Defiance

The Defiance Campaign: 1988-1989

The state imposed increasingly harsh measures as it renewed the State of Emergency. By 1988, every major mass-based organisation faced bannings and restrictions. Then in July 1989, the Mass Democratic Movement – the UDF, affiliates and organisationswho could not legally organize under their own names – decided that enough was enough. They would refuse to accept the bans and restrictions, and openly declare their political positions.

People all over the country marched in defiance of the restrictions.

One summary of the resistance and repression in 1989 states:

“Daily, the press and SABC announced government crackdowns on the MDM. And while certain actions were taken, detentions did not even begin to approximate the pattern which was maintained almost consistently for 30 months of the national state of emergency – that is, until the hunger strike in February and March this year (1989).

“Repression generally took on new contours: those of containment or pre-emption, rather than confrontation. In many cases this required huge contingents of police and soldiers…

“This force was nearly always disproportionate, since it was generally inflicted on people whose sole offence was to attend a meeting prohibited in one way or another.”

– Source: Collinge, J. “Defiance: Politics of resistance” in Work In Progress no 61 (September/October 1989), p8

“The purple shall govern”

A description of a defiance campaign march in Cape Town, on 2 September, describes a scene where 500 people were arrested as they gathered to march to Parliament under the banner “The people shall govern.” Stacey, a cultural worker, described this:

“We were in Burg Street when suddenly I saw this huge truck coming towards us. I got a hell of a fright. Then I realized it was a water cannon. As we looked up, a huge wave of purple water was coming at us. People shouted: “Sit! Sit!”

“Then a young white man jumped onto the top of the water cannon and redirected the spray onto the police. The crowd just went mad with joy. It was a wonderful moment, quite heroic.

“Just as that was happening the police charged with sjamboks and everybody started to run. I felt something hit me on my head and I fell, hitting my face on the pavement. People were tripping and falling on top of me. I was suffocating from the people on top of me and the teargas. My face was bleeding.

“Later came the humour – graffiti went up the next day saying “The purple shall govern.” And the people felt very united afterwards, so in the end it was a victory for us.”

As defiance spread like wild fire, the government met it with yet further crackdown. Mohammed Valli Moosa, acting General-Secretary of the UDF was detained on 18 August. Four days later, Graeme Bloch, a lecturer at the university of the Western Cape and an MDM activist, was picked up. A week later, two more leaders, Trevor Manuel and Titus Mafolo, were detained.

But detentions did not stop the defiance. Banned organizations unbanned themselves. On 20 August the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) unbanned itself. Ephriam Nkwe of SAYCO declared: ‘From this day, the sixth anniversary of the UDF, all restricted organizations will consider themselves to be free to operate and organize within their constituencies.”

The Congress of South African Students (COSAS) also unbanned itself. The UDF unbanned itself. So did the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) and the Soweto Civic Association (SCA), to name a few.

All over, since the start of the campaign, over 2000 people have been arrested. More than 240 activists have been detained without trial. As we write, many are still in jail… some were to suffer a fate worse than jail. They were to pay with their lives.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, addressing a march in Cape Town, said:
“We say, hey Mr de Klerk, you have already lost. Our march to freedom is unstoppable. It is the march of all of us South Africans, black and white.”

– From Learn and Teach No 5 (1989), p38

Preparing to govern

Parallel to the state’s crackdown on the Mass Democratic Movement, it also began hesitant steps to talk to leaders of the liberation movement in exile, and in its own prisons.

By 1989, the UDF leaders recognised that they also must play a role in the preparations for the future. They looked to engage all sectors of the society in talks about structuring a democratic, united, non-racial and non-sexist society, some time in the not-so-distant future.

On the one hand, the UDF went with business and the churches and other “civil society structures” to talk to the ANC in exile.On the other, they organised conferences around the concept of “preparing to govern”.

In September 1988 the state banned the Anti-Apartheid Conference.

In 1989 the MDM organised two conferences. The first, organised jointly with Kagiso Trust, was called “From Opposing to Governing: How Ready is the Opposition?” The second, the “Conference for a Democratic Future”, was organised by a committee representing the UDF, Cosatu, the churches, and the black consciousness organisations, the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu).

Murphy Morobe described it as: “not a conference of any one particular tendency within the liberation movement, but of all the people for all the people. It is a democratic conference  a dry run, giving people an inkling of what a future and genuinely democratic parliament would look like.”

– Source: Seekings, J. “The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991”, Cape Town: David Philip, 2000. p 256

Click here for a list of related archival resources held by SAHA.

If you would like to share experiences or historical material about these events, please contact SAHA on sfj@saha.org.za