.

...At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing we learn that, after Neil complained about his torture, Major Arthur Cronwright, who was described by another policeman, Paul Erasmus, as a monster, demanded that his interrogators " break Aggett by tomorrow night."

Judge Chris Nicholson. “Death of an Idealist-In search of Neil Aggett " by Beverley Naidoo

SOURCE 2C

The following poster was published after the death of Neil Aggett calling for the support of all union members to stand up for the murdered trade unionist

SOURCE 2DThe following is an extract from a report by Siviwe Feketha: Neil Aggett inquest: Blow to Deetlefs credibility.

Deetlefs is among the interrogators accused of having tortured political activists, and was one of the security officers who questioned Aggett before he died.

On Wednesday, the NPA’s Jabulani Mlotshwa charged that there were too many coincidences in the police claim, corroborated by Deetlefs, that Aggett had killed himself in his cell, for it to be probable.

"Firstly, it is the items that are in the cell that Aggett could have used to hang himself with. Secondly, there was suddenly three hours of non-visiting to the cells, where the visits were usually done hourly," Mlotshwa.

An inventory inspection in Aggett’s cell had found a tie, five pairs of socks and the scarf with which he allegedly hanged himself, despite detainees not being allowed to keep any items that they could hang themselves with. Deetlefs admitted that it was puzzling how the items were found in Aggett's cell despite the routine checks that were made.

Mlotshwa said this was even more irregular given Deetlefs's claim that he had detected and reported Aggett's suicidal tendencies from the time he interrogated him. " If what you are telling us is true, it would mean he was given every tool to hang himself," he said.

Deetlefs was on Wednesday hard-pressed to explain why he gave different dates in his numerous statements regarding his recollection of the date he claimed Aggett had died. Mlotshwa pushed Deetlefs to also explain why he said Aggett had died on February 1 in 1982 in his statement dated 2000, while he agreed with the official record of his death of February 5, in his affidavit to the inquest, which he claimed was a mistake.

...Motlshwa said the date of Aggett’s death was crucial because he (Aggett) had lodged a complaint of torture against his chief interrogator Lieutenant Steve Whitehead, the day before he was found dead on February 5.

Some of the witnesses who were detained with Aggett have accused the security police of killing him and staging his suicide.

Siviwe Feketha: Neil Aggett inquest: Blow to Deetlefs credibility 20 February 2020

QUESTION 3: THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND A NEW ORDER 1989 TO THE

PRESENT

HOW EFFECTIVE IS INTERNATIONAL RESISTANCE IN CHALLENGING GLOBALISATION?

SOURCE 3A

Defining the Anti-Globalization Movement

An entry for the Encyclopaedia of Activism and Social Justice, by Mark Engler

Sage Publications, April 2007.

Anti-globalization Movement is a disputed term referring to the international social movement network that gained widespread media attention after protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, WA in late November and early December 1999. …

The global movement is broadly critical of the policies of economic neoliberalism, or “corporate globalization,” that has guided international trade and development since the closing decades of the 20th century. Varied communities organizing against the local and national consequences of neoliberal policies, especially in the global South, connect their actions with this wider effort. Movement constituents include trade unionists, environmentalists, anarchists, land rights and indigenous rights activists, organizations promoting human rights and sustainable development, opponents of privatization, and anti-sweatshop campaigners. These groups charge that the policies of corporate globalization have exacerbated global poverty and increased inequality.

Internationally, the movement has held protests outside meetings of institutions such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and the Group of Eight (G8) heavily industrialized nations. Its own annual gathering, the World Social Forum, serves as a site for activist networking and transnational strategizing. Movement participants have also launched campaigns targeting multinational corporations such as Nike and Monsanto, and have mobilized resistance to U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While opposing neoliberalism, the anti-globalization movement advocates participatory democracy, seeking to increase popular control of political and economic life in the face of increasingly powerful corporations, unaccountable global financial institutions, and U.S. hegemony. A focus on democracy is reflected in many of the movement’s organizational structures. These tend to emphasize grassroots participation and cooperative decision-making.

SOURCE 3B

International resistance against globalization that promotes capitalism and unemployment

https://theconversation.com/world-social-forum-is-another-world-being-constructed-without-africa-46997

SOURCE 3C

Article 20: Freedom of association and assembly

Case Study: ANTI-GLOBALISATION PROTESTS

By organising mass demonstrations at key international meetings, anti-globalisation activists are taking advantage of the universal right to freedom of association and assembly in an innovative way.

While the majority of protestors are non-violent, there is a small camp of radical protestors who actively incite violence at demonstrations by hurling missiles or destroying property.

Peaceful demonstrations are one of the key means by which citizens can protest the actions of their leaders, making them more responsive to their wishes.

Until recently, demonstrations were overwhelmingly local or national in scope. However, the nature of demonstrations has changed since the emergence of globalisation.

Nowadays, protest itself is increasingly transnational in character. People are assembling all across the globe to protest the actions of international institutions rather than individual governments.

Ironically, it is the anti-globalisation movement that has best applied the universal right to freedom of assembly to a global scale.

Most of the movement's adherents believe that globalisation leads to exploitation of the world's poor, workers and the environment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art20.shtml

SOURCE 3D

Occupy Wall Street Movement calling for a revolution against the wealthy

We do not call lightly for revolution. Insurrection is traumatic. It requires great sacrifice. And if there were any other way to avert USA’s coming catastrophe, it would be a moral obligation to advocate it…

Our best hope is to ignite an unexpected crisis with a DAY OF AMBUSH: a series of uncoordinated daring raids aimed not at the traitor directly, but at reawakening the people’s fury against the greatest corrupter of our democracy—Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.

September 15 is the ten-year anniversary of the collapse of the infamous Lehman Brothers and the peak of the financial crisis of 2008. It is also the approximate seven-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. There will be unrest in Europe under the coalition banner #10YearsOn. Fifty actions across France will target banks. In the UK, activists will take on the Bank of England, declaring it a crime scene. Change Finance protests are being organized in several more countries. This is our opportunity in America to put the traitor to the test with a sustained crisis the billionaires cannot escape.

On September 15, we want to see 20,000 people AMBUSH WALL STREET with flash protests, midnight actions, and bold new daytime tactics aimed at hastening the great awakening.

http://occupywallst.org/