"Civilization without Mercy"

The crowd at Sharpeville was not attacking anything or anyone. Further, there is abundant evidence to show that they were unarmec As the late Sir Winston Churchill pointed out in a debate in the British House of Commons on 8 July 1920, "There is surely one general prohibition which we can make ... against what is called 'frightfulness'. What I mean by frightfulness is the inflicting of great slaughter or massacre upon a particular crowd of people with the intention of terrorizing not merely the rest of the crowd, but the whole district or the whole country". This is precisely what the police did at Sharpe-ville. On that occasion Sir Winston concluded his speech with some words of Macaulay, ". . . and then was seen what we believe to be the most frightful of spectacles, the strength of civilization without mercy". These are words which aptly summarize' all that happened at Sharpeville.

Certainly the Government of South Africa, though badly shaken in the days immediately following Sharpeville, soon regained control of the situation. On 24 March 1960, the Government banned all public meetings in 24 Magisterial districts. On 18 April, the Governor-General signed a proclamation banning the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress as unlawful organizations. On 30 March, in Proclamation No. 90, the Governor-General declared a state of emergency which lasted until 31 August 1960. During that time a large number of prominent opponents of Government policy of all races were arrested and detained without trial. In addition some 20,000 Africans were rounded up, many of whom were released after screening.

After some months, at least superficially, life became at least relatively normal. But underneath the external calm dangerous fires continue to smoulder: fires that can never be extinguished by repressive measures coupled with a Charter which had been drafted by the Congress Alliance. This took place at a massive gathering at Kliptown, Johan-nesburg. The following year (1956) the Federation of South African Women held a series of spectacular demonstrations against the extension of the pass system to African women. These culminated in a mass demonstration at the Union Buildings, Pretoria, on 9 August. Some 10,000 women gathered there in an orderly fashion to present 7,000 individually signed protest forms. Again, from 7 January 1957, many thousands of African men and women for months walked 18 to 20 miles a day to and from work in Johannesburg in a boycott of the buses. Although in this particular case they gained their objective, all the various endeavours by Africans to secure change by peaceful means brought little tangible result.

The surprising thing was that in all this activity there was very little violence on the part of boycottcrs, demon-constant and growing show of force.

Outside South Africa there were widespread reactions to Sharpeville which in many cases led to positive action against South Africa: action which still continues.

It is my personal belief that history will recognize that Sharpeville marked a watershed in South African affairs. Until Sharpeville, violence for the most part had been used by the white minority. Over and over again, non-white civilians were injured by police action or by assaults on them when in prison. Until Sharpeville the movements opposed to apartheid were pledged to a policy of non-violence. But on 21 March 1960, when an unarmed African crowd was confronted by 300 heavily armed police supported by five Saracen armoured vehicles, an agonizing reappraisal of the situation was inevitable. Having tried every peaceful method open to them to secure change without avail, the African leadership decided that violence was the only alternative left to them.

As Nelson Mandela said in court at his trial in October 1962, "Government violence can do only one thing and that is to breed counter-violence. We have warned repeatedly that if there is no dawning of sanity on the part of the Government, the dispute between the Government and my people will finish up by being settled in violence and by force."

Outwardly things may go on in South Africa much as before. Visitors may find a booming economy, the white minority may seem secure in their privileged position for any foreseeable future, some urban Africans may have a higher living standard than formerly. But all this should not deceive anybody. The fact is that for the first time both sides in the racial struggle in South Africa are now committed to violence; the white minority to preserve the status quo; the non-white majority to change: change from a society dominated by apartheid to one that is non-racial in character.

The fact that at the moment this is being expressed through small bands of guerrillas who may be neither very well trained nor well equipped does not mean that they ought therefore to be dismissed as having little significance. After all, we have the examples of Algeria, Cuba and Viet-Nam before us as powerful reminders of what may result from very small and weak beginnings.

Unless there is a radical change in the present political and economic structures of South Africa a terrible and brutal civil war might not easily involve Africa alone but the whole world in a global racial conflict. The choice before the international community has been a clear one ever since Sharpeville. Either it takes every possible step to secure the abandonment of the present policies in South Africa or the coming years will bring increasing sorrow and strife both for South Africa and for the world. Sharpeville was a tragedy showing most plainly that the ideology of apartheid is a way of death and not of life. Can the nations recognize this before it is too late?