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On the 50th Anniversary of the PAC |
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On the 50th Anniversary of the PAC
On 6th April this year the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania will be fifty years old. In view of the role this party has played in the liberation of this country, it is proper for every Azanian to pause and reminisce over the circumstances under which the party was founded.
The first, of course, is that the 6th April is the day when the white settler colonialists from Europe invaded and occupied Azania. The appointment of the day as a Foundation Day carries a symbolic message that we know the day when our woes began and therefore the day when our struggle began. Indeed if the PAC had been in a position to influence decisions in 1993 in Kempton Park, South Africa’s Freedom Day would have been 6th April 1994.
The second circumstance under which the PAC was founded is the paralysis in which our liberation struggle found itself. The same age-old tactics of pussy-footing with the oppressor were still the main methods of struggle. The white settler regime soon realized that it was dealing with a weak and confused opposition which did not really know what it wanted. This emboldened the regime to take further steps to entrench white domination. It was the pusillanimity of the African political leadership of the time that prompted the founding fathers and mothers of the PAC to form their own party to ‘blaze a new trail’, as Sobukwe said.
The third circumstance under which the PAC was founded was this growing severity of oppression. Within a short space of ten years, from 1948 to 1958, the white settler regime had enacted wide ranging draconian laws that virtually bound Africans’ arms and legs and rendered them voiceless. Here are some of the laws: 1949- Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1950- Population Registration Act 1950- Immorality Act 1950- Group Areas Act 1950- Suppression of Communism Act 1951- Bantu Authorities Act (introducing Bantustans) 1951- Separate Representation of Voters Act (removing ‘Coloureds’ from Common Roll) 1952- Native Laws Amendment (introduced Dom Pass) 1953- Bantu Education Act (Lowering African Education) 1953- Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (Legalising social segregation) 1956- Riotous Assemblies Act
In 1955 African residents of Sophiatown were force-removed in accordance with the
provisions of the Group Areas Act. In 1956 the ‘Coloureds’ were removed from white voters roll in accordance with the provisions of the Separate Representation Act of 1951. It was these settler colonialists’ attempts to entrench white domination and the sterile protest methods of the ANC that led to the birth of the PAC.
The response of the African people in terms of enrolment for PAC membership was phenomenal. By March 1960, just over eleven months after the formation of the party, the membership stood at 200 000. The PAC was hardly a year old when it launched its epoch-making Positive Anti-pass Campaign. It talked of African independence and the United States of Africa, a language never heard in South Africa. An even more astounding was their response to the Party’s call to participate in the Positive Anti- Pass Campaign of 21st March 1960.
The campaign shook the entire world. The UN declared March 21st International Human Rights Day. At home the South African economy was nearly destroyed. The white settler regime was forced to declare a state of emergency and ban the PAC. The Party went underground and formed Poqo, its military wing which began to draw blood from the colonialists. That marked the beginning of the armed struggle: “Sobukwe’s new trail.” From then on “the ship of freedom” sailed so furiously that the non-violence addicts found themselves limping behind reality, as they hastily formed guerrilla armies to emulate the pace-setting PAC.
This year, as we celebrate the PAC’s 50th anniversary, we naturally have to ask: What have been its achievements? What have been its successes and failures? It needs to be said that it was the PAC that started the armed struggle; which in less than three and half decades delivered our political freedom. It also needs to be said that throughout the liberation war, the Poqo/APLA guerillas harangued and harassed the enemy security forces, not electric pylons. By 1984 when the negotiations began, APLA fighters were inflicting heavy losses on the regime. It was the persistent APLA guerrilla strikes at the enemy forces that eventually wore down the settler colonialists, not infrastructure sabotage and limpet mines.
When some elements were receiving Nobel Peace Prize in the early sixties, the PAC was already on the battlefield, vying for bravery medals. Again when some leaders were rewarded with Nobel Peace Prize in the nineties, the PAC was still on the battlefield. Our Party fought for freedom the longest, the hardest and the most painful.
Sad to say our present strength betrays our glorious past. Now is the time to honour men and women who founded the Party by rebuilding it. This Party must occupy the centre stage of the national and continental politics. We have a mammoth task of ridding our country and continent of bribable, corrupt and reactionary leaders.
Izwe lethu! I-Afrika!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 April 2009 )
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