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- The African National Congress (ANC) has been the governing party of the Republic of South Africa since 1994. The ANC was founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein and is the oldest liberation movement in Africa. Called the South African Native National Congress until 1923, the ANC was founded as a national discussion forum and organised pressure group, which sought to advance black South Africans’ rights using non-violent and primarily diplomatic methods. Its early membership was a small, loosely centralised coalition of traditional leaders and educated, religious professionals, and it was staunchly loyal to the British crown during the First World War. It was in the early 1950s, shortly after the National Party’s adoption of a formal policy of apartheid, that the ANC became a mass-based organisation. In 1952, the ANC’s membership swelled during the uncharacteristically militant Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience, towards which the ANC had been led by a new generation of leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu. In 1955, it signed the Freedom Charter, which – along with the subsequent Treason Trial – cemented its so-called Congress Alliance with other anti-apartheid groups. At the turn of the decade, a series of significant events in quick succession changed the course of the movement. First, in 1959, a group of dissidents broke away from the ANC to form the rival Pan Africanist Congress, objecting to the ANC’s new programme of multi-racialism as embodied in the Freedom Charter. This was one of two significant splits in the ANC on the basis of its racial policies – in 1975, the so-called Gang of Eight was expelled for objecting to the ANC’s 1969 decision to open its membership to all races. The second major shift came when in March 1960, following the Sharpeville massacre, the ANC was banned, marking the beginning of a period of escalating state repression. Forced underground, the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which was to become the ANC’s military wing. Announcing the beginning of an armed struggle against apartheid, MK embarked upon a sabotage campaign. By 1965, pursuant to the imprisonment of many of its top leaders in the Rivonia Trial and Little Rivonia Trial, the ANC was forced into exile. It remained in exile until it was unbanned in 1990. For most of this period, the ANC was led by Tambo, headquartered first in Morogoro, Tanzania, and then in Lusaka, Zambia, and primarily supported by Sweden and the Soviet Union. Its exile was marked by an increasingly close alliance with the SACP, as well as by periods of significant unrest inside MK, including the Mkatashinga mutinies in 1983–84. Throughout these years, the ANC's central objective was the overthrow of apartheid, by means of the "Four Pillars": armed struggle; an internal underground; popular mobilisation; and international isolation of the apartheid regime. After the 1976 Soweto uprising, MK received a large influx of new recruits, who were used to escalate the armed struggle inside South Africa; ANC attacks, for the first time, killed large numbers of civilians. Yet even as the armed attacks continued, the ANC embarked upon secret talks about a possible negotiated settlement to end apartheid, beginning with a series of meetings with civil society and business leaders in the mid-1980s, and complemented by Mandela’s own meetings with state officials during his imprisonment. The ANC was unbanned on 2 February 1990, and its leaders returned to South Africa to begin formal negotiations. Following his release, Mandela was elected president of the ANC at its 48th National Conference in 1991. Pursuant to the 1994 elections, which marked the end of apartheid, the ANC became the majority party in the national government and most of the provincial governments, and Mandela was elected national president. The ANC has retained control of the national government since then. (en)
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- We draw immense satisfaction and inspiration from the fact that the Soviet Union is resolved to contribute everything within its possibilities and, within the context of our own requests, to assist the ANC, SWAPO and the peoples of our region to achieve these objectives... the Soviet Union is acting neither out of consideration of selfish interest nor with a desire to establish a so-called sphere of influence. (en)
- At last... the ANC has stopped blowing up walls. It's now doing the right thing. It can't make sense to continue blowing up pylons if we're going to get massacred for it and going to get hanged. It's not going to be possible for us to continue our action on the exclusive basis that no civilians shall be killed. That is implicit in our idea of intensifying the struggle... People are very resentful and feel they want to hurt... They somehow felt the ANC had been denying them this. (en)
- ''The People Shall Govern! (en)
- All National Groups Shall Have Equal Rights! (en)
- All Shall Be Equal Before The Law! (en)
- All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights! (en)
- The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It! (en)
- The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth! (en)
- There Shall Be Houses, Security And Comfort! (en)
- There Shall Be Peace And Friendship!'' (en)
- There Shall Be Work And Security! (en)
- The Doors of Learning And of Culture Shall Be Opened! (en)
- A just and permanent peace will be possible only if the claims of all classes, colours and races for sharing and for full participation in the educational, political and economic activities are granted and recognised. (en)
- Our own tasks are very clear. To bring about the kind of society that is visualised in the Freedom Charter, we have to break down and destroy the old order. We have to make apartheid unworkable and our country ungovernable. The accomplishment of these tasks will create the situation for us to overthrow the apartheid regime and for power to pass into the hands of the people as a whole. (en)
- [A]t the time I first joined, the ANC was an organisation of teachers, intellectuals, clergymen – all the elite of African society. Young people were not very much interested in the ANC. They felt it was an organisation of elderly people. As a result, the ANC never became progressive until it was joined by younger people: the Tambos, Mandelas and so on... It was when those young people came into the ANC that there was transformation in so far as the ideology was concerned, because in the past the elderly people believed in demonstrations, reconciliation with the powers that be and so on. They weren't very much interested in action against the government. (en)
- For the first time in the history of our country, we have under one roof, sharing the same vision and planning as equals, delegates from every sector of South African society, including those who hold the highest offices in the land... we can proudly say to the founders: the country is in the hands of the people; the tree of liberty is firmly rooted in the soil of the motherland! (en)
- The TRC has grossly misdirected itself in its 'Findings on the Role of the African National Congress', through the pursuit of objectives which are contrary to the spirit and the intention of the Act under which it was established. These 'findings' show an extraordinary refusal on the part of the Commission to locate itself in the context of the circumstances which related to the struggle against apartheid, both within and outside the country. (en)
- It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the Government had left us with no other choice. (en)
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