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The new government of Dr Daniel Malan brought the Afrikaner National Party to power, determined to further separate the races. Under Malan’s apartheid policy, drastic laws were introduced which forced everyone to be classified by their race, and compelled to live in different parts of the city. Blacks of course were forced to live in far worse conditions than whites. Multi-racial areas like Sophiatown, near the centre of Johannesburg, were destroyed. Mixed marriages were forbidden, and Africans faced arrest if they didn’t carry passbooks, which came to be seen as a symbol of black oppression.
ANC leaders like Mandela, who called for a multi-racial, democratic South Africa, were harassed, banned from travelling or attending meetings, and arrested. In December 1956 Mandela was charged with High Treason, and though he was eventually acquitted, the five-year trial seriously damaged both his law practice and limited the scope of political activity.
Meanwhile, apartheid continued to be enforced. The new government of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd that took over in 1958, was according to by Mandela, conducting ‘a grim programme of mass evictions, political persecution and police terror’. The ANC had followed a policy of non-violence, but that changed in 1960 after the massacres at Sharpeville, where police opened fire on demonstrators who were protesting against the pass laws. 69 people were killed.
The ANC was subsequently banned and Mandela went underground, forced to re-think tactics. “There are many people who think that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is savage attacks on an unarmed, defenceless people”, he argued. So the ANC began a sabotage campaign, with Mandela leading a new guerrilla army, Spear of the Nation. He then became the most wanted man in the country.
Nonetheless, he managed to slip out of the country, touring Africa to gain support for the ANC’s guerrilla army, visiting Tanzania, Ethiopia and Algeria, a number of revolutionary leaders gave him advice on guerrilla warfare and tactics. He even visited Britain. Warned by supporters that it would be dangerous for him to go back to South Africa, where he would almost certainly be caught, the ‘Black Pimpernel’ refused to take such advice. He returned to continue the sabotage campaign, and was arrested along with other senior ANC leaders.
At now famous Rivonia trial, he faced the charge that he had ‘plotted and engineered the commission of acts of violence and destruction throughout the country’. He fully expected to be hanged – as were so many who continued the struggle – but remained as defiant as ever. He appeared in court in tribal dress, and from the dock he delivered one of the most powerful speeches of his life: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal, which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”. Nelson Mandela was found guilty, but his life was spared. He and seven colleagues, including Walter Sisulu, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The story continues...
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