Читать книгу Let Freedom Reign - Henry Russell - Страница 11

Although never a communist, Mandela was twice ‘banned’ under the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act, an apartheid law that enabled the police to prevent dissidents from meeting more than one person at a time and visiting various public places and educational institutions. Nothing the banned person said or wrote could be quoted in the press or used for publication. There was no appeal against a banning order. One of Mandela’s bans prevented him from attending the annual convention of the ANC (Transvaal). His speech had to be delivered by a delegate.

In between arrests and bans, Mandela addressed numerous rallies and wrote a number of articles. The following extract is from ‘Searchlight on the Liberal Party’, which was published in the monthly periodical Liberation in response to those who feared that the ANC was becoming a communist catspaw. Although the trenchant legalese of the piece drove a wedge between the two anti-apartheid groups, it was an important restatement of Mandela’s clarity of vision and firmness of purpose. And to keen political observers, the use in the final sentence of the word ‘struggle’ suggested that the velvet glove might now contain a fist.

The Liberal Party constitution purports to uphold the ‘essential dignity of every human being irrespective of race, colour, or creed, and the maintenance of his fundamental rights’. It expresses itself in favour of the ‘right of every human being to develop to the fullest extent of which he is capable consistent with the rights of others’.

The new party’s statement of principles thus far contents itself with the broad generalizations without any attempt to interpret them or define their practical application in the South African context. It then proceeds to announce ‘that no person (should) be debarred from participation in the government or other democratic processes of the country by reason only of race, colour, or creed’. But here the neo-Liberals abandon the safe ground of generalization and stipulate explicitly ‘that political rights based on a common franchise roll be extended to all SUITABLY QUALIFIED persons. This question-begging formulation will not for long enable our Liberals to evade the fundamental issue: which persons are ‘suitably qualified’?

The democratic principle is ‘one adult, one vote’. The Liberals obviously differ from this well-known conception. They are, therefore, obliged to state an alternative theory of their own. This they have, so far, failed to do. The African National Congress… [stands] for votes for all… Does the Liberal Party support this demand? Historical reality demands a plain and unequivocal answer…

In South Africa, where the entire population is almost split into two hostile camps in consequence of the policy of racial discrimination, and where recent political events have made the struggle between oppressor and oppressed more acute, there can be no middle course. The fault of the Liberals – and this spells their doom – is to attempt to strike just such a course. They believe in criticizing and condemning the Government for its reactionary policies but they are afraid to identify themselves with the people and to assume the task of mobilizing that social force capable of lifting the struggle to higher levels.

The Liberals’ credo states that to achieve their objects the party will employ ‘only democratic and constitutional means and will oppose all forms of totalitarianism such as communism and fascism’. Talk of democratic and constitutional means can only have a basis in reality for those people who enjoy democratic and constitutional rights.

We must accept the fact that in our country we cannot win one single victory of political freedom without overcoming a desperate resistance on the part of the Government, and that victory will not come of itself but only as a result of a bitter struggle by the oppressed people for the overthrow of racial discrimination. This means that we are committed to struggle to mobilize from our ranks the forces capable of waging a determined and militant struggle against all forms of reaction. The theory that we can sit with folded arms and wait for a future parliament to legislate for the ‘essential dignity of every human being irrespective of race, colour, or creed’ is crass perversion of elementary principles of political struggle. No organization whose interests are identical with those of the toiling masses will advocate conciliation to win its demands.

To propose in the South African context that democrats limit themselves to constitutional means of struggle is to ask the people to submit to laws enacted by a minority parliament whose composition is essentially a denial of democracy to the overwhelming majority of the population. It means that we must obey a Constitution which debars the majority from participating in the government and other democratic processes of the country by reason only of race, colour, or creed. It implies in practice that we must carry passes and permit the violation of the essential dignity of a human being…

The real question is: in the general struggle for political rights can the oppressed people count on the Liberal Party as an ally?… Rather than attempt the costly, dubious, and dangerous task of crushing the non-European mass movement by force, they would seek to divert it with fine words and promises and to divide it by giving concessions and bribes to a privileged minority (the ‘suitably qualified’ voters, perhaps). It becomes clear, therefore, that the high-sounding principles enunciated by the Liberal Party, though apparently democratic and progressive in form, are essentially reactionary in content. They stand not for the freedom of the people but for the adoption of more subtle systems of oppression and exploitation. Though they talk of liberty and human dignity they are subordinate henchmen of the ruling circles. They stand for the retention of the cheap labour system and of the subordinate colonial status of the non-European masses together with the Nationalist Government whose class interests are identical with theirs. In practice they acquiesce in the slavery of the people, low wages, mass unemployment, the squalid tenements in the locations and shanty-towns.

We of the non-European liberation movement are not racialists. We are convinced that there are thousands of honest democrats among the White population who are prepared to take up a firm and courageous stand for unconditional equality, for the complete renunciation of ‘White supremacy’. To them we extend the hand of sincere friendship and brotherly alliance. But no true alliance can be built on the shifting sands of evasions, illusions, and opportunism. We insist on presenting the conditions which make it reasonable to fight for freedom. The only sure road to this goal leads through the uncompromising and determined mass struggle for the overthrow of fascism and the establishment of democratic forms of government.